Carl-Richard

I got prescribed some antibiotics just in case, but I haven't started them yet. I don't think I have to as I believe I'm going to bed without NSAIDs tonight.

I've got most of those going for me now as the flu is mostly gone. I stopped doing saunas during the COVID years, but now I'm rediscovering its many benefits

This is an extremely common misunderstanding of pharmacology and addiction, which I've tried to clear this up in this post:

Nobody is conscious. Consciousness is.

Ahhh, now I want to post videos like this:

I went to the gym and used the sauna afterwards, and I managed to pop my left ear, which was a pleasant surprise. Now I can hear much better. I hope I can pop my right ear soon, but it's difficult when one ear is already open. EDIT: Literally just popped my right ear the minute after I wrote this.

Leo doing qualitative research

BP is not a personality disorder.

Loved: My dad giggling and patting or stroking my back with those big, warm hands. My mom hugging me, caring for me, blowing on my wounds. My little brother stalking me. Unloved: My mom or dad shouting at me, being strict. A central trauma (1st world problems) was when I was promised membership on RuneScape for Christmas at 10-11 years old (I got a card with it written down as a present on Christmas eve), but while purchasing it the day after, my dad noticed the game was for ages 12+, so I was betrayed. After that, I never asked for anything material unless it was absolutely essential, and when I finally bought membership on my own at 14, I got a fixation on RS and never played anything else. When playing other games over at my friends while growing up, I was shit, and I could never participate in any game-related discussions. I became a weirdo even among my friends.

What makes you think weed is non-addictive?

Tropical rainforests are especially hard to do agriculture in without some serious deforesting. The lower parts get almost no direct sunlight, and also the soil is very nutrient poor. That is most likely why civilization developed in the grasslands of the Indus Valley.

Teach them agriculture and see how long that lasts

I just noticed that if I'm mouth-breathing while watching something on my computer, I get a slow running sensation in the back of my throat, and I think it's also making my ears better (although I'm not sure). I think mouth-breathing causes better ventilation of the Eustachian tubes, which might facilitate drainage of mucus. Think about how nose-breathing is almost always done with a closed mouth. With mouth-breathing, the nose is always open (unless clogged), which will allow for additional passive air flow.

Good place to put all the music, art and meme mega-threads.

Don't get hung up on the word. It can be perceived as a hangover when you go for months in between, because your receptors are much more sensitive and the effect becomes more drastic. That has been my experience. Prolactin is one reason why you for example feel tired after a meal.

It's probably because you do it often.

Isn't the Default mode network (or medial frontoparietal network) a better correlate?

It's not that. It's like Leech is saying; elevated prolactin levels. One of the functions of dopamine is to inhibit the release of prolactin. More prolactin = less dopamine action.

I'm not saying it's an invalid description. It's the conclusions you draw out from that. For example, I can say I'm dreaming up everything, including my current double ear infection which I'm taking NSAIDs for, but that doesn't really change much so to speak. That is what I mean by how it's closer to a general affirmation of "what is the case" rather than a means to say something about how specific events unfold within the dream. It's a bit like how ontological statements (what reality is) =/= scientific statements (how reality behaves), but it's also on the level of reality as a whole, so it's even less specific. Of course, calling it a dream is more useful than calling it a big banana, but even there, it's a pretty marginal difference.

A trap with the dreaming term (like all terms) is that you can project a mechanistic significance to it, like thinking you can use it to predict some specific outcome about the dream ("you're dreaming, therefore NDEs shouldn't be possible"), while in reality, it's just an affirmation of what is, which is not limited to anything specific. Dreaming is just the case.

When will you get that experience/consciousness is not located anywhere?

@acidgoofy Thanks. I tried some rain sounds last night and it worked. Btw, by Thomas the Tank Engine, I mainly meant the very loud sound of my heartbeat, not the tinnitus, although both are annoying.

I would like to think there has been a very slight improvement from yesterday, as my fever and sinuses have cleared up a bit. I might workout soon if the pain isn't too bad and try the sauna. I tried to go without NSAIDs today, but it was futile after breakfast. The pain isn't sitting as much in the ears as in and around the Eustachian tubes and a bit down my neck. The tinnitus is just a very exaggerated version of white noise, and it's in both of my ears now, as they're equally clogged up. Very annoying (that and the hearing loss). I've had some mild re-occuring earwax issues over the years and had some cleaning done when I was little, but this is definitely all inside the middle ear. If my ear is just clogged from earwax, it doesn't stop me from popping my ears. I've tried popping it so many times now with no success.

Pre-modernity is not separate from modernity. Given enough time, pre-modern tribes innovate new technology (like agriculture) and start growing past their local carrying capacity, culminating in modern society. Modernity is also by definition more complex, because innovation produces new things, and more things interacting means more complexity. Development (societal, biological, psychological) can be defined as the movement from lesser to higher complexity. If you define development as something else, then it starts to be more synonymous with change instead of growth. A better word for a purely cyclical model would be dynamics. A cycle is a dynamic, a movement between dualities, but there is no growth.

Why is a cyclical model better than a spiral one?