really really good piece, the coordinate system analogy especially. reminds me of what michael edward johnson does with a kind of change of basis between the woo/energy framing and the latch-bridge-vascular-tension framing. very satisfying to see this kind of thing done well.
also, i'm curious what the holistic nature-is-smarter-than-you approach perspective says about bryan johnson's wellbeing efforts. my impression is that he seems to be doing great, with a very molecule-and-mechanical-measurement based approach. is this a matter of effort and degree? like, maybe if you measure an absurd enough number of biomarkers and try to optimise all of them you end up DYI-ing a kind of holistic approach anyway. or maybe considering first order consequences for one hundred biomarkers gives you in totality something like an 5th-order-accurate model, and you're just pushing unintended effects to more subtle places. or maybe bryan johnson is actually quite tuned into subtle subjective aspects of his wellbeing and lets those influence his protocol more than it seems.
There's something superpowerful when "leftbrained" people, adept at mathematics and sciency stuff, go towards intuitive/feely/rightbrained stuff. The results can be incredible, and so can the discussions, thanks to the difference in approach, perspective, and articulation.
I'm a musician and mathematician, and while those subjects share a whole lot of brain anatomy activity, I'm an anomaly in that I can do both. Feels good man. Gives me a deeper appreciation of each, tbh.
Fascinating. I grew up in India, but always felt skeptical of the idea of 'this food causes heat'. I'm now growing to appreciate what that means - do you have any suggestions on book sources to start to appreciate the bigger perspective on this?
omg thanks! you caught my reflexive tendency to think in terms of loss functions, where good-but-not-fully-good outcomes are local minima. but local maxima would make more sense here.
also glad you enjoyed, I’m curious what struck you most about it
Hard to say exactly. I think a lot of it is you're talking about holistic medicine in an analytic/systemic way that I've not seen too much of before and that really jibes with my background (also comp sci/math). That, and I feel I've been holding a bunch of puzzle pieces for a while (ayurvedic medicine, body work, the concept of holistic medicine in general) but didn't know how they went together, or even that they went together at all, and then you connected them. And on top of all that, you're getting mind-blowing results from your practice. It was exhilarating to read all of that in one post.
okay surely there is a way for me (and other laypeople) to get some of the benefits of thousands of years of human research into herbalism, ayurveda, and other advanced forms of holistic healthcare through AI.
In your experience, how well do ChatGPT and/or Claude understand these areas when asked about them directly?
and what are you favorite resources/books/textbooks on Ayurveda, holistic health, herbalism, and anything else that rhymes with those areas for you?
I will probably not spend the time to learn about these things, but am guessing I could get a significant amount of the value by asking in AI questions that has high-quality resources behind it. Feel free to let me know if you think I'm wrong on that one though.
Thanks for sharing your work and passion for this subject!
ugh I’m sorry I’m allergic to this whole framing, did you not read the part about AI being like processed food haha. maybe someone else can talk about that but, not me
also, a lot of this is experiential and transmitted through sensing. filtering through human practitioners is important imo.
a big piece of this is that more knowledge exists than has been written down. good practitioners have kinesthetic knowledge that they transmit directly
Small grammatical correction: I think there’s a “the” missing in the first paragraph of “Holistic and sensory approaches can lead to full health”.
“But the last thing I’ll leave you readers with is - **the** thing I like most about holistic and sensory approaches is they seem able to lead to real, genuine well-being.”
This might be my favorite Substack article of 2025 thus far. 👌🏽 Nice job! 👍🏽
i might ask you for an internship in a couple years :3
+1!
really really good piece, the coordinate system analogy especially. reminds me of what michael edward johnson does with a kind of change of basis between the woo/energy framing and the latch-bridge-vascular-tension framing. very satisfying to see this kind of thing done well.
also, i'm curious what the holistic nature-is-smarter-than-you approach perspective says about bryan johnson's wellbeing efforts. my impression is that he seems to be doing great, with a very molecule-and-mechanical-measurement based approach. is this a matter of effort and degree? like, maybe if you measure an absurd enough number of biomarkers and try to optimise all of them you end up DYI-ing a kind of holistic approach anyway. or maybe considering first order consequences for one hundred biomarkers gives you in totality something like an 5th-order-accurate model, and you're just pushing unintended effects to more subtle places. or maybe bryan johnson is actually quite tuned into subtle subjective aspects of his wellbeing and lets those influence his protocol more than it seems.
You are obviously a very cool person.
There's something superpowerful when "leftbrained" people, adept at mathematics and sciency stuff, go towards intuitive/feely/rightbrained stuff. The results can be incredible, and so can the discussions, thanks to the difference in approach, perspective, and articulation.
I'm a musician and mathematician, and while those subjects share a whole lot of brain anatomy activity, I'm an anomaly in that I can do both. Feels good man. Gives me a deeper appreciation of each, tbh.
Nice piece!
It would be awesome to see some clinical studies and check these ideas.
Cooking and music played a great part in my sensory skills as a physician.
Fascinating. I grew up in India, but always felt skeptical of the idea of 'this food causes heat'. I'm now growing to appreciate what that means - do you have any suggestions on book sources to start to appreciate the bigger perspective on this?
Before one starts to dabble further.
This is a breath of fresh air to read. I'm really glad you're out here on the internet sharing your discoveries.
(small correction: I think you want to say "local maxima" instead of "local minima" in talking about medication.)
omg thanks! you caught my reflexive tendency to think in terms of loss functions, where good-but-not-fully-good outcomes are local minima. but local maxima would make more sense here.
also glad you enjoyed, I’m curious what struck you most about it
Hard to say exactly. I think a lot of it is you're talking about holistic medicine in an analytic/systemic way that I've not seen too much of before and that really jibes with my background (also comp sci/math). That, and I feel I've been holding a bunch of puzzle pieces for a while (ayurvedic medicine, body work, the concept of holistic medicine in general) but didn't know how they went together, or even that they went together at all, and then you connected them. And on top of all that, you're getting mind-blowing results from your practice. It was exhilarating to read all of that in one post.
Wow, loved this piece. Bummed I missed the talk at Edge but would love to discuss this more fully at some point.
Very nice article, thank you!
Minor typo that might confuse readers: "pho = constant" should be "rho = constant".
This is so incredibly important. Thank you for your contribution ❤️
So good! I want to experience a session with. And also chat with you for my podcast.
This is awesome!
okay surely there is a way for me (and other laypeople) to get some of the benefits of thousands of years of human research into herbalism, ayurveda, and other advanced forms of holistic healthcare through AI.
In your experience, how well do ChatGPT and/or Claude understand these areas when asked about them directly?
and what are you favorite resources/books/textbooks on Ayurveda, holistic health, herbalism, and anything else that rhymes with those areas for you?
I will probably not spend the time to learn about these things, but am guessing I could get a significant amount of the value by asking in AI questions that has high-quality resources behind it. Feel free to let me know if you think I'm wrong on that one though.
Thanks for sharing your work and passion for this subject!
ugh I’m sorry I’m allergic to this whole framing, did you not read the part about AI being like processed food haha. maybe someone else can talk about that but, not me
also, a lot of this is experiential and transmitted through sensing. filtering through human practitioners is important imo.
a big piece of this is that more knowledge exists than has been written down. good practitioners have kinesthetic knowledge that they transmit directly
haha very fair. I had literally not read that part yet lmao, but I have now.
Great article.
Small grammatical correction: I think there’s a “the” missing in the first paragraph of “Holistic and sensory approaches can lead to full health”.
“But the last thing I’ll leave you readers with is - **the** thing I like most about holistic and sensory approaches is they seem able to lead to real, genuine well-being.”