Carson McNeil

Humans have remote touch 'seventh sense' like sandpipers, research shows A study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London has found that humans have a form of remote touch, or the ability to sense objects without direct contact, a sen...

Any spiritualist energy worker could have told you this as a fact obvious in their day-to-day occupation. Until recently, they would have been laughed out of the room. But now it has scientific validation. Maybe listen to the other things they're saying? share.google/K5oCixEOC4AT...

Absolutely. I'm curious whether there is a good cultural scaffolding to make the interaction safer. "Shoggoth with a mask" is better than "my personal assistant" or "a dumb program". But it's still a little nerd-core.

carsonogenic.substack.com/publish/post...

Another carsonogenic essay. ChatGPT Psychosis is a growing epidemic, and now it has been reported on by several major publications. If you or someone you know exhibits the symptoms I discuss in the piece...maybe pass it along. I'd also love to hear more reports, DM me!

New essay drop on carsonogenic! open.substack.com/pub/carsonog...

Karma is Not Justice, and more 10 Corrections to common American misconceptions of Buddhism

carsonogenic.substack.com/p/karma-is-n...

I'm working too much this year to meditate or write as much. (and meaningful work is itself spiritually supportive) But Buddhism remains an incredibly resourcing force in my life. I hammered out this list of common American misconceptions about Buddhism on Carsonogenic!

Use Spiritual, not Material, Boundaries in your Intimate Relationships An old repost from my old Medium.

I am struggling to find time to write amidst the demands of my new job. I do have a couple things in the pipeline, but in the meantime, given the success of the poly post, I thought people might enjoy this old medium piece I wrote about relationships!

carsonogenic.substack.com/p/use-spirit...

I think ideally the AI chat would have a personality that is not just "conversation partner of some level", but "tutor", willing to occasionally break the flow of conversation to explain a construct or correct bad grammar, and then return to where the conversation paused.

2. I think it would really maintain your advantage if you operationalize and track this type of "quality" thing, even if it's not possible to get it to 100% today.

Good luck! I'll probably check in and use it every so often! It feels closer to what I want than anything else I've found so far.

I understand these are extremely difficult ML problems, but
1. They are possible to solve, as a human tutor is generally pretty good at this sort of thing.

- Quality of voice to text: I would like to see more "did you mean...?" and correction of pronunciation based on context as opposed to just mishearing me (or I mispronounce) and the conversation veers off on a tangent. It feels hard to correct or "rewind" a conversation.

- I would love to see better ability to blend English and mandarin, the way an intro tutor would with you. I'm sure it's debated but I don't think 100% pure immersive is as good as some translation and Chinglish when starting.

Oh hey! Yea, I like the format of the AI chat agents. Free-form voice chat with pinyin included is great. I feel most of what could improve is not additional features, but intelligence of existing features:

I can tell you from exploring so far that Langotalk is much much better than Talkpal, which is practically unusable. However, it still leaves much to be desired. The bones of Langotalk are good, I just wish its agent was smarter and had fewer mistakes/misunderstandings.

Does anyone have recs for a language AI tutor app? Looking for something I can converse in Mandarin with (vocally), has Claude-level flexibility/intelligence, and can do things like give me the pinyin and characters for words, but also correct my pronunciation.

Does this exist yet?

#recs #AI

I really want you to be a contestant on Jetlag.

Anthropic CEO floats idea of giving AI a “quit job” button, sparking skepticism “Probably the craziest thing I’ve said so far,” he admitted during an interview.

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/a...

Darius Amodei is talking about giving AIs a "quit" button. This is great, in that he is concerned with the welfare of beings that may or may not be being created. But such a discussion needs to be grounded in an understanding of the _cause of suffering_. Consult your local Buddhists.

"I'm going to a meta dance party."
"Wait, like the corporation or the brahmavihara?"
"The brahmavihara"

#overheardinsf #sfthinhs #buddhism

Spiritual Practices Share a Common Mental Pathway to Deep Bliss - Neuroscience News Researchers found that Buddhist jhāna meditation and Christian speaking in tongues, despite their differences, share a common cognitive feedback loop.

This makes sense to me, not least because jhana practice triggered a glossolalia experience for me once: neurosciencenews.com/mental-pathw...

I love connections like this. I'll add that the bigrammaton (Yaweh) is thought to also mean air/breath.

My roommate @exoconnor.bsky.social would be great for this role, and is available rn! Matches everything + some neuro background. Texting you.

If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery.

Brain implant that could boost mood by using ultrasound to go under NHS trial Devices may have potential to help patients with conditions such as depression, addiction, OCD and epilepsy

My new employer Forest Neurotech (a ~15 person FRO working on Ultrasound for Neuroimaging and Neuromodulation) just announced a big trial!

Targeting various mental illness. I find the most exciting and promising one to be addiction. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

#neuroscience #fUS

It seems likely that some other party will buy the cars and do that.

Oh sad, it would be much more efficient (from an environmental/resources/parking perspective) to have a handful of fleet operators.

Amidst all the upcoming AI/capitalist dystopias I had an optimistic thought: if individual self-driving car companies own and operate significant portion of commuter traffic (could waymo own 20% in 15 years?), it might become economically imperative for them to build trains!

#AI #technology #trains

Specifically Ursula K. Le Guin's books. Omg her Daodejing translation, and The Dispossessed! 🤯

Organize Your Google Drive by Chakra Is this what they mean by "somatic integration"?

open.substack.com/pub/carsonog...

Happy Gregorian New Year everyone!
To usher in 2025 with the usual tradition of reflection and getting our lives in order, I wrote a carsonogenic post that is a lot sillier, schtickier, and shorter than the last one.
#Chakra #yoga #Productivity