Cognitive Flexibility There are many ways to train a brain. Schools, professional training, and athletics often emphasize and reward speed, mental stamina, repetition, and mastery of an established framework. These skills absolutely matter. But they can also train us to solve familiar problems without necessarily becoming better at questioning the assumptions underneath them. Many of the great advances in science required exactly that kind of questioning. Einstein imagined ch

A known unknown is something we know we don’t understand, like dark matter, dark energy, consciousness, abiogenesis, or quantum gravity. An unknown unknown is stranger. It’s something that could be true without violating known science, but that we may not even have the right instruments, concepts, perceptual bandwidth, mathematics, or metaphysics to notice. The sheer volume of these unknown unknown should humble anyone. But perhaps, the more suprising result is the trajectory

The Last Algorithm: Maps, Minds, and Monads Part I: Minds as Indivisible Monads or Emergent From Interconnected Mathematical Algorithms Chapter 1: Maps, Monads and Mathematics Definition of Maps, Monads & Algorithms Sujasha's map of the world and the map’s evolution along her journey from theist to determinist, first as a student of hinduism, second as a student of fluids, materials and mechanics, third as a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, and finally as a DARPA r

The Thought, Feeling, Behavior Triangle, conceptualized by Aaron Beck, creator of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy A Manual for Your Mind - The Mathematics Map The user guide you should’ve gotten at birth You just opened the instruction manual for the most chaotic, brilliant, occasionally unhinged machine you will ever own. Your brain. This is not a sterile document written by a lab-coated neuroscientist who has never cried in a Target parking lot. This is the field notebook of s

People often try to defeat fear in one dramatic, cinematic moment, because that’s often how it is portrayed in entertainment, in order to maximize dramatic tension and catharsis. That’s not how it works in the real world. And attempts to try, often lead to people burying themselves in their past traumas, obsessively reinforcing maladaptive compulsions, ruminating on past mistakes, leaving them feeling miserable, shameful, guilty, and no closer to actual recovery. As a forensi

My brother, stand-up comedian Vishnu Vaka, and I recently started a podcast series where we talk about human cognition, psychology, society, and the weird future we all seem to be walking into. Our first episode and interview is now up... Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naa-1LE8OiU&t=1320s Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DJwml7ITtAO4KDCILzfB6?si=fffe005eac2d41bd Apple Podcasts Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/late-night-live-with-vishn

The Next Memetic Disclosure Day will occur June 12, 2027 The below is written from the framework of the third Thought Experiment at the top of the website. A decade ago, humanity has never once seen an interstellar object enter our solar system. Recent years have seen three, 3I/ATLAS, Oumuamua and Borisov, all showing anomalous activity. Prelude - The Flash That Drew Attention When the first atomic bomb bloomed over the New Mexico desert in 1945, the Culture noticed. Not “not

I have compiled below the UFO encounters that stand out in history for their detail, narrative power, fame, sourcing, and hard data. Note that many of these cases overlap (e.g., the Nimitz encounter is famous, detailed, and well-sourced), but they are categorized below based on their primary strength. I. The Most Compelling Cases that are difficult to debunk due to high witness credibility, mass sightings, or lack of motive to lie. 1. The Ariel School Incident (September 1994

There are many important things that science readily admits it doesn't understand, like dark matter, dark energy, consciousness, abiogenesis, or quantum gravity. God and any variation thereof is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Yes, someday, it could be verified as true, for example, if god, aliens or simulators someday choose to directly reveal themselves. Or alternatively, if adopting one of these beliefs consistently leads to an improbably high success rate in whatever you set

From Survival to Flourishing Imagine waking up, stretching, and deciding whether you want to paint a mural, learn astrophysics, or just sit outside and vibe with your neighbors over coffee. No “adulting” dread. No bills stalking you like a loan shark. No calendar full of pointless errands that exist purely because society is badly designed. Just room to breathe, to build, to broaden your horizons and become your best self. That world isn’t a fairy tale. It’s the logical endpo

We mistake our reflexes for our identity. You are not your thoughts or feelings. You are the entity that manages them. To manage them well, you need friction. How to insert friction in real life: 1. Wait 90 Seconds: When triggered, freeze. Let the chemical surge pass. Don't let your nervous system make decisions for you. 2. Name It: "I am angry." "I am anxious." Labeling the feeling breaks its spell. 3. Check the Body: Unclench fists. Relax the jaw. Fix your posture. You cann

What Kind of Simulation Do You Live In? Bayseian Cognitive Experiment I: Let me begin with an admission. I am a simulation developer. Not the kind you probably mean. I don’t work for a company you have heard of. I don’t have a LinkedIn profile. I don’t sit in an office somewhere writing Python while drinking terrible coffee. And if you are imagining a giant server farm with blinking lights and a rack labeled UNIVERSE, you’re probably imagining something much too primitive. I

Attention writes the bottom layer of reality. The following takes Cognitive Flexibility/Thought Experiment/Supposition 188 at face value. The 2017 Google paper “Attention Is All You Need” did more than change artificial intelligence and kickstart the LLM race It gave us a clean metaphor for modern life. The core idea is simple. And it's a dark one. On the first pass, in the first draft, we do not distribute out our attention based on actual importance, or based on what we wan

The strangest UAP disclosures this month.

Any time a dimension is added, walls fall away. Future Exists alongside Pasts & Presence The following takes Cognitive Flexibility/Thought Experiment/Supposition II at face value. Incepting Disclosure Day Prelude - The Flash That Drew Attention When the first atomic bomb bloomed over the New Mexico desert in 1945, the Arcturians noticed. Not “noticed” in the poetic sense. This was a sharp, bright fingerprint, a spike that lit up their instruments like someone slamming a door