Oshan Jarow
@oshan.bsky.social
Consciousness • Economics • This is all very bewildering, but I’m writing about it.
There’s also this, oshanjarow.com, and this: economicpossibility.org
There’s also this, oshanjarow.com, and this: economicpossibility.org
Never forget when William James said that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer remind him “of the sick shriekings of two dying rats.”
April 8, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Never forget when William James said that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer remind him “of the sick shriekings of two dying rats.”
Please participate in my very rigorous user research:
If you hear "contemplative science and practice," what does that mean to you?
If you hear "contemplative science and practice," what does that mean to you?
April 4, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Please participate in my very rigorous user research:
If you hear "contemplative science and practice," what does that mean to you?
If you hear "contemplative science and practice," what does that mean to you?
Wrote about the ~abundance agenda~
The book has this errant mention of shorter workweeks & shared profits, neither of which will follow from what it actually covers.
But we can still deal an abundance of time & worker power into the agenda — why not try?
open.substack.com/pub/musingmi...
The book has this errant mention of shorter workweeks & shared profits, neither of which will follow from what it actually covers.
But we can still deal an abundance of time & worker power into the agenda — why not try?
open.substack.com/pub/musingmi...
Abundance is up for grabs
Progressives should help shape it.
open.substack.com
April 2, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Wrote about the ~abundance agenda~
The book has this errant mention of shorter workweeks & shared profits, neither of which will follow from what it actually covers.
But we can still deal an abundance of time & worker power into the agenda — why not try?
open.substack.com/pub/musingmi...
The book has this errant mention of shorter workweeks & shared profits, neither of which will follow from what it actually covers.
But we can still deal an abundance of time & worker power into the agenda — why not try?
open.substack.com/pub/musingmi...
Imagining the bygone days where...*one major assignment per couple of years* (???) could pay a writer's rent in NYC........
March 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Imagining the bygone days where...*one major assignment per couple of years* (???) could pay a writer's rent in NYC........
does anyone have strong preferences on good over-ear headphones?
March 5, 2025 at 9:49 PM
does anyone have strong preferences on good over-ear headphones?
This is pretty neat — the eruption of phenomenology in the West through a “planetary synchronicity,” in Varela’s phrase, across Husserl, James, & the Kyoto School boys
March 5, 2025 at 4:30 PM
This is pretty neat — the eruption of phenomenology in the West through a “planetary synchronicity,” in Varela’s phrase, across Husserl, James, & the Kyoto School boys
I wrote about advanced meditation research, my mom's curious recovery from brain surgery, Abhinavagupta's metaphysics, & the surprisingly plausible case that minds are, to some literal degree, made of wonder.
musingmind.substack.com/p/are-minds-...
musingmind.substack.com/p/are-minds-...
Are minds made of wonder?
I'm beginning to suspect it's strangely plausible that awareness is something like wonder incarnate.
musingmind.substack.com
February 26, 2025 at 4:20 PM
I wrote about advanced meditation research, my mom's curious recovery from brain surgery, Abhinavagupta's metaphysics, & the surprisingly plausible case that minds are, to some literal degree, made of wonder.
musingmind.substack.com/p/are-minds-...
musingmind.substack.com/p/are-minds-...
If you want frontier research on the upside of breathing, James Nestor reports the relevant scientific field has "next to nothing."
Pulmonologists "focus on emergencies...that's how the system works."
To focus on positive capabilities, guess you've gotta go hunt in the wild
Pulmonologists "focus on emergencies...that's how the system works."
To focus on positive capabilities, guess you've gotta go hunt in the wild
February 24, 2025 at 7:21 PM
If you want frontier research on the upside of breathing, James Nestor reports the relevant scientific field has "next to nothing."
Pulmonologists "focus on emergencies...that's how the system works."
To focus on positive capabilities, guess you've gotta go hunt in the wild
Pulmonologists "focus on emergencies...that's how the system works."
To focus on positive capabilities, guess you've gotta go hunt in the wild
I wish more great novelists would decide to read the canon of classical economics & tell us what they think.
From Marilynne Robinson's Is Poverty Necessary: "Poverty is static, effectively resourceless, subject to interests that are not its own, therefore valuable to those interests."
From Marilynne Robinson's Is Poverty Necessary: "Poverty is static, effectively resourceless, subject to interests that are not its own, therefore valuable to those interests."
February 21, 2025 at 6:35 PM
I wish more great novelists would decide to read the canon of classical economics & tell us what they think.
From Marilynne Robinson's Is Poverty Necessary: "Poverty is static, effectively resourceless, subject to interests that are not its own, therefore valuable to those interests."
From Marilynne Robinson's Is Poverty Necessary: "Poverty is static, effectively resourceless, subject to interests that are not its own, therefore valuable to those interests."
checking phone for 20min reset ~5 days worth of deepening into meditation mind-space, & took another ~18 hours to (not even) recover from.
considering most of us never go 18 hours (let alone 5 days) w/o phones, how much of our mind-regions are just unknown to us?
considering most of us never go 18 hours (let alone 5 days) w/o phones, how much of our mind-regions are just unknown to us?
February 13, 2025 at 9:07 PM
checking phone for 20min reset ~5 days worth of deepening into meditation mind-space, & took another ~18 hours to (not even) recover from.
considering most of us never go 18 hours (let alone 5 days) w/o phones, how much of our mind-regions are just unknown to us?
considering most of us never go 18 hours (let alone 5 days) w/o phones, how much of our mind-regions are just unknown to us?
Dig this bit from Levin's paper on biology & buddhism — as evolution enables living systems to pursue larger goals, that also creates cognitive space for progressively more complex causes of stress to unfold
February 12, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Dig this bit from Levin's paper on biology & buddhism — as evolution enables living systems to pursue larger goals, that also creates cognitive space for progressively more complex causes of stress to unfold
thrilled to announce that about ~650 pages into Infinite Jest, my mind began to detect something like the contours of a plot, and I’m now on track to greatly exceed my ~20 pages/year average pace
February 8, 2025 at 4:31 PM
thrilled to announce that about ~650 pages into Infinite Jest, my mind began to detect something like the contours of a plot, and I’m now on track to greatly exceed my ~20 pages/year average pace
a little note from Adam Smith:
“These are the disadvantages of a commercial spirit. The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and the heroic spirit is almost utterly extinguished..."
“These are the disadvantages of a commercial spirit. The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and the heroic spirit is almost utterly extinguished..."
February 5, 2025 at 4:43 PM
a little note from Adam Smith:
“These are the disadvantages of a commercial spirit. The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and the heroic spirit is almost utterly extinguished..."
“These are the disadvantages of a commercial spirit. The minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation. Education is despised, or at least neglected, and the heroic spirit is almost utterly extinguished..."
May we all feel each moment of existence with as much gushing adoration, reverence, and sacrality as financial planners feel towards Roth IRAs
February 4, 2025 at 7:12 PM
May we all feel each moment of existence with as much gushing adoration, reverence, and sacrality as financial planners feel towards Roth IRAs
When I was a freshman in college, I tried walking into a frat party — some guy with flowing black hair and a button down opened to his sternum stopped me, grabbed my collared shirt, stared down my chest, and sneered: “Never wear an undershirt with a dress shirt again.”
January 31, 2025 at 4:38 AM
When I was a freshman in college, I tried walking into a frat party — some guy with flowing black hair and a button down opened to his sternum stopped me, grabbed my collared shirt, stared down my chest, and sneered: “Never wear an undershirt with a dress shirt again.”
Bookchin’s take on the abundance agenda — a sheer abundance of goods that would ‘explode capitalism from within’ by permitting the expression of preferences for forms of life that don’t need to also fetch a living wage off of labor markets
January 23, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Bookchin’s take on the abundance agenda — a sheer abundance of goods that would ‘explode capitalism from within’ by permitting the expression of preferences for forms of life that don’t need to also fetch a living wage off of labor markets
There's a fun conflict in how different groups think about awe/wonder.
The 'science of awe' sees it as an evolutionary tool; others see it as a deeper subjectivity that has to shine through evolution's other mind-tools; & psychedelic science think we evolved to keep wonder within a middling range.
The 'science of awe' sees it as an evolutionary tool; others see it as a deeper subjectivity that has to shine through evolution's other mind-tools; & psychedelic science think we evolved to keep wonder within a middling range.
January 20, 2025 at 8:52 PM
There's a fun conflict in how different groups think about awe/wonder.
The 'science of awe' sees it as an evolutionary tool; others see it as a deeper subjectivity that has to shine through evolution's other mind-tools; & psychedelic science think we evolved to keep wonder within a middling range.
The 'science of awe' sees it as an evolutionary tool; others see it as a deeper subjectivity that has to shine through evolution's other mind-tools; & psychedelic science think we evolved to keep wonder within a middling range.
Reposted by Oshan Jarow
Really appreciated this clear-eyed view onto the predictive processing account of meditation from @oshan.bsky.social: www.vox.com/future-perfe...
Have some work coming in this space... stay tuned 📺
Have some work coming in this space... stay tuned 📺
How meditation deconstructs your mind
Want to learn how to meditate? Scientists have a new theory that might change how you practice.
www.vox.com
January 16, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Really appreciated this clear-eyed view onto the predictive processing account of meditation from @oshan.bsky.social: www.vox.com/future-perfe...
Have some work coming in this space... stay tuned 📺
Have some work coming in this space... stay tuned 📺
The Other Place can still produce gems
January 14, 2025 at 4:34 AM
The Other Place can still produce gems
Today’s my last day at Vox, which means I’m entering scheming season.
It’s a wildly exciting time to be writing about consciousness & economics — there’s so much to do, explore, & write about.
Don’t know what’s next, but if you want to chat or collaborate: oshanjarow@gmail.com
It’s a wildly exciting time to be writing about consciousness & economics — there’s so much to do, explore, & write about.
Don’t know what’s next, but if you want to chat or collaborate: oshanjarow@gmail.com
January 10, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Today’s my last day at Vox, which means I’m entering scheming season.
It’s a wildly exciting time to be writing about consciousness & economics — there’s so much to do, explore, & write about.
Don’t know what’s next, but if you want to chat or collaborate: oshanjarow@gmail.com
It’s a wildly exciting time to be writing about consciousness & economics — there’s so much to do, explore, & write about.
Don’t know what’s next, but if you want to chat or collaborate: oshanjarow@gmail.com
Threading a few of my favorite bits from the meditation series:
Wrote a 5-part series for @vox.com on the science/practice of deep-end meditation — a bridge to step beyond basic mindfulness.
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...
January 7, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Threading a few of my favorite bits from the meditation series:
In a cross cultural study of experiencing awe, “the individual self was twenty times more likely to be the source of awe in the United States than in China.”
January 7, 2025 at 4:58 AM
In a cross cultural study of experiencing awe, “the individual self was twenty times more likely to be the source of awe in the United States than in China.”
“Too beautiful to be wrong”
In 1991, Edward Witten told me that string theory is too beautiful to be wrong. Here is my profile of the man said to be one of the greatest physicists ever. johnhorgan.org/cross-check/...
My Encounter with String Theorist and Naïve Realist Edward Witten — John Horgan (The Science Writer)
String theory has been on my mind lately, perhaps because I’ve been brooding over our struggles to make sense of this weird, weird world . That’s why I’m posting this profile, adapted from my 199...
johnhorgan.org
January 5, 2025 at 5:04 PM
“Too beautiful to be wrong”
Wrote a 5-part series for @vox.com on the science/practice of deep-end meditation — a bridge to step beyond basic mindfulness.
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...
December 30, 2024 at 4:41 PM
Wrote a 5-part series for @vox.com on the science/practice of deep-end meditation — a bridge to step beyond basic mindfulness.
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...
Q+A's w/ meditation teachers & researchers, practices, & essays sketching the emerging, surprisingly accessible field of 'advanced meditation'
www.vox.com/pages/more-t...