Chasing Consciousness

Why do complex systems self-organise? What is cellular uncertainty and stem cell plasticity? Can we create artificial digital life that’s subject to the same creative adaptability that nature and life demonstrate?

Today we have the extraordinary phenomena of self-organisation in Complex Systems to look into. We’re going to be looking into the conditions for a system to be considered complex, how a certain amount of randomness in the system releases the creativity required to permit adaptability, and how the feedback loops within that adaptability lead to a self-correcting organisational principle that keeps the system’s order and randomness in balance as it evolves. We’re going to be seeing how that self-organisation is operative at almost every level of scale in the universe and in life and death, and trying to get our heads around what that means for the nature of reality and consciousness.

So who better to discuss this with than stem cell biologist and diagnostic pathologist Neil Theise. Neil is is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity research. In 2018 the news of his discovery of the interstitial, a vast communication network throughout the human body went viral and was featured in the New York Times and Scientific American among many others. Theise is also a long term student of Zen meditation and Kabbalah. And his studies of complexity theory, summarised in his new book “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being”, have led to interdisciplinary collaborations in fields as diverse integrative medicine, consciousness studies and the science-spirituality interface.

Since speaking with biologist Michael Levin on Cellular cognition, and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke on collective intelligence, in the last series; I’ve been keen to speak to Neil about stem cell plasticity and self-organising systems, as their elegant sophistication begs so many questions about the nature of reality and consciousness. So without further ado, let’s go!

00:00 Intro

05:45 Livers have stem cells, Neil’s first of many discoveries

13:50 “Cellular Uncertainty” - Stem-cell plasticity.

17:43 Heisenberg’s ‘Uncertainty principle’ analogy.

20:20 Cellular sensitivity

22:00 The TechnoSphere - interacting with virtual creatures

26:20 Emergent bottom-up structure, self-organising inside the game

27:20 Artificial Life.

29:20 Complexity Theory explained by Ants.

34:20 Randomness allows the creativity to adapt to changes: in the environment Divergent ants.

35:20 A minimum of elements are needed over time to become self-organising.

36:50 Cells, ants and humans all self-organise: micro macro phenomena.

38:40 No planning or top-down intelligence managing complex systems.

42:55 ‘Wholarchies’ not hierarchies.

47:50 Living systems and complexity arise at the boundary between perfect order and fractal chaos.

49:55 Extinction is also part of complexity, as much as creative adaptivity.

50:30 “What makes you able to be a living system, inevitably, given enough time will lead you to die. You can’t separate life and death”.

53:10 Self correction

55:50 Cancer, economic crashes, extinction events: Pruning away the corrective negative feedback loops leads to collapse.

57:30 Every scale of nature adheres to complex system behaviours.

59:50 Complementarity exists at all levels of scale - Niels Bohr.

01:01:40 Biological complementarity.

01:04:50 Breaking down the separations between discrete organisms.

01:10:50 Not upward or downward causation but complementarity.

01:35:50 Zen meditation insights which led to scientific insight.

01:18:20 The risk of over-rating our personal experience.

01:23:20 Where you find mind, you find life.

References:

Neil Theise, “Notes on Complexity: A scientific theory of connection, consciousness and being”

Evan Thompson - Deep Continuity (of Life and Mind)

Francisco Varela - (Evan Thompson’s mentor)

How are traumatic memories stored in the body? How has Somatic Experiencing helped thousands of people release the symptoms of trauma through bodily practices rather than talky therapy? How did Peter resolve his own devastating childhood trauma? What will a trauma aware society be like?

In this episode we have the fascinating question of the different ways traumatic memories are stored to think about, and how the body itself and not only the brain is instrumental in the way the memory’s are made and processed, and so in how we might ease the symptoms of the trauma later on. We’re going to delve into the brain-body connection in traumatic memory, looking at the way trauma can influence our bodily states and so in turn the way we can use bodily methods in a bottom-up approach, to re-train the brain to feel safe and integrate traumatic memories. 

For this there can be no better person than the psychotherapist, Dr. Peter Levine, the creator of the Somatic Experiencing therapy method, founder of the Institute of Somatic Education and author of many books on trauma and therapy, including “Waking the Tiger”, “Healing Trauma”, “Trauma Through a Childs Eyes”, “Trauma and Memory” which we’ll be discussing today, and his brand new book, which this episode is happy to celebrate the release of “An autobiography of Trauma: A healing Journey”.

Minus 1 minute

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

06:00 Conscious memories start earlier than we might imagine.

07:00 Descartes was wrong, better “I move, I sense, I feel, I have images, I have thoughts: therefore I am.”

07:30 The mid-1960’s session with Nancy that started it all for Peter.

14:20 The 3 different nervous system bodily states: fight or flight, freeze and social engagement.

20:00 Body/Nervous system bi-directionality: Influences between Polyvagal theory and Somatic Experiencing.

26:00 Exercises to switch the hyper-aroused message coming from the body.

29:00 Animal kingdom research into ‘shaking off’ daily life threatening experiences.

31:00 The very sensations that help animals release, are scary to us so we block them.

31:40 Vitality, movement and exuberance VS a disembodied society.

33:20 As children we learn to limit our exuberance, so as not to disturb adults.

35:30 Different types of memory and the role of the body in recording them.

36:00 Declarative conscious memory.

36:45 Autobiographical conscious memory.

38:30 Emotional unconscious memory (associative).

39:00 Procedural/body unconscious memories (to protect oneself).

39:45 Peter as Chiron “The Woundd Healer” archetype.

45.10 Being heard, witnessed and listened to: why reflection and mirroring are important.

47:00 “I don’t think there is consciousness without being mirrored”.

47:40 A trauma aware society.

51:00 Being heard and mirrored leads to resilience.

54:00 Peter’s devastating childhood trauma and shame: “An Autobiography of Trauma”

57:00 Confronting shame tends to intensify it.

59:30 Why share such a personal vulnerable story with the world?

01:01:00 The dream that helped him choose whether or not to publish this deeply personal story.

01:02:20 Encouraging others to tell their stories: cathartic sharing.

01:04:45 Sharing vulnerability with the compassionate other.

01:05:30 Is trauma required to transform or is it just an inevitability of life?

01:07:00 Trauma is a rite of passage towards being truly compassionate.

01:07:40 Gabor Mate, “Compassionate Enquiry”.

01:08:00 Curiosity can’t co-exist with fear, use it to shift the process.

References:

Peter Levine, “An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey” 2024

(Available at Ergos Institute, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Amazon UK, Inner Traditions, Books A Million, and Bookshop.org)

Somatic Experiencing

https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/home

Peter Levine, “Trauma and Memory” 2015

https://g.co/kgs/vAzjvB2

“Hand in Hand: Parenting by connection” episode, Listening technique

https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-18-parenting-by-connection-maya-coleman

In what way is beef in UFOs religious-like? Is there evidence for collective visions of these objects and entities, or rather for their objective reality? In what way could the experience have elements of both?

In this episode we have the ever more mainstream story of UFO experiences to assess; Not necessarily the important questions around the existence of the phenomenon, which the office of the US director of National Intelligence confirmed in an official 2021 report that they were, in fact, a ‘population of objects’ (see show notes below)- but rather the belief in the phenomenon, in 2008 polled at around %37 of Americans, but by no means confined to the US. This widespread belief, along with less ridiculed beliefs bolstered by the high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations more advanced than our own existing out there in the cosmos, has had a huge sociological and cultural influence on western society.

So in this episode I want to put into a sociological context all of this quasi-religious belief; understand the role of our perception of technology; get our heads around a rare example of a modern myth forming in real time; look at the ways a phenomenon can be both physical and psychological at the same time; and examine various scientific, academic and even philosophical doors into this confounding phenomena that no matter how much the sceptics deny, just won’t go away.

So when we study belief we have to turn to a religious studies specialist, and who better to call on than Professor of Religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Diana Pasulka. She’s also the author of 3 books, “Heaven Can Wait”, a book about purgatory, “American Cosmic” on scientists who believe in UFO’s, and her new 2023 book “Encounters” on multi-disciplinary academic approaches to the UFO phenomenon and experiences with non-human intelligence.

Don’t forget listeners, that we talk about all the science in more detail with Stanford medical School’s immunologist, pathologist and inventor Garry Nolan in this series so check that out too.

What we discuss:00:00 Intro.13:08 Meaningful events propel people towards religious belief.21:30 Heidegger’s warning about underestimating the influence of technology on our culture.27:00 Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” - A just government and the control of information.34:40 Nietzsche, the risk of assigning causal power for synchronicities to higher powers.44:00 Perspective change: The creation of a modern myth, to a real physical phenomenon.45:50 Looking for UFO crash parts in the desert with Garry Nolan, taken blindfolded by a Space Force scientist.49:00 The ‘Antenna’ hypothesis: the brain as a receiver and transmitter.56:00 Physical data analysed by top scientists, and government “management” of information.01:01:00 Where the physical and non-physical meet: idealism or VR hypotheses.01:05:00 Humans may be a sophisticated type of biotechnology.01:06:00 The use of intuition protocols to find technological solutions: intention and visualisation.01:11:30 New Encounters book: a “reorientation”.01:14:00 Iya Whitely: validating pilots experiences.

Diana Pasulka, “Encounters”.

https://g.co/kgs/tFfG3Mx

Diana Pasulka, “American Cosmic”.

https://g.co/kgs/MbQ1tXQ

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Assessment on UAP, June 2021, John L. Ratcliffe

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf

Martin Heidegger essay, “The Question Concerning Technology”

https://g.co/kgs/ed5JVEW

Iya Whitely “Trusting and Learning from Pilots”, Lecture at the SOL Foundation symposium at the Nolan Lab at Stanford Medical School

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR09GHQ5AwA

Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non Human Intelligence - Rey hernandez et al.

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-UFOs-Science-Consciousness-Intelligence/dp/1721088652

Does the use of computer models in physics change the way we see the universe? How far reaching are the implications of computation irreducibility? Are observer limitations key to the way we conceive the laws of physics?

References:

“The Second Law: Resolving the Mystery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”, Stephen Wolfram

“A New Kind of Science”, Stephen Wolfram

Observer Theory Article, Stephen Wolfram

How has the evolution of cognition led to homo-sapiens being such effective collaborators and how is the collective knowledge and wisdom of the society distributed and passed on to later generations? How can we apply the amplified wisdom of distributed cognition to solve some of humanities biggest problems?

Today we have the important fields of Collective Intelligence and how we can use it to solve our problems as a society, to try and get our heads around. We’ll be discussing the relevance of difficulties arising from cognitive science and physics research that for some put into question the consensus story that embodied feelings were fundamental in the development of reasoning and consciousness; We also discuss the relevance of the work of Carl Jung on the Collective Unconscious; of Neuroscientist Anil Seth’s Controlled Hallucination and Don Hoffman’s User interface theory; of Iain McGilchrist’s split brain research and of Michael Levin’s take on cellular cognition. 

There is of course only one polymath who can hold that many topics in a single conversation and that’s the Cognitive scientist, and philosopher John Vervaeke. Vervaeke is the director of UToronto’s Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory and its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches an Introduction to Cognitive Science and The Cognitive Science of Consciousness. 

He has been a leading intellectual observer of the modern meaning crisis: the loss of a spiritual worldview in the West, and the decline of wisdom traditions that help individuals find meaning in their lives. His online lectures and practices integrate teachings from many different disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, religion, and cutting edge cognitive science. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” and his brand new series, "After Socrates."

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

05:35 Losing faith without losing a taste for the transcendent.

15:30 The difference between intelligence and living cognition.

18:40 Relevance realisation: What to attend to in the sea of info available.

21:00 Cognition “cares” because its life is on the line: Salience landscapes.

24:15 Humans VS persons.

30:05 Distributed Cognition explained.

30:30 ‘Reason is monological’ framework.

33:15 The rise of individualism.

34:30 Distributed computation and problem solving via the internet.

36:30 ‘Reason is dialogical’ framework.

38:00 Your best self-correction ability is with other people.

42:30 Life builds collective intelligence without language.

45:50 Issues from neuroscience and quantum physics.

50:30 Predictive processing to identify salience.

52:30 The imaginary VS the imaginal.

53:40 Imaginally augmented perception.

58:00 Causality is not the same as causal relevance: Acausal phenomena.

01:00:30 Determinism VS fractal probability. 

01:03:50 A hierarchy of cognitive selves: Michael Levin.

01:06:50 There isn’t just bottom up emergence but top down emanation.

01:07:20 Deep continuity - Evan Thompson.

01:09:30 Hierarchies of selves: Michael Levin.

01:15:30 Could we be part of single selves greater than our individual organisms?

01:17:30 Cognition is a continuum but differences of degree eventually make differences of kind.

01:19:30 Solving collective problems via distributed cognition and practices of connectedness.

01:25:20 Left/right hemisphere considerations for distributed cognition: Iain McGilchrist.

01:32:30 Adaptivity: Self-transcendence VS self-delusion.

01:35:15 Narrative bias and the Left Brain interpreter: Mike Gazzaniga.

01:37:00 Extended naturalism

01:40:24 The Collective Unconscious - Carl Jung.

01:46:25 A lot of the unconscious contents are not narrative like or persona like.

References: 

“After Socrates” You Tube series

“The meaning Crisis” You Tube series

Michael Levin - Cellular cognition episode

Evan Thompson - Deep continuity hypothesis

“Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind”

How does breathwork interact with our nervous system, access memories and help integrate traumatic memories? How has it got results treating auto-immune disease, addiction, agrophobia, PTSD and depression? How can it help sleep, detoxification, digestion, immunity, and taking control of negative thought patterns.

In this episode we have the hugely popular practice of Breathwork to look into. After millennia of it being used in bodily practices like martial arts and yoga, conscious breathing was launched into our modern scientific world view by the work of psychologist Stan Grof, who developed Holotropic Breathing in the 1960’s at Harvard, see our Transpersonal Psychology episode for more on that; Breathwork continued to gain in popularity following the focus on the lungs and breathing in near regulation proposed by Dr. Stephen Porges in his Polyvagal Theory, see our devoted episode with Dr. Porges for detail on that; And gained further in popularity with Dr. Pete Levine’s development of Somatic Experiencing, who I am delighted to announce will be coming on the show in the next series, so look out for that. 

So having been present for some time in the trauma community, in the last few years the practice has exploded onto the wellbeing scene as well because of all its benefits both physiologically and psychologically.

So who better to talk to about this than expert in a wide range of Breathwork and body-based therapies, Rebecca Dennis. She facilitates workshops, events and retreats alongside her public speaking and individual sessions. She is a gifted speaker and coach, specialising in breathwork, trauma release, somatic modalities, polyvagal theory and nervous system regulation. 

Part of her wide popularity is due to her having written three successful books on the topic, the latest being a new edition of Let it Go, “Let It Go and Breathe – A Practical Guide To Breathwork” which has been featured in Amazon and Sunday Times Best Sellers, and which we’ll be discussing today. And she has also collaborated with Google, BBC, Stylist magazine and Sweaty Betty.

What we discuss:

00:00 intro.

05:15 Breathwork explained

09:00 Repressing and controling emotions changes breathing.

12:00 Sympathetic vs parasympathetic nervous system.

20:50 Long deep breaths don’t necessarily calm you down.

23:50 It’s NOT hyperventilation or hyperoxygenation.

29:00 How traumatic memories can be brought up by the breath.

38:00 Rebecca’s crisis that brought her to breathwork.

43:30 Benefits: Depression relief, confidence, sleep, detox, digestion, immunity, taking control of thought patterns.

46:00 “Let it go” book: the foundations of the breath in daily life, tips and methods.

47:40 Breathe yourself calm - lower abdominal breathing.

49:00 Anxiety is higher now than ever.

52:40 What’s the right way to breathe?

59:00 Accessing altered states of consciousness without psychedelics.

59:45 Unlocking traumatic memories: Breath, psychedelics, EMDR.

01:01:00 Easing the symptoms without re-living the memories.

01:02:45 Some of her darkest memories have been her greatest teachers.

01:05:00 Increased resilience emotionally, physically and mentally.

01:07:20 Anti bacterial/anti viral Nitrous-oxide produced, improving immunity.

01:08:00 Gut-brain-cardio vascular system axis: anti-inflammatory effects.

01:11:45 Telomere length in meditators (caps on the end of chromosomes) Elizabeth Blackburn 2015 study.

01:13:30 Treating auto-immune disease, addiction, agrophobia, PTSD and depression using breathwork.

01:17:00 New book coming soon.

01:17:50 Her own new training school in Nov 2024.

References:

Rebecca Dennis, ‘Let it Go: Breathe yourself calm’

www.Breathingtree.co.uk

Polyvagal theory, Stephen Porges, CC Episode #5

Deborah Dana, ‘Anchored’: how to befriend your nervous system’

Elissa Epel, Elizabeth Blackburn 2015 ‘Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging? Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres’ 

What role does bioelectricity play in the formation of new organisms? How do cells connect to form a hierarchy of ever more advanced cognnition, preferences and goals? What are the implications for regenerative medicine, sense of self and consciousness?

In this episode we have the extraordinary role of bio-electricity in the orchestration and elaboration of organisms to look at. I became interested in this topic in the nineties when I read a book that was controversial at the time: ‘The Body Electric’, by Dr. Robert Becker who had been studying the bioelectric fields around salamanders as they regenerated limbs. I’ve been hoping to hear about it again ever since, but I thought the research had died out. That was until my guest Zhen Xu at the university of Michigan, spoke about the work of my guest today, in our episode #37 on her work “Histotripsy: Ultrasound for destroying cancer cells”.

https://thoughtforms.life/

Voltage movie of an embryo developing “Electric face” - Dany Adams, TUFTS

What did Jung mean by ‘The Shadow’? What did he mean by making the Unconscious conscious? What is integrating the shadow so useful for us and our relationships?

In this episode we cover the fascinating topic of Carl Jung’s concept of ‘The Shadow’ in analytic psychology; a term that has become overused in pop psychology and seems to be understood in many different ways depending on who you talk to.

To clarify the mystery, our guest today is one of the worlds most published and respected Jungian analysts, teachers, authors and commentators, Dr James Hollis. After a career teaching literature, he then retrained to become a Jungian analyst, and is still lecturing, writing books and giving psychotherapy at 83. He has written 19 books on Jungian themes, among which ‘Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves’ which we’ll touch on today.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro.

08:00 ‘The Shadow’ according to Jung.

08:30 A Reluctance to face what contradictory, disturbing or challenging.

11:00 4 ways the shadow manifests:

11:10 1) Unconsciously: everyone else deals with the consequences.

11:40 2) Projected onto others: we disown what we don’t accept in ourselves.

12:00 3) Being possessed by the shadow.

13:00 4) Consciously: this takes a lot of work and is a social responsibility.

13:50 Projected onto children: "The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents”, Jung.

16:00 “Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves” Hollis’ book on the shadow.

18:30 Being accountable for our actions and their consequences.

19:50 Making the unconscious conscious.

23:00 Making decisions as if we were still 8 years old.

24:50 What am I expecting the other to do, that is mine to address?

26:45 Storification and oversimplified narratives, become complexes.

31:43 Changing our relationship to our complexes.

32:30 We don’t solve these complexes we outgrow them.

35:50 What does your complex make you do or stop you from doing?

36:20 Meaning is the goal of life not happiness.

38:00 “The least of things with meaning, is always greater the the largest of things without meaning” Jung

39:00 An inner sense of purpose and satisfaction, and what to do if it’s not there.

40:20 The role of suffering, failure, and challenges in learning and meaning.

42:30 “Relationship is finding one special person you can annoy for a very long time” Mrs. Hollis.

43:45 The trickster overthrows our expectations: life’s way to force us to look in a new way.

47:00 Life is change, yet our nervous system and ego respond badly to ambiguity and the unknown.

49:30 The Ego’s complex is control - understandable but life rarely collaborates.

50:30 Ageing and mortality: an example of a summons to the ego to let go and go with it.

51:00 The ego is like a wafer thin boat floating on the vast iridescent sea of the unconscious.

52:20 “The unconscious is as vast as nature, you carry the human race inside of you”, J. Hollis.

56:45 Leading a life more examined = asking where I can change, improve and grow.

01:00:00 Most of our habits are protective, but stand in the way of our growth.

01:01:15 ‘Soul Heal’ Joe Enrique Pardo, a film about men being cut off forms their inner life.

References:

James Hollis, “Why good people do bad things: understanding our darker selves”

James Hollis’ 18 other books!

‘Soul Heal’ film, Jose Enrique Pardo, with James Hollis, a film about healing the issues of men

Bernardo Kastrup, Jung’s Metaphysics CC episode 

Monika Wikman, Collective Unconscious CC episode

Laura London’s, Speaking of Jung podcast

How close are we to a scalable quantum computer? How do they work? Why is it so difficult for women in science? Is that changing?

In this episode we have the fascinating new technology of Quantum Computers to get our heads around. They’ve been in the news a lot recently for the extraordinary computing power they could offer if harnessed properly; and also in conjunction with misleadingly named ‘teleportation’ technologies that can encode information in a quantum key and have it appear at the destination almost instantaneously and unshackably using quantum entanglement. But how do they work?

Our guest today Shohini Ghose explains beautifully, she studies them as a professor of Quantum Physics at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Toronto, Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow at TED and her TED talk, ‘A beginners guide to Quantum Computers’ has been viewed almost 5 million times. She’s a passionate advocate for women in science which she’s just released a new book on, ‘Her Space, Her Time’ and which we’ll be getting into around the 45min mark, and she’s the Chair for women in Science at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She is also the author of the 2019 book ‘Clues to the cosmos’.

I couldn’t let such a brilliant since communicator get away without asking her what the measurement problem means for the nature of reality too. Fascinating stuff!

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro

06:50 A beginners guide to quantum computers

09:50 The difference between binary 0/1 opposite and quantum superposition ‘probabilistic’ states

13:20 Integrating sensitive quantum systems into a practical computing technology

15:00 Harnessing cubits connecting them via entanglement for processing power

15:30 Avoiding the ‘noise’ of entanglement with external particles: near absolute zero conditions 

20:40 The applications of quantum computing

21:30 Encryption via ‘no cloning’ keys

22:10 A quantum enhanced internet - more security

25:40 Developing new chemical compositions via quantum simulations 

30:10 Quantum ‘teleportation’ 

35:40 Clarifying the role of light photons in quantum teleportation - it isn’t instantaneous

40:30 The limitations: When will we have a practically useful quantum computer (VS Neural network computers, see Vitaly Vanchurin episode)

45:30 Women in Science throughout history and the appropriation of their success by men

47:10 “Her Space, Her Time”, Shohini’s new book

47:40 The Mathilda effect: When men get credit for women’s work

52:30 Skew in The Nobel Prize and awards in general, and the risk of tokenism now

56:10 There is a lower ratio of women choosing science careers, but is that culturally biased data? See study

01:03:10 “Clues to the Cosmos” Shohini’s first book 

01:05:10 The way new experiments force us to update our theories step by step

01:09:05 The implications of non-local probabilistic quantum phenomena 

01:12:10 Matter is not fixed, reality is fluid

01:13:55 Measurement problem’s meaning: Even the separation between classical and quantum scale is fluid

References:

Shohini Ghose “Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe” 2023

https://g.co/kgs/bt9h63

A Beginners Guide to Quantum Computers, TED talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_beginner_s_guide_to_quantum_computing?language=en

Nobel prize for experiments confirming non-local realism and entanglement

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

Vitaly Vanchurin - Neural network computers

https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-38-vitaly-vanchurin-the-world-as-a-neural-network

A celebration of women scientists, TED talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_celebration_of_women_scientists_and_why_we_need_more_of_them

Scientific Careers and Gender differences, A qualitative study

https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/Jcom0701(2008)L01/

Shohini Ghose, “Clues to the Cosmos” 2019

https://g.co/kgs/PiuqF6

Why do we have a negativity bias that predisposes us to focus on bad things in the world? How can we channel that natural tendency to learn and improve, rather that be afraid and depressed by it? What are the implications of negativity bias for the functioning of our society ongoing?

In this episode we’ve got the important topic of the inherent Negativity Bias in human psychology to assess. This is the tendency for bad events, experiences and emotions to have more impact than good ones. We see this in relationships, social patterns, traumatic events, the media and learning processes. Research shows that bad impressions and stereotypes form quicker than good ones, that the self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones, and even that bad impressions are more thoroughly processed than good ones. This all plays out in out in the media, in the consumer markets and in politics and thus defines our culture ongoing. Is this natural? Is there anything we can do to mitigate it or use it for good? And do we even want to?

Fortunately for us our guest today is a specialist in these matters, one of the most prolific and cited psychologists in the world, with over 650 publications, Professor Roy Baumeister. His 40 books include the New York Times bestseller Willpower. His research covers self and identity, self-regulation, interpersonal rejection and the need to belong, sexuality and gender, aggression, self-esteem, meaning, consciousness, free will, and self-presentation, some of which we cover today in connection with negativity bias. In 2013 he received the William James award for lifetime achievement in psychological science (the Association for Psychological Science’s highest honor). In 2001 He co-wrote a seminal paper on the very topic of today’s episode in, called ‘Bad is Stronger than Good’; and one of his latest books, co-authored with John Tierney, is called “The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It”.

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro

10:00 Negativity Bias Explained

12:00 Evolutionary reasons to focus on the negative

15:45 “Life has to win every day, death only has to win once”

17:45 We process the negative more thoroughly than the positive

18:45 “We learn a lot more from bad events than from good ones”

20:10 The Pollyanna principle VS Bad memories being good for learning 

27:30 Negativity bias in the media, fiction and entertainment

31:50 Ai algorithms tracking our engagement with negativity, making us feel the world is worse than we it is

33:10 “The world is getting better on every index except hope”, John Tierney 

35:30 Older people are happier than younger people, Laura Carstensen

37:00 Polarisation as a consequence of algorithmic driven negativity bias

41:50 Using fear for profit VS using fear for control 

33:15 Tendency to see the outsiders as threats

47:30 Belonging: our need not to be thought of negatively, hence not to be thrown out of the group

49:50 Theory of mind: Primates understand how other people think of them competitively but humans also collaboratively

50:40 We act ethically because we need people to cooperate

53:50 Negativity bias leading to a sense of belonging in the camp against the ‘other’

55:30 Self control and regulation: taking control of negativity bias, we’re good at getting better

56:30 Not doing the bad things is what makes the difference

58:50 4:1 Ratio of good things to bad things required to swing the balance

01:03:40 Ego depletion confirmed: self control fatigue over time 

References:

Baumeister and Tierney “The Power of Bad: How the negativity effect rules us and how we can rule it”

‘Bad is stronger than Good’ Paper, 2001

Baumeister and Tierney, “Will Power: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength”

Full Show Note References on CC.net