Evert Jan Das

@AsafKlaf This seems consistent with your earlier fart analogy (linkedin.com/feed/update/ur…): again, you are not really critiquing predictive processing, but caricaturing it.

Optical illusions or “classical illusions” have NOTHING to do with predictive processing or prediction at all! If anything, they show that human optical perception is rather predictable and kind of universal. Those effects are the result of the intrinsic properties of our nervous system and how it is built. Even “the dress” shows that the majority of perception was divided into roughly 50% blue and black and 50% gold and white. The main effects underlying those “illusions” are: Color constancy, gradient lightness perception, forced perspective, impoverished stimuli under artificial conditions and local vs global consistency. If predictive processing had anything to do with those effects, we would expect everyone to perceive those differently because everyone’s priors are completely different. However, those effects are rather universal and most people perceive them exactly the same and the effects cannot be influenced by demand characteristics. The use of predictive processing to explain those phenomena/effects is pseudoscience, and especially the attempt to use those effects as examples of how pain “works”.

@PessoaBrain @AnnaLeptikon At least its not complex 😅

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀? Interesting paper tackling this difficult question. Answer (in part): it's complicated! doi.org/10.1088/2632-0…

@Retlouping The brain perpetuates pain to fulfill the danger prediction? Or:The system can selectively sample and precision-weight sensory evidence in ways that keep a danger/threat-to-bodily-integrity model stable. Pain may emerge & persist as the best-fitting experience and action urgency?

Predictive Processing and Chronic Pain digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/cgi/viewconten…

@Retlouping @AsafKlaf Wait! Don’t be so harsh on him…its not all that bad 🤭

@AsafKlaf Seriously you need to work on your social interaction. Good luck n Saturday live. I refuse to interact with you.

You should learn how to ask AI questions. Grok gave David exactly, but exactly my answer here 👇🏻 😊 The reason for the difference in answers is because Grok is trained on data up until… say 2024, and the weighting of the term “nociceptive apparatus” still has small weighting in its training. If David used “nociceptive system” or “pathways” the answer would be identical to the one below and the one he got Hopefully, in 10 years the weighting if “nociceptive apparatus” will increase, but still, the answer will remain the same 😉 Nice trolling attempt though. x.com/asafklaf/statu…

@AsafKlaf @Robert_Coghill Oh, and it’s not so much frustration you picked up on—it’s more like irritation. Especially since you throw around “fallacies” on social media as if it’s your favourite hobby—then your tweets smell like fallacies to me. (No need for me to point them out, right?)

@AsafKlaf @Robert_Coghill 3/3 You say the NA is well defined and reference Coghill + the HPA axis… and if I ask about other parts you call it “nitpicking.” Wow. Then you say we mostly know how it works—interesting… you know how the brain works then?

Those who believe in “psychological pain”, “brain pain”, “conditioned pain”, “pain without nociception” etc., are not realizing that their main premises are based on the appeal to ignorance fallacy. Or in other words - “abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence”. Just because we cannot identify sources of nociception doesn’t mean they are not there and that the pain is “psychological”. Another implicit assumption they make is to assume that our imaging modalities are finite and are capable of capturing all possible nociceptive states which is far from true.

@AsafKlaf Defined as: parts listed in @Robert_Coghill (2020) + HPA-axis (Cohen, 2023). Is that the "nociceptive apparatus"? What about other "parts" such as the claustrum or the cerebellum?

@Everdojuan Defined sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@AsafKlaf The onus is on you and your group to define it (you can use ChatGPT, Asaf—it’s ok). You claim a broader definition of “nociception” is necessary and propose a nociceptive apparatus. So define it.

@Everdojuan So Robert Coghill, Terry Walters and 100 years of basic neurobiological science since Charles Sherrington are not well defined enough for the Chat? Have you actually read those “few”neuroimmune cross-talk papers?

@AsafKlaf You just conjured a new fallacy “ad ChatGPT.” Nice one! Fits your brand. You call the NA “well defined,” mostly by citing The Distributed Nociceptive System + a few neuro-immune crosstalk papers. That’s “well defined”? Some researcher you are!

@Everdojuan The nociceptive appartus is well defined and for most, we know how it works. What else ChatGPT thinks should be clarified?

@AsafKlaf 2/2 and find out how it actually works. I suspect this research agenda will show that so-called psychological influences—an emergent coarse-grained effective description of multi-scale biology—can “activate” (a filler term that needs specification!) the NA again, no mystery there

@AsafKlaf 1/2 Every subjective experience is fully biologically explainable—no mystery there. If you want to broaden the term “nociception” to include any form whatsoever, no objection either—but let’s accurately define the nociceptive apparatus (which of course includes the 🧠)...

@E3Rehab @ChrisHughen @AsafKlaf Good to hear @AsafKlaf outline his (and collaborators’) views. I just wish the host had asked more follow-ups. I had many—oh so many—questions (and objections). Some views felt misrepresented; best settled in real dialogue, not more papers/podcasts repeating it.

In our latest podcast episode, @ChrisHughen sat down with @AsafKlaf to discuss his new paper, “Adieu to an aphorism: why nociception is necessary for pain." We dive into the limitations of the current IASP definitions of pain and nociception, phantom limb pain, sensory manipulations and illusions, the problem with anecdotes, how to actually help patients with chronic pain, and much more. youtu.be/_bowPjUvXSc

@Philip_Goff @Mark_Solms

Can you having feelings you're not aware of? My latest Substack post on "Unconscious Consciousness." philipgoff.substack.com/p/unconscious-…

@yoginho @seanmcarroll you see…downward causation is everywhere! ☺️

@AsafKlaf 6/6 And since the biopsychosocial model keeps being criticised: it isn’t biology with psychosocial garnish—it’s about multilevel interactions that manifest as biologically meaningful change.

@AsafKlaf 5/6 Risk emerges from interactions, and many lifestyle factors and behaviors can buffer adverse conditions. You’ll probably emphasize population-level rigour (“show me the evidence”); I’m interested in what helps at N=1 as well.

It’s really interesting how people cling to psychosocial stress as an important cause of pain and chronic pain. And I say IT DOESN’T MATTER! And especially nowadays. Why? Because we have no good way to predict who is it risk and intervene early. Can we move a person who was born in a bad neighborhood and lives next to a dumpster? Can we change the job of a patient who has a stressful job? We can’t! That’s why it doesn’t matter. Additionally, 30 years of psychological research in chronic pain shows those psychological interventions are no good. However, this study that someone sent me (in the photo) as “a proof “that psychosocial factors are a cause of pain and “matter”, doesn’t show us what he thinks it means, but shows us what we can do. We can observe the manifestation of these circumstances at the biological level as they necessitate coupling and mediation of the nociceptive apparatus which is NECESSARY for pain. Those factors influences will stop manifesting if we will be able to stop the mediation we observe. The next question is why this person from the bad neighborhood who lives next to a dumpster develops chronic pain and his neighbor doesn’t? The answer is genetics and predisposition. Here again, we will most likely be able one day to identify predispositions and intervene early at the biological level and prevent coupling and mediation, but not the psychoolsocial level!