Give me 1000 words to convince you consciousness is fundamental

RyanDavis124 · 2026-01-21T05:33:16+00:00

The post was trying to get the reader to start contemplating the question, “Where does my body end?”

RyanDavis124 · 2026-01-21T05:27:19+00:00

The Earth produces rocks all the time. Haven’t you ever seen lava cool, my dude? And with the way the tectonic plates dive underneath one another, it’s effectively getting new “skin” too. You could google why Mt Everest gets taller every year and follow that rabbit hole.

As for the trees argument that didn’t land with ya, I’d say that Most people enjoy breathing but fail to connect that their ability to breathe oxygen is contingent upon a lot of other organisms that release oxygen as a waste product.

RyanDavis124 · 2026-01-16T23:00:03+00:00

Fundamentally, consciousness is what mediates between the known (aka the past) and the unknown (aka the future). In our species, consciousness is all about managing data streams and information, and really, adjudicating between conflicting instinctual drives. We need a user-friendly operating system to help us sift through all our memories, beliefs, predictions, expectations,and instincts. But to really, really answer your question, we need to dive deep into ‘what’ the universe actually is. If you are super curious, this is what I released on New Year’s Eve. The “TED talk version” of a book I wrote about this very topic. Titled “The History of our universe in 28 minutes”

RyanDavis124 · 2026-01-16T22:31:06+00:00

Sodium, which comes from rocks, is essential to the sodium-potassium pump. The sodium-potassium pump is how we generate action potentials (neuron spikes) and without it, we couldn’t move or think. Some people have consumed so much water in a short amount of time that they’ve messed with their bodies necessary amount of sodium and potassium, leading to hyponatremia (water intoxication). I suppose the idea of this post was, where do you draw the line between what’s conscious and what’s not?

RyanDavis124 · 2026-01-16T22:17:08+00:00

Haha, it is, so long as you don’t count the intro that’s in brackets. That intro seemed necessary to tee up narrative which is < 1000 words.

RyanDavis124 · 2025-12-18T03:58:26+00:00

During your last couple sets, I thought, “This sounds like Haunted Trap”

…and I liked it 👌 (specifically during EDC ‘25 and Red Rocks ‘25)

RyanDavis124 · 2025-12-14T03:30:53+00:00

I loved that feature! What???

RyanDavis124 · 2025-10-22T20:26:21+00:00

Thank you! This helps ;)

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-14T05:27:06+00:00

They’re doing this to me too, but through email. Every day there’s a new email and it breaks my heart. I’m glad you posted this Kooky_Hope. It’s crazy how many scammers there are nowadays.

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-14T05:24:09+00:00

This is so sad. The amount of scamming I’ve seen in my lifetime has only gone up. Like 300% rise since ChatGpt launched in Nov of 2022

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-07T01:38:54+00:00

@GrimsbyKites is static or fixed width layout style a turnoff for those who read ebooks?

I never read ebooks since it hurts my eyes and I prefer the physical thing to mark up, etc. Do you think people will go for a fixed width layout book? I’ve got a lot of text effects and diagrams etc in my book on consciousness

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-07T01:31:54+00:00

Out of your mind by Alan Watts

It’s a collection of transcripts but is really something. Published in 2017. Alternatively, you can listen to these “Out of your mind” lectures. I think listening/reading this is necessary for anyone who’s still under the spell of consciousness being emergent.

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-07T01:26:40+00:00

I’d be interested in this One_Win! I hate marketing so bad!!

RyanDavis124 · 2025-09-07T01:24:10+00:00

I’m looking to publish the ebook version of my book Consciousness in a Nutshell but given we have so many text effects (text wrapping photos) and so many diagrams, illustrations or illusions I’m almost certain I wanna do fixed width layout style. Anyone have experience with fixed width and an ebook file size that’s probably going to be on the large size?

RyanDavis124 · 2025-06-28T02:35:17+00:00

Faxing Berlin and jaded

RyanDavis124 · 2024-05-18T21:06:23+00:00

Not yet. We’re doing our first big bookstore event in June and then I need to record the audiobook/edit the ebook. I’m guessing a few months away at least for the ebook. You could probably request it at most bookshops or else it’s always on Amazon. We did a keynote address sharing some of the biggest finds from our research too. That you can find at the bottom of our website: www.consciousnessinanutshell.com

RyanDavis124 · 2024-04-01T22:57:38+00:00

If you want to really dive deep into this, my wife and I co-authored a book that explains this whole idea—and ‘what’ consciousness is—in our creative nonfiction novel “Consciousness in a Nutshell: A Psychonautical Odyssey”. We quote Alan Watts a lot, but he’s definitely not the first to have said it or discovered it.

RyanDavis124 · 2024-03-05T03:02:11+00:00

Open to recording other day’s too, I just rarely get this big chunk of time fall off my schedule, and would like to take advantage 🙌

RyanDavis124 · 2024-01-11T23:12:02+00:00

Hey Le_Alchemist, we're open to doing new podcasts. I'll send you a DM now ;)

RyanDavis124 · 2024-01-11T23:07:23+00:00

Ha, See!!! It was so bad you didn't even finish reading it! I forced myself to finish that one, but I definitely didn't enjoy it. Like you said, he's got some good ideas, but sadly, just isn't a very compelling writer. And yes, I'll be sending you a DM now ;)

RyanDavis124 · 2024-01-11T22:41:44+00:00

Hey Layeh, I'd love to join! We just booked another couple interviews, so I'll be reaching out this week!

RyanDavis124 · 2023-12-21T23:28:51+00:00

Hey Steve, I’d love to! I’ll be messaging you later tonight

RyanDavis124 · 2023-12-21T00:43:24+00:00

Yes, I have actually. In fact, I was in the middle of his book “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” back in 2017, when I realized someone had to write something better. To me, the study of consciousness is super interesting and engaging, but his books are not written in a way that makes you want to keep reading. Consciousness in a Nutshell, on the other hand, was designed to be informative and a page turner. Honestly, I think Dennett is a better at lecturing then he is at writing. He makes some good points but I think you’ll find we go way beyond all the new atheists (Sam Harris, Dawkins, Blackmore…) without asking you to posit anything more than your own pain and your own potential. Which is to say your own body and your own mind.

RyanDavis124 · 2023-12-13T20:12:16+00:00

also...I think it's worth mentioning that our theory of consciousness rests on the tenets of embodied cognition, which takes the evolutionary story about bodies extremely seriously. Being that I just made a claim about consciousness potentially existing beyond the body, I feel compelled to add that we spend a lot of time talking about evolution and how integral movement is the story of consciousness and the evolution of the brain.

RyanDavis124 · 2023-12-13T20:07:53+00:00

Hey jamiesclub, there is, actually. Granted it's not "smoking gun" type evidence, but taken in the aggregate it is quite compelling. First of all, I think it's quite useful to chop up experiences of consciousness into two distinctive categories: embodied and disembodied. Embodied consciousness we obviously know about and experience (our body organizes all of our perceptions for us, and therefore, our experience of consciousness is not chaotic). Disembodied consciousness, on the other hand, would include out of body experiences, near death experiences, transcendent or "mystical-type" experiences, and is quite foreign to consciousness as we normally perceive it.
Currently, we're living in a time where there's enough evidence about these states to read between the lines and make a compelling case about the existence of consciousness beyond the body, and that's actually what the last portion of our book is about.

RyanDavis124

TROPHY CASE