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 4, 20202 minI was feeling rather metaphysical last nightDavid Graeber died. At 59. Tomorrow, you or I might die. At any moment. Meanwhile, we pretend life has meaning. Eventually, we will die....
Sep 4, 202035 minThe Workers' BillHere's the last section of chapter 6 of my dissertation on the unemployed in Chicago during the Depression. The previous two sections are...
Sep 3, 202054 minOn the Unemployed Councils and the Chicago Workers' CommitteeThe last chapter of my dissertation on the unemployed in Chicago during the Great Depression is, I think, more interesting than the...
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 31, 202010 minOn Wittgenstein and QuineWittgenstein is an odd case. I've always had the impression that his early work, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is genius—and not...
Aug 27, 202021 minThe remarkable perversity of idealismMany years ago, when I was a simple boy who thought he ought to know a lot about Hegel, I took masses of notes on his philosophy. Below...
Aug 23, 202025 minThe radical dimensions of mass consciousness, part 2Here's the sequel to this post, from the last chapter of my Ph.D. thesis. It's just an excerpt. The main point of it is to argue against...
Aug 23, 202045 minThe radical dimensions of mass consciousness, part 1I'm kind of a "vulgar Marxist." In this respect, I suppose I'm a lot like people in the American ruling class, except that their values...
Aug 22, 202023 minThe definition of knowledgePhilosophers have a tendency to treat questions that revolve around the meaning of a particular concept as if they are more substantive...
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,”...
Aug 11, 202059 minThe relativity of valuesBack in my twenties I had an intellectual and creative energy I don't have anymore. I was consumed by philosophy, jumping from topic to...
Aug 7, 202010 minDetritus from a dead poetic imaginationLife in the 21st century as we all wait consciously or unconsciously for the apocalypse is boring and driven by distractions, an endless...
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...
Jun 28, 20207 minOld student notes on random philosophy articlesSometimes I like to return to philosophy in order to get the sort of intellectual stimulation that reading history doesn't provide. E.g.,...
Jun 14, 202019 minCritical remarks on Thomas Nagel[From 2009.] I’m reading Thomas Nagel’s famous book The View From Nowhere (1986). Nagel seems more sensible than most contemporary...
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.”...
Dec 22, 20181 minOn realism and idealismOver the years I've written a lot of reflections on the metaphysical issue of scientific realism vs. anti-realism or idealism. Idealism...