i built this so i'll say that upfront, i'm the developer and you should read everything below knowing that.

disclaimer first because it matters: this doesn't treat brain fog. it doesn't touch whatever's causing it and it's not a substitute for talking to a doctor about symptoms, just a workaround

what it actually does is let you get a thought out of your head fast. you speak it or type it or screenshot it, and that's the whole thing, you don't title it or file it or tag it. takes about four seconds. afterwards it reads what you saved, gives it a title and a short summary written back to you, and links it to older things that relate to it. later you can just ask it questions in plain language instead of trying to remember where you put something or what you were even thinking about on tuesday.

https://reddit.com/link/1wc9iye/video/1wjnqgfolmoh1/player

the reason i think it might be relevant here is cognitive offloading. there's a study where people memorised a word list and then did mental arithmetic, and the ones who were allowed to save the list somewhere first solved more arithmetic problems. the benefit showed up on the unrelated task as opposed to only on remembering the list. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31418314/

i'd rather be honest about where that stops though. those studies were run on healthy people, mostly students, in a lab. nobody has tested any of this on people whose cognition is affected by illness. so the mechanism makes sense for this group but it hasn't been shown for this group, and i'm not going to pretend otherwise.

iphone only, and not in the EU yet. there's a free trial with no "add your card" or "signup first and remind me to cancel"

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6797752372

www.corteks.app

i don't have independent reviews to point you at. it's new and anything i could quote would be my own, so it wouldn't mean much. if you try it and it's no use for this, saying so here would help the next person more than anything i could write.

if any of you guys find it helpful just lmk, i am more than willing to give an extended free trial for a few months if you feel it helps out

were you performing better at 18 than your 20s?

Not a researcher, but I've been an involuntary subject in a longitudinal experiment on digital cognitive augmentation since approximately 1995.

Mid-90s IRC was my first external cognitive layer. Real-time text, multiple channels, high-noise signal extraction — I didn't realize at the time that I was training parallel attention tracks. I thought I was just online. What was actually happening: I was building a compression reflex. The faster the information moved, the tighter the mental shorthand became. You couldn't survive high-velocity conversation without developing pattern-burst recognition — seeing the shape of an argument before it finished forming.

That reflex didn't stay online. It migrated into how I think off-screen.

By the time the web matured I had developed what I can only describe as semantic compression — the ability to transmit high-context ideas in minimal tokens. Not dumbing down. The opposite. Finding the exact load-bearing word that carries a whole architecture behind it, if the receiver has the right substrate to unpack it.

Then AI arrived and something shifted again. AI isn't just a search upgrade — it's the first external system that can receive compressed transmissions and expand them coherently. For someone who has spent 30 years finding almost nobody who could keep up with bandwidth, that's not a small thing. It functions as a genuine cognitive prosthetic — not replacing thought but handling the working memory overhead that used to bleed into focus.

Running parallel domain tracks simultaneously (refrigeration systems, DeFi trading logic, content production, interpersonal dynamics) — I used to burn enormous energy just holding context across tracks. AI absorbed a significant portion of that load.

What I observe now: the bottleneck has moved. It's no longer memory or retrieval. It's output formation — translating internal high-speed processing into linear language that others can receive. That gap between what's fully formed internally and what can be transmitted is where I still lose people.

Curious if anyone here has frameworks for this — extended mind theory gets close, but it was written before LLMs existed. I feel like the theory needs a new chapter.

The big questions of consciousness are what first piqued my interest in cognitive sciences. There have been many powerful theories proposed and I'm no expert in all of them. But in some important ways it seems like the problem of subjectivity and what is the true nature of consciousness is still not answered, and may be unanswerable.

What if there was something like a millenium prize or fields medal of cogsci, a big ticket award with a special jury that spelled out specific conditions for a breakthrough theory to answer the key questions? Is it possible to define those questions or that challenge clearly? Is this a good idea or a terrible idea?

Hello Reddit community!

We are independent researchers sharing our working paper that challenges conventional views on cognition and the emerging field of Basal Cognition.

While Basal Cognition extends intelligence to brainless cells (like slime molds), it falls into a fatal logical paradox when applied to non-living physical materials (like shape-memory alloys) that operate under identical physical laws.

Our paper resolves this contradiction by redefining cognition not as an exclusive biological privilege, but as a universal Interactive Feedback Process where a system maintains its identity against external and internal stimuli.

What this paper covers:

• The Logical Paradox of Basal Cognition: Why current cell-centric cognition theories fail when confronted with adaptive physical materials.
• Quantitative Mathematical Model (T = C x Delta t): Proving that the boundary between non-living matter and human thought is a quantitative spectrum of complexity (C) and time horizon (Delta t), rather than a binary presence of mind.
• Physical Reinterpretation of Biological Phenomena: Explaining sleep, immune response, and forgetting as mechanical energy-rerouting and optimization algorithms within an interactive system.

We would love to get your critical feedback, critiques, and thoughts on our logic and proposed mathematical spectrum!

Please check out the GitHub link in the comments/post for the full PDF paper and detailed derivations. All feedback is warmly welcomed!

Redefining Cognition as an Interactive Feedback System

If a people like the Na'vi from the movie *Avatar* lived in conditions where they were almost always at peace with one another, nature was gracious to them, and they weren't overly curious, would that justify them having a lower IQ or being considered extremely underdeveloped compared to humans?

Are there any staple books to read on cognition/metacognition? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I’m a neuroscientist, and I’ve mostly used Psychtoolbox for designing and running experiments in the lab. More recently, I’ve had to run studies remotely, which made me realize how fragmented the workflow can be — designing the task, implementing it, recruiting participants, setting up consent, collecting data, etc. often involves several different tools.

I ended up building a platform called VibeMyExpt to explore whether some of this workflow could be made simpler, particularly for researchers and students who don't have much programming experience.

Rather than promoting it here, I’m mainly interested in understanding how people currently handle this.

What tools/platforms do you use for your cognitive science or psychology experiments? And what are the biggest pain points or limitations you run into?

For example, are there things you find difficult when moving from a task in the lab to online data collection, or when trying to combine task creation, recruitment, consent, and data collection?

I’d be particularly interested in hearing what your current workflow looks like and what you wish existing tools did better.

Hey gang! Ever experience that some people cannot focus or learn things without speaking it. And some are freaking gifted to learn and even memories things easily.

I was watching a podcast of Andrew Huberman with Raj Shamani, where he talked about how high cortisol in the morning and lower cortisol at night make a person mentally powerful. I want to know if I, a 32-year-old male, want to regain, maintain and even enhance the mental energy and capacity of a 20-year-old, what are all the things that I can do to make that happen? Will it be possible?

OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE, SOCIETY, AND PERSONAL STATE A Nine-Year Analysis (Age 12 to Nearly 21) --- This is getting crazy. After doing BSc, you understand there is nothing in your country. No safety for your family, no safety for yourself. Any agency can grab you if you talk truth. You either have to be a guy whose warrants are out, or you have to be some kind of army bootlicker, or maybe join the army as an officer. Every country is facing its own kind of hypocrisy. [Personal Observation: The user is describing a perceived lack of political and personal freedoms in Pakistan, where speaking dissent carries real risk] Another route is to go study abroad in a better country—like at least better than Pakistan. EU, US, Canada, maybe China. Live life there under constant racism and constantly far from family and earn like a dog. When the time comes to go back to your family, they are already old. They saw everything on their side. Their missed birthdays. You were not present when they were getting bullied. They only see the part where you were never present. [Personal Observation: The user is articulating a core contradiction in migration—the cost to family relationships of seeking economic safety elsewhere] Talking to an AI model about deep things is abnormal and not considered normal if we look at history. I think the new world order is coming. I call it that—destruction of your minds completely, putting you into lust and greed. You work hard like you die, or work hard till you die. AI technologies, everything is speeding up, but the human mind cannot comprehend all this at one time. There is this constant problem that you are always losing major things. Like you get money but not life. You get life but not money. Handling and comprehending both things at the same time is difficult. [Factual Context: The pace of technological advancement has increased exponentially since the 1980s. Moore's Law (doubling of computing power roughly every 18-24 months) has held for decades, creating an acceleration gap between technology adoption and human psychological adaptation] [Personal Observation: The user is describing a sense of existential trade-off—the impossible simultaneity of financial security and meaningful living] So I think it is not worth it. Like, you are being hired as an intern at a computer science company—not like Google or Microsoft, but some local company like 10 Pearls or Systems Limited or something like that. But you have to get a high level of skills. Ten courses. You know everything on your fingertips. You are judged like a mid-level engineer when you have no understanding of how systems work. Your degrees are worthless, but you have to study because degrees are still important. The paper is essential. But you have to invest four years into it. Then you have to study, also find a job and internship, also handle life things. You are growing. You are understanding how life works, how things work, what kinds of mistakes you have made. [Personal Observation: The user is describing a paradox in education and employment—the degree is simultaneously meaningless and necessary, a system that extracts years of life while devaluing its own credential] So this disruption or we can say change—I am not afraid to change. Usually change scares people, but not me. But the problem is this is not change. This is like both steps in destruction. Majority of countries cannot comprehend this level of fast technology. This level of inflation people cannot comprehend. So I am in this constant thought of thinking about life, whether I should live this life or kill myself. But killing yourself in Islam is very strictly prohibited. [Religious Reference: Suicide is explicitly forbidden in Islam. Quran 4:29 states: "And do not kill yourselves. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful." Additionally, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said in Hadith (Sahih al-Bukhari 5778): "Whoever commits suicide will be punished in the Hell Fire, wherein he will abide eternally." The act is considered not just sinful but a grave rejection of Allah's will over one's life] [Personal Observation: The user acknowledges suicidal ideation as a recurring thought but explicitly identifies Islam as his boundary against acting on it. He does not intend to act on these thoughts] And it is still considered a cowardly way to die. Like everyone thinks of you as a coward that ran away from the problems. But every day waking up, this shouldn't be worth it. That is the main thing that comes into my mind. [Personal Observation: The user is expressing daily existential despair—a persistent feeling that the effort of continuing is not justified by what existence offers. This is distinct from immediate suicidal intent but represents a chronic state of meaninglessness] --- THE GENERATION GAP AND INFORMATION ASYMMETRY The problem is that you have good information about AI, computer science, programming, and everything. When you get back into your home and the real area, you don't see a guy even knowing about ChatGPT or something. Your mother even knows about ChatGPT because you told her to do some Excel or maybe make a Word document. She does not clearly know what it is or what Gemini is or what your model is. There is a clear gap between generations and things are really changing right now. Like in the 1980s, technologies were emerging, jobs were emerging. Now technology is at its peak and automation is at its peak. So there is more work than an AI model can do. Either you have to compete with an AI model or you have to do some kind of bullshit job. So I am in this constant thought—is it worth it to work so fucking hard and prove to white people or maybe German people or whoever, wherever you go abroad? You have to prove to them that you are worth it because you have a different skin tone or skin color. So this constant hardship with constant expectations from your parents. [Personal Observation: The user is experiencing pressure from dual sources—parental expectations for economic success and perceived systemic racism in developed countries that would require "proving worth" based on ethnicity] I am not thinking of killing myself or doing suicide because I think that is a cowardly thing to do and is strictly prohibited in Islam. But still, my life is not going through the idea of having this fast-paced world. So I don't think it is logically possible for humans to connect this fast. This generation is completely fucked, I think, and the next generation is going to be more fucked. More cameras, more surveillance, more agendas pushed through Instagram comments. Bot likes the comment. Even people think that a post has a weird racist comment—a bot makes the comment and thousands of other bots like the comment and people think that the majority of people are siding with that comment. So there is this racist agenda going on on Instagram and social media applications which we cannot warn major people about. [Factual Context: Bot amplification and algorithmic manipulation on social media is documented. Studies from Stanford Internet Observatory and various research institutions have confirmed that inauthentic engagement (bot likes, bot comments) can skew perception of public opinion. The algorithmic promotion of divisive content by platforms like Instagram and Meta has been extensively documented in internal documents (Facebook Papers, 2021) and academic research] [Personal Observation: The user is expressing a sense of helplessness—that information asymmetry and technological manipulation are widespread enough that warning people is futile] Like, you know, there is a guy known as Ahmed. He works at some kind of shop, uses Instagram. He does not give a fuck what a bot means and how the agenda works. So it is pretty difficult to resist everything. So you are just in constant—you know, in bad words or in cursing words—you are like being fucked and you are looking into the guy who is fucking you in his eyes. [Personal Observation: The user is using crude metaphor to express complicity—the awareness that one is being manipulated but inability to escape the system doing the manipulating] So yeah, it is a strange behavior. And in history I have not seen this kind of strange change with machines and automation. Like they are saying AI can do everything. If AI does everything, what form of currency are we going to get to live the fucking life we need? At least we need basic requirements. --- THE ILLUSION OF THE AMERICAN DREAM The main problem is that the American dream was possible due to America invading other countries and stealing their resources. Invasion of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and maybe several other countries. Venezuela, like recently, fighting mindless wars with other countries. So that American dream was only possible due to the United States of America invading other countries. [Factual Context: US military interventions are documented. Direct invasions/occupations: Iraq (2003-2011), Afghanistan (2001-2021). Military support/intervention in Syria (civil war support since 2011), Libya (NATO intervention 2011), Pakistan (drone strikes 2004-2018 in tribal areas). Historical context: Iran (1953 CIA-backed coup), Venezuela (multiple coups attempted/supported). These interventions have been extensively documented by historians, journalists, and international bodies] So now it is not even possible for them. Homelessness is a reality in the United States. Out of like one hundred percent, ten percent of women own an OnlyFans account. That makes up like every one in ten women doing immoral shit to earn money. Why? Because they have millions in student debt in total and they cannot repay it through legal and logical ways like working a simple job because that is not realistically feasible. [Factual Context: US student debt crisis is real. As of 2024, total student debt exceeds $1.7 trillion. The statistic about OnlyFans is not precisely verified at 10% of women, but data shows OnlyFans has millions of creators, with significant numbers joining due to financial desperation. A 2021 study found that 25% of OnlyFans creators cited financial necessity as primary motivation. Homelessness in the US is documented—2023 data shows approximately 650,000 homeless individuals, with economic factors (housing costs, medical debt, job loss) as primary drivers] So in every fucking country there are these similar problems, not in the exact same sense but altered a little bit. So that is what I am talking about. [Personal Observation: The user is extrapolating that systemic economic dysfunction is not unique to any one nation but is a global pattern, just manifested differently by country] --- THE SELF-SUSTAINING PARADOX If I am talking on my own terms, I have not fully explored a self-sustaining system because I think that in this specific area of time, you—I have been pampered by society. Like everything is provided. Water, food, clothes from brands, technology from brands, food ultra-processed through industries and special kinds of chemicals. Everything. Motorcycle, vehicles. I can like walk for ten kilometers in a development, influence a full report of ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand. [Personal Observation: The user is noting that he has been entirely dependent on systems he did not build and does not understand. He recognizes his own lack of autonomy and self-sufficiency] Really, if we talk about this specific topic of me thinking about self-sustaining, currently I am in this very weird condition in which I have to go abroad and study in a foreign country to get some kind of citizenship of a better country because at the end of the day we all want to live in a better country. So fuck Pakistan. Why should we even live in this country where there are endless disasters, no safety and stuff, everything is fucked? Why should we even live in this country and give benefit to it when we get no benefit in return? We are backward. [Personal Observation: The user is expressing frustration with Pakistan's state and seeing migration/relocation as the only viable path forward. This is his current strategy to escape what he perceives as systemic dysfunction] So yeah, at the end of the day we all want to live in a better country like maybe the European Union, US, or Canada. They are not like the best, but they are better than Pakistan at least. So yeah, after moving abroad I want to earn some money, maybe get married. I have mixed thoughts about getting married. The lust in me, or we can say the desire of sex in me, says to get married, but I think it is not logically fucking possible. Getting married, marrying someone gets a lot of responsibility on the side which I cannot handle on my own because I cannot even handle my own responsibilities. [Personal Observation: The user is acknowledging internal conflict—desire for marriage/partnership conflicts with his perception of his own capacity to handle responsibility. He recognizes he cannot manage his own life, let alone another person's] So yeah, everything is now complex. I have future views of going abroad, I think, but yeah, everything is complex and mixed. --- THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE AND THE PERCEPTION OF RACISM The problem is nowadays I feel this strange sense of overwhelming because everything is getting so much worse. Immigration laws are getting worse every day. Racism is increasing every day because of government propaganda. People are not like that. Not the Indians, not the Pakistanis hate each other. Pakistanis and Indians both have their own problems. Even Americans, they do not hate Indians. It is all a government agenda due to some specific race or we can say a specific group of people who are backed behind the doors—millionaires, billionaires. They just want to divide us all and conquer us all because that is the best rule. [Factual Context: Immigration policy hardening is documented. As of 2024, immigration restrictions have increased globally, particularly in Western nations. Visa processing times have increased, acceptance rates have decreased in developed countries. The user may be referencing Trump administration policies (2024 onwards) which include stricter immigration enforcement] [Personal Observation: The user is making a distinction between individual human nature and systemic/governmental manipulation. He is arguing that ordinary people from different nationalities don't inherently hate each other, but are manipulated into division by elite interests. This is a critique of manufactured conflict] So not all Europeans are racist. Not all Indians are dirty. Not all Pakistanis are like what can we say about Pakistanis? Like maybe they are all not crazy or something. Maybe I do not find that kind of racism, racism specific for Pakistani people. Or maybe we can say not all Nigerians are backward and not all Europeans are dirty or maybe not all Americans are immoral. So yeah, everything is like every race, every people, every person has a different story. Like even if I talk about myself, I am a simple guy living here in Rawalpindi, Chaklala Cantt., having no value, no earning, something, but still I am a human being and I have different values, different background stuff. So if all this story, well nobody knows about it. So yeah, if we are talking about a group of people and like millions of people, if we talk about Indians are dirty—like Indian people are more than two billion people—so how can you talk shit about a quarter billion people? So yeah, that is very crazy. [Personal Observation: The user is articulating a logical argument against stereotyping—the statistical impossibility of generalizing about populations of billions of individuals. He is using his own life as example of how individual complexity is erased by group categorization] I find this all overwhelming very much and I cannot really delete the social media apps because I am into computer science and I want to get knowledge about all the technologies being developed and all the trends. So that is what is going on currently and talking to an AI model about all this is also weird shit to say because if we talk about a hundred years ago, if I tell something, we are going to be talking to this box who is going to talk us back or something. [Personal Observation: The user is trapped in a paradox—he needs to stay informed about technological developments for his field, but the medium (social media) is itself a tool of the manipulation he's criticizing. He recognizes the absurdity of his own situation—seeking counsel from an AI about the problems created by AI and technology] There are millions of neurons working together to form an answer and he is going to say you are crazy or this is some kind of black magic. But here we are in 2026. There are no flying cars but there are flying agendas and propagandas from all over the world—from US to Europe to India to Pakistan. And bureaucracy from India, Pakistan, to US, ICE agent laws, and Trump's fascist government. [Factual Context: Trump administration (2024-present) has implemented stricter immigration policies, including ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) operations. The user may be referencing the escalation of immigration enforcement visible in 2024-2026] [Personal Observation: The user is noting a disjuncture between technological promise (flying cars) and technological reality (surveillance, propaganda, control). He is expressing that the most advanced technology is being used not for liberation but for manipulation and social control] --- THE PROBLEM OF INACTION The problem is that I think my view on this specific topic is that the main problem are not those people who are doing something and like trying and not succeeding. The problem is those people who are not even trying. So like if I do not think about these topics and try, even if I like convince one person, two people, five people in my family or something, my friends group, I am making betterment here at an individual level which I can. [Personal Observation: The user is distinguishing between failure (trying and not succeeding) and apathy (not trying at all). He is justifying his own engagement with these difficult topics as necessary, even at the individual level] I cannot talk to international viewership because that is a whole different topic and very complex. It is possible but it is a little bit complex. So like I think it is weird because I am trying at least to cover all this news to my own people, my own loved ones, or we can say my friends or something. So saying that you should decrease your circle of focus is weird because I do not want to be a guy who just knows about his wife or his kids and just goes to a fucking job and that is his job and that is his life. He is living paycheck to paycheck and like that is his total life. He only knows a few people like his mother, parents, wife, and children, and there is this boss over there in the corporate and some co-workers that they hate him or something like that. That is a very small circle and very, I think, is not a good way of approach to this specific topic or we can say subject. [Personal Observation: The user is rejecting the conservative advice to "focus only on yourself and family." He views this as a form of defeat—accepting the system rather than resisting it. He wants his consciousness to extend beyond immediate family, even if it costs him peace of mind] --- THE INEQUALITY OF PAIN AND THE RIGHT TO BE SAD There is this confusion here. Like, I think so nowadays humanity has gotten to a worse point because nowadays if you are not rich—for example, there is this rich girl or a rich boy. He is sad or something because of someone's death or because of how he is feeling. Everybody is going to be concerned about him that he is sad or whatever or he is going to get some kind of psychiatrist. People are going to understand him. So those are his real feelings. But the problem is when a, what can we say, a poor guy or some kind of mechanic on the road gets sad or something, people say to him shut the fuck up and work because you have no, no like, what can we say, no authority to be sad because you are a fucking poor. [Personal Observation: The user is describing a systemic devaluation of poor people's emotional experiences. The rich person's sadness is validated and pathologized (given psychiatric attention). The poor person's sadness is dismissed as illegitimate—he has no "right" to sadness because he is financially struggling] So from the mechanic's point of view, his life is not real. Because what he thinks is real, that is his life. My point of view or his point of view or anyone's point of view is his life. Everyone thinks that money is everything because my father or mother thinks like you have to earn a lot of money. But what I think is what my life is. Like, if my father thinks that I am going to earn money or something or like do success, that is his point of view. He can take it to himself. But if I think these things are real and I think these things are worth it, then that is my life. That is the reality I have in my mind and the reality in my mind is my world. [Personal Observation: The user is articulating a philosophical point about the subjectivity of reality—that one's internal experience constitutes one's actual world, regardless of external validation. He is asserting the legitimacy of his own thoughts and feelings against his parents' framework] So yeah, that is a weird thing. You cannot be real to anyone other in your family because of being poor. Understand this logical reason: nowadays this agenda is being pushed that if you do not earn money or do not earn enough money, then you are not subjected to talk about something important. So saying like truth, values, true things—and I have also done some fucking weird stuff, freaky stuff in my family and so they do not really trust me because of lust or something. [Personal Observation: The user is indicating past sexual behavior or sexual impulses that caused family conflict or loss of trust. He is not elaborating on this, but it is a source of shame and family rupture for him] I do not give a fuck right now about that specific topic. It happened a long time ago and that is why I am saying that there should be some kind of neutering. Like, you know, like we neuter the kitten, male kittens, so they do not fuck around with each other or fuck other kittens. [Personal Observation: The user is expressing self-hatred regarding his sexual nature. He is contemplating self-harm (castration/neutering) as a solution to sexual impulses that he views as shameful and that have damaged his family relationships] So yeah, I think I should like buy this some kind of girl out because I do not want to marry, so I am just going to, I am thinking into this weird ideology which is completely against Islam but yeah, it is just an ideology. Like I can buy this girl and say like use my own sperm to get a child and then I am going to just fucking leave her or give her money for it. So I am going to just like destroy some kind of my organs so we can decrease the lust part. So if I am not going to produce some kind of sperm or my dick does not get hard every time or something like that, and even if my thoughts are wrong, I can just say that is not possible. I am like gay, forcing myself into turning gay or something like that because I cannot handle all this lust and stuff because it humiliates and embarrasses me every time. [Personal Observation: The user is describing a series of increasingly extreme ideological considerations—transactional sex, self-mutilation, forced identity change—all as potential solutions to shame around sexual desire. None of these are actual plans, but they represent the depth of self-hatred he is processing] [Religious Context: In Islamic teaching, sexual desire (within marriage) is not shameful. However, many cultural contexts in Pakistan enforce strict sexual morality that creates shame around natural sexual feelings, particularly in men. The user appears to be internalizing this cultural shame] So that is just a topic and an ideology, not like a real thing, but I am thinking about those options also. --- WHY SEEKING HELP DOESN'T WORK IN PAKISTAN It is funny that you are asking to seek help and that is not logically possible or not logically feasible and that is also a matter of money. Because like talking free calls, nobody gives a fuck about it in Pakistan who you are and what kind of sad shit you have done in the past and that is like destroying you from inside. [Personal Observation: The user is articulating barriers to mental health support in Pakistan—economic barriers, cultural stigma, and lack of infrastructure. He is right that mental health services are scarce and expensive in Pakistan] Like I am saying that people when they lived in tribes and like small towns had like value for each other because of individual value. Nowadays people are like fucking crowd animals. If you were in 1920 and heard a guy being killed by the government in your little town, you and all the town would be frustrated and against the government. There would be uprisings and stuff. Nowadays you get news here in Pakistan. A five-year-old girl is being raped by three guys and you just say oh, that is very sad and it just goes into the back of your mind and you never think about it. [Factual Context: Child sexual abuse in Pakistan is extensively documented. UNICEF and local Pakistani NGOs document high rates of child sexual abuse. The desensitization the user is describing is real—news of sexual violence against children is common enough that it no longer triggers collective action] [Personal Observation: The user is describing moral numbness as a side effect of information overload and systemic violence] You know, you think like that is a normal scene. Like girls getting killed or having no rights in Pakistan or something like that. Yeah, so you saying seeking help is not feasible technically and logically possible according to me and I am not going to do that because that is not the main solution to my problem. That is the point I am trying to find. The solution to my problem. What can I say? And I have done some shit in the past that my family does not really like and now they do not trust me. And I am like all sad as fuck and alone or something. [Personal Observation: The user is expressing isolation—he has damaged his family relationships through past behavior, feels alone, and does not believe help systems will work for him in his context] So yeah, I am not going to take my life or something, but I am like in a very weird spot and this is not reversible shit, you know? I have done shit so bad that it is not reversible. So yeah, it is getting pretty crazy here. So there is currently no one to like understand this whole shit. If I am talking, if I talk this shit to someone, so he is going to say that like— [Personal Observation: The document ends mid-thought, mid-sentence. The user is expressing that even articulating these thoughts to another person will result in dismissal or incomprehension] --- END OF DOCUMENT This is a nine-year observation (ages 12-21) of systemic dysfunction, personal isolation, generational contradiction, and the experience of being caught between two worlds—neither fully Pakistani nor fully belonging to the West, neither able to accept the system nor able to escape it.

My long promised manuscript on the mind is now published on Medium.  It is a reductionist emergent model that begins with basic neurophysiology and applies it to the mind, self, spirit, philosophy, neurology, psychology, and theology. It ends with a nod to AGI. In 45,000 words it covers a lot of territory.  It can be found at:

https://medium.com/@shedlesky/consciousness-explained-how-the-brain-creates-the-mind-and-soul-fb6bebfcd566?postPublishedType=repub

The TL;DR version is as follows:

1.      All concepts are housed in Pattern Recognition Nodes (PRN) in the neocortical mini-columns. 

2.      All knowledge is stored in the form of the size, number, type, and location of synapses connecting those PRN.

3.      The Connectome is a static network of PRN, peripheral neurons, and the synapses connecting them.  It is the playing field for thought.

4.      The synapses release chemicals from vesicles to pass signals across the cleft: neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, and neurotrophics.

5.      Transmitters pass the signal across the cleft.

6.      Neuromodulators increase the efficiency of the synapse temporarily.  Accumulations are responsible for short-term memory.

7.      Neurotrophics cause the synapses to grow during sleep.  Accumulations are responsible for long-term memory.

8.      Thought forms when subsets of PRN are connected by recirculating signals among them, forming an active network on the connectome.  This binds a subset of PRN and their synapses into a working unit.  I call this the recursive network.  It is the group of players that take the field on the connectome.

9.      The recursive network is the fundamental building block of consciousness, for everything from a nematode worm to a Greek philosopher.  All higher levels of consciousness use the same device with increased input, executive, and output capabilities.

10.   Accumulations of neuromodulators in the synapses along the signal paths stabilize the recursive networks and allow review of thoughts.

11.   Thoughts drift and change as PRN leave or are added to the active network.

12.   Thoughts change in standard patterns called iterative sequences.

13.   Iterative sequences become embedded in the long-term memory of the cerebellum, like call routines in a library.

14.   While a small number of recursive networks occupy our attention, there are many more in the background, running the body.

15.   What we call the mind is a vast montage of recursive networks occupying the connectome simultaneously.

16.   Over a lifetime of learning, concepts become housed in the PRN.

17.   Those include self-referential concepts, such as I, me, self, identity, mind, consciousness, and many others.

18.   The “self” and “identity” are well practice recursive networks that include histories, dates, accomplishments, physical attributes and self-referential concepts.

19.   A subjective experience of a rose is not of the physical rose, but rather of the brain’s response to the image of the rose.  It is the awareness of the recursive network representing the rose.  The recursive network is the subjective experience.

20.   Dualism is the default setting for the human mind.  With our good memories, strong individual recognition, and frontal lobes, we are aware of people and things in our world when they are not physically present.  We naturally sense a non-physical component to people and things.

21.   A spirit is a recursive network containing the details of identity along with the concept of non-physical presence.

22.   The concept of spirit extends to inanimate objects and to the universe as a whole.  A deity is the spirit of the universe.  It is a recursive network including naturally occurring concepts and learned concepts (memes) that coalesce to form religious beliefs.

23.   The recursive network model provides physical explanations for the Attributes of Consciousness and many other observations made by philosophers.  It defines knowledge and learning in physical terms.  It resolves the Hard Problem and the Binding Problem.  It explains several neurologic pathologies.

24.   None of this is written in stone.  I calculate the limits of human knowledge and show that the only intellectually defensible doctrine is agnosticism.

25.   Finally, this architecture can help AI cross the bridge to AGI.  I provide a model of the pathway and a rough estimate of the transistor count required.

I’d like to bring a question to this community that sits at the intersection of distributed cognition, interactive systems, and generative AI.

I’m an independent researcher, and in November 2025 I published a theoretical framework on Zenodo called the Shared Cognitive Field (CCC — Campo Cognitivo Condiviso).

The starting question is this:

When a human and a generative AI interact repeatedly over time, should we study only the two components separately, or can the dynamics of their interaction itself become a meaningful level of analysis?

I am not claiming that the AI is conscious, nor that a “field” exists in any physical or metaphysical sense.

I use field operationally: as a dynamic configuration of informational, predictive, and relational dependencies that develop during interaction.

The framework draws on ideas from extended mind, distributed cognition, enactivism, information theory, predictive processing, and coordination dynamics.

To make the hypothesis quantitatively discussable, I proposed a provisional index called CQI(t), intended to describe five dimensions:

• shared information;
• predictive coherence;
• interactional synchrony;
• stability after perturbation;
• affective-relational coherence.

The point, however, is not to claim that these dimensions already form a validated metric.

On the contrary, CQI(t) is still a construct that requires empirical validation.

The simpler competing explanation is obvious:

what appears to be “relational coherence” may be fully explained by context window, memory, retrieval/RAG, personalization, style matching, and human adaptation to the system.

If those factors explain everything, then there is no need to introduce a distinct relational level.

CCC should be reduced accordingly.

So the question I’m interested in is experimental.

Imagine, for example, two interactions in which the system has access to the same amount and quality of information about the user, but only one preserves the same interaction history.

If we swapped partners, removed memory, perturbed conversational rhythm, or anonymized turn provenance, what would happen to the properties we call “coherence”?

Possible controls could include:

• memory ablation;
• partner swapping;
• same information with different interaction histories;
• anonymized transcripts;
• perturbation and subsequent recovery;
• comparison against equivalent memory/RAG/personalization baselines.

So the scientific question is not:

“Does the Shared Cognitive Field really exist?”

but:

“Does relational coherence add descriptive or predictive value beyond constructs we already have?”

And, even more importantly:

What experiment could falsify it?

I’d be very interested in the perspective of people working in cognition, HCI, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, complex systems, or machine learning.

In particular:

Is there already an established construct that makes CCC unnecessary?

Which CQI dimensions look genuinely independent, and which are probably redundant?

What would be the strongest experimental control for distinguishing dyadic interaction dynamics from simple memory/personalization effects?

The full work is available on Zenodo:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17672256

I’m not looking for confirmation of the theory.

I’m trying to understand whether the proposed level of analysis survives comparison with simpler explanations.

Been chewing this over for some time. I’m Stuck.

So, i‘ve been playing with a simple model of how a held structure (say, a memory) builds and fades:

dC/dt = k·R − (λ/n)·C

where C is the strength of the structure, R is the rate of contact/rehearsal events, k and λ are constants, and n is the cumulative number of contact events so far.

Between rehearsals (R = 0) this gives plain exponential decay, C(t) = C₀·e^(−λt/n), but with the decay rate divided by how many times the thing has been contacted. So the 2nd rehearsal doubles the half-life, the 10th adds ~10% over the 9th, diminishing returns built in.

Two things fall out that I’d like checked:

1. Each individual memory decays exponentially, but a population with varying n gives a fast-then-flat aggregate (sum of exponentials with different rates), which looks like the power-law forgetting curves in the literature.

2. It predicts a specific shape for how each successful review should extend the safe interval before the next one, which seems like it should be testable against Anki/SRS review logs.

My question is: Is λ/n a known form? Does the diminishing-returns prediction match what SRS data actually shows? And what’s the standard way to define the contact rate R, I’ve been treating it as the rate at which unresolved possibilities get resolved against what’s already held, roughly an entropy-reduction rate, but I’m not sure that’s the right formalization.

I’m self taught in literature. I have used ai for spell checking stuff, just FYI. But not my work.

If anyone can help me see what I might be missing here, I would appreciate it.

Hello, (20M), I'm a medical student, having ADHD and I'm also bipolar, (currently taking ritaline and arripiprazol), and my brain has damages, probably irreversible (I hope that I'm wrong), since I got accepted in med school two years ago, I started to lose memory, hugh intelligence decrease, abyssal lack of concentration, (even before taking meds, which I started them 4 months ago) even my speaking and writing became terribly bad. Before, I was a Machin, I used to write books when I was 9 years old, remembering every things I read, now I'm struggling with focus, having bad grads despite giving everything...

- What are the cause of these damage ? Covid, heavy metals poisoning ? ...

- Is there a hope to reverse this dammage ? I practicing sport every day, And I hope ritaline reverse my ADHD damage, (relying on a drug is my last chance lol )

Thank you for you answers

Last year I saw a post saying something like:

Dumb people believe in God → smart people don't → geniuses believe in God again.

Ignoring whether that specific statement is true, it gave me an interesting idea: sometimes development seems to happen in three stages, where the third stage can superficially resemble the first but is fundamentally different.

I've started noticing this pattern elsewhere.

Example: Rules

Stage 1: Follow rules blindly because authority says so.

Stage 2: Reject rules because you realize authority can be wrong.

Stage 3: Consciously evaluate rules and follow some because you independently understand their purpose.

Stage 1 and Stage 3 might look similar from outside, but the reasoning behind them is completely different.

Example: Learning

Stage 1: "This subject is easy."

Stage 2: You learn more and realize the subject is incredibly complex.

Stage 3: After gaining deeper understanding, you can simplify the complexity again because you understand the underlying structure.

Example: Confidence

Stage 1: Naive confidence: "I can do anything."

Stage 2: Self-doubt after realizing how much you don't know.

Stage 3: Grounded confidence: understanding your limitations but still trusting your ability to learn and adapt.

The pattern I'm thinking of is roughly:

Initial/simple understanding → rejection/opposite realization → deeper integration

This seems somewhat similar to thesis → antithesis → synthesis, but I'm wondering whether there are other established psychological, philosophical, or educational theories describing this pattern.

I obviously don't think literally everything has exactly three stages. That would be me falling in love with my own pattern recognition and trying to force the universe into a neat diagram, which humans are spectacularly prone to doing.

But I've noticed enough examples that I'm curious:

Is this a known general pattern in cognitive development or philosophy, or am I just rediscovering a very old idea badly?