Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
— Søren Kierkegaard
Articles and Podcasts
Principles of Vasocomputation: A Unification of Buddhist Phenomenology, Active Inference, and Physical Reflex (Part I) [Article]
See also the Video Version
Opentheory.net
The central thesis here is elegant and provocative: much of what we experience as consciousness emerges from computational processes happening within our circulatory system, particularly in how blood vessels dilate and constrict in response to predictions and surprises. This theory of ‘vasocomputation’ suggests that our bodies are running complex calculations through blood flow that directly shape our experience.
The Buddhist concept of mindfulness of breathing takes on new meaning when viewed through this lens. It’s actually a direct interface with the computational substrate of consciousness. When meditators focus on breath sensations, this would suggest they’re essentially tuning into the underlying mechanisms that generate our subjective experience.
If you’re not familiar, the idea of active inference is pretty cool:
Active inference suggests we impel ourselves to action by first creating some predicted sensation (“I have a sweet taste in my mouth” or “I am not standing near that dangerous-looking man”) and then holding it until we act in the world to make this prediction become true at which point we can release the tension. Active inference argues we store our to-do list as predictions which are equivalent to untrue sensory observations that we act to make true.
This made me think of Joseph Campbell’s framework for the role of myth. We all have a myth about ourselves (implicitly if not explicitly), and we are acting in a way to make it true. If we can reveal that myth to ourselves, we may be able to rewrite it, and then we change our actions. Maybe you could think about a myth as being encoded in your vascular architecture? That is a cool idea!
Second, the “tanha as unskillful active inference” TUAI hypothesis.
[The TUAI] process commonly goes awry (i.e., is applied unskillfully) in three ways:
First, the rate of generating normative predictions can outpace our ability to make them true and overloads a very finite system. Basically we try to control too much, and stress builds up.- Second, we generate normative predictions in domains that we cannot possibly control; predicting a taste of cake will linger in our mouth forever, predicting that we did not drop our glass of water on the floor. That good sensations will last forever and the bad did not happen.
Third, there may be a context desynchronization between the system that represents the world model, and the system that maintains predictions-as-operators on this world model. When desynchronization happens and the basis of the world model shifts in relation to the basis of the predictions, predictions become nonspecific or nonsensical noise and stress.
To attempt to restate the thrust of the theory normatively: Maintain a reasonable to-do list over things you can control and try to have an accurate view of the world.
The Bias Bias in Behavioral Economics [Paper]
Gerd Gigerenzer
A critique of behavioral economics a la Kahneman and Tversky.
Gigerenzer argues that behavioral economics began with noble intentions: correcting the psychological blind spots in rational choice theory. However, instead of developing a deeper understanding of human decision-making, it focused on cataloging deviations from neoclassical economic theory and labeling them “biases” rather than questioning the theory.
The article extensively reanalyzes several canonical “biases” including randomness perception, the hot hand fallacy, risk estimation, overconfidence, and framing effects. In each case, Gigerenzer show how the supposed bias either disappears when properly analyzed or represents an adaptive response to uncertainty rather than a cognitive flaw.
Gigerenzer argues that the behavioral economics approach provided a convenient rhetoric for attributing societal problems (financial crises, obesity, addiction) to flaws inside people’s minds rather than to system failures or industrial practices. This led to the justification of paternalistic “nudging” policies instead of focusing on education and empowerment.
Bet Sizing Is Not Intuitive [Article]
Party at the Moontower
61 finance-educated participants were offered a game with a mathematical 95% chance of making $250 for about 30 minutes of work. They start with $25 each. They can play a computer game where they can bet any proportion of their bankroll on a coin.
They can choose heads or tails. They are told the coin has a 60% chance of landing heads. The bet pays even money (i.e., if you bet $1, you either win or lose $1).
How did they do?
Bad.
Only 21% of participants reached the maximum payout of $250. 1/3 of the participants finished will less money than the $25 they started with. (28% went bust entirely!)”
Two thoughts on this.
First, there is a correct answer to this game! Unlike most real world situations, the odds are known. It’s called Kelly betting and when you know the odds, it’s a solvable problem. In this case, consistently betting anywhere from 10-20% of your bankroll on heads would have maximized your probability. It is worth knowing how to calculate this. The biggest categorical mistake that I notice in investors is overbetting and Kelly gives you a framework to think about bet sizing more intelligently.
A propos the previous article on “bias bias” and in defense of the participants, the real world is not full of free money and some of the suboptimal betting can be interpreted as suspicions that the coin really was fair.
This approach gets a little bit dismissed as sub-optimal by the economic rationalists, but if someone shows up and offers me a way to earn $250 in 30 minutes with no work, then usually I am about to get scammed. You probably get spam text messages that say this almost everyday. (This may have been controlled for in the experiment, I am not sure if the coin was provably fair in some way).
A New Generation of AIs: Claude 3.7 and Grok 3 [Article]
One Useful Thing
A lot of the focus on AI use, especially in the corporate world, has been stuck in the “automation mindset” – viewing AI primarily as a tool for speeding up existing workflows like email management and meeting transcription. I am guilty of this and I think it’s a natural way to look at a new technology – how can this extend the current paradigm?
However, it’s usually the wrong way to think about a transformative technology. The internet did not primarily put the NYT and WSJ into online formats, it created a whole new way of creating and consuming media in a never-ending digital feed.
I don’t know what the right way to think about AI is but I’m confident that “make all our existing workflows 20% better” is a very limiting way to approach it (though, it’s probably a decent starting point to just better understand how it works).
Why Japan Succeeds Despite Stagnation [Article]
Uncharted Territories
The two most common times I hear Japan brought up are
- The paradigmatic example of economic stagnation in the West (often with the subtext that the rest of the West is heading this way).
- A really nice place to live with beautiful cities.
How can one country be portrayed as both an economic backwater and a lovely, prosperous country? This article came up when I was talking with someone about zoning and cities. Tokyo is often cited because the cost of housing there has remained quite reasonable, whereas other global cities (London, NYC, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc.) have seen housing prices skyrocket.
This article argues that Japan has a uniquely effective zoning code which succeeds in both keeping its cities aesthetically beautiful while also allowing more housing to be built.
Japan’s zoning code is set at the national level and therefore tends to be much less restrictive than the local zoning codes found in the West. Its national system lays out just 12 inclusive zones, which means the permitted building types carry over as you move up the categories, allowing mixed-use development by default. This compares favorably to zoning codes in the US.
50 Years of Travel Tips [Article]
Kevin Kelly
A wonderful list of travel tips! Some of my favorites:
Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs, or jazz joints will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.
When visiting a foreign city for the first time, take a street food tour. Depending on the region, the tour will include food carts, food trucks, food courts, or smaller eateries. It will last a few hours, and the cost will include the food. You’ll get some of the best food available, and usually the host will also deliver a great introduction to the culture. Google “street food tour for city X.”
The final tip is on how to optimally structure a two-week vacation is one I have not tried (and was too long to copy here) but plan to try next time I take a big trip.
Last Updated on May 27, 2025 by Taylor Pearson