Do Explain with Christofer Lövgren

Christofer and psychiatrist Michael Golding speak about the interaction between creativity and physiology, and mental illness, in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the evolutionary process of the mind, psychiatry, IQ, the analogy between cancer and schizophrenia, the dangers of cannabis, LSD and MDMA, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and other related topics.

Michael Golding is a Board Certified psychiatric physician with more than 20 years of experience treating psychiatrically disordered patients in back wards of psychiatric hospitals, in prisons, and in outpatient clinics. He has also been the Chief Psychiatrist of one of the largest prison system in the country. He completed psychiatric residency training at the University of North Carolina and completed a National Institure of Mental Health Fellowhip in Psychobiology and Psychopharmacology. He is an evolutionary epistemologist and loves the ideas of Charles Darwin, Karl Popper, and David Deutsch and is currently applying them to model knowledge growth in economic systems. He is also writing a book on psychiatric differential diagnosis to help the lay person understand the relationship between general medical and psychiatric practice.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mgoldingmd

Notes on discussed syndromes provided by Michael:

Klüver Bucy Syndrome: Docility, Fearless, Hypersexual. Stimulation of parts of amygdala in normals creates fear and rage. Activation or inactivation of different brain regions predictably creates different qualia, as experienced by conscious humans.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klüver–Bucy_syndrome (includes bilateral damage to amygdala)

Phenylketonuria: IQ varies from completely normal (if severely restrict phenylalanine consumption) to profound intellectual disability (if no dietary restrictions). Is the intellectual disability due to poor ideas (not restricting phenylalanine) or poor genetics (not being able to properly metabolize phenylalanine)? Those with different genetic/psychiatric disorders have varying levels of ability to learn based on differences in their diet. In the case of Phenylketonuria, the more the phenylalanine consumed, the lower the IQ.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylketonuria

Angelman’s Syndrome: Consistent intellectual understanding of a 3 year old. Stops learning beyond that. So patient has human level understanding, but consistently does not progress intellectually due to physiological interference with learning.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelman_syndrome

Prader-Willi: Constant hunger and just a bit of intellectual disability. So similar (in some ways) genetic problem to those with Angelman's Syndrome, but only mild intellectual disability. Differences in hardware/physiology interfere or promote efficiency in learning.

REM behavioral disorder: 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rem-sleep-behavior-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20352920

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Email Christofer:
[email protected]

Christofer and writer Sarah Fitz-Claridge speak about Taking Children Seriously, a non-coercive educational philosophy, in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss creativity and fallibility, why Taking Children Seriously is not passive parenting, psychological coercion, parental authority, Popper's bucket theory of mind, keeping your child safe, problems with school, common objections to Taking Children Seriously, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and other related topics.

Sarah Fitz-Claridge is a Popperian writer, editor, coach and speaker with a background in Psychology and an irrepressibly optimistic, freedom-oriented world view. She started the journal that became Taking Children Seriously in the early 1990s and is currently working on her book on the subject.

Website: https://www.fitz-claridge.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FitzClaridge

Other mentioned resources:

Taking Children Seriously website: https://www.takingchildrenseriously.com
Vivek Patel: https://www.youtube.com/c/meaningfulideas/videos

Support the podcast at:
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Email Christofer:
[email protected]

Christofer and his buddy Charlie Jungheim answer questions from Twitter in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss issues with school and traditional education, explanationless science, human violence, self-driving cars, how physiology interacts with creativity, Covid-19, and other related topics.

Charlie Jungheim is a philosophy YouTuber, impressionist, and musician from Laguna Beach, currently residing in Palm Springs, California. He makes videos about Critical Rationalism following the philosophy of Karl Popper and David Deutsch and can be found on various platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hermesofreason
Website: http://hermesofreason.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HermesofReason

As advertised: ‘A Conversation with William Paley’ on https://gumroad.com/l/paley— enter promo code ‘chris’ at checkout for 20% off for the first 25 orders.

Support the podcast at:
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Email Christofer:
[email protected]

Christofer and teacher Michael Ashcroft speak about Alexander Technique (AT) and expanded awareness in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the theory and purpose of AT, similarities and differences from other meditative frameworks, non-doing, bodymind, posture, mindfulness, contracted vs. expanded awareness, flow, and other related topics. They also answer questions from Twitter.

Michael Ashcroft is a teacher of the Alexander Technique, having trained for three years part time at the South Bank Alexander Technique center in London. He is also a life coach and energy system innovation consultant applying himself to facilitating personal as well as societal transformation.

Newsletter: https://expandingawareness.substack.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/m_ashcroft
Article: https://www.michaelashcroft.org/blog/how-to-be-superman

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Email Christofer:
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Christofer and metabolic nutritionist Marek Doyle speak about the human metabolism and chronic fatigue in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss Marek's six principles of health, the three stages of metabolic functioning, evidence-based medicine, the interaction between physiology and psychology, intermittent fasting, the myth of oversleeping, weight loss, exercise frequency, veganism, and other related topics.

Marek Doyle is a functional nutritional therapist based in London, England. He has spent the last 13 years reconciling the data from 2,000 patient outcomes and 9,000 test results to build a model of personalized nutrition, and has been featured by a range of media, such as Sky Sports, the Daily Mail, Mens Health and Marie Claire.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marekdoylenutrition
Website: https://www.marekdoyle.com/
Article: http://www.blueprintfitness.co.uk/can-you-sleep-too-much/

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Email Christofer:
[email protected]

Christofer and management consultant Bart Vanderhaegen speak about management consulting through a Popperian lens  in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss workplace hierarchies and problems with the standard model, the importance of error-correction in organizations, distributed problem solving, organizational reductionism, cooperation, autonomy, internal vs. external motivation, the concept of flow, and other related topics.

Bart Vanderhaegen is a management consultant from Belgium. He studied physics at the University of Ghent, and obtained an MBA, before starting a career in management consulting. He has spent the last 20 years working with organisations on problems related to growth, performance and productivity.Five years ago he founded his own company, Pactify, which is a new management approach for problem solving in organizations. The approach incorporates ideas from the epistemology of Karl Popper and David Deutsch as well as concepts of behaviour change like autonomy and flow. The essence of the approach is a process for increased and more distributed problem solving in organizations, thereby simultaneously driving both productivity and engagement in the organization.

Ted-Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnPy3uVc3xo
Website: https://www.pactifymanagement.com/

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Christofer and intelligence researcher Dennis Hackethal speak about his new book, 'A Window on Intelligence', about the philosophy of people and why we need a unification of philosophy and software engineering to continue making progress in various fields, in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss problems with current AI-research and potential solutions, the biological evolution of intelligence, why animals aren't intelligent or conscious, open problems with Popperian epistemology, psychotherapy as a software engineering problem, how to think about space travel, and other related topics. "A Window on Intelligence" is available for purchase now on Amazon, and soon on other platforms like Apple Books as well:

https://www.windowonintelligence.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Window-Intelligence-Philosophy-Evolution-Implications/dp/1734696133/

Dennis Hackethal is a software engineer and intelligence researcher in Silicon Valley, California. He hosts a podcast called Artificial Creativity about how to create AGI and can also be found on Twitter:

Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/dchacke
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dchackethal

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Christofer and physicist David Deutsch speak about why neither genetic nor 'environmental' determinism explain human choices in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the horrors of prehistoric existence, gender norms, twin studies, the brain/mind distinction, universality of computation, cognitive bias, and other related topics.

David Deutsch is a Visiting Professor of Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation at Oxford University and the author of two books: 'The Fabric of Reality' and 'The Beginning of Infinity'. He works on fundamental issues in physics, particularly the quantum theory of computation and information, and constructor theory.

Timestamps: 

(2:43) - The grim lives of prehistoric humans

(9:30) - Genetic determinism and human choice 

(12:30) - Explaining human choice and human nature

(20:46) - Gender roles and correlation vs. explanation 

(28:58) - Twin studies and the blank slate

(36:24) - Philosophy of mind and information processing

(44:43) - Brains, minds, hardware and software

(48:28) - Why the brain and mind are different kinds of universal

(52:03) - What is the purpose of neuroscience?

(55:41) - Unconscious vs. conscious mind

(1:03:39) - Why cognitive biases might make you biased

(1:10:10) - On meeting Karl Popper and Bryce DeWitt

Website: www.daviddeutsch.org.uk
Twitter: @DavidDeutschOxf

Support the podcast at:
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Email Christofer:
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Christofer and his buddy Charlie Jungheim speak about how to think about meditation in a Deutschian/Popperian framework in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss Kobe Bryant's recent passing, misconceptions of death, the value and pitfalls of meditation, the self, and other related topics.

Charlie Jungheim is a philosophy YouTuber, impressionist, and musician from Laguna Beach, currently residing in Palm Springs, California. He makes videos about Critical Rationalism following the philosophy of Karl Popper and David Deutsch and can be found on various platforms:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hermesofreason
Website: http://hermesofreason.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HermesofReason

Support the podcast at:
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Christofer and physicist Sam Kuypers speak about why the world is not best described as a mechanical clockwork of atoms in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss determinism and causality, myths in quantum physics, evolutionary psychology, and other related topics.

Sam Kuypers, known as Crit_Rat on Twitter, is a DPhil student in physics at the University of Oxford. He researches foundational issues in quantum theory and, besides physics, is mainly interested in the philosophy of science, as his twitter-handle suggests (https://twitter.com/Crit_Rat).

Support the podcast at:
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Email Christofer:
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