Is life binary or continuous?

Let’s look at our bodies first.

Your bladder fills up on a continuous spectrum. But when you notice (you observe) that you have to go to the bathroom, now it’s binary. Binary is when having to make a decision becomes increasingly more important.

Here is the catch: the better you become at observing, the more subtle these differences will be. It’s like sex: at first you come or don’t come (binary), but after years you’ll realize it’s about the whole movement (spectrum, more like tantra). This is surprisingly hard to spot.

I’ve been in psychosis. The difference between being normal and being in a state of psychosis is surprisingly small—just like most people have OCD without noticing it.

Why people in psychiatry mumble
They taught themselves to be silent. At some point, the sound has to come out. So you start mumbling.

I like to think of this universe as an old classy woman—one that used to be a prima ballerina.
The most remarkable thing is how many people are actively figuring out how our universe works. We spend a lot of our energy trying to understand her—and we still don’t really know.
It’s like she knows it’s smarter to slowly reveal herself instead of going all out. And sexier.
I love it.
I want to point out that we also could have spent no energy at all trying to figure it out. We could simply be here. Yet we do. It’s like a universe investing in herself, generation after generation after generation.

I remember vividly asking my brain how it works when I was six years old.

My brain started talking back. Now, 30 years later, I have a good idea of what she does.

Sometimes it’s funny to see how we try to understand things. We build brain scanners. Or we build the CERN collider. All very inelegant solutions. They require enormous resources for things you can often figure out for free.

This universe seems to favor things that help us understand how she works—especially when those things are elegant (which often means energy-efficient, though not always).

Hint 1: If there is a clue, it has to be in the first 8 lines of Genesis, because they survived over time, over generations.
Hint 2: They didn’t have books back then, so it has to do with something else.
Hint 3: There are very clear clues in language, like Adam’s apple.

At a fundamental level, our universe wants to know itself in the most energy-efficient way.

So how do you do that?

If it goes left first, then it goes right. Because if it went left again, it wouldn’t learn anything.

And then it starts adding small changes in the patterns to accelerate learning.

This is how you get the results in quantum experiments.

In religion, they have pointed this out already: goes up (heaven), goes down (earth). Then the snake comes, self-aware (getting to know itself).

If a universe wants to know itself,
how would I do that myself?

I would look at myself.

But that makes no sense; you only get to know yourself after being placed in multiple situations. So you want to experience as much as possible. That way, we’ve all been in many states.

The most terrible prison is not a physical place—
it's being trapped in an idea.

Ideas are very small things in your head, but they can control you.

If I had to build a simulation, I would build it like this planet. People are so curious about how this universe works that they spend infinite amounts of their own energy on it. If you can harvest that, you have infinite energy.

Nothing in the world is more important than energy management—both on a small scale (your body) and on a large scale (the Earth).

Energy management is the reason why days (Monday through Sunday) exist. In reality, there are no actual “days.” For nature, there is no beginning or end of the week. We invented that.

Still, it’s useful—and that has everything to do with energy management. If you don’t create an endpoint in the week, everything just keeps going endlessly. And when everything keeps going, you can’t manage your energy. That means you dedicate part of the week to doing things and another part to resting and storing energy.

It’s also smart to reflect on things that happened earlier in the week. If you never do that, you’d never be able to form your own opinion. For example: during the week, you might have been in a certain sexual situation that didn’t seem like a big deal at first—but later you realize it didn’t feel right. This is why people take moments to look back. If you don’t, it becomes harder to talk about such things.

Unfortunately, this idea (like Sunday rest or car-free Sundays) has been completely taken out of context—just like so many things. What started as a simple moment to reflect and protect the environment has turned into something childish—and that was never the intention.

Try it for yourself: pick one day a week that’s just yours, where you really take time to rest. Or even just an evening. This is how you get to know yourself and give yourself space to quietly think and reflect. It comes naturally. And if you don’t feel like doing this? Then don’t. But for me, it works.

Lenses

We look at reality through multiple lenses. One of those lenses is: “everything is made up of atoms and molecules.”

It would do us good to take that lens off every now and then. Why?

If it’s true, it will come back anyway.
If we’re wrong, we can look at the problem with fresh eyes.

And that’s not even the real issue. It’s not very elegant to keep looking at reality through the same lens all the time, even if you’re right. What is elegant—and religion should do this too—is to take off all lenses from time to time. After all, it’s rather forceful to impose your view of reality like that. Maybe this whole idea of atoms and molecules isn’t even correct, yet we’ve based everything on it for years. And again: even if it is correct, it shows class to look at things differently once in a while.

There Are Many Roads That Lead to Rome

Consciousness is best explained by doing, and it only works backwards.

I was reading a book about quantum mechanics 15 minutes ago.

This is what happened in my head:

“You don’t get what it says.”
“Why are you reading a book about quantum mechanics?”
“Those people understand things you’re never going to get.”
“I believe I’m smart enough to contribute something like this one day.”
“You’re distracted again—why can’t you ever focus?”
Waves of extreme self-awareness.

The idea of writing this down came after reading the book about quantum mechanics. That’s an important distinction. I wasn’t thinking about this while reading. This is why it’s important to note that it often works backwards: the idea comes later.

My point is this: it’s normal to have a lot of voices like this. But writing it down—and realizing you’re not the only one—takes the fear out of the equation.

So, what is consciousness?
Consciousness means you’re aware of these voices and feelings in yourself. You always know what you think and feel. Like a big fishbowl where things happen inside.

What do you do when you have negative voices in your head?
I ask that voice: “Can I help you with something?” It’s very important to sometimes let a negative voice speak. It’s the equivalent of people doing annoying things in real life: sometimes they’re just sad or scared. So you let them finish their sentence.

I once had the darkest of dark voices in my head. Then I stopped and just listened. What do you think it was? Sadness.

How Gods Talk

Backstage, the gods play a little game. The game is called: how everyone looks at the world.

How everyone looks at the world is a fun game. It’s the greatest sport—to tease each other and make people see the world the wrong way for generations.

Here’s how it works: every way of looking at the world is like a pair of glasses, or a label on a suitcase. For example:

• The theory of evolution

• Religion

• Quantum mechanics

• That other group of people—they’re stupid

• Gravity

• I need to eat less because I have to be as thin as possible

• Classical mechanics

Everyone knows these glasses. You’re probably wearing one or more right now. The question is this: did apples fall from trees before Newton discovered gravity? This is a serious question. If you think about it carefully, you’ll understand how different the world becomes the moment Newton puts the “gravity glasses” on you.

Some people, like me, live from inspiration to inspiration. A movement. A thought. A taste. An idea. What a fantastic life that is. But now, a sad pair of glasses has been added. Today, people call those who live this way ADD or ADHD. In the past, it was simply called inspiration. And that’s a shame. We should celebrate much more that some people are restless and never listen—while others do. I have never sat still, and I have never listened to anyone, and I am happier than most. The pills only make me quiet.

If you were born as an ADD or ADHD person on a deserted island, you wouldn’t have any problems. The only reason it becomes a problem is because others make it one—never forget that. People who drive you crazy saying everyone has to go to university, for example. I also went to university, and I still have no idea why.

Have you ever noticed the difference between religion and science?

People who believe in a certain religion all believe something slightly different. They each have their own interpretations.

Among supporters of a scientific theory, almost nobody really understands what the theory is about—except for a very small percentage.

So, religion creates people who think for themselves. This sounds paradoxical, but it’s true in practice. They are the only people refusing certain things that are common for others, like certain medical developments.

Your whole body is surface X. Your whole energy is Y.

Let’s say a child doesn’t feel safe at home. What does it do? It makes itself smaller relative to its own body. They squeeze more energy (Y) into a smaller surface (X). When those areas are attacked, they overreact.

Kids who grow up in safer households distribute their energy more evenly throughout their whole body. They don’t have to squeeze something big into something small. Therefore, they are less likely to overreact.

We Look at Psychiatric Diseases the Wrong Way

Psychiatric disorders are “observational mistakes.” Here’s how it works:

1. Everyone experiences all psychiatric disorders.
   This means everyone has a period of OCD and a period of ADHD each day. The difference lies in duration and intensity, which depend on many factors. Most people don’t realize they experience OCD because it’s mild and manageable.

2. The likelihood that psychiatric disorders are largely self-taught or learned is (almost) 100%.
   Humans learn billions of things. The chances of learning something incorrectly are high—especially when growing up in difficult circumstances.

Example: I suppress my emotions. The problem is, this isn’t visible from the outside. Another problem: it only becomes an issue years later—say, 20 years after I taught myself this behavior.
So: I suppress emotions → 20 years later, I struggle with malnutrition (e.g., anorexia).

The concept of psychiatry is far too loose, as if something biological is inherently wrong with people. Yes, if you look, you’ll find brain abnormalities. But that’s because I’m doing something you can’t see, and the brain reflects that. It doesn’t mean I have a brain disease.

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Why Seeing It This Way Matters

If I see OCD as a phase—say, a one-hour state—there is light at the end of the tunnel.
If I believe I have OCD permanently or am OCD, my life will revolve around it. Now, I am becoming OCD instead of the other way around. And then, it becomes true (!).

Old way of thinking:
“I have OCD. I’m scared I’ll act weird. I’m afraid it will control my whole day.”

New way of thinking:
“I go through an hour of an OCD state.”

Note: From the outside, this looks exactly the same—you still see a person with OCD. But from the inside, when I experience it as a temporary state (which is correct), it becomes recognizable and solvable.

This is how it really works: the body goes through energy states. Maybe I’m relaxed right now, but I’ll probably feel angry for a few minutes today too.

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Relationships

Depression is a state of the whole body, not just a state of the brain.

Your whole body needs healthy relationships, touch, cuddles, conversations, and meaning.

Your brain simply signals when these relationships are disturbed. It’s important that we start to see the brain as something that makes fewer mistakes than we think.

You could argue the same for other psychiatric conditions as well:

• Anorexia is a disturbed relationship with emotions and the past. Food is more or less a byproduct.

• People with dementia often spend a lot of energy figuring out what their relationship to another person is and what is appropriate. That is far more likely the issue than memory loss alone.

• The relationship we have with technology—and how we treat each other lately—is relatively superficial. This contributes to some cases of ADD/ADHD.

• Suppressed excitement often feels like stress and anxiety (also a disturbed relationship).

• Schizophrenia also has to do with disturbed relationships—with family, sexuality, and other important things in life.

• When we sleep, our brain sleeps partly, and therefore relationships change. Suddenly, your colleague lives in your house, or your friend sells you a fishing rod in a store.

If I’m right, and these are whole-body states, then it makes a lot of sense that physical movement and simply going outside make such a huge difference. It’s simply the fastest way to change the state of the whole body. The brain will readjust. This is often a quicker path than treating the brain as if it is sick.

Whole body moves through energy states

State of excitement → state of OCD → state of anxiety

Since this happens very quickly, it’s hard to notice that these are whole-body states.
The brain is a relationship device.

Consciousness means understanding that we move from whole body → whole body.

So, you don’t “have” depression; the state of your whole body is temporarily depressed.

How to navigate through rough seas
You make it worse...

With your claim that, at a fundamental level, things are built of atoms, you violate my freedom. You put me in a suit that’s called atoms. This is not acceptable.

My body isn’t made up of atoms.

At a fundamental level, you can look at something however you want. Glasses are a way of looking: they are glasses.

When you wear a lot of different glasses, the light starts bending too much, and you don’t see anything at all.

In my world, atoms don’t exist.

What do you think a heart is?

Some of you might say: it’s the thing that pumps blood around. But that’s only what a heart does.

If I ask you what you do, and you say, “I’m a timberman,” then are you a timberman? You’re not. That’s partly what you do, but you are much more than that.

What’s the biggest indicator of intelligence?
Self-awareness.

The more self-awareness you have, the smarter you probably are. Because the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. This comes with a lot of self-doubt.
So: the smarter you get, the more you start to doubt things. You start realizing you had no clue.
Knowledge is like boxing: the moment you get better is the moment you realize how bad you are.

The danger lies in not knowing that you don’t know, which is the equivalent of having no clue what your problem is. The problem is that the less you know, the more you think you actually know. So when you don’t have any self-doubt, you’re getting into trouble.

Is AI intelligent?
No, because it has (literally) zero self-awareness. If you could rank things on intelligence, AI/computers would be last. Winning a game without self-awareness doesn’t count, since you devote all your energy to one task, while intelligence is more like doing something while watching the others.

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The universe is much more compact than you think, and much more energy-efficient.

We often think in terms of time and distance. The universe then seems unimaginably vast, because it takes so long to get anywhere.

But if you think in terms of balance, the universe becomes much smaller. Everything is in balance all the time. This means that the farthest point is much closer than you think.

Feel how the outside world presses in on you.

What Free Thinking Means
You say that people are made up of atoms. I say they are not, because I don’t think that’s a beautiful way to describe reality; you simply don’t do that with living things.
You say it doesn’t matter, because that’s just the way it is.
And I know that it’s not the way it is. I am not made up of atoms. So I choose not to see it that way. A human being is not made up of atoms. It’s not beautiful enough.

What do you do when you have negative thoughts?

Listen to what they have to say. This doesn’t mean you necessarily have to act on them, but just sit down and listen. What is your body trying to explain to you?

Don’t panic—beneath the most fearful and angry voice, there’s often something gentle. That part also needs to tell its story.

Sometimes we go through phases in which we collectively learn a lot.
In those phases, the “Jesus” is a mask anyone can wear. It’s not about one person. The point is that everyone is temporarily Jesus, and you don’t know who it is or who it has been—like a kind of anonymous legion of refugees / army.
The greatest and most important knowledge in our universe is given anonymously; it comes from the streets. It comes from people who don’t care much about Nobel Prizes—that’s more for those who want to be in the spotlight. Many things that win big prizes are ideas borrowed from others. Some people only play for the big prizes, the new knowledge.

Example:

 

 

We look at pshycatric deases the wrong way
All psychiatric disorders are “observational mistakes.”
1: Everyone has all psychiatric disorders. This means: everyone has an X period per day of OCD, and an X period per day of ADHD. The difference lies in the duration and intensity, which in turn depend on many factors. Most people don’t realize they have OCD because they have it only mildly and manage it well.
2: The likelihood that psychiatric disorders are purely self taught and or learned is (almost) 100%. We humans learn billions and billions of things. So the chances of learning something incorrectly are high. Especially when you grow up in bad circumstances.

For example: you suppress your emotions. The problem is, this isn’t visible from the outside. Another problem is that this only becomes an issue after X years—say, 20 years after you taught it to yourself.
So: suppressing emotions → 20 years later, malnutrition (anorexia), for instance.

The concept of psychiatry is far too loose, as if something biological is wrong with people. If you look, you do see abnormalities in people’s brains. But that’s because they are doing something you can’t see, and the brain reflects that. That doesn’t mean they have a brain disease.

 

Why Seeing It Like That Is Important
If you see it as a phase of OCD—say, a one-hour phase—then there is light at the end of the tunnel.
If you believe you have OCD or that you are OCD permanently, your life is going to revolve around it. Now, you are becoming OCD instead of the other way around. And then, it becomes true.

Old way of looking:
“I have OCD.” Now you’re scared you’ll act weird, or you’re afraid it will control your whole day.

New way of looking:
“I go through an hour of a state of OCD.''

Note: From the outside, this looks exactly the same—you still see a person with OCD. But from the inside, when you experience it as a phase that will end (which is correct), it becomes recognizable and solvable.

This is really how it works: a body goes through energy states. Maybe you’re relaxed right now. But you will probably be angry for a few minutes today too.

Je bent gewoon bang voor je gevoel.

 

You’re just afraid of your feelings.

Muizenstapje

Je bent in de wereld.
De wereld is een complexe plek: letterlijk alles is mogelijk.

Maar: het lijkt ook veel moeilijker dan het is.

Eigenlijk is de wereld heel simpel. Je hoeft alleen maar een klein muizenstapje in de goede richting te zetten.

Muizenstapjes zijn de allerkleinste stapjes die er zijn. Je hoeft altijd maar één muizenstapje te doen. Je kunt niet meer muizenstapjes tegelijk zetten dan één.

Ho, ik ga de verkeerde kant op geloof ik… o nee, toch snel een klein muizenstapje de goede kant op.

Ik zit nu achter een computer. Ik kan nu heel moeilijk denken, maar eigenlijk is het makkelijk: ik hoef alleen maar de volgende letter te typen. Kijk maar.
Hsdjhdsajhasdjdsjajdsjajdjasdjsad.
Muizenstapjes.

Grote mensen maken dingen veel te ingewikkeld.
Ze praten je de hele tijd dingen aan, zoals grote psychiatrische ziektes. Je hebt een klein, oplosbaar probleem. Ze maken het veel en veel te groot. Als je het net van een andere hoek bekijkt, wat is het dan? Je bent bang voor eten en je eet te weinig. Poe poe, nou nou zeg.

Ik doe dan altijd een klein muizenstapje naar het vak gevuld met snoep en chocolade. Zodat ik een lekker dikkerdje word.

I remember intuitively understanding how a brain works when my dad told me, “I vacuum every Saturday; otherwise, it would be a bad Saturday.”

It’s the same logic an anorexic person uses: If this happens, then it’s good.

• If I vacuum, Saturday is a good day.

• If I don’t eat, I did well.

The trick is in the relationship between the two. Vacuuming doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Saturday being a good day. But the logic is never debunked if you vacuum every Saturday and every Saturday turns out good. You keep reaffirming your own logic.

If you don’t eat and your life goes well, it will keep going well—until it doesn’t. The only way to test the relationship is by not doing the thing on the left.

Remember: all healthy relationships also rely on this kind of logic. We tend to overuse it in modern society.

• If I eat healthy, I won’t get sick.

• If I don’t use drugs, then I’m a good person.

• If I do better at work, I am a better person.

What I Do When I Have a Panic Attack
I make it worse. Yes, it really works. I deliberately start breathing even faster, as fast as possible, one breath after another. Do or die. And you know what happens then? Nothing.

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Wat ik doe als ik een paniekaanval heb
Ik maak het erger. Ja, het werkt echt. Ik ga expres nog sneller ademhalen, zo snel mogelijk achter elkaar. De dood of de gladiolen. En weet je wat er dan gebeurt? Niets.

Does a Sunday feel different than a Monday?
It’s an open question.

Probably it does, even when you are unemployed or retired.

That’s weird, since days don’t really exist. They are completely made up.

So why is that? If you can answer that question, you understand how time works—and why days are man-made to help people structure their lives.

Hint: you have to look backward sometimes. And sometimes you have to look forward. If you don’t, you are lost forever.

How Time Works (We Create Time)

You can only experience time when you have two reference points.

So: you work a few days, and then you reflect backward on what you have done. Without reflecting, everything would happen at one point, and there would be no time.

The best way to explain this is the difference between doing and thinking about what you did. When you are doing, time both exists and doesn’t. But when you think about it afterward, it does.

If everything were just doing, then we would be lost forever. There would be no past and no future. You would never know where your house is (you’d have no memory), and you would never know where to go.

The trick is that doing and thinking backward are not the same fundamental movement. In a way, the Big Bang had to start something like this—with two reference points. Or like they say in the Bible: worked for six days and rested the seventh. Without that, there would be no time, and we would spiral, lost in infinity. In my opinion, this is still a phenomenal metaphor.

And for what it’s worth: I’m not talking about clock time, which is completely made up. Without clock time, the sun still goes up and down.

It’s like a Sunday: you travel through energy states from last week. On Monday, you start fresh. This works very well in practice, even considering that days are made up too. You create an artificial “stop” in the week so that everybody can catch up—like I’m doing now.

One of the Holy Grails
There are multiple grails. This is my favorite.

Imagine being me. When I look at some things—let’s say a kid playing the piano—I always get super emotional.

The holy grail, therefore, is how we look at the world.

And the beauty? You and I can look at the exact same thing from a completely different perspective.

I truly get emotional when I see my mom working in the garden. It literally leaves me speechless; for me, that is paradise. You can shave off things you like and don’t like when developing your worldview.

Intelligence works like that too. Sometimes you hear people talk about how a brain works and you’re like, “It’s certainly not that.”

There Are No Computers Better Than Humans at Certain Tasks

Are computers better than humans at chess? Yes and no.
Yes, because they beat humans.
No, because winning—being “the best” at something—is only a very small part of the picture. Being the best is somewhat imaginary. It doesn’t really matter who is the best at something; that was never the point in the first place.

If being the best is the only thing that matters, then why aren’t you watching two supercomputers play chess? You could argue that they’re so good we can’t relate to it. But if I watch Magnus Carlsen play, I also can’t really relate to that. I think I can, but I don’t.

It’s because the point is not watching the best play. We massively overvalue that. It has to be relatable in some way. If I watch the Tour de France, I can relate to that: I see people going 60 km/h and I think, “I can only go 25 for two hours – they are superhumans.”

The problem is that things like chess and cycling are already representations of what we find important. We could have lived in a world without chess and cycling—they are imaginary games. It could just as easily have been two other things.

So if you think in terms of superintelligence, it’s important to add a disclaimer: computers are good at games that could just as easily never have existed. There are no computers that are better than humans at normal life. And they never will be, because they can’t feel emotions, for example.

Superintelligence or AGI sometimes means not doing something. Or not thinking about yourself. Or taking a step back and realizing that all this enthusiasm also caused a lot of environmental problems. There is no real rush. There wasn’t a real problem in the first place.

It’s like work: some people see work as everything they are; others see work as community service. I do my fair share, but not more than that. I value other things too.

In a way, a computer being better at chess is kind of cheating: a computer doesn’t have to spend any energy repositioning its body, moving the pieces by hand, having spectators, being a role model for future generations.

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Balance

I like this system.
An easy way to look at life is as a scale—a scale with energy.

Energy often has a bad reputation (it sounds “spiritual”), but it’s the easiest way to explain it.

When you eat, you eat energy. So the more you eat, the more energy you take in. The point is that you also have to use that energy. So if you eat more, you should move more. That way, you stay in balance.

Most people understand this example: if you eat a lot and use little energy, you gain weight. If you eat little, you take in little energy and can therefore use less energy.

But watching content on social media is also energy. It’s literally energy that goes into you. If you only watch videos on a certain topic, you partly become that topic. You literally carry that energy with you.

So what do you do when you carry a lot of energy you want to get rid of? Write it down or talk to others. That way, you move energy, and it becomes a shared burden—and shared burdens are easier to solve.

This is also why some people shut themselves off from the energy of others: otherwise, it gets too much inside them. But be careful with that: it could mean you end up stuck in your own world with only your own views.

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Where It Goes Wrong

When you swap one energy for another—when you swap emotional distress with food, for instance.
You try to control the energy of emotion with the energy of food.

you end up stuck in your own world with only your own views.

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Why Some Children Have ADHD Because of Their Home Situation

Imagine a child who doesn’t feel safe at home and therefore holds too much energy inside—it builds up. Monday at school becomes a disaster because that’s when the child finally feels safe again.

Why Running Is a Sport for Rigid People
Because you keep making the exact same movement over and over again. Nice and predictable. People who love running, love this predictability and sense of safety. So try doing something different for once—something truly unpredictable.

Thinking is like running. You can keep making the same movement in your mind. You tense up in the same way and look at the same problem in the same way.
What’s hard is looking at the same thing differently. For example, looking at a really difficult problem in a completely relaxed way.

Imagine that someone’s going into a long meditation, he comes back and says:
“All you people, I figured it out. You all should stop thinking. Focus on your breathing, but stop thinking for yourself. Thoughts are merely a distraction.”

What would you do? You would declare him the devil.

But if you frame it as something natural, and something compassionate, and you call it Buddhism, then it’s fine.

And for me, even I start doubting myself because of the whole ‘ego’ narrative. It’s a discussion you can’t win. The other party can always say, “It’s your ego talking.”

Wiskunde lijkt een starre taal.

Als je zegt: E = mc², lijkt het alsof je wil zeggen dat dat altijd geldt. Maar dat kan niet. Net zoals 1 + 1 niet altijd 2 is.

Als je wiskunde als een taal ziet — straattaal bijvoorbeeld — snap je waarom het steeds verandert. Alleen door woorden anders uit te spreken krijgen ze al een andere betekenis.

Bij computers wordt dezelfde fout gemaakt. Een 0 of een 1 zegt niets over de realiteit. Wij hebben dit zelf verzonnen. Er hadden net zo goed helemaal geen computers kunnen bestaan.

Mathematics seems like a rigid language.

When you say E = mc², it looks as if you’re claiming that it always applies. But that can’t be true. Just like 1 + 1 isn’t always 2.

If you see mathematics as a language — street language, for example — you understand why it keeps changing. Simply by pronouncing words differently, they already take on another meaning.

The same mistake is made with computers. A 0 or a 1 says nothing about reality. We invented this ourselves. Computers just as well might never have existed at all.