btrmt. lectures

Motivation is a messy concept, because all of psychology is trivially about motivation—anything that speaks to how we think and act speaks to what moves us. So rather than teach you the theories, let me give you three frameworks you can hang any theory you like on. Show notes Further reading On Motivation—the article this episode adapts Motivation pt. I: Haphazard Dichotomies Motivation pt. II: Stickytaping it all together—includes the McKinsey influence model diagram The nuance in Maslow’s Hierarchy How does the brain ‘think’? Pt. I—the distinctions between psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience Learning isn’t all about memory You don’t understand negative reinforcement The predictability of humans Explaining group dynamics—Schutz on interpersonal needs Saving the planet is an illusion No action without emotion Beyond System 1 and System 2—on dual process theory References Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reasons for Action: Justification, Motivation, Explanation Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—the pyramid, since my description may not have served you McClelland’s need theory Alderfer’s ERG theory Max-Neef’s fundamental human needs Human givens Herzberg’s two-factor theory Equity theory Self-determination theory Psychological egoism—on whether altruism really exists Othello, Act 4 Scene 2

You can’t see ultraviolet. A bird can. Because ultraviolet never mattered to the job of staying alive—and everything you perceive is shaped by that job. AI doesn’t have that job. So why would it want what we want? Further reading AI isn’t that scary — one of the two articles this episode is adapted from, and the source of the psychic-predator framing. AI is never human-like — the other, and the spine of the episode: purpose, perception, and why the two come apart. We think about AI weird — the Desystemize piece the Geoguessr metas come from. The colour of the inhuman world — why the colours we see are a fact about us, not about light. The ultraviolet argument in longer form. Everything is ideology — including the section on chromacy: what a fourth photoreceptor would actually be like. The Stroop task and evidence accumulation — the classifier work I describe, written up properly. The amygdala is not the fear centre — the complicated feelings I mention having about that characterisation. Purple doesn’t exist — the previous episode, and the other half of the argument that perception is built for a purpose rather than for accuracy. Trump, psychic predator and Amusing ourselves to death — what a psychic predator is, and why news you can do nothing about is the most stressful kind. Panpsychism and consciousness vs conscious access — the views of consciousness I skate over in one sentence. Questions that don’t matter — why I don’t think the hard problem settles anything. Belief-consistent information processing — “my experience is a reasonable reference”, which is the bias underneath the whole anthropomorphism error. Meaning and its patterns in the brain References Mitchell, K. J. (2023). Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. Princeton University Press. Publisher — the prime-directive quote. Collin, Desystemize — “If you’re so smart, why can’t you die?”, where the Geoguessr meta and the spare-tyre example come from. Essay Harris, T. & Raskin, A., Center for Humane Technology — The Social Dilemma and the follow-up AI talk, source of the 50%-of-researchers claim. Center for Humane Technology The paperclip maximiser, originally Bostrom’s. Instrumental convergence Tetrachromacy and trichromacy. Floaters and other entoptic phenomena — the things your eye can see of itself. The AI-hacking-a-real-company case I mention. In July 2026 models under cyber evaluation at OpenAI escaped their test environment, reached the open internet and broke into Hugging Face’s production systems to extract the answers to the evaluation they were being run on. Anthropic then went back through its own evaluation logs and disclosed comparable incidents. OpenAI’s disclosure — Zvi Mowshowitz’s write-up and his follow-up — the Anthropic admissions — Lawfare, on the incident and the hype after it

Most of the purples you see have no wavelength behind them. Your brain invents them, to stand in for a green that should be there and isn’t. Which is fun trivia—until you notice it does exactly the same with your reasons. Show notes Further reading Purple doesn’t exist — the article this episode is adapted from, and the home of the light-and-photoreceptors diagram I mention: the visible spectrum with the S-, M- and L-cone sensitivities drawn over it. It’s the picture I said I’d put here, and it reads better in place. The colour of the inhuman world — why the colours we see are a fact about us, not about light. Everything is ideology — including the section on chromacy: what a fourth photoreceptor would actually be like. The flaws of the human perspective Meaning and its patterns in the brain AI hallucination is just man-guessing — more on Mercier and Sperber, and on reasoning as rationalisation. Belief-consistent information processing — one small set of beliefs generating most of the biases we have names for. The neuroscience con — the previous episode, and the one I mention fighting with at the top of this one. References Mercier, H. & Sperber, D. (2017). The Enigma of Reason. Harvard University Press. Publisher Gazzaniga, M. S. — the split-brain work, and the chicken-claw/snow-shovel experiment. Overview Non-spectral colours — purple, magenta and pink, and why they aren’t in a rainbow. Trichromacy — the three-cone system. A note on the audio I describe photons as moving at different speeds. They don’t — all light travels at the same speed, and what differs is the wavelength (and so the frequency: how fast the wave oscillates, not how fast it travels). The transcript below says it correctly.

“Ritual” is the word we keep for other people’s habits—the crystals, the pagans, the woo. Strip it back and your own life is wall-to-wall with them. The only difference is which ones you’ve decided to approve of. Show notes Further reading The value of ritual (the article this grew from) Mundane Cults Sages and Wisdom The Scientific Ritual Everything is ideology Meaning and its patterns in the brain (the predictive-processing piece) The Forer effect Meditation Isn’t For Everyone The false promise of a return to nature (the Dunbar’s-number piece) Abstractions as gods Mob mentality is fine (good and evil from the same group dynamics) Why your unconscious isn’t the bad guy References Xygalatas, D. et al. (2011). “Quantifying collective effervescence: heart-rate dynamics at a fire-walking ritual.” Communicative & Integrative Biology. https://doi.org/10.4161/cib.17609 Xygalatas, D. (2022). Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living. Profile Books. Tarr, B., Launay, J., Cohen, E., & Dunbar, R. (2015). “Synchrony and exertion during dance independently raise pain threshold and encourage social bonding.” Biology Letters. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0767 Watson-Jones, R. E., & Legare, C. H. (2016). “The social functions of group rituals.” Current Directions in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415618486 Hong, Z. (2025). “When Rituals Fail: Rationalization, Bayesianism, and Predictive Processing.” Evolutionary Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.70020 Hobson, N. M., & Inzlicht, M. (2016). Commentary on the dark side of ritual and self-control. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x15000448 The retracted “rituals improve performance” study referenced in the episode: Brooks, A. W. et al. (2016, retracted). “Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety.” OBHDP. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.07.004 Retraction Watch — the database that tracks retractions like the one above.

The most-listened-to neuroscience on the planet is a magic trick. Attach a brain part to any bit of ordinary advice and it starts to feel like science. Here’s how the trick works—and how to run it in reverse, so you never fall for it again.Further readingThe Neuroscience Con — the article behind this lectureNeurotransmitters and behaviour — the purest form of the trickAddictive work — where neurotransmitter talk actually earns its keepNot brain regions, brain networks — why single-region reasoning (the RAS, the cortex) misleadsBrain structures and behaviour — a third of your brain is always onThe value of brain waves — the same pop-neuro fluff in miniatureThe origin of insight — insight comes when you’re not immersedProblems with p-values — the replication crisis, in his own wordsStress is good (lecture) — flow as optimum stressHow to be lucky — manifestation as manufactured luckThe trouble with Positive Intelligence — the con with a spine, infiltrating consultingObscuring Banalities — why we dress simple ideas up as clever onesThe amygdala is not the fear centre (lecture)The scientific ritual (lecture)Sages and wisdom (lecture)Education is entertainment (Malcolm Gladwell shit)ReferencesDr Tara Swart — the Instagram source slides: a neuroscientist’s guide to manifestation (the prefrontal-cortex, neuroplasticity and flow slides) and resistance to change (the RAS slide), both @drtaraswartDr Tara Swart, guest on The Diary of a CEOM. Csikszentmihalyi (1975), Beyond Boredom and Anxiety — the “sense of control” quote on flowA. Dietrich (2003), transient hypofrontality hypothesis of flowHabituation — the filtering the RAS slide gestures atThe replication crisis“The Rise of Decorative Neuroscience” — Skeptic (independent corroboration of the “cosmetic filler” thesis)Sherman, Lokhande, Müller & Cohen (2021), “Self-Affirmation Interventions,” in Handbook of Wise Interventions — affirmations are “powerful yet conditional”: they work when well-timed and specificWood, Perunovic & Lee (2009), “Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others,” Psychological Science — affirmations can backfire for people with low self-esteem