valence hacking

  • Phenomenology of valence at extremes – personal peaks

    Phenomenology of valence at extremes – personal peaks

    It might sound like a strange question, but have you ever wondered – what is the most intensely valenced experience you’ve ever had—the sharpest pain and the purest pleasure—and what they have in common? What hidden axis connects them, and where do they diverge, beside obviously sitting on the opposite…

  • What double-ayahuasca can teach you about valence

    What double-ayahuasca can teach you about valence

    I thought I was a psychedelic connoisseur, that I’ve seen it all, have experimented with almost every available compound, but what I subjected myself to that night in Mexico was incomparable to anything I’ve experienced before. I booked a flight to Mexico only a week in advance, to partake in…

  • Valence doesn’t need the self, even in “minimal” forms

    Valence doesn’t need the self, even in “minimal” forms

    There is something quite unsettling and arbitrary about how exactly your “self” emerged. Among the countless potential locations that had existed in the universe prior to your birth, your “self” once appears, and henceforth occupies a seemingly random chunk of it, converges to a precise spatiotemporal position, and there it…

  • Valence and language (and why Eastern Europeans sound cold in English)

    Valence and language (and why Eastern Europeans sound cold in English)

    When I first moved to the UK at the age of 21, one of the things that struck me most wasn’t the weather, or the peculiarities of British small talk, but a comment someone made about me sounding “too direct” or “cold”, like “most Eastern Europeans”, supposedly. It wasn’t that…

  • Valence is something that the striatum is doing to the cortex

    Valence is something that the striatum is doing to the cortex

    Here’s a view that might be controversial in some corners of neuroscience, but it’s one I firmly believe: there is no brain region more central to the stream of your consciousness and your valence than the striatum. Consciousness is not generated by the striatum, but everything that matters about your…

  • The most personal statement I’ll ever have

    The most personal statement I’ll ever have

    My name is Joanna. If you care about formal titles, by training I’m a philosopher, psychologist, and neuroscientist, but in truth, I’ve only ever had one true interest, an obsession, rather, an unrelenting, persistent “itch” that’s been with me since I was a kid. The roots of this obsession stretch…