Siim Land

@ChimpBrain Just listening to Superintelligence and the shit is looking even scarier Amazing book and Bostrom's arguments are probable in almost any way you look at them. I love the part that this super AI will hide its plans of becoming a god from us until its too late. Also, the part where it could get access to protein replicators, have it shipped to its location by a FedEX guy who has no idea about it and then build itself an organic body. WHAT?! Maybe I understood it wrongly but it seems possible with recursive intelligence and cognitive abilities.

The minimum recommendation is 7-8 hours. You may get used to sleeping less but that happens because you simply habituate to lower levels of alertness and energy. You forget about what it feels like to be adequately slept. Any less than 6 for long periods is very bad, even scary. Even just a few nights of poor sleep, less than 5 hours, can make your blood sugar levels rise to that of a diabetic. What ensue are sugar cravings, insulin resistance and obesity. You lose muscle and start accumulating fat because of not getting enough shut-eye. But it's not the quantity of your sleep that matters but the quality of it. If you wake up every hour, then you won't get almost any benefits. The best advice I can give you is to start blocking blue light at night, using a computer software called Flux, wearing blue blocking glasses and wearing a sleep mask while you sleep. Those are the first things you should do. I've also written an in-depth article on different strategies to improve the quality of your sleep so that you could get away with spending less time in bed. Starting from stimulating your vagus nerve and ending with nutrition.

What Is it Like to Be a Bat? is the most widely cited and influential scientific thought experiments about consciousness written by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. Basically, he says that “An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism - something that it is like for the organism to be itself.” The subjective nature of consciousness, it can't be explained objectively. He uses the bats as a metaphor who illustrate his point because they're mammals and their sonar system resembles human vision, both of which are perceptual experiences. Even if we could imagine flying around, using navigation, hanging upside down and do other bat stuff, it would still not be the same as a bat's perspective. If we could metamorphose into bats, we would only be able to experience their behavior but not the mindset, because our brains wouldn't have been wired that way from birth. We wouldn't be bats, but bat-men (I just had to). What do you guys think? Is our consciousness solely limited to our body and is subjective, or do we share something similar with other sentient beings? I feel like it goes against most of what's written in spiritual texts. But at the same time, it would depend on how you define consciousness. Nagel probably based his claims on the common-sense term.

True, I guess it all comes down to what you're defining as such, as well as consciousness.

@pluto I still don't get it how cabbage, cauli and broccoli are clean. As far as I remember from childhood, cabbage gets the most worms. How come it doesn't get sprayed then? Just curious.

@Joe Zhou That would depend. I don't think that it could make your condition worse. Cold exposure increases the antioxidant glutathione that improves your immune system and detoxifies the body. Also, the increased blood flow you get will pump the lymphatic system, which will make you excrete toxins. Because of that, the poisons may cause some hick-ups, such as a cold or slight nausea. Nothing too severe though and it would be better to get them out of you instead of letting them sit there. You can also have saunas to cleanse yourself.

Although I don't know how skinny you are or what's your overall health condition, I'm going to hypothesize that you have indeed to less body fat. It's only the most likeliest of causes. Not because of fat helping you to feel warmer, it's just that you may have some hormonal imbalances because of your low body fat, which makes your body more conservative, if that makes sense. Eat a bit more and see how you feel, but don't randomly binge on junk because it will not benefit your endocrine system at all. Whole foods. Also, the second part may be that you're simply too unconditioned for the cold. That means only one thing - get used to it. I start my mornings with a cold shower and have taken them for almost 2 years straight. I also take cold water immersions and take ice baths at winter. Basically, you can condition your body to handling freezing temperatures through sheer exposure and learning how to regulate your own core temperature through conscious breathing. Check out the video, in which I explain how to start doing cold water immersion

Cartesian dualism takes takes away the importance of the body and gives too much recognition to the mind. Instead of them being 2 distinct entities, I would argue that they're intertwined and enmeshed with each other. It would be hard to tell, whether our consciousness could exist without a body because we don't have enough knowledge about the brain nor skill to do anything with it if we did. But one thing seems to be true as discovered through phenomenological enquiry. Here's how Merleau-Ponty describes it - "the body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be involved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them’ ". Consciousness stems from the body being in an interaction with its surroundings. So the duality between your subjective body/consciousness and the world is also questionable. Perception by nature is indeterminate: it ends in objects but begins in the body. (M-P)

It's not that you're objectively in love with video games. You play them just because of a habit and the good feeling they give you. They're enjoyable to you because they help you to either relax, escape reality or push off what you truly want to accomplish. Maybe you're scared of putting yourself out there and taking action on your real purpose in life. There's something good about it as well. The determined and almost obsessive traits you have when playing too many video games is just pure energy. You're simply directing your energy into the wrong channels. If you were to simply stop playing video games, you could make rapid results in your development and achieving your purpose. Basically, you have to change your habits. A great way to get started is to go on a "video game fast." If you distance yourself from the pleasurable stimulus of games you reset your reward mechanisms. At the moment, you're simply inside the vicious cycle. Take a step back and regain your awareness. This doesn't mean that you have to give up video games completely. Just spend less time playing them and focus on your greater goals. Another awesome tip is to start thinking about your life as an MMORPG. You can apply it to fitness, learning, socializing, meditation etc. Everything you acquire is a level-up. Takes some power of association but it works.

@ChimpBrain He doesn't have a book called synchronicity, if that's what you think. Synchronicity is just a meaningful coincidence.

@John Flores Wow, that's just baffling and scary at the same time. We can create artificial consciousness. Gives some things to think about concerning the future of our own. I wonder whether the answer has any objective ground to it But then again, it answered "what is 10 minus 2?" - 72. @ChimpBrain Yes, Bostrom is amazing, I just picked up his book. Synchronicity It's funny though. AI clearly has more intellectual potential and the development of our species is very much dependent of our technology. Our biological bodies are like outdated hardware, whereas the software, our consciousness, is willing to go through a quantum leap.

There are 4 conditions that need to be met to build muscle. Adequate stimulus (Train hard enough)- The key to building muscle naturally is getting ox strong. It doesn't matter whether you do barbell or bodyweight exercises. You simply have to progressively overload the muscles, which means either adding more weight or progressing towards more difficult bodyweight movements. In general, strength is built more with lower repetitions (3-8 reps x 3-6 sets) Protein synthesis (Eat enough protein) - Secondly, you need the essential amino acids to build new tissue. They’re the building blocks of our body and with the essential fatty acids required for life. Energy (Be in a caloric surplus) - You need to have enough calories to increase in size. If you're skinny, then train hard and eat a ton post-workout. Hormones (mainly testosterone and human growth hormone) - To conduct these anabolic processes, you need to have adequate hormonal output. The two most important ones for muscle growth are T and HGH. The best tip here is to sleep more. 8-10 hours minimum for someone your age. In general, train hard and don't joke around with doing bodybuilding type of "pumping" workouts but don't push yourself to failure because it will wreck your hormones. Eat enough protein and more calories. Sleep. Repeat. Patience is key and you need to autoregulate your routines as you go. If you're not seeing results in weight gain, then you have to either do less cardio or eat more.

Another thing I would recommend everyone look into further is movement itself. Become the disciple of your own body and move just for the sake of moving. It opens up a whole new set of possibilities for training and embodiment that are unachievable at the gym. Start thinking about exercise as a way to explore different aspects of your body and motions instead of doing it as drudgery. Look into the work of Ido Portal. The guy is just amazing and a true apprentice to movement itself. Bodily practices are also more meditative and will make you more in tune with your being.

@Petervan An amazing tip for starting to enjoy eating healthy which will help you lose weight. Lower your bliss point. What is the bliss point? - The bliss point is the specific amount of satisfaction or stimulation, in which happiness is optimized. It’s the perfect volume of magic fairy dust, that makes you content and happy. Any more, or slightly less will tip you off balance and isn’t as great anymore. The problem with this is that, unless you’re aware of it, you’ll easily fall victim to your unconscious urges. What’s more, if your bliss point is too high, you’ll never be satisfied enough. If your taste buds are under the constant stimulation of processed food and refined carbohydrates, then you’re habituating your mind to be content with nothing less. After a while, you get used to your current bliss point and need to take it to the next level again. On the other hand, if your bliss point is lower, then you’ll get incredible joy from even the smallest of things. You can get immense amount of enjoyment from something so trivial, such as pure water, clean food, less stuff, quality, not quantity relationships. Paradoxically, your happiness increases, as your bliss point decreases. There are several strategies we can use to first lower our bliss point, and then to maintain it at the desired level, without overstimulating it. Fasting - it resets your taste buds Gratitude - abstinence from food makes you more grateful for food Mindfulness - mindful eating makes you appreciate the taste of your food Minimalism - being content with less, in both your food choices and other lifestyle factors It starts with food, but can be applied to anything else as well. Our taste buds and palate are exactly there, where we’ve habituated them. Being used to stimulating food teaches us to not be satisfied with anything less. It's not about eating bland food. It's about teaching yourself to appreciate less stimulating food. Process carbs and sugar create an almost fake stimulus that's causing an unnatural response to your taste buds. Detoxing yourself and reseting your taste buds actually reverses you to your normal state. Hopefully this will help you in making better food choices. You can also check out my blog post about this, in which I go into more detail about every specific strategy and how to do them. Thanks!

I actually prefer my Kindle. It's more convenient for absorbing information. Highlighting, access to the internet, dictionary and faster transitions between pages. If you were to go for a phenomenological reading experience, then having a paperback is indeed better, at least it involves more senses. There's nothing better than the smell of an old book and its rugged pages. @ChimpBrain My favourite medium for "reading" are audiobooks as well. So enjoyable and amazing. You walk, workout or take public transport while literally transfering knowledge into your head.

Great concise video. Although you left me hanging with just one idea Looking forward to more content. How old are you btw?

Name: Siim Land Age: 22 Gender: Male Location: Estonia Occupation: writer, blogger, BA in Anthropology, being self-empowered Marital status: Single, gaming Kids: None Hobbies: writing, reading, meditation, self-actualization, self-empowerment, fitness, nutrition, YouTube, storytelling If I were to investigate when I started personal development, then I would say that I've been motivated to always improve myself. As a child I valued hard work and dedication. My parents also taught me to be myself and follow my passion over everything else. Thanks mom and dad! Albeit I consider myself extremely lucky and raised well, my childhood wasn't a breeze all the time. There were periods where we struggled financially, emotionally and socially. We've gone through hardships, stress and resentment, but we were also bestowed with a lot of happiness and bliss. In school I experienced a semi-downfall. Nothing too serious but I must admit that I fell victim to social conditioning and some bad habits. Luckily, I didn't fall in neck deep and managed to stay aware enough to pull myself out. After graduation I apotheosized in my hero's journey and got on a path of self-empowerment which I've followed ever since. Momentum is definitely on my side and I've never been happier nor more successful. At the moment, everything is moving in the right direction and I'm experiencing growth both physical, mental and spiritual. What's more important for me is the fact that my purposeful pursuit is reflecting onto other people around me as well. I'm working harder and giving more than ever before but at the same time I'm more fulfilled as well. Life is amazing. Personal challenges overcome: Managed to get back on track with my hero's journey, which I accepted as a child, but refused in my teens. Reclaimed my self-confidence and predator instinct, which had been made dormant due to social conditioning. Created an abundant source of passive income around my passion and purpose. Growing. Thanks to homesickness experienced in the military, I set aside some of my egotistic traits and realized how much I love my family. What I'm working on now: My craft, my brand, my purpose http://siimland.com/ Getting my YouTube channel off ground Dating and making more female connections Last year of my BA in anthropology. The theme of my dissetation: Consciousness and Transcendental Meditation Creating more meaningful experiences for my family and friends Practicing public speaking Kaizen self-actualization and empowerment Thanks!

I haven't tried it, but I would think that nootropics work only if your other lifestyle factors are on point. Nutrition, sleep, exercise, etc. I don't know anything about what you eat or anything but I would first focus on the fundamentals before starting to take any such supplements. Just putting it out there for people who expect magic. You have to have an appropriate environment for neurogenesis in your brain before you can improve your cognition. An anti-inflammatory diet rich in antioxidants with enough fat and cholesterol should be the foundation.

What are your opinions on the Singularity theory? In a nutshell, Ray Kurzweil hypothesis that by 2035 man will merge together with its own created technology and create this symbiotic union between the organic and artificial. Do you think this is going to happen? We're already starting to use more and more bionic prosthetics and other gadgets, such as Google glass etc. Secondly, are you pro or against this kind of transhumanism? Me personally, I think its inevitable. We probably won't be able to upload our consciousness into a micro chip and sent it across space in a gamma ray by that time, but I think that self-aware AI will become a part of our lives nonetheless. At what point do you think this shift will occur? At what point can we say that we're no longer Homo Sapiens Sapiens but Post-Human instead? I think we're living at a fascinating time, as we're literally at a transitory point of our own evolution and can deliberately direct it according to our own liking. Let me know what you think.

You can't villanize one food or macronutrient group. In the case of eating rice, Asian people simply have other healthy lifestyle habits. Have you seen the food culture of Japan? Frugality, mindful eating and moderation is a part of their cuisine. People in the west simply lack this awareness and randomly indulge. With that in mind, I would still advise you to shy away from eating copious amounts of rice. Despite the war between diet cults, high carb diets aren't healthy for the average person who doesn't workout like an athlete every day. Also, eating only pure rice without any other food or nutrient is dangerous. It actually flushes you out of nutrients, if consumed alone.

@Raquel Definitely check out intermittent fasting. There are just so many benefits to this, such as increased longevity, improved biomarkers and better mental functioning. @John Flores One thing is yielding to the ups and downs of life and another is simply giving up. Being antifragile isn't an attempt to circumvent pain or avoid it. Pain and discomfort is what an antifragile thing yearns for because it gains from it. By the same token, it's not done for egotistic gratification or to simply get some benefits. It's a much more appalling outlook on life, because you won’t be fearful nor lack enthusiasm or involvement. Instead, you approach each situation as an opportunity to learn and emerge as an advanced YOU+ version of yourself.

Body composition doesn't indicate health by any means. It's what on the inside that matters. I don't think it has a lot to do with a high metabolism. You're probably just staying within a caloric maintenance or deficit, which won't make you gain weight even if you're eating junk. Anyway, eating processed carbs will lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure etc. if consumed in excess. Even if you're being active and fit, you'll still damage your mitochondria and microbiome due to inflammation and free radicals.

The harsh truth. Sugar is the only food cancer cells can use for fuel whereas healthy cells can use fat as well. Insulin is the key hormone when it comes to both body composition, longevity and disease. I don't care what anyone says, the facts simply show that an insanely high carb diet isn't optimal for health. The only macronutrient that's non-essential. It's also baffling how, despite eating copious amounts of glucose, those people don't have any energy whatsoever. They've trapped their ATP production into a perpetual cycle of being dependent of sugar both physiologically as well as psychologically. Probably the biggest downfall to this is how your body actually reacts to digesting sugar. Insulin, dopamine, hypoglycemia, all that several times a day. Sugar lights up the same reward mechanisms in the brain as hard drugs do. In neurological terms, binge eating is the same as drug addiction.

Most likely it still has to do with too much cortisol. At least during the moment of twitching. When are you having it. Around your workouts, while waiting for something?

@Thomas I agree with you about the non-existent advantage of eating in the morning. It's the breakfast myth. Get up, eat a lot of whole grain cereal and fruit to boost your metabolism and prevent your body from kicking into starvation mode. Grrreat advice there I've been eating only one meal a day and have never felt better, had more energy or been stronger. Eating less frequently has more benefits. Probably the greatest one is the increased longevity and life-span. When you deprive any animal periodically from food for a certain period of time it will live longer. So it probably is with us.