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eigenschwarzon Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness

In a medical setting, where I am more familiar with it, tetany is never good. Personally it is also wildly uncomfortable. Perhaps it's fine and somehow pushing through it is part of the "experience", but if I want an altered consciousness I'll stick to a psilocybin-based retreat every 5-10 years and my meditation practice in between :D.

eigenschwarzon Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness

Being a non-expert I can't attempt to speculate on your questions in good faith! All I was suggesting to the parent is that perhaps these articles offer as evidence of damage being done without pushing to the point of unconsciousness? Feedback is definitely welcome by an expert.

eigenschwarzon Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness

Does this help? I am a physicist with interest in these subjects and have always been wary of breathwork because of tetany and the following studies. What do experts closer to this field make of these?

[1] "Brain Damage in Commercial Breath-Hold Divers" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

[2] "Do elite breath-hold divers suffer from mild short-term memory impairments?" https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2017-0245

Ref. [2] is especially concerning to me in pushing in any sort of static apnea training or breathwork: "The time to complete the interference card test was positively correlated with maximal static apnea duration (r = 0.73, p < 0.05) and the number of years of breath-hold diving training (r = 0.79, p < 0.001)."

eigenschwarzon Researchers to retract landmark Alzheimer's paper containing doctored images

Talk about a sweeping conclusion based on n=1! Very unscientific ;)

eigenschwarzon Breathwork supports emergence of altered states of consciousness

In response to this there is vasoconstriction of the cerebral vasculature. No one knows if mild damage is being done to the brain from this.

Somewhat related (not exact same mechanism, but similar), there is evidence elite free-divers are harming their brains [1]. It is easy enough to find literature about the appearance of SB100 protein with too long apnea training (eg. [2]).

However, breath-holding/apnea is not the same as breathwork. The fact of the matter is, there will be no definitive proof one way or the other until someone directly probes cerebral O2 levels for an acute and chronic intervention of breathwork. Again, as someone who has indeed done psychedelics and meditates, I am open to alternative modalities, but I will personally wait for the science over anecdotes.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29053942 [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19574501/

eigenschwarzon Breathwork supports emergence of altered states of consciousness

This sounds great but I just can't get by the oxygen deprivation and potential harm to your brain. Not to mention the hypercapnia induced tetany is very uncomfortable and seems a clear signal from the body that "this isn't good!".

[As part of a psychedelic retreat we did breathwork the day before the trip to "open the mind". I faked it because I was worried about the above unanswered questions I had. I still had a great trip and feel no need for another one or similar (ie. via breathwork) to this day. :) ]

eigenschwarzon Discovering faster matrix multiplication algorithms with reinforcement learning

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/provably

Edit: Sorry, missed your point on first reading, which perhaps reinforces your point. I read papers like this for a living so the language is unambiguous but I see how it might not be for others, even if English is their first language.

eigenschwarzon We Burned Down Players’ Houses in Ultima Online

Darknet Diaries does a two part episode that covers, among others exploits, this infamous (and famously entertaining) UO zero-day exploit:

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/7/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/8/

eigenschwarzon An Emoji from 1803

Love Isaac Newton's use of the manicule: https://log.nikhil.io/posts/78a93e2073695830831f94eb80032ace...

eigenschwarzon What I Learned About Productivity by Writing About Productivity

IME the single greatest yes simplest productivity tip that can be applied in almost any situation or context:

"If it's not a definite yes, then it's a no."

Everything else I've found is noise.

eigenschwarzon Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States (2016)

The year 2016 should be added to the title.

eigenschwarzon How to Rewrite the Laws of Physics in the Language of Impossibility

Interesting that in her notebook is the poem "In my Craft or Sullen Art" by Dylan Thomas.

eigenschwarzon Setting up Starlink

I never claimed I was in a "rural" area, just a "wooded" one. Indeed, Starlink will be a great option for many places. I personally hope they improve the coverage with more satellites so I can continue using it.

eigenschwarzon Setting up Starlink

I have Starlink and am in a wooded part of New England. I mostly agree with freedomben's points. All I will add is I still use my cell phone hotspot (Verizon -- only carrier that gets a modicum of service where I am) for Zoom calls or similar. Starlink is definitely fast but too many hiccups for video calls.

Edit: More musings. There is a push to get broadband in our area within the year. If that happens and Starlink's service remains the same, I will cancel Starlink. For me continuous connectivity is much^3 more important than speed.

eigenschwarzon Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Walk

In medical school my wife had a classmate who was actually a year ahead but was re-taking anatomy because he slipped on some ice, hit his head, and was going blind. He wanted to relearn anatomy by feel in anticipation of total vision loss.

I have a friend who slipped on some ice and broke his femur! This was 5 years ago, he was an avid cyclist but he still has issues today that affect how much he can ride.

Unexpectedly slipping on ice is no joke! That being said, if I can't xc ski I go for long runs all the time with microspikes and trekking poles. So the gear to be safe (with common sense and knowing ones limits) does exist.

eigenschwarzon Harvard astronomer argues that alien vessel paid us a visit

Can you prove I'm not God?

eigenschwarzon Neil Armstrong's bootprint on the moon is now protected by U.S. law

I am SHOCKED at the ignorance of some comments here on how the timing and passing of legislation works in Congress. This was enacted on Dec. 31, 2020 but passed earlier, being introduced with bipartisan support the spring/summer (for house and senate, respectively) of 2019! Does anyone read before commenting? Talk about assumptions. Perhaps this is why the ills some are complaining about seem ubiquitous in their worldview.

eigenschwarzon 'Exercised' Explains Why It Can Be Hard to Commit to Working Out

That running, per se, ruins your knees as been debunked. Just search "running knees arthritis" and you'll find numerous recent (>2015) papers showing that running can be in fact protective. It's amazing how the body seems to follow a "use it or lose it" philosophy in almost everything.

eigenschwarzon The world should think better about catastrophic and existential risks

Again, huh? There is simply no relevance of the rant to the article; it has nothing to do with politics or "tactical nihilism." It appears several other posters also fail to find the relevance.

Less certainty, more inquiry.

eigenschwarzon The world should think better about catastrophic and existential risks

Huh? Please tell me which one of these "~500 businesses and media corps" is at work here and what exactly they are saying "we need to start..." doing that is, in actuality, screwing us. Else your diatribe has zero relevance.

eigenschwarzon How the Nike Vaporfly War Was Lost

If there were no shoes (and hence no shoe sponsor money) of any sort, who would pay for the sport? I say this as a former pro cyclist who whole-heartedly agrees with you in principle. However, there is already hardly any money in pro running how it is. Whether that is a good or bad thing for society is another issue.

eigenschwarzon Cats Cannot Taste Sweets (2007)

Perhaps because mustelids have an extraordinarily high metabolism for their size? https://nyti.ms/1Ur6S6C

eigenschwarzon Telling Whiskey from Whisky

If you find this article interesting you might find this interesting as well!

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/07/these-pi...

[Using colored lights and editing a photographer turned whisky sediments into galactic looking works of art.]

eigenschwarzon On Mathematical Beauty in Physics

Your 'theory' is just the survivorship bias.

eigenschwarzon Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning

It's definitely an interesting an idea that has been considered before. Hopefully the Wikipedia page on cyclic models can be a starting point of interest to you! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model

eigenschwarzon Travel through wormholes is possible, but slow

I definitely get your point. One difference between theoretical physics and just math is we have since we use math as just a tool to describe the world, we still have to input physical assumptions to make any sense of what we see. There are many instances of things being mathematically "OK" but we don't think physically exist. See "White Hole" for instance.

I will try to give a better explanation later today! Funny enough, I am off for the section for the QFT2 that Daniel teaches right now, hah. I can also ask him personally questions later in the week.

eigenschwarzon Travel through wormholes is possible, but slow

The Average Null Energy Condition (ANEC) makes it so there can not be a traversable wormhole joining two otherwise disconnected regions of spacetime. So by construction, any infinite null geodesic (a light ray) which makes it through the wormhole must be chronal (causally connected). This means there can be no traveling faster than light over long distances by going through one.

eigenschwarzon The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting

It seems more and more that having kids perpetuates the original Ponzi scheme of life between the young and the old. One that exists via billions of years of evolution producing powerful psychological selective pressures to reproduce.

eigenschwarzon The Remarkable Brain Waves of High Level Meditators [video]

I feel this describes my experience to a 'T' and wholeheartedly agree to the advice here.

Edit: All I am trying to do, from being a fellow complete newbie, is to add support from N=1 to N=2 of the path from Headspace-->Other videos and literature-->10-day retreat-->Local group. Hopefully this can help others who are intimidated about trying to pick up a mediation practice. :)

eigenschwarzon The Human Brain Is a Time Traveler

As with anything, too much of a good thing can be detrimental: hyperactivity of the DMN has been linked with things like schizophrenia, anxiety, and ADHD. (Indeed, some point to the hypothesis that the DMN was not evolved for today's distraction filled world.) It's interesting that things like meditation (and apparently psychedelics) can quiet the DMN and bring clarity and happiness in people by doing so.