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Giants Shoulder: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Evan McGloughlin
A Biology & Consciousness podcast chronicling the bio-singularity. I speak with leading scientists at the bleeding edge of Neuroscience, Consciousness and Biology. No idea is too strange, tackled with genuine curiosity and technical rigour. Come follow the journey as I have my brain melted and ontology warped on a regular basis. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is founder of Giants Shoulder.
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- 2 days ago1h 0m
#161 - Meet The Psychonaut Who Survived Extended-State DMT
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinAlexander Beiner is the writer who volunteered as a guinea pig for the world's first extended-state DMT trial. At Imperial College London, he was one of eleven people kept on a continuous DMT drip for thirty minutes. He is a co-Executive Director of Breaking Convention, Europe's largest psychedelic conference, and the author of The Bigger Picture.Expect to learn- The Chinchillas: hyperdimensional beings he had never seen in real life, speaking a visible language- The Reply: he sent a symbol back, they went ballistic, then got bored and left- The Pharmacology Problem: why tolerance to LSD and psilocybin does nothing to DMT- The Synchronicity: the stranger across a London road, and what he learned that night- The Spider Queen: a planet-sized entity that wrapped him in a webSPONSORSGet Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderGS EPISODES MENTIONEDRick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYscRobin Carhart-Harris - No. 1 Psychedelic Scientist: The Entropic Brain Hypothesis, Consciousness & DMT Entities: https://youtu.be/t-GkE4YtLRkDavid Luke - Meet the Professor of Paranormal Consciousness - DMT Entities, Telepathy Tapes & OBE's: https://youtu.be/qLKD1gt1X5oGUEST LINKSX: https://x.com/AlexanderBeinerKainos (Substack): https://beiner.substack.com/Personal Site: https://www.alexanderbeiner.com/Breaking Convention: https://breakingconvention.co.uk/performers/alexander-beinerThe Bigger Picture - Author Page: https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/alexander-beinerLISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/aZnvPt9X3DcApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:01:59 Why Changing Minds Isn't Enough0:02:54 A Magic Mushroom Homecoming In Holland0:05:33 Joining Europe's Largest Psychedelic Conference0:06:44 Why He Signed Up To Be A DMT Guinea Pig0:08:03 Half Of DMT Users Meet Autonomous Entities0:10:38 Meeting The Hyperdimensional Chinchillas0:14:25 He'd Never Seen A Chinchilla In Real Life0:15:14 "They Were Speaking A Visible Language"0:17:47 Why Priming Can't Explain The Chinchillas0:21:33 The Metaphysical Shift After 100 Episodes0:26:21 DMT Immunity And The Cross-Tolerance Mystery0:28:07 Why Psychedelics Make Avoiding Pain Harder0:29:28 The Placebo Dose And The Prank Paranoia0:32:24 Three Heartbeats To The Deepest Trip0:35:06 Wired Up: The Hidden Rituals Of The Lab0:39:29 Would He Ever Come Back?0:40:22 Psychedelic PTSD And The Fear Of Madness0:41:31 The Synchronicity He Still Can't Explain0:46:37 If Everything's Conscious, Where's The Telepathy?0:49:16 Why The East Talks Openly About Ghosts0:53:45 The Planet-Sized Spider Queen0:58:51 "This Is So Similar To What McKenna Described".....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 6 days ago1h 25m
#160 - Meet The Physicist Proving The Universe Builds Itself Out Of Information
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinGordana Dodig-Crnkovic is a physicist turned cognitive scientist and Professor Emeritus at Chalmers University of Technology, with doctorates in both physics and computer science. Across three careers she built info-computationalism: the idea that nature is information and computation at every level, from particles to minds. Her conclusion puts her at odds with much of her own field. Cognition arrives with life itself, which puts consciousness in a single bacterium and nowhere in today's AI.Expect to learn:- Info-computationalism: why nature is information and computation all the way down- Cell consciousness: why a single cell is already sensing, deciding and minimally aware- The Levin divide: where she draws the line Michael Levin won't- Anaesthetised bacteria: why ether switches off organisms with no brain- Machines that can't feel: why today's AI has intelligence but no goals of its ownSPONSORSGet Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderGS EPISODES MENTIONEDMichael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyMMichael Levin & Earl Miller - Michael Levin & Earl Miller: Platonic Space of Minds, Bioelectricity, Cell Intelligence & Neurobots: https://youtu.be/6mU5nN5nlLAWilliam B. Miller Jr. - Meet The Scientist Proving Your Cells Are Conscious and Intelligent: https://youtu.be/xrV5oGyyKSIMark Solms - Meet the Scientist Proving Dreams Hold the Key to Consciousness! Dr Mark Solms: https://youtu.be/nMWaQ1U6dccGUEST LINKSChalmers Profile: https://www.chalmers.se/en/persons/dodig/X: https://x.com/DodigGordanaChalmers Research Publications: https://research.chalmers.se/en/person/dodigGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bvc5bBsAAAAJORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9881-400XLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordana-dodig-crnkovic/LISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/D4jBgWV8BoYApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:44 Physicist, Computer Scientist, Cognitive Scientist0:08:05 What Is Information, Really?0:13:16 You Can't Observe Without Changing The System0:16:14 Are Conscious Agents The Most Fundamental Thing?0:20:06 A Single Cell Is Already Conscious0:27:16 Where She Parts Ways With Michael Levin0:28:41 Can We Build A Machine That Creates Itself?0:33:38 Why A Book Is Just Food To An Insect0:39:40 You Are Trillions Of Information Agents0:44:09 Science's Obsession With Measurement0:46:40 Xenobots And The Cells Nobody Programmed0:51:02 Agency Or Just Complicated Chemistry?0:55:58 Why No Experiment Can Settle This0:57:22 Where Computation Ends And Cognition Begins1:01:08 Would Levin Say Gene Networks Think?1:03:37 Why Survival Might Be Essential For Consciousness1:07:07 You Can Anaesthetise A Bacterium1:11:08 Can Consciousness Be Written Down As Maths?1:19:31 How AI Could Help Us Understand Minds1:22:35 Should We Ever Build Conscious AI?.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 1 weeks ago1h 25m
#159 - No. 1 Biopsychist: Michael Levin's Platonic Minds & Cognition All The Way Down
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinJohn Vervaeke is an award-winning cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto, where he directs the Cognitive Science programme and the Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He helped pioneer relevance realisation — the claim that underneath your intelligence, your attention and your consciousness sits a single process, and that every living thing is doing it. He has argued since 1997 that this process cannot be a computation, and his field is only now conceding the point: even predictive processing, its dominant framework, is increasingly admitted to presuppose the thing he named. A cell decides what matters to it. So does a bacterium. Possibly everything that has ever been alive, long before there was a brain to think with.Expect to learn:- Relevance realisation: how you ignore almost everything in front of you and still land on what matters- Cognition all the way down: why a single cell is doing the same thing your mind is, only smaller- The line at life: why a tornado self-organises but never cares, and what that rules out- Why computation can't do it: the reason large language models collapse on open-ended problems and always will- Mind as the between: the case that consciousness isn't inside your head but in the coupling with your worldSPONSORSDownload the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiantsGS EPISODES MENTIONEDMichael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyMMichael Levin & Earl Miller - Meet the Scientist Showing Every Cell In Your Body is Conscious!: https://youtu.be/6mU5nN5nlLAPhilip Ball - Philip Ball: Why Quantum Mechanics is NOT What you think, Consciousness, Brain Organoids, AI & Life!: https://youtu.be/nNbG5lnp51EPhilip Ball - Philip Ball: "Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought": https://youtu.be/9SseGx0R0fYAndrés Gómez Emilsson - Consciousness Expert Explains The 6 Levels Of The DMT Experience: https://youtu.be/xMdl7zF2MWEAnil Seth - No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI!: https://youtu.be/lOSA06K0l1oGUEST LINKSUniversity of Toronto Faculty Profile: https://www.psych.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/john-vervaekeWebsite: https://johnvervaeke.com/X: https://x.com/vervaeke_johnYouTube (Awakening from the Meaning Crisis): https://www.youtube.com/user/johnvervaekeAwakening from the Meaning Crisis (book): https://johnvervaeke.com/books/awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis/LISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/jcMtjjeUV98SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:54 The Meaning Crisis, Explained by a Cognitive Scientist0:04:16 The Patterns in This Room Outnumber the Particles in the Universe0:06:45 How Your Mind Ignores Almost Everything0:09:09 "Dad, It's Relevance Realisation All The Way Down"0:10:24 Noise Is Just Information Nobody Needs0:15:33 Comparing a Human Mind to a Single Cell0:18:01 Michael Levin's Cognitive Light Cone0:19:49 The Cone of Caring0:23:20 How Far Down Does Mind Actually Go?0:24:15 Why a Tornado Isn't Alive0:25:34 Pressing Michael Levin to Admit He's a Platonist0:34:01 The Water Bottle Experiment0:40:34 Where Levin Leaps From Patterns to Minds0:48:12 The Problem With Symmetry Theories of Consciousness0:55:03 Why LLMs Fall Apart on Open-Ended Problems1:00:16 Obviousness Is Not a Physical Property1:05:11 The Shark That Dies in the Sahara1:10:49 What Consciousness Is Actually Doing1:15:12 Are Neural Correlates a Dead End?1:22:07 "We Should Stop Funding It"
- 1 weeks ago1h 44m
#158 - Meet The Evolutionary Theorist Redefining Intelligence With Michael Levin
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinRichard Watson is a professor of artificial intelligence and theoretical evolutionary biology at the University of Southampton and the author of Compositional Evolution. He argues that adaptation does not require natural selection at all, and that biology has spent a century mistaking one for the other. With Michael Levin he published Natural Induction, which shows that any network whose connections give way under stress will begin to learn on its own. Ecosystems. Gene networks. Possibly the chemistry of the early Earth, long before anything was alive to be selected.Expect to learn:- Cognition before selection: why learning came first and natural selection came second- The spring mechanism: how falling masses solve hard puzzles with no brain, no genes and no designer- Ecosystems that compute: the model where an ecosystem solves a Sudoku without reproducing or inheriting- The limits of the genome: why no amount of sequencing will explain what a cell is actually doing- Medicine as persuasion: treating tissues as cognitive systems to negotiate with, not machines to fixSPONSORSDownload the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiantsGS EPISODES MENTIONEDMichael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyMGUEST LINKSUniversity of Southampton Profile: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5x27lw/professor-richard-watsonPersonal Website: https://www.richardawatson.comNatural Induction (Entropy, 2024, with Michael Levin): https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/26/9/765Publications: https://www.richardawatson.com/publications-1ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Watson-10LISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/wAGFE2S6qXgApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:43 The Assumptions Every Biologist Knows Are Wrong0:03:53 "All of Life Is Cognitive"0:06:58 Survival Is a Consequence, Not the Driver0:09:32 How Cognition Could Come Before Natural Selection0:14:03 Adaptation Isn't What Natural Selection Does0:17:57 What a Sudoku Puzzle Teaches About Life0:20:41 Masses, Springs and the Physics of Learning0:23:45 When Springs Start to Remember0:26:18 Learning as "Second-Order Falling"0:28:56 No Selection, No Neural Nets, No Design0:31:03 What "Memory" Actually Means0:35:59 Gene Networks That Learn0:38:13 An Ecosystem Solving Sudoku0:43:22 Natural Selection "Isn't Doing Anything Clever"0:52:08 No Amount of Sequencing Will Answer This0:57:23 Will We Ever Model a Cell? "Bottom Up, Never"1:01:23 Rethinking Medicine: Persuadable Systems1:08:01 Agency, or Just Complex Biochemistry?1:20:47 "I Don't Do Consciousness"1:23:30 Three Things That Changed His Mind1:25:39 Analytic Idealism and the Dream Argument1:33:31 Why Doesn't Your Consciousness Blur Into the Chair?1:35:47 McGilchrist and Why We're Blind to It1:38:47 It Was Never About Survival.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 2 weeks ago1h 23m
#157 - Meet The Consciousness Philosopher With No Mind’s Eye
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinRichard Brown is a philosopher of mind who built one of the leading cognitive theories of consciousness, co-authored the paper with Joseph LeDoux that moved the feeling of fear out of the amygdala, and has just published the full book-length case for it with Oxford University Press. He also cannot picture a chicken. Brown has aphantasia — no voluntary mental imagery whatsoever — and he didn't find out until a graduate seminar, when he realised that everyone around him had been speaking literally all along about seeing things in their heads. This is a man building a theory of inner experience from inside a mind with no pictures in it.Expect to learn:- The blank mind's eye: what a philosopher with no mental imagery reveals about where experience actually happens- Fear without the amygdala: how he and Joseph LeDoux moved the feeling of fear up into the cortex- Fake phenomenology: the TMS study where vision gets more vivid without getting any more accurate- Experience you can't reach: whether you can be having a conscious state and be locked out of it- The state of the field: why the consciousness chapter in most neuroscience textbooks is a coin flipSPONSORSGet One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeGS EPISODES MENTIONEDJoseph LeDoux - Meet The World's Greatest Emotion Neuroscientist You've Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/u_yCcxQsKn0Andrés Gómez Emilsson - Consciousness Expert Explains The 6 Levels Of The DMT Experience: https://youtu.be/xMdl7zF2MWEAlfredo Spagna - Meet The Neuroscientist Proving We Got Imagination & Aphantasia WRONG!: https://youtu.be/k8SBHefDnEkGUEST LINKSPersonal Site: https://onemorebrown.comConsciousness Live!: https://onemorebrown.com/consciousness-live/Consciousness as Representing One's Mind (OUP, 2025): https://global.oup.com/academic/product/consciousness-as-representing-ones-mind-9780197784006X: https://x.com/onemorebrownBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/onemorebrown.bsky.socialLISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/RBP-w5Z9t1gApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:10 Why You Can't Do Science Without Philosophy0:04:54 "You're Doing Bad Philosophy and You Don't Know It"0:06:26 The Band That Got Him Working With Joseph LeDoux0:11:53 Why the Consciousness Chapter Is a Coin Flip0:17:17 What a Higher-Order Theory Actually Says0:20:43 The Two Kinds of Awareness0:21:59 The Blurry Book That Taught Him About Experience0:26:32 Consciousness as Awareness of Your Own Mind0:27:08 LeDoux, the Amygdala and Where Fear Really Lives0:33:06 "There Is No Unconscious Fear"0:39:17 Two Famous Theories That Are Secretly the Same0:40:15 Aphantasia as Evidence for Higher-Order Theory0:42:57 The Speckled Hen That Broke the Seminar0:44:48 Seven Spots, or Black on Black?0:45:46 What Meditation Showed a Man With No Mind's Eye0:49:38 You Might Be Having Experiences You Can't Reach0:52:21 Ned Block's Overflow and the "Placeholder" Problem0:55:36 India Solved This Before Descartes1:02:26 Subjective Inflation, or "Fake Phenomenology"1:03:38 Zapping the Prefrontal Cortex With TMS1:06:13 The $3 Million Experiment Testing All of This1:09:56 Quality Space Theory and Mental "Dabs of Paint"1:22:08 Why You Can't Swap Your Red for My Green.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 2 weeks ago1h 25m
#156 - Meet The Greatest Time Neuroscientist You’ve Never Heard Of
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinDean Buonomano is a UCLA neuroscientist and one of the first researchers to ask how the brain encodes time. His work overturned a century-old assumption — that somewhere in your head sits a central clock — by showing that timing falls out of the dynamics of neural circuits themselves. He wrote the bestseller Your Brain Is a Time Machine, then took the argument to physics, co-authoring a paper with Carlo Rovelli on whether the past still exists. He is a presentist in a field that mostly isn't.Expect to learn:- The clockless brain: why there is no central timer anywhere in your head- Timing in a dish: how isolated brain tissue can be taught intervals- Death and religion: how foresight forced our ancestors to invent the afterlife- The ten-second test: the one simple thing no language model can do- Pause the computer: the thought experiment that breaks state-based theories of consciousnessSPONSORSGet Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderGS EPISODES MENTIONEDGyörgy Buzsáki - Meet the Neuroscientist Who Discovered That Waves Produce Memory, Spacetime and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/95FFRTIiLDYJoseph LeDoux - Meet The World's Greatest Emotion Neuroscientist You've Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/u_yCcxQsKn0Michael Levin - Michael Levin: Bioelectricity, Morphogenesis, Platonic Spaces & Xenobots: https://youtu.be/LTBZRVKUwyMMichael Levin & Earl Miller - Meet the Scientist Showing Every Cell In Your Body is Conscious!: https://youtu.be/eNi-_2cOVtcAnil Seth - No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI!: https://youtu.be/lOSA06K0l1oGUEST LINKSUCLA Neurobiology Profile: https://neurobio.ucla.edu/people/dean-buonomano-phdBuonomano Lab: http://www.buonomanolab.com/X: https://x.com/DeanBuonoBridging the Neuroscience and Physics of Time (with Carlo Rovelli): https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01976LISTEN ONYouTube - https://youtu.be/G2LaKtxUng0Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:01 The Brain Has No Central Clock0:04:17 How Neural Population Clocks Work0:05:40 Teaching Brain Tissue To Tell Time0:06:57 Prediction Is Really About When0:09:10 Even Bacteria Keep Time0:10:27 Mental Time Travel Built Civilisation0:11:39 Realising You'll Die Invented Religion0:14:57 Squirrels Don't Actually Plan Ahead0:18:19 Waking Up Before Your Alarm0:23:29 Why Time Is Central To Consciousness0:24:01 Block Universe vs Only Now0:29:24 The Runner Who Lost Time0:33:18 Why Marathons Destroy Time Perception0:37:18 The Memories With No Timestamp0:42:02 Your Brain Runs Many Clocks0:43:31 AI Cannot Wait Ten Seconds0:45:38 How Transformers Deleted Time0:49:29 What If You Paused The Computer?0:53:05 Could We Ever Build Conscious AI?0:58:17 Arguing About Time With Carlo Rovelli1:01:40 A Time Traveller Would Prove Me Wrong1:07:05 You Can't Measure Time With Time1:12:25 Which Theory Of Consciousness Is Right?1:21:55 Why We Invented The Soul.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 3 weeks ago1h 26m
#155 - Meet The World’s Greatest Endogenous DMT Psychedelic Scientist You've Never Heard Of
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇 https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinSteven Barker is the chemist who has spent fifty years proving your brain makes its own psychedelic. He built the mass-spectrometry methods sensitive enough to find DMT in living tissue, and showed it sits in the brain at concentrations rivalling serotonin and dopamine. In 1981 the war on drugs cut his funding and the work stopped for fifteen years. He also synthesised his own supply — and took it.Expect to learn:- The locked cabinet: what his mentor kept behind two locks, and why Barker raided it- The missing neurotransmitter: why DMT meets every formal criterion and nobody noticed- Machine elves: why he calls the term marketing rather than science- DMT immunity: the lab technician who took a full dose and felt nothing- Receptors inside the neuron: the 2023 finding that explains the neuroplasticitySPONSORSDownload the most scientifically rigorous nutrition app MacroFactor! Use code GIANTS for a 2 week FREE trial - https://app.macrofactor.com/mfgiantsGS EPISODES MENTIONEDAndrew Gallimore - No.1 DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, DMT Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/USgWrxEFWDARick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYscDennis McKenna - Dennis McKenna: "I've Spent 50 Years Investigating The Entities That Exist Within Ayahuasca": https://youtu.be/gTSBhfZhuD8David Nichols - Meet The Greatest Living Psychedelic Scientist You've Never Heard Of: https://youtu.be/6umTgXsW1lQGUEST LINKSResearchGate Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Steven-A-Barker-2164230436N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, an Endogenous Hallucinogen (2018 review): https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00536A Critical Review of Endogenous DMT in Humans 1955-2010 (with Strassman): https://doi.org/10.1002/dta.422LC/MS/MS Analysis of Rat Pineal Microdialysate (2013, the paper discussed on tape): https://doi.org/10.1002/bmc.2981Administration of DMT in Psychedelic Therapeutics (2022 review): https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-022-06065-0LISTEN ONSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7MApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249SKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:15 50 Years Chasing One Molecule0:06:37 Huxley, Osmond and the Birth of "Psychedelic"0:08:01 The Schizotoxin Hypothesis That Started It All0:10:54 Finding DMT in Everyone, Not Just Patients0:11:56 How the War on Drugs Killed the Research0:16:39 The 40 Years of Research We Lost0:18:36 "Have You Ever Taken It Yourself?"0:19:20 Inside the Locked Psychedelic Cabinet0:20:22 The Overabundance He Didn't Want to Waste0:22:51 Why He Won't Describe What He Saw0:23:38 Set, Setting and the Expectancy Problem0:27:16 Dennis McKenna Has Never Seen a Machine Elf0:28:31 "Machine Elf" Was a Marketing Term0:30:40 The Tryptamine Family Tree Explained0:34:21 Bufotenine, 5-MeO-DMT and the Blood-Brain Barrier0:38:36 DMT as a Working Neurotransmitter0:41:34 "DMT Is the Missing Neurotransmitter"0:44:56 You Have Two Brains - and the Gut Makes More0:46:29 Pushing Back on Gallimore's Alien World0:54:04 96% Say the Entity Was Conscious0:57:52 Did the Caveman Experience an Alien?0:59:07 "These Are Not Real Elves"1:06:40 Are Some People Immune to DMT?1:10:51 You Can't Build Tolerance to Your Own Neurotransmitter1:15:46 The Receptors Hiding Inside Your Neurons1:24:24 What a Psychedelic Overdose Actually Is.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
- 3 weeks ago1h 26m
#154 Meet The Greatest End-Of-Life Scientist You’ve Never Heard Of
🧠 JOIN THE GIANT'S SHOULDER FAMILYBecome a YouTube Member for exclusive episodes, early access + ad-free viewing 👇https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder/joinAlexander Batthyány is the philosopher and psychologist who turned a deathbed anecdote into a science. He ran the first modern study of paradoxical lucidity, co-authored the field's founding definition with Bruce Greyson, and has now collected around 450 cases of severely demented patients unexpectedly getting their memory, speech and personality back. Victorian doctors documented the phenomenon at length and called it "lightening up before death"; twentieth-century medicine stopped writing it down because there was no way to phrase it in a case study. He is now working with a group at the Mayo Clinic to put cameras in patients' rooms so the episodes stop being missed. In one case a woman came back for two hours, discussed her own diagnosis, died — and imaging taken immediately afterwards showed no change whatsoever.SPONSORSGet One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool) - https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeGS EPISODES MENTIONEDRick Strassman - Meet The Father Of Modern DMT Research: https://youtu.be/KeAZOj7tYscAndrew Gallimore - No.1 DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, DMT Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/USgWrxEFWDAGUEST LINKSX: https://x.com/Alxdr_BatthyanyGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VRL8CPYAAAAJPersonal Site: https://sites.google.com/view/alexanderbatthyany/startViktor Frankl Institute Vienna: https://www.viktorfrankl.org/Threshold (2023): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250782298/threshold/Psychology Today - Magic Mushrooms and Terminal Lucidity: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/consciousness-and-meaning-at-lifes-end/202607/magic-mushrooms-and-terminal-lucidityBatthyany & Greyson (2021), Spontaneous Remission of Dementia Before Death: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2021/04/terminal-lucidity-PC.pdfSKOOLWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutFOLLOW EVANhttps://x.com/evan_mcglTIMESTAMPS0:00:00 Trailer0:02:29 What Terminal Lucidity Actually Is0:05:33 Why He'd Rather Call It "Paradoxical Lucidity"0:06:01 "Call Your Grandma - She's Back Again"0:09:11 The Victorians Documented It, Then Medicine Stopped0:10:55 "We Saw It, But We Didn't Write It Down"0:12:58 Frankl's Rule: Treat Them As Fully Present0:17:35 What Brain Age Was She Speaking From?0:18:36 "It Was All As If In A Fog"0:21:11 The Wife Who Filmed It So People Would Believe Her0:25:40 The Art Historian Who Gave Back His Books0:30:27 Is It Comforting For Families, Or Crueller?0:32:02 The Three Shocks Every Family Goes Through0:38:05 450 Cases And Counting0:41:29 Does It Have Anything To Do With Death At All?0:45:12 Steven Pinker: "You're Seeing Figures In Clouds"0:47:10 "Everywhere And Nowhere"0:49:47 They Overdosed Her On Psilocybin. She Woke Up.0:51:37 She Got Her Sense Of Humour Back0:55:18 Dresden: The Brain Hadn't Changed At All0:56:37 "Some Of Our Personhood Is Platform Independent"1:02:40 Near-Death Experiences vs Paradoxical Lucidity1:05:52 Rick Strassman, DMT And Neuroprotection1:11:22 "How Can We Get Them Out?"1:20:20 When Vienna Gave Psychiatric Patients Malaria.....Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com
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About Giants Shoulder
A Biology & Consciousness podcast chronicling the bio-singularity. I speak with leading scientists at the bleeding edge of Neuroscience, Consciousness and Biology. No idea is too strange, tackled with genuine curiosity and technical rigour. Come follow the journey as I have my brain melted and ontology warped on a regular basis. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is founder of Giants Shoulder.
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