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Public Commitment 2020 – Update 4

This year my theme was Upgrade. The goal is to use the things I already know and apply/improve/renew them to build more new things.

As I look back on 2020 I see that in some ways I’ve held true to this theme. I’ve been able to use knowledge I had before and build on that. For instance, I’ve been very consistent in weightlifting, knowing a thing or two about programming. And even using this to be flexible when the gyms are (still) closed.

I think that in other regards I haven’t been focussed enough on my goals/theme. I’ve been doing a lot of things for Blossom (my new company, goal 5) and that has been very rewarding. Yet at the same time, I’ve neglected other things like writing essays or make time to write summaries of books (through which I believe I will be better able to remember them).

I have started working more on knowledge systems like spaced repetition (using Anki – a flashcard app). In the coming year I plan to build this out further. But before we go to 2021, here is my reflection on the goals of 2020.

Goal 1: Write Nova (and possibly other short stories)

As mentioned in the last update, not something that has a priority for me now. I have updated my daily check-in to ask not if I’ve written for 30 minutes, but if I’ve written something original. So diverting it from the original goal of writing fiction to also include anything written here or for Blossom or Queal.

Goal 2: Improve this website

This worked well and I’m happy with how the website looks. I do have plans for some more things (like dark mode and some adjustments to the homepage). Not very high on the priority list, but definitely something to do.

Goal 3: Do something crazy for love

Alas, all my plans were thwarted by the ongoing pandemic. Or I just wasn’t serious enough about completing this goal with the current circumstances.

Goal 4: Write essays about 6 topics

The post about Effective Altruism took a long time, but I’m happy with the result. I do plan on writing more (smaller) posts for the next year.

In the end I’ve written/worked on 4 posts/topics.

Goal 5: Start a new and successful venture

Still going very well in terms of developing my understanding of psychedelics and mapping the territory.

Not going that well in terms of monetization. I also haven’t put in much work to get that going to be honest. But it is something to work on in the coming year. This could either be the coaching I’m planning to do (post-covid?) and the online resources that should be able to make some money.

Public Commitment 2021

This years theme is Serial Tasking.

In 2021 I aim to be better at doing one task at a time. Writing this post, not browsing online to distract myself. Reading a book, not checking my phone every few pages.

Another way of expressing this theme is being indistractable.

If I do want to take a break from one activity, or switch to another task, I should be cognisant of doing that.

I have the following implementation intentions planned to make this theme work:

  • Phone away, especially when reading (or when sleeping)
  • Toggl (time tracking) open on iPad to be more aware of the current task and to make conscious switching even more frictionless
  • Become better at doing nothing when taking a break vs finding something (useless things like YouTube) as a distraction
    • Picking up meditation again to become better at this
    • And when I learn to work better with Affinity Designer (Photoshop-like) I can also see myself doodling more (or just on paper)
  • Manage my environment better by being more proactive in when I can or can’t be bothered (read: WFH life)
  • Do different activities in different places (e.g. reading in chair, break on couch)

One thing I want to achieve with this theme is to continue to learn about and understand the world. The topics below are, somewhat in order, the things want to learn and write about here on this website.

Topics

  1. Animal Welfare & Ethics of Eating Meat
    • What is your personal impact?
    • What is the impact on people (who work in the industry, health, pandemics)?
    • Arguments for/against consciousness (level) of animals
  2. Eat for Health & Energy
    • Revisit essay and update habits
  3. Flexible Weightlifter
    • Revisit essay if necessary, already have a plan for this year
  4. Reason and Science
    • Write a page that details my philosophy/summarizes how I see the world
    • Probably will feature many mini posts that could themselves turn into longer posts
  5. Effective Altruist
    • Update my essay/write a new one about how to effectively spread the ideas of EA
    • Or how to do this in the best way for myself (i.e. is that speaking more about it, writing more online (in Dutch), showing my donations, how to measure this all)
  6. Dog Whisperer
    • Teach Max not to bark at the doorbell (be less on guard) and not to eat stuff in the street – I have a plan for both, probably won’t be an essay
  7. Financial Independence
    • Revisit essay, possibly focus more on the time x money aspect
  8. Writing
    • Possibly continue to write fiction again
  9. Stoicism (Philosophy of Life)
    • Explore this in more depth, bring together ideas from several books
  10. Longevity
    • Explore where the research stands this year and what looks promising
  11. Meditation
    • Write down my experiences later in the year
  12. Religion
    • I’ve read quite a bit about religion, but still have to read the primary sources and more direct commentary on this, and then write something from my own perspective
  13. Entrepreneurship/Marketing
    • Learn to better market my own work and make money with it

Next to these ideas for essays/topics, I have some goals I want to achieve in 2021.

Goals

Goal 1: Write something every day

Write a book review, essay, notes from things I’ve learned, and more, every day. The difficulty will be in writing something on the weekend. One step I could take is to plan to write a book review (easy to do) or notes on things I’ve learned (vs writing a large essay or the like).

Goal 2: Promote my work

This applies to both Blossom and Queal. Becoming better at marketing what I’ve made and showing what the value is in it. This also implies that I should spend less time on making the actual work (i.e. getting help with that) and more on the marketing of it. I have the resources (websites/ebooks/books), implementation is key here.

Goal 3: Meditate daily

Using Waking Up for this. It also has great lessons that I might listen to after a meditation session.

Goal 5: Learn 3 songs on the harmonica

I’ve been gifted a harmonica for Christmas (per request) and I would like to play music again. The goal for three songs is arbitrary but I think better than ‘learn to play’ in general.

Goal 6: Add 2 features to this website

The first would be the dark mode, the second I don’t know at this moment.

Goal 7: Improve my learning process

This one is still a bit vague but includes more spaced repetition (Anki), atomic notes (Obsidian), discussions with other smart people.

Goal 8: Move more money towards effective charities

Again a bit vaguer. A possible number could be €100.000 if GeefBeter.nl takes off (a website/tool to help others start birthday fundraisers). I think I should be able to donate €10.000 next year so that would already be great by itself.

Goal 9 (new): Achieve the elusive six-pack

I’ve wanted to do this for years. This year is the year.

And, some more concrete goals for Blossom and Queal

Queal

  1. Increase revenue by 20%

Blossom

  1. Launch/run Blossom Analysis
    1. Weekly updates
    2. Database
    3. Essays (psychedelics and …)
  2. Launch/run Blossom Guides (rename?)
    1. 2 to 3 sessions per week by mid 2021
    2. Possibly together with other coaches
  3. Launch/run smaller projects
    1. PsychedelicsBooks
    2. PsychedelicsCourses
    3. PsychedelicsDirectory
    4. PsychedelicsProtocol
  4. Launch/Kickstart PsychedeliCards
    1. First half of 2021

Finally, some goals that are more for fun/relaxation/habit

  1. Do sports 5 out of every 7 days
    • Same for mobility training
  2. Achieve <12% bodyfat
  3. Play videogames for more than 100 hours (estimate 2020: <10 hours)
  4. Drink fewer alcoholic drinks than last year (estimate/log 2020: sum 559, average 1.5, median 0 (more days no drinks), max 15, 10+ 5 times, ~56.000kcal ~18 days of energy)
  5. Learn to ride a motorcycle

The Half-Life of Facts

The Half-Life of Facts by Samual Arbesman presents an interesting framework for thinking about the updating of our knowledge. He argues there is structure in the time it takes for facts to become outdated. Just like the half-life of uranium, facts become superseded by other facts at a predictable rate.

Read: 1x | First: December 2020

This book got recommended on the Clearer Thinking podcast with Spencer Greenberg. It got introduced as interesting, though not always as sound as presented (i.e. there is more nuance than fitted on the pages).

I enjoyed the book, it helped me think more clearly, and it’s a quick read for those interested in how knowledge develops.

I wrote at the start of the book: “We know 1% of infinity, and that 1% is always getting bigger.

Chapter 1 – The Half-life of Facts

“Facts, in the aggregate, have half-lives: we can measure the amount of time for half of a subject’s knowledge to be overturned.”

Arbesman is using facts in a common-sense way in the book. Things we know to be true (at this moment), as close to ‘ground’ truth as we can currently get.

Mesofacts are facts that change at middle timescale (a few years). Examples are number of chemicals, height of Mount Everest (see chapter 8), height of tallest skyscraper.

Chapter 2 – The Pace of Discovery

We can now measure the speed of discoveries (scientometrics) and in many cases the number of papers published in a field doubles every X years, which showcases exponential (vs linear) growth.

Although, possibly, discoveries are getting harder to make, there are so many more scientists, the speed of discovery is still accelerating.

Chapter 3 – The Asymptote of Truth

Knowledge in a field can also decay exponentially, shrinking by a constant fraction.”

This (and much of this chapter) is based on citations of scientific papers and the decline in that of older papers.

It’s not that when a new theory is brought forth, or an older fact is contradicted, what was previously known is simply a waste, and we must start from scratch. Rather, the accumulation of knowledge can then lead us to a fuller and more accurate picture of the world around us.”

We are currently in the ‘long-tail of discovery’, and by that the author means we may not get block-buster discoveries, but we are ever refining and better understanding and improving them.

Chapter 4 – Moore’s Law of Everything

Processing power grows every year at a constant rate rather than by a constant amount.”

The amount of information we can send to others has grown exponentially, how awesome is that.

This chapter also introduces the idea of several S-curves making up an exponential curve.

Technology, in its broadest sense, is the process by which we modify nature to meet our needs and wants.” and “Science is about understanding the origins, nature, and behavior of the universe and all it contains; engineering is about solving problems by rearranging the stuff of the world to make new things.”

About life expectancy, this chapter mentions Aubrey de Grey from Ending Aging.

Knowledge grows through cumulating, “as there is more technological or scientific knowledge on which to grow, new technologies increase the speed at which they grow.”

This process closely matches population growth. An interesting idea is how this will develop, as population growth slows/stops. Will our interconnectedness still provide us with enough momentum or will the half-life of facts start to grow larger?

Chapter 5 – The Spread of Facts

Knowledge spread slower than we think/hope. Like the idea that spinach has a lot of iron, which isn’t true (but the story about why also is wrong, and that meme has spread even slower).

Information spreads via social networks (and thus also moves in bubbles), and between different networks (e.g. geographies).

The most important ties are thus medium ties, not strong ones (have the same knowledge) nor weak ones (whom you don’t speak to often).

Sometimes errors spread further and quicker because the story is more compelling than the truth/fact. E.g. a frog in a slowly heated to boiling pot will not jump out (wrong!).

Facts do not spread instantaneously, even with modern technology. They weave their way through social networks in mathematically predictable ways.”

To prevent spreading misinformation, have a certain vigilance about what you hear.

Chapter 6 – Hidden Knowledge

Knowledge can be hidden in one domain, and be useful in another domain. So combining domains and ‘throwing people at the problem’ are valid strategies for unearthing facts.

This also holds true for knowledge in the public domain that is lost over time. So ideas, proposed back in the day, were not ‘ripe’ for that time, but could be tested/used/validated now.

Innocentive is mentioned, a crowdsourcing centre for ideas. With the premise being “a long tail of expertise – everyday people in large numbers – has a greater chance of solving a problem than do the experts.”

A cummulative meta-analysis tries to include all trials (not only the latest ones) as to find statistical significance early on. (see page 109)

Another project mentioned is CoPub Discovery (but doesn’t seem to be active anymore?), a paper search engine that matches based on co-occurrence of (similar) words in papers.

Mendeley is a tool that helps with citing papers and saving references to them. And to find related papers.

DEVONthink might also be a good tool to find hidden connections, Mac/iOS only.

… facts are seldom lost. And as long as knowledge is preserved, we have the raw materials for unearthing hidden knowledge.”

Chapter 7 – Fact Phase Transition

At certain thresholds there can be a state change, think water to ice. The changes might themselves not have accelerated, but the end product is very different than X iterations before.

This type of thinking is usually applied to physics but also applies to facts (e.g. number of exoplanets found). And by using this, you can predict (approximately) when we will have an answer about fact/question X.

We are always on the edge of chaos, always learning new things (at least in dynamic societies) and our knowledge (facts) change all the time. Or in other words, we’re always in a critical state.

Chapter 8 – Mount Everest and the Discovery of Error

The height of Mount Everest is a meso-fact (see above), it changes over time as we were getting better at measuring and still changes as the earth is changing.

Revolutions in science have often been preceded by revolutions in measurement.” – Sinan Aral

We have improved our measurements of many things, and by that also our understanding of the world. As we get better at measurements (e.g. brain scans in real-time at more detail) we will continue to learn more.

Error can be measured in two ways, precision (10x same error) and accuracy (10x error around the centre).

Then the book discussed a topic I want to dive deeper into next year, p-values and statistics. This quote from John Maynerd Smith summarizes what we now do “Statistics is the science that lets you do twenty experiments a year and publish one false result in Nature.”

What is important is the discriminating power of a study, of how much it changes our prior to posterior probability of X being true.

Some factors that help falsehoods become significant results:

  • smaller studies
  • smaller effect size
  • more tested hypotheses
  • flexibility in study design, definitions, outcomes, analytical model
  • financial incentives
  • hotter field

I can confidently say that most of these apply to the study of psychedelics for therapy. And one of the things that should (continue to) happen is replication, to be damn sure that something really work.

Only through replication can science be the truly error-correcting enterprise that it is supposed to be.”

This all being said, Arbesman notes that science is not broken. It isn’t perfect, but still moves forward.

One interesting way of looking at this is to make the distinction between the core and the frontier. The former is relatively stable and fixed, the latter is more fluid and full or error. Slowly facts from the frontier make it into the core.

There is a sifting and filtering process that moves knowledge from the frontier to the relatively compact and tiny core of knowledge. We should enjoy this process, rather than despair.”

Chapter 9 – The Human Side of Facts

There is a human side to updating facts. Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational is mentioned here.

… shifting baseline syndrome… refers to how we become used to whatever state of affairs is true when we are born, or when we first look at a situation.”

An interesting way of defining technology is as “anything that was invented after you were born” – Alan Kay

As facts change, our understanding of them changes slower. I think this matches with the concept of memes, they are similar to genes in many ways, but one way they are different is that it needs to be both transmitted and then received/processed/saved (and then transmitted again).

The beliefs that we have (currently) can prevent us from updating to a newer and better view of reality. Daniel Kahneman referred to this as theory-induced blindness.

Changes in facts thus also follow the phase change bursts and relatively stable periods. I think this can be true, but don’t know if this applies to all fields and institutions (i.e. if a company has good systems they could possibly have continuous change? Netflix maybe?).

The model proposed by Thomas Kuhn about science progressing one funeral at a time doesn’t seem to hold up. Young scientists are just a likely as older ones to accept/reject new ideas.

One thing that could be useful is to stop remembering facts (as we’ve all done to some degree I think) and retrieve (the latest and updated) facts when we need them.

Paradoxically, by not relying on our memories, we become more likely to be up-to-date in our facts, because the newest knowledge is more likely to be online than in our own heads.”

Chapter 10 – At the Edge of What We Know

Science requires an idea to be refutable. It is not good enough for a concept to seem compelling; it must have the potential for a new fact to come along and render it false.”

Are we in an exponential curve or ‘just’ a logistic curve? Some things point towards ever accelerating (e.g. knowledge spreads faster). Other things point towards a slowdown (e.g. population growth is slowing down dramatically).

Facts don’t change arbitrarily. Even though knowledge changes, the astounding thing is that it changes in a regular manner; facts have a half-life and obey mathematical rules. Once we recognize this, we’ll be ready to live in the rapidly changing world around us.”

Games People Play

Games People Play by Eric Berne is a book that I probably read somewhere around 2010. An interesting blog summary/analysis by Niel Kakker is what prompted me to put up this post, a full review will be done if I ever reread the book.

Notes from the summary:

“Eric Berne, the author of Games People Play, says there are 3 big ones: The Parent, The Adult, and The Child. These ego states are different modes of operation in every person. The Adult is the rational logical self. The Parent is the caring, taking care of someone self. The Child is the playful, creative, easily offended self.”

Sometimes the subtext of something being said is what matters, where one assumes a role to entice the other to take a particular action (to show that they are not the role they are implying they are).

No Rules Rules

No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer explores the work culture at Netflix. It explains the culture through three mechanisms: talent, candor (feedback), freedom (remove controls). The three mechanisms are explained at three levels (three feedback loops of more and more talent, candor, and freedom).

The principles do not apply to my current business and will probably not directly impact my work substantially. But, as with similar books, like Rework, I think I can incorporate parts of the lessons in my own work and working together with others on projects.

Here is a quick summary, based on the chapters of the book. Do note that the steps are sequential. And although this is no exact science, I do think that you need the earlier steps to make the latter possible.

  1. First build up talent density – workforce of high performers
    • in creative jobs (Netflix), stunning employees vastly outperform mediocre ones
    • bad employees (jerks, slackers, etc) bring down performance of the rest (let them go quickly)
  2. Then increase candor – encouraging loads of feedback
    • we hate getting it, but love having gotten it
    • giving feedback: aim to assist, actionable
    • receiving feedback: appreciate, accept or discard
    • feedback loop enables high performers to improve
  3. Now begin removing controls – vacation, travel, expense policies
    • no vacation policy = same time taken, more flexible, more satisfied
    • expense: spend money as if it were your own, act in Netflix’s best interest (do audit stuff randomly)
  4. Fortify talent density – paying top of market
    • for creative roles (not operational roles), but most jobs at Netflix are creative
    • bonus system sucks, we can’t predict performance
    • so pay based on the market (and then above)
  5. Pump up candor – organizational transparency
    • share numbers (and other ‘confidential’ data) with employees
  6. Now release more controls – decision-making approvals (out)
    • “don’t seek to please your boss, seek to do what is best for the company”
    • take the boss out of the equation, let the person in the know make the decision
    • for ideas (innovation cycle), 1) farm for dissent/socialize idea, 2) test out (if big idea), 3) make your bet, 4) celebrate or ‘sunshine’ (why it went wrong)
  7. Max up the talent density – Keeper Test
    • We’re a team, not a family”
    • If someone wants to leave, do you fight to keep them (Keeper Test)
    • Be open about why someone is let go (don’t make culture of fear, turnover at Netflix isn’t sky high)
  8. Max up candor – circles of feedback
    • 360 feedback but with names, no ratings, and not connected to pay
    • live 360 dinners
  9. And eliminate most controls – leading with context, not control
    • works only if the company is ‘loosely coupled’ (few interdependencies, e.g. opposite is building airplane)
    • Highly aligned, loosely coupled”
    • The alignment can be seen as a tree (not pyramid), everyone working on smaller and smaller branches of same trunk/goal/north star

Saturday

Saturday by Ian McEwan is another great novel by this most talented writer. I’ve enjoyed a few of his other books and will probably read more of them in the future.

The whole book takes place on a Saturday (as one would expect) and describes it from the perspective of Henry Perowne. The events of the day and memories from the past come together in a masterpiece of storytelling.

Here are some of the sentences that I particularly enjoyed:

  • “… he experiences a superhuman capacity, more like a craving, for work.
  • He’s too experienced to be touched by the varieties of distress he encounters – his obligation is to be useful.
  • (page 17)
  • … or the pleasure he still takes in the relief of the relatives when he comes down from the operating room like a god, an angel with the glad tidings – life, not death.
  • This is what he has to have: possession, belonging, repetition.
  • … endless and beautiful forms of life, such as you see in a common hedgerow, including exalted beings like ourselves, arose from physical laws, from war of nature, famine and death. (Darwin/Dawkins)
  • The luxury of being half asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.
  • And it interests him less to have the world reinvented; he wants it explained. (and on the next page) … the supernatural was the recourse of an insufficient imagination, a dereliction of duty, a childish evasion of the difficulties and wonders of the real, of the demanding re-enactment of the plausible. (I should probably quote this somewhere at the start of an essay)
  • (about a protest) … tens of thousands of strangers converging with a single purpose conveying an intimation of revolutionary joy.
  • (about his fancy car) It is, of course, possible, permissible, to love an inanimate object. But this moment was the peak of the affair; since then his feelings have settled into mild, occasional pleasure.
  • (tennis match, describing Flow state) It’s possible in a long rally to become a virtually unconscious being, inhabiting the narrowest slice of the present, merely reacting, taking one shot at a time, existing only to keep going.
  • (and later at work) Even his awareness of his own existence has vanished. He’s been delivered into a pure present, free of the weight of the past or any anxieties about the future. In retrospect, though never at the time, it feels like profound happiness.
  • (visit to dementing mother) It’s like taking flowers to a graveside – the true business is with the past. (and later) ‘She’s waiting for you,’ Jenny says. They both know this to be a neurological impossibility. Even boredom is beyond his mother’s reach.
  • Especially difficult when the first and best unconscious move of a dedicated liar is to persuade himself he’s sincere. And once he’s sincere, all deception vanishes.
  • … a man who believes he has no future and is therefore free of consequences.

Humankind

Humankind by Rutger Bregman is an enlightening book on how we humans are kinder and more cooperative than we believe. The media, bad scientists (read: some of the key studies I studied in intro psychology), and our own distorted perspective has messed us up, let’s repair that.

Btw the book is published in Dutch too, De Meeste Mensen Deugen (but I found the English audiobook first, so yeah).

Here are some key takeaways from the book:

  • The psychology experiments like Stanford Prison were very much forced and can be better seen as theatre than actual humans doing bad things
  • If you don’t make those extreme situations (US prison), you get people just hanging out and being nice (Norway prison)
  • That is also the way to fix things, not by responding in kind (eye for an eye), but by responding with kindness
  • We aren’t that cutthroat, we lend people tools, pass along the salt, help a friend. In that way we are communists (social capitalists, or whatever you want to call it)
  • Kids left alone without supervision will behave like a team, not like Lord of The Flies (book)
  • We believe that we are good right (I hope so), so does everyone else. We may be selfish, but inherently you can say that people aren’t ‘evil’ in the comic-book or D&D way
  • The book presents evidence that counteracts a lot of what Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now) says about ancient civilizations (less murder and mayhem than commonly believed)
  • Other reviewers do point out that Bregman is putting forth his own thesis in this book, so he might be cherrypicking the evidence too. Anyways, we humans – not that murderous (you know, like the rest of the animal kingdom)
  • Being faced with having to kill someone, most people chicken out. Soldiers don’t shoot. But the bad thing is that ‘the system’ finds ways to get around this (drones, decimation, etc)
  • Some cool examples include that of a ‘vrije school’ and medical company in The Netherlands, but I haven’t looked them up yet

Alien Information Theory

This post originally appeared on Blossom Analysis.

Alien Information Theory by Andrew Gallimore aims to explain how DMT will allow us to see a higher dimension of reality than we currently can do. The book starts by explaining the neuroscience of psychedelics in a very informative, imaginary, and grounded way. Then from chapter 9 onward the reader is launched into hyperspace and Gallimore tries to convey how we are part of a larger HyperGrid (of information) that DMT is able to connect us to.

A book that is very suitable (from my perspective) in explaining how psychedelics work (just as his excellent course on YouTube↗). But also a book that presents a theory that doesn’t seem fully formed yet (the latter chapters). With future experiments (extended DMT trips), more clarity could possibly be provided about the DMT-state and the ‘information’ that one is able to bring back from it.

If you want to learn more about the start of the recent DMT research, you can check out DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman.

Publisher Summary

“Since prehistory, humans have used a range of psychedelic drugs for communion with the gods, connection with nature, or for the pure pleasure and wonder they generate as they transform the mind and the world. But one natural psychedelic in particular towers above the rest in its astonishing power to replace the normal waking world with a bizarre alternate reality replete with a diverse panoply of intelligent alien beings. As well as being the most powerful, N, N-dimethyltryptamine, more commonly known as DMT, is also the most common naturally-occurring psychedelic and can be found in countless plant species scattered across the Earth. DMT carries a profound message embedded in our reality, a message that we are now beginning to decode. In Alien Information Theory, neurobiologist, chemist, and pharmacologist, Dr. Andrew R. Gallimore, explains how DMT provides the secret to the very structure of our reality, and how our Universe can be likened to a cosmic game that we now find ourselves playing. Gallimore explains how our reality was constructed using a fundamental code which generated our Universe — and countless others — as a digital device built from pure information with the purpose of enabling conscious intelligences, such as ourselves, to emerge. You will learn how fundamental digital information self-organises and complexifies to generate the myriad complex forms and organisms that fill our world; how your brain constructs your subjective world and how psychedelic drugs alter the structure of this world; how DMT switches the reality channel by allowing the brain to access information from normally hidden orthogonal dimensions of reality. And, finally, you will learn how DMT provides the secret to exiting our Universe permanently — to complete the cosmic game and to become interdimensional citizens of hyperspace. Alien Information Theory is a unique account of this hidden structure of reality and our place within it, drawing on a diverse range of disciplines — including neuroscience, computer science, physics, and pharmacology — to carefully explain these complex ideas, which are illustrated with full-colour diagrams throughout.”

Summary Review

Chapter 1 – The Code

Our reality emerges from a code programmed by an alien hyperintelligence beyond the confines of our 3-dimensional Universe. For want of a better term, we will refer to this intelligence – the author of the Code – as the Other.

This first chapter sets up the hypothesis that we (normally) only have access to a very small slice of what is really out there. That we are stick-figures living on a 2d piece of paper, and that a 3d world is actually out there. It is through DMT that we may be able to view this world and achieve “interdimensional citizenship and the resolution of the Game.”

From my personal reading and understanding of (among others) Daniel Dennett (e.g. Darwins Dangerous Idea↗) and David Deutsch (The Beginning of Infinity & The Fabric of Reality↗), I can concur on the idea that there is a certain ‘hyperspace’. There are infinite amounts of (always splitting) universes and with quantum computing we are starting to get the first grasp of how this works. But I also think that all our information and meaning-making is a bottom-up process. One in which more and more complexity is added and meaning emerges as things are combined.

This is further discussed in the book when Gallimore talks more about Conway’s Game of Life↗. I think I have the same understanding as him on that point. But not on the point that there are the ‘Others’, the ones who have developed the ‘Game’ that we’re involved in. In my understanding, there really is nothing more to it than quarks, atoms, molecules, humans, etc. No top-down plan, no ‘Game’, no ‘Resolution’, only bottom-up (cranes) processes.

So with that information/my perspective, the rest of the summary review.

Chapter 2 – The Universe as Digital Information

Gallimore defines information as “… the opposite of uncertainty: when you gain information about something, your knowledge of that thing increases and your uncertainty about it decreases.” He also explains it as selecting between different states, when you know it’s one – you have gained X pieces of information, X being the number of states you choose between. The number of yes/no (1/0) choices that you decide between can be seen as the number of bits of information you generate. For instance, electing one square on a chessboard equals six bits of information.

The rest of the chapter dives deeper into how even the smallest things in our universe are in essence just bits of information (it’s turtles information all the way down). “At its deepest level, deeper than the atom and more fundamental than the quark, the Universe is running a low-level computation.”

Chapter 3 – The Hierarchy of Complexity / The Complexification of Information

The universe can be seen as a computer (something that computes) that updates with every ‘tick’. This chapter illustrates this with Conway’s Game of Life and explains further how information has a certain hierarchy, that from very simple rules, you can get complex behavior.

This Numberphile video playlist is a good starting point if you want to learn more about Conway’s Game of Life (from John Conway himself).

The hierarchy put forth in this chapter is as follows:

  1. The Code: the fundamental code that generates the Grid
  2. The Grid: the fundamental structure of space consisting of Cells in specific states
  3. Fundamental particles: electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc. Low order information complexes self-organised from the Cells of the Grid
  4. Subatomic particles: neutrons, protons. Higher order information complexes self-organised from fundamental particles
  5. Atoms: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. Higher order information complexes self-organised from subatomic and fundamental particles
  6. Molecules: proteins, water, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, etc. Very high order information complexes self-organised from atoms
  7. Cells: smallest components of life. Higher order information complexes self-organised from molecules
  8. Multicellular organisms: higher order information complexes self-organised from cells

One could, of course, imagine even more levels that go beyond the 8th one here (e.g. social structures/network, countries, companies).

Chapter 4 – Living Information in a Digital World

This chapter touches upon how simple components together can have complex systems emerge from their interactions. This always happens at the ‘edge of chaos’, a place where it’s fluid enough that not everything is stagnant (not changing) or that all the activity is just random noise (no information). The four basic characteristics are:

  1. Many simple components (agents)
  2. Local, rule-based, interactions between agents
  3. No central control. Agents interact locally.
  4. Self-organisation and emergent behaviours

A definition of ‘life’ is quoted from Humberto Maturana and Francisco Valera, which states that “living organisms are distinct from non-living machines in that they are autopoietic, meaning ‘self-creating’.”

Chapter 5 – Waking Up in a World

As humans, with our awesome brains, continuously perceive the world around us. But we don’t do this as passive receptors, we also actively build (generate) a world in our own head. And we test our incoming information against this model. If you’re awake, dreaming, or under the influence of psychedelics, “your personal reality is always built from information generated by your brain.”

For a further discussion on how we perceive, or predict, the reality around us (and how psychedelics help us study this), I would recommend Carhart-Harris & Friston (2019) – which proposes the REBUS model, or Swanson (2018) which discusses the various psychedelic theories and their connections.

Chapter 6 – How to Build a World – Part 1

This chapter explains, in more detail, how information is generated in the brain (cortical columns, thalamocortical loop) and that sensory (external) information only slightly modifies this process.

Chapter 7 – How to Build a World – Part 2

The building of our world (model) is shaped both during your life and over the course of evolution. Some birds see more colors than we do as they co-evolved with flowers that provide nectar (and the birds provide pollination). And you can learn to better distinguish different flavors of food if you train this skill over time.

So what happens if you change the ‘weight’ of how you are building your world model. That is what the latter chapter are all about. They propose that under the influence of DMT you ‘tune in’ to a different (but still very much real) reality than during normal waking life.

Chapter 8 – Psychedelic Molecules and the Brain

In contrast to serotonin (a neuromodulator), psychedelics bind specifically/preferentially to (mostly) the 5HT2a receptor and make it more likely for cortical pyramidal neurons to fire. The frequency that becomes more active (especially under the influence of DMT) is called Gamma oscillations.

Two recent studied quantified this with EEG (Timmermann et al., 2019 and Alamia et al., 2020).

Normally, the intrinsic activity of the thalamocortical system provides the context of incoming sensory information, which is matched to this ongoing activity, selecting and amplifying states from the T-state repertoire. However, in the presence of a psychedelic drug, the inflated state repertoire means that sensory information may select completely novel T-states.”

If applied to someone’s memories (PTSD), thought patterns (depression), or capacity to generate ideas (creativity), this (to my best understanding) also explains how psychedelics can lead to positive outcomes, by making more (and more novel) ways of thinking possible.

Chapter 9 – An Introduction to Hyperspace

This chapter gives a very brief description of the DMT-world (a different (higher-level) reality). My personal gripe with some of the explanations here is that the entities (elfs, machines, etc) are described as ‘intelligent’ but without further clarifying in what way that is true. Other descriptive words used are: highly artificial, constructed, inorganic, technological. All words that could convey a certain meaning, but without further clarification don’t seem to provide much context or ‘proof’ (if possible) of why that should be the case.

The entities also seem very human-like. Be it elves, insects, or other entities. As described here (but also in other places) they seem closer to us than for instance the aliens in the movie Arrival (2016)↗. A question that I always have in the back of my mind is: In how far is it not just our brain connecting disparaging parts and ‘making a story’ just like it was doing before but now with more chaos and/or at another ‘frequency’ that is different than ‘normal waking consciousness’ in relatively predictable ways.

Chapter 10 – Information Flow Through the Grid

Under the influence of DMT, Gallimore proposes, we are able to tune into the alternate DMT reality. The latter part of the chapter explains how information flows up and downwards, and that with DMT this downward (from orthogonal dimension) information flow is attuned to.

How psychedelics work is explained in this very good and concise paragraph:

Psychedelics change your world by changing the activity of the cortical system and so change the information that constitutes your world. Your model of the external world is altered. Modern neuropharmacological techniques have revealed the binding of classical psychedelics, including DMT, to the 5HT2a receptor as being primarily responsible for these effects. Activation of this receptor causes pyramidal cells to depolarise, promotes gamma oscillations, and changes the patterns of information generated by cortical activity. These changes in information manifest as a change in the world you experience, which is the psychedelic state.”

Chapter 11 – Information Flow Through the HyperGrid

The reason why one could be able to pick up hyperdimensional information is (proposed to be) the patterns of activation in the Grid (our universe) that allow it to receive normally inaccessible information.

An analogy with Conway’s Game of Life and a visualisation of the 3d world as 2d (so the 4d becomes 3d) is used to further explain how this process takes place.

Chapter 12 – DMT and the Hyperdimensional Brain Complex

This chapter further explains how the brain changes to receive this information. The best analogy made here is “the differences between observing the patterns of ripples on the surface of water and actually being the water.”

Chapter 13 – The Mechanism of Interdimensional Communication

“DMT causes your brain to cease building the consensus world and start building the DMT world.”

The three phases are distinguished as:

  1. Bottom-up modulation – activation phase (5HT2a depolarising)
  2. Top-down modulation – gating phase (switching patterns, Alpha to Gamma)
  3. Transdimensional informational feedback loop – lock phase (positive feedback loops)

Chapter 14 – Structure of the Code

The Grid (level 2, chapter 3) is made from pure digital information, the Code (level 1). This chapter explains further how this is so and how higher dimensions follow from lower-order levels.

Chapter 15 – How to Build a Universe

Building a universe within which complex life will emerge is as easy as finding the right rule set. And as hard.”

Gallimore explains that we were not designed per se, but that we emerge on the edge of chaos. He does argue that there is an alien hyperintelligence (outside the Grid), but that it hasn’t purposefully made us humans.

We are playing a/the Game (see next chapter) and in a way DMT is the intelligence test to see if we know what is going on (if we can use DMT as a ‘technology’ then we’re smart enough to get out of the Game? (to be honest, I really don’t get where this is all coming from)).

Chapter 16 – The Game

The Game is explained along six different levels:

  1. Information
  2. Emergence (finding DMT)
  3. Transmission* (using DMT)
  4. Immersion
  5. Realisation (entering hyperspace, but only for a limited amount of time, minutes)
  6. Resolution (transcription) (staying in hyperspace and thus completing the Game)

* “Newborn children are ferried from a prenatal hyperspace to the lower-dimensional life they will gradually become immersed within …”

As noted in the introduction, it would be interesting to hear back when experiments with longer duration DMT trips (via IV administration) have been done and what comes out of it.

My Purple Scented Novel

My Purple Scented Novel by Ian McEwan is a (short)story about a man who steals the life of a fellow novelist. I enjoyed it throughout.

Public Commitment 2020 – Update 3

This year my theme is Upgrade. The goal is to use the things I already know, and apply/improve/renew it to build more new things.

That is definitely happening, with me using knowledge about everything from webshops to psychology to make the new projects happen. Also with regards to fitness, I feel that this year has been really good.

It’s already the fourth quarter of this year, how time flies by. Here is an update on the goals I have for this year and how I’m working on them.

Personally, I’m keeping track of the monthly goals in an OKR file on Notion (see the last update to learn about all the systems).

Goal 1: Write Nova (and possibly other short stories)

No bueno. I still want to write, but this is not a priority for me now. Especially as I’m already writing a lot for Blossom (see goal 5) these days.

Goal 2: Improve this website

Most has been done. Still have to work on the dark mode to make that cooler (and have that adjust based on time of day).

Goal 3: Do something crazy for love

We had a fun day on Lotte’s birthday, but I haven’t done a full day (or something like that) in which we were together. I do have an idea for sometime in the future.

Goal 4: Write essays about 6 topics

This was going better at the start of the year. I’ve found that now with high motivation for ‘work’, that I don’t spend too much time writing here. I still need to finish the one about Effective Altruism, and then choose which one to do. It was good that I chose 6 as a goal and will have enough to think (and write) about next year.

Goal 5: Start a new and successful venture

You can check out the progress/projects under this venture at Blossom Act.

It’s been going really well with developing it. On the money-side of things I’m still in the very early days and hope to get some balls rolling soon.