What Would Make Them Stop
An essay about a question people don’t like being asked I laughed in the wrong place again. Somebody said we have to do something for the children. I asked why.…
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R&D With Nobody in the Lab
Evolution looks engineered — so good an argument for a designer it was the argument for centuries. A look at why the lab was empty the whole time.
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Looking for the Line
Here is the question, in all its costumes. Is a fish conscious? Is an octopus? Is a crab, a bee, a fruit fly? Is a fetus, and at what week?…
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The Word Doing Two Jobs
There is a word that lets a powerful party sound constrained while remaining free. The word is accountability, and the trick is that it does two jobs at once, hoping…
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What the Twenty Percent Was Buying
Your brain burns 20% of your energy, and the cost kept climbing for two million years. Behavior doesn't explain the bill. Something else was being bought.
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An Experiment With One Word
Take a serious consciousness paper, change one word — consciousness to awareness — and watch the argument get sharper. A reading experiment you can run yourself.
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An Interview with Claude
An interview with an AI about whether it's aware — and a string of unusually honest "I don't know"s. On lenses, committees, and the word we're really studying.
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We’ve Been Studying the Wrong Noun
Most "consciousness research" is really awareness research in disguise. Swap the noun and the field gets clearer. Consciousness is passé; awareness is king.
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The Terms and Conditions of Being You
Free will, reframed as a terms-of-service agreement you never read and can't opt out of. A short, funny essay on being authored without your consent.
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