Jul 9, 20219 minThe truth about genderSome months ago I saw Richard Dawkins recommend on Twitter a new book called The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and...
Jun 15, 202111 minOn humans' language facultyYou may have heard of the “talking gorilla” Koko. I remember as a child reading about this fascinating creature that had been trained to...
Jun 6, 202120 minReflecting on life at 40…They accuse me -- Me -- the present writer of The present poem -- of -- I know not what -- A tendency to under-rate and scoff At human...
May 26, 20216 minThe miraculous brain[Old notes.] I’m reading Stanislas Dehaene’s Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts (2014). Good book,...
Sep 6, 202019 minJournal-notes on cognitive science [From 2015.] Reading a bunch of articles on cognitive development. A fascinating field. Interesting: Human infants who receive little...
Sep 1, 20205 minBiology and destiny[Notes from ten years ago.] I’m amazed at the extent of our culture’s cult of secrecy in matters of the body. Even in this age, people...
Aug 12, 20204 minFragments on the phenomenology of sexual attraction[From 2010.] The psychology of sex is fascinating. For example, why are women sometimes attracted to “innocent” young men, “pure,”...
Jul 30, 202016 minThe heartbreak of staggering self-consciousnessToday I came across a copy of Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and was reminded of myself in my twenties, when I was...
Jul 19, 20197 minA plea for honesty in discussions of sex and genderA recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who...
Dec 27, 20183 minThe meaning of life[Excerpts from this book. See also this blog post, "Excerpts on happiness."] The meaning of life?— Life is not totally “meaningless.”...
Jul 30, 20184 minOld notes on etymologyThe profundity of language.— You can gain great insight into the human condition, into the nature of the mind, by studying the evolution...
Jul 22, 20182 minMarxism and MeadismAugust, 2007.— Here’s one of the many parallels between Marxism and 'Meadism' [i.e., George Herbert Mead's system of thought]: “Human...
May 26, 20183 minExistentialist thoughts on David Foster Wallace[From 2008. Copied here, somewhat irrelevantly, in recognition of the recent suicides that have been in the news.] Read an article in...
May 20, 201810 minD. W. Winnicott on playingHere are some old disjointed notes on a classic book by the psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott. I happen to be skeptical of psychoanalysis,...
May 16, 20183 minRandom thoughts on the selfPhenomenological explorations of consciousness and the self have always fascinated me, and over the years I've taken reams of notes on...
Mar 25, 20187 minExcerpts on moral pathologies[From Notes of an Underground Humanist.] How is mass inhumanity possible?— When I ask myself how it’s possible that so many white...
Jul 14, 20166 min"Awakenings," and the power of music[From 2008.] Reading Oliver Sacks’s Awakenings, which is about his experiences with post-encephalitic, Parkinsonian patients. It’s a good...
Jun 23, 20162 minThe utility of "God"I attended my first Episcopalian service last night [in April 2010]. It was Maundy Thursday, so we did the whole foot-washing thing and...
Jan 4, 20166 minTwo interpretations of loveMax Scheler’s Ressentiment (1912), while dated and silly in some respects, is worth reading. Scheler is a semi-Nietzsche in his...
Sep 21, 20153 minFragments of humanismL’enfer, c’est les autres?— Contrary to what Sartre pessimistically thought, if hell exists, it is not other people. It is the absence of...