The Vagus Nerve, Ultrasound & the Future of Brain Tech

Dave Asprey interviews John Hacker, CEO of ZenBud, on The Human Upgrade podcast.

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John: 00:00:00 Most people are in the sympathetic or fight or flight state because it's profitable to put people there. If you're in [00:00:05] fight or flight state, you're not thinking. You're more likely to buy or likely to just be a nice little consumer. [00:00:10] And especially not social media in short form algorithm, algorithmic [00:00:15] content, which is literally used as a gateway key to activate dopamine centers in [00:00:20] your mind. And directly activate your sympathetic system to get you to keep watching.

Dave: 00:00:25 But it's not okay to control someone else's without their consent. And I don't want Sam Altman, I don't want Mark Zuckerberg, I don't want Bill [00:00:30] Gates, I don't want any government person anywhere to say anything about what I do with my consciousness. [00:00:35] And anyone who tries to do that sounds like they're an enemy of humanity. You have the guards up. You've

John: 00:00:40 built up the firewall, so to speak. The thing is, children do not have the firewall. And if, [00:00:45] especially if you're in an environment where you've never not been introduced to these things, you've never had a chance to build [00:00:50] up the firewall.

Dave: 00:00:55 How could you say you grew up with a completely twisted As your brain is forming its concept of reality. I discovered when I started doing heart rate [00:01:00] variability training many years ago that hundreds of times per day, without any [00:01:05] conscious knowledge, my system was flipping into sympathetic mode. It was. So a lot of

John: 00:01:10 times if you're in a high sympathetic state before you use it, it'll bring you to a parasympathetic state. [00:01:15] We do have peer reviewed and published clinical work, taking a look at things like anxiety and PTSD, [00:01:20] and we see really, really strong results in both. We had like a 78 percent remission rate [00:01:25] when it comes to anxiety. Wow. Yeah, very high.

Dave: 00:01:30 You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.[00:01:35] You already know that. Upgrading the [00:01:40] brain is one of the most important things you could possibly do, and I've been searching for the [00:01:45] past 25 years. Everything you can do. I don't care if it's psychedelics, [00:01:50] if it's nootropics, weird breathwork, meditation. One of the central [00:01:55] pillars of biohacking is Increase your consciousness. And that includes intelligence and [00:02:00] awareness. And that's why I wrote my most recent book about it. And one of the [00:02:05] technologies that has me most intrigued is ultrasound. Now you [00:02:10] probably know ultrasound because that's how you look at babies in the womb, or you might've had it [00:02:15] during physical therapy, but, oh, last year. I used focused [00:02:20] ultrasound to open up my blood brain barrier and allow stem cells [00:02:25] directly into my hippocampus. That's amazing! You can do that! [00:02:30] But, it turns out you can also, at home, use ultrasound [00:02:35] to directly stimulate parts of the nervous system. And this is different than [00:02:40] monitoring your brain state. This is directly changing the state of your nervous system [00:02:45] via an external factor. So, this interview is with [00:02:50] John Hacker, who's CEO of a company called ZenBud. And ZenBud is really [00:02:55] interesting because they're the first and only device like this that [00:03:00] works, it's very affordable, it doesn't require a connection to the cloud, And it does what [00:03:05] vagal nerve stimulators are supposed to do. The problem is a lot of them don't actually do what [00:03:10] they're supposed to do. So that's what we're going to talk about, your vagal nerve. And we're going to talk about how [00:03:15] ultrasound, when it's used properly, can be a really important part of how your computer [00:03:20] An AI interface with your brain in a way that's non invasive. I don't want [00:03:25] things planted in my head, but I would like to be able to make better use of tech. So we'll talk about [00:03:30] the far future sci fi kind of stuff, but we're going to talk about what's happening now with your vagus nerve, [00:03:35] heart rate variability, and all the stuff that you'd want if you don't like to be stressed all the time. [00:03:40] John, welcome to the show. I'm very glad to be here.

John: 00:03:45 Love the intro, Dave. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And you gave a really great overview of everything. Like, I could probably just leave right [00:03:50] now. I think you've already done everything. We're done. You're done. Short podcast there.

Dave: 00:03:55 Now, you studied neuroscience, and I want to get your take on this. Okay. I saw a study that said the bigger the butt, the [00:04:00] bigger the brain. Okay. They were measuring the size of, of the muscle in the [00:04:05] glutes. Okay. a direct correlation with brain volume and brain performance and glute volume. [00:04:10] What's your take on that?

John: 00:04:15 It makes a lot of sense that if you're taking care of your body appropriately and thus perhaps have a bigger butt, uh, muscle wise, that you'd also would end up [00:04:20] having a bigger brain, so to speak. It's something that I think it's really easy, [00:04:25] especially like, I'm, An engineer by training and it's something I find out for a lot of engineers, it's very [00:04:30] easy to ignore, uh, your body as a component because you're like, brain is [00:04:35] everything. It's the intelligence and it's the decisions that you make that mean the most. But if you [00:04:40] don't Keep your body healthy. Your brain will deteriorate. And if you keep your body healthy, [00:04:45] your brain will do so much better. It's a hardware thing. It's like daily operating system and a hardware [00:04:50] thing.

Dave: 00:04:55 Now I got to ask you this because you're a neuro guy. Yeah. I am a neuro guy. When you're recalling things, you look off to the left.

John: 00:05:00 Why? It's a good question. So I think there's. There's a couple of different answers to [00:05:05] it. One answer could be, Hey, I'm either more right brain oriented. That [00:05:10] is a very commonly given answer. As much as I'll say that that's a common answer, I don't know how much I [00:05:15] believe in it, ironically enough. Cause I think there's a lot of, I would almost call them [00:05:20] neuromyths is what I call them and it's really like, and I think that might be one of them. It largely [00:05:25] is habit oriented more than anything else. And when we're young, we're [00:05:30] taught either eye contact when you're telling people things and when you were calling things, you [00:05:35] should look up because when you're at a test and you're taking that test, if you're looking to your left and down, well, [00:05:40] you might be cheating on your neighbor. So I think that that actually is probably a larger portion of why I do [00:05:45] that. But it's hard to say. Because they were

Dave: cheating off your neighbor.

John: It's Because I wasn't cheating off of

Dave: 00:05:50 anything. And I'm not, I'm not picking on you at all. I'm asking because I think you might know the answer. I came across a [00:05:55] chart a long time ago when I was looking at neuroscience stuff. And it looked at a [00:06:00] map of basically nine points in your visual field. Where you might look to activate [00:06:05] different parts of the brain. And they had some good science behind it. And I've noticed for me, I look up and to the left. [00:06:10] Like when I'm calculating something or when I'm coming up with it, you'll oftentimes see me do that. And it's [00:06:15] funny because the people are like, I'm an FBI negotiator and some of them are good friends. But they'll [00:06:20] say, Oh, that is a sign of deception. But it's actually like, for [00:06:25] me, it's how I come up with complex things. It lives up here. So I just want to know what was going [00:06:30] on in there.

John: 00:06:35 Realistically, I don't think we have a really good answer for that. And there's a good science on a lot of different things. Like this is something that I see very commonly is like you [00:06:40] can end up doing some initial work. You can take samples of people that are doing different things like [00:06:45] looking up to the left, looking up to the right. I don't think that's really an indicator of someone's lying or not, for one thing.[00:06:50] I also don't think that's necessarily an indicator that there's some part of your brain that's activating there [00:06:55] because there's so much variability from person to person. Like what's the study that you would do [00:07:00] to test for that? From birth, you can't because it's unethical to have someone in a box [00:07:05] from birth and that would be the ideal way to do it. And there's a lot of things like that where you have to [00:07:10] think about how the study would have been conducted.

Dave: 00:07:15 That seems like that would just be an Amazon product at this point. I saw it at SkinnerBox. com, it was right there. [00:07:20] Ethics are such a slippery slope. I mean, if you're a big, a big company like that, ethics don't really matter.[00:07:25]

John: 00:07:30 Well, I mean, a lot of times I think ethics end up getting ignored in the larger play because ethics are not considered logical when indeed, I, honestly, I think ethics are highly [00:07:35] logical if done right. Uh, and people will follow ethics that are based in a logical code of conduct and [00:07:40] the societal code of conduct. But that's a, like a, that's like a whole, we could do a whole podcast on [00:07:45] philosophy with that. And

Dave: 00:07:50 philosophy and ethics is, is, uh, okay. Also, can we stimulate ethics without people's consent?

John: 00:07:55 Well, that's social media today, very frankly with you. Yeah,

Dave: 00:08:00 that's actually kind of dark. Yeah. Well, speaking of stress, what is the biggest thing that people get wrong when they talk about stress?

John: 00:08:05 Oh, gosh, there's so many things to choose. You're making me choose the only one thing here, Dave. Only one thing. [00:08:10] Okay that stress is somebody's choice, I think, is something that I see a lot with people that are [00:08:15] less predisposed to be stressed and people that have more collected and calm. [00:08:20] a lot of times they're going to say, you're choosing to be stressed out right now, you're choosing to be hyperactive right [00:08:25] now. When in reality, it's a brain state type of thing. And so body state kind of thing. There are definitely factors [00:08:30] that you chose that led to that outcome. If you're not taking care of your body, it's more likely to lead to the [00:08:35] outcome. If you're not taking care of your mind, it's more likely to lead to that outcome. But Very, [00:08:40] very rarely is it a choice kind of thing in that moment when someone's anxious or stressed. [00:08:45] And I see it a lot, especially like in the site, self hype motivation [00:08:50] space. There's all this type of work on you choose your mindset, you choose how you think. And that's [00:08:55] part of it to an extent, there is a, you can shift your mindset by [00:09:00] choosing, but it's so small and realistically it matters so much more what your hardware is [00:09:05] and what your software is doing at that moment.

Dave: 00:09:10 Yeah. It's, in my world, at least 80 percent physiological. If your body is stressed And [00:09:15] you don't know why, your brain will automatically make up a story. And then you think your brain [00:09:20] caused it. And some of this, well, the body feels stress, which is, How does [00:09:25] that stress come into the brain? What nerve does that have?

John: 00:09:30 That, uh, one of the, one of the nerves that really relates to the stress response is the vagus nerve. It's not the only [00:09:35] one. We can go into a little bit, but it's all part of your autonomic nervous system. Right. So the system that's keeping you alive, [00:09:40] and keeping the things that you're not consciously thinking about activated, That's your autonomic nervous [00:09:45] system, and it really has two main modes. You have the fight or flight, which is a sympathetic [00:09:50] response, and then rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic response.

Dave: 00:09:55 That's the bad guy, because if you rest and digest, you're not grounded.

John: 00:10:00 No, no, rest and digest. Oh, I have seen people that have been in too much of a rest and digest mode. It happens. Yeah, it does. Like we, Typically, [00:10:05] most people are in the sympathetic or fight or flight state because it's profitable to put people there. [00:10:10] If you're in fight or flight state, you're not thinking. You're more likely to buy. You're more likely to just be a nice little [00:10:15] consumer.

Dave: 00:10:20 It's also how you show up if you play sports, if you're getting shit done at work. A hundred percent. So being in a sympathetic state isn't bad. No, it's not. Being excessively [00:10:25] there. Being there without your consent and being unable to leave it would be the problem.

John: 00:10:30 Yes, and that goes doubly for parasympathetic as well as sympathetic. It's both sides of the, [00:10:35] both sides of it, you can't really stay there 100 percent of the time. And a lot of people [00:10:40] are, at least from what I've seen, especially like in my generation, man, like, most people are in a constant [00:10:45] sympathetic state, and it's, It's very sad.

Dave: 00:10:50 It's sad and also sympathetic is a high performance state. It

John: is.

Dave: 00:10:55 Right. And so it's not a bad thing. A lot of people say, I don't want to be sympathetic. No. It's good. Yes. And it's the ability to be in a clean sympathetic [00:11:00] state where you can focus. You're in control. You're able to execute and all sorts of [00:11:05] magic happens there. And the problem is if you're flipped into that all the time when you [00:11:10] didn't mean to be there, not for a good cause to get stuff done, but because something [00:11:15] that seems outside your control just happened. And yeah, this is a [00:11:20] really important episode for me because I discovered when I started doing heart rate variability [00:11:25] training many years ago that hundreds of times per day, without any [00:11:30] conscious knowledge, my system was flipping into sympathetic mode. Yeah. It was [00:11:35] PTSD, right? And it took me a while to unpack that and to learn how to consciously control it.[00:11:40] And I didn't understand back then the role of the vagus nerve in what was [00:11:45] happening with me. So, knowing that set of symptoms, what was happening in my vagus nerve? [00:11:50]

John: 00:11:55 So, a lot of times, what is gonna end up happening when you're flipping into a fight or flight state, which, PTSD is a fight or flight state disorder. That's its [00:12:00] base consideration in the literature. And a lot of times it is, Correlating [00:12:05] to that fight or flight state things that shouldn't be correlated to that fight or flight state. Exactly.

Dave: 00:12:10 Because of some sort of pre existing trauma, usually. For me, it was, I was born with a cord trying to choke me to death. [00:12:15] And coming into the world believing that there's something trying to kill you is not good for your nervous system.

John: 00:12:20 No, it's not. It's not. Well, I mean, a lot, there's a lot of traumas that are, before you even can [00:12:25] really remember it, there's a lot of traumas that end up developing and they end up shaping a lot of your early years [00:12:30] and eventually later years. Because they don't go away. away and [00:12:35] it's a lot easier to point to traumas that happen later on down the line when you're older because [00:12:40] You're conscious for them.

Dave: Yeah, you remember them consciously anyway.

John: 00:12:45 But there's a lot of traumas that you're not going to remember because you're too young to. And those will, [00:12:50] they will screw up your parasympathetic and sympathetic system response. And over [00:12:55] time, strengthen that sympathetic response to the point where you're always in it. And that's not, that's [00:13:00] not a good thing.

Dave: 00:13:05 It's one of the reasons if you're looking at longevity, or happiness even, There's a table of early adverse events, uh, Daniel Ayman was on the show, a dear [00:13:10] friend, uh, talking about that with me. So if you have these early things, they prime your system to [00:13:15] go into inappropriate, not useful sympathetic stress. [00:13:20] And you can't get out of it sometimes for a long time, and then, There's also genetic factors [00:13:25] if you have genes that make you have more stress hormones, you're just kind of tweaking all the time and [00:13:30] you think something's wrong with you, but there's nothing wrong with you, you just have hardware settings or software [00:13:35] settings, and they're all mediated by the vagus nerve at the very core, and [00:13:40] yes, there are other things that are part of it.

John: 00:13:45 It's, it's like, if you take a look at a car, right, or a computer, it's, you can think of the vagus The graphics card, right? It's [00:13:50] one limitation. And if the graphics card isn't good, you're not going to be able to play any sort of high end [00:13:55] games. You're not gonna be able to really perform. But you still need to have a good power supply. It's only a good CPU. Like [00:14:00] it's one piece of the whole, it's just a piece that a lot of people don't end up doing [00:14:05] well with right now. And there's where there's actually not a lot of options to shift it at the moment.[00:14:10]

Dave: 00:14:15 Why did you decide to focus on the Vegas Nerf?

John: 00:14:20 I guess this gets a little bit into my personal story. Okay. I grew up. When I was younger, I ended up developing some rather severe [00:14:25] OCD, um, obsessive compulsive disorder, and it I really do.

Dave: 00:14:30 There we go. There we go. The OCD punch. We have to do it three times or it won't work. Gosh. [00:14:35]

John: 00:14:40 Ah, I still have phantoms, uh, for OCD. Oh, yeah, yeah. It never really a hundred percent goes away. But anyway, I had really terrible OCD and that instilled in [00:14:45] me, like, this mindset of On how people operate. And it's like, [00:14:50] I always saw OCD as a chain holding me down. I still, to an extent, it's like, again, [00:14:55] there's these types of things, they get better, but there's still phantoms of that chain that exists. What does a

Dave: 00:15:00 phantom look like to you?

John: 00:15:05 A phantom looks like my brain activating a certain circuit that's been dormant for a while. And for example, me taking a look at the door and thinking [00:15:10] like, Oh, I could tap that a couple more times if I really wanted to. I don't, [00:15:15] I choose not to, which I know we were talking about choice earlier. Yeah. But the reason why I have that choice is [00:15:20] because I have upgraded my hardware system over time.

Dave: Mm.

John: 00:15:25 And I've upgraded my software system so I can now make that choice. Until you do that, it's not a choice. It really isn't. You're stuck there. [00:15:30] Mm hmm. And. I didn't want to see anyone else ever have to go through that [00:15:35] period. And that's what really brought me in how had me [00:15:40] focus on this area. And the thing is, and this is something I see commonly, everyone has [00:15:45] a story of either loved one or themselves dealing with these type of sympathetic [00:15:50] disorders, these anxiety, PTSD, even depression to an [00:15:55] extent, uh, over time. And we saw this and we're like, we got to do something about it.[00:16:00] We had this cortex, we knew ultrasound really well, and we're like, we can do something about [00:16:05] it, perhaps with this vagus nerve. And we've seen that, how familiar are you [00:16:10] with the history of the vagus, of vagus nerve stimulation, Dave?

Dave: 00:16:15 I'm pretty familiar, but let's assume that our followers are not.

John: 00:16:20 Okay, cool. Vagus nerve stimulation actually started with implantables. And companies like LevaNova, or more recently actually, SubPoint, where [00:16:25] they would have this little battery in your chest and they would have a neural cuff on the cervical or neck branch of the [00:16:30] vagus nerve, and they would shock it consistently. And we saw great results [00:16:35] for that for a number of different indications, uh, including epilepsy. And [00:16:40] over time, there was this big effort to bring that into the non invasive realm, pioneered by [00:16:45] Electricorps, actually, which are these, it kind of looks like a taser, to be honest with you, and it is [00:16:50] shocking you on the neck, and they attempt to do the same thing that the implantables did. The problem is, the [00:16:55] moment you went from invasive to non invasive, you lost all the specificity and, very frankly, the efficacy. [00:17:00] So what

Dave: 00:17:05 you're saying is, you can't really find the vagus nerve, you can't get the electricity to it, so it doesn't work.

John: 00:17:10 Yeah, very frankly, like you do see some responses in the studies electric core has done, and I have a lot of respect for the attempt that they've made, but they were using, it's like [00:17:15] using the wrong hardware to try to solve a problem. They're all playing in the same space. There's a ton of electrical vagus nerve stimulators [00:17:20] out there, but they're all using outdated hardware to try to do the same thing. And it [00:17:25] consistently has the same problem, which is that electricity does not like to penetrate the [00:17:30] skin. It's not precise, especially in the neck. You can't find the vagus nerve and you can't properly [00:17:35] innervate it.

Dave: 00:17:40 I do have to say I've tried most of the stimulators out there, and sometimes you feel something. And the one that's worked best costs a few thousand dollars. It's a [00:17:45] clinical grade one with a very fine thing, and a clinician goes around your face and finds little efferent [00:17:50] parts of it. I think that one's particularly effective, but overall, I've been [00:17:55] underwhelmed with what I thought would happen from stimulating my vagus nerve. And [00:18:00] then you came along with a very different set of tech than I know affects the brain because I've used. [00:18:05] And different gear that opened up my blood brain barrier. So how did you know that [00:18:10] ultrasound was going to do this?

John: 00:18:15 So there was a body of research around ultrasound for activating action potentials in neurons, which means that the neuron is sending a [00:18:20] little bit of information along his chain. And that body of research actually [00:18:25] extends back to the Frey brothers around World War II, uh, way back in the day. That was when it was originally [00:18:30] done once. It was done once back in the day, and then it was kind of like left [00:18:35] to fester for a while. What did they do? They actually got a neuron to activate when they [00:18:40] introduced it to a certain level of ultrasound. And then more recently, out of the University of [00:18:45] Arizona, I believe, Dr. William Jamie Tyler did some additional work with ultrasound. [00:18:50] And there's a couple others that also did some work there, and they found like, hey, This really can stimulate [00:18:55] neurons non invasively, both in the brain and around the body. And we saw [00:19:00] that the vagus nerve was for non invasive vagus nerve stimulation, the non implantable [00:19:05] ones, it wasn't matching up. So we took that ultrasound concept because we knew we [00:19:10] could get really precise with it. And we used focused ultrasound to stimulate the vagus nerve [00:19:15] in the auricular branch here in the ear. And we also believe there's, there's multiple reasons why we [00:19:20] did that. One is the emotional story, part of it, the emotional pain that. Our team [00:19:25] has experienced and really wanted to bring relief to for ourselves and for people around the world. And [00:19:30] another piece of it is, very frankly, the auricular branch of the vagus nerve is a great starting point for a [00:19:35] non invasive system. And that's

Dave: 00:19:40 in the basically inside bottom part of the ear canal? Or in the top part, like

John: 00:19:45 Simba Contra region, like right here. So this is the crucifelix, that little bridge right above that. That's the best innervation point. Uh, there [00:19:50] are companies that will try to stimulate the earlobe or the inner ear and call it vagus nerve stimulation. In fact, [00:19:55] there are companies that will vibrate on the wrist or do a little bit. Vibrate in the [00:20:00] chest and call it vagus nerve stimulation, and it could be indirect VMS do calm the [00:20:05] system. They do.

Dave: 00:20:10 They do. Yeah, it's, it's not like the Apollo. Like, I think that thing's great. Yes. Technically, I don't know. Is there an afferent part of the vagus nerve in your wrist? No, so they're [00:20:15] calming the whole system with vibrations. I, I'm a fan of that kind of tech.

John: I am too.

Dave: 00:20:20 Yeah. And it's, strictly speaking though, it isn't directly accessing the nerve. Yeah.

John: 00:20:25 Okay. That's why I've been, I've been trying to pioneer the use of direct vagus nerve stimulators versus other types of vagus [00:20:30] nerve stimulators. Because you can influence your system, not through the vagus nerve. It's just the vagus nerve has become such a big concept [00:20:35] right now that everyone's trying to get on the marketing hype, very frankly, which fair enough.

Dave: 00:20:40 So, the best way to get to it is through the ear, and if you put enough [00:20:45] electricity into it, um, it's going to hurt. Yeah. And it's still hard to target. So, [00:20:50] you said, alright, we've seen something in World War II, we know it's feasibly possible, so [00:20:55] let's build this. Yeah. And what happens when people use ultrasound to [00:21:00] simulate their vagus nerve? Like, what do they experience? What are the medical changes that they see? So [00:21:05] one of the things we'll see is it usually takes around three

John: 00:21:10 to five minutes for things to start kicking in. I used mine for about five. Yeah. Yeah. I, it does vary between you. Some people like we see like within one minute they start to [00:21:15] notice a pretty strong change. Um, but for most it is around that three to five. What's the change that people experience? So a [00:21:20] lot of times if you're in a high sympathetic state, Before you use it, it'll bring you to [00:21:25] a parasympathetic state, which I will, I'll be a little bit vulnerable here and I'll bring up an [00:21:30] example recently. I was at business of biohacking your event. It was great. I loved it. Um, there was some [00:21:35] other stuff going on and I actually ended up having two panic attacks during that event. It was a pretty stressful time for you. [00:21:40] Yes, very stressful time for me. But I put the Zimbud on when I was having that panic attack and it [00:21:45] brought me back to center both times. Uh, I mean, like we still had to, you still have to [00:21:50] dress. The underlying problem, uh, but it really helped me move through it in that [00:21:55] event. And that's just a, in of one example, we do have peer reviewed and published clinical [00:22:00] work taking a look at things like anxiety and PTSD. And we see really, really strong results [00:22:05] in both. We had like a 78 percent remission rate when it comes to anxiety. [00:22:10] Wow. Yeah, very high. And

Dave: 00:22:15 the, the, the ZenBud is 400 bucks. Yes. And. You can use it as many times as you want, you don't have to pay a monthly fee at all, right?

John: 00:22:20 No, there's no monthly fee. Uh, we do suggest switching out the silicone pads every once in a while, Okay, because

Dave: 00:22:25 they wear out. Yeah, they do. Okay, so, what's our code? I'm sure you're giving people a discount, I haven't even [00:22:30]

John: It's, it should, it should be Dave15.

Dave: 00:22:35 Okay, cool, so use code Dave15 at zenbud. health. Zenbud. health. Z E N B U D. health. Yes. And, so [00:22:40] guys, I, I actually think this is worth your time, and this is, uh, about the cost of a [00:22:45] massage or two. And it lasts a very long time. How many uses can you get before the silicone pads run out? [00:22:50]

John: 00:22:55 So typically we suggest using, we send each unit with around five silicone pads now. Uh, and that's going to last you more than a month by itself. Usually it can [00:23:00] last, it can last you a bit longer depending on how often you're using it. You're saying each pad lasts for a month? [00:23:05] Each pad lasts for a week. Okay, good. Within

Dave: 00:23:10 five. If you're using it every day for five minutes? Yes, if you're using it every day. Okay, got it. Five minutes. So people put this on if they're having a panic attack or just [00:23:15] before bad or before any time they want to be

John: 00:23:20 yes I mean like we suggest you already know about happy I'm learning right about what heavy and learning. I think our listen. [00:23:25] Yes. Okay Okay, I'll go through it. I'll go through it So happy and learning is and like this is a [00:23:30] kind of thing that just It's, there's these logics in when it comes to biology that play across the [00:23:35] body. The more you use a system, the stronger that system gets as an adaption mechanic. [00:23:40] When with Hebbian learning, the more that you use that system, the stronger that system [00:23:45] gets, especially when it comes to your nerve, your nervous system to be [00:23:50] exact. So the real base concept here is that if you use the ZenBud consistently, as [00:23:55] in daily, we consistently stimulate your vagus nerve directly, we can strengthen that system over time.[00:24:00] So you have less required need of using it on a daily basis. [00:24:05] And it'll apply even when you're not stimulating.

Dave: 00:24:10 So you're literally working out your vagus nerve with ultrasound so that it gets stronger so that you can self regulate without using the [00:24:15] tech. That's why I think this is kind of an important piece of tech. Why are [00:24:20] people So tweaked, what's wrong with our vagus nerve?

John: 00:24:25 There's a number of factors. I'll use Gen Z as an example here, because I think it is the most tweaked generation yet, [00:24:30] Gen Alpha being even more so. It's a problem that we're consistently seeing get worse as we introduce [00:24:35] more technology into the equation. Ironic, I think, because technology usually is used to help solve [00:24:40] our problems for us. But there's, our bodies are built as [00:24:45] systems to really prioritize survival. And the more you move away from that, the more [00:24:50] you end up having more problems with your system and body not being adapted. Because [00:24:55] we haven't adapted to our lovely technology and environment yet, realistically.[00:25:00] And especially not social media and short form algorithm, [00:25:05] algorithmic content, which is literally used as a gateway key to [00:25:10] activate dopamine centers in your body, in dopamine centers in your mind, and directly [00:25:15] activate your sympathetic system. To get you to keep watching, [00:25:20] and I honestly think that that's one of the big reasons why we're so tweaked, [00:25:25] why we're so anxious all the time is that we are engaging with our technology in a way that our brains are not [00:25:30] adapted for, and we haven't had time as a species to adapt to these wonderful [00:25:35] technological marvels that we've built, and I expect that that will get even worse as we bring [00:25:40] AI into the equation.

Dave: 00:25:45 Yeah, what could go wrong with AI and VR and the people who made the algorithms already? Yeah. Yeah. What I do notice [00:25:50] though, I have learned a lot of conscious regulatory techniques. Yeah. So I look at [00:25:55] social media, it's not influencing my nervous system at all. It just doesn't do that, but it [00:26:00] took me a while to train myself to do that.

John: 00:26:05 You have the guards up. You've built up the firewall, so to speak. The thing is, children do not have the firewall. And especially if you're in an [00:26:10] environment where you've never not been introduced to these things, you never had a chance to build up the [00:26:15] firewall.

Dave: 00:26:20 How could you? So you grow up with a completely tweaked vagus nerve as your brain is forming its concept of reality. Yes. So you're much more likely to be [00:26:25] anxious all the time. And it's not your fault, and there's nothing wrong with you, but you have [00:26:30] untrained hardware that you could have conscious control of, or you could at least [00:26:35] train up so that it will automatically regulate. On point. [00:26:40] So, three to five minutes a day, you do this. What's the best time of day to use a ZenBud?

John: 00:26:45 Depends on your schedule. I'd say before bed, or in the morning. I use mine in the morning, when I'm taking, actually, [00:26:50] a cup of danger coffee usually. Nice little plug there, but it's true. Doesn't [00:26:55] coffee put you in sympathetic mode? So, caffeine will activate [00:27:00] your body's centers, but I usually find that when I use the ZenBud to train that [00:27:05] system and I bring caffeine in, I have a much more measured caffeine high.

Dave: 00:27:10 So danger coffee is a pre workout for your vagal nerve stimulation?

John: 00:27:15 Yes, I would say that's accurate. I love it. I love it. Yeah, no, I would 100 percent say so. And it's [00:27:20] something I do at the very least. I find it helps me. Get really into the zone. That [00:27:25] combination really helps me get into the zone very quickly.

Dave: 00:27:30 Can you use vagal nerve stimulation to enter a flow state?

John: 00:27:35 I definitely do. So, in of one, yes. Do you use it to help enter a flow state, Dave?

Dave: 00:27:40 I, I can enter a flow state pretty easily, so I haven't found it to be necessary.

John: 00:27:45 I'm still working on that myself.

Dave: 00:27:50 Yeah. But it also, the definition of a flow state is a little bit vague, and we know that acts of service put you in a flow state, and [00:27:55] most of what I do, at least in my mind, is an act of service so that helps. [00:28:00] Public speaking does it, creative acts do it, and mostly writing and speaking. [00:28:05] I think I've set my life up so that I'm quite often in a flow state just [00:28:10] automatically and when I'm not, it's not a problem because you really can't be in [00:28:15] a flow state all the time.

John: 00:28:20 Yeah, I think it's, it's kind of like, again, I think any state when done always is a problem, very frankly, any brain [00:28:25] state, any body state, like we were talking about before, you don't want to always be in parasympathetic, you [00:28:30] don't want to always be in sympathetic, you don't always want to be a gamma, beta, or alpha, you need to be [00:28:35] Variety, because

Dave: your body's meant to be

John: adaptable.

Dave: 00:28:40 It's conscious switching between the states is most important. One of the things that I'm running into, the last nine months or so, [00:28:45] I have been doing more in my businesses probably than ever before. [00:28:50] And I've been in a sympathetic state of high performance, almost non stop, sometimes [00:28:55] like 12 hour days. And I'm working through people's lab work, doing advanced [00:29:00] longevity stuff with Unlimited. Life. And sometimes it's every hour for 12 [00:29:05] hours. And it's so much fun, like I'm enjoying it the whole time. And I'm five time [00:29:10] zones away from where I was before. But I'm totally handling it, and I [00:29:15] just, I realized recently, I ought to spend more time in parasympathetic, but none of this is [00:29:20] stress. It's just focus and joy and fun, but even that can burn you out. I [00:29:25] also find that

John: 00:29:30 90 percent of ending up burnt out is you thinking you can get burnt out and thinking about being burnt out. Yeah. It's one of those Anxiety things. If you're anxious about something, [00:29:35] it's more likely to happen. Mentally speaking, we have to fear is fear itself. [00:29:40] Kind of getting to that point. But the thing is, Dave, I actually don't know if that's necessarily a bad [00:29:45] thing for you because like, there's also so much variation from person to person. You've spent a long, a lot of time [00:29:50] upgrading your hardware over time.

Dave: 00:29:55 That's been kind of your, your, your thing for my capacity is beyond anything I would have imagined. And I recognize that recovery is important. [00:30:00] Fortunately, I know how to recover very quickly. Good. With tech and all that. But part of my recovery stack now [00:30:05] is ZenBud in addition to all of the light therapy and all the stuff I've written about forever. [00:30:10] So, if I didn't do those things, I don't think I could have this level of output that I do. [00:30:15] And so, you know, we're moving 40 years of Zen to Austin. Just found a new [00:30:20] home for it that's gorgeous, but that means training up a new team. And the same time I'm [00:30:25] traveling to Dubai. And we're going to Ecuador again with unlimited life. And so I have this incredible [00:30:30] level of busyness, but it's all meaningful busyness and being able to say, all [00:30:35] right, I don't have an hour to meditate right now. So, I'm going to spend [00:30:40] 5 minutes doing ultrasound stimulation on my vagus nerve, and then my system resets. And I can [00:30:45] go do more stuff, and it doesn't appear to be costing me anything. And it's [00:30:50] good. What do you know about longevity and stimulating the vagus nerve?

John: 00:30:55 There's been a lot of work done. with the vagus nerve and longevity over time. And I would say really the biggest [00:31:00] core, and so this is one of the things with the vagus nerve, because it can really help with state changes and state shifts, [00:31:05] is it's been researched for anything and everything. And there is some very valid connections, especially [00:31:10] to inflammation. Uh, that's a lot of the work done by the Feinstein Institute and Dr. Kevin Tracy. [00:31:15] Fascinating work. One of the inflammation, which is a critical factor for longevity. Stress is very [00:31:20] frankly a critical factor for longevity too. If you're constantly in a sympathetic state, you're going to wear your body out [00:31:25] over time. You need to be, and so, like, this is the part where you probably should try to get an [00:31:30] hour or two in a day in parasympathetic state. Like, as long as you hit an hour, [00:31:35] I would say you're usually fine for recovery if you have a really good hardware system. But over time, you will [00:31:40] slowly wear your body down if you're constantly in sympathetic.

Dave: 00:31:45 Yeah. Even beneficial sympathetic.

John: 00:31:50 Even beneficial. Well, I mean, again, your body is meant to experience this wide range of existence. Yeah. It's not built to be one thing. We're not robots. We're not like, for [00:31:55] example, AI. Uh, and we're not meant to always be one thing. And we're meant to be very [00:32:00] adaptable. And so when you really force yourself into like always being one thing, that's, [00:32:05] that's still not a good thing. You need varieties of spice of life, so to speak. But when it comes to [00:32:10] longevity, I, Very circuitous route to saying this, but essentially there's been a lot of [00:32:15] research with the vagus nerve. So this is ironic as someone that does a lot of vagus nerve work. I'm not [00:32:20] confident in around 70 percent of the research that have been done with vagus nerve stimulation because a lot, most of it has [00:32:25] been done with non invasive electrical VNS applied improperly. [00:32:30] Uh, and then you take a look at a biomarker or you're taking a look at something that has high variability. [00:32:35] And so you have an output where you can show a result on almost anything. And a lot of that stuff has been done with the vagus [00:32:40] nerve and longevity too. There is a core research, which is very good research that's been done, [00:32:45] and that's the type of stuff that I like to point to, especially the stuff with the invasive work and new stuff we're [00:32:50] coming out with, with ultrasound VNS peer reviewed studies, good clinical subject [00:32:55] populace, and large in number is kind of required to really [00:33:00] have something with substance, and I think there is something with substance with the vagus nerve, [00:33:05] especially around inflammation, especially around stress and recovery, because if you don't [00:33:10] recover, you're going to wear out your body. And that's, that's not going to be good for your longevity.

Dave: 00:33:15 I think especially brain inflammation, you're going to see big results from that.

John: 00:33:20 So, this is something that we're working on. Oh, there you go. Dr. Kohler is our chief scientific officer, so, her and I, we've been [00:33:25] talking about, and we actually have a collaboration in the works to take a look at TBI, traumatic brain [00:33:30] injury. Particularly because there is, does seem, There does seem to [00:33:35] be a neuroprotective effect of activating the vagus nerve when it comes to the brain in [00:33:40] particular. And we believe, in addition to the inflammatory effect, [00:33:45] based on the state of literature in the space, it should be possible to prevent most of the [00:33:50] secondary damage from TBI. Because most of the damage from TBI is secondary, it's not primary. [00:33:55] Your primary damage is The initial contusion, the initial head injury, the [00:34:00] secondary damage is the inflammation, the brain swelling over time. Yeah, that's a

Dave: real problem.

John: 00:34:05 Yeah, oh, it's like 90 percent of the problem. If we can deal with that, which again, we think we can't [00:34:10] with VNS, then that's going to really make the most impact for folks. And we do have some really [00:34:15] good partners taking a look at that right now. And very frankly, they have told us they want to bring it all the way through the FDA because [00:34:20] they're so passionate about the technology and about the results they're seeing.[00:34:25]

Dave: 00:34:30 So if someone hit their head, is there any harm of using the Zen bud right afterwards? There shouldn't

John: 00:34:35 be. In fact, That's, so I got, ironically, I've had two concussions, uh, this year. Oh, not this year, but you had two this [00:34:40] year? This year. Oh yeah. Right a month away from each other. Uh, so not great. My [00:34:45] first one was a car accident. And the second one was a freak accident in a amusement park of all things. [00:34:50] Wow. They had some broken equipment, uh, which is lovely. Anyways, so I hit my head twice and both [00:34:55] times, my protocol, this is just the same for my personal experience, was creatine. Um, [00:35:00] And I usually did around 20, 30 minutes a day. Oh, and also these lovely, [00:35:05] uh, blue light glasses, like true dark, like no, legitimately your glasses saved me from [00:35:10] so much terrible migraines. Cause I still had to get some work done while I was going through the [00:35:15] concussion. But like that was my protocol and it worked really well for me. And [00:35:20] the base science really works out like at some point, Dave, I'll bring you through the torture. We have this. [00:35:25] Giant folder of all the literature and all the different indications that we're really [00:35:30] taking a look at with VNS and at some point we'll go through it, Dave.

Dave: 00:35:35 It's fascinating because anytime I can find something that is foundational, that affects hundreds of systems, that's what I want to [00:35:40] do because ultimately I don't have enough time to spend eight hours a day trying to extend my life. I [00:35:45] don't think that's a good use. I did that in my twenties. Uh, when I first got into longevity, I'm like, this isn't [00:35:50] a good exchange. I want to have a happy, productive, fun, connected life. [00:35:55] So, you've got to get the work done, and you've got to do it in a way that fits in your life. So, [00:36:00] that's why I make the least sexy supplement ever, which is Vitamin Dake [00:36:05] and Minerals 101. And, they're not sexy, but they're foundational. Because if you don't have [00:36:10] those, all the other expensive stuff doesn't work very well. So, Mike, I make those because they affect the [00:36:15] most. Yeah. And creatine is also, I think, incredibly powerful. I would have [00:36:20] probably added some natural forms of vitamin E, which there's studies for, as well as high [00:36:25] dose oral progesterone after you hit your head. I will keep

John: 00:36:30 that in mind because I am a clumsy person, so I'm sure it will happen again.

Dave: 00:36:35 Alright. So, does that mean the ZenBud doesn't work for helping you be less clumsy? Absolutely.

John: 00:36:40 No, no, I have not seen any improvements with my clumsiness, uh, for better or worse. It would be, it'd be great, but it's one of those things where I think it's [00:36:45] just how my nervous system is. Is there any risk of being addicted to Zen Bud? We [00:36:50] haven't seen it. Uh, so, I mean, like, I think there is a psychological risk of [00:36:55] being addicted to Zen Bud. I don't think there's a physiological risk when it [00:37:00] comes to vagus nerve stimulation in general, it's never been presented in literature with either the, um, [00:37:05] cervical devices when they're explanted for any reason, or with the non invasive devices, or with our device either, [00:37:10] but very frankly, having relief on [00:37:15] command is psychologically, brain [00:37:20] space, extremely compelling.

Dave: 00:37:25 Mm, okay, I believe that. You got me thinking, like, I might be psychologically addicted to making fun of Lane Norton. That's right. [00:37:30] Yeah, I think I should do some work on that. You might need to, Dave. You just have fun. It's like [00:37:35] a battle of wits from the unarmed opponent who's angry because he was bullied in high school and needs a vagus nerve stimulator.[00:37:40] We should get one out to him, man. Well, he says the glasses are piss stained. I don't know what he would do to the Zen Buds, so [00:37:45] I'm just kidding. Guys, if you're like, what's he talking about? Lane is a well known health troll, um, who [00:37:50] made a post about my piss stained glasses. Which is his words, and so I [00:37:55] used his account name as a coupon code, sold more than 10, 000 of extra glasses, and [00:38:00] I'm taking the profits and donating them to a charity to support people who are [00:38:05] bullied in middle school because, well, I'm going to do it in his name. Is that an addiction? I think it [00:38:10] might be. Perhaps. I mean,

John: especially like, how often are you doing it, would you say?

Dave: 00:38:15 Every time he says something about me, I just have so much fun with him. I mean, I make fun of his mom, and like, I shouldn't be getting joy [00:38:20] from this, but it's so funny. It's like my inner child is playing.

John: 00:38:25 Well, I think it's good to have, like, on the very serious note, I think it's good to have play with your inner [00:38:30] child and like, you kind of have to, everyone has haters. Period. I [00:38:35] get the best ones though. I do, I do see that Dave actually. I do see that you get some of the best [00:38:40] haters. Everyone's gonna have haters and you gotta like have fun with it. Otherwise you will [00:38:45] stress yourself out.

Dave: 00:38:50 People get incredibly stressed from mean people on social media. All of whom as far as I can tell are traumatized people. And like so, the amount of [00:38:55] stress and mis sleep especially in younger people. Like if you're reacting to [00:39:00] trolls number one you gotta do some work on yourself, but number two boom. You could put yourself back in a [00:39:05] parasympathetic state, that would be a good thing to do.

John: 00:39:10 I will say this too, we reward being well liked in our social media algorithms. We reward [00:39:15] being highly agreeable in our social media algorithms, or being highly disagreeable. [00:39:20] The thing is, for when consumers of content, and for people that are [00:39:25] very early in content production for these different platforms, and especially if folks have always been introduced to it, [00:39:30] you're highly incentivized to be very nice. And take [00:39:35] care a lot about what people are clicking that heart button. So, it doesn't surprise me [00:39:40] that there's a lot of people that end up caring quite a bit about what [00:39:45] other people think about them. Because we are training our next generations to do [00:39:50] that. Very concerning from a societal perspective. I do think part of the [00:39:55] reason why I do this is I think that being able to interact and [00:40:00] have better control over our own nervous systems is one of the ways that we can start to liberate our [00:40:05] consciousness. I think it's a crucial requirement if we're going to survive on the tech tree path we [00:40:10] have right now.

Dave: 00:40:15 Very well said. One of the reasons it's called biohacking is that hackers take control of systems. Yes. And they make their own systems when the existing ones are [00:40:20] polluted, like Linux, which is the operating system that most of the Internet runs [00:40:25] on, was made by hackers who were pissed off that Microsoft wouldn't tell them what was going on in there. So, [00:40:30] biohackers were saying, well, this is my nervous system, it's my biology, and I'm going to do with it what I want, [00:40:35] and I'm going to make it so resilient that even if you have dumb social media algorithms, or EMFs, or whatever [00:40:40] else, I'm going to modify it. My resiliency so that I can handle it and I [00:40:45] can make the life that I want. It's a, it requires some degree [00:40:50] of knowledge and experience, but it's so worth it. And I'm [00:40:55] really excited because in the world of biohacking, a lot of it's been, let's [00:41:00] monitor, and then first let's get knowledge, and then let's do real time feedback, like the 40 years of Zen [00:41:05] EEG stuff. And what we're doing now is how do we get the appropriate signal in at the right time [00:41:10] to the right place in order to create the state we want. And this is [00:41:15] interesting because if someone tweaks you out on social media, like, okay, maybe I need an [00:41:20] extra session to get myself back to my normal state. And I think that is a [00:41:25] gift because when you're doing that, it's actually a workout. It's not a reliance. It's not like looking, you know, [00:41:30] an antidepressant or something because someone yelled at you on social media.

John: 00:41:35 Gosh, I don't know how much we really should get into this here, but the whole antidepressant thing in general is concerning to me [00:41:40] on a large scale. It seems to be very bad for your mitochondria in recent studies. It seems to be [00:41:45] bad for your mitochondria. The meta analyses aren't showing a signal as well, especially the more recent ones, [00:41:50] which means that there is a world in which. We very well may exist [00:41:55] where these drugs that we've been giving people that have a litany of side effects may have not been doing [00:42:00] anything.

Dave: 00:42:05 Wow. Who would imagine that antidepressants and statins were way oversold and over prescribed by companies that had been fined more than a hundred billion [00:42:10] dollars for lying and cheating and stealing. I can't imagine. I don't know man, I don't

John: 00:42:15 know, who would have thought that. So surprised. Well, I mean, if you take a look at med tech in general, we, [00:42:20] there's a very strong history in that tech of lying to people and trying to cover things up. [00:42:25] I mean, take a look, are you feeling with cobalt chromium implants, right? Back in the day, we used to have these implants for hip [00:42:30] implants. And then they came out with this really, really cool tech that was saying we can do metal, [00:42:35] metal implants, cobalt and chromium, and it'll create its own little cushion. We don't do anything else there. It'll [00:42:40] last long, it'll be better. And it caused metalosis, massive metalosis, which means that. Essentially, it was [00:42:45] disintegrating over time and spreading throughout the body. It was shearing off bit by bit, and it was killing people. [00:42:50] And they knew this, and then they didn't do anything for like 10 years. And they're like, it's, the [00:42:55] eventual lawsuit will cost us less than just continuing to sell this product that we know is hurting people.[00:43:00]

Dave: 00:43:05 Yeah, it's, it's a dirty business. It doesn't have to be, but it is the way it's set up today.

John: 00:43:10 Everything, so like this is something, everything is a dirty business to an extent. You will always have bad players in any industry. But the fact of the matter is, is that we see a [00:43:15] certain concentration of them in health in general. I will say on wellness side, just as [00:43:20] much as medical side, there's different problems on both sides. On wellness side, you have a bunch of people that end up pushing [00:43:25] products that don't have any research behind them. And that's a problem. And then on [00:43:30] medical side, you have people pushing products that sure have research on them, but also have this litany of side effects that they [00:43:35] know about. And they're like, we can handle the lawsuit because it's going to make us more money. And then you end up having this [00:43:40] collusion between insurance, between medtech companies. It's just, it's very silly. But [00:43:45] it's kind of like a choose your

Dave: 00:43:50 poison situation. I want to talk about the future. If you have the ability with the tech behind ZenBud to make a, an ultrasound [00:43:55] signal and to be able to direct it where you want to go, you can activate parts of the brain.[00:44:00] Yes. And what does that mean if we want to maybe do what Neuralink is [00:44:05] doing but not have stuff inserted in our skull? I will

John: 00:44:10 start by pointing out a recent funding event because I think it's timeline. Uh, Sam Altman. [00:44:15] Brought in a Caltech engineer and funded merge labs to the tune of, I believe, around [00:44:20] 250 million. That should be enough. Yeah, should be enough. But the thing I actually just like about the initiative, the [00:44:25] thing I actually just like about a lot of the field BCIs right now is there is this [00:44:30] assumption that we will be merging with artificial intelligence as the next stage to become [00:44:35] logarithmic. Because very frankly, AI is logarithmic, Dave. It is doubling [00:44:40] capabilities around every two months now. And that window is shortening. [00:44:45] That's a logarithmic curve, and as that continues to grow, [00:44:50] we have to ask ourselves the question, is there going to be a cap to this curve? And realistically, [00:44:55] I think that the majority, the money is very least saying in the space, there's not a cap.[00:45:00] We're going to keep pushing. And all these BCI companies are saying, okay, we're going to take this AI, and [00:45:05] we're going to slant it onto the end of the brain. We're going to have a communication matrix with the artificial intelligence, which is [00:45:10] completely feasible. And especially with, you know, So we could talk about Neuralink and then invasive options, and I'd be [00:45:15] happy to, and I do have some concerns there. Um, we can talk about the fact that you can do it completely non [00:45:20] invasively with this ultrasound tech. That seems more biologically safe. Yes. [00:45:25] Oh, 100%.

Dave: 00:45:30 Yeah. Back in 2008, I co founded a company that was detecting inflammation, even non antibody mediated inflammation, two different [00:45:35] implant materials that were labeled safe in studies. And we found there was a lot [00:45:40] of problems, and then there's biofilms, and then there's EMFs. And it just seems like a very [00:45:45] poor idea. In addition, right now, I don't get to control the algorithm for my social [00:45:50] media. That's ridiculous that I don't. That's how it is. [00:45:55] So, why would I ever want an AI system that I don't own and [00:46:00] control, that I didn't set up, to have access to my brain? It seems like the dumbest [00:46:05] thing on earth. Does that mean I wouldn't take something like a DeepSeek, [00:46:10] which is the best performing AI right now, that runs incredibly well on small [00:46:15] hardware, And I wouldn't want one of those. That's entirely mine. [00:46:20] That's interesting, but I want zero ability for any other person or any [00:46:25] signal to change that without me having the only keys to that. The

John: 00:46:30 biggest thing is, when we're talking about BCIs, it has to be local. [00:46:35] It cannot, ideally, would not cloud based and not interactable through [00:46:40] Bluetooth or other, uh, Cloud tech technologies, because the moment you have that, you don't want your [00:46:45] neural implant to be hacked.

Dave: 00:46:50 I know what the first thing would happen is, someone with the same 7th grade sense of humor as me would be like, I figured out how to use Bluetooth to give everyone in the room an [00:46:55] orgasm all at the same time. And you just press the button over and over. This is not the world we want to live in. [00:47:00] Right? No one should be able to control your state but you. Yes, 100 percent including [00:47:05] hackers and I was a computer hacker. So I know the bad stuff and that's why no [00:47:10] way on that stuff. However, if I have an ultrasound system that [00:47:15] allows me to take it off when I don't want it and allows me to actually better interact with [00:47:20] tech so I can do the things I want to do better. I'm not opposed to that philosophically.

John: 00:47:25 We're going to get a little bit into deep future. This is not near future. This is going to be deeper [00:47:30] future. There is a world in which with bi directional [00:47:35] brain computer interfaces, that means you have both read, you can understand what's happening in your body, [00:47:40] and write, which means that you can shift what's happening in your body to not only [00:47:45] interact with these consciousnesses that we're building. Artificial intelligence, which [00:47:50] by two, if it can trick people to thinking it's conscious, which it can, [00:47:55] then by all means that we have available, it kind of is [00:48:00] conscious already, as opposed to interacting with these new consciousnesses that we're building, which are not [00:48:05] human, they do not act like humans. They simply mimic them. I think it's going to be a lot more [00:48:10] interesting to expand our core consciousness capabilities, and I think it's completely [00:48:15] feasible, with the right interface. With the right team and the right time. I think we have a [00:48:20] chance to shift the tech tree because right now I see the tech tree going in a direction where human consciousness [00:48:25] becomes obsolete. That's what I see. It's very cynical. I guess. Intelligence or human consciousness, [00:48:30] human consciousness, not just human intelligence, because I frankly believe that [00:48:35] if we actually do like merge with AI, like what Sam Altman startup is trying to do right now with [00:48:40] merge labs, then you are going to end up having a loss. Of [00:48:45] what makes us human over time, especially the more emerged you end up becoming because [00:48:50] we think in a certain way and these AIs do not think like us. [00:48:55] They think completely alien to what, how our brains work. There is [00:49:00] another option where we can compete. And while we can be logarithmic just like [00:49:05] the AIs are being logarithmic, it requires a very specific BCI. I think it [00:49:10] frankly requires a non invasive BCI to start, but it doesn't require merging [00:49:15] with Dart and AI, because I think that is going to be interacting with them, maybe one or two nodes in the network, [00:49:20] fine. But merging is the last thing you really want if you want to keep human consciousness [00:49:25] relevant and in existence.

Dave: 00:49:30 Interesting. There are elements of consciousness that we access with psychedelics, with altered states work, that it doesn't look [00:49:35] like AI is going to be able to touch, and these are, in my world, [00:49:40] these are where We have an interface to the quantum reality that we all live in that we can't see. [00:49:45] It's more accessible via human consciousness in altered states. And to my [00:49:50] knowledge, no AI system is able to do that today. But who knows, maybe they're using quantum [00:49:55] processors, possibly. I don't know. It's an interesting thought. I just want to be able to take it off, and I want [00:50:00] no other person. I don't want Sam Altman, I don't want Mark Zuckerberg, I don't want Bill Gates. I don't want [00:50:05] any government person anywhere to say anything about what I do with my consciousness. Who knows? And [00:50:10] anyone who tries to do that sounds like they're an enemy of humanity, [00:50:15] right? It's that our cognitive freedom and liberty is [00:50:20] fundamental. And it's okay to enhance it. It's okay to change it. But it's not okay to control [00:50:25] someone else's without their consent. And that's the problem. Even the algorithms [00:50:30] on social media are without my consent. I still use it because it's useful, but I don't [00:50:35] have the control that I should have for something that's become a public utility. But we get pretty deep [00:50:40] into, you know, into philosophy and legal theories and, you know, consciousness land.[00:50:45] But what I, I do want to make sure is that people who are thinking about getting the [00:50:50] ZenBud understand, you're, you're thinking the big thoughts. You have a foundational [00:50:55] and fundamental tech for helping us have better working neural systems [00:51:00] today. Yes. And that the future of brain interfaces with tech. [00:51:05] It doesn't have to be dark, and I think non invasive path is the non dark path, and you [00:51:10] have something that may become an important part of that. So thank you.

John: 00:51:15 Thank you, Dave. This has been a pleasure, like, very frankly.

Dave: 00:51:20 My pleasure as well. Guys, zenbud. health, code Dave15. And it's going to cost you less than 400 [00:51:25] bucks. And you can use this and you will feel a difference. It's, it's remarkable. [00:51:30] And I have a stack of stimulators at home. And the only other one that I feel [00:51:35] this kind of, of effect from costs about [00:51:40] 3, 500. And only doctors can buy it, but somehow one ended up in my living room. It's also hard to use and [00:51:45] requires gel. So, ZenBud is, it's new, it's interesting, and it's [00:51:50] different than heart rate variability training, but it increases heart rate variability, and it works out your nervous [00:51:55] system. So, ZenBud. Health. Code Dave15, and thanks for listening. [00:52:00] See you next time on the Human Upgrade [00:52:05] podcast.