Bren’s documentary is out! Watch here

More on health, movement, and becoming the whole collective intelligence you are at essays.debugyourpain.com

00:00:00 Introduction — Movement Without Reductionism 00:01:00 From Stanford Biochemistry to Movement Coaching 00:03:00 Traditional Training: Isolate, Integrate, Improvise

00:06:00 Why Transfer Fails in Traditional Models

00:09:00 Ecological Dynamics in Combat Sports

00:18:00 Constraints-Led Approach and Skill Transfer

00:21:00 Enactivism vs. Ecological Dynamics

00:26:00 The Role of Intention and Meaning in Movement

00:31:00 What is Beautiful Movement?

00:35:00 Movement and Evolutionary Mismatch

00:41:00 Nested Agency and Biological Intelligence

00:47:00 Rehabilitating Without Rest: A Proactive View on Pain

00:56:00 Changing Paradigms in BJJ and Movement Instruction

01:01:00 Teaching With Tasks, Not Moves

01:07:00 From Theory to Practice: Bringing CLA to New Disciplines

01:12:00 Workshops, Collaborations, and What’s Next

• Beyond Biomechanics: The Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement – Shen & Frucek

• Ramstead, M., et al. “A tale of two densities: Active inference is enactive inference.” Adaptive Behavior, 2019.

• Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press, 2016.

• Lehman, G. “Recovery Strategies.” Greg Lehman’s Website

• Fighting Monkey Practice: fightingmonkey.net
  

Bren Veziroglu studied biochemistry at Stanford and worked in molecular imaging before pivoting to the world of movement and rehabilitation. He now teaches and practices using the constraints-led approach, integrating ecological dynamics, somatics, and martial arts to train human beings — not just athletes.

Max Shen is a former machine learning researcher turned pain and cognition scientist. After facing chronic pain in grad school, he now uses computational tools at MIT to explore pain from a systems and somatic lens.

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• Email: [email protected]
  

• Twitter: @mxslk

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essays.debugyourpain.com

## Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction - The Coming Paradigm Change in Biology  

00:02:00 The Biomedical Paradigm: Materialism, Reductionism, and Dualism  

00:05:00 How Pain Is Usually Explained (And Why It's Wrong)  

00:07:00 Problems with Materialism, Reductionism, Dualism

00:12:00 Pain Without Damage, Damage Without Pain  

00:15:00 The Alternative: Biological Computation and Collective Intelligence. 

00:26:00 Health as Problem-Solving Ability, Not Statistical Norms  

00:30:00 Pain as a Control Signal and Skill  

00:32:00 The Somatic Scientists - Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, FM Alexander  

00:37:00 Why RCTs Don't Work for Complex Therapies  

00:42:00 Bridging Science and Practice 

## Key Figures Mentioned

- **Michael Levin** (Tufts) - Biological computation and collective intelligence

- **Karl Friston** (University College London) - Active inference and free energy principle

- **Dennis Noble** (Oxford) - Biological relativity and heart pacemaker cells

- **Ida Rolf** - Developed Rolfing, emphasized fascia connections

- **Moshe Feldenkrais** - Physicist turned movement therapist

- **FM Alexander** - Alexander Technique founder

Resources

- Ashar, Yoni K., et al. "Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain: a randomized clinical trial." JAMA psychiatry 79.1 (2022): 13-23.

- Noble, Denis. "A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation." Interface focus 2.1 (2012): 55-64.

- Wampold, Bruce E., and Zac E. Imel. The great psychotherapy debate: The evidence for what makes psychotherapy work. Routledge, 2015.

- Beyond Biomechanics: The Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/uqcs4_v1

About the Host

Max is a former machine learning researcher who pivoted to studying pain and cognition after experiencing chronic pain during graduate school. He now uses computational tools to study chronic pain at MIT.

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- Substack: debugyourpain.substack.com

**Get in touch:**

- Email: [email protected]

- Twitter: @mxslk

- Substack: debugyourpain.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com

This is a 15-minute excerpt from a conversation I had with Chris Lakin

A few quotes:

Oftentimes people learn to do some self-loathing thing. And the consequence of that is you make yourself smaller either physically or you just do less things. People see you less often and see you as less of a threat. And then you get into fewer conflicts with them. And if you are optimizing for having as few conflicts as possible, not necessarily living the best life, then that makes a whole lot of sense.

When you were attracted to a thing or are in the default positive state, you are aiming at the thing that you want. whereas when people are in the negative attractor or they're really pessimistic — and you especially see this around the most doom-y AI people — they are aiming at a thing that they don't want. You're running away from something, but there's no direction towards. You can't coordinate on that.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com