Can LLMs see stereograms?
October 1, 2026
Magic Eye images are a neat example of visual qualia field computing. LLMs can decode them, but lacking the right computational substrate, I do not believe they actually experience a 3D image “pop out”.
Globally Bound
Writings on consciousness and extreme suffering.
Posts
Some reasons I work on cluster headaches
February 1, 2026
Why I've chosen to dedicate my work to reducing the intense suffering caused by cluster headaches.
Accidentally curing my impostor syndrome with low-dose MDMA
December 26, 2025
How I went from severe impostor syndrome to full remission in one night through a combination of MDMA and CBT. I discuss optical holography as a lens to find a mechanistic explanation.
The best treatment for the most painful medical condition is illegal
December 17, 2025
Peter Singer's latest column on Project Syndicate is about cluster headaches and the urgent need to legalize psychedelic treatments.
Announcing ClusterFree: A cluster headache advocacy and research initiative (and how you can help)
November 21, 2025
Today we're announcing a new cluster headache advocacy and research initiative: ClusterFree. Learn more about how you (and anyone) can help.
Emerging evidence on treating cluster headaches with DMT
October 18, 2025
DMT has emerged as potentially the most effective acute treatment for cluster headaches. We summarize some of the evidence we have.
Notes from a self-guided emptiness retreat
August 24, 2025
Assorted notes and reflections from a week-long self-guided retreat on Buddhist emptiness teachings following Rob Burbea's talks.
How much should we value averting a Day Lived in Extreme Suffering (DLES)?
July 26, 2025
In the US, one QALY is valued at around $100,000–$150,000. How might one go about deciding the dollar value of averting a DLES?
Please reconsider your use of adjectives
June 21, 2025
A suggestion to use more nonviolent communication on the EA Forum.
'Most painful condition known to mankind': A retrospective of the first-ever international research symposium on cluster headache
May 18, 2025
My impressions from the first-ever international research symposium on cluster headache at the Karolinska Institutet.
Physics of consciousness: A conversation between Atai Barkai and QualiaNerd
May 9, 2025
Transcript of a conversation between Atai Barkai and QualiaNerd on the "psychophysical parallelism".
Using asana yoga to deepen meditation practice
May 7, 2025
If you, like myself, practice both meditation and asana yoga, you can likely get more juice out of your yoga sessions and accelerate your progress in meditation with some simple tweaks.
It’s time to say goodbye to 'functionally equivalent artificial neurons'
April 26, 2025
The idea that we can substitute carbon-based neurons with functionally equivalent artificial neurons doesn’t withstand closer scrutiny.
The heavy tail of valence: New strategies to quantify and reduce extreme suffering
March 21, 2025
In this talk at Newspeak House in London, I discuss the importance of addressing extreme suffering, highlighting cluster headaches as a vivid example of severe pain that's often overlooked by common global health metrics.
The quest for a stone‑free world: Chanca piedra (Phyllanthus niruri) as an acute and prophylactic treatment for kidney stones and their associated extreme negative valence
February 18, 2025
Kidney stones cause an immense amount of suffering worldwide. We investigate chanca piedra as a promising preventive treatment.
Indirect realism illustrated (and why it matters so much for consciousness debates)
February 16, 2025
My attempt to make indirect realism as intuitive as possible using simple illustrations. I then explain how one can get to panpsychism quite naturally.
Quantifying the global burden of extreme pain from cluster headaches
November 1, 2024
I aggregate medical data from a few dozen papers to estimate the burden of pain from 'suicide headaches' globally.
Abandoning functionalism: Some intuition pumps
July 11, 2024
I share a few intuition pumps that I have found helpful when thinking about consciousness in non-functionalist/computationalist terms.