The DemystifySci Podcast

DemystifySci is on the road again, still thinking hard about the nature of the universe. In this episode, recorded on a tropical island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, we dive into the noble tradition of mystical physics, with a little help from Walter Russel, a painter, sculptor, and mystic from the turn of the 20th century. Our goal is twofold. First, to lay the groundwork for why we think there is much to be gained from finding the “needle in the hay” in the ideas of visionary thinkers who approach nature by an intuitive rather than empirical vector. The second is to explore the ideas that inspired Terrence Howard’s models - because we’re headed down to Los Angeles to record with him in person. As always, we seek to find the best pieces of the ideas on offer and articulate them to everything else that we have come to know about the cosmos. Let u know what you think in the comments, and let us know what questions you have for Terrence.

Simon Michaux is an associate professor at the Geological Survey of Finland who is obsessed with ensuring humanity survives the transition away from fossil fuels that he and many others see looming on the horizon. We’ve previously spoken with him about his “purple transition,” his thorium reactor, ammonia engine, and alternative battery chemistry vision for a resource balanced future (Ep 259) and about the inspiration he’s gleaned for his work from the Jacques Fresco and Venus Project (Ep 275). In this third installment, we dig into the details of Simon’s Prometheus Project, both in context of what kind of resources are necessary to build an ambitious demonstration city in a mineral rich region of the Peruvian desert, and in context of what kind of people he needs to make his plans become a reality. Can Simon succeed where so many others have failed?

Rex Riepe is a philosopher who created the Eristics Test as a tool for helping people understand how they process emotions. In his view, emotions are a deeply rational aspect of our personalities that argue for us to take specific actions in three spheres - the self, the world, and society. We discuss the structure that he has developed for understanding the relationship between emotions, how he identified the fundamental building blocks of our interior landscapes, the way that different personalities fit together, and how unexamined emotional strategies can take on a life of their own. Take the test at eristicstest.com and drop your results in the comments!

(00:05:50) Emotions and the Shadow Self

(00:23:27) Emotions as evolutionary adaptations

(00:32:23) Defining emotions and their role in arguments and survival

(00:51:39) Emotional Energy Allocation

(01:00:08) Fear Dominant Personalities

(01:14:21) Malleability of emotional archetypes and personal growth

(01:33:19) Understanding Detachment and Emotional Health

(01:41:59) Exploring the Concept of Guilt, Purpose, and Happiness

(01:57:42) Perception and variation in internal dialogue

(01:59:33) Enhancing connections through emotional self-awareness

(02:18:03) Technology adoption and abandonment by corporations

(02:22:26) Centralization and decentralization in internet ecosystems

#sciencepodcast, #longformpodcast,

Dr. Ruth Kastner is a historian of Physics and philosopher of Science who is preoccupied with rational interpretations of quantum mechanics. She serves as the third pole of the transactional quantum mechanics big tent where she, alongside John Cramer and Carver Mead, argue that the apparent mysteries of quantum mechanics can be rationalized by modeling everything from light to gravity as an exchange between atoms. Our conversation explores how she became enamored with this alternative approach to physics, the question of how accurate our models really are when it comes to the subatomic world, why the word "electron" is hopelessly confused, and why moving backwards in space and time aren't as different as they might seem at first glance.

We sit down for a discussion about the futility of rationalism, by way of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. We start with the question of utopias, and try to diagnose why, if they're doomed to fail, it's still worth trying to create them, and then move on to the question of the scientific project - which seems to be an attempt to create a rationalist utopia. James' take on mystical experiences - that they're nearly universally accessible, though rarely long dwelt in - seems to suggest that there is something about the tremulous experience of being alive that will leave us with the feeling of being part of something larger than ourselves no matter how rational we get. So, then, if we can never escape the mystical experience, is it worth trying? And if it is, and we take the project of science to be worthwhile, where does the mystic live?

Dr. Dean Radin is an investigator of parapsychological phenomena whose career has spanned Bell Labs, Stanford Research Institute as part of the Stargate Project, Princeton, and who is now the Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Radin approaches his search for evidence of psychokinesis and extrasensory perception as an engineer, and has spent his career building devices that can be reproducibly (though subtly) affected by the minds of experimental subjects that have ranged from his colleagues at Bell Labs to thousands of participants from across the web. We talk about how the buttoned up engineer started studying such esoteric phenomena, working for the CIA, how there's no proof that can convince a skeptic, his recent research that suggests that mental action can affect the outcome of quantum experiments, and his radically transparent approach to research.

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(00:00:00) Go!
(00:00:00)  Introduction to Dean Radin and the Concept of Magic
(00:07:13) The Interplay of Magic, Science, and Consciousness
(00:10:55) The Role of Information in Understanding Reality
(00:21:05) Personal Journey into Parapsychology
(00:27:38) The Role of Consciousness and Motivation in ESP
(00:38:57) Practical Applications in Human Factors
(00:46:23) Classified Knowledge and Public Awareness
(00:49:50) Active Disinformation and the Skeptic Movement
(00:53:39) Evaluating ESP Research and Military Interest
(01:01:13) Successes and Controversies of Remote Viewing
(01:08:52) Discussion on CIA Remote Viewing and Public Perception
(01:16:30) Research into Psychic Abilities and Genetics
(01:26:00) Collective Consciousness in Music and Improvisation
(01:33:04) Hemisync and Altered States of Consciousness
(01:40:43) Skill Development and Psychic Abilities
(01:52:20) Quality of Life of Remote Viewers
(01:56:32) Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics
(02:01:35) Bridging Phenomena and Mainstream Physics
(02:13:52) Ideological Resistance in Discussions
(02:25:09) Experimental Innovations in Research
(02:29:47) Mentoring the Next Generation of Researchers
(02:35:11) Discussion on Theoretical and Empirical Approaches
(02:38:40) Upcoming Book Insights and Paradigm Shifts

#sciencepodcast,  #longformpodcast, #Parapsychology,#ConsciousnessStudies,#QuantumMind,#ESPResearch,#NoeticScience,#MindMatterInteraction,#FrontierScience,#ConsciousnessExploration,#PsychicPhenomena,#QuantumConsciousness,#ScienceOfTheMind,#ParanormalResearch,#MindScience,#ConsciousnessAndReality,#BeyondMaterialism

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PODCAST INFO:  Anastasia completed her PhD studying bioelectricity at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting, reading, and guiding backcountry excursions. Shilo also did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring sound in music. They are both freelance professors at various universities.

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Kevin Fedarko is a writer, journalist and river guide explores the interface between wilderness and industrialization, most recently through the lens of the Grand Canyon. Fedarko recently published "A Walk In the Park," the story of his somewhat ill-conceived but ultimately successful quest to walk the trail-less expanse of desert wilderness that hides beneath the canyon's rims. We talk about the struggle to tell a story about the Colorado and the canyon that contains it that avoids the conventional morality tale of environment good, technology bad; the astonishing feat of engineering, unseen since the Great Pyramids that holds back Lake Powell; the punishment of untrailed nature; and the mythology of science, man as an island, and the wilderness as something we both crave and fear.

Christof Koch is a neuroscientist who studies consciousness, and is best known for integrated information theory. IIT is a consciousness-first theory, which states that the experience of being someone (or something) is directly related to the causal powers of the underlying system. Up until relatively recently, Koch was something of a materialist - he believed that it would be possible to find the specific series of neural events in the brain that produce lived experience. A series of events, which he details in his new book "The I Am Myself the World" have led him to embrace more of an idealist perspective, which says that we are instantiations of a a much larger universal consciousness that permeates the universe. We talk to him about his transformation, the nature of consciousness and will, what it "causal powers" of a system have to do with consciousness, and the value of mystical experiences.

The Venus Project was started in the 1980s by Jacques Fresco and Roxanne Meadows with the aim of showing that it was possible to lead a more human centered existence… as long as you built outside of the capitalist market system. Over the decades, the fortunes of the project have fluctuated - from an initial burst of enthusiasm and action (Meadows and Fresco built almost all the structures on the property by hand themselves) to the grinding reality of what it means to grow a stable and vibrant community, to the immense surge of popularity just as Fresco’s life came to an end. Project members Roxanne Meadows and Nate Dwindiddie come by the show with previous guest Simon Michaux to talk about the failures and successes of the project, and what it might look like when its reborn as the framework for Michaux’s Prometheus Project.

Dr Luca Turin is a biophysicist, writer, and perfume connoisseur whose work on fragrances seems to suggest that we don’t smell molecules, per se - we smell the complex vibrations of an atomic structure. Turin came to be convinced of this model for olfaction at the expense of the standard model of receptors binding smell molecules just on the basis of their shape due to a prediction he made about the smell of sulfur. If the pungent odor of rotten eggs and brimstone was due to the vibrational frequency of the sulfur atom attached to the molecule, then any other atom with a similar vibrational frequency, no matter its shape, should also smell of sulfur. He found a compatible molecule in an unexpected place, and the rest fell into place. We talk about his nascent passion for perfumes, why people are so reluctant to smell things, and the overlap between smell, resonance, and consciousness.

(00:11:39) Evolution and Decline of Vibrational Theory in Smell Science

(00:23:47) Social Dynamics in Scientific Progress

(00:26:30) Impact of Public Perception on Scientific Discourse

(00:29:23) Musical Analogies in Smell Perception

(00:31:00) Harmonic Analogies in Molecular Structures

(00:33:17) Exploring Dissonance in Perfumery and Music

(00:39:06) Longevity of Perfumes and Environmental Factors

(00:46:44) Theory development on molecular vibration and smell perception

(00:48:23) Discovery of Boron hydrides and their olfactory similarities to sulfur

(00:51:36) Public reception and impact of the vibrational theory of smell

(01:11:20) Electrical properties of molecules in drug design

(01:13:09) Radical formation and drug interaction with receptors

(01:18:05) Electrical vs. shape-based theories in GPCR activation

(01:24:21) Electron transfer in cellular metabolism

(01:31:11) ATP synthesis and electrostatic gradients in mitochondria

(01:34:36) Electrons' Spin Behavior in Biology

(01:37:05) Revolution in General Anesthesia

(01:42:05) Mechanism of Anesthesia and Brain Function

(01:49:23) Quantum Effects in Brain Function

(01:57:40) Brain Stimulation and Consciousness

(01:58:52) Spin and Conductivity

(02:05:02) Radio Frequency Emission from Brain Activity

(02:09:54) Mitochondrial Activity and Brain Function

(02:18:09) Quantum Aspects in Brain Function

(02:21:08) The Intersection of Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness

(02:25:01) Historical and Technological Influences on Consciousness Studies

(02:30:13) Quantum Biology: Origins and Evolution

(02:34:26) The Central Role of Chemistry in Quantum Biology

(02:37:11) Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

(02:44:15) Philosophical indifference to facts

(02:45:22) Science as myth-making

(02:46:15) Finding joy in science