Monster Machine Madman

Wittgenstein calls out crooked mental-health charlatans

While the reply-guys whine that "philosophy isn't practical", bad philosophy twists everything we know about the mind and mental health.

May 29, 2024

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Can anyone be desireless?

Wanting to eliminate all wanting seems incoherent if you take it at face value. But there's more going on.

May 15, 2024

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April 2024

Brains don't build pictures of the world (and you don't know the world through a mental picture)

These internet comments that assume "brains build pictures of reality" are teaching me that Kant, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein don't get nearly enough…

Apr 17, 2024

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Philosophy is dead and useless and you're doing it anyway

Love it, hate it, think it's mind poison—philosophy's got you no matter what.

Apr 3, 2024

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March 2024

Elon's brain chip implant is rolling out and the consequences will blow your mind

Here's a concrete example of what I mean when I say people become more like machines as the machines become more life-like

Mar 27, 2024

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Our silent war with the androids

Are we stalked by inhuman machines living among us? A prescient science fiction author thought so.

Mar 20, 2024

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November 2023

Von Neumann's hall of mirrors

Much science done today studies nature by studying artificial models, but do you know how to tell them apart?

Nov 17, 2023

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Where's the "should" in an avalanche?

Robert Sapolsky argues against freedom and responsibility in this latest shameless attempt by The Science to convince you that you aren't real.

Nov 10, 2023

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There is but one infinite game.

So writes James Carse in Finite and Infinite Games, inspiring the bloom of a thousand biz-gurus.

Nov 3, 2023

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October 2023

John Carpenter suspends natural law until the end of October

How Carpenter's horror movies reveal the sublime wonders and terrors slithering through the entrails of notional reality

Oct 27, 2023

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Answering the Vorlon question

Deep insights on being human found in a mostly-forgotten gem of 1990s science fiction television.

Oct 20, 2023

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The meaningless computer worlds of cognitive science

Jerome Bruner helped create cognitive science and there's a fascinating reason why he didn't care for the metaphor of the mind as a computer.

Oct 6, 2023

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