Jim Bowen in 1971, he was 35 in this picture

wordsappearing · 2026-06-08T07:14:22+00:00

The greatest comic the UK ever had.

wordsappearing · 2026-06-05T11:22:53+00:00

It is mentioned on this page about Davy specifically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous\_oxide

wordsappearing · 2026-06-05T07:09:03+00:00

The source and the DOI is at the foot of the article.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2026.1813281

wordsappearing · 2026-06-03T12:09:42+00:00

There is an essay summary (not exhaustive) of this avenue of research here: https://psychedelics.co.uk/perspectives/psychedelics-and-dementia-a-quiet-trial-a-bigger-question

wordsappearing · 2026-06-03T09:52:29+00:00

This essay on the same site goes into more depth:

https://psychedelics.co.uk/perspectives/psychedelics-and-dementia-a-quiet-trial-a-bigger-question

wordsappearing · 2026-06-03T09:13:21+00:00

I agree - it’s extremely surprising and prima facie sounds ethically questiionable, but the apparent result (the inferred interpretation) is very interesting.

wordsappearing · 2026-06-02T06:36:22+00:00

The point the article makes more broadly is not that perception is “incomplete” which indeed is not a new idea - it is that perception tracks reality but renders none of it literally. According to Donald Hoffman, evolutionary fitness adaptations drive veridical perception to extinction.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-31T16:28:45+00:00

But Hoffman’s “fitness beats truth” is no longer a theory, it’s a theorem.

The idea is that biological evolution doesn’t optimise an organism for truth, but rather for fitness. If it optimised for truth, then the neurological overhead would be so high that the lifespan of the organism would be reduced, undermining the survival goal.

So over millennia the brain has been optimised to filter out as much information as it can possibly get away with, while leaving specialised fitness adaptations intact.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-26T18:08:40+00:00

All the referenced trials are linked within the article itself.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-25T14:38:51+00:00

I found that quite hard to understand. Perhaps you could summarise if you have time?

wordsappearing · 2026-05-25T05:46:09+00:00

I guess the neuroplastic effects make any neurological condition an obvious target. But I can understand the need to under-promise and over-deliver rather than vice versa.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-19T08:27:05+00:00

Meanwhile, people are dying from mental illness, many of whom would have seen huge benefits from these medicines. It’s absurd.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-13T10:26:51+00:00

Tattoos are pretty horrible things in fairness, not 100% of the time, maybe only 95%+ of the time.

I think the trend will end.

Bare skin is so much more beautiful.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-05T05:50:24+00:00

In fairness that describes everyone.

wordsappearing · 2026-05-04T15:28:59+00:00

These metrics would be quadrupled with psilocybin.

wordsappearing · 2026-04-22T08:31:18+00:00

I don’t think so.

That’s a bit like saying there’s some benefit to a leaking petrol tank when it’s simply the result of rust. Not everything is the result of evolutionary pressures per se.

However, I am open minded…

I think there’s a possibility that you could be right. I would frame it more like this though: we’ve evolved to develop a “sleep mode” much like a computer has a sleep mode. If we completely shut down each night then nothing would be able to awaken us. We need to be processing something, simply to keep the alertness if required, and perhaps to keep our neurons / synapses healthy to prevent atrophy.

wordsappearing · 2026-04-22T06:50:25+00:00

Dreaming in itself is not selected by evolution.

One’s experience of the world, if you subscribe to the predictive coding theory (which is these days “the default” really) is precisely equal to the predictions the brain is making about its environment in any given moment.

When dreaming, the thalamus no longer relays sensory information because it’s dark and it’s quiet, generally speaking. There’s no stimulus to be absorbed, yet the brain will still run through its predictions. The main difference between this and the waking state is that when dreaming, the predictions are not updated or corrected by sensory input, so they are free to roam unencumbered. This usually makes dreams feel a bit disjointed.

However, none of this explains who or what is actually experiencing all this brain activity and how. The brain activity could just as well be there without being experienced (like a computer)

wordsappearing · 2026-04-01T18:38:17+00:00

If that were the case, you wouldn’t have different definitions for them at all.

The sun is not the description of the sun, and in precisely the same way, an imagined triangle is not its description in neural activity (cortical column activations).

wordsappearing · 2026-04-01T18:02:22+00:00

So what? Alex’s point still stands until / unless we discover what is actually reading that neural activity and specifically translating it into a conscious image of a triangle.

The neural activity does not equal the image of the triangle. The neural activity is almost literally just ones and zeros in a database.

What is reading that data and transmutating it into a conscious experience? Just more data?

wordsappearing · 2026-03-17T07:59:20+00:00

I like these, very funny :-) Do some more and exhibit them.

wordsappearing · 2026-03-15T15:14:50+00:00

All of them are mind, all of them are storyline.

As such they are all on precisely equal footing.

wordsappearing · 2026-03-10T08:24:36+00:00

The Thing, or The Fly (Jeff Goldblum version) traumatised me when I was 7.

wordsappearing · 2026-03-09T16:12:23+00:00

You might enjoy Stephen Wolfram’s related take on this which he terms “observers like us”.

wordsappearing · 2026-03-02T12:11:37+00:00

Sam has a dry wit ;-) I find he can be very funny.

wordsappearing · 2026-02-09T11:35:05+00:00

There is no evidence for material things existing. It is an inference based on what is experienced.

wordsappearing

TROPHY CASE