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by inventing and marketing wokeness As American progressives, we are all in shock that Trump won the last election, garnishing not just the Electoral College but also the popular vote. The Republican Party also got control of the House and the Senate. When a narcissistic felon gets more votes than you, the problem is not with the narcissistic felon. The problem is with you. But, when you stop to think about it, it was a long time coming. The Democratic Party lost its natural constituency, the workers, a long time ago. The urban elites that form its voting core are not numerous enough to win election. At the problem is not limited to the USA. All over Europe, and even in South American countries like Argentina, the Left is backsliding. Populists are winning elections by getting votes from the working class. How could this happen? In this article, I recapitulate the history of the Left in Western countries, and then analyze how it lost its way as the 20th century turns into the 21st. The Left has roots in Humanism We can trace back the birth of the Left to the humanist ideas of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, when the well-being of humans replaced worshipping God as our main concern. In Christianity and Islam, religion served to buttress a feudal system in which society was divided between the nobility, who owned everything, and the serfs, who owned nothing and, indeed, were considered property themselves. The Pope, bishops and other princes of the Church were just part of the aristocracy, supported by a legion of priests, monks and nuns who made a tough deal to escape serfdom. As the Middle Ages ended, the aristocracy was being replaced by a new class formed by artisans and merchants: the incipient bourgeoisie. In the 16th century, colonialism sped up these changes by bringing into Europe the wealth resulting from the conquest of the Americas, Australia and large parts of Africa and Asia. To accelerate the exploitation of America, slavery took the serfdom of the Middle Ages to horrible extremes. The Left appeared to fight wealth inequality and exploitation In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution drastically accelerated this change. Part of the bourgeoisie surpassed the aristocrats in wealth and became the new masters of society: the capitalists. Thinking that they could become part of the bourgeoisie and attain freedom, the serfs moved from the country to the cities to work in the new factories, only to find new forms of exploitation. The existence of slavery in the Americas was a clear reminder of the extremes to which capitalists would go to make more money. Capitalism obeys a perverse mechanism. If you have money, you can invest it to generate more money. But, if the only money you have is your wage, you need to spend it all to survive, so you are never able to make it grow. Over time, this causes money to accumulate on the top, into the hands of the rich, whereas the poor are forever condemned to work just to stay alive. Owning land and property, the nobles were able to enter this game with money to invest, although some were not savvy enough and ended up wasting their riches. Capitalists became the new nobility, passing their wealth down the generations. The churches owned land and wealth too, so they promptly sided with the wealthy industrialists, forming an alliance of religious ideas and capitalism that persist to these days. We call it conservatism. The workers challenge capitalism However, being crammed into factories and poor neighborhood, the workers were able to talk among themselves and organize. Additionally, there was also a group of idealists who saw the injustice of the system. They were the new intellectual class of scientists and technocrats that had become indispensable to advance the Industrial Revolution. They were educated in the new, growing universities. A few of them talked to the workers, educating them on how to improve their lot. A few solutions came to mind. Workers could organize into unions. Using strikes as a weapon, they could force the factory owners to give them a better deal. However, the capitalists could use force — the police, paid squads and even the army — to break the strikes. Scabs could also be brought to replace the striking workers. It seemed that workers could never succeed unless they could take the power of the State away from the hands of the capitalists. Since the workers were more numerous than the capitalists, this should be feasible. The working class could garnish the monopoly of violence of the State to protect their rights. Socialism was born. Revolution or democracy?  Two routes presented themselves to the workers to capture the power of the State. The first was to strengthen democracy and vote the capitalists out of power. This should be possible, since the workers were more numerous than the rich. The second was to have a revolution, using violence to seize the power of the State away from the capitalists. As the 19th century approached its end, the second route — revolution — seemed more promising than the first, for a variety of reasons. The democratic system was being corrupted by the rich, who bought votes, miscounted them, overwhelm the people with propaganda or cheated outright. In many countries, voting was a joke, and everybody knew it. Even if workers' representatives were elected, they could be corrupted by the temptation of wealth. On the other hand, the American Revolution  (1765-1783) and the  French Revolution  (1789-1799) offered enticing examples of how the political system of a country could be changed by force. Since the workers were going into the trouble and bloodshed of having a revolution, why stop at the objective of having a State more sympathetic to the workers? It would be possible to abolish capitalism altogether and create a new system in which the workers had all the power and wealth. Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels  (1820-1895) developed the ideology known as Marxism or Communism. It proposed the overthrown of capitalism by a class struggle in which the proletariat (workers) would seize power from the bourgeoisie to produce a society in which the State would control the means of production in a class-less society. In his book, Das Kapital  Marx embedded his political ideas in a complex philosophical formulation. In 1848, Marx and Engels published a pamphlet titled The Communist Manifesto , more suitable to reach the masses.   Communism was born. The Left splits into anarchism, socialism and communism The First International , or International Workingmen's Association (IWA), was a socialist organization created in meetings in London (1864) and Geneva (1866). In these meeting there was an increasing tension because many of the early socialists — the followers of Owen and Proudhon — refused to accept Marxism, denouncing it as authoritarian and for giving too much power to the State. In 1868, a further polarization was brought into the First International by Mikhail Bakunin and his followers, the anarchists. They proposed achieving socialism through direct economical struggle again capitalism, without participating in democracy. At the time, the Marxists proposed achieving power mostly through elections instead of revolution, leading to gradual reform of the laws and political institutions. The confrontation between anarchists and Marxists came to a head in 1872, at the Hague Congress of the IWA, in which the First International split into two separate organizations, socialist and anarchist. The First International was finally closed in 1877. In 1889, the socialists decided to exclude the anarchists and formed a Second International  in Paris. However, in 1919 a new split happened, this time between revolutionary socialism and reformist socialism . The first formed the Communist International  (Comintern), while the second founded the Labour and Socialist International  (LSI) in 1923. Since then, socialism and communism have been separate movements, with their own political parties and agendas. While communism created awful dictatorships in the USRR, China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam, socialism alternated in power with conservatism to give rise to the modern democratic states of Western Europe, the most egalitarian and free societies in the world. So don’t believe anybody who tells you socialism and communism are the same thing. That is just capitalist propaganda. They have been different ideologies for a hundred years. A brief political history of the 20th century The triumph of the communists in the Russian Revolution in 1917 sent shivers through the spine of the capitalists. It showed that their alliance with the aristocrats and religion could be driven from power. At the same time, socialist parties have started to win elections in Europe, while unions were able to hold a large sway over the economy. The German Social Democratic Party and German unions played a large role in ending World War I. Anarchists were much less successful. Prevented by their ideology from participating in elections, soon became a violent and unpopular fringe. The wealthy elites reacted by realizing that they, too, needed to seize the power of the State to achieve their goals. They fed the masses a mixture of nationalist and racist propaganda and created their own extremist parties. They blamed the socialist parties that were in power for all the ills in the country. In particular, the German Social Democratic Party was blamed for the grievous terms of surrender imposed on Germany after World War I. Fascism and Nazism were born as copycats of socialism, even stealing that name. In Spain, a murderous civil war started in 1936 after a failed coup against the Frente Popular , an alliance of communists and socialists that had won the last election. Supported by troops and weapons from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, as well as donations from American capitalists, the Fascists of general Franco won the war in April 1939, starting a 40 year long dictatorship. Five months later, in September 1939, World War II started. Capitalists in the UK and the USA hoped that the German Nazis and the Soviet communists would destroy each other. Instead, the war became a struggle between the democratic and fascist versions of capitalism, as well as an attempt from Japan, Italy and Germany to seize the empires created by colonialism. World War II transitioned into the Cold War. Communist totalitarianism took advantage of World War II to seize half of Europe. Soon afterwards, communism triumphed in China and threatened to extend itself into Southeast Asia and Central and South America. As the new leader of the free world, the USA fought proxy wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam. It established puppet dictatorships throughout South America (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil…) and Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece) to maintain its power. These totalitarian regimes were a new version of Fascism, the unholy alliance of capitalism with a repressive State. A new hope at the end of the 20th century The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 was unexpected and fortuitous. American conservatives credit Ronald Reagan for its fall but, in reality, his corrupt and ineffective government ( Iran-Contra affair ) had little to do with it. I credit the political genius of Mikhail  Gorbachev  for this turn of events. Unfortunately, his project to transform the USSR into a democratic socialist society was thwarted by a coup. During the 90s, all the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe, as well as some that had been part of the USSR (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) quickly transitioned to democracies. Germany was reunified. For a while, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus seemed on the path to democracy as well. Most other former dictatorships in Europe had ended before, together with most dictatorships in South America. The world seemed on a firm path towards democracy. The golden formula of social democracy The prosperous, egalitarian countries of Western Europe showed the path: a mixture of mild capitalism with socialism in which the State acted to contain the excesses of capital, to distribute wealth through taxation, and to establish a safety net in which everybody had access to education, health and safety. Health was ensured by a public health system of doctors and hospitals paid by the state. Education was ensured by a system of public schools and universities also run by the state, supplemented by private ones. Safety was ensured by a fair system of laws, justice, police and prisons over which the State had absolute authority. The division between administrative, legislative and judicial powers contained corruption and established a system of checks and balances. Working conditions were improved with a shorter work week and longer vacations, which forced the employers to hire more people, decreasing unemployment. The book The Better Angels of Our Nature , by Canadian psychologist and Harvard professor  Steven Pinker , documents this quick raise in human well-being at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. He attributes it to the policies enacted by modern states. Alas, poverty, inequality and exploitation persisted! However, the social democratic parties of Europe, inheritors of 19th century socialism, had the formula to combat it. Tax the rich and use the money to help the poor with unemployment benefits, free healthcare, free education and other perks. The rich, however, strongly objected. They had other plans. The subversion of the Left Right when it should have been successful, the plan started to fall apart. A few misguided French philosophers, disillusioned with the failure of communist, invented post-modernism. According to them, the agenda of the social democracy was not good enough. It was time to move past it. But they never propose anything to replace it. The idea jumped across the Atlantic into the USA. Some people started to ponder: if communism had failed, what was going to take its place as the ideology of the Left? The obvious answer was socialism, or social democracy, which had been hugely successful in Western Europe. The problem was that conservatives have successful convinced their fellow Americans that socialism was the same as communism, a hundred years of political history be damned! Following the steps of the postmodernists, many on the Left started saying that the whole progressive agenda had been a failure. Nothing was good enough. Claiming success in any issue was tantamount to treason. Some even doubted that any progress was made at all. What about the oppression of women? The Patriarchy was still there! What about the persistent racism against Blacks? The Civil Rights Movement was not enough! What about colonialism? Many countries were still in abject poverty! The rich were listening carefully. From history, they knew that the danger lied in the alliance between the working class and the intellectuals. That’s how socialism got started. They knew that the intellectuals were key to any social change. History had showed that workers needed the direction of brilliant minds to achieve their objectives. But what if a wedge could be driven between the intellectuals and the working class? What if the crazy ideas of some intellectuals could be encouraged, so they would collide with the common sense of the masses? How the universities were taken over The key was the universities. That’s where intellectuals could be bought. Luckily for the rich, American universities were already in their pockets. Most European universities are run democratically by the faculty, students and staff. Elections are held regularly to elect the deans and the president. I took part in such elections when I was a professor of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid  from 1989 to 1991. Besides, most European universities are public and financed by the government through a transparent process. The salaries of the professors are fixed by law. In contrast, American universities are de facto dictatorships run by the regents, which are a few individuals chosen from wealthy and politically powerful elites and accountable to nobody. Deans and presidents are appointed by the reagents, not elected. The salaries of the professors are negotiated individually when they are hired and kept secret. “ California Senate Bill 1162  (SB 1162) required universities to comply with mandatory salary reporting for faculty and staff.” The reagents hold the purse strings. For example, when a research grant is awarded to a university by federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Science Foundation (NSF), the grant money is divided into direct costs, which go to the scientists who submitted the grant to fun their research, and indirect costs, which go to the university top administrators to spend as they please. Indirect costs range from 40% to 120% of direct costs. I know. For 20 years, I supported my research at UCLA with grants from the NIH and the Veterans Administration (VA). I have been a reviewer of grants for the NIH and the VA for a dozen years.  Scientists in STEM departments fund their research, and a large part of their salaries, from grants from the government and industry. In contrast, Humanity departments are funded directly by the university. This gives university administrators, who are hired and controlled by the regents, a way to decide which departments get the money and which ones are left at the side of the road. The book The Fall of the Faculty , by Benjamin Ginsberg , a political scientist and Chair of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University, documents how control over the universities was taken out of the faculty and handed over to a growing body of administrators with political agendas. Universities became less democratic and more driven towards politically correct dogmatism. Quietly, top university administrators started defunding political studies departments that could spread socialist ideas dangerous for the rich. Instead, they funded departments that specialized in gender, racial, LGTB and colonial issues. These departments started spinning new ideologies. The key was to deemphasize class differences and wealth inequality. These issues were dangerous to the rich, because their obvious solution was to tax the rich more and channel the money to the poor. All that talk about the one percent, unions, workers' rights, public health and public education was definitely bad. However, talk about the Patriarchy, LGTB rights, racial oppression and colonialism was okay, because it would never lead to social changes that would challenge the power of the wealthy. In fact, these issues would piss off the workers. Many of them were socially conservative, after all. The new politically correct lingo coming out of the universities reeked of intellectual elitism, which the workers instinctively despised. On top of that, workers' issues had been dismissed by the same Democratic Party that had promised to defend them. It worked. The chasm between the Left and the workers grew and grew and grew. The icing of the cake was that the wealthy came out looking like political saints. Long gone was the image of the ruthless, exploitative Scrooge, with his pockets lined with money and politicians at his fingertips. Instead, now the rich were philanthropists who donated large sums of money to the universities, erected buildings with their names on it, and funded worthy political causes. Like, you know, the Sackler family that killed hundreds of thousands by marketing OxyContin, a supposedly non addictive opioid (read Empire of Pain , by Patrick Radden Keefe). Wokeness, Identity Politics, whatever… So clever was the plot that the new ideology into which the Left had degenerated remained nameless for the longest time. It was, simply, the Left. Never mind that it has long since lost the working class and stopped advocating for the poor.  In his book The Identity Trap , Yascha Mounk calls it the Identity Synthesis. However, this name and its similar one, Identity Politics, failed to catch on. Most people call it wokeness, while others vigorously point to the golden past of this word to signal racist danger among Blacks. It doesn’t matter, as long as we know what we are talking about. ‘Wokeness’ seems to be the word chosen by both conservatives and numerous progressives to name this subversion of the Left. So we should forget the old meaning of ‘woke’ and go with the new one. The Identity Trap  is a brilliant expose of the interlinked ideas that form the fabric of Identity Politics: critical race theory, feminism, intersectionality, antiracism and anti-colonialism. The underlying idea has been called pan-oppression : that all oppression systems form a whole, so you cannot fight one without fighting the others. This divides the world between victims and oppressors. Much to their chagrin, the male, White workers that still form the core of the American working class find themselves in the camp of the oppressors, even though they are still being exploited and impoverished. Many Hispanic men see themselves heading the same way. Compelled speech Mounk also documents how the Identity Politics ideology was successfully marketed from the universities to society. The PR departments of colleges and corporations took wokeness over as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies. The ugliest side of DEI is the suppression of free speech and forced indoctrination. For example, the picture above shows a screenshot from a mandatory online class about wokeness imposed on faculty and staff by UCLA. Note how pretty innocuous statements like “You are transgender? Really? I couldn’t tell” are microaggressions that you have to apologize for. Even though the existence of microaggressions is still a controversial idea, this class forces you to accept it, together with implicit bias and intersectionality, other beliefs of wokeness. The next picture shows how the class forces you to accept as fact a controversial statement by Derald Wing Sue , one of the inventors of the idea of microaggressions. This is called ‘compelled speech’: not only you are not allowed to give your opinion, you are forced to give an opinion that you may not share as a requirement to pass this mandatory course. Nowhere in this online course there is an option for employees to disagree. Your intentions don’t matter — one of the core beliefs of wokeness. Universities should be arenas for the free debate of ideas. Compelled speech and political indoctrination are contrary to the mission of the universities. No wonder so many people are angry at wokeness. Forging a progressive future When we examine the history of the Left, as I have done in this article, the path to follow should be clear. The main political issue has always been economic inequality. When the Left abandoned it to pursue obscure ideological goals, it lost its natural supporters: the workers and the poor. Since they form the majority of the population, with their support it would be easy to win elections. Without it, the Left gets relegated to a minority urban elite hypocritically claiming to support the oppressed while protecting their privileges. We need to focus on the issues of the workers and the poor: Redistributive taxation that takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor. To compensate for the natural tendency of capitalism to concentrate more and more wealth in the hands of the rich. Free healthcare for all.  Because the right not to die from diseases and to live a healthy life is a basic human right that should not depend on how much money you have. Free education for all. Because democracy is impossible without a well-educated populace. In a world of ever-expanding knowledge, education is the most empowering tool. Universities that the poor cannot afford feed contempt for the educated elites. A fair system of justice and police that does not over-punish the poor and forgive the rich.  Nobody should get a get-out-of-jail card by hiring powerful lawyers. Nobody should be sent to jail for being too poor to make bail and pay a lawyer. Free-speech. Which should have never been abandoned by the Left. No more political correctness and elitist new words and grammar. No more canceling people who dare challenge the political dogmas. No more political indoctrination at the universities. Make diversity of ideas and expression the most important diversity of all. Sexual freedom for everybody.  Let’s start making reproductive rights the rights of everybody, and not just women. Freedom of contraception and abortion, buy also freedom of men not to support children that they didn’t want to produce. How about large public subsidies for parents raising children? Yes, less wealthy people may not be completely onboard with some of the socially progressive ideas of the educated middle class, but they will come around if we engage them in honest conversation. Most Americans these days support abortion rights, gay marriage and drug legalization, as we have seen in single-issue votes in Red states. Note: The hyperlinks in this article are not affiliated links. Whenever possible, they point to non-commercial sources like Wikipedia. Copyright 2024 Hermes Solenzol.

How mindfulness and flow diminish the ego Escaping the tyranny of the ego According to a recent psychological theory, the ego is an internalization of the instructions that we received in our childhood from our parents, teachers and peers. Driven by the powerful social emotions of shame, pride and guilt, it compels us to achieve things in life. The ego is scared of failure and attached to success. It creates an unhealthy dynamic in our lives that makes us unhappy. According to Buddhism, craving is the source of suffering. However, contrary to most common interpretations, craving is not the pursuit of pleasure. Craving is caused by the ego . What do you crave in life? Is it food, sex, friends and a good rest (pleasure)? Or is it money, fame and success (ego)? The simple pleasures of life produce little attachment. We can enjoy them and let them go. What drives us crazy with anxiety are things like money and success, which originate in the ego. Our education has instilled in us the desire to achieve socially valuable goals in life. We have become so obsessed with them that we have forgotten to question whether they make us happy. We have forgotten to take care of ourselves. We have forgotten who we really are. We are not our ego. It is impossible, and undesirable, to live without the ego. It serves useful purposes, like keeping us out of danger, not letting ourselves be controlled by others, motivating us to achieve our goals. The problem is that the ego has taken possession of our minds so completely that it makes us unhappy with its constant demands for success. With its continuous berating when we fail to achieve its goals. Everything that we do, everything that happens to us, is interpreted by our ego in terms of its goals. The tar giant There is an old Buddhist tale about the young Buddha making his way home through a forest after learning martial arts. In the forest, he encountered a giant who blocked his pass. After failing to convince the giant to let him continue his way, the Buddha attacked him with his bow and arrows, then with his spear. But his weapons just stick to the giant, without harming him. Then he struck the giant with his hands and feet. But then the young Buddha realized that the giant is made of tar, so he becomes stuck to him. The more he fought the giant, the more trapped the Buddha became. The tar man appears in many tales and legends. It represents the ego. We cannot fight the ego because every success that we would achieve in doing so would be a success of the ego, and therefore, would make the ego stronger. Even the desire to defeat the ego comes from the ego, so it turns against us. Like the tar giant, everything sticks to the ego. The more we fight it, the more attached we become to it. We cannot abandon the ego just by trying to abandon the ego. It doesn’t work that way. The way to decrease the hold of the ego over our mind is to practice states of mind that turn off the ego. Like mindfulness and flow. Mindfulness Mindfulness is a practice in which we open our minds to everything, without judging. Mostly, we open our awareness to all our senses, without emphasizing anything in particular. But we also open our mind to thoughts and memories, without trying to push them away, but not encouraging them, either. Mindfulness is letting everything course through our mind unimpeded, like clouds in the sky. This creates a relaxed and expanded state of consciousness. Because the ego is constantly trying to judge everything, the non-judgmental state of mindfulness turns it off. However, the ego will constantly try to intrude, patting us in the back when we are being good at being mindful and chastising us when we get distracted. The only way to deal with this patting in the back (pride) and chastising (shame) is to treat them just like any other emotion: don’t push them away, don’t let them take over. Say “Hello, ego!”, wave and smile. Flow Flow consists of engaging on a task  — a sport, playing an instrument, dancing, writing, drawing — with absolute focus, so that everything else disappears. The task has to be something that we have learned to perform well, but that still challenges us to the limit of our ability. After an initial period of struggle, we enter a state in which we no longer feel the effort. Time passes without us realizing it. And we really enjoy what we are doing. That state is flow. In another article, I explored the neuroscience of flow . One of its remarkable properties is that the ego is turned off during flow. The sensation of the self is mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex, which is part of the default mode neuronal network. During flow, the default mode network is turned off, while the saliency network, first, and the executive network, second, takes its place. The middle prefrontal cortex gets inhibited during flow, making us “forget ourselves”, so there is no ego. Perfectionism While there is no judging in mindfulness, is a certain level of judging is necessary in flow to let us know if we are doing things right. However, this judging is about whether our task is going in the right direction or not. It is centered in the process, not on the goal. The ego is concerned with goals, success or failure, and not so much in the process. However, there is one way in which the ego can ruin flow: perfectionism. It consists of an intolerance of making errors. The ego demand that everything we do, we do it perfectly. Otherwise, it feels like we have failed. Making mistakes negates the exalted self-image that the ego has of itself. However, experimenting, making mistakes, and correcting them are essential parts of the creative process involved in flow.  Flow has been described as venturing into the unknown. If we are in known territory, then we are not facing our challenge to the limit of our abilities. This is essential for flow. When we venture into the unknown, it is impossible not to make mistakes. Therefore, if we let the ego surface in the form of perfectionism, we stop being in flow. The difference between flow and mindfulness Flow is different from mindfulness. While in mindfulness we let every sensation, emotion and idea into our mind, in flow we select only those mental contents related to our task. In flow, we screen out distractions, while in mindfulness nothing can be a distraction. Mindfulness is Yin, feminine. It is passive and receptive. Flow is Yang, masculine. It is active and discriminating. However, when we practice mindfulness and flow, at different times, these states support each other because our mind becomes disciplined in staying in one state of mind. Both mindfulness and flow require a good measure of mental control. Daydreaming However, we should refrain from wanting to always be in mindfulness or flow. That can be exhausting and counterproductive. There is a time for everything. Wanting to be in mindfulness or flow can become a goal of the ego. We fall into the trap of one part of our mind wanting to control our entire mind. This runs contrary to self-love and inner peace. Daydreaming is a state of mind in which we let the default mode network do its thing. We fantasize. We reminisce about the past. We hope about the future. This is all about ourselves. During daydreaming, the middle prefrontal cortex gets activated as part of the default mode network, but that’s okay. There should be a time when we remember ourselves, too. There has to be a time when we let everything that is inside our mind come up and be enjoyed. That is also part of the creative process. The best artistic ideas do not come up in flow, but when we let our mind be truly free. That’s where the seeds are found. When you hear spiritual people talk about the “monkey mind”, it’s their ego talking. There is nothing wrong with letting the little monkey come out and play, once in a while. Maybe even break a thing or two. Who wants to control the monkey? The ego. A new way of life Thus, if we practice mindfulness and flow often enough, we erode the tyranny of the ego by creating egoless states of mind. Since states of consciousness become habits, the more we practice mindfulness and flow, the easier it becomes to enter these states. We don’t need to fight the ego, which is useless. We just need to have habitual states of mind in which the ego is absent. From these states of mind, we can envision a life that is not directed by the ego. Since the ego embodies societal norms, this empowers us to direct our lives according to our true selves and not the dictates of society. By entering flow, we can achieve the creativity that we need to succeed in our professional life without the anxiety-provoking prodding of the ego. We can turn our work into play. Wanting money, fame and success are goals of the ego. When we get used to viewing our lives through a different lens, we can start focusing on the process and not on the goals. Enjoying what we do instead of worrying about our success is a way to prevent anxiety.

Craving is not caused by seeking pleasure, but by the ego Craving causes suffering We all want to stop suffering. The reality of suffering is the first of the Four Noble Truth of Buddhism. The second Noble Truth is that suffering is produced by craving. The third and fourth Noble Truths are that there is an ending to suffering and the teachings of Buddhism are a path to end suffering. Let’s put those aside to avoid getting entangled in the religious beliefs of Buddhism. It is obvious that suffering exists. It also makes sense that craving causes a lot of suffering, although perhaps not all of it. We struggle to achieve a lot of things in life and, when we don’t get them, we suffer. Buddhism goes further by saying that any suffering, like being sick, losing a limb, losing our sanity or losing a loved one, is caused by craving because we are unduly attached to our body, our mind or to our loved ones. It is questionable that living without any attachment is possible or even desirable. Zen and other schools of Mahayana Buddhism teach that suffering is caused by ignorance, which in turn cause craving. But ignorance of what? What is the wisdom that would free us from craving and suffering? In any case, avoiding craving would greatly diminish our suffering. Drug addiction and craving Thanks to neuroscience research on addiction, we have learned a few things about the neurophysiological mechanism of craving. As it turns out, craving is independent of pleasure. When somebody starts taking an addictive drug, it gets hooked on the pleasurable experience produced by it. As the drug gets consumed over and over again, three things happen: The pleasure produced by the drug decreases. Not taking the drug produces a state of dysphoria and physical pain: withdrawal. There is a craving for the drug distinct from seeking the pleasure produced by the drug. Eventually, avoiding withdrawal and the intrinsic craving produced by the drugs become the sole motivation for taking it. Neuroscience has also revealed that addictive drugs like opioids (morphine, heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone), psychostimulants (cocaine, methamphetamine) and tranquilizers (Valium, pentobarbital) produce craving by hijacking the reward pathway , which is a neuronal pathway connecting the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens that uses the neurotransmitter dopamine. The VTA and the nucleus accumbens are located in the basal striatum, an area in the middle of the brain. Are seeking pleasure and drug addiction the same thing? This is the idea proposed by the book Dopamine Nation , by Anna Lembke. It proclaims that all pleasure is addictive, including some innocuous, or even positive, things like reading romantic novels, cold showers, working and the mental state of flow. Lembke justifies this idea in that pleasure produces dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. She thinks that this leads to addiction the same way that opioid drugs and cocaine produce addiction. This idea has entered modern pop psychology, leading to fads like NoFap  (an anti-masturbation movement), porn detox, and dopamine fasting  (avoiding any pleasure to “replenish dopamine stores”). This is just an attempt to provide a scientific basis for the old philosophical belief that pleasure produces craving. When we feel pleasure, it makes us want to repeat it, so we start craving it. We seek pleasure, we get it, but this only makes us want more. Let’s examine these claims in detail. Craving is not caused by seeking pleasure Let’s start with neuroscience. It’s not true that pleasure releases dopamine in the accumbens. It’s much more complicated than that. In another article, I describe the mechanisms of dopamine release in the reward pathway and explain how addictive drugs produce an anomalous dopamine release that is entirely different from the one produced by normal mental states, including pleasure. https://www.hermessolenzol.com/en/post/dopamine-why-heroin-is-addictive-but-porn-is-not It is called the reward pathway  for a reason. What triggers dopamine release is not pleasure, but the anticipation of reward. Rewards do not have to be pleasurable, just something that the brain has been trained to consider a goal. Reward is not the expectation of pleasure, but anything that motivates us. The things that we really crave Think about it. What are the rewards that we pursue in life? They rarely are pleasure. Money. Fame. Professional success. Love — which is code for getting a good romantic relationship. These are the things we crave. They ultimately may translate into pleasure — good food, good sex, a relaxing vacation. But the truth is that we get so involved in chasing these things that we forgo the more mundane pleasures for their sake. We eat junk food to get back to work. We have sex while worrying about our career. Our vacations are sort and loaded with worry. We even let love for our partner languish because we don’t dedicate enough time to keep our relationship alive. Why do we pursue these things? We rarely enjoy the pleasures of life We rarely seek pleasure for its own sake. Truly enjoying pleasure would be an exercise in mindfulness. When eating, we would pay complete attention to the taste, smell and texture of our food, putting aside judgement and extraneous thoughts. When we have sex, we would stay fully focused on touching the skin, feeling the shape of the body of our partner, looking in her/his eyes for the pleasure we evoke, enjoying the pleasure arising from our body. Non-judgmental focusing on sensations is the core of mindfulness. We can practice mindful eating, mindful sex and mindful sports. Mindful pleasure would not induce craving for two reasons. First, it would satisfy our natural needs, so we would wait until we are hungry, horny, etc., before we seek it again. Second, like any mindfulness exercise, mindful pleasure takes a lot of energy, so we may get tired and depleted if we do it too often. What is the ego? The reason why we crave money, fame and success is explained by something we could call the ego hypothesis . It posits that the ego is a part of the mind that originates as an internalization of the admonitions of our parents and teachers. Human sociability is controlled by some powerful emotions, like guilt, indignation, pride and shame. Guilt makes us feel bad when we do something morally wrong. Indignation makes us angry when somebody else does something morally wrong. Pride is feeling good when we succeed in a difficult task. Shame is feeling bad when we fail or don’t measure to societal standards. As children develop, these emotions make them very sensitive to praise, chastising and shaming by their educators. By the time they become teenagers, the goals to succeed instilled in them by their educators have become solidified into their own internal critic — the ego. The ego craves praise. It fears guilt and shame. It is also critical of other people, judging them through the emotion of indignation when we think that they have done something wrong. Achieving success and avoiding failure are not the only things that the ego wants. It is also in charge of self-preservation, driving our fears and anxieties. In this, it can be useful. However, it gets in the way when fear paralyzes us and gets in the way of focusing on what we are doing. I am not saying that the ego is bad. It is necessary for us to behave appropriately in society. People who are impervious to the control of guilt and shame are sociopaths. That’s why saying that somebody is shameless is an insult. The drive of the ego to succeed is also necessary for us to succeed in our career, in sports, in relationships… in any endeavor that we take in life. It provides the energy for us to work hard and improve ourselves. The ego is at the core of craving The ego hypothesis explains how the ego is at the core of the cravings that make us miserable: money, fame, success, love, etc. Since the ego is based on learned rewards, it engages the dopaminergic reward pathway. This is the true function of the reward pathway, not to make us seek pleasure, but to provide the push on anything that motivates us in life. And our primary motivations, as human beings, are learned socially early in life. That pat in the back we give ourselves when we accomplish something hard — it involves dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Paradoxically, the shame of failure also involves dopamine release, but this happens in other parts of the reward pathway that are associated with unpleasant feelings. Modern society encourages oversized egos Modern society encourages the development of the ego with its emphasis on competition and possession. For men, their value as human beings is based on success in their profession, making money, sports and having a relationship with a high-value woman (sexy, loving, smart and fun). For women, their value is traditionally associated with body image (being beautiful and sexy) and getting a relationship with a high-value man (good provider, high social status, handsome, faithful and caring). For some time, this has been changing by giving women the same professional and financial goals as men. For many women, this means getting caught in the double demand of being beautiful and professionally successful. At the same time, modern society decreases the value of friendship and kin relationships. This takes us away from unconditional love, so our self-esteem becomes solely anchored in our ego. Ego and pleasure We seem to pursue pleasure. However, but we do not seek it for its own sake but because our ego sees it as a reward, as something that we are entitled to. This is what generates the fear of missing out (FOMO). It makes us become envious when other people experience pleasures that we do not. We even get jealous when our loved one experiences sexual pleasure without us. We want the biggest slice of the pie, not because we want to eat more, but as a sign that we deserve more than others. Because we are better than others. We want to seduce the hottest person in the room, not because we are attracted to her/him, but to signal our social status. We want the best hotel room, the fastest car, cutting ahead to the front of the line. It’s all ego. It drives craving because the ego wants more, more, more. Ego and morality But even if we forgo pleasure to live a moral life, we are still in the hands of the ego. Since one of the main things that we internalize during our education is moral rules, the ego plays an important role as the enforcer of morality. Again, this is necessary. We need to become well-behaved persons that play nicely with others. Failing to do so would turn us into abusers and criminals. However, just like we need to shed the excessive drive of the ego to succeed to avoid craving and suffering, to be truly free we need to break the excessive hold that morality has on us. Viewing it from a different angle, the morality that we learned forces us to put our self-esteem in the hands of external judgement by others. This is hard to avoid because we have little control over guilt and shame. These emotions evolved to be controlled by our social environment. It’s hard to avoid feeling bad when faced with social disapproval. Shame is so powerful that leads some people to suicide, especially emotionally vulnerable teenagers. This is why being criticized in social media has such a devastating effect on young people. This drives us to conform to existing social values, instead of being able to confront them and establish a more rational system of morality. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can train ourselves to shift our moral focus from externally driven societal values to internally created values. We can draw our own moral code and stick to it. People who espouse values at variance with the dominant moral code had to do that: gays, atheists, free-thinkers, skeptics, non-monogamous people. The importance of the emotions of pride and shame is shown by how they need to focus on pride to build a shield against societal judgement and rejection. It also helps to gather in groups of like-minded people, so that they can rely on their mutual approval. Religions tell us to avoid pride and hubris by being humble. However, by that they mean is to give up our agency and put ourselves in the hands of priests, gurus and religious beliefs. What I propose here is the opposite: a self-empowering practice that refuses to conform to traditional morality. What I am talking about is freeing ourselves by breaking the chains of traditional morality and irrational beliefs. The problem with unquestioned Virtue We start to see what a project of inner liberation would look. To avoid craving that leads to suffering, we need to dethrone the ego from its place of exclusive driver of our motivation. We need to develop a form of soft self-control that based on joy, curiosity, mindfulness and happiness, instead of craving and possessiveness. But we also need to free ourselves from the shackle of unreflective morality, which is chosen by society and not by us. These moral reins are also in the hands of the ego. We need to change our values from externally determined to internally driven. The Virtue proposed by Stoicism needs to be examined carefully. It just assumes that things valued by society, like temperance, generosity and courage, are good on principle. This is not what a rationally examined moral code looks like. The key problem, however, is that placing Virtue at the center of the project of spiritual growth leads us to what I call the trap of the ego . We want to see ourselves as virtuous, to get that pat in back, to see ourselves as great, as better than others. Which is pure ego. https://www.hermessolenzol.com/en/post/the-traps-of-the-ego Therefore, pursuing Virtue creates its own craving. We suffer when we fail to measure up to our standards. We judge ourselves harshly. Our mind gets divided between the controller and the controlled, the rational part that sets lofty goals and the emotional, animal part who drags us down to failure and sin. Ignorance leads to craving when we operate under the wrong model of the mind. One that thinks that reason is good and that emotions are bad and need to be controlled. Or that sees sexual desire as an animal impulse that deserves utter contempt. Such a divided mind is at war with itself. It sets itself up for failure. Most of its energy is spent in fighting with itself, so there is nothing else left for true creativity. Flow is egoless action Flow is a mental state that is achieved when we face a challenge that engages our skills but requires a complete focus to accomplish. It is characterized by feelings of effortlessness, focus, creativity, energy, timelessness, selflessness and joy. I explored the neuroscience of flow in this article: https://www.hermessolenzol.com/en/post/the-neuroscience-of-flow It presents evidence that flow involves the deactivation of the default mode neuronal network — which is engaged while we daydream or don’t do anything in particular — and the activation of the executive attention network — which mediates internally directed attention. A key detail is that the default mode network includes de medial prefrontal cortex, which creates the sense of self. In contrast, the executive attention network turns off the medial prefrontal cortex while activating other parts of the prefrontal cortex in charge of directing attention: the rostral-lateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In practice, this translates into that we forget ourselves during flow. We become so completely focused on what we are doing that we turn off the ego so it doesn’t get in the way. We forget the goal and focus on the process. This agrees with the spiritual teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism. In the Bhagavad Gita , the god Krishna instructs king Arjuna about becoming detached from the benefits of his actions. Likewise, the practice of mushotoku  in Zen consists of acting without seeking personal benefit from the action. These may sound like lofty goals, difficult to attain in practice. However, they become feasible when we train ourselves to enter flow. By training our mind to enter flow more and more often, we can develop a way of being that is independent of the ego. Our life becomes focused on creativity, on the process instead of on the goals. This dampens the influence of the ego and reduces craving. A practice that avoids craving by decreasing the importance of the ego How can we use all this to direct a philosophy of life or a spiritual practice? Here are some of the things that I incorporate into my own practice: Develop a form of soft self-control based on a deep understanding of my feelings and motivations. Integrate my unconscious and my emotions to resolve my inner contradictions. Engage in activities that lead to flow, like writing, rock-climbing and skiing. Do the best that I can and then let go of the outcome. Practice mindful pleasure by focusing my attention and avoiding distraction while eating, doing sports or having sex. Do not see myself as deserving better treatment than other people — do not be entitled. Pay attention to thoughts and emotions based on self-importance, like envy, jealousy and FOMO. Take responsibility for my actions and my decisions about my future. Do not consider myself a victim. Stop judging my past and who I think I am. Let go of trauma and regrets. Follow a path with a heart by doing things that satisfy the entirety of my being, not just the things that I think I should do or I am being told to do. Consider finding the goal of my life as an essential part of the practice, not a closed question.

Challenging the belief that there are no biological differences between men and women in emotions and cognition There is a lot of scientific evidence for the idea that men and women differ not just in their bodies but also in their minds. These differences are biological, meaning that they are determined by X and Y sex chromosomes and driven by the sex hormones - testosterone in men and estrogen and progesterone in women. However, this does not mean that these differences are unchangeable. They can be reversed by hormone treatment in trans people. The position I defend here has been dismissed with the term neurosexism . I consider this a political dogma that arose in reaction to the sexist belief that men are more intelligent than women. Today it is clear that there are no differences in intelligence between the sexes. However, this should not blind us to the fact that there are important sex differences in emotions, motivation, mental diseases and specific forms of cognition. These differences are important when addressing health issues. In fact, it is mandatory for any grant proposal submitted to the National Institutes of Health  to specifically address sex differences  in whatever issue it studies, regardless of whether it is physical or mental, in animals or humans. Sex differences are also highly relevant for the current debates about male violence, transsexuality and masculinity. How I researched mental sex differences I am well aware of the neuroscience of sex differences because it was key for my research work on the neurophysiology of pain for the last 25 years. To write this article, I gathered scientific papers on sex differences by searching PubMed - a gigantic database run by the USA government of every scientific paper on biomedical research. Of the 48 papers I found, I choose for discussion one published recently by John Archer (Archer, 2019) because it offers a most comprehensive and rigorous overview of this topic. It responds to an earlier review (Hyde, 2005) that concluded that psychological differences between men and women are minimal. I also include here references that complement the information in the paper by Archer. The paper by Archer is a review of meta-analyses. Research papers present data from work done in the lab, in clinical studies, surveys, etc. Meta-analyses compile data from many research papers and do statistics with them to get overall results. Reviews are articles that collect the most important papers on a particular topic and try to extract general conclusions. Therefore, a review of meta-analyses is the best way to summarize the main findings on the issue of sex differences. This one by Archer analyzed 127 meta-analyses, 85 surveys and 4 mixed papers. Archer summarized his findings in a table that ranks sex differences in four effect sizes , 0 to 4, to denote if they are zero, small, medium, large or very large. Another measure, the summary value , ranges from negative (larger in women) to positive (larger in men). I give these values in parentheses: (2, -0,57) means that 2 is the effect size and -0.57  is the summary value. For brevity, I do not discuss sexual orientation or differences in sexual behavior. Neither do I dwell into the evolutionary origin of the sex differences, atopic to which Archer gives a lot of attention but that I find a bit speculative. I do briefly discuss the issue of transsexuality.  Cognitive differences Let’s start by tackling the thorny subject of cognitive differences. As I said above, men and women do not differ in general intelligence. They have similar capacities for memory (0, 0.09) and mathematics (0, 0.09). Women do slightly better is academic achievement (1, -0.25) while men show small advantages in abstract reasoning (1, 0.15) and spatial working memory (1, 0.26). However, there are some differences in specific cognitive abilities. Women do better in all language-related cognitive abilities, with medium differences in language ability (2, -0.37), reading (2, -0.36) and writing (2, -0.57), and a small difference in verbal reasoning (1, -0.15). They also are better at emotional intelligence (2, -0.47) and face recognition (2, -0.36). In turn, men are better at spatial abilities (2, 0.48), particularly mental rotation (3, 0.66), understanding how machines work (4, 1.21) and mechanical reasoning (3, 0.98). They also show a slightly better understanding of science (1, 0.28). Men do not perform worse in all social tasks. They score slightly better than women at talkativeness (1, 0.24), influencing others (1, 0.26) and leadership in projects (2, 0.41). Although men score higher at interrupting (1, 0.15), this is too small to justify it being the main evidence for the existence of mansplaining. The fact that women are better in language and men are better at mentally manipulating objects seems to be based on deeper preference for people in women and for objects in men. Men are more interested in things (3, 0.97) and engineering (4, 1.11) Women are more interested in people (3, -0.93) and social activities (3, -0.68). Sex differences in emotions There are six basic emotions that can be identified by facial expressions is mammals: fear, anger, disgust, surprise, sadness and joy. Sex differences were found in fear, anger and sadness. Women are more fearful than men, as revealed in fear questionnaires (2, -0.41). These differences are very large when they pertain to fear in real-world situations (4, -1.16). Women are more prone to anxiety (2, -0.59) and social anxiety (2, -0.36). They are also slightly more prone to sadness (1, -0.23) and depression (1, -0.27). Women have better memory for emotional events than men (Canli et al., 2002). The lesser fearfulness in men may explain their tendency to risk-taking (2, 0.49), based on seeking sensations (2, 0.39) and excitement (1, 0.29). It seems that not only are men less fearful, but they also have a more positive reaction to fear. It can be a source of joy and excitement. Men also have higher pain thresholds (2, 0.51) and much higher pain tolerance (4, 1.17). Therefore, the stoicism of men - which is considered part of toxic masculinity - is anchored in a biological difference. If men have less fear of pain and are able to tolerate in better, this may contribute to their higher risk-taking. Regarding mental problems, men score slightly higher for narcissism (1, 0.26). Women have a slightly higher tendency to neuroticism (1, -0.31) and susceptibility to guilt (1, -0.27) and shame (1, -0.29). They also have nightmares more frequency (1, -0.26), which may be explained by their better vividness of visual imagining (1, -0.16) and dream recall (1, -0.24). There are no sex differences in negative emotions (0, 0.03), and attachment style - anxious (0, -0.04) or avoidant (0, 0.02). When it comes to anger, things get a bit weird. Women get angry as frequently as men (0, -0.003), show the same amount of indirect aggression (0, -0.02), and only slightly less verbal aggression (1, 0.30). However, physical aggression is more frequent in men (2, 0.59). Differences skyrocket when we look at weapon use (3, 0.88), violent crime (4, 1.11), homicide (4, 2.54), intimate partner homicide (4, 1.06), using violent computer games (4, 1.41), sexual aggression (2, 0.62) and rape (4, 2.32). Why are men more violent? So, if men get angry as frequently as women, why are they more violent? There are several possible explanations. Anger is stronger in men, so it is more difficult to control. Anger is more strongly coupled with physical aggression in men because they are physically stronger. Men are worse at self-control than women, both when it comes to effortful control - doing something that is hard (4, -1.01) - and inhibitory control - stopping oneself from doing something (2, -0.41). Because men are less fearful and more prone to risk-taking, they are less sensitive to threats of punishment. Men are also less sensitive to rewards (2, -0.63). Men are more prone to revenge (3, 0.83), while women are slightly more forgiving (1, -0.28). This is probably related to the higher inclination of men to deliver altruistic punishment (Zheng et al., 2017), as measured in the ultimatum game (Burnham, 2007; Zak et al., 2009; Dreher et al., 2016). There are forms of aggression that are independent of anger. When a predator hunts, it is in an aroused state, but not angry (Popova et al., 1993; Haller, 2018). Human are predators. Everybody who has gone hunting or fishing can attest to how pleasurable this state is. The calculated, trained aggression of soldiers and warriors is cold, devoid of anger. It is voluntary, and much more dangerous than enraged aggression. However, since women can also be hunters, soldiers and warriors, this form of violence is not exclusive to men.  This information is important to address violence against women. We will not solve these problems unless we recognize that men are biologically different. We also need to stop the “all emotions are okay” nonsense. No, not all emotions are okay. In men, anger and risk-taking need to be carefully managed. Teenage men need to receive a specific education about managing their anger and aggression. Most cultures have specific rituals and training for that. Instead, we encourage men them to express their emotions freely. Then, when their emotions get the best of them, we punish them without mercy. Sex differences are biological, not cultural It could be argued that all these differences are social constructs, not natural. Therefore, we can make them go away by changing our beliefs. However, most of these sex differences are found across different cultures and in early childhood, when cultural influences have not taken root. There is ample evidence that the male hormone testosterone regulates emotions and increases aggression (Archer, 2019): Testosterone modulates the connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, which is key to the modulation of aggression. This effect is present since childhood. High doses of testosterone given to women increased their engagement with angry faces: increased eye contact, increased cardiac rate and lesser avoidance. Testosterone levels are linked to dominance in men and competitiveness in women. Testosterone levels are associated with increased risk-taking. Testosterone given to young women decreased their sensitivity to punishment and fear to angry faces. It increased their performance in spatial manipulation tasks.   Testosterone has a fear-reducing effect in mammals. Absence of timidity in newborn boys (6-18 months) correlated with testosterone levels in blood from the umbilical cord. Girls with lower testosterone had higher empathy and connected better with other girls. Testosterone in newborns of 1-3 months was negatively correlated with their language skills at 16-30 months. Verbal fluency declined in female-to-male transsexuals after giving them testosterone for 3 months. Testosterone increased both punishment and gratitude in the ultimatum game, showing that it mediates status-enhancing and pro-social behaviors in men (Dreher et al., 2016). Women’s emotions change during the menstrual cycle What about the effect of female hormones? These are not as easy to track as the effect of testosterone because there are two types of female hormones - estrogen and progesterone - and because their levels change during the menstrual cycle. Besides, the menstrual cycle does not extend throughout a woman’s life - it starts with puberty, ends with menopause, and it’s interrupted during pregnancy. Hence, the emotional state of women should be different in each of these phases of their lives. This has long been recognized in popular cultures, but the modern everything-is-a-social-construct  dogma has challenged this notion. There is evidence showing that women’s emotions change during the menstrual cycle: Women in the follicular phase perceived angry and sad faces more accurately than men or women in other phases, while women in the follicular and ovulatory phases perceived fearful faces better than men (Guapo et al., 2009). Estrogen levels correlated negatively with the perception of anger. A recent study (Dan et al., 2019) used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity and connectivity during the experience of negative and positive emotions. Negative emotions produced more activity in men’s right hippocampus compared to women in the follicular phase, and in men’s right cerebellum compared to women in the luteal phase. Amusement - a positive emotion - reduced the connectivity between the putamen and the prefrontal cortex in women in the luteal phase, compared to men. Women in the luteal phase were more prone to sadness and less inclined to amusement, suggesting that during this phase of the menstrual cycle there is reduced pleasure and reward. Sex hormones have effects at the molecular level It has been known for some time that the steroid sex hormones testosterone, estrogen and progesterone have effects on the cells of the nervous system, neurons and glia. Steroids present in the central nervous system have been called neurosteroids   and are able to bind to GABAA receptors . These are proteins that bind the neurotransmitter gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA), as well as several important drugs like the benzodiazepines (Valium, Rohypnol) and the barbiturates (pentobarbital). GABAA receptors decrease neuronal activity - GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. They play a major role in decreasing anxiety. Steroids - including testosterone, estradiol and progesterone - also have specific receptors  in neurons, some located at the cell membrane and others in the nucleus. Steroid receptors regulate gene expression in neurons. But what about trans people? That sex differences are biological does not mean that they are unchangeable. The scientific evidence that I presented here shows that they are mediated by sex hormones. Therefore, the sex hormone treatments that transsexual people undergo during their transition change their brains, just like they change their bodies. Indeed, trans people experience profound changes in their emotions as they transition. Their minds change to match their desired sexual identity in ways that mere changes in behavior and appearance cannot possibly match. This supports the idea that men and women do have different minds. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. In their bodies and their minds. Biologically and socially. Some important implications I have presented scientific evidence that men and women are different not just in their bodies but also in their minds. The much maligned book   Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus  was right in the basics, although perhaps not in all the details. The differences between men and women may be the largest inside the human species, far surpassing the differences between races. This is known in biology as sexual dimorphism . It is low in some species, but so high in others that males and females look like completely different animals. Think about peacocks, Siamese fighter fish, guppies, mallard ducks, hens and roosters. Sexual dimorphism is high in all ape species . Male gorillas are much larger and far more aggressive than the females. The same can be said, to a lesser extent, about chimps. Male orangutans have huge face plates and are more solitary than the females. In fact, humans are the ape species with less sexual dimorphism, but this doesn’t mean it is completely gone. The specter of male superiority is dispelled when you look at the list of sex differences. In all important cognitive attributes, women score the same as men. The higher emotional and verbal intelligence of women more than balance the higher spatial intelligence of men. If anything, men come out looking worse than women due to their propensity for violence. However, there is a positive side to aggression, since it can be sublimated into the qualities of assertiveness and intensity. This article is not an argument for female supremacy, either. The different emotional stiles of men and women are highly relevant for the current debate on male aggression, gender and masculinity. Some food for thought Masculinity and femininity are based on biology and are not social constructs. Therefore, bashing masculinity is an attack on personal characteristics that are as basic as sexual orientation. It should be considered a form of bigotry. Many of the attributes listed under “toxic masculinity” - like stoicism, lesser sociability, lesser empathy, dominance and aggression - are, in fact, intrinsic of being male. They need to be treated with the same understanding as the biological disadvantages of women - such as lower pain tolerance and higher fear and anxiety. The biological propensity of men to violence need to be recognized and addressed. Young men need to be educated since puberty in how to control their anger and aggression, instead of being told that “all emotions are natural”. We all need to learn about the different emotional and cognitive styles of the opposite sex and use that knowledge to improve our relationships with friends, coworkers and intimate partners. Gender may be a social construct, but it is built upon a solid biological sex binary. Attempts to deconstruct gender disregarding the biological reality of sex differences risk fighting against some of the basic things that make us human. References Archer J (2019) The reality and evolutionary significance of human psychological sex differences. Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 94:1381-1415. Burnham TC (2007) High-testosterone men reject low ultimatum game offers. Proceedings Biological sciences 274:2327-2330. Canli T, Desmond JE, Zhao Z, Gabrieli JD (2002) Sex differences in the neural basis of emotional memories. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 99:10789-10794. Dan R, Canetti L, Keadan T, Segman R, Weinstock M, Bonne O, Reuveni I, Goelman G (2019) Sex differences during emotion processing are dependent on the menstrual cycle phase. Psychoneuroendocrinology 100:85-95. Dreher JC, Dunne S, Pazderska A, Frodl T, Nolan JJ, O'Doherty JP (2016) Testosterone causes both prosocial and antisocial status-enhancing behaviors in human males. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:11633-11638. Guapo VG, Graeff FG, Zani AC, Labate CM, dos Reis RM, Del-Ben CM (2009) Effects of sex hormonal levels and phases of the menstrual cycle in the processing of emotional faces. Psychoneuroendocrinology 34:1087-1094. Haller J (2018) The role of central and medial amygdala in normal and abnormal aggression: A review of classical approaches. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 85:34-43. Hyde JS (2005) The gender similarities hypothesis. The American psychologist 60:581-592. Popova NK, Nikulina EM, Kulikov AV (1993) Genetic analysis of different kinds of aggressive behavior. Behavior genetics 23:491-497. Zak PJ, Kurzban R, Ahmadi S, Swerdloff RS, Park J, Efremidze L, Redwine K, Morgan K, Matzner W (2009) Testosterone administration decreases generosity in the ultimatum game. PLoS One 4:e8330. Zheng L, Ning R, Li L, Wei C, Cheng X, Zhou C, Guo X (2017) Gender Differences in Behavioral and Neural Responses to Unfairness Under Social Pressure. Scientific reports 7:13498.

How to plug the power drains that hinder flow Flow If you are devoted to activities that require creativity and self-improvement, you may have heard about flow and want to achieve it. Flow was defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as “an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best” (Kotler et al., 2022). Perhaps a better definition of flow is as a mental state  of focused attention on a task—which can be an art, a mental activity or a sport—without apparent effort (“effortless effort”). Csikszentmihalyi gave flow these six characteristics: Focused attention on a task. Merging of action and awareness. Decreased self-awareness. Altered perception of time, which either speeds up or slows down. Feeling of complete control. Positive emotions like joy, pleasure, euphoria, meaning and purpose. In another article, I explored the neuronal circuits in the brain activated during flow. The Neuroscience of Flow  ( Medium , Substack , Sex, Science & Spirit ).   This article gives some practical advice about how to maintain flow. I found this valuable information in the book The Rock Warrior’s Way , by Arno Ilgner. The book is about how to achieve the optimal mental state for rock climbing, which is a sport often cited as an example of flow. However, this advice can be easily translated into any activity that improves with flow, like sports, writing, playing music, dancing or any art. The advice also applies to living in general. Arno Ilgner based his book on a life philosophy called the Way of the Warrior. I have written about it in another article: The Way of the Warrior: A Philosophy of Life Based on Egoless Action ( Medium , Sex, Science & Spirit ). Acting impeccably In the Way of the Warrior, achieving flow is called acting impeccably . This should not be confused with perfectionism. Impeccable action is not flawless, but acting in a way in which we are completely focused on what we are doing. We do not hold back, but became totally committed to our endeavor . Perfectionism, on the other hand, seeks perfection and leads to internal criticism when the inevitable mistakes are made . It is goal-oriented. Our ego wants to be rewarded with pride for achieving our goal. It fears the shame that comes with failure. If we don’t get the gold medal, if there are flaws in the final result, the ego will not be satisfied. Impeccable action centers on the process, not on the final result. Complete focus on a task involves experimenting and creativity, which may lead to some failures. This is not bad, because trial and error increases our learning and keeps us focused on our engagement with the world, not on our ego. “Decreased self-awareness” is characteristic number 3 of flow, and it is driven by the deactivation of the medial prefrontal cortex, which mediates self-awareness. Personal power When we repeatedly enter flow it becomes a mental habit, so it is easier to achieve. The neuronal circuits that mediate flow becomes strengthened by repetition, so our brain switches them on more readily. In the parlance of the Way of the Warrior, this is called collecting personal power . This power is not power over others or over the world. Is a form of soft control over ourselves that allows us to do things with the entirety of our being, with less apparent effort. It is the habit of entering flow. What are power drains? Power drains are things that make us lose personal power, taking us back to ego-centered behavior. In other words, power drains are the things that take us out of flow. Flow is not muscle memory. It is not doing something that we have done so many times that it has become easy for us. We achieve flow when we engage in a challenging task that we can only do by giving it our best. Challenges are inherently frustrating. We may try and fail. We may fall while climbing or skiing. We may write something and realize that it is not very good and requires a lot of editing, if not a full rewrite. We may have to paint over what we have already painted. When we let that frustration take us out of flow, we are facing a power drain. Power drains are emotional reactions that take our focus away from the task into ego-centered thoughts. The ego tries to defend itself from the shame of failure by putting the focus on something that is not us. Three examples of power drains are blaming, wishing and hoping. This may sound surprising because these are things that are encouraged by our culture. Sadly, even more so by the culture of political correctness that today is associated with the Left. No blaming A couple of weeks ago, I was climbing a difficult crack in Yosemite—rated 5.10d on a scale from 5.0 to 5.15 , with lowercase letters indicating further subdivisions in difficulty . My climbing limit is 5.10a, so I was pushing myself. The fact that a nine-year-old boy had just completed the route was no balm for my ego. I was managing to get good grips by inserting my fingertips in the thin crack, by my feet found no purchase and kept slipping. I kept falling and dangling from the rope, which ran through carabiners at the top of the route and then into the hands of the climber belaying me . “The soles of your shoes are no good,” said my belayer, trying to encourage me. “Yeah, I should have resoled those shoes,” I thought, “they are not as good as the shoes of the other climbers.” Fortunately, I identified that thought as a power drain. I was blaming my shoes, instead of focusing on working with what I had and giving that route my best. It was a great opportunity to learn how to climb thin cracks and take my game to the next level. I managed to finish the route with some falls. Often, what we blame is not other people, but some less-than-perfect condition that supposedly explains why we are not performing as well as our ego expects. You can see how perfectionism sneaks itself in here: we won’t perform our task unless conditions are perfect. I needed perfect soles in my shoes to climb that route. The trick is to always blame something external, something that is not us. Blaming is finding excuses. Of course, we may blame other people, too. For example, when we are part of a team. Creating a habit of personal accountability is a good way to keep away our tendency to blame . However, this should not lead us to beat upon ourselves. Self-shaming comes from the ego and is just another power drain. Blaming is not an ethical issue. It is not morally wrong. It could be in some instances, but that is not the issue here. The issue is that it breaks our focus by distracting us and sapping the emotional strength that we need to perform our task. No wishing “If you wish upon a star…” It’s funny how Disney and other elements of our culture have glamorized wishing. They have implanted in us the superstition that if we wish for something strongly enough, it will come true. This could be rationalized as the idea that wishing increases our motivation, and that makes us work harder towards achieving our goal. The problem with this reasoning is that when we focus on the goal and not on the action, we become less effective. The neuroscience of flow shows that achieving it requires turning off the ego—the medial frontal cortex—, while wishing is inherently ego-based. Of course, this is also connected to a religion that teaches us that we can achieve things by praying. When you stop to think about it, a God that acts like a dispensing machine is a rather odd idea: “Insert prayer here, get your wish over there.” Who is serving whom? Another form of wishing works hand-in-hand with blaming. Climbing that crack in Yosemite, I thought that the footholds should be better. It wasn’t fair that the crack was so demanding on my upper body and didn’t offer more support for my feet. But rocks are not fair. They are what they are. They are created by natural phenomena, not so we could climb them easier. Likewise, the entire world is not fair. It doesn’t fold to our wishes. Wishing that things were differently lead us nowhere. It just makes us leak power, the focus that we should devote to what we are doing. “By wishing, you try to decrease your discomfort by escaping into a fantasy.” Arno Ilgner, The Rock Warrior’s Way . No hoping Hope is another religious idea. It’s one of the three theological virtues  in Catholicism: faith, hope and charity. “Hope is a combination of the desire for something and expectation of receiving it. The Christian virtue is hoping specifically for Divine union and so eternal happiness. While faith is a function of the intellect, hope is an act of the will.” Hope, Wikipedia . Therefore, hope is linked to wishing: we wish something and we expect to receive it. It has an element of superstition. We believe that, somehow, the world will bend to our wishes and give us what we want. If we are religious, we hope that God will step in and save us from our problems. Unfortunately, this magical thinking has seeped into our psyche and made us weak. Which may be the hidden agenda of religion: to make us dependent on the Church or whatever priestly class any particular religion has, instead of being able to find our own power. In any case, we find it shocking that hope could be a bad thing. At least, I did, perhaps due to my Catholic upbringing. The secular rationalization of hope is that believing in a better future makes us happy and incentivizes us to fight for a better world. There is some true in that. “According to Snyder , psychological hope consists of three fundamental components: goals, pathways, and agency. This implies that hope necessitates, firstly, an individual having a goal that is deemed desirable, feasible, yet not currently fulfilled (belief); secondly, envisioning a pathway to attain that goal; and thirdly, possessing the capability to act on that pathway toward the defined goal. A lack of agency results in mere ‘wishful hope,’ whereas elevated levels of conviction or commitment lead to an ‘aspirational hope.’” Act of Hope, Wikipedia . The key is to realize that a better world will not happen automatically, but only if we work hard to achieve it. Hoping that the world will become better because of the work of others is inherently exploitative. It’s a free-rider mentality. How does hope become a power drain during flow? “If you hope a situation will turn out the way you want, you’re passively waiting for external influences to determine the outcome. You aren’t thinking actively about what you need to do to achieve what you want.” Arno Ilgner, The Rock Warrior’s Way . By hoping, you place the source of control outside yourself. You hope that the world will change according to your wishes, that somebody else will do the work that you need to do. This is disempowering. You need all your mental resources to respond to the challenge by acting impeccably—by staying in the state of flow. Instead, you waste them by engaging in fantasies that distract you and take you out of flow . Unbendable intention When we refuse to engage in blaming, wishing and hoping and stay focused on the task, we achieve the first two characteristics of flow: focused attention and merging of action and awareness. This leads to a feeling of control, because the outcome depends on what we are doing and not some random events in the world. This ability to avoid distractions and fantasies and stay on task is called unbendable intention . We are driven by our determination to focus on what we are doing. This intention is unbendable because it won’t be derailed by distractions and daydreaming about how the difficulty of what we are doing will change magically. Personal power versus willpower We have been taught the wrong way to do hard stuff. It’s based on a model of the mind in which one part of the mind—the will—controls the other parts. The will has to be strong to avoid being overpowered by the weaker parts of the mind, which are intrinsically lazy, driven by instinct, and inclined to seek pleasure and instant rewards. Therefore, the will has to be strong: we need to have willpower. The neuroscience of flow contradicts this model of the mind. When we enter flow, all parts of the mind work harmoniously to complete our task. There is no sense that one part of the mind controls the others. Instead of a feeling of internal struggle, we experience the ‘effortless effort’ characteristic of flow. And all this is accompanied by feelings of joy, euphoria and pleasure (characteristic number 6 of flow). We do not need to seek pleasure. We already have it. Willpower is driven by the ego. It shows the basic characteristics of ego-based action: it is goal oriented, scared of failure, and driven by pride. In contrast, flow erases the self by turning off the medial prefrontal cortex, which drives concerns about the self. Without a self that tries to achieve something for itself, all the energy goes into acting impeccably. Acting with detachment to the profits of our action is central in many Eastern mystical traditions. It forms the core of the teachings that the god avatar Krishna gives king Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita . In Zen Buddhism is expressed by the ideal of mushotoku : “In Zen, the concept of Mushotoku represents a state of mind where the spirit does not seek to obtain anything.” What is Mushotoku? Not wanting to achieve anything for one-self is key to the practice of zazen, or Zen meditation. It is also essential to practice mindfulness. If we keep wondering if we are doing mindfulness correctly or what benefits are we going to get from it, this would be antithetical to being non-judgmental, which is essential for mindfulness. Therefore, the Way of the Warrior is based on a form of soft self-control that is more effective and happiness-inducing than the willpower of Christianity and Western philosophies.

Stop othering your unconscious to develop an integrated mind The conscious and the unconscious I have come to the realization that we are framing the main problems about the mind—the problem of consciousness and the problem of free will—the wrong way. We think that our subjective experience is all there is in the human mind when, in fact, it is only a small part of what goes on in the mind. One of the silly things we hear said about consciousness is that it is an illusion. It is not; consciousness is real. What is an illusion is to consider it something separated from the rest of the mind, which is unconscious. When you look at the evidence, you realize that there is a fuzzy boundary between the conscious and the unconscious. One flows into the other continuously. As Daniel Dennett  argued in his book Consciousness Explained , whether you consider something that happens in your mind is conscious or unconscious depends on whether you are experiencing it now or trying to remember it later. Something that is clearly conscious now may seem unconscious later because you have forgotten about it. In other words, we are conscious of things that are present in working memory—the desktop space in our mind where we manipulate sensations, ideas, memories and emotions. However, we tend to forget most of the things that were in working memory a moment ago. Then, how do we know that we were conscious of them? The false conflict between the conscious and the unconscious The key issue is, who do we think we are? People automatically think that they are only the conscious part of their minds. Then, everything done by their unconscious seems like is done by somebody else. When they become aware of the strong influence that the unconscious has on them, they feel out of control. It’s like somebody else is running their minds. Then they, inevitably, conclude that we do not have free will. In fact, we are both our conscious and our unconscious, because there is no separation between them. When we realize that we are the totality of our mind, conscious and unconscious, we understand that we really are able to make decisions, which always arise from the unconscious. This sheds a new light on the problem of free will. How the mind works Putting together everything I know about neuroscience, this is how I think our mind works. Our brain is constantly bombarded by a barrage of sensations: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, tastes, pain, itch and inner sensations. These sensations need to be prioritized according to their value for survival and their relevance to what we are doing at the moment. The brain does that by assigning an emotion to each sensation. Sensations that arise strong emotions—for example, pain—are given a higher priority, which is called salience . Other sensations are given priority because they are relevant to what we are doing. For example, if I am rock-climbing, the tactile sensation of the holds in my hands becomes salient. Salient sensations are assembled together in a representation of the world constructed in a working space  in our mind, where it is used to make decisions about what to do next. In my rock-climbing example, the visual representation of the rock wall is put together with the sensations from my hands and feet and the inner sensations about the position of my body and the tension in my muscles. This allows me to make the decision about the next move: I can let go of my right hand without falling and grab that hold that I see within my reach. I am only conscious of what is in the working space at each moment. Consciousness and working space are pretty much the same thing. However, this is only part of the story. The working space works because there are a series of incoming sensations being lined up to enter it in the unconscious part of the mind. Once sensations stop being relevant, they lose salience and are relegated back to the unconscious. The unconscious flow into the conscious and back to the unconscious. If consciousness is a waterfall, the unconscious is the river. The river flows into a waterfall and back into a river. There is no waterfall without the river. How decisions are made But this doesn’t mean that decisions are made by consciousness. During rock-climbing, the assembling of movements to reach the next hold happens unconsciously in the motor cortex and the cerebellum. Even the “go” command to start the action of the next move is given by the unconscious and presented to consciousness after the fact. This is because it takes a relatively long time for a representation to be built in working space—in consciousness—so everything has to happen beforehand. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio summarized this idea by saying “we are always late for consciousness.” Therefore, if I believe that the only decisions that count as having free will are decisions made by consciousness, then I don’t have free will, because every decision is assembled and made by the unconscious. That doesn’t mean that I don’t decide, because that “I” is my unconscious and conscious working together. There is simply no separation between the unconscious and the conscious. That is not how the mind works. Emotions Starting with the famous case of Phineas Gage , and continuing with many experiments done in humans by Antonio Damasio  and his wife Hanna Damasio , there is abundant evidence that emotions are an essential part of decision-making. Every decision involves assigning value to each of the options we have. That value is an emotion, the same way that emotions set the saliency of sensations that determines whether they become conscious or not. Therefore, the old division between the rational and the emotional parts of the mind doesn’t really exist. We reason with our emotions and each reasoning thought is loaded with emotions. We simply do not recognize some of the emotions involved in reasoning because they are not the usual ones—like anger, sadness of fear—but more obscure ones like curiosity, interest, surprise (‘this is unexpected’), discovery (‘aha!’), veracity (‘this is right’) and falsity (‘this is wrong’). Next time you read a bullshit article, pay attention to the strong emotions that arise when you realize that the author is wrong in his reasoning or is making things up. Intuition There is a large unconscious component to reasoning and intelligence because a lot of the information being processed in the mind is too large to be represented in consciousness. Therefore, our unconscious may reach conclusions that, to our conscious mind, seem to appear out of nowhere. That is what we call intuition. Intuition is not magical. It doesn’t come out of our gut. It’s simply unconscious reasoning. While doing science, I often had hunches and sudden inspirations. Although they are accompanied by the strong feeling that they are true, I need to examine then rationality, step by step, to check if they make sense. Intuitions are a dime a dozen. We cannot always trust them; they are often wrong. However, other times my reasoning through them is just reconstructing something that my unconscious has done already. Another kind of intuition is about knowing what other people are feeling and thinking. This is called theory-of-mind and is a unique human faculty. We unconsciously process a lot of information about face expression, tone of voice, body position and sentence construction, which we integrate as an internal representation of the other person’s mind. We feel what they are feeling. We empathize. The ego The ego—or what psychoanalysts call the super-ego—is a part of our unconscious mind that chides us when we do something wrong and takes credit when we succeed. It is based on the opposing emotions of pride and shame. We internalize the admonitions of our parents and teachers and create an internal figure that directs us in our lives. It is particularly strong in successful people and can make them miserable. This could be the origin of the stereotypical depressed winner. There are several problems with the ego. It can become an internal dictator that tries to control everything that happens in our mind. Since it is based on external affirmation, it creates goals that are in disagreement with what we really want, the things that make us happy. It is fixated on goals, not on the process, which prevents us from entering the mental state of flow. When it tries to control other parts of our unconscious, it hinders their activity and stops creativity. Like everything else in the mind, the ego has its place. However, in our over-competitive society, we tend to develop oversized egos that make our lives miserable. The puritanical ethos, religions and certain philosophies encourage growing unhealthy egos and prevent us from seeing the damage they cause. Is there a repressed unconscious? The idea of the subconscious  arose in the 19th century and became the center of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud  realized that we do things for motives different from what we think, usually having to do with sex or childhood trauma. For him, the unconscious exists because we are unable to confront those hidden motives. The repressed unconscious is different from the idea of the unconscious that I explained above. The unconscious is there, not because of repressed ideas and motivations, but because this is the way the brain works. Still, it may be true that some ideas may have enough emotional charge to enter consciousness, but they create such an inner conflict in the mind that some protective mechanism keeps it in the unconscious. However, this is an anomaly and not how the mind usually works. Carl Gustav Jung , another of the fathers of psychoanalysis, proposed the idea of the collective unconscious . It consists of a series of myths and archetypes that we absorb from our culture because they resonate deeply with our psychological needs. The idea of the collective unconscious has been useful to understand literature and art. For example, Joseph Campbell  used it to found the common myths that form part of different cultures and that appear, time and time again, in novels and movies: the Path of the Hero. Expanding consciousness The unconscious is the largest part of our mind, because only a tiny fraction of what we experience at every moment has enough salience to enter consciousness. If it was otherwise, our mental working space would become so crowded that we would not be able to do anything. However, consciousness can work in many modes. It can be hyper-focused in a small set of sensations, ideas and emotions. Or it can be diffused, open to many of the things we experience. It’s like one of those camera objectives that can go from wide angle to telephoto. Many of the things that we do in modern life tend to put our consciousness in a highly focused state. Thus, when we watch a movie we exclude everything except what is on the screen. Something similar happens when we read a book, study or listen to a lecture. This creates a habit of being in a focused state of consciousness. At the extreme, we fall into tunnel vision. Strong emotions make our consciousness become so focused on some idea that it becomes obsessive and we cannot get it out of our mind. In contrast, the hunter-gatherers of our evolutionary environment had to live in a widespread state of consciousness, to be aware of small changes in their environment that could signal the presence of a predator or a social change in their tribe. Mindfulness and some forms of meditation counteract our focused consciousness habits by deliberately pay attention to as many sensations as possible. At the same time, we tune down our emotions by being non-judgmental, so no emotion becomes strong enough to give saliency to any mental content in particular. Drugs like cannabis and psychodelics (psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, etc.) increase the saliency our sensations and scramble the whole process of presenting mental contents to consciousness. That way, a part of the unconscious mind of which we are not usually aware becomes conscious, revealing hidden aspects of ourselves. This is how mindfulness and psychedelics truly expand our consciousness: they widen our range of experience by giving us access to the unconscious. They make consciousness expand into the unconscious. There is no ‘pure consciousness’ There are some mystical ideas about consciousness that are attempts to bring back the religious concept of an immortal soul. Wishful thinking makes us resist that idea that one day we will die: our mind, conscious and conscious, will simply cease to exist. That’s why we are attracted to the idea that our consciousness is a magical thing, impossible to explain, that exists independently of the rest of our mind. That way, we hope that it can somehow detach from our brain when we die and go live somewhere else. People who should know better, like Sam Harris , believe that they can experience pure consciousness . They say that, when they meditate, they experience a state in which there is only consciousness, without any sensations, ideas or emotions to fill that consciousness. Like San Harris, I have done a lot of meditation myself. I have never experienced such a state of pure consciousness. I regarded it as something meditation beginners would say when they experience states of inner silence that they had never experienced before. The inner dialog and constant music that normally plays in our mind go away. It may seem that there are no ideas, no memories, no sensations. Therefore, there is only consciousness. However, this is just an illusion. If there was only consciousness, then we would not be able to remember the experience, because the recording of the experience would be something that fills consciousness. The meditator is telling himself, “I am experiencing pure consciousness,” which is something that is filling their consciousness. Therefore, they are not experiencing pure consciousness. In fact, EEG recordings of experienced Zen monks during meditation show that they become more sensitive to external stimuli, not less (Tomio Hirai, Zen Meditation and Psychotherapy ). Learning to live with your unconscious I center my current spiritual practice in trying to integrate my mind by opening my consciousness to my unconscious. I also try to dispel the illusion that I am my consciousness. Both things can be accomplished by practicing mindfulness to develop meta-attention : the ability to be aware of what we are paying attention to, and how we direct our attention. By doing that, I realize how my mental contents flow in and out of consciousness. By cultivating flow , I experience mental states of selflessness and creativity. In fact, flow means an unimpeded streaming of contents from the unconscious to the conscious. By abandoning the illusion of conscious control over the unconscious mind, we are able to unleash the full creative potential of our mind. Most of the time, I move through life like an unconscious zombie, and that’s okay. When I drive, an unconscious part of my mind is at the wheel. When I ski, my body flows automatically into every turn and, if I try to over-control them, I mess up. When I rock-climb, my conscious mind falters at a seemingly impossible move, but then my body goes and does it, anyway. This doesn’t mean that I go through my life out of control. In fact, people who know me marvel at my self-discipline. I exercise regularly, do not overeat, write for hours every day, and have no bad habits or compulsions. It is not that I have a strong will, but rather that I have reached a good agreement with every part of myself about what ‘we’ want to do. Mental habits The best way to develop self-discipline is to cultivate good habits. Then, the unconscious does what it needs to be done and there is no need for pushing myself and nasty self-lectures. It’s like showering and brushing your teeth: you do it over and over again until there is no question about doing it. The most important habits to cultivate are emotional habits. If you allow yourself to be angry, fearful or sad, you develop an inertia for having those emotions. Conversely, if you cultivate patience, courage and joy, they will have staying power. Likewise, states of consciousness are habit-forming. If you enter flow every day, flow will come naturally to you. If you work at mindfulness, you will have the necessary meta-attention to discover your negative states of mind and correct them. But if you live surrounded by confusion, confrontation and negativity, they would seep into your consciousness as well. The DJ Another thing I do is to become familiar with the different parts of my unconscious mind. I befriend them, instead of trying to control them. For example, there is the DJ. You probably have it, too. It’s the part of your mind in charge of constantly playing songs and music in the background. We all have had the experience of our DJ getting stuck in a sticky song. When that happens, perhaps the DJ is trying to alert you that you are in a low energy state of mind or falling into some negative emotions. The DJ is a nice guy, although sometimes he’s a bit dumb. Talk nicely to him. Tell him: “Hey, DJ, enough of that! How about the song that goes…” Then play a song in your mind for him. More often than not, he will latch on to it. If not, suggest another song. He’s better than Spotify, I tell you! Inner dialog There is also the inner dialog. I have it in two languages, English and Spanish. It’s useful to keep track of what language I speak to myself because I have different personalities in each language. Spanish is the older, emotional and child-like part of me, while English is newer, rational and serious. There is an annoying part of my unconscious that would say nasty things (always in Spanish) when I feel fearful or ashamed. For the longest time, I tried to push it away. Now I have come to realize that it’s a child-like part of me that needs to be reassured and comforted. It lets me know that thing are not as okay as I think; that I need to be more careful about what I am doing. Managing inner dialog is key to many things we do in life. In The Rock Warrior’s Way , Arlo Ilgner explains how inner dialog can be used to direct focus while rock-climbing. This is essential to achieve the famous flow of the climber. Likewise, flow during writing consists of evoking an inner dialog of what we are about to write. The most amazing thing is when I write fiction. I have created several characters that are so fully developed that they speak with their own voice inside my head. I just have to type what I hear them saying. That is, in fact, what happens with inner dialog: we have no choice but to listen to it. However, it can be directed. How to do that involves a subtle negotiation inside yourself, some gentle pushing here and there. Achieving an integrated mind Some parts of your unconscious are childish. They are easily affected by your emotions and often need to be comforted and reassured. Other parts are unexpectedly wise, like an old guru sitting inside your brain. The ego tries to control the other parts, often without much success. Inner dialog and the DJ increase the noise inside your head. Yes, there is a conscious ‘you’ that seems to make decisions and direct the other parts of your mind. The forebrain and the anterior cingulate cortex work together to make decisions. But even large parts of their work remain hidden behind the curtains. A healthy mind is a mind in which all the parts work together, instead of being in conflict with each other. You have to learn to make peace with your unconscious. Only then you will truly integrate your mind. And only an integrated mind is a healthy mind. You cannot integrate your mind if you are othering you unconscious, if you consider it something that is not you. This is perhaps the most difficult task. To let go of the illusion that you are only what you are able to see inside your mind. We need to accept that there are invisible parts of our being that are as much ‘I’ as our consciousness.

Human sexuality does not fit the procreation-centric view promulgated by both religion and evolutionary psychology The procreation-centric view of sex There are two ways of looking at sex. From the scientific standpoint, sex is a biological function to procreate, that is, to pass our genes to future generations. From the personal standpoint, sex is something that we do for pleasure, moved by our sexual desire and our longing for connection and intimacy. We have been convinced by both science and religion that there is no contradiction between these views. Science, and in particular evolutionary psychology, tells us that lust and pleasure are caused by behavioral drives to spread our genes. Furthermore, it says that men and women have different reproductive strategies. Men want to have sex with as many women as possible and so have a higher sex drive. Women, on the other hand, are coy and select their sexual partners with care because they make a higher investment in pregnancy and raising the young. Religions have been promulgating this procreation-centric view of sexuality for centuries. Their puritanical morality says that the only righteous sexual acts are those that produce offspring. However, this sexual morality crashes against our enormous lust, creating endless strife. Hence, both religion and evolutionary psychology tell us the same thing: “Sex is for making babies and not for your selfish pleasure, you pervert!” And yet, this belief creates a cognitive dissonance with the way we live. We are the horniest of all mammal species - with the possible exception of our cousins the bonobos. In Western cultures, as sexual liberation advances, we see that women can be as lustful and promiscuous as men, contradicting the prediction of evolutionary psychology. In fact, when we examine human sexuality more carefully, we find that it departs from the simpleminded predictions of the procreation-centric view in many ways. I summarize them here as seven enigmas of human sexuality. Enigma 1: hidden ovulation and lack of estrous in women If we only fucked to have children, the number of sexual acts we perform in our lives would be much less, by orders of magnitude! Having 10 children per couple is considered an aberration in our culture, but this was pretty normal in the past, especially considering that many of those children would not make it to adulthood. If a couple has sex twice a week, on average, that would add up to 100 sex acts per year. Considering that a person is sexually active from age 20 to age 60 (an underestimate), then a person fucks on average 4,000 times over his or her lifetime. All that to have ten children, at most? Biologically speaking, this is a huge waste. Having sex involves a considerable expenditure of energy. Besides, it was a dangerous activity in our evolutionary environment because it exposed us to predators, aggression from other humans, and sexually transmitted diseases. The reason why humans have so much sex is that, unlike other mammals, women do not have estrus. We are all familiar with the fact that dogs, cats, horses, etc. only have sex during a short period, when the female becomes sexually receptive. Otherwise, the female refuses to be mounted and the males are not attracted to her. Even our close cousins chimps, gorillas and orangutans have estrus. Some mammals follow a yearly cycle in which they reproduce and have offspring once a year. That way, they get to gestate when more food is available or during periods of inactivity such as hibernation. This restraint and conservation of resources make sense from the evolutionary standpoint. Then, why is it not the same in humans? To deepen the mystery, while females in estrus send out signals to attract males —smells, sexual calls, swelling of genitals, behavioral displays— women do not advertise that they are ovulating. Yes, some women notice it and become hornier during those days, but most women don’t. If women knew when they were ovulating, contraception would be easier and infertility treatments would not require looking at the calendar. Unlike other mammal females, women are receptive to sex throughout their menstrual cycle. Some women even report being hornier when they menstruate, the time when they are the least fertile. Why are we different from other mammals in this? Enigma 2: female orgasms and the location of the clitoris There are two drives for sex: sexual desire and pleasure. Most animals experience a compelling impulse to have sex when in estrus, in the case of the female, or when exposed to a female in estrus, in the case of the male. In humans, sexual desire is less compelling but constant. Animals also seem to experience sexual pleasure during sex, although their copulation is typically much shorter than ours. In humans, sexual pleasure seems to be more intense. Sexual pleasure seems to be stronger in women than in men. Women’s orgasms are more intense and last longer than the orgasms of men. Moreover, while men have a refractory period after ejaculating, women can have multiple orgasms. It seems that evolution created a stronger motivation for women to have sex. Evolution did something even weirder to women: it placed the clitoris away from the vagina. This doesn’t make sense. If the goal of sexual pleasure is to motivate sexual intercourse, then the most sensitive source of pleasure should have been placed where it can be stimulated by the penis. Cats, pigs and a lot of other mammals have clitorises inside the vagina. It is as if evolution wanted to motivate women to masturbate or receive oral sex instead of the old-fashion penis-in-vagina fucking. But masturbation and oral sex don’t make children, so what gives? Enigma 3: menopause Not only do women have sex when they are not ovulating, but they also do it after menopause, when they cannot become pregnant. Granted, some women experience a decrease in sexual desire after menopause, but many of them continue to have sexual desire. Most older women maintain a healthy sexual life. An additional issue is that menopause is unique to humans, being absent in almost all other mammals. The only other animals that have menopause are a few species of toothed whales. Menopause is not simply becoming too old to get pregnant, but a programmed change in women’s bodies that shuts down ovulation and menstrual cycles in the course of a couple of years. This rather sudden cessation of ovulation does not happen in other mammals. Instead, their estrous cycles become more irregular and infrequent. Enigma 4: sexual shame and voyeurism Everybody experiences sexual shame, one way or another. We attribute it to religion and our puritanical upbringing, but it may be deeper than that. Even progressives, skeptics and atheists tend to develop their own forms of sex-shaming as they free themselves from religion. In fact, all human societies seem to consider sex shameful. In the book of Genesis, sexual shame was one of the punishments for eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Sexual taboos change from culture to culture, but there are always some involving being seen naked or having sex. Even in tropical societies that use little clothing, adults cover their genitals. The flip side of sexual shame is voyeurism. We enjoy watching and hearing others having sex. That’s why porn and erotica are so universally successful. We also like to gossip about sex. Why do we hide from view when we fuck and at the same time enjoy catching others in the sexual act? Enigma 5: penis size The human penis is larger relative to body size than the penises of other mammals. For example, a male gorilla weighs twice as much as a man, but it has a much smaller penis: 3 centimeters or 1.25 inches. This has been taken as an indication of the overactive sexuality of humans, but there is no real reason for this. Small cocks can give as much pleasure as large ones. A more accepted hypothesis is that large penises have evolved to attract females, but I fail to see the evolutionary advantage of women being attracted to large cocks. Some women are, but hardly most of them. A similar idea is that a large penis would intimidate or inspire admiration in competing males. But, again, that does not seem tenable. Men are intimidated by the size and the muscles of other men, but not so much by their penises. Which are hidden in response to sexual taboos most of the time, anyway. Enigma 6: homosexuality and bisexuality Since a sex act between two males or two females does not produce offspring, homosexuality should have been quickly culled by natural selection. And yet it is widespread in the animal kingdom. For example, in his book Chimpanzee Politics the primatologist Frans de Waal documents the sexual behavior of a lesbian chimpanzee. And albatrosses have been seen forming female-female couples. However, some have cautioned about applying human cultural categories to animals. What is clear is that 8-10% of men or women have purely homosexual behavior, while a larger percentage are bisexual. Women seem to have a greater facility than men to switch over to same-sex acts. Views of human sexuality centered on procreation have a hard time explaining the emergence of this large amount of homosexual acts. Enigma 7: fetishism, sadomasochism, dominance-submission and other kinks Homosexuality is just the beginning of the weirdness of human sexual behavior. There are many kinks that turn us on, and none of them have anything to do with making babies. Some people say that anything can be turned into a sexual fetish, but in reality they tend to fall under a few common themes: body parts, clothing, age and power exchange. In their book A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam identified these themes by analyzing internet searches for porn. Even the most vanilla sex is full of rituals and objects that make it more exciting, like lingerie, candlelight and vibrators. And our sexual lives are not limited to sexual intercourse, but intermingle with our life as flirtations, daydreams and reading erotica. Something similar happens regarding food: we don’t just eat to feed ourselves, but we turn it into the arts of cooking and gastronomy. Power exchange is an interesting aspect of eroticism. It consists of giving one of the sexual partners power over the other by using bondage, pain (sadomasochism) or psychological domination (dominance-submission). This seems to emphasize an aspect of sex by which the penetrator is seen as dominant and the one being penetrated as submissive. The use of sex to establish social hierarchy is observed in many species of primates, which could be a clue to explain why power exchange is erotic in humans. In humans, sex was co-opted for bonding Of course, these seven enigmas are adaptations that ultimately increase our chances of winning the game of natural selection. However, in the case of the human species the evolutionary logic is not as simple as the narratives commonly presented by evolutionary psychology. There are two basic reproductive strategies: Have a lot of offspring and invest very little energy in them, Have few offspring and take good care of them to increase their chances of survival. Humans are an extreme case of the second strategy. There is an important fact that is missed in many discussions of evolutionary psychology. The reproduction game is not won when we have offspring, but when our offspring is also able to reproduce. A reproductive strategy that produces lots of offspring that does not survive to adulthood is a losing game. And this is particularly important in the case of humans. The slow growth of the human brain means that we have to take care of our children for at least 15 years until they reach their reproductive age. In our evolutionary environment of adaptation, it was impossible for a couple to take care of a child for that long. It took a village to do that. And a village, or a tribe, requires some complex mechanisms to ensure cooperation, discourage selfishness, and establish social hierarchies. Sex, then, evolved away from its role for straightforward reproduction and into a mechanism for social bonding and the establishment of hierarchy. Often, during evolution, an organ that evolved for one particular function is co-opted for another. For example, although teeth evolved to tear and mince food, in elephants, narwhals and boars they turned into tusks to be used as weapons. Similarly, in humans, sex became a tool for social bonding. How sex for bonding explains the enigmas of human sexuality Sexual acts became more frequent and women became more interested in them because every sexual act promoted bonding by releasing the social hormone oxytocin. Ovulation became hidden in women so men wouldn’t know what children were their offspring. Therefore, they became invested in protecting all children of the tribe. Female orgasms became stronger to motivate women to have sex, compensating them for the risks of pregnancy. The clitoris became located away from the vagina because non-penetrative sex produces as much bonding as penis-in-vagina sex, while being less dangerous for the health of women. Menopause evolved because it is more advantageous reproductively for older women to care for their grandchildren than to have more children of their own — the grandmother hypothesis. Penises grew larger to fit larger vaginas, which are needed to pass the heads of our big-brained babies. Homosexuality and bisexuality evolved so that same-sex members of the tribe could bond with each other. Sexual shame, voyeurism and gossip evolved because the social hierarchy of the tribe was established in great measure by who fucked whom. This was not limited to people of the same sex. Sexual power exchange developed because being the receptive or the active partner during sex became imbued of power symbolism. However, this is not as simple as it seems, because having sex with a person high in the social hierarchy became a way of gaining social status, no matter if it was in a sexually passive or active role. Like grooming in monkeys, who you have sex with designates your place in the social hierarchy of the tribe. As culture became a critical aspect for survival, sexual rituals, fetishes and taboos became integrated into human sexuality. Conclusion: human sex is not just for making babies So there you have it: human sexuality is not just for making babies. Religions that declare sex-for-fun a sin because “it is not natural” are wrong. And so are evolutionary psychologists with their simplistic explanations of sex as a competition to see who can have more children, with men and women have conflicting interests in that competition. That may be true for animals, but not for us. Human sexuality is not a simple biological function, as it is in other animals. It is, literally, “making love” — a profound force that binds us together, not just as couples, but as members of a society crisscrossed by profound erotic currents. Sex is not an animal act, but a complex and beautiful art that gets integrated into our cultures and makes us uniquely human. Some of these ideas are defended in the book Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. An opposing view based on the standard view of evolutionary psychology can be found in the book Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior, by Peter Gray and Justin Garcia. © 2020 Hermes Solenzol

Real-life examples of man and bear encounters in the woods Man She walks to the swimming hole just as he dives into the cold water. She catches a glimpse of his naked buttocks sticking into the air. They are pale, hairless and deliciously round. He surfaces, wipes the water from his eyes, and sees her. He has a short beard, green eyes and hair that falls in cute curls down his forehead. He’s gorgeous. His clothes lay piled on a rock nearby. “Oh! Hi there!” he says. “Sorry, I’m naked! I didn’t expect anybody to hike this far up Lundy Canyon today.” “Oh, I don’t mind at all! In fact, I think I’ll do the same thing. It’s hot today!” She drops her backpack, pulls out her sneakers without bothering to untie the laces, gets rid of her socks. Her shirt, bra, shorts and panties soon are piled on the rock next to his clothes. He stands on the river bed, the water up to his shapely pecs. He’s shaved down there, his uncut cock slowly waving in the current. She steps into the water. The cold cuts her feet like a knife. “Wow! It’s freezing!” “I love it! But you have to get used to it. I take a cold shower every day. It’s very healthy!” Wow! A manly man! But if she wants him, she has to stand up to his game. Without thinking twice, she drops into the deeper part of the pool. She comes out gasping for air. The cold water makes her whole body hurt. He is climbing the rocks of the shore, offering her an unrestricted view of his perfect bottom and muscular thighs. He grabs his fleece jacked and starts towering himself with it. He looks down at her, freezing in the water, teeth chattering. “Got to catch up with my boyfriend before he gets too far ahead,” he says. “Nice talking to you!” Bear She aims her rifle at the black bear. It scratches at a log, licks something from it. She will teach the boys in town. They think only they can hunt. Ha! She squeezes the trigger. The bear jumps in the air when the bullet hits him. Then falls to the ground, convulsing in agony. “I got him! Yay!” She walks slowly to the bear. Kicks him. He surely is dead. She leans her rifle against the log and takes out her hunting knife. She rolls the bear on his back. With the knife, she makes a long incision down his chest. It will be hard work, but the bear's skin will do a great job as a rug in her living room. She hears steps on her side. Looks up with alarm. A bear cub has come out of the bushes, staring with a sad look. She looks down at the chest she has begun skinning. Notices the nipple there. Man “Good God! You scared me!” “¡Señora, por favor, un poco de agua! ¡Me muero de sed!¨ “I don’t understand a word you’re saying… What were you thinking, jumping out of the bushes like that!” The man approaches her, extending his hands helplessly before him. “Por favor, deme algo de agua para mi mujer y mi hija. Las tuve que dejar atrás. Ya no podían caminar más.” “What are you trying to do? Rape me? I have Mace, I warn you!” The man stares anxiously at the plastic tube sticking out of her backpack. “Stop staring at my tits, you creep!” She reaches for the container of bear maze in the side pocket of her backpack. “¡Sólo un sorbito de agua, se lo suplico!” He stumbles forward, grasping for the tube. She sprays Mace right into his face. “¡Ay! ¡Ay, qué dolor, por favor! ¿Pero yo qué le he hecho? ¡Yo sólo quería un poco de agua!” He brings his hands to his face, bends over and falls to his knees. “That will teach you to try to assault a woman, you creep! Now, go back to your country! We don’t want dirty scum like you in America!” Bear “Heavens! A grizzly!” The humongous bear has come into view suddenly. It completely blocks the trail. It looks at her menacingly. Slowly, it raises up to stand on its hind legs. It’s taller than her. If she runs, the bear will catch up with her in a matter of seconds. Luckily, she’s come prepared. There are many dangers in these woods in Montana. In fact, a grizzly bear is not the worst thing that can happen. A man would be much worse. She draws the handgun from its holster just in time. The bear falls back on its four legs and charges. She aims at its head and fires. She has time to squeeze the trigger twice before the bear falls on her. Its jaws go straight for the gun, as if he knows that’s where danger lays. The bite almost cuts her wrist clean off. The bears front paws fall on her hips with full force. Then the bear walks away. She cannot walk. With her left hand, she undoes her shoelaces and makes a tourniquet to stop the blood flow in her wrist. Just in time before she passed out. She wakes up in the hospital. Her first instinct is to look at her right arm. The bandages stop a bit further down the elbow. There is nothing beyond that. A gray-haired lady with a clipboard gives her a sad look from the end of the bed. “They had to amputate it. Your hand was necrotic by the time that man found you.” “God, no! How am I going to live without my right hand.” “And that’s not the worst of it… There is no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it… That bear broke your spine. You are paralyzed from the waist down.” “No! They can do something! They can cure me… Can’t they?” The gray-haired lady just shakes her head. “You are lucky that man found you. Nobody goes up that trail.” “Lucky? Oh, God! I wish that bear had killed me!” Copyright 2014 Hermes Solenzol

The number of papers using computer models in biomedical research is insignificant compared with those using animals The claim: computer models are replacing animals in scientific research The buzz is everywhere when animal research is mentioned: experiments in animals are outdated because computer models are replacing them. You may have read statements like these: “Researchers have developed a wide range of sophisticated computer models that simulate human biology and the progression of developing diseases. Studies show that these models can accurately predict the ways that new drugs will react in the human body and replace the use of animals in exploratory research and many standard drug tests.” PETA. “Sophisticated computer models use existing information (instead of carrying out more animal tests) to predict how a medicine or chemical, such as drain cleaner or lawn fertilizer, might affect a human.” The Humane Society of the United States. “But research shows computer simulations of the heart have the potential to improve drug development for patients and reduce the need for animal testing.” Scientific American. “Beginning in 2012, the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program began a multi-year transition to validate and more efficiently use computational toxicology methods and high-throughput approaches that allow the EPA to more quickly and cost-effectively screen for potential endocrine effects. In 2017 and 2018, ORD and OCSPP worked with other federal partners to compile a large body of legacy toxicity studies that was used to develop computer-based models to predict acute toxicity without the use of animals.” Directive to Prioritize Efforts to Reduce Animal Testing memorandum by Andrew R. Wheeler, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, September 10, 2019. Papers using animals, mice, rats and non-mammals There is a way to check if these claims are true. The final product of scientific research is scientific articles. Therefore, we can compare the number of papers generated with computer models with those that used animal research to evaluate the actual productivity of the two approaches. An additional problem is that a tally of the number of animals used in research is not kept for many species, including mice, rats, birds and fish. However, every paper published must report the animal species that was used. A good place to start is to look at the number of papers using all animals, mice, rats, rodents (rats & mice) and non-mammals (birds, fish, insects, worms, etc.). Figure 1 shows that the number of papers using any kind of animals increased linearly from 1975 to 2017, reaching well over 100,000 papers per year. A large fraction of these papers are from research on rodents. Their number increase in parallel with the number of papers using all animals. However, studies using rats remained constant since 1990, while the number of papers using mice increased exponentially in that period of time. The blue line in the graph is an exponential curve, which provides an excellent fit for the mouse data. Therefore, scientists have been dropping rats in favor of mice, likely because of the increasing availability of transgenic mice, which allow performing sophisticated experiments. The number of papers using non-mammals (mostly birds, fish, insects and worms) has also been increasing exponentially, and recently surpassed the number of studies using rats. Papers on humans and clinical trials A search with the MeSH Term ‘animal’ without excluding humans yields a very high number of papers. This is because there are numerous papers on humans. They are shown in Figure 2 together with the results for non-human animals and mice or rats. Note the change in the scale of the Y-axis from Figure 1. Clearly, there are many more papers on humans than on animals. They increase exponentially, while the studies on animals increase linearly, so that the difference between the two becomes greater with time. While in 1975 the number of papers on humans was roughly the double of the papers on animals, today there are six studies on humans for every study on animals. However, this does not mean that animal research is being replaced with research on humans. Strictly speaking, research on humans is conducted in clinical trials, so let us see what happens when we do a PubMed search on clinical trials. Looking at the Y-axis scale of Figure 3, we can see that papers reporting clinical trials are much less numerous than papers on humans in Figure 2. In 2017, there was one clinical for every 50 papers on humans. This is because most papers on humans are medical case reports, epidemiological studies and other medical observations. These could be considered research, but certainly not the kind of research on physiological and biochemical mechanisms that can replace animal research. The number of clinical trials has increased over time, but does not follow a clear trend, either linear or exponential (Figure 3). There was a steep drop around 1990 followed by a rapid increase up to 2003. Since then, the number of clinical trials has remained constant. The result of my search is consistent with the reports in ClinicalTrials.gov, which lists 268,786 completed clinical trials in 2024. Since each clinical trial takes several years to run, this is consistent with the annual number of clinical trials shown in Figure 3. Papers using computer models Now we have enough background information to compare the number of papers using computer models with those reporting research on humans and of animals. Figure 4 shows the evolution in the number of papers using computer models over time. Again, note the big difference in the Y-axis scale with Figure 1. As we could expect, barely any papers using computer models were published before 1985. After that, the number of studies increased slowly until 2001 and rapidly from 2001 to 2008, when it seems to have stopped growing. At that point, the number of studies using computer models was 40 times less than the number of animal studies. Overall, the number of papers using computer models fits quite well an exponential curve, but this is largely due to their initial growth. However, many of these papers use computer models in combination with animal experiments, not instead of them. As shown in Figure 4, excluding the papers that used animals in addition to computer models reduced the number of papers using computer models in 2017 by almost two-thirds. Moreover, the stagnation in the number of computer model studies after 2008 becomes more apparent. There is even a decrease after 2011. If computer models were replacing animal studies, what we would see is an increase in the papers exclusively using computer models. Instead, what we see is that numerous papers use both computer models and animals. This is probably because the models are used to analyze results obtained with animals. Alternatively, animal experiments could have been used to validate the computer model. Computer modeling categories The MeSH Term ‘computer simulation’ has six different subcategories: Augmented Reality, Cellular Automata, Molecular Docking Simulation, Molecular Dynamics Simulation, Patient-Specific Modeling, Virtual Reality. Searches with ‘augmented reality’ and ‘virtual reality’ as MeSH Terms in PubMed yielded very few hits. “A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. […] Cellular automata have found application in various areas, including physics, theoretical biology and microstructure modeling.” Cellular automaton, Wikipedia. Therefore, cellular automata do not seem to be a replacement for research on animals. According to Wikipedia, molecular dynamics “is a computer simulation method for analyzing the physical movements of atoms and molecules.” It is used in biomedical research to study the 3-dimensional structures of proteins and other biomolecules. Molecular docking is used to study the interaction of small molecules with their ‘docking pockets’ or ‘binding sites’ in proteins like enzymes or neurotransmitter receptors. This is a great tool for designing new drugs that interact with these proteins. However, new drugs designed this way have to be tested in vitro, then on animals and then in clinical trials to be considered useful as medication. The computer model is just the first step in a long process that has to include research on animals. Patient-specific modeling is “the development and application of computational models of human pathophysiology that are individualized to patient-specific data.” It is used to plan surgeries and to model organ function. Clearly, none of these techniques can be used to replace animal research. Rather, they complement it. As we can see in Figure 4, molecular dynamics and molecular docking comprise a good fraction of the recent papers using computer models. Patient-specific modeling generates a very small number of papers. Number of papers with computer models and using different animal species Figure 5 shows a comparison between the number of papers generated in 2015 with computer models, those from clinical trials, and those using different animal species. It shows different bars for all papers with computer models (CM) and for papers with computer models without animals (CM -animals). Most of the papers that year used mice or rats. Computer models produced many fewer papers, and this number was similar to the number of papers on clinical trials. When we consider papers using exclusively computer models, their number was much smaller and comparable with those using dogs, cats and primates. Interestingly, papers using non-human primates are similar in number to those using zebrafish, the fruit fly Drosophila or the worm C. elegans, showing the relative importance of studies in non-mammals and invertebrates. If we add the number of papers using these species, they vastly outnumber the papers using exclusively computer models. Figure 1 shows that the number of papers using any kind of animal in 2015 was 120,000. ‘Replace, reduce and refine’ research on animals — is it working? ‘Replace, reduce and refine’ (the ‘3Rs’) is the approach adopted by scientific institutions since the 1960s to address criticism from animal rights activists. This policy assured the public that the number of animals used in research would be reduced, that animals would be replaced by other methods or by less sentient animals, and that the way animals were used would be refined to decrease animal suffering. While it is true that the ways animals are used in research have improved substantially, the analysis I present in this article shows that the ‘reduce’ and the ‘replace’ objectives are far from being accomplished. It is true that research on charismatic species like monkeys, dogs and cats has been replaced by research on mice. However, it has not been replaced by experiments in vitro or by computer models. Figure 1 shows that, overall, the use of animals in research has been increasing since 1975 and will likely continue to grow in the future. A major part of this increase is due to the exponential growth in the use of mice and non-mammal species. The 3Rs were a foolish promise because the only way we can reduce the use of animals in research is by doing less science. This would imply decreasing scientific progress, which would have a tremendous negative effect on society. We would miss cures for old diseases like cardiovascular problems and new ones like Covid-19. Computer models are not replacing research with animals It is clear is that computer models are not replacing animals in research. The number of studies using computer models is relatively small and is not increasing. When we count only studies that use computer models without animals, their number is smaller and did not increase from 2008 to 2017. At present, many of the papers using computer models deal with molecular dynamics and molecular docking, methods that complement but do not replace animal experiments. These types of papers have been increasing and many include the use of animals. Of course, the number of papers using animals does not reflect the actual number of animals used in research. Studies using monkeys use just a few of them, while papers on mice and rats typically use hundreds of animals. Fruit flies are used by the tens of thousands. However, the number of papers does tell us the relative contribution of each species to the scientific endeavor. Also, given that the number of animals per paper for a given species is not likely to change much over time, an increase in the number of papers for that species is likely to reflect an increase in the number of animals used. The use of animals in research is not being reduced. It continues to increase. Regarding replacement, charismatic species like dogs, cats and monkeys are being replaced by mice and non-mammals. However, animal research overall is clearly not being replaced by computer models. Why computer models will not replace animal research in the future Predictions about the future are risky. Why do I dare to forecast that computers and artificial intelligence (AI) will never replace research on animals? Surely, the rapid growth of computer power will determine that sooner or later biomedical research will move from animals to computer models. Right? Well, no. There are some fundamental issues that determine that, for the foreseeable future, we will need the actual bodies of animals or humans to extract information from them. Even though future computers will help enormously to accelerate biomedical research, they will not be able to tell us what happens inside our bodies or the bodies of animals. We will have to look inside those bodies and tell the computers. The reason for this lies in the nature of life itself. Living beings have been created by evolution, which is a contingent process. The word ‘contingent’ means that there is an element of randomness in a process that makes it impossible to predict its outcome. In the words of evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, if we went back in time and run evolution again, we would end up with a completely different set of living beings. While natural selection funnels the direction of evolution through the survival of the fittest, it sits on top of random mutations and genetic drifts, which are non-deterministic processes. It is impossible to know what the animals species on planet Earth will look like a million years from today. All the enzymes, intracellular signaling pathways, ion channels, neurotransmitter receptors, hormone receptors, membrane transporters, etc., responsible for the functioning of our bodies were created by contingent processes. Not entirely random, but still impossible to predict. For example, imagine that you were to design a new car. You will be constrained by physics if you wanted the car to work, but the car could still have infinite different looks. It may have four wheels, or three, or six. It could ride high as a truck or low as a sport car. An external observer could not predict how it would look and how it would work. Likewise, if you told a computer ‘find out how neurons in the spinal cord process pain’, the computer would not be able to tell you. Somebody would have to look at those neurons and find out. You have to feed that information to a computer before it can do anything with it. The amount of information in our bodies, in each of our cells, is staggering. We have barely started to scratch it. The human genome contains 20,000 to 25,000 genes, and we still don’t know what most of them do. A computer, no matter how powerful, is not going to tell us. And knowing what each of those genes does is only a small part of the story. We need to know how the proteins encoded by those genes interact with each other to generate metabolism. The only way to do that is to take the body of an animal and look inside. A computer cannot guess what goes on inside the body, just like it cannot guess the content of a book that it has not read. The mirage of the computer revolution The advancement of computer technology in the information revolution has been so amazing that we have become convinced that there is nothing an advanced computer can’t do. That is why it is so easy for animal rights organizations to convince the public that we can eliminate animal research and replace it with computer models. Even organizations that supposedly defend animal research have helped this misconception by promoting the idea that eventually it will be replaced (one of the three Rs) by computer models, in vitro research or clinical trials. That is simply not true. As I have shown here, as scientific productivity increases, so does the use of animals. What has happened is that we are using fewer animals of some species (dogs, cats, rabbits and primates) by using more animals of other species, like mice and zebrafish. Research using computer models is relatively small and is not growing fast enough to ever catch up with animal research. Computers can do amazing things, but they cannot guess information that they do not have. That is why computer models will never replace animal research. There are limits to what is possible, and this is one of them. How I made the graphs: data mining in PubMed There is a freely accessible repository of all the papers published anywhere in the world: PubMed. It is run by the United States government, specifically by the US National Library of Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In PubMed, you can do keyword searches to find articles on any topic, so I used it for data-mining to compare the number of papers using animal research and computer models. In the “Search results” page, there is a nifty graphic on the top left, with bars representing the number of papers per year containing the keyword used in the search. Below is a “Download CSV” link that allows you to get those numbers in a spreadsheet. I imported the numbers into a graphics program (Prism 8, by GraphPad) to create the graphics that I am going to show you. There are several ways to enter a keyword in a PubMed search. You can search for the keyword anywhere in the article (“All Fields”). However, this was not useful for my goal because if an article mentions “computer model”, this does not mean that this was the primary method used in the paper. My favorite method to restrict a search is to look for the keyword only in the title or the abstract of the paper (“Title/Abstract”). Still, this is not optimal because different authors may use different words for the same concept. For example, the terms “computer model” and “computer simulation” are synonyms. To deal with the problem of synonyms, PubMed uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH homepage, Wikipedia), a sort of thesaurus to facilitate searching by linking synonymous terms, so if you enter one of them it retrieves all the terms that are related. This is called doing an “extended search”. PubMed can perform MeSH searches by MeSH Major Topic, MeSH Subheading or MeSH Terms. These different types of MeSH record types are explained here. A descriptor, Main Heading or Major Topic are terms used to describe the subject of each article. Qualifiers or Subheadings are used together with descriptors to provide more specificity. Entry Terms are “synonyms or closely related terms that are cross-referenced to descriptors”. Therefore, I performed my searches using MeSH Terms to avoid having to find the exact wording of a MeSH Major Topic. When you introduce a keyword as MeSH Term, for example ‘mice’, PubMed searches that word and all its synonyms, in this case ‘mouse’, ‘Mus’ and ‘Mus Musculus’. The figures that I show represent the number of papers in the period 1975-2017, because 1975 seems to be the year when PubMed starts gathering most of the papers written in the world. Records appear incomplete before that date. It seems that it takes up to two years for PubMed to complete its collection of citations, since the number of papers in every search drops substantially during the last two years. Hence, I excluded data from 2018 to 2019. This article was originally published in 2019 on the website Speaking of Research and then deleted. I am re-publishing the original version, so my research does not extend to 2024. Also, because the Covid-19 pandemic closed labs for a couple of years, scientific productivity was anomalous after 2020.

It treats erectile dysfunction and has beneficial effects on prostate enlargement, cardiovascular problems and other diseases Viagra has a bad press. Many experts, when discussing erectile dysfunction (ED), will tell you that Viagra can eliminate it, but… there is always a “but.” Maybe they’ll say something about addressing the psychological causes of ED. Other times is some drivel about “aging naturally.” Often, it’s the inevitable “but what about the women?” feminist swerve. A lot of ideology comes into play when discussing something that links men and sex so intimately. Let me start by clarifying that Viagra is the commercial name for sildenafil, which is just the best known compound of a class of drugs called phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors. I used Viagra in the title because of its name recognition, but this article is about all PDE5 inhibitors. This article is a summary of the scientific information about PDE5 inhibitors written in accessible language. I want to address this controversial subject with scientific rigor, so I support what I say with references to scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. I use links to Wikipedia to back well-established knowledge. Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor. This article is for information purposes and should not be considered medical advice. In the USA and many other countries, PDE5 inhibitors are prescription-only. Before taking them, you should always consult your doctor. Buy them from a reputable pharmacy. How erections work To penetrate the vagina and to be able to thrust during sex, the penis must be hard. There are many ways to achieve an erection. Penises could have a bone inside—in fact, the penises of dogs,  wolves, gorillas and chimps have it (it is called baculum). There could be a muscle inside the penis that contracts to achieve that hardness, as happens for nipple erection. In humans, erections are achieved by pumping the penis full of blood. This happens even in animals with a baculum. In the stem of the penis there are two large bodies, called the corpora cavernosa, that are filled with blood during an erection. The corpus spongiosum, which runs along the urethra and fills the glans, also fills with blood, but to a lesser extent. The mechanism that keeps the blood in the penis is counter-intuitive, but key to understand how PDE5 inhibitors enhance erections. Erections are initiated by erotic stimuli in the brain. This mental state of sexual arousal activates nerves in the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls the cardiovascular state of the body: how fast the hard beats and the contraction of the arteries that set blood pressure. A particular set of parasympathetic nerves goes from the sacral spinal cord to the penis. There, they release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which acts on receptors on other neurons and  endothelial cells to make them release nitric oxide (NO) (Goldstein et al., 2019). NO is a gas that acts as a neurotransmitter. It diffuses from the endothelial cells into the walls of the trabecular arteries inside the corpora cavernosa, penetrating the smooth muscle cells that control the dilation of these arteries. Smooth muscle is quite different from the striated muscle that we use to move and exercise. Its contraction is involuntary. It is involved in the functioning of hollow organs like the arteries, stomach, intestines, bladder and uterus. The smooth muscle in the walls of the arteries determines blood pressure and the blood flow into particular parts of the body. Here, we are interested in blood flow into the penis. The counterintuitive part is that relaxation of smooth muscle is what makes the penis hard, while relaxation of other muscles makes them flaccid. The more relaxed the smooth muscle, the wider the arteries. Wider arteries mean more blood flow into the corpora cavernosa. This causes erection by making the corpora cavernosa inflate like two elongated balloons. At the same time, the veins that drain blood from corpora cavernosa are compressed by its expansion, making sure that blood stays inside the penis. How Viagra and other PDE5 inhibitors increase erections In the smooth muscle cells, NO activates the enzyme guanylate cyclase, which produces the second messenger cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). cGMP activates protein kinase G, which opens calcium-dependent potassium channels in the membrane of the smooth muscle cells. The resulting increase in membrane potential (hyperpolarization) reduces their contraction. In turn, cGMP is degraded by a series of enzymes called cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (abbreviated here as PDE), of which there are 11 families (PDE-1 through PDE-11). PDE5 is  particularly active in the trabecular arteries of the penis (Wang et al., 2023). Since cGMP is necessary for smooth muscle relaxation, the pooling of blood in the corpora cavernosa and erection, the more active PDE5, the less of an erection. Viagra, Cialis and similar drugs inhibit PDE5, so they increase erections. Erectile dysfunction (ED) “Erectile dysfunction (ED) is defined as the consistent inability to attain and maintain an erection sufficient to perform satisfactory sexual intercourse.” (Wang et al., 2023) In the United States, ED affects between 14.6% and 33.7% of men, according to two surveys done in 2011 (Goldstein et al., 2019). ED increases with age: it is present in 64% of men over 40 and in 70% of men over 70 (Wang et al., 2023). Contrary to what you hear from anti-porn and anti-masturbation ideologues, viewing porn or masturbating does not cause ED. This was demonstrated in a study with a sample size of 3,586 men (Rowland et al., 2022). Quoting from the abstract of that paper: Results indicated that frequency of pornography use was unrelated to either erectile functioning or erectile dysfunction (ED) severity […]. Masturbation frequency was also only weakly and inconsistently related to erectile functioning or ED severity. […] Frequency of pornography use did not predict either sexual or relationship satisfaction. (Rowland et al., 2022). The same paper shows that ED is caused by: age, anxiety or depression, low sexual interest, low relationship satisfaction, chronic medical conditions. These chronic medical conditions include cardiovascular disease and the impairment of erections caused by nerve damage during prostate surgery. ED is usually diagnosed using the International Index of Erectile Function questionnaire (IIEF) (Goldstein et al., 2019; Stridh et al., 2020). The lurid history of treating ED with PDE5 inhibitors The development of PDE5 inhibitors to treat ED is full of lurid tales and chance discoveries. On April 18, 1983, in front of a large audience at the meeting of the American Urological Association in Las Vegas, doctor Giles Brindley wiped out his penis and proceeded to inject phenoxybenzamine into his corpus cavernosum (Goldstein et al., 2019). His penis became instantly erect. His bold demonstration was meant to convey an important point: that ED could be treated with drugs. Until then, ED was considered having psychological causes and was treated with psychotherapy, much to the despair of the male patients and their sexual partners. If they complained too much, they were considered being one of the few men with “organically caused ED” and treated with penile implants: surgically implanted prostheses that made their penises permanently hard (Wang et al., 2023). Today we know that 80% of ED is due to non-psychological causes (Stridh et al., 2020). Psychological counseling to treat ED was a failure. Something to keep in mind when you hear criticisms of PDE5 inhibitors because they supposedly hide some obscure mental causes of ED. Dr. Giles’ shocking public experiment set off a search for pharmacological agents to treat ED. Phenoxybenzamine, the drug he self-injected, is a blocker of α-adrenergic receptors used to treat high blood pressure. Other compounds that showed efficacy were smooth muscle relaxants like phentolamine, thymoxamine, imipramine, verapamil, papaverine, and naftidrofuryl (Goldstein et al., 2019). Scientists were on the right track. They knew that, to induce lasting erections, they needed to relax the smooth muscle in the walls of the arteries that supplied blood to the penis. What eluded them was the compound that directly caused smooth muscle relaxation. That compound was found in 1991-1992 by three groups of researchers. It turned out to be a gas, nitric oxide (NO). In 1998, Dr. Ignarro, Dr. Furchgott and Dr. Murad received the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for this discovery. It was important not only for ED but also to develop medicines to treat hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. The next step was to find the enzyme where NO acted. It turned out to be PDE, and PDE5 was found to be the main PDE in the penis. There was a search for ways to increase NO production, instead of decreasing its degradation, but this turned out to be a dead-end street. The discovery of Viagra to treat ED was due to sheer luck. In 1986, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer was looking for drugs to treat angina—chest pain caused by lack of blood supply to the heart. They focused on PDE inhibitors as a way to relax the smooth muscle in the carotid artery. One of the compounds tested was coded UK-92,480 and was later named sildenafil. There is an urban legend about the Pfizer sildenafil clinical trial: “Anecdotes from early clinical trials describe study participants being unwilling to return unused pills because of the positive erectile effects of the study drug.” (Stridh et al., 2020) In any case, scientists at Pfizer noted that powerful erections were a side effect of sildenafil. In contrast, its effects on chest pain were a disappointment. Less than a week before sildenafil was going to be taken out of the research studies, Pfizer scientists Peter Ellis and Nick Terrett proposed a mechanism by which it could increase erections (Goldstein et al., 2019). A large series of clinical trials on the effect of sildenafil on ED ensued. They showed that it was effective when taken orally and increased erection within one hour. It was more effective than a placebo when given instead of sildenafil, or when sildenafil was switched to placebo without the knowledge of the patient. Importantly, sildenafil did not produce erections on its own, only when coupled with sexual stimuli. It acts on the penis, not on the brain to increase sexual desire. Sildenafil was given the commercial name of Viagra. It was approved by the FDA for the treatment of ED on March 27, 1998 (Goldstein et al., 2019). Soon afterwards, on September 14, 1998, it was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Since November 2017, Viagra is available without prescription in pharmacies in the UK. At present, four PDE5 inhibitors have been approved by the FDA: sildenafil (Viagra), tadalafil (Cialis), vardenafil (Levitra) and avanafil (Stendra or Spedra) (Wang et al., 2023). Beneficial cardiovascular effects of PDE5 inhibitors The failure of Viagra to treat chest pain was because PDE5 is absent from the heart. However, all the arteries in the body have a layer of smooth muscle. When it contracts, it makes the arteries thinner, which increases blood pressure. The sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomous nervous system control the dilation of arteries in different parts of the body. For example, if you swim in cold water, the arteries that supply blood to your skin contract to avoid losing too much heat. Arterial smooth muscle has PDE5, which means that NO controls arterial dilation. It also means that PDE5 inhibitors dilate the arteries and therefore reduce blood pressure. So, even though the initial studies of sildenafil on heart pain didn’t show an effect, PDE5 inhibitors may affect the heart indirectly by dilating the arteries of the body. The bad news is that men with low blood pressure may have to avoid taking PDE5 inhibitors for ED. The good news is that men with high blood pressure—which are most aging men—may derive additional benefits from taking PDE5 inhibitors. Numerous studies support the idea that PDE5 inhibitors have beneficial cardiovascular effects. Here I discuss just a few of them. Tadalafil decreased blood pressure in men with ED, who generally had higher blood pressure than men without ED (Özdabakoğlu et al., 2017). Tadalafil produced this effect by decreasing aortic stiffness and increasing the elasticity of  arteries, both large and small. Apart from increasing the diameter of the arteries, PDE5 inhibitors may improve cardiovascular function by increasing the health of the endothelium of blood vessels, by directly protecting the cells of the heart, by having an anti-inflammatory effect, or by reducing the aggregation of platelets to form blood clots (Kloner et al., 2024). A meta-analysis of animal studies (Ölmestig et al., 2017), which included 32 papers and 3,646 animals, showed that PDE5 inhibitors protected against the brain damage produced by stroke. PDE5 inhibitors decreased neuronal death, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, and increased cerebral blood flow and the formation of new blood vessels in the damaged area of the brain. Treatment with PDE5 inhibitors was effective when given up to 24 hours after a stroke. A recent study (Kloner et al., 2024) looked at health insurance claims database for men taking tadalafil for ED (8,156 men) and not taking it (21,012 men). Then it examined the occurrence of major cardiovascular events in both groups. It found that the men that had been taking tadalafil had 19% lower cardiovascular events than those who didn’t. In particular, they had less coronary revascularization (p=0.006), less angina or chest pain (p=0.003) and reduced cardiovascular-related mortality (p=0.032). There were significant reductions of stroke, heart failure and myocardial infarction in men who had taken the larger doses of tadalafil. Death by any cause was 44% lower in men that had taken tadalafil (p<0.001). One paper (Cai et al., 2019) advocates giving PDE5 inhibitors to men with high blood pressure since they will take them to improve their sex lives, while compliance with regular blood pressure medication is low. What does all this mean for you? Well, first of all, if you have problems getting erections, it may be a sign that you are at risk of cardiovascular disease. How high is your blood pressure? If it’s in the normal range, you are probably fine. However, if you have high blood pressure and ED, you may want to take a daily dose of 5 mg Cialis or another PDE5 inhibitor. Cialis is preferable to Viagra because it will stay in your body for a whole day—its half-life is 17.5 hours—while Viagra is short-lived (Kloner et al., 2024). PDE5 inhibitors will lower your blood pressure, protect your arteries and your heart, and reduce brain damage if you had a stroke. Talk to your doctor! Prostate enlargement A common problem in aging men is the enlargement of the prostate. Since the urethra traverses the prostate, it gets compressed with this enlargement, impeding urine flow. Urinating becomes difficult, with discontinuous flow, incomplete voiding of the bladder and, sometimes, pain during urination. Older men often have to get up several times at night to urinate (nocturia). Tadalafil (Cialis) has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of prostate enlargement (benign prostate hyperplasia, BPH) and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) (Cantrell et al., 2013). Tadalafil is preferred over the other PDE5 inhibitors because it last longer in the body. However, similar effects on prostate enlargement were produced by other PDE5 inhibitors, like Viagra (Ko et al., 2017). If you are a man over 50, you have to get up often at night to pee, and your urine stream is not what it used to be, PDE5 inhibitors may offer an additional advantage to you. Not only they will give you better erections and lower your cardiovascular risk, they may make peeing easier and reduce those nightly trips to the bathroom. More things to mention to your doctor. Other beneficial effects of PDE5 inhibitors Pulmonary artery hypertension is a deadly disease consisting of an increase in blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. It causes death in 2-3 years by triggering heart failure. It affects more women than men. After it was proposed that it could be treated with PDE5 inhibitors (Singh, 2010), the FDA approved tadalafil to treat it. Premature ejaculation: Tadalafil reduced premature ejaculation. Its effect improved when given in combination with the serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine (Mattos et al., 2008). Kidney protection: Experiments in salt-sensitive rats show that tadalafil protects the kidneys against damage produced by a high-salt diet, an effect independent of its lowering blood pressure (Tomita et al., 2020). Alzheimer’s disease: Icariin, a plant aphrodisiac that acts by inhibiting PDE5, improved learning and memory in transgenic mice that model Alzheimer’s disease (Jin et al., 2014). Adverse effects of PDE5 inhibitors Everything in life comes at a price, so there are drawbacks to taking PDE5 inhibitors. PDE5 inhibitors have interactions with α-adrenergic antagonists, nitrates and cytochrome P450 inhibitors (Cantrell et al., 2013). They should not be taken with these medications, or taken under close medical supervision. Moderate side-effects of PDE5 inhibitors include back pain, dyspepsia, headache and dizziness. More serious side effects may include ischemic optic nerve neuropathy (Pomeranz, 2017), in which the optic nerve is damaged for lack of adequate blood flow. However, it is still controversial that PDE5 inhibitors do this. A survey of 615,838 men treated with PDE5 inhibitors for ED and 175,725 men treated for prostate enlargement showed no association of PDE5 inhibitors and any ocular event, including ischemic optic neuropathy, serous retinal detachment and retinal vascular occlusion (Belladelli et al., 2023). Another possible side effect is sudden hearing loss, for which there is an incidence of 4.35-5.58 /10,000 person-years for users of PDE5 inhibitors compared with 2.38 /10,000 person-years for non-users (Liu et al., 2018). This is just a moderate increase. Recreational use What happens when men without ED take PDE5 inhibitors? Well, what happens is that these men have erections that are harder and last longer than usual. Which, for most men, means a more enjoyable sexual experience because a harder penis produces more pleasure. A strong erection causes the pleasure nerves in the penis to become more sensitive to mechanical stimulation. Many women derive more pleasure from having sex with a man with a harder penis. However, there are also women who experience more pain during penetration if the penis is harder. The same goes for male gay couples, although there seems to be a general enthusiasm for strong erections among them. Therefore, whether to use PDE5 inhibitors to have a stronger erection during sex is a personal decision to be negotiated between the persons having sex. One aspect that I have not seen discussed is that PDE5 inhibitors improve the enjoyment of men during masturbation. One study (Korkes et al., 2008) surveyed 167 young (average 21 years, range 17-31) male medical students. Although they all said that they had perfect erections, 9% of them had used PDE5 inhibitors. Of this group, 13% turned out to have ED. Interestingly, their erection problems often occurred when using condoms, so the PDE5 inhibitors served to encourage condom use. Another study (Harte and Meston, 2011) surveyed 1,944 male undergraduates in the USA. Of them, 4% reported recreational use of PDE5 inhibitors. The authors found that recreational use increased with age and in gay/bisexual men. It also correlated with drug and alcohol use, risky sexual behaviors and number of sex partners. This is hardly surprising because the same disregard for societal norms that leads to the use of PDE5 inhibitors without prescription also leads to drug use, promiscuity and risky sexual behaviors. The fact that recreational use of PDE5 inhibitors correlates with difficulties with erection indicates that such use may indicate a borderline ED and not just the desire for better sex. The good news is that PDE5 inhibitors facilitate condom use. Many of us had the experience of losing an erection when putting on a condom, which makes it more difficult and risks not doing it right. Besides, our sexual partner may lose interest in sex in the process of regaining the erection and getting that condom finally on. Obviously, this discourages condom use. Using a PDE5 inhibitor may help keeping that penis hard during that gap in arousal. Is the effect of PDE5 inhibitors on ED a placebo effect? One frequent dismissive comment about Viagra is that its effect on ED is due to the placebo effect. In fact, placebo effects are common in many diseases, including chronic pain, anxiety, depression, asthma and Parkinson’s disease (Stridh et al., 2020). However, many of the clinical trials on PDE5 inhibitors showed that their effect on ED was statistically larger than that of placebo. A meta-analysis of PDE5 inhibitors in ED clinical trials (Stridh et al., 2020) showed that they do have a substantial placebo effect. In common words, this means that if you get a man to take a pill thinking that it’s Viagra, he will experience a stronger erection if he takes it before sex. Results showed that placebo produced a “small to moderate improvement of erectile function” in men with ED, while PDE5 inhibitors produced “a large response” and there was “a large difference in favor of the active drug” (p<0.001). Therefore, there is a placebo effect, but the effect of PDE5 inhibitors is larger than placebo. What do the naysayers say? The scientific research I summarized above shows that PDE5 inhibitors are an efficacious treatment of ED. Their side effects are rare and they have positive effects beyond increasing erections, mainly in reducing high blood pressure and prostate enlargement. Then why do they have such a bad reputation? Who is, indeed, afraid of the big bad Viagra? Actually, my PubMed search found just a handful of articles critical of the use of PDE5 inhibitors to treat ED, other than the ones dealing with the side effects discussed above. I saved three of them into my database (Potts et al., 2003; Potts et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2012). I could not download the full article of Barnett et el. (2012), which seems to be a review of the points made by the other two articles. I found these two articles (Potts et al., 2003; Potts et al., 2004) appalling in their lack of scientific rigor and their peddling of ideology as science. Instead of an unbiased testing of hypotheses, the openly try to prove a series of feminist ideas, which the authors explain at length in the introduction. Here are some of the statements made in the introduction: “In western medical discourse, the ‘healthy’ and ‘functioning’ male body must be capable of producing ‘normal’ erections which deliver sexual satisfaction (via penetrative sex) to both the man and his (female) sexual partner; loss of ‘erectile function’ becomes synonymous with loss of manhood or masculinity.” (Potts et al., 2004). It seems that erections and sexual satisfaction are suspect to the authors. “Critics have long argued against the deterministic and reductionist view of bodies, ‘health’ and ‘illness’ espoused by medicine.” (Potts et al., 2004). In other words, PDE5 inhibitors are bad because western medicine is bad. The genuine suffering experienced by patients and the loved ones who must care for them is disregarded in the name of an ideological celebration of ‘difference’ instead of disease. “Nicolson has identified three prevalent discourses operating in medical and sexological constructions of ‘normal’ sex: a reproductive model of sexuality (that is, the privileging of biological, procreative aspects of sex), a coital imperative (the notion that penile–vaginal sex is the most ‘natural’ and ‘usual’ form of sexual activity), and an orgasmic imperative (the idea that orgasm—particularly male orgasm—is the goal towards which all sexual activity is directed, and the measure of ‘successful’ sex).” (Potts et al., 2004). This points out that the real reason some feminists dislike PDE5 inhibitors: reproduction is bad, penetration is bad, and male orgasms are bad. Hence, PDE5 inhibitors are triply bad because they aid in all these things. In reality, PDE5 inhibitors only make more sexual choices available. If people want to have non-penetrative sex or sex without orgasms, the existence of PDE5 inhibitors does not prevent them from doing so. The actual studies consisted of a series of interviews with men who use Viagra to treat ED and their female partners. The sample size is very small: 33 men (average age 60, age range 33-72) and 27 women. The first paper (Potts et al., 2003) interviewed the same 27 women. The authors warn that the studies a purely qualitative and, indeed, there is not the slightest attempt at quantification. This becomes a problem because, after stating that some men expressed views contrary to those of the authors, only supportive statements are given thereafter. The questions asked are not given, raising the suspicion that the authors just had a conversation with the subjects, leading them to their pre-established conclusions. To summarize, this paper criticizes ED medication because: “Erectile changes [are] a natural part of ageing.” And so is death. Having an erection reaffirms a man’s self-esteem and masculinity. And this is bad, somehow. Viagra is a “quick fix” that reinforces “the prevalent division in western culture of human subjectivity into mind (psychological) and body (physical) components.” For some men, Viagra didn’t work or “produce desensitized or ‘numb’ erections.” No recognition is given to the numerous clinical trials proving the efficacy of PDE5 inhibitors. There is no evidence that PDE5 inhibitors desensitize the penis. The effectiveness of Viagra declined over time. The technical name for this is tolerance. I could not find any evidence that there is tolerance for the effect of PDE5 inhibitors. Conversely, some men said that they required lower doses of Viagra over time or experienced a permanent improvement in their erections after taking it. So, go figure! Viagra produce “psychological addiction” because some couples needed it to have sex. Viagra had detrimental effects on women, who felt pressured to have sex or preferred to have sex without penetration. Viagra did not fix broken relationships, as advertised in some promotional material by Pfizer. Viagra may encourage men to commit infidelity because of their “newfound sense of youth and virility.” Viagra is “a tool that allows men to continue to function as machines in their presumably intimate relationships.” Viagra promotes a sex life that centers intercourse and the erect penis. The earlier paper (Potts et al., 2003) centers on the claim that Viagra is bad for the female partners of the men that take it. In particular, it argues that the decision to take Viagra should be taken by both members of a couple, and not the man alone. Contrast this with the feminist idea that taking birth control or having an abortion are decisions that women should be able to take by themselves. While Viagra does impact a couple’s sex life, a man could take it to improve his masturbation. PDE5 inhibitors improve women’s sexual experience In contrast to what the ideologues say, two papers reported that women enjoy sex more when their male partners take Viagra. One double-blind, placebo-controlled study (Heiman et al., 2007) recruited 180 heterosexual couples in which the woman reported unsatisfactory sex at least half of the time. Women whose partners took Viagra, compared with women whose partners took placebo, reported a clear increase in satisfaction during sex (p<0.0001). Improvement in the sexual satisfaction of the man correlated with the improvement experienced by the woman. It’s a win-win situation! The second study was done in France in 2006 (Chevret-Measson et al., 2009) and included 67 heterosexual couples. Sexual life satisfaction improved in 79% of the women (p<0.0001) compared with their previous experience—there was no placebo group in this study. The improvement in the women’s sex life correlated with the improvement in the men’s erections. How I did the research for this article This article references 24 scientific papers, all of them in peer-reviewed journals. I disregarded articles in magazines or in humanities journals publishing opinions and not actual evidence. Science advances by reaching a consensus. Therefore, giving reliable scientific information requires summarizing a lot of information contained in many papers. That is why this article has so many scientific references. I gathered them as follows. I did a search in PubMed with “phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors” [Title/Abstract], which retrieved 962 papers. Combining that search criterion with “erectile dysfunction” [Title/Abstract] selected 264 papers among them. I screened all those papers one by one, judging from the title and the journal if they were related to the topic I am discussing. This resulted in 68 papers, which I exported to a group in my EndNote database. Then I browsed their abstract and gave them one to five stars according to their quality and relevance. I downloaded the full version PDF of the papers that contained interesting information not given in the abstract. For the background, I relied on my knowledge of physiology and biochemistry. I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry and 40 of research experience in molecular biology, physiology, neuroscience and drug development. References Barnett ZL, Robleda-Gomez S, Pachana NA (2012) Viagra: the little blue pill with big repercussions. Aging & mental health 16:84-88. PubMed Belladelli F, Li S, Zhang CA, Muncey W, Del Giudice F, Glover F, Seranio N, Basran S, Fallara G, Montorsi F, Salonia A, Eisenberg ML (2023) Use of phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors is not associated with ocular adverse events. The journal of sexual medicine 20:1399-1406. PubMed Cai Z, Zhang J, Li H (2019) Two Birds with One Stone: Regular Use of PDE5 Inhibitors for Treating Male Patients with Erectile Dysfunction and Cardiovascular Diseases. Cardiovasc Drugs Ther 33:119-128. PubMed Cantrell MA, Baye J, Vouri SM (2013) Tadalafil: a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor for benign prostatic hyperplasia. Pharmacotherapy 33:639-649. PubMed Chevret-Measson M, Lavallee E, Troy S, Arnould B, Oudin S, Cuzin B (2009) Improvement in quality of sexual life in female partners of men with erectile dysfunction treated with sildenafil citrate: findings of the Index of Sexual Life (ISL) in a couple study. The journal of sexual medicine 6:761-769. PubMed Goldstein I, Burnett AL, Rosen RC, Park PW, Stecher VJ (2019) The Serendipitous Story of Sildenafil: An Unexpected Oral Therapy for Erectile Dysfunction. Sexual medicine reviews 7:115-128. PubMed Harte CB, Meston CM (2011) Recreational use of erectile dysfunction medications in undergraduate men in the United States: characteristics and associated risk factors. Arch Sex Behav 40:597-606. PDF Heiman JR, Talley DR, Bailen JL, Oskin TA, Rosenberg SJ, Pace CR, Creanga DL, Bavendam T (2007) Sexual function and satisfaction in heterosexual couples when men are administered sildenafil citrate (Viagra) for erectile dysfunction: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology 114:437-447. PubMed Jin F, Gong QH, Xu YS, Wang LN, Jin H, Li F, Li LS, Ma YM, Shi JS (2014) Icariin, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, improves learning and memory in APP/PS1 transgenic mice by stimulation of NO/cGMP signalling. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol 17:871-881. PubMed Kloner RA, Stanek E, Desai K, Crowe CL, Paige Ball K, Haynes A, Rosen RC (2024) The association of tadalafil exposure with lower rates of major adverse cardiovascular events and mortality in a general population of men with erectile dysfunction. Clin Cardiol 47:e24234. PubMed Ko WJ, Han HH, Ham WS, Lee HW (2017) Daily use of sildenafil 50mg at night effectively ameliorates nocturia in patients with lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia: an exploratory multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. Aging Male 20:81-88. PubMed Korkes F, Costa-Matos A, Gasperini R, Reginato PV, Perez MD (2008) Recreational use of PDE5 inhibitors by young healthy men: recognizing this issue among medical students. The journal of sexual medicine 5:2414-2418. 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How would Europe react if faced with the same problem as Israel? On October 7, 2025, forces of Islamic Jihad enter the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, situated in the coast of Morocco. They quickly overwhelm the Spanish Guardia Civil and Policia Nacional and went on a rampage, killing Spanish civilians, even children, and raping numerous women in the most gruesome ways. Other people are kidnapped and taken into hiding places in Morocco to be held as hostages. The military garrisons in both cities are slow to react. They just manage to defend themselves inside their barracks. The terrorists release video from body cameras that show them smiling while they kill, mutilate and rape. The population of Spain rushes to the streets in outraged demonstrations. The time and method of the operation are chosen intentionally. They are modeled on the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas, which are by now considered a huge success by Islamic organizations. Claiming to want to restore order in both cities, the Moroccan army enters them, surrounding the Spanish garrisons. The Spanish government of socialist Pedro Sanchez hesitates. Finally, it demands that the Moroccan military withdraw from Spanish territory. Mohammed VI, king of Morocco, states that his army is there to protect the peace and refuses to move it. Spain declares war on Morocco and invokes article 5 of NATO. Donald Trump, newly reelected President of the United States, sides with the king of Morocco, claiming that his army is sufficient to restore order in the invaded cities. The UK government, remembering how the Spaniards reacted to the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, calls it a “colonial war” and refuses to respond. The EU nations ponder how to act. Eastern European countries are still enmeshed in the war in Ukraine and do not want to open another front. Finally, France comes to the aid of Spain. A joint Spanish-French navy confronts the Moroccan navy that is blocking access to the cities. The superior air force of both countries sinks several Moroccan vessels. Other ships flee into Moroccan ports. Spanish and French soldiers disembark in Ceuta and Melilla. A bloody door-to-door battle ensues. It last several days, with numerous casualties on both sides. Finally, the Islamic Jihad forces regroup on the Moroccan side of the border. The Moroccan army gives them shelter. In front of a demonstration of millions of his people, Mohammed VI declares that the war is a holy jihad to reconquer Islamic territories. The European press debates if this includes Spain, which was conquered by Islam in the Middle Ages. The 500-years war of “Reconquista” against the Moors is still in the Spanish DNA. But the colonization of Morocco by Spain and France during the 19th and 20th centuries is even more recent in the memory of the Moroccans. The war leads to a crisis in the government of Spain, which ends up splitting the coalition between the socialists of PSOE and the leftist Sumar. The latter argues that Spain should seek peace by abandoning Ceuta and Melilla, which it calls “colonies.” Conservative party Partido Popular and the extreme right party Vox want an all-out war with Morocco. PSOE is driven out of power and elections are called. Partido Popular and Vox run on the promise that they will avenge the offenses against Spain by Morocco and the terrorists it supports. Taking advantage of the turmoil during the Spanish elections, the Moroccan navy invades the island of Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Spanish Canary Islands. Afraid that the Moroccan would invade the whole Canary archipelago, Germany, Italy and other EU nations finally decide to respond to the invocation of NATO article 5 and join Spain and France in the war against Morocco. Again, several Moroccan ships are sunk by European submarines. The Moroccan navy is forced to withdraw from the Canary Islands, but an important part of their army is left occupying Lanzarote. The Europeans blockade the island. Partido Popular wins the absolute majority of Congress in the Spanish elections. With unimpeded control of the government, it launches an all-out assault on Morocco from Ceuta and Melilla. The joint European air forces relentless bombard the cities of Tangier, Tetouan and Nador, which are then invaded by land. Seeking to reduce casualties in the small volunteer European forces, the cities are razed mercilessly. Islamic Jihad and guerrilla Moroccan forces wage deadly urban warfare. For the enraged Spaniards, civilian casualties are an afterthought. The Moroccan government propaganda inflates their casualties. They soon breach 100,000. The Islamic world reacts with outrage. In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Irak, Yemen, Iran and many other countries there are calls for holy jihad against the Christian invaders of Morocco. They start sending arms and soldiers to Morocco. They have to do so by land, because any ships carrying soldiers in the Mediterranean are promptly stopped or sunk by NATO warships. Unfortunately, so are ships carrying humanitarian relief to Morocco from Islamic countries. There is not enough food and medicines in the hospitals to take care of the numerous Moroccan casualties. The United Nations declare a humanitarian crisis. Putin’s Russia throws its full support behind Morocco. Xi Jiping offers China’s mediation in stopping the war. He advocates giving Ceuta, Melilla and Lanzarote to Morocco. It’s a non-start. Spain and the Europeans do not even bother to come to the negotiating table. Why would they? They are winning the war. Soon, Morocco will be forced to negotiate, or it will be utterly destroyed. After several months of blockade, there is famine in Lanzarote. Both Spanish civilians and Moroccan soldiers are dying like flies. Finally, the Moroccan soldiers agree to surrender, on the condition that they are given Spanish citizenship. Mohammed VI has promised to execute them if they return to Morocco. The Spanish government agrees but, when its army enters Lanzarote, they confine the Moroccan soldiers to improvised prisoner camps inside the desert island. Islamophobia is out of control in Europe, especially in Spain and France. Mosques and Muslim-own business are set afire. There are fights in the suburbs of Paris, Marseille, Barcelona and Madrid. Finally, the Spanish and French governments opt for the massive detention of Muslims, confining them to concentration camps. Germany hesitates at first, then follows suit. There are demonstrations all over the world against the European carnage in Morocco. In particular, the American Left is adamant in its opposition to the “new colonial war.” It supports Trump’s decision not to get involved. There is a vote in the United Nations calling for a ceasefire in Morocco. A majority of nations support it, including Russia and China. To the Spaniards' chagrin, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina vote against them. The USA and the UK abstain. The resolution is blocked by France in the Security Council. Egypt closes the Suez Canal in retaliation. All ships are forced to go around Africa. International commerce suffers, triggering sky-high inflation. Especially in Europe. The Trump administration starts to have second thoughts about its decision to stay out of the conflict. Pushed by the American economic oligarchy, it finally agrees to respond to NATO’s article 5, but only to re-open the Suez canal. The EU decides to invade Egypt to take control of the Suez canal. They ask Israel to allow them to use their land as a staging area to enter Egypt. Israel refuses. It has a long-standing peace treatment with Egypt, it argues. Besides, when Israel was in a similar predicament the year before, what did Spain and the Europeans do?

Preaching against porn and masturbation and then cheating on five women? I have to confess that, when I first heard about Andrew Huberman, I was envious. He is a neuroscientist like me who has managed to create an enormously successful podcast, the Huberman Lab. I should have done that when I retired. On top of that, when I checked his publication record in PubMed, I found that he has great papers in some of the most prestigious scientific journals: Nature, Science, Cell, Cell Reports, Neuron and the Journal of Neuroscience. He is the senior author in most of these papers (last author), which means that the research was done in his lab.  I have also published a bunch of papers, but not quite as good as his. So I got his podcast and listened to some episodes. Some of them were great. Some of his guest I had known for a long time, like Robert Malenka, a pioneer in the field of synaptic plasticity. I learned a lot from other episodes, like the one about sleep. Another one about nutrition confirmed my suspicion that sugar is slowly poisoning us and that carbs are the cause of metabolic syndrome and the diabetes epidemic. Dopamine pseudoscience Other episodes are disturbing, though. He invited twice Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford who wrote Dopamine Nation. I read that book and it’s total pseudoscience. Dr. Lembke promotes a new form of puritanism based on the idea that pleasure causes “dopamine spikes” in the reward system of the brain (ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens). These spikes supposedly lead you to become addicted to everything that causes pleasure, but especially to porn and masturbation. Her book contains accounts of what I think is mistreatment of her patients. For example, she told a patient named Jacob to get on his knees and ask God for forgiveness for masturbating. Sounds a lot like conversion therapy to me. She told another patient, a teenager who was forced to see her by her parents, that she was addicted to cannabis, which is considered non-addictive except for a small percentage of the population. I debunked the whole “dopamine spike” story in this other article. I posted a comment in the Huberman Podcast alerting him that what Dr. Lembke says about dopamine doesn’t match what science says. He ignored me. Questionable ads Dr. Huberman uses ads to finance his podcast. The ads are interspersed in the podcast and are voiced by him in a compelling tone. He often remarks that he would not promote a product that he didn’t believe in. He uses a lot of the things he advertises, especially a multi-vitamin drink called Athletic Drinks. Its claims were discussed in another podcast I regularly listen to, Conspirituality, dedicated to “dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters and conspiracy-mad yogis.” It is run by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker and Mallory DeMille. They lean left. They do a great job of exposing the connections between some gurus, anti-vaxxer propaganda, climate denialism and right-wing conspiracy theories. Puritanical views Conspirituality also criticized Dr. Huberman for “coming to Jesus” in a recent episode. This kind of makes sense, because Huberman’s defense of Dr. Lembke’s ideas boils down to a new kind of puritanism. He regularly condemns masturbation and porn, saying that they are addictive. They are not. A lot of the appeal of the Huberman podcast is the advice he gives about how to live a healthy life. Some of it, like avoiding alcohol and sugar, makes sense. Some of it is pseudoscience, like saying that masturbation is addictive. And some of it, we simply don’t know. The scandal There seems to be a special curse on people who preach against sex: they become the center of a sex scandal. Alas, Dr. Huberman was not an exception! On March 25, Kerry Howley published an article in New York Magazine detailing the problematic sex life of Andrew Huberman. You can read the details there, if you want. The whole story can be summarized quite quickly. Dr. Huberman had relationships with five women at the same time while telling them that they were exclusive. Eventually, one of the women found out. Then they found each other and became friends. There was a sixth woman, but they could not contact her. There is a joke going around saying that Huberman's health advice must work. Otherwise, he would not have the energy to have sex with so many women for years on end. Not to mention managing the logistics to keep all those affairs hidden. In comparison, running a research lab must be trivial. Andrew Huberman, a lying scientist? Jokes apart, the main problem, for me, was that he lied to these women. For years. I am polyamorous, so I don’t have a problem with somebody like Dr. Huberman having multiple love partners. And I say “love” intentionally, because I don’t have any trouble believing that he loved these women. You can have multiple romantic loves. That’s what polyamory is all about. Oh, but the lying! In polyamory, being honest is a big deal. You go into a lot of trouble so you don’t have to lie to anybody. And, most of all, the people that are closest to you and you claim to love dearly. I’m really sick and tired of people I admire getting metooed (yes, that is a new verb). I am tempted to say: “Okay, look, he’s a mess, no question about it. But, still, he’s brilliant. He is doing a great job of popularizing neuroscience and enriching people’s lives.” There is a problem, however. Science is all about finding the truth. Science is based on a set of ethical values, and perhaps the most important one is a radical respect for the truth. In science, telling the truth is not just not lying. It’s saying “I don’t know” when you don’t have an answer. It’s saying exactly how sure you are about something. If there is more than a 0.05% chance that you are wrong, then you are not sure. That’s called statistics and error theory. There is a lot of trust going around in science. Scientists believe that other scientists love science as much as they do. Falsifying results would be equivalent to a priest desecrating the most holy thing in his religion. Some scientists do publish fake data, it is true, but many are found out. The consequences when that happens are normally a career-extinction event. So, here is the problem: if Dr. Huberman was able to lie to five women he loved, who else is he lying to? The audience of his podcast? The reviewers of his papers and grant proposals? Losing credibility, in science, is death-serious. Where do we go from here, doctor Huberman? I don’t think this scandal will sink the Huberman Lab podcast. Or, at least, I hope it doesn’t. Dr. Huberman's credibility has been seriously undermined, however. He will not be able to discuss sex, love and relationships in his podcast without addressing his past or sounding like a hypocrite. And those topics cover a big chunk of what is interesting in neuroscience. I hope he doesn’t turn all this into another great American redemption story. I’m sick and tired of those. Besides, a coming-to-Jesus moment would not go down well with an audience that loves science and that probably includes many atheists. He needs to get on top of this, though. And fast. He needs to explain what he did, publicly, in his podcast. It would be best if he dedicated a whole episode to it. He needs to apologize to his exes, sincerely and profusely, and then leave them alone. He needs to apologize to his audience for having disappointed them. To build back his credibility, he needs to take a huge step back from his most extreme claims. He needs to start speaking like a true scientist, with less assurance and more careful consideration of opposing ideas. Maybe some of his advertising needs to go, too. It will be interesting to see what happens.