In this new episode of the Guru Viking Podcast I host part 4 of an ongoing dialogue between Shinzen Young, meditation teacher and neuroscience research consultant, and Chelsey Fasano, a Columbia University neuroscience student.

But now the dialogue has become a trialogue as we have the great pleasure of being joined by Dr Jay Sanguinetti, Assistant Director for the Center for Consciousness Studies and Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico where he directs the NICE Lab (Non-Invasive Cognitive Enhancement Lab) and SEMA, the Sonication Enhanced Mindful Awareness Lab in collaboration with Shinzen.

In this episode we discuss topics such as what is pleasure?, enlightenment as Fristonian free-energy, the relationship between predictive coding and the nature of suffering, bliss and orgasm, Shinzen’s daily mystical experiences, and more.

…

https://www.guruviking.com/ep86-bliss-enlightenment-fristonian-physics-feat-chelsey-fasano-shinzen-young-dr-jay-sanguinetti/

This podcast is also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

…

Topics Include:
0:00 - Intro
0:58 - Bliss and the symmetry valence hypothesis
4:18 - What is pleasure?
9:47 - What is the Quaila Research Institute?
11:41 - Symmetry and facial attractiveness
14:51 - Averaging, integration, and prediction
15:40 - Continuous orgasm, Sensory saturation, turning towards
20:33 - Harmonics, gamma, and global processing
31:07 - Trained improvement vs primordial completeness
34:56 - Shinzen’s experience when walking
39:29 - Jay’s experience after a 15 week meditation course
46:03 - Approach motivation without negative valence
47:37 - The birth of the pleasure god, Kama, and learned helplessness
50:38 - Shinzen’s Fristonian free-energy pleasure hypothesis
59:56 - Could predictive coding theory explain the nature of suffering?
1:03:42 - Jay analyses Shinzen’s experience
1:05:06 - Is enlightenment free-energy?
1:06:33 - What the brain expects influences what the eye sees
1:09:49 - Shinzen’s experience after meditation and ultrasound experiments
1:13:09 -Chelsey reflects on her enjoyment of Shinzen
1:14:44 - Enlightenment as stabilising dynamic states vs fixed states
1:18:02 - Spiritual integration as pleasure-mode transfer and reconfiguring of top-down processing
1:19:53 - Changing the geometry of conscious experience
1:21:55 - Jay’s intuition about the big questions in contemplative brain science
1:23:57 - Shinzen’s take on Fristonian physics
1:27:55 - Jay’s advice and comments on the philosophy of science
1:29:40 - What Chelsey loves about scientists
1:31:19 - More on Jay’s philosophy of science
1:32:45 - Shinzen on American math education
1:35:03 - Applying higher dimensional abstract algebra to Fristonian physics
1:36:52 - The cliffhanger of the Hegelian taco