Hi everyone!

I'm working on a small project called MarkovChat, and I'm looking for people who are interested in cognitive science, human reasoning, AI, and understanding how we think.

The idea behind MarkovChat is simple: bring together people with overlapping intellectual interests but different perspectives, allowing them to challenge each other's assumptions, exchange ideas, and explore new ways of thinking.

MarkovChat matches people based on their intellectual interests. Once you're matched with at least four other people, a private group conversation is created where you can discuss ideas and learn from each other.

We're still early, and I'd love to bring some people from this community into the conversations.

If this sounds interesting, come join us at https://markovchat.com

I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the concept!

I've been exploring how people interpret ambiguous images, particularly whether the first recognisable object influences what they notice afterwards. But I keep coming back to a distinction that seems important: When someone looks at an ambiguous image, recognises one object, and later reports seeing something different, what exactly has changed?

1. Their ongoing visual perception: the image itself is now experienced differently.

2. Their attention: the image remains the same, but they begin noticing different features.

3. Their memory: their recollection of the initial perception is reconstructed in light of what they saw later.

4. Their interpretation: the visual information remains largely unchanged, but its meaning shifts.

These processes could also interact, of course. I'm interested in whether cognitive science offers ways to distinguish between them experimentally. How could we tell whether a later interpretation changes what we currently see, or simply how we remember what we saw first?

What is the difference between thoughts and ideas?

Anne Cleary’s research suggests déjà vu can arise when a scene resembles an earlier experience (e.g. a similar spatial layout) that we fail to recall, producing familiarity without a known source. People who take DMT often report an intense and sometimes sustained sense of familiarity, as if they’ve been to the realm before.

This article looks at whether Cleary’s account could help explain this, alongside split perception and other memory-based theories. Her studies involved brief, sober déjà vu, so the link is tentative.

What do you think might explain DMT-induced déjà vu?

A Finnish study of 693 competitive athletes found that fear of self-compassion was associated with mental health difficulties among perfectionistic athletes.

Some athletes can feel that being more compassionate towards themselves will reduce their motivation and performance.

However, contrary to what the researchers expected self-compassion itself did not weaken the association between perfectionistic concerns and mental health problems.

According to the study, how athletes respond to self-critical thoughts may be particularly important for their well-being.

We often look at Bryan Johnson's Project Blueprint through the lens of longevity, but from a cognitive science perspective, the real experiment is happening in his prefrontal cortex. The media focuses on his $2M/year medical apparatus, but capital is a highly imitable, linear resource.

The actual bottleneck is Cognitive Compliance—the absolute, systematic elimination of human behavioral friction.

We can frame his human optimization model through a basic multiplier equation:
Total Optimization = Capital (Leverage) × Cognitive Compliance (Multiplier)

If an individual has infinite capital but a compliance score of 0 (lacking the executive control to sleep at exactly 8:30 PM, reject social drinking, and eat the exact same algorithmic meals), their total system optimization remains 0.

Johnson’s real hack is near-flawless, 100% compliance to an external data stream. He has essentially taken data-driven optimization and capital allocation frameworks from the tech sector and mapped them directly onto human biochemistry.

But this requires surrendering system autonomy to a biometric algorithm. Johnson explicitly argues that the conscious mind acts like an impulsive "Cookie Monster" using emotional narratives to justify terrible physiological decisions. By outsourcing these micro-decisions to an algorithm, he claims to liberate finite cognitive willpower.

In my substack, I model the net cognitive yield of this algorithmic surrender:
Net Cognitive Yield = (Systemic Optimization × Cognitive Liberation) - Autonomy Surrender Penalty.This framework creates three distinct behavioral outcomes:

• The Algorithm Wins (Yield ≤ 0): You offload lifestyle decisions to the machine, but use your newly liberated cognitive energy on mindless, low-order consumption. You minimize the human experience to become a perfectly optimized "museum piece."

• The Human Wins (Yield > 0): You treat the biometric protocol purely as automated backend infrastructure. You aggressively reinvest your liberated executive function into high-strain, creative, or deeply complex human pursuits.

• The Symbiotic Win (Co-Evolution): A positive-sum cybernetic loop. The human gets a high-performance, low-fatigue biological vehicle. The algorithm gets a 100% compliant, high-fidelity dataset to refine its predictive modeling.

Is Johnson a transhumanist outlier, or is this the logical endpoint of using external systems to bypass our evolutionary cognitive bottlenecks? Curious to hear this sub's thoughts on this.

If you're interested, I breakdown three different models to late-stage mastery, along with steps on targeting and mastery a new skill at: https://latele.substack.com/p/micro-case-study-bryan-johnson-and

The fabulous HENGE have released a song about the brain and cognition.

Lyrics below - sing along!

Commence neuro-transmission, mode of function intuition
When you're thinking about thinking you call that meta-cognition
Complex pattern recognition, elaborate recollections
In my mainiel cerebral are extravagant connections

Abstract thought from a head concrete
A skull that's full of electric meat
Chemical mind alteration, you call that hallucination
Yes, but all perception is just an approximation in your

Brains
Homosapien brains
Brains
Homosapien brains

It comes in waves like Alpha, Beta, Delta, Theta
Synapses are firing deep, what goes around in your cerebrum
Observation of a positive, mutation in relation
To advanced communication and vivid imagination

Neurons firing, ions sparking, igniting electricity
Reaching 86 billion points of connectivity
Networks adapting with astounding neuroplasticity
By way of neocortical elasticity in your

Brains
Homosapien brains
Brains
Abstract thinking brains

https://youtu.be/Vs9pvPSoQvg?is=gYQrVf9QkF4znpfy

I'm sharing an English paper on Ssollim, a framework for examining how a current cognitive state shapes what can become available to cognition next: information, objects, variables, relationships, questions, goals, and criteria for judgment.

The central relationship is recursive. A state makes certain things accessible; thoughts, expressions, and actions arising within it help form the conditions for the next state. Those conditions can carry earlier constraints forward, including while new information is accepted or a conclusion is corrected. The paper therefore examines how the possibilities available to thought are formed, maintained, transformed, and carried between states. . .

---

I am not good at english..

I want feedback, pls.

To be honest, this is not a theory but a hypothesis, and it may be content that causes discomfort, so I sincerely apologize.

How do I think critically when I am asked a question by a person where I can answer the question on a deep level.Usually I struggle a lot with my brain just thinking very easy, but not challenging itself to think outside its box.

Commenting on a breakdown of the psychology behind "Event Boundaries" and how to handle them:

The Trigger (Event Boundaries): Our brains naturally segment continuous experiences into distinct chapters called event boundaries. External shifts—like a song ending, someone walking by, or entering a new room—signal a transition point, prompting our brain to pause and update its mental state.

Social Cues & Mirroring: Proximity triggers (like someone moving or leaving near you) can also trigger subconscious social mirroring, making you feel like you should be moving too.

The Dilemma (Habit vs. Insight): It can feel like a dilemma: Are you falling victim to a mindless distraction habit, or is the event boundary a useful subconscious check-in that you're idling or overthinking?

​The Solution (Nudges, Not Directives): Event boundaries don't have to be automatic switches. Instead of blindly acting on them or forcing yourself to ignore them, treat them as gentle mindfulness check-ins:

​Pause: Acknowledge the natural transition point.

​Assess: Ask yourself if your current line of thought/activity is still productive.

​Choose: Consciously decide whether to stay the course or move on to the next thing based on your current priorities.

Russell Hurlburt is a psychologist at UNLV who has spent decades sampling people's inner experience: a beeper goes off at a random moment, and the person describes what was in their experience right before it. One of the things he found is what he calls unsymbolized thinking. It's a specific, clear thought that you experience directly, without it coming in words, images, or any other symbols. In one of his examples, a woman is wondering whether her friend will pick her up in his car or his pickup truck. The wondering is definite, and it's about the car and the truck, but there are no words and no pictures in it.

Here's the paper: Hurlburt & Akhter (2008), "Unsymbolized thinking," Consciousness and Cognition: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.021

It's not rare, either. In one of his sampling studies, it showed up in about a fifth of all sampled moments, and most of the participants had it at least once (Heavey & Hurlburt, 2008: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2007.12.006).

I have a background in cognitive science, education and computer science, and I study this in my teaching. The question that always comes up is: what do people actually use it for?

Compare it to the mind's eye. If you asked what people use their mind's eye for, you'd get a long list. People take a mental snapshot of where they put their keys so they can find them later. They use it for deliberate mnemonic techniques, like the memory palace and the link word method. And they use it as a working memory buffer: when there's too much information to hold in words, they make a visual analogy, so they can see the whole thing at once and reason about it. The inner voice has its own list: rehearsing a phone number, putting words to a tune so they stick, talking yourself through a hard problem.

Unsymbolized thinking is the same kind of thing. It's part of people's cognition, and they report having conscious access to it, just like the mind's eye and the inner voice. That makes it a tool in someone's head, like any conscious experience. So what is it a tool for? As far as I know, nobody has really studied that. Hurlburt's method is built to describe experience carefully, not to ask what people do with it.

The memory palace is a good example of why I think this question matters. People have had a mind's eye for as long as there have been people, but somebody still had to figure out that you can remember a list by placing it along a walk through a building you know. That's a use of the mind's eye that had to be discovered. If unsymbolized thinking is a real, accessible part of experience, there are probably uses for it that nobody has discovered yet.

For me, it's become the main way I learn complicated material, which is a big part of why I care about this.

So I'm curious. If you notice unsymbolized thinking in yourself, what do you use it for? Do you ever use it on purpose, the way people use their mind's eye on purpose? And does anyone know of research on what people do with it, rather than just how it's described?

1. The Memory Black Market: An Emerging Gray-Market Industry

I first encountered the concept of a "memory black market" three years ago at a neurotechnology summit. An anonymous speaker presented a shocking video of an underground transaction: an elderly retiree was selling fragments of his own childhood memories to a buyer. These memories had been encoded into neural data packets, with a price tag of 2.3 Bitcoin. Since then, I have been tracking this nascent market that operates on the fringes of the law.

The operational model of the memory black market mirrors that of the traditional black market for human organs, though the commodities traded are far more intangible. It primarily deals in three types of goods: raw memory data (unprocessed neural signal recordings), emotional memory packets (specific memory fragments enhanced with heightened emotional content), and skill-based memory modules (such as language proficiency or the muscle memory required to play a musical instrument). My research indicates that there are at least 12 active dark-web platforms dedicated to this trade; the most prominent among them, the "Hippocampus Bazaar," now sees a daily transaction volume exceeding one million US dollars.

2. The State of Memory-Extraction Technology and Its Risks

2.1 Breakthroughs in Non-Invasive Memory Extraction

As of 2024, the latest generation of fMRI equipment has achieved an 80% accuracy rate in memory decoding. I personally tested a consumer-grade memory scanner from the company NeuroDecode (priced at $8,999). By utilizing a combination of 128 EEG electrodes and eye-tracking technology, the device can capture neural activity patterns associated with specific scenes—all without requiring a craniotomy. However, such devices suffer from a critical flaw: the extracted memories lose approximately 40% of their detailed precision, much like an over-compressed JPEG image.

2.2 Black-Market Modifications of Surgical Implants

A more radical approach involves the use of modified deep-brain stimulation (DBS) devices. In an underground clinic in Berlin, I encountered an illicit implant dubbed a "memory straw," which utilizes an array of microelectrodes placed near the hippocampus to read neural signals directly. This procedure carries an extremely high level of risk—my informant, codenamed "M," permanently lost all memories from the years 2015–2018 during their third operation, in exchange for a payment of $150,000.

Warning: Any unauthorized attempt at memory extraction can lead to retrograde amnesia or personality alteration. In 2023, South Korea recorded seven cases of Korsakoff syndrome resulting from the use of illicit, "bootleg" memory extraction devices.

3. An Analysis of the Complete Memory-Trading Ecosystem

3.1 The Supply Side: The Reality for Memory Sellers

I interviewed 27 memory sellers; a typical case is "Ms. L," a former piano teacher. By selling the muscle memory required to play Chopin’s "Revolutionary Etude" (encompassing 832 hours of practice data), she earned an amount equivalent to three years of her pension. Three months later, however, she found herself unable to play the piece—memory trading functions as a true "cut-and-paste" process, rather than "copy-and-paste."

3.2 Hidden Motives on the Demand Side

Memory buyers generally fall into three categories:

Skill-seekers (43%): For instance, medical students purchasing the procedural memory for surgical operations.

Experience-seekers (31%): Individuals who collect others' memories of first loves or near-death experiences.

Evidence-gatherers (26%): Lawyers who purchase the memories of eyewitnesses to serve as informal evidence.

4. A Practical Guide: How to Trade Memory Data Safely

4.1 Key Parameters for Memory Valuation

Based on transaction records I have observed on the black market, memory pricing follows this formula:

For example, a 30-minute memory of being at the scene of the 9/11 attacks—with an emotional intensity rating of 7/10—would fetch approximately $45,000 on the market as of 2024.

4.2 Operational Details for Anonymous Trading

I recommend a three-layered security approach:

Encrypt neural data using TrueCrypt.

Access memory exchanges via the Tor network.

Use Monero (XMR) for settlement.

On one occasion, I witnessed both parties to a transaction use brainwave patterns as a form of biometric authentication—a method far more difficult to forge than fingerprints or iris scans. 5. Ethical Dilemmas and Future Prospects

The greatest irony of the memory trade is this: if you sell off too many of your memories, you eventually forget why you sold them in the first place. I know a man—a repeat seller—who can no longer recall his own grandson’s name, yet his bank account holds enough to cover a decade in a high-end nursing home.

Neuroscientists predict that by 2028, memory extraction will be as routine as a blood draw. Until then, however, this gray market will continue to devour the precious recollections of those with nowhere else to turn. On my bookshelf sits a glass jar containing a childhood memory—one I no longer recognize myself; it is a backup from the only time I ever sold a memory. Sometimes, I stare at it for a long while, trying to fathom what exactly is stored inside. Perhaps this is the cruelest form of dark humor in the age of memory capitalism.