Pain Points with Max Shen

About Pain Points with Max Shen

Are you a brain in a body, or a body with a brain? What does the nervous system have to do with chronic pain? How do we 'debug' pain? Join Max as he explores the relationship between pain and insight. Featuring scientists, pioneers in somatic therapy, and those who have recovered from chronic pain. Max Shen is a pain researcher affiliated with MIT. He is also the creator of Debug Your Pain, a platform to teach skills in pain resolution. A production of Debug Your Pain. Read our latest at essays.debugyourpain.com essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Max Shen

Category

education · health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Apr 2025

Latest episode

11 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

16 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Sept 2026

   Jessica Vellela on Ayurveda as the Language of Life

   Summary Dr. Jessica Vellela is the first American-born woman to become an Ayurvedic Physician and practice independently in India. Prior to her nearly eight years of Ayurveda study she had an early career as a self-taught Data Architect. She founded Āyu Academy and now runs myĀyu, a one-on-one personalized Ayurvedic health program. In this conversation we cover the cosmology and metaphysics underlying Ayurveda, the tridosha system, pain as the cardinal symptom of vata, worked examples of the Ayurvedic diagnostic process, difficulties in assessment and communication, and why you shouldn’t eat fruit and milk together. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro 0:01:05 – What is Ayurveda? 0:04:20 – Atma, rebirth, karma 0:07:00 – The 60/30/10 model: body/mind/soul 0:10:30 – A case study: digestive problems 0:14:30 – Mind and body in Ayurveda 0:17:55 – The ontology of pain in Ayurveda 0:20:10 – Endogenous and exogenous disease 0:24:40 – Dosha combinations and classifying pain 0:28:10 – Diagnosing chronic pain example 0:32:20 – How are some physical ailments solved mentally 0:34:40 – Overdetermined physical explanations 0:38:41 – Dizziness, nausea, tinnitus, and the doshas 0:41:35 – LLM decision-tree triage 0:47:10 – Measuring pain 0:53:10 – MyĀyu and making Ayurveda accessible Links myĀyu.com (https://www.myayu.com/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   28 Jul 2026

   Mike Johnson on Vasocomputation

   Mike Johnson is a philosopher and neuroscientist working on the science consciousness. His major works include Principia Qualia (https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf) (2016), Neural Annealing (https://opentheory.net/2019/11/neural-annealing-toward-a-neural-theory-of-everything/) (2019), Vasocomputation (https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/) (2023), and A Paradigm for AI Consciousness (2024). In this conversation we work through the three sub-hypotheses of vasocomputation, latches at multiple levels of resolution, Thomas Hanna’s sensory motor amnesia, John Sarno and chronic pain, active inference and Mike Levin’s nested agents, sub-agents as semi-sovereign regimes anchored in organs like the stomach and heart, and what kinds of evidence might ultimately confirm, or falsify, the theory. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro 0:01:30 – Physical signatures and cutting the Gordian knot 0:06:25 – What is vasocomputation? 0:10:15 – The latch mechanism, latch bridges 0:14:20 – Role of the hippocampus, Hebbian reinforcement 0:16:35 – Thomas Hanna and sensory motor amnesia 0:19:30 – Physical and mental decoupling 0:24:00 – “Grabbing” as the core human physical and mental movement 0:26:15 – Treasure maps and maps with treasures, Sarno 0:28:30 – Pain as allostatic imperative and bodily boundaries 0:33:20 – Three types of latches 0:38:00 – Piriformis release and voice-typing anecdotes 0:43:45 – Agents vs priors, what is a subagent 0:48:35 – Internal Family Systems 0:52:00 – Active Inference 0:59:15 – Semi-sovereign regimes 1:05:30 – The stomach as the first brain, cognition as digestion 1:11:00 – Only smooth muscles latch 1:14:00 – Persistence of latches 1:18:50 – Connecting to chronic pain 1:21:10 – Performance envelopes, material science of tissue types 1:23:40 – Fascia 1:28:15 – Open problems in vasocomputation 1:32:00 – The question game Links Mike Johnson’s Website: opentheory.net (https://opentheory.net/) “The Games of Life” talk: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   13 Jun 2026

   Doug Tataryn on a Physiological Basis for Repression

   Dr. Douglas J. Tataryn is a psychologist and researcher whose work spans hypnosis, emotion, chronic pain, meditation, and complementary medicine. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1991 from the University of Arizona, then spent ten years as a research professor with the University of Manitoba, before entering private practice in 2001 to focus on his Bio-Emotive Framework. In this conversation we talk about a paper he wrote as an undergrad on the physiological basis of repression, why Doug still finds the triune brain model useful, the electrochemical case for meridian systems, how sadness moves through the body and what happens when it’s blocked, and three significant unpublished studies to which he hopes to finally return. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro and Caveat 0:06:00 – Writing the paper on repressed emotions 0:09:40 – Muscle tension and cognition 0:12:15 – How muscle tension suppresses emotion 0:19:05 – Four core emotions and Doug’s triune brain framework 0:22:05 – Defining emotion 0:26:30 – Defending the usefulness of the triune brain model 0:28:30 – Energy and meridians 0:34:00 – Taoist ideas about qi, constriction, and emotional flow 0:38:00 – Heart math and energetic transmission 0:42:35 – Chronic pain from repressed emotion 0:45:20 – Jhana as pain relief 0:52:00 – The second arrow, pain asymbolia, and the affective component 1:00:00 – The relaxation response 1:02:55 – Why tension doesn’t always become chronic pain 1:05:30 – How sadness moves through the body 1:09:55 – Role of culture in expressions of pain 1:15:00 – The emotional meaning of typing 1:20:10 – Returning to unpublished research 1:31:50 – Leaving and returning to academia 1:37:00 – An offering on psychological interventions for the reduction of pain Links * Douglas J. Tataryn’s website (https://bioemotiveframework.com/) * 1983 paper: A Physiological Basis for Repression (https://bioemotiveframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BEF_dougs_1983_paper_on_emotions_muscles_and_the_cortex_-_ocr.pdf) * Interview on the Deconstructing Yourself podcast (https://deconstructingyourself.com/meditation-emotions-bio-emotive-framework-douglas-tataryn.html) * Doug Tatryn’s Summer program on emotions (https://bioemotiveframework.com/summer-intensives/) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   11 Jun 2026

   Gay Hendricks on somatics, Sarno, and the Yes Breath

   Gay Hendricks is a psychologist, somatic practitioner, and author of dozens of books including Conscious Loving and Conscious Breathing. After earning his PhD at Stanford and teaching psychology at the University of Colorado, Gay went on to develop his own approach integrating breathwork, movement, emotional awareness, and conscious relationship practice. In this conversation we talk about his entry into somatics through a painful Rolfing session, his connection to Sarno’s anger-pain model, how fear and sadness require different approaches than anger, and Gay even leads a live demonstration of the “yes breath”. Timestamps 0:00:00 – Intro 0:01:05 – Tashi Lhunpo Monastery 0:03:30 – Buddhism: Tibetan, Theravada, TM 0:05:40 – Feldenkrais, Reich, and Rolf 0:08:30 – John Sarno and the anger-pain connection 0:14:10 – Working with sadness vs fear 0:16:00 – Tension in breathwork 0:18:35 – Reich vs Feldenkrais, grounded breathwork 0:23:05 – Live breathwork demonstration 0:29:55 – Thirty years of radiance 0:34:55 – Live body language reading 0:39:20 – Learning how to see 0:42:35 – Tuning your instrument 0:46:20 – Research, science, and learning from individual cases 0:50:20 – Wonder 0:54:20 – Getting into altered states of consciousness You can find Gay Hendricks at his website (https://hendricks.com/)and check out his books, Conscious Loving (https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Loving-Co-Commitment-Gay-Hendricks/dp/0553354116) and The Big Leap (https://www.amazon.com/Big-Leap-Conquer-Hidden-Level/dp/0061735361). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

5. 

   21 May 2026

   Simon Cox on the Subtle Body

   Simon Cox is a scholar and practitioner whose work traces the history of the subtle body across Taoist, Tibetan, medical, alchemical, and Western esoteric traditions. He studied history at Oxford, spent six years training in a Taoist context at Wudang Mountain, and later wrote his dissertation at Rice on the genealogy of the subtle body. In this conversation, we talk about internal maps of the body, Taoist and Tibetan somatic cartographies, the challenges of translating contemplative practice across cultures, and how different ways of inhabiting the body may open into different experiences of reality. Toward the end, we touch on the ontology of pain, cultural differences in interoception, and embodied cognition. Timestamps 00:00:00 – Intro and Background Context 00:03:50 – Development of Internal Maps 00:08:00 – The Neijing Tu and Practice-Based Internal Cartography 00:11:30 – Porting Taoist Practice to the West 00:14:00 – Qigong, Neigong, and Modern Chinese Practice Categories 00:17:20 – Taoist Diversity and Tibetan Subtle Body Maps 00:21:10 – Medical vs. Spiritual Maps 00:25:10 – Paradigms, Tibetan Medicine, and the Three Turnings 00:27:30 – Two Unsatisfying Views of the Subtle Body 00:32:20 – Novel and Inevitable Syncretisms 00:35:00 – Historicizing and Genealogies 00:38:10 – Reality, Truth, and Embodiment 00:40:00 – Awareness, Inhabiting the Body, and Taoist Theories of Mind 00:43:20 – The Mind Outside the Body 00:46:00 – Fate, Ancestors, Purpose, and Lines of Affinity 00:49:00 – Polyontology, Political vs. Policing, Frequency Resonance 00:54:20 – Esalen, Western Somatics, and Theory vs. Practice 00:56:50 – Paradigm Shift, New Materialisms, Distributed Agency/Intelligence 01:00:50 – Ontological Pluralism and Eurocentrism 01:05:30 – Mutual Vulnerable Knowing and Minds Knowing Minds 01:09:30 – How Scientists and Technologists Can Contribute, and The Ontological Turn 01:15:10 – Embodied Mathematicians 01:20:00 – Technology with Different Ontologies, Tsien Hsue-shen, Cybernetics 01:26:30 – A Genealogy of Pain 01:31:20 – Ontology of Pain, Christian Suffering vs. Buddhist Suffering 01:35:00 – Biocultural Disease and the Social Transmission of Pain 01:40:00 – Simon’s Current Projects: Esalen, Harvard, Energy, and Qi 01:43:10 – Eugene Gendlin and Therapeutic Process Excellent interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNlty7pppzE) with Simon Cox on The Integral Stage where they actually talk more about the subtle body as a term. The Subtle Body: A Genealogy (https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Body-Genealogy-WESTERN-ESOTERICISM/dp/019758103X) by Simon Cox This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

6. 

   19 Mar 2026

   Dr Thomas Pollak on Balinese witch doctors and therapeutic resets for chronic illness

   A couple of months ago, I gave a presentation (https://essays.debugyourpain.com/p/the-set-point-theory-of-chronic-illness) the set point theory of chronic illness, it was an attempt to use a new language, the language of cybernetics to shift out of this mind body duality when talking about illness. The inspiration for this presentation was a paper by. Dr. Tom Pollock and Mike Levin. fter reading the paper and giving the presentation, I decided to reach out to the lead author, uh, Tom Pollock and have a chat. This conversation was the result. He’s a neuropsychiatrist based in the uk. We talk about his experience with a. Which doctor and how that partly inspired, uh, section in the paper. And more broadly on the role of, of experience and challenges when wading into this field where there’s a clear interface between the mind and the body. I hope you enjoy. Dr. Thomas Pollak is a neuropsychiatrist based in the UK who works at the interface of immunology and mental health. We talk about his encounter with a Balinese witch doctor, the cybernetics of chronic illness, and why psychiatry needs a more dynamic model of inflammation. Episode Outline — Dr. Thomas Pollak: Reboots, Resets, and the Immunopsychiatry of Stuck States 00:00:00 Introduction and the Set Point Theory of Chronic Illness 00:01:30 The Witch Doctor Story 00:08:00 Humiliation, Shame, and One-Pointedness as Therapeutic Tools 00:12:00 A Room With a Dead Body 00:15:30 Meditation Practice and the Constructionist Turn in Neuroscience 00:18:30 The Tantric Phase of Science 00:24:00 Reset vs. Learning vs. Unlearning 00:30:00 Safety Behaviors, Canalization, and Narrowing of State Space 00:37:00 Long COVID, Interface Disorders, and the Two-Camps Problem 00:43:00 The Role of Awareness in Healing 00:45:00 What Kind of Awareness Is Therapeutic? 00:49:00 Neurostimulation and Embodied Experience 00:50:00 Autoimmunity and Psychosis: The Main Research Thread You can find Dr Pollak’s substack here (https://drtompollak.substack.com/). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

7. 

   23 Jan 2026

   Elena Lake on Learning Subtle Bodywork

   Elena Lake was a math major at MIT who later transitioned from her software engineering career into bodywork. We talk about her journey, and the role of perception in bodywork. Episode Outline — Elena Lake: From Engineering to Regenerative Touch 00:00:00 Introduction and Early Background 00:01:00 Trauma, Mental Health, and Limits of Talk Therapy 00:02:00 First Encounters with Touch and Somatic Relief 00:03:30 Massage School as a Foundation, Not a Revelation 00:10:00 Qualities of Touch, Trance States, and Sensory Depth 00:12:00 Advanced Touch Perception 00:14:00 Lineages of Somatics and Extreme Sensitivity 00:18:00 Developing “Regenerative Touch” 00:21:00 Awareness, Attention, and Where People Live in Their Bodies 00:23:00 Practice as Research and the Role of Presence 00:25:00 Models of Pain: Continuity, Tangles, and the Camel’s Back You can find out more about Elena through her website (https://www.elenalakebodywork.com/). If you’re convinced of the role of the nervous system in perpetuating pain and other symptoms but are having weak results pursuing it on your own, feel free to reach out to maxkshen@gmail.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

8. 

   16 Dec 2025

   The Set Point Theory of Chronic Illness

   This past weekend, I gave a talk on how cybernetic models (predictive processing, dynamical systems, homeostasis/allostasis) are a hugely powerful lens to understate the current epidemic of the recent rise in chronic illness. It was inspired by the recent preprint by Thomas Pollak, Mike Levin, et al: Have you tried switching it off and on again? Mechanisms and therapeutic prospects of resetting homeostatic set points in medicine and neuropsychiatry (https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9krz8_v1) I recommend watching the video or listening while also looking at the slides. You can find the slides here (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12g0WKKd_7s3SkBtOvhGrctaRFfT4W1swwHH7fxiU4uE/edit?slide=id.g3b054dfdafc_0_131#slide=id.g3b054dfdafc_0_131). In four images: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

9. 

   3 Dec 2025

   Howard Schubiner on Therapies for Pain

   We’ve known for decades about culture-bound syndromes that just seem so weird and only occur in a small subculture. Like men in South Central Asia who get the idea that they have semen loss and their semen loss is making them weak and tired... and we go ‘that’s crazy’. But how do we know that back pain isn’t our culture-bound syndrome? Today I’m talking with Dr. Howard Schubiner, who’s one of the creators of Pain Reprocessing Therapy (one of the most important and exciting new modalities for addressing chronic pain). We met at a conference in Boulder, and this conversation was a chance for us to explore how he got into this space and his stance on where it’s going. Dr Schubiner is one of the pioneers of modern pain science. After being a professor at Wayne State University for 18 years, he now directs, advises, and supports many of the key initiatives around understanding pain through this neuroplastic lens. Timestamps 00:00:00 – Intro 00:02:00 – Meeting Dr. John Sarno Schubiner recounts his journey from academia-induced stress to discovering Sarno’s work in 2002 and their first meeting in New York. 00:06:00 – From MBSR to Mind-Body Medicine 00:13:00 – The Evolution of Somatic Tracking 00:21:00 – Predictive Processing and the Brain’s Need for Certainty Ian Kleckner’s introduction of predictive processing to Schubiner and Lisa Feldman Barrett’s insights about the brain’s categorization of safety versus danger. 00:31:00 – Predictive Markers of Recovery Discussion of clinical markers that predict recovery success, including symptom variability and the presence of “good days” versus constant pain. 00:35:00 – The Cultural Epidemic of Pain Syndromes 00:38:00 – Long COVID and Neuroplastic Conditions 00:43:00 – Healthcare System Reform Vision 00:47:00 – The Future of Neuroplastic Research Resources: * Howard’s book, Unlearn Your Pain, just had a Fourth Edition update (https://unlearnyourpain.com/unlearn-your-pain-book/). * Effect of Pain Reprocessing Therapy vs Placebo and Usual Care for Patients With Chronic Back Pain (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/articlepdf/2784694/jamapsychiatry_ashar_2021_oi_210060_1640022091.64193.pdf&hl=en&sa=T&oi=gsb-gga&ct=res&cd=0&d=11622972837269623338&ei=GJswabCOGY2v6rQP-rWV0QI&scisig=ABGrvjIbBkqSfzAhscNYXCye7Juo). * Correction: I mentioned anorexia and The Geography of Madness, but the correct book is Crazy Like Us. Here (https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-crazy-like-us) is a good book review. * All the Rage (Saved by Sarno) (https://www.alltheragedoc.com/) - documentary featuring Dr. Sarno * ATNS (Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms) (https://atns.org/) Questions and comments welcome! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

10. 

    25 Oct 2025

    Avi Grinberg on Pain as a Knife You Resist

    If there is a sharp knife pressing into my hand, and let’s call it pain, if I resist, resist it, and hate it and want it gone, I stick the knife deeper in my hand. Try to push it away, okay. Deeper. Now if I relax my hand, okay, it’s a totally different experience. Now, this is like the ABC of dealing with pain. Not focusing on the pain, but focusing what you do against the pain. Because the general attitude of people is pain is the enemy. Pain is bad. Pain is the devil. When people are experiencing pain, they immediately contract and stop breathing. Those two actions push the knife more into the body because you take away the respiration, the person doesn’t breathe, or his body doesn’t have enough energy to deal with the pain. He contracts muscles, he blocks the energy flow in the body. Now the pain can only accumulate.” My guest today, Avi Grinberg, is a deep practitioner. He started out as a paramedic and traveled around the world to learn from different indigenous heals. I was particularly excited to talk to Avi because, in my own journey of exploring pain, I’ve come to a set of intuitions that’s hard to articulate about the role of awareness and how we generate the pain in our own way. When I saw Avi speak, I felt there was a deep connection that we were coming from the same place and seeing things, and so naturally I reached out to have a conversation. While I might not agree with all of Avi’s conclusions. I found a lot to learn from him in this conversation and I hope you will too. 00:00:00 Introduction and Early Encounters with Healing 00:04:00 “Most People Don’t Know How to Experience Pain” 00:08:00 Pain Is Energy Seeking Completion 00:12:00 Indigenous Healers in the Middle East and South America 00:36:00 Demonstration of the Exercise: Relaxing Into Pain 00:44:00 Trying Hard Breeds Chronic Tension 01:04:00 The Danger of “Easy Healing” 01:17:00 Closing Reflections Grinberg method website http://www.grinbergmethod.com/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GrinbergMethod (https://www.youtube.com/@GrinbergMethod) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

11. 

    12 Sept 2025

    David Chapman on Debugging Illness and Health

    In this episode of Pain Points, I’m speaking with David Chapman, a writer and thinker whose work on meaning, meta-rationality, and science has been the most important education I received outside of MIT. David was a prominent AI researcher in the late 1980s and later a startup founder, but for decades he has written deeply about philosophy, systems, and what he calls “meta-rationality (http://metarationality.com/).” In this conversation, we explore how that lens applies to healthcare and chronic illness. David shares his own story of navigating years of debilitating fatigue and food intolerance, how the medical system failed him, and the experiment he devised that restored his health. He also describes his experience with long COVID, and how a six-mile run cured his fatigue. We also discuss: why debugging is inherently meta-rational, how most medical science may be false (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1182327/), and why bright lights—not antidepressants—end up curing decades of seasonal depression. “I could barely stand up. So I drove myself to the trailhead, ran six miles, and by the end…the fatigue was gone.” “Popper spent his life trying to solve the question: what separates science from non-science? He failed. Everyone has failed.” Episode Outline [00:00 – 08:00] Meta-Rationality and Debugging * Rationality vs. reasonableness vs. meta-rationality * Debugging as paradigmatic example of meta-rational thinking * Chronic illness is necessarily metarational [08:00 – 14:00] Failures of the American Healthcare System * Patchwork of semi-systems that don’t communicate * Anecdotes of bureaucratic breakdown (insurance snafus, mis-sent faxes) * Emergence of the communal mode: relying on personal networks instead of systems [14:00 – 19:00] Medical Interventions and Their Limits * Treatments are often presented as “fixes,” but the body still does the healing [24:00 – 33:00] Fatigue, Food Intolerance, and Experimentation * Years of symptoms: fatigue, brain fog, GI distress * Multiple doctors, useless tests, failed elimination diets * Breakthrough: reducing diet to three foods, symptoms vanish in a week [47:00 – 49:00] Mislearned Associations * Pesto and cheesecake stories as examples of the body “wrongly” learning aversions [53:00 – 59:00] Long COVID and the Six-Mile Cure * Fatigue relapse after a hike * Experiment: pushing through with a six-mile run [60:00 – 72:00] Somatic Practices and Newtonian Mechanics * Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais as non-woo somatic methods * Health as alignment, awareness, and agency [74:00 – 79:00] The Demarcation Problem and Medical Science * Why the line between science and non-science can’t be drawn * Why most medical research may be false [87:00 – 92:00] Bright Light Therapy and Seasonal Depression * Curing decades of winter depression * How breakthroughs often come from outside the medical system [92:00 – End] Closing Reflections * Health as agency and experimentation * The need for communities that avoid both scientism and woo * Restoring agency to people dealing with chronic illness Links * You can find David’s writing at meaningness.substack.com (https://meaningness.substack.com/) Thanks for reading Debug Your Pain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

12. 

    11 Aug 2025

    Jozef Frucek on Active Inference, Tai Chi, and the Future of Health

    In this episode of Pain Points, I’m speaking with Jozef Frucek, a dear mentor of mine and a pioneer in the world of movement. He uses embodied cognition to combine ideas from Tai Chi, wrestling, and physical theater to create a wholly unique approach to movement that he calls the Fighting Monkey Practice. We recently finished a paper called Beyond Biomechanics, Fighting Monkey and the Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement. I'm really excited about this interview today because Jozef is, as you'll hear, an incredible storyteller. But more importantly, through his work he is articulating one of the most inspiring visions of health, which of course relates to my own work on pain. We begin by discussing his background, learning Tai Chi for 20 years in an experimental slovakian movement community before explicitly discussing our paper. (You can read the transcript online) “ Health is not absence of illness. Health may be described as your capacity to be connected to people . That's also being healthy, right? That's very important. I think we are too obsessed by staying healthy, trying to do everything right. We force our bodies and we stress our bodies enormously. We constantly follow some sort of protocol. We are constantly hearing what we should be, what exercise we should be doing, but we really forget how to listen to ourselves. We rarely find our authentic voice. We only follow ideas of others, but we do not sense what actually is happening in our physiology.” [00:00:00 - 08:00] Origins and Early Movement Journey * Transition from basketball to acting * Discovery of movement community in Slovakia * Meeting Tai Chi masters and the 20-year journey with Ming Wong [08:00 - 14:00] Philosophy of Teaching and Permission * The importance of teacher permission vs. open learning * "Stray dogs" approach to students * Evolution doesn't create solutions, it creates problem-solving [14:00 - 22:00] Theater, Sports, and Asian Philosophy * How Tai Chi informed theatrical practice * Table tennis and father-son relationship * Journey through Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Korean traditions [22:00 - 33:00] Existential Pain and Storytelling * Childhood encounters with mortality and darkness * Theater as simulation and agency creation * "I have something and I'm afraid of losing it" - the core of suffering [33:00 - 45:00] The Question Dance * Interactive dialogue experiment * Exploring meaning, perception, and embodied understanding * The power of questions over answers [45:00 - 58:00] Scientific Philosophy and Embodied Practice * Active inference and nested agency * Extended mind and embedded cognition * Breathing as autonomous intelligence [58:00 - End] Health, Agency, and Creative Healing * Health as agency rather than absence of disease * Joy and pleasure as guides to healing * The vision for more accessible creative movement practice Links Shen, Max, and Jozef Frucek. "Beyond Biomechanics: Fighting Monkey and the Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement." (2025). Link (https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/uqcs4_v1?view_only=) Fighting Monkey website (https://fightingmonkey.net/), IG (https://www.instagram.com/fightingmonkey_practice/?hl=en) About the Host Max Shen is a former machine learning researcher turned pain and cognition researcher. After facing chronic pain in grad school, he now uses computational tools at MIT to explore pain from a systems and somatic lens. 🎧 Listen to all episodes: * Substack: essays.debugyourpain.com (http://essays.debugyourpain.com) 📬 Get in touch: * Email: maxkshen@gmail.com * Twitter: (https://twitter.com/mxslk)@maxkshen This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

13. 

    29 Jul 2025

    Michael Levin on Pain as Agent, Healing as Alignment

    “ We try to think about things from the perspective of the state itself. We too are a temporary metabolic pattern, and we have we have mental states and memories and goals and preferences and thoughts and so on. I think of all of these things as a continuum, [William James] said that ‘thoughts are thinkers too’, and it's a spectrum. We are also patterns, and we spawn off other patterns and there's a continuum... there’re fleeting thoughts and then persistent, intrusive thoughts that are a little harder to get rid of. Maybe they do a little niche construction in your nervous system to keep themselves around longer. And then, much larger things like personality fragments, like in dissociative identity disorder, and then full human personalities, and then maybe some sort of transpersonal bigger things after that.” Professor Michael Levin is the director of the Allen Discovery Institute at Tufts, and in my opinion, the most interesting scientist alive. He's created devices to regenerate limbs in animals that are non regenerative, made tadpoles grow working eyeballs out of their tails, and created other novel self-healing microscale life forms. I am joined also by Adam Safron, who is a brilliant postdoc-collaborator with Mike Levin and who is a good friend of mine. I start with a concise overview of Levin’s work and we get into rich territory about pain. I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did. More on health, movement, and becoming the whole collective intelligence you are: essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com/) Timestamps 00:00:00 – Regeneration, Bioelectricity, and Cellular AgencyLevin introduces frog limb regeneration and the surprising effects of an empty biodome—suggesting even cells can experience agency and respond to protected environments. 00:02:00 – The TAME Framework: Every Living System as Nested IntelligenceMax explains Michael Levin’s worldview: living organisms are composed of goal-directed agents across scales, from organs to organelles. 00:06:00 – Chronic Pain as a Persistent Pattern with AgencyExploring the provocative idea that pain can act as an agent with its own goals—akin to false beliefs that persist within tissue systems. 00:09:00 – Personal Narrative: Reorienting Research Through PainMax shares his journey through unexplained chronic pain, and how it led to a shift toward somatic cognition and predictive processing. 00:13:00 – Patterns as Thinkers: From Thoughts to Dissociative AgentsLevin discusses how persistent cognitive patterns—like chronic pain or trauma—may act as semi-autonomous agents within the system. 00:18:00 – Social Contagion, Morphogenetic Cohesion, and Cellular BeliefHow embryonic cells reinforce each other’s development plans, resist defects together, and what this implies for physiological and social healing. 00:21:00 – Messaging the Collective: Bioelectric Signals and Organ-Level IntelligenceDiscussion of how regenerative signals work at the tissue or organ level, rather than with individual cells—emphasizing the importance of scale in intervention. 00:27:00 – Rethinking Pain: Language, Valence, and Non-Neural EmbodimentsChallenging assumptions that affect or pain require a nervous system—suggesting even transcriptional states can have “preferences.” 00:34:00 – Therapeutic Alliance and Molecular PlacebosExploring the parallels between psychotherapy, placebo effects, and associative learning in gene regulatory networks. 00:40:00 – High-Level Healing: Letting Systems Solve Their Own ProblemsHow interventions like biodomes or somatic practices (e.g., Feldenkrais) can empower cellular or bodily systems to rejoin the collective intelligence of the organism. Resources Levin, Michael. "A Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere (https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.10346): an experimentally-grounded framework for understanding diverse bodies and minds." Frontiers in systems neuroscience 16 (2022): 768201. “Beyond Biomechanics: The Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement (https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/uqcs4_v1?view_only=)” Shen & Frucek (2025) Contact * Email: max@debugyourpain.com * Twitter: @mxslk (https://twitter.com/mxslk) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com (https://essays.debugyourpain.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

14. 

    3 Jul 2025

    Bren Veziroglu on Teaching Tasks, Not Techniques

    Bren Veziroglu discusses teaching movement through tasks rather than techniques, integrating ecological dynamics, somatics, and martial arts to train the whole person in this interview with Max Shen.

15. 

    21 Jun 2025

    A Paradigm Change in Biology

    Max Shen discusses the coming paradigm change in biology, exploring materialism, reductionism, and dualism, and referencing Michael Levin, Karl Friston, and Dennis Noble.

16. 

    5 Apr 2025

    Do we learn tension?

    Chris Lakin explores how learned behaviors and self-loathing can limit personal growth and reduce conflict, but ultimately hinder living a fulfilling life in this interview with Max Shen.

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