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Beyond the Heartbeat: Exploring HeartMath's Social and Global Coherence · Tracking Wisdom

• 0:03
  Peter: You're listening to the Tracking Wisdom Podcast, exploring the universal truths that we see woven through culture, consciousness, and the human experience.
• 0:18
  Ryan: Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Tracking Wisdom podcast.
• 0:22
  Ryan: I'm Ryan.
• 0:23
  Peter: I'm Peter.
• 0:24
  Ryan: Today, we have a follow-up on our last episode talking about, Rollin McCraty and HeartMath, and heart rate variability.
• 0:31
  Ryan: Today, we are going to discuss some of the more, speculative theories he has around interpersonal and global coherence and some of the, Limitations of his work and claims.
• 0:43
  Ryan: Last episode we talked a lot about heart math as Rollin McCraty's work.
• 0:48
  Ryan: We talked about his, work on coherence and intrapersonal or individual coherence and its impact on, emotional state.
• 0:57
  Ryan: And we had some comments about that, and if you hadn't listened to that episode, I recommend you listen to that before this one, because we're not gonna rehash that background.
• 1:07
  Ryan: This episode we're planning on getting deeper into his more speculative work that comes out of this idea of his heart math and coherence into two main domains.
• 1:19
  Ryan: One which is the, interpersonal, where people who are in close proximity, he suggests or, asserts that there's an encoding and reception and decoding of emotional, information, And then he goes beyond that into an idea of global coherence where
• 1:40
  Ryan: this emotional encoding is carried on the Earth's geomagnetic field.
• 1:46
  Ryan: We'll present each idea as a base, for background, and then we'll discuss our thoughts and some critiques around that.
• 1:54
  Ryan: The first piece of it is this social interpersonal coherence.
• 2:00
  Ryan: Our heart creates an electromagnetic field, and that field emanates up to three feet, I think, is what they've measured it off of the body.
• 2:10
  Ryan: And In their studies, they had two participants.
• 2:16
  Ryan: One, they did an ECG, an echocardiogram, and-- or electrocardiogram.
• 2:23
  Peter: Electro.
• 2:23
  Ryan: Electro.
• 2:23
  Peter: Yeah.
• 2:24
  Ryan: And then the second one was an EEG, an electroence-encephalogram, and what he found in this work was that when the heart, air quotes, heart participant went into coherence, the EEG of the other participant basically synced up with that
• 2:45
  Ryan: frequency.
• 2:46
  Peter: Yeah.
• 2:46
  Peter: I mean, this is, this is where I, I'm a little confused about the relationship between the heart cycles and the brainwaves, because it just wasn't so clear to me exactly what they meant by the syncing up.
• 3:01
  Ryan: From what it read to me was basically the waveforms were in synchrony.
• 3:07
  Peter: Mm.
• 3:07
  Ryan: But the theory behind this, or his assertion behind this, is that the brain can receive and pick up the heart's magnetic field.
• 3:17
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 3:17
  Ryan: And he asserts that given his work with the coherence and the heart rate variability, that emotional information is encoded in the electromagnetic field by the heart.
• 3:33
  Ryan: And his assertion is then the outside person, the person who is not the individual, can receive that and the brain can then decode the emotional information and that that relationship brings them both into a similar coherent state Now,
• 3:54
  Ryan: I had a bunch of questions around that.
• 3:56
  Ryan: Something that I wasn't clear on when he was talking about the individual, so the intrapersonal, afferent and efferent-
• 4:05
  Peter: Hmm
• 4:06
  Ryan: communication between the heart and the brain.
• 4:09
  Ryan: Maybe it was me making assumptions, but it seemed to me that that would've been the nervous system, which makes sense-
• 4:16
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 4:16
  Ryan: that the heart and the brain are connected through a nervous system.
• 4:20
  Ryan: Now he's talking about this information being encoded and the brain-
• 4:27
  Peter: Mm
• 4:27
  Ryan: being able to receive- Like,
• 4:27
  Peter: electromagnetic fields
• 4:29
  Ryan: electromagnetic fields.
• 4:29
  Ryan: Now, if he determined that the Afferent?
• 4:34
  Ryan: Or the heart to the brain afferent?
• 4:36
  Peter: Yes, afferent.
• 4:37
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 4:37
  Ryan: The heart to the brain information
• 4:39
  Peter: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:39
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 4:40
  Ryan: was being accomplished because the brain is so proximal to the heart, and so it's within this electromagnetic field, and then that's how
• 4:48
  Peter: Mm
• 4:48
  Ryan: the brain was receiving the heart information, which I question.
• 4:54
  Ryan: I-
• 4:55
  Peter: Yeah, I-
• 4:55
  Ryan: Right
• 4:55
  Peter: really don't think that's what
• 4:56
  Ryan: they're saying at all.
• 4:57
  Ryan: I don't either.
• 4:58
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 4:58
  Ryan: But to me, basically, in order to set up this theory around the transmission, you would need to at least consider that effect inside the person.
• 5:10
  Peter: Right.
• 5:10
  Ryan: Right?
• 5:11
  Peter: Right.
• 5:11
  Peter: So if the heart signals can affect someone else, then they can affect your own brain more significantly 'cause they're closer.
• 5:19
  Ryan: You would imagine.
• 5:20
  Peter: Yeah.
• 5:20
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 5:21
  Ryan: So that was one thing that came up to me on this, was what seemed conflicting in mechanism between those two things.
• 5:29
  Ryan: And then another piece that comes up is, basically, We have a measured data, and then a causal attribution, Without discussing potential alternate modalities of that data point.
• 5:45
  Ryan: So if we take that data point as factual, without questioning his methodology and his measurement.
• 5:52
  Ryan: If you have two people inside a room together, there are facial and body and different, non-electromagnetic transmissive features and functions that could influence-
• 6:05
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 6:05
  Ryan: that synchrony.
• 6:06
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 6:06
  Ryan: So if somebody was in a certain state and the other person is picking up on, say, body language or whatever, and then it transitions them into a similar coherence, that modality isn't really discussed in any of his work,
• 6:21
  Ryan: and, from what I saw, I don't think any of these subjects were isolated-
• 6:28
  Peter: From each other
• 6:29
  Ryan: from each other-
• 6:30
  Peter: Mm
• 6:30
  Ryan: in different rooms.
• 6:31
  Ryan: And presumably They wouldn't be able to...
• 6:34
  Ryan: Well, I guess you could put up a barrier maybe, right?
• 6:37
  Ryan: It, it, 'cause you have to be within...
• 6:39
  Ryan: I- if the electromagnetic field- Yeah, you have a curtain only goes out for three feet-
• 6:42
  Peter: Yeah.
• 6:42
  Peter: Right
• 6:42
  Ryan: they have to be in relative proximity.
• 6:44
  Ryan: Right.
• 6:45
  Ryan: And the, the intensity of that magnetic field dissipates the further out from the body, further out from the heart
• 6:52
  Peter: mm-hmm
• 6:53
  Ryan: up to six feet 'cause you have two radiating- Three feet each.
• 6:56
  Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:56
  Ryan: Sure two radiating energies.
• 6:59
  Ryan: But, but it's not talking about the hearts communicating together, which was another thing I thought was an interesting question, is, is it the brain actually interpreting it, or is it the heart-to-heart communication and then the recipient's heart is
• 7:16
  Ryan: communicating to the brain?
• 7:17
  Ryan: Now, you know, that's just throwing something out there.
• 7:20
  Peter: And so there's another aspect to the social coherence-
• 7:24
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 7:24
  Peter: what he calls social coherence, which is, going back to the original dog boy study.
• 7:30
  Ryan: Yes.
• 7:30
  Peter: Not a dog boy.
• 7:31
  Peter: A boy and his dog.
• 7:32
  Peter: That, that, two individuals can bring their hearts, their heart function into-
• 7:39
  Ryan: Right
• 7:39
  Peter: coherence.
• 7:40
  Peter: So he's talking about the social aspect of heart coherence itself as measured by, you know, like the biofeedback device that they, that they sell.
• 7:51
  Peter: And then an emotional coherence or emotional synchronization between individuals.
• 7:59
  Peter: But they extended that to a group study and they did it more than once.
• 8:05
  Peter: But each time they had a group of three people who were trained in heart math techniques, and they had a naive subject who was untrained, and they brought them together, had the three people go into coherence, and measured
• 8:19
  Peter: all four of them, and the fourth person came into heart coherence.
• 8:26
  Peter: Now in that study, they're not talking about emotional measurement or brainwave activity per se.
• 8:33
  Ryan: Right.
• 8:33
  Peter: So these are two aspects of social coherence that he's pointing to and building out into a larger model.
• 8:43
  Peter: But, you know, as you alluded to, there are significant limitations to the studies and significant concerns about the interpretation.
• 8:53
  Ryan: Right
• 8:54
  Peter: Any interpretation of a study has to consider what the limitations are, and this is something that we saw with-
• 9:01
  Ryan: Radin
• 9:02
  Peter: Radin, that this kind of leap to, well, if there's an effect, and it's not a random effect, but it's a statistically significant effect, then it must be the mechanism that we're talking about.
• 9:14
  Ryan: Right.
• 9:15
  Peter: And obviously just on the face with that doesn't make any sense.
• 9:20
  Peter: now to say that there is an effect at all though requires some strength in the methodology of the study.
• 9:27
  Ryan: Right.
• 9:27
  Peter: To say you've controlled for a number of things so that you're seeing a true effect and not something else.
• 9:34
  Peter: So in terms of This idea of the heart as a transmitter and either the brain or the heart as a receiver of this electromagnetic field that's measurable.
• 9:47
  Peter: What he hasn't pointed out is that the detectability, this three-foot radius occurs in a highly shielded environment with a highly-
• 9:57
  Ryan: Sensitive
• 9:57
  Peter: sensitive piece of equipment.
• 10:00
  Peter: In the absence of all the shielding, is the idea of the environmental, geomagnetic field.
• 10:06
  Peter: Which is many, many thousands of times stronger than the physiological magnetic field.
• 10:13
  Peter: And so to the extent that in order to even detect the heart's magnetic field, you have to have extensive shielding in addition to a super sensitive device.
• 10:23
  Peter: How do you propose that a transmission and an effect are happening in all of this noise?
• 10:30
  Peter: I kind of wonder going to his radio experience.
• 10:34
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 10:34
  Peter: and this is a truly naive question on my part.
• 10:37
  Peter: It's like, so if you have a huge amount of noise, can you use a radio?
• 10:41
  Ryan: Well, you can, I think, though.
• 10:43
  Peter: I mean-
• 10:44
  Ryan: Because a huge amount of noise, and we have- Right.
• 10:45
  Peter: So
• 10:46
  Ryan: there's- a whole band of radio waves that we carry on and we tune.
• 10:50
  Peter: So maybe that's an argument that he's making tacitly.
• 10:56
  Peter: Yeah.
• 10:56
  Peter: But he's certainly not-
• 10:57
  Ryan: It's not explicit
• 10:58
  Peter: so maybe there is a simple answer.
• 10:59
  Peter: Maybe the answer is as simple as, well, that's how we have a cell phone conversation.
• 11:04
  Ryan: Sure.
• 11:05
  Ryan: For that maybe, and maybe our biology is designed in such a way that even within the noise o- of the, global ambience that our biology can pick up on it.
• 11:17
  Ryan: But he's not saying that explicitly or clearly that that's what he's suggesting.
• 11:22
  Peter: Yeah.
• 11:22
  Peter: So the, the other piece that he's saying about the emotional transmission, so he shows some positive and some negative emotion.
• 11:30
  Peter: And he says these waveforms are interpretable as those emotions by analysis with a 70% reliability.
• 11:41
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 11:41
  Peter: So, in terms of the encoding of the information, he says that's-
• 11:47
  Ryan: That's the evidence
• 11:47
  Peter: how it's happening.
• 11:48
  Peter: Yeah.
• 11:48
  Peter: Right.
• 11:49
  Peter: He doesn't say how it's received-
• 11:51
  Ryan: Right
• 11:52
  Peter: and so you're, you know, you're making the point of if the brain is receiving and interpreting the heart's field, why is the external source overriding the internal, like the person's own heart?
• 12:05
  Peter: Right?
• 12:05
  Peter: So if the person's upset, why would that external influence be stronger than the person's own heart?
• 12:11
  Ryan: Right.
• 12:12
  Peter: And then my question, which I, I don't think he proposes a mechanism for either, is, how does the brain actually detect the heart's field effects.
• 12:24
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 12:24
  Peter: And he says the person acts as a, or maybe the brain acts as an antenna.
• 12:29
  Peter: But he just, it's just thrown out there.
• 12:31
  Ryan: Right.
• 12:32
  Peter: There's nothing offered as a mechanism of how does the brain act as an antenna.
• 12:36
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 12:36
  Peter: We have pretty significant questions about these findings and interpretation.
• 12:42
  Peter: but the main point is that he then builds that out into f- a larger, model.
• 12:47
  Ryan: Right.
• 12:47
  Ryan: There's one more thing I'd like to go into, segueing off of what you were saying.
• 12:51
  Ryan: So I had done some research around electromagnetic fields.
• 12:56
  Ryan: So broader studying beyond the heart-math studies, what kind of information is out there on low-intensity magnetic fields, and its impact on endocrine systems and neurobiology.
• 13:10
  Ryan: Because it seemed to me that if there was going to be any kind of input from an electromagnetic field on the brain, that we would need to be able to minimally demonstrate that the brain can be impacted by
• 13:26
  Ryan: these low magnetic fields.
• 13:28
  Peter: So let me ask a question.
• 13:29
  Peter: Did you specifically search those areas of physiology-
• 13:34
  Ryan: Mm
• 13:34
  Peter: endocrinology, or did you just look for electromagnetic influence on physiology in general?
• 13:40
  Ryan: No, specifically on neurobiology and endocrine.
• 13:44
  Peter: Okay.
• 13:44
  Ryan: Because those were the two systems that previously we had discussed, if we were talking about the heart communicating with the brain, internally through the endocrine system, the PNS and the SNS systems, and just the electrical function within-
• 13:59
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 13:59
  Ryan: the brain and, and the nervous system, that those were our understood mechanics of how this was working.
• 14:06
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 14:06
  Ryan: And if electromagnetic fields at these levels could have measurable influence on endocrine function and/or, neurobiology, then at least there was some sort of basis there.
• 14:19
  Ryan: But if the available evidence demonstrated no effect at all, then it starts to break down pretty quick.
• 14:26
  Ryan: And indeed, these are exceedingly small induction numbers down into the picotesla range, which is beyond the scope of this discussion.
• 14:35
  Ryan: It's small.
• 14:36
  Peter: Yeah.
• 14:36
  Ryan: The point being, it, the research I found did not completely debunk the potential for influence, but it is highly questionable in the research that's been conducted, and anything that comes up as, like, positive interaction is quite small.
• 14:51
  Ryan: So, it didn't completely break the potential mechanism, but it also brings into question really the limit to how much influence can come from an radiating electromagnetic field between people.
• 15:05
  Peter: So there's another aspect, before we move from the social coherence.
• 15:09
  Peter: There's another aspect of social coherence that he, he mentions and promotes, which is that, they provide HeartMath training to organizations.
• 15:16
  Ryan: Hmm.
• 15:16
  Peter: And they've worked with healthcare professionals, they've worked with, I think, the military and first responders and corporations.
• 15:25
  Peter: And that when they put teams through heart math training, then the teams and the organizations see improved results.
• 15:34
  Peter: I think part of the claim is that that's because, you know, by learning coherence together, they start to sync up as teams, and there's more coherence in the groups.
• 15:45
  Peter: More heart coherence.
• 15:47
  Peter: And of course, it, it's kind of a trivial claim, or I mean, basically there's thousands of consultants out there, providing different trainings to organizations and teams, and every single one of them demonstrates an improvement in team function after
• 16:07
  Peter: doing whatever it is they're selling.
• 16:09
  Peter: And so to say-
• 16:11
  Ryan: And that the more people in groups feel good and are in stable mental states, the better the team functions.
• 16:18
  Peter: Well, I mean, that's the, that's the more obvious-
• 16:20
  Ryan: Right
• 16:21
  Peter: mechanism.
• 16:21
  Ryan: Right.
• 16:22
  Peter: Right?
• 16:22
  Peter: But you know, the mechanism that they're pushing here for HeartMath is that, oh, it's because of the fields of the hearts of the people that they've trained that the groups are coming into coordination."
• 16:37
  Ryan: Right.
• 16:37
  Peter: Because the electromagnetic fields of their hearts are communicating to each other.
• 16:41
  Peter: Which is a strange-
• 16:42
  Ryan: Yeah
• 16:43
  Peter: I mean, not looking at it in a vacuum, it's a strange-
• 16:47
  Ryan: Claim
• 16:48
  Peter: claim.
• 16:48
  Peter: Yeah.
• 16:48
  Peter: I mean, I, I'm feeling a little derisive, but I do think it is, really strange because it's as if the only context is HeartMath.
• 16:56
  Ryan: Right.
• 16:57
  Peter: It really kind of goes to that, question of the shielded-
• 17:00
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 17:00
  Peter: you know, the detectability even of the magnetic field of the heart.
• 17:05
  Peter: Like, it's real.
• 17:06
  Peter: We're not saying it's not real.
• 17:08
  Peter: The question is, what's the significance of it?
• 17:11
  Ryan: Right.
• 17:12
  Peter: What's, what could the significance possibly be given all of the other context within which it occurs.
• 17:20
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 17:20
  Ryan: And I was trying to think about, like, what would really need to be accomplished in order for the claim that he's making to be reasonably demonstrated, conducted with the rigor that would be needed to assert the causation that
• 17:38
  Ryan: he's stating.
• 17:39
  Ryan: And it, to me, w- was very obvious, and it seems plausibly doable that, because he established that there is interpretability in the signal-
• 17:53
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 17:53
  Ryan: that we should be able to put a subject, I think you would need to have it in isolation to ensure that this is the thing creating the causation, and subject them to synthetic electromagnetic fields
• 18:09
  Peter: Hmm
• 18:10
  Ryan: that are, modeling the different coherent states-
• 18:14
  Peter: Hmm
• 18:15
  Ryan: and see if there is a change, see if they become more coherent or whatever, because then you're removing the interpersonal piece.
• 18:22
  Ryan: You're isolating the mechanism, and presumably you could do that.
• 18:26
  Peter: I, that's a really, really good point, because he's very explicitly saying it is the electromagnetic field of the heart.
• 18:34
  Ryan: Right.
• 18:35
  Peter: And if that's what it is, if it's an electromagnetic effect that's measurable, then it should be- Okay,
• 18:42
  Ryan: reproducible
• 18:43
  Peter: I mean, obviously we have the technology to reproduce electromagnetic effects.
• 18:47
  Ryan: Right.
• 18:47
  Peter: To go off to left field, another explanation is that it's some kind of indetectable spiritual effect that that's why you can't replicate it using, you know, electromagnetic technology.
• 19:00
  Ryan: That's not what he's saying
• 19:01
  Peter: the, that's not what he's saying.
• 19:02
  Ryan: Right.
• 19:03
  Peter: And, oh, go ahead.
• 19:04
  Ryan: Well, I just, I wanna be clear.
• 19:06
  Ryan: I mean, we kind of talked about this two episodes ago, and I wanna make my own personal position clear that, I do believe that there is some kind of interpersonal thing that's beyond just body language-
• 19:19
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 19:19
  Ryan: and stuff like that.
• 19:19
  Peter: Yes.
• 19:19
  Ryan: And my anecdotal life experience is such that I believe there is something more.
• 19:27
  Ryan: And
• 19:27
  Peter: Yeah, yeah
• 19:28
  Ryan: I'm not saying it's proven, and, I'm not convinced that the mechanics that he's proposing are that thing.
• 19:37
  Peter: Right.
• 19:37
  Peter: I agree.
• 19:38
  Peter: I, I'm in the same boat in terms of personal experience and belief.
• 19:43
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 19:44
  Peter: But that's different from scientific study.
• 19:47
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 19:47
  Peter: and I'm not even saying that it can't be exactly the electromagnetic field of the heart that he is working with.
• 19:58
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 19:58
  Peter: there has to be more rigorous effort to demonstrate that.
• 20:02
  Ryan: Right.
• 20:02
  Peter: And so, we've agreed that these results are interesting.
• 20:06
  Ryan: Yep.
• 20:07
  Peter: And it's like, oh yeah, you should do more work on this.
• 20:10
  Peter: This is interesting.
• 20:11
  Peter: We'd like to know how or that the electromagnetic heart field.
• 20:16
  Peter: I wanna keep on saying electromagnetic heart field because in my spiritual work we talk about the heart field.
• 20:22
  Ryan: Right.
• 20:22
  Peter: I mean, literally, I get together with a group of people and we do our meditation thing, and we create our field, and blah, blah, blah.
• 20:31
  Peter: We're not saying it's an electromagnetic field.
• 20:33
  Ryan: Right.
• 20:33
  Peter: He is.
• 20:34
  Ryan: Right.
• 20:34
  Peter: And so, we agree that this is of interest.
• 20:37
  Ryan: Yep.
• 20:38
  Peter: And that the results are interesting, and like, wow, it's great if you have a way to actually measure this stuff.
• 20:43
  Peter: If this is a mechanism by which this is happening, and it's not some hand-waving, feel-good, woo-woo-
• 20:51
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 20:51
  Peter: heart field, which to some extent we agree, we-
• 20:55
  Ryan: Yep
• 20:55
  Peter: believe in, right?
• 20:56
  Peter: It's like, but oh, but we can show that it's electromagnetic field.
• 20:58
  Peter: Cool.
• 20:59
  Ryan: Yep.
• 21:00
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 21:00
  Peter: Do that.
• 21:01
  Ryan: Yep.
• 21:01
  Peter: You know, that's fine.
• 21:02
  Ryan: Yep.
• 21:03
  Peter: That doesn't make it less sacred to me-
• 21:05
  Ryan: Right
• 21:05
  Peter: just 'cause you can demonstrate a materialist analog of the experience.
• 21:10
  Ryan: Yep.
• 21:11
  Peter: That's- So, I, I This is kind of interesting.
• 21:13
  Peter: I'm like, oh, I wanna go way off left field on this- 'cause, you know, like we agree we have brains.
• 21:19
  Ryan: Yep.
• 21:20
  Peter: But we don't agree that brains are the cause of consciousness.
• 21:23
  Ryan: Right.
• 21:24
  Peter: So, it's, it's that.
• 21:26
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Peter: It's like, yeah, if you can demonstrate it, great.
• 21:29
  Peter: That's interesting.
• 21:30
  Peter: But there doesn't seem to be any interest.
• 21:32
  Peter: It's like, let's run off after the next thing and promote this model, by selling a lot of services, and demonstrating a lot of positive effects, which are real.
• 21:44
  Peter: You know?
• 21:45
  Peter: It's like the training is real, the money's real, and the outcomes are real.
• 21:49
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 21:49
  Peter: It's fine.
• 21:49
  Peter: But the mechanism is hand-waving.
• 21:51
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Peter: There's some basic investigations that have been done, and the follow-up studies are absent, to the extent that he never talks about them.
• 22:00
  Ryan: Right.
• 22:00
  Peter: Like if th- maybe they're there.
• 22:02
  Peter: We haven't gone digging for them, but he never mentions them.
• 22:05
  Peter: He only mentions the preliminary stuff-
• 22:08
  Ryan: Mm
• 22:09
  Peter: which pretty strongly implies that the follow-up studies don't exist.
• 22:13
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 22:13
  Peter: So we'd like to believe, but we have to be skeptical in the context of scientific representation.
• 22:20
  Ryan: Right.
• 22:21
  Ryan: Which is really all this is about.
• 22:22
  Peter: Right.
• 22:23
  Ryan: Right?
• 22:23
  Ryan: That, there is a scientific basis asserted for this phenomena, versus something that you believe in and, have personal experience around, which are two different things.
• 22:36
  Peter: And another point that I want to make, is that there are critics who are so vehemently dismissive-
• 22:43
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 22:43
  Peter: of all this stuff.
• 22:44
  Peter: And, you know, we don't feel that way.
• 22:47
  Ryan: Right.
• 22:47
  Peter: We pretty much know that there's something real here.
• 22:50
  Peter: We're just saying, It's not what you say it is."
• 22:54
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 22:54
  Peter: It's something else, and we are happy to live with it and benefit from it in, agnosticism-
• 23:02
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 23:02
  Peter: of not knowing.
• 23:03
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 23:03
  Peter: We don't know.
• 23:04
  Peter: We do know the effects.
• 23:06
  Peter: We do know the positive outcomes of our experiences.
• 23:08
  Peter: Do we know exactly what's going on?
• 23:10
  Peter: No.
• 23:11
  Peter: We like to speak metaphorically.
• 23:13
  Peter: We have models that we love to talk about to describe these things.
• 23:18
  Peter: Like Hoffman and Campbell and others.
• 23:21
  Peter: But we don't talk about it as...
• 23:23
  Peter: For us, it's just, like, cool conceptual stuff to align with real positive experiences.
• 23:30
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 23:31
  Peter: So yeah, just to make that distinction, like, we're not dismissive, you know, we're not that kind of critic.
• 23:38
  Ryan: Right.
• 23:39
  Peter: But we're saying, "Hey, you're talking about it in this context, therefore you're obligated to prove it in this context."
• 23:46
  Peter: Right.
• 23:47
  Peter: So, okay, now I think-
• 23:49
  Ryan: Ready?
• 23:50
  Peter: we can go to global, right?
• 23:50
  Ryan: Yes.
• 23:51
  Ryan: All right.
• 23:52
  Peter: So, in terms of talking about global effects, he starts out by talking about solar wind-
• 24:00
  Ryan: Mm
• 24:00
  Peter: and, geomagnetic fields.
• 24:02
  Peter: And he introduces geomagnetic magnetic field, this is how compasses work.
• 24:06
  Peter: It's a real thing, blah, blah, blah.
• 24:07
  Peter: And this field is influenced by solar activity, and he uses the metaphor of strumming the strings of force on the Earth.
• 24:16
  Peter: And he references this old World War I study of global events and correlation to solar disturbances.
• 24:26
  Peter: Right?
• 24:27
  Peter: And that every solar disturbance, every major, like, deviation from the normal solar cycle of activity is associated with some-
• 24:39
  Ryan: Major
• 24:39
  Peter: super significant- Yeah human event, whether it's positive things and negative things.
• 24:43
  Peter: But anyway, he's like, "So it's been shown that there's a strong correlation between solar activity and human affairs.
• 24:52
  Peter: And how does this happen?
• 24:54
  Peter: And here's how solar activity interacts with the Earth's magnetic field."
• 24:58
  Peter: and then, well, the Earth's magnetic field is like the heart's magnetic field.
• 25:03
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 25:03
  Peter: And the other point, for me it's more interesting, he's like all life on Earth evolved within the activities of Earth's magnetic field.
• 25:11
  Peter: clearly there's an influence of the geomagnetic field on living things.
• 25:16
  Peter: I'm like, Well, that's a cool point."
• 25:18
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 25:18
  Peter: Like, sure.
• 25:19
  Peter: how, how could that not be?
• 25:20
  Ryan: Right.
• 25:21
  Peter: Interesting point, and then the huge leap of- and therefore, solar disturbances cause wars, and conversely, if we all get into heart resonance, we can then, influence the planet through its magnetic field and influence- global populations
• 25:36
  Ryan: There was a part of this where I could get it conceptually and align with the concept based on my own personal beliefs.
• 25:46
  Ryan: And then there was a different aspect that I wasn't quite sure about.
• 25:50
  Ryan: Basically the way it's discussed is, using it like a carrier wave, so that our, heart coherence, and emotional information is imparted upon the global fields.
• 26:02
  Ryan: and my immediate, analogy, and is one he also has used and probably because of his radio history, is this idea of a radio wave and where we encode onto a carrier wave, and that information is, is transmitted depending
• 26:21
  Ryan: on the power of the transmitter and everything for certain distances.
• 26:25
  Ryan: And the way I could conceptualize this was more as a representation of the global emotional state, right?
• 26:35
  Ryan: Instead of Like, I can transmit to somebody across the world-
• 26:40
  Peter: Oh, sure
• 26:40
  Ryan: and influence somebody across the world-
• 26:42
  Peter: Sure
• 26:42
  Ryan: with my coherence.
• 26:44
  Peter: Right.
• 26:44
  Ryan: It seems- So it's a
• 26:45
  Peter: population effect.
• 26:46
  Ryan: It's more like-
• 26:47
  Peter: Yeah
• 26:47
  Ryan: a population effect.
• 26:48
  Ryan: And so certainly I could see if this mechanic was, true, how an increase in the population of people who demonstrate regular coherence could then be influential upon the rest of the people.
• 27:04
  Ryan: Now you still raise a really good point, and it wasn't something that jumped out at me originally when we were going through this information, but it does raise a question now, which is why is coherence more influential?
• 27:17
  Ryan: Right?
• 27:17
  Ryan: Like when he has these studies, the person who is in coherence imparts coherence on the other person.
• 27:23
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 27:24
  Ryan: And less so is he discussing, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, that he's demonstrated this, but less so is a deco-
• 27:32
  Peter: Mm-hmm.
• 27:32
  Peter: Mm-hmm
• 27:33
  Ryan: uncoherent state imparted on a coherent person.
• 27:36
  Ryan: Now, people who may be in the middle, which you're sort of alluding to off mic, that there's coherent people and there's uncoherent people, and then there's like everybody else who's kind of in the middle that's just this neutral
• 27:49
  Ryan: state.
• 27:50
  Ryan: Maybe those neutral states are more influenced in one direction or the other.
• 27:55
  Ryan: He does discuss, in the social coherence information, the idea of like you walk into a room and you kind of feel that energy.
• 28:04
  Ryan: And certainly if you walk into a negative room, you're gonna kind of feel that negative energy and it might impact the way you feel internally, whatever those mechanisms are.
• 28:16
  Ryan: So that was kind of a digression, but it was something that you had just brought up before, which is, why would your coherence override my own heart state?
• 28:27
  Ryan: What?
• 28:27
  Peter: I was just intuiting a kind of hand-waving answer to that.
• 28:30
  Peter: Your physiology is designed to be in coherence.
• 28:33
  Ryan: To want to be that way.
• 28:34
  Ryan: Right.
• 28:34
  Peter: Right.
• 28:34
  Peter: And so if you get a cue or if you get some nudge-
• 28:38
  Ryan: Yeah
• 28:38
  Peter: then you're more likely to fall that way.
• 28:41
  Ryan: Sure.
• 28:42
  Peter: I don't know.
• 28:43
  Peter: I mean, I don't know if that really makes sense.
• 28:46
  Peter: Like, do you immediately come down, calm down when you come into contact with-
• 28:51
  Ryan: With someone who's calm
• 28:52
  Peter: well, I mean, I guess there's, there's plenty of experiences of that.
• 28:56
  Peter: So I guess my hand wave is pretty empty 'cause I would, I would just say the reality is in the population there's a lot more stress and incoherence-
• 29:06
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 29:07
  Peter: than there is coherence.
• 29:08
  Ryan: Coherence.
• 29:08
  Peter: And so that's literally his goal-
• 29:11
  Ryan: Mm-hmm
• 29:11
  Peter: is to recruit enough people to come into coherence to shift the global balance.
• 29:18
  Ryan: Right.
• 29:19
  Peter: But there was a- another piece of this global coherence that he talks about, which is the alignment with the global field.
• 29:30
  Peter: And I'm just remembering the s- I can't remember the details of the study, but they basically studied a lot of people, globally, in terms of their baseline coherent state, or their current state of coherence.
• 29:44
  Peter: And what he found was that there's a large group of people, like I think 10%, these groups are on the order of 10 or 13%, I don't remember which is which.
• 29:53
  Peter: So he says, there are people who are in coherence and their waves align with the Earth's, waveforms."
• 30:04
  Peter: And so he has this, this one graph of these two lines.
• 30:07
  Peter: One is the people and one is the Earth, and shows the alignment of the waveforms.
• 30:11
  Peter: And he says, "And then there's another group where when you look at their waveforms, they're out of sync with the Earth's."
• 30:18
  Peter: But these two groups together only make up 25%.
• 30:21
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 30:22
  Peter: So each of these two groups they are coherent with each other, that's why they're groups.
• 30:27
  Peter: And then the 70-some percent of the remaining global population is totally random.
• 30:33
  Peter: They're not in sync with each other or anything else.
• 30:35
  Peter: and so, I guess...
• 30:38
  Peter: i- it's an interesting result, but I didn't know why it was an interesting result.
• 30:41
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 30:41
  Peter: People are gonna fall into groups-
• 30:42
  Ryan: Yeah
• 30:43
  Peter: by anything that you measure.
• 30:44
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Peter: And some of the groups are large, but not majorities.
• 30:47
  Ryan: Right.
• 30:48
  Peter: I don't know.
• 30:48
  Ryan: Something that was curious to me, and maybe it is in- tended to be implicit inside his description of synchronization.
• 30:59
  Ryan: So when we're talking at the base heart rate variability level, right?
• 31:04
  Ryan: Like individual heart rate variability, and you have an individual coherent state, many people can be in a coherent state.
• 31:14
  Ryan: And so now I'm extrapolating this to a global system and the cumulative effect of these more coherent bodies But in order for them to be summative like that, they have to be in phase with each other.
• 31:30
  Ryan: And if those coherence frequencies are out of phase with each other, they would cancel each other out.
• 31:36
  Ryan: They're both in positive coherence.
• 31:39
  Ryan: And so maybe that's what he's talking about with synchronization and that that group of people is both in coherence and in phase.
• 31:47
  Peter: Uh-huh.
• 31:48
  Ryan: But I mean, that's a small amount of people to be in phase with each other, and how do you then influence the global consciousness through this global network without getting everybody in phase, right?
• 32:01
  Ryan: It's not just about getting people in coherence.
• 32:05
  Ryan: We also need to be in phase.
• 32:07
  Ryan: Otherwise, we start to cancel each other out.
• 32:09
  Peter: Yeah, I don't know.
• 32:10
  Peter: I mean, the other thing is individual variation in coherence.
• 32:14
  Ryan: Yep.
• 32:15
  Peter: So one of the things I found looking into the HeartMath system is that you get the device and you establish your own baseline.
• 32:25
  Ryan: Right.
• 32:25
  Peter: Like, it's approximately .1 hertz.
• 32:28
  Ryan: But there's variation.
• 32:29
  Peter: But, but there's variation.
• 32:30
  Peter: And so what does that-
• 32:32
  Ryan: Yeah
• 32:33
  Peter: mean?
• 32:33
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Peter: Right?
• 32:34
  Ryan: In
• 32:34
  Peter: the
• 32:34
  Ryan: global-
• 32:35
  Peter: Right
• 32:35
  Ryan: concept.
• 32:36
  Peter: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Peter: I don't know.
• 32:37
  Peter: Uh, just to share something that I was confused about, so I'm guessing that someone else is gonna get confused about it though.
• 32:45
  Peter: Just the terminology of, the hertz frequency and the .1 hertz frequency.
• 32:51
  Peter: the hertz is cycles per second This is, this is what was messing me up.
• 32:55
  Peter: Let me think for a moment.
• 32:56
  Peter: So when we, we talk about regular heartbeat, we talk about beats per minute.
• 33:00
  Peter: And when you talk about hertz, you're talking about cycles per second, and if that number is More than one, then you're talking about fractions of a second.
• 33:10
  Peter: So 10 hertz would be 10 per second.
• 33:14
  Peter: So each cycle is a tenth of a second, a small number.
• 33:19
  Peter: But since we're talking about .1 hertz
• 33:22
  Ryan: Hmm
• 33:23
  Peter: it goes the other way.
• 33:24
  Peter: So one hertz is one cycle per second, but then when you go below one, you're talking about slower cycles.
• 33:33
  Peter: So the .1 hertz cycle that's one cycle per 10 seconds, or six cycles a minute.
• 33:42
  Peter: And that's why your heart coherence can reach point 1 hertz, because your heart rate variability cycles every 10 seconds.
• 33:52
  Peter: It just took me- a while to figure out exactly what we're talking about here in terms of coherence and this hertz.
• 34:00
  Ryan: And heart rate
• 34:01
  Peter: variability.
• 34:01
  Peter: So, right, and heart rate variability.
• 34:03
  Ryan: Mm.
• 34:04
  Peter: So anyway.
• 34:04
  Ryan: A good point.
• 34:05
  Peter: Hopefully I didn't introduce a whole bunch of confusion, but I think it's important to understand exactly what we're talking about.
• 34:10
  Ryan: Well, and that's something that's important to us, and that's why we have this conversation too.
• 34:13
  Ryan: Isn't to say this is all crap, but it's to say, what are we talking about?
• 34:19
  Ryan: Right.
• 34:19
  Ryan: Let's
• 34:20
  Peter: make
• 34:20
  Ryan: things
• 34:20
  Peter: clearer.
• 34:21
  Peter: And
• 34:21
  Ryan: let's be clear- Yeah.
• 34:21
  Ryan: Yeah about what we are talking about and what is demonstrated and what is less so.
• 34:27
  Peter: Yeah.
• 34:27
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 34:28
  Peter: Okay.
• 34:30
  Peter: Um, I, I wanna go a little farther, though with McCraty's, mm, stretch.
• 34:36
  Peter: Because he doesn't stop at this global initiative concept, which he's taken very seriously, to the point where he's actually built electromagnetic coil facilities, or at least one.
• 34:49
  Peter: But he wants to build them around the world, so that he can do more measurements of the global electromagnetic field and how it changes in response to his coordinated coherence efforts of, recruiting people to practice coherence in concert.
• 35:07
  Peter: But he also has an area of study which I think is how I first came across him-
• 35:13
  Ryan: Hmm
• 35:13
  Peter: which is intuition and precognition, and the association of heart coherence-
• 35:20
  Ryan: Interesting
• 35:21
  Peter: with that.
• 35:22
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 35:22
  Peter: I'm not gonna get into it, but I do wanna point it out.
• 35:26
  Peter: I'm reminded of it because of the critical paper that we looked at.
• 35:31
  Peter: And so it was, this physician wrote an article 'cause he was annoyed.
• 35:35
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 35:36
  Ryan: It's called the Slate Star Codex.
• 35:38
  Peter: Yeah.
• 35:38
  Ryan: HeartMath Considered Incoherent.
• 35:41
  Peter: And he's annoyed because he's a physician in a hospital, and the hospital is spending money on consultation and making him attend these courses.
• 35:51
  Peter: And so he thought this approach was bogus and is, is highly critical of it.
• 35:57
  Peter: And he, he wrote this article, and it's an extremely snarky article.
• 36:01
  Peter: And it raises a lot of great criticisms, but it's also done with a lot of humor.
• 36:06
  Peter: And I, I have to give him credit that, you know, he's very explicit about when he's just being annoyed.
• 36:13
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 36:14
  Peter: And so it's not like, oh, this is supposed to prove how bad this thing is.
• 36:18
  Peter: It's just I'm annoyed, and so I'm gonna, you know, point out some really annoying things that I find, derogatory.
• 36:25
  Peter: he's like, "There are some really severe, severe limitations to the extent of this being kinda silly."
• 36:30
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 36:31
  Peter: And we're paying money, and they're raising money, and they're making money.
• 36:34
  Peter: And he's kind of just dealing with the practical realities of the thing.
• 36:39
  Peter: So just to say, I appreciated that he called out things in an orderly way.
• 36:44
  Peter: It's like, yeah, that's what was bothering me.
• 36:46
  Peter: But also Take it with a grain of salt as a rant.
• 36:50
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 36:50
  Peter: Cause that's what it is.
• 36:51
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 36:51
  Peter: It is like a very annoyed rant by a guy whose organization is forcing him to attend some classes, and using their resources for something that he doesn't believe in.
• 37:01
  Peter: So I just wanna put that out there 'cause I enjoyed the piece.
• 37:05
  Peter: I think you should read it, but you should also, like, don't say, "Oh, this proves how, criminal it is," or whatever.
• 37:10
  Ryan: Mm.
• 37:10
  Peter: That's not what it's about.
• 37:11
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 37:12
  Peter: It's a perspective.
• 37:13
  Ryan: And I think it's reasonable and productive to look into those.
• 37:17
  Ryan: That's, I mean, that's part of why we went off to try and find what critiques and critics there were of HeartMath and of, Rollin McCraty to begin with.
• 37:27
  Ryan: And, to reiterate that just because there's a critique doesn't make everything he's done irrelevant.
• 37:33
  Ryan: Even if the causal claims are inaccurate, the outcomes seem to have merit.
• 37:41
  Peter: Right.
• 37:41
  Peter: And I think, now we're going to, like, what's our intent?
• 37:45
  Peter: Like, why, why are we having this conversation?
• 37:47
  Peter: And it's not, to get people to either believe this stuff or to disbelieve it.
• 37:51
  Ryan: Right.
• 37:52
  Peter: Right?
• 37:53
  Peter: It's to get people to be open-minded, be able to have genuine discussions about things, not to be dismissive.
• 38:02
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 38:02
  Peter: It's fun to be dismissive and derogatory- sometimes, but don't buy that as the truth.
• 38:08
  Ryan: Right.
• 38:09
  Peter: Right?
• 38:09
  Peter: And just consider the limitations and the nature of the claims.
• 38:14
  Peter: 'Cause what, we've been saying is these claims in the context of science.
• 38:17
  Ryan: Right.
• 38:18
  Peter: It's like keep everything in context because science is not the absolute context.
• 38:24
  Peter: Yeah.
• 38:24
  Peter: That's like our major, one of our major theses.
• 38:27
  Peter: And neither is, Idealism.
• 38:30
  Ryan: Yes.
• 38:30
  Peter: Right?
• 38:31
  Ryan: Yes.
• 38:31
  Peter: It's like we like idealism a heck of a lot, but we like to put food in our mouths.
• 38:38
  Peter: We like our material bodies, and we, like, work out and stuff like that.
• 38:41
  Ryan: Mm-hmm.
• 38:42
  Peter: So yeah, it's, all about balance and being- agile in your beliefs and not, calcified by-
• 38:48
  Ryan: Yeah
• 38:49
  Peter: you know.
• 38:50
  Ryan: Being rigid and-
• 38:51
  Peter: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:52
  Ryan: Unmovable
• 38:52
  Peter: and dogmatic.
• 38:53
  Ryan: Yes.
• 38:54
  Peter: Either way.
• 38:54
  Ryan: Yes.
• 38:55
  Peter: Right.
• 38:55
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 38:56
  Peter: Dogma is not only for religion.
• 38:58
  Ryan: Right.
• 38:58
  Ryan: So I really did enjoy learning about HeartMath.
• 39:01
  Ryan: You had talked about it with me a few times before, and we hadn't gotten into it.
• 39:06
  Ryan: I'm still curious myself, and I know you said similarly about the device, insofar as I'm curious about my own coherence, less so as am I concerned about trying to follow the protocol and do that, but I'm interested to
• 39:24
  Ryan: know what my state of coherence is in general.
• 39:28
  Peter: yes, same here.
• 39:30
  Peter: I'm still considering investing in the device-
• 39:32
  Ryan: Yeah
• 39:32
  Peter: just to have it.
• 39:33
  Ryan: So there is, if you're interested, heartmath.org/gci is the Global Coherence Initiative, if you wanted to learn more about that and if you wanted to participate in it.
• 39:47
  Ryan: our references and materials will be linked in the descriptions, and we'd like to continue to reach out and hear from you guys, and tell us, I mean, are we being dumb or whatever.
• 40:00
  Peter: A- a- and I have a question, which is, do you want us to get HeartMath devices and try it out?
• 40:05
  Ryan: Right.
• 40:05
  Peter: And let you know what our results are?
• 40:07
  Ryan: Right.
• 40:08
  Peter: Yeah.
• 40:09
  Ryan: Because- 'Cause we can do that.
• 40:10
  Peter: We can do that.
• 40:10
  Peter: it's gonna be a different thing though, because I think it's marketed really to people who are looking for a solution.
• 40:17
  Ryan: Correct.
• 40:18
  Peter: That they got trouble, they don't feel well, they wanna improve their health.
• 40:23
  Peter: And we're looking at it more of a, well, we know what wellness and unwellness are like.
• 40:30
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 40:30
  Peter: And so let's, you know, I know what I'm like when I'm well.
• 40:35
  Peter: What does this device say about my coherence- Yeah when I'm in that state versus when I'm unwell-
• 40:41
  Ryan: Yeah
• 40:42
  Peter: and agitated- and, and conflicted and confrontational.
• 40:46
  Peter: What does my, what does my, you know, what does this device say about that?
• 40:48
  Peter: I'm curious.
• 40:49
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 40:49
  Ryan: That, that's really where I'm most curious.
• 40:52
  Ryan: I have confidence that his techniques that he teaches have efficacy because they seem really rooted in traditional meditative practices- Yeah.
• 41:03
  Ryan: Yeah and breathing and, you know, that all have reasonable evidence of their efficacy.
• 41:08
  Ryan: So I think that that is less what I'm looking for, but, not that it's an irrelevant practice.
• 41:16
  Ryan: But I am curious to see what my coherence looks like in those different states.
• 41:21
  Ryan: If you listened to this point in the episode, we really appreciate you.
• 41:25
  Ryan: There is something I wanted to bring up to you guys.
• 41:28
  Ryan: As we've gone through creating this show, and our audience has grown, and we're extremely grateful for everything you guys do and, and your support in listening.
• 41:39
  Ryan: And the uncomfortable truth about it is that it is not free to produce this show, and so it was a difficult decision for us.
• 41:48
  Ryan: But we decided to enable advertisements on this show.
• 41:53
  Ryan: It's my intention to keep it as unobtrusive as possible.
• 41:57
  Ryan: We are also going to try and open an ad-free version.
• 42:01
  Ryan: Basically for less than a Starbucks coffee a month, we can deliver these episodes to you ad-free.
• 42:09
  Ryan: I wanted to be transparent about the show and its growth.
• 42:13
  Ryan: And in fact, we have an amazing list of guests that we have in the queue, so look forward to those coming up.
• 42:21
  Ryan: Your continued support is appreciated, and your tolerance of advertising is greatly appreciated as well as we try and
• 42:29
  Peter: Sustain the work
• 42:30
  Ryan: Sustain the work.
• 42:31
  Ryan: Thank you, Peter.
• 42:32
  Peter: Yeah.
• 42:33
  Ryan: Anyway, so on that note, we love having these conversations.
• 42:37
  Ryan: We find value in it.
• 42:38
  Ryan: We hope you find value in it.
• 42:40
  Ryan: And So, that's all we have for today, and I guess we'll talk to you guys next time.
• 42:45
  Ryan: See ya.
• 42:45
  Peter: Thanks.
• 42:46
  Peter: Bye.
• 42:48
  Peter: Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast.
• 42:51
  Peter: Join us next time as we continue the discussion.
• 42:53
  Peter: Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and visit www.eth-studio.com for more information and content