How does the inner mental experience of autistic people vary? What is our day to day experience that creates stress or tension? Can we skillfully reduce it?

Vynn and Francis interview philosopher and neuroscientist Michael Johnson. Michael founded the Qualia Research Institute, and wrote the book Principia Qualia about consciousness.

The conversation begins with the inner experience of autistic people. How does a denser, more connected neural network lead to more variety of experience?

Then it goes through Michael’s theory of vasocomputation in detail. This relates to the Buddhist concept of “tanha” (grasping) and how it relates to stress and tension.

Do we control the world too much, or in ways that make no sense? What is the experience of doing this, and how can we use techniques like meditation to change this?

Timestamps:

00:46 Autism and neuron connectivity
07:44 Autism and inner experience
10:03 Meditation
11:34 Vasocomputation
13:27 Free energy and active inference
17:18 Buddhist concept of Tanha (grasping)
23:10 Three unskillful active inferences
25:36 Skillful active inference
27:40 Pain and pleasure
28:37 Qualia

Show Links:

 * Autism as a disorder of dimensionality [https://opentheory.net/2023/05/autism-as-a-disorder-of-dimensionality/] - article by Michael Johnson
 * Principles of Vasocomputation: A Unification of Buddhist Phenomenology, Active Inference, and Physical Reflex (Part I) [https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/] - article by Michael Johnson
 * Michael Johnson’s Twitter account [https://twitter.com/johnsonmxe]
 * Michael Johnson’s website [https://opentheory.net/contact/]

Contact Details:

Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!

Twitter: @imagine_apple [https://twitter.com/imagine_apple] @SurenVynn [https://twitter.com/SurenVynn] @frabcus
[https://twitter.com/frabcus]Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]

Tanha with neuroscientist Michael Johnson

What do musicians see in their mind’s eyes and ears while playing? How do they use that to create the impact of the music on the audience?

Vynn and Francis interview professional cellist Matthew Pierce who is aphantasic - he has no visual imagination. He uses his audio, spatial, emotional and bodily imagination to perform music.

Matthew goes into detail about learning to play an instrument, using different kinds of imagination to train the subconscious to control the body while playing.

How does the body move while playing a cello and a piano? Where do you need to visually pay attention while in an orchestra? What are they different layers of habit that are built up while learning an instrument?

To finish, there’s a discussion about a lack of visual imagination making it harder to do paperwork.

After this interview, Matthew composed, performed and recorded the intro and outro music for “Imagine an Apple”. Thanks Matthew, it’s very much appreciated! Check out his other musical work in the links below.

Timestamps:

01:33 Inner audio experience
04:16 Spatial imagination
05:56 Teaching playing an instrument
09:40 Body position while playing cello
11:09 Imagining what you want to play
15:11 Difference with visual imagination
16:19 Places you look while playing in orchestra
18:35 Reading music as sound vs notation
23:21 Musical keys, embodiment of playing
30:52 Imagining audio of an orchestral piece
36:15 Imagining emotions of audience
41:50 Different kinds of mind’s eyes
44:39 Paperwork when aphantasic
50:02 Vynn and Francis chat about the episode

Show Links:

 * Piercello’s Progress [https://piercello.substack.com/] - Matthew’s email newsletter on Substack
 * Matthew’s Twitter account [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]
 * Matthew’s YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLdxOcmHYxraZ2kUt-c5L5w]
 * Prelude from J. S. Bach's Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5H6DgY_k3M]

Contact Details:

Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!

Twitter: @imagine_apple [https://twitter.com/imagine_apple] @SurenVynn [https://twitter.com/SurenVynn] @frabcus
[https://twitter.com/frabcus]Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]

Music with cellist Matthew Pierce

How has emotion changed over history, and in different cultures? How do people experience emotion - in the body, cognitively, as concepts, as colours?

Vynn and Francis discuss how different people, including themselves individually, experience emotion.

The conversation leads into the practical question of how it is best to experience emotion, and how that happens socially and in combination with rational thought.

This episode is a follow-up companion episode to the interview with philosopher Tom Cochrane about emotion in the previous episode.

Timestamps:

00:46 Experiments about emotions
03:30 History of emotion
08:51 Emotion in different cultures
10:52 Experiencing emotions in different ways
15:38 Cause of bodily feeling of sensations
18:57 Vynn's experience of emotion
22:29 Francis' experience of emotion
25:09 Desirability of feeling emotion in body more
28:12 Social reality of emotions
32:51 Emotional-rational complexes, practical tips

Show Links:

 * “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States” [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/emotional-mind/4196F9FA10CCDFABAA888C9825162F9A#fndtn-information] - book by Tom Cochrane
 * How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain [https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/] - book by Lisa Feldman Barrett
 * Critiques of Paul Ekman’s theory of facial expression of emotions [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2021/04/artificial-intelligence-misreading-human-emotion/618696/] - The Atlantic
 * Professor Thomas Dixon’s research into history of emotion [https://www.qmul.ac.uk/history/people//academic-staff/profiles/dixonthomas.html] - website
 * This kind of rosy yellow glow in my head [https://www.flourish.org/2023/03/this-kind-of-rosy-yellow-glow-in-my-head/] - blog post introduction to Hurlburt
 * Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/weeping-britannia-9780199676057?cc=gb&lang=en&] - book by Thomas Dixon

Contact Details:

Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!

Twitter: @imagine_apple [https://twitter.com/imagine_apple] @SurenVynn [https://twitter.com/SurenVynn] @frabcus
[https://twitter.com/frabcus]Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]

Do we all experience emotion differently?

What is emotion? How’s it different from feelings? How do different people experience it?

Vynn and Francis interview philosopher Tom Cochrane, author of “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States” [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/emotional-mind/4196F9FA10CCDFABAA888C9825162F9A#fndtn-information], about emotion.

They unpick the sometimes confusing academic words on this topic, such as affect and valence.

How does the way the brain is a prediction machine relate to emotion? Are emotions social? What is the impact of different clothes, locations or music on emotion? What is the state of scientific experiments about emotion?

This episode has a follow-up companion episode, where Vynn and Francis talk more widely about our varying experience of emotion.

Timestamps:

00:42 Definitions - emotion, feelings, affect, valence
09:24 Meditation used to increase attention
11:21 Valent (positive/negative) representation
17:30 Predictive processing
20:03 Emotions!
26:08 Social emotions
29:38 Varying experience of emotion - bodily, cognitive, colours
33:55 Expressing emotion with clothes, music, writing
36:16 Science behind emotions - experiments

Show Links:

 * “The Emotional Mind: A Control Theory of Affective States” [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/emotional-mind/4196F9FA10CCDFABAA888C9825162F9A#fndtn-information] - book by Tom Cochrane
 * “Your brain doesn’t detect reality. It creates it” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikvrwOnay3g] - video with Lisa Feldman Barrett
 * “The Emotional Power of Music” [https://academic.oup.com/book/8659?login=false] - book by Tom Cochrane
 * “A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis” [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01458-9] - Nature Human Behaviour
 * Tom Cochrane on Twitter - @doctorcochrane [https://twitter.com/doctorcochrane]
 * Tom’s Website - All Writings [https://sites.google.com/view/tomcochranephilosophy/about?authuser=0]

Contact Details:

Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!

Twitter: @imagine_apple [https://twitter.com/imagine_apple] @SurenVynn [https://twitter.com/SurenVynn] @frabcus
[https://twitter.com/frabcus]Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]

Emotion with philosopher Tom Cochrane

Welcome to "Imagine an apple"! A podcast about our different inner mental worlds.

In this introductory episode, Vynn Suren and Francis Irving discuss differences in how they do (or don't) imagine, and how they got interested in this topic.

What are the differences between what it is like inside our minds? From imagining an apple, to imagining in a dream - even imagined smell and proprioception.

How do these vary between individuals, and how do they vary between human cultures?

Timestamps:

00:20 Why Vynn and Francis are interested in inner experience
02:42 The "Imagine an apple" test
08:33 Dream imagery
12:17 Imagery of the past and the future
14:26 Smell and other senses
16:00 Proprioception
22:27 Variety between individuals
27:35 Bornean shamans and prophantasia
37:57 Socialisation of inner realities
42:10 Summary

Show Links:

 * "Think of an Apple in Your Head" Meme [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/think-of-an-apple-in-your-head-apple-visualization-exercise]
 * Lucid Dreaming “Hands” Reality Check [https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming/Reality_Checks/Hands]
 * Bobohizan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobohizan]
 * How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others [https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article-abstract/89/2/774/6284135] - T. M. Luhrmann

Contact Details:

Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!

Twitter: @imagine_apple [https://twitter.com/imagine_apple] @SurenVynn [https://twitter.com/SurenVynn] @frabcus [https://twitter.com/frabcus]
Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello [https://twitter.com/MJPiercello]

Introduction to "Imagine an apple"

A podcast about our different inner mental experiences. Presented by Vynn Suren and Francis Irving.

Why can some people imagine and others can't? How do different people experience emotion? How is our view of our own minds influenced by our culture?