Principles of Vasocomputation
14 days ago
- #Buddhism
- #Active Inference
- #Neuroscience
- Tanha is described as the brain's instinctive grasping at pleasant sensations and aversion to unpleasant ones, identified by the Buddha as a major source of suffering (~90%).
- Tanha operates quickly, within 25-100ms after a sensation enters awareness, and is often translated as 'desire,' 'thirst,' or 'craving.'
- The 'tanha as unskillful active inference' (TUAI) hypothesis posits that tanha arises from misapplied predictive processes in the brain, leading to stress and suffering.
- Three key ways tanha goes awry: generating too many predictions, predicting in uncontrollable domains, and context desynchronization between world models and predictions.
- Tanha may be linked to vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) activity, which could serve as a mechanism for applying compression pressure to neural patterns.
- VSMCs might function as computational infrastructure, with hypotheses like the Compressive Vasomotion Hypothesis (CVH) and Vascular Clamp Hypothesis (VCH) explaining their role in cognition and suffering.
- The 'latch-bridge' mechanism in smooth muscle cells may explain long-term tension and suffering, with implications for health and meditation practices.
- Tanha is framed as an artifact of the brain's compression pressure, balancing the need to simplify sensory input with the metabolic and epistemic costs of maintaining counterfactual states.
- The research bridges Buddhist phenomenology, active inference, and physical reflexes, suggesting potential breakthroughs in neuroscience and AI alignment.
- Practical implications include using meditation, sauna, cold plunges, and psychedelics to release VSMC latches and reduce suffering.