Carl-Richard

It's probably mostly because LSD lasts for a crazy amount of time. It literally gets stuck in the receptor in a way you wouldn't expect based on its purely chemical properties. And it gets stuck specifically in the serotonin 2a receptor, which would lead to effects like elevated cortisol for longer than the other effects. I wrote more about this here if you are especially interested:

Yes, again, that's true, but then why shrug it off? Is it not the best alternative we have at present, that we know about? And if it's not a good alternative, why? What makes you inclined to doubt it? The moon is falling to the ground, it's just falling in a trajectory which we call "in orbit". But I don't see how this connects to what we're talking about. If the memories were snuck in by an invisible ghost and the memories are not reflective of reality, how did they manage to verify his memories fifty times?

No you absolute donkey It's just interesting that you would shrug off something when you have no alternative explanation. Yeah, and how likely is that? Just give me one explanation that you think is more likely than him having true memories of the events. This is donkey epistemology, because virtually no claim can be proven. It's not an interesting proposition in virtually all cases. It's about whether something is likely or not. How likely is it that an apparently authentic documentation of a boy who claims to have memories of certain events and that made 50 statements that were verified to be accurate, has actual memories of these events? And how likely are the alternative explanations?

You can't claim that before it has been studied. Flow might be the optimal way to provide stimulus to your muscles, just like it provides optimal athletic performance. Generally, flow produces optimal results in everything, be it physical or mental endeavors. I trained the Mike Isratael way for maybe two years after an injury I got from playing volleyball, which is also when I decided to correct my muscle imbalances. It's helpful for that and for some niche exercises (e.g. light isolation exercises), but for the big compound movements, I think going all out and getting into that flow state will be the best thing you can do for hypertrophy, just like it is for strength gains (but within the 3-20ish rep range and generally full range of motion). I'm back to training that way on at least a few of my big exercises in each of my workout routines (I rotate between 4 different routines). I have become more aware of the risk of injury over time and that there are certain places I'm careful to enter, but even while being careful, there is a stark difference between training while optimizing for flow and training while optimizing for slow and controlled eccentric. And the times I optimize for flow, in my personal experience, I get much more out of the exercise every time (pump, soreness, the feeling of the muscle, etc.). That said, I do incorporate deep stretch and "myoreps" (microreps) at the end of some of my exercises. But the bulk of the exercise I try to do at high intensity (within the conditions of flow), because again, theoretically, flow is about optimal performance, and performance in bodybuilding is performance after all (but again, this should be studied empirically and put one-to-one with slow and controlled eccentric). Surely, you do know I said "weaker", not "weak"? Mike Isratael and Jeff Nippard are both weaker than Eric Bugenhagen. That is of course what most people like to talk about with working out, but it should actually not be assumed that this is the number one goal for everyone who lifts (to build muscle). Why should it? For me, it was when I started, and it still is one of my goals, but honestly, my number one goal now is how it makes me feel on a bodily and mental level and also the cognitive benefits. And there, aiming for flow and intensity is without a doubt way above aiming for slow and controlled eccentric. Just like Mike Isratael writes off the injury risk of doing things like deep-stretch dips or curved-back deadlifts, I think the injury risk for lifting the "meathead way"/Bugenhagen way, or my way ("carefully with flow in mind"), excluding obvious recklessness, is overblown. You are much more likely to get injured playing sports, like, heh, volleyball, but there too, it depends on things like being familiar with the activity and the intensity levels (which I was not). It is a valid fear to have when starting out and when not being familiar with certain exercises that you can hurt yourself, but once you build yourself up gradually, carefully, and you get very familiar with the movement and the weight, it takes quite a lot to suddenly hurt yourself, even when lifting at higher intensities. Even strongman, probably the most unhinged strength sport, has fewer injuries than soccer and baseball; basketball has more than twice as many. The level of control you have in a gym with carefully measured weights and strictly defined movements that are repeated identically every single rep is in a different league than contact/limited-contact sports. When you see those videos of people getting hurt lifting, it's very often because they are doing something they are not familiar with. If you have never lifted deadlifts before and suddenly rip 225 lbs with no warm-up, you will definitely pull your back (a friend of mine did that). But if you lift deadlifts in a high rep range the same way every week and gradually increase the weight by 0.5% every week until you can only do one rep, given the same form (no breakdown of form at the end of a set), the risk for injury is low. It's quite funny, because the Bugenhagen way is actually the way most people train, even bodybuilders. It's a whole shtick with Mike Isratael and Jeff Nippard that they sometimes try to "coach" established bodybuilders and lifters with their "science-based lifting" approach. It's such a counterintuitive way to train, and maybe for a good reason. Slow controlled eccentric, deep stretch, pause at the bottom, take your time with each rep, is such a testosterone-draining way to train, you might as well get out the pegging equipment and get some reps in that way.

Are you shaming my OCD? Yes, you can answer now.

LSD has direct dopamine agonist activity, which makes it stimulating and wakefulness-promoting. Serotonin 2a activity is coupled to cortisol activity, one of the hormones that spike in the morning, and is one of the main targets for classical psychedelics like LSD and shrooms. Serotonin in general is the "wakefulness" chemical. So yes, it's not surprising that they are more like stimulants than anything else.

Meh. Bryan Johnson tries to beat death himself, and he doesn't tell you to sleep less and ruin your health

But Eternity is where Enlightenment is 😊

We all fear eternity, we just forget, like our past lives.

Sure. But it would make sense that you would tend to reincarnate as something similar or in a similar place from lifetime to lifetime. Maybe we have all reincarnated as plants at some point, but now we are testing the human experience. This is especially likely if you consider that there are people who report "choosing" their incarnation because it felt like the right one (and also others being quite deliberate about which womb they wanted to be born in). And their choice would be based on their previous lessons and experiences. But just purely naturalistically as well, irrespective of individual desires, if reincarnation does follow some pattern and is not purely random (which if you believe randomness is just an epistemic concept like me, nothing is), you could expect a similar trend (nature/reality has a habit of building on existing themes: e.g. phylogenetic evolution, ontogenetic development, fractals). I'm actually fascinated by the life cycles of leaves on trees. Right now, in the end of April in my country, the leaves on some of the trees make me think of (and bare with me for being creepy) fourteen year olds, i.e. silky smooth skin, like that of a young child, sort of small but definitely growing, and barely showing signs of maturity. I think you could map the life cycles of leaves onto the life cycle of humans and you could find interesting overlaps.

Hehe naww But I was talking as God of course He is a bit more controversial (or is he? )

You will never die, you are stuck with me here forever 👹

You didn't answer the question and now you seem to be talking about something else. At no point did I talk about "absolutely proving" anything. I asked you for an alternative explanation for what the boy said.

How would you explain some of the stories they tell in that discussion if not for past life memories being real? For example, the kid who was a background actor in Hollywood in a past life who was able to point his past self out on a picture, knew his last name and which state he lived in, the age he died, etc.?

Going to sleep and waking up is not longer than a holiday 😂 The analogy isn't better, it only highlights a different aspect. Very interesting discussion from scientists who have studied things like children making past life claims.

It's emotional intelligence in the sense that your impulsive emotional responses get challenged by a higher knowing. The examples I gave were largely social, but you can apply it to non-social things as well. You can for example expect that things will get broken or things deterioate or things don't go exactly your way. Reality is constantly changing and is not all catered to your highest concerns. If you expect reality to be a completely pampered and safe, like a children's playground, and if you think you yourself is pampered and safe and that anything that challenges this notion you don't entertain as real, you will get triggered very easily. Do you think you are not tapped into any of the social matrixes? Do you think you are not "easy to read"? I think all of our behavior is very much predictable. Even the type of topics we like to talk about. We almost always talk about or hear about things we already know, but we talk largely as if somebody is hearing it for the first time and weirdly that we're saying it for the first time. Then, the true "point" about the conversation becomes not about sharing new things or learning new things, but reminding ourselves about what we find important (which is of course, important, as our existence depends on honing our attention). And to prove my point: I know about "the social matrix", I know that social intelligence and emotional intelligence overlap, I know some people are more socially embedded than others. But thanks for reminding me 😆

Nop.

Discipline becomes pleasure if you pursue meaning.

There is structure and hierarchy as far as we can construct them and act them out. The tendency is that you largely become what you believe. If you believe the world and your potential within it is flat and devoid of any serious topology, you will likely remain that way and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The value in thinking hierarchically is not as much about capturing what is as what you allow yourself to become (not just in a personal development sense, but epistemically, the very way you apprehend reality). Nevertheless, the attitude "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, don't be afraid to dream" vs "be realistic, cut the crap" produces very different outcomes. It just applies epistemically as well. You in a big way create the world you live in.

Humans are the imitating animal. We imitate what we find valueable and interesting. And we are so good at it we often fool ourselves.

Happy birthday 🥳

There is having the experiences on psychedelics, then there is having them during meditation or other intentional practice, and then there is having them unintentionally. Once you start having them unintentionally, it starts to become real clear what it's all about.

I think Clown Core’s Van might just be the most tragically misunderstood masterpiece of contemporary music—perhaps even misunderstood by the artists themselves, who, trapped within the confines of their literal van, inadvertently created a magnum opus of existential absurdity. The dominant narrative simplistically frames them as jokesters, ironic noise-makers, sonic clowns honking their horns in mockery of musical conventions. They’re seen as chaotic jesters, stitching together fragments of madness, toilet humor, and jazz fusion into a wild pastiche of sonic nihilism. But when I hear Van, I detect something infinitely more profound: an earnest mourning of authenticity's absurd impossibility in the late capitalist hellscape. There’s an undeniable metaphysical poignancy to their treatment of sound—the frenetic honking, disjointed saxophones, guttural screams, and toilet flush percussion—all meticulously composed yet relentlessly distorted. This is not mere clowning around; it’s a Beckettian cry into the void, an attempt to reclaim immediacy through its deliberate annihilation. Every honk, every distorted shriek, every out-of-tune synth is not stylistic randomness but a profound philosophical statement: authenticity reduced to absurdity precisely because sincerity is impossible. In this sense, Clown Core’s work on Van becomes the ultimate hauntological artifact—a Derridean exploration into a future we neither want nor deserve, and a past we’d prefer to deny ever existed. Each song is not an expression of genuine emotion but the eerie echo of sincerity drowned in an ocean of absurdity. They offer not real feeling, but the clownish ghost of emotion: a spectral laughter reverberating endlessly inside a cramped, windowless van hurtling toward nowhere. It is no coincidence that Van emerged amidst global despair, absurdist memes, and the cultural exhaustion of late-stage capitalism. Its relentless rhythm, punctuated by toilet breaks and horn blasts, speaks less to comedic relief and more to an attempt at conjuring meaning where meaning has long since evaporated. It is music made at the end of history, honking at the void, fully aware the void won’t honk back. Ironically, perhaps the artists themselves fail to grasp this profundity. Their insistence on remaining physically confined within the vehicle is an overly literal attempt at authenticity, ironically undermining the absurd metaphysical poignancy of their project. By becoming literal clowns in a literal van, they risk converting their spectral brilliance into kitsch. It’s as if Kafka’s Gregor Samsa actually wanted to become a giant insect—thus losing his metaphorical resonance entirely. This is the Žižekian paradox in full bloom: the authenticity they grasp at dissolves precisely because it was only ever meaningful as a ghostly potential, never as an actuality. Clown Core, in trying to embody absurdity, inadvertently risk trivializing the beautiful tragedy of absurdity itself. Ultimately, Van is not about comedy. Nor is it about irony. It is about the tragic, beautiful impossibility of sincerity in an absurd world. It is not music of laughter. It is the echoing silence between laughs. It is not about absurdity. It is about the crushing seriousness of absurdity’s impossibility. @Nilsi I'm so sorry 🤣 Written by ChatGPT 4.5 (I didn't even read it yet because I can't stop laughing 😂)

If you feel like you are a person making choices, moving this body, saying these words, writing these sentences, that you have a past or future, that you are not literally as much the chair you are looking at as the thing supposedly centered in this body, if you have not been trembling in the face of your own death and broken through to the other side, if you have not been crying in bliss and amazement at the fact that you are this thing that has existed forever and will never stop existing, chances are you are not there.

That's the problem: they don't. When you overly control everything, you make yourself weaker. You reduce the energy output during the exercise (this is a tautology: control is about holding yourself back. We can also go into the neuroscientific details of inhibitory signalling, etc.). You get less neurotransmitter recruitment, less hormonal recruitment, you feel like a sissy. Try horsing tremendous weight and compare how you feel then vs anally controlling some pencilneck weight. The results might be closely the same if you only care about hyperthrophy (which is also highly questionable, and in fact, I don't believe it, for the same reason I stated above). But if you care about how lifting makes you feel, not just during the session but days after (and the direct "side effects" like increased cognitive functioning), you should go for intensity as the number one goal. That is why I like sprints, because there is nothing else that makes me feel the same way. It's like cranking my veins full with nitroglycerin, like the real Limitless pill. Looking at the studies he and his buddy Jeff Nippard have been cooking up lately, the field of lifting-based exercise science for hyperthrophy is in its infancy. I would love for them to do a study comparing experienced lifters who train while maximizing for flow and intensity vs slow eccentric. And I'm not talking about just cranking weights like some lunatic who doesn't know what he is doing. I'm talking about intentionally and specifically trying to cultivate the state of flow, the state that is as far as I know the best predictor of performance in professional athletes.