The Rabbit Hole

Environmentalism Steven Kotler style.

I've been a longtime advocate of the need to accelerate our development and application of technological solutions to environmentalist problems (hence the event I helped co-found, Creating Equilibrium). Over the years I've written and spoken quite a bit on the topic too. Here's a little primer on my take on it all. You should be able to garner...

Sport & spirituality: A 5 part series.

I wrote this mini-series for PsychologyToday back in 2008. It was a helluva blast and I still have people hitting me up about it 10 years later. This series is tied by my book West of Jesus. WoJ tracks a contemporary surfing myth and looks at the neuroscience that connects spirituality and high risk sport. You should get a nice sense of...

The exponential technology quick & dirty.

Abundance was my first book with Peter Diamandis and a landmark book on exponential tech. The thesis is optimistic. Very. In Abundance we make these four main points:Technologies in computing, energy, medicine and many other areas are improving at an exponential rate and will soon enable breakthroughs that today seem impossible...

Frequently asked questions on flow.

Flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness, a state where you feel youbest and perform your best. More specifically, the term refers to those moments of rapt attention and total absorption, when you get so focused on the task at hand that everything else disappears. Action and awareness merge. Your sense of self vanishes...

Neurotheology 101.

One: “The science of peak performance meets the science of spirituality on a dark and stormy night…"The below video is a great place to start for an overview on Neurotheology. You'll get a breakdown of its history, my take on it and how it all circles back to ultimate human performance. It's brand new too...

Introduction to the optimized brain: A mini-workshop on flow states.

Flow is technically defined as an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and we perform our best. Steven Kotler runs through the neuroanatomic shifts that make it possible. If your guess is that the brain somehow works harder or faster during flow states, you may be surprised to learn that everything actually slows down thanks to what's called transient hypofrontality...

Consciousness: A primer.

Sam has his fair share of intellectual sweet spots. Consciousness has got to be his biggest. If you manage to tackle the three podcasts below (each with one of the biggest consciousness researchers in the space) it'll instantly have you up to scratch on the basics. It's crazy effective one-stop shopping...