Charlie Kirk is rapidly becoming the Horst Wessel of Trumpism.

List, normally a well reasoned advocate for human free will, goes astray here in arguing for the existence of free will in AIs without any mind or consciousness. List relies on Dennett’s mistaken behaviorist views which deny the mind a causal role in human action.

This is an important paper from @wiringthebrain.bsky.social. There is no question that consciousness is fundamentally and irreducibly subjective. The subject for all known examples of consciousness is the biological organism that experiences it. Conscious beings are aware of the boundaries of the

An interesting talk with Dr Robert Brooks on incels. Few except other incels have any interest in their problems. Quite naturally, successful people only rarely have much sympathy for those who fail. So Incels would probably do better to whine less and focus on solving their own problems.

Interesting talk with psychiatrist S. Tekin @thebusyowl.bluesky.social on how social conformity often defines mental illness. Why isn't #religion a mental illness? Having delusions about serving the imagined rules of supernatural beings is hardly sane.

#Determinism is the ultimate conspiracy theory because #determinists believe that everything is rigged.

What was his first clue? #SamAltman concedes that #AGI is a useless term. But AGI has never been anything but a meaningless, nonsense word like the religious terms "nirvana" & "salvation." Current #AIs are nothing like human intelligence which is self-interested, embodied, emotional & goal directed.

Dr Christian List @clist.bsky.social probably has the most thoughtful and rigorous approach to free will of any philosopher and it is an approach that is both practical and in accord with human intuitions. Humans and other animals are agents acting in their own interest.

Stephen Morris wants "to abolish morality." While it is obvious that objective morality and moral realism are fairy tales, it is another matter to say that morality should be abolished because it is "bad" or "harmful". In fact, since objective morality doesn't exist why do we need to abolish it?

Deja vu all over again. The Trump-Putin detente to divide up Ukraine is the reincarnation of the Stalin-Hitler pact negotiated by Molotov and Ribbentrop to divide up Poland before WWII.

Project 2025 equals Trump's "Mein Kampf."

Scientists have long overlooked animal consciousness. How did they think these animals were getting around, finding food and mates, building nests and deciding what to do next. Did they think animals were computers? Did they think computers were like animals? They aren't. Animals are as conscious as

The people who think AI might be conscious. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJb...

This Aeon piece by @jimbaggott.bsky.social, one of our best science writers, is by far the clearest explanation of the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment I have seen. It raises many of the fundamental questions in physics. At the end, #Baggott answers some very interesting questions from readers.

Brilliant takedown by Alexander Thomas @posthumanfutures.bsky.social of trans-humanism, post-humanism & TESCREAL and their lunatic fringe participants & offshoots. A remarkable conversation that all should hear. Dr. Emile Torres will love it. Bostrom will hate it. Thomas is a remarkable thinker.

Katsafanas is a thoughtful & engaging thinker. But a key point about all religions, quasi-religions & political ideologies is that all of them are false. Yet followers are always more or less devoted to them and find meaning in their false beliefs. Devotion easily turns to fanaticism for followers.

#Katsafanas is an interesting thinker who knows his Nietzsche. No universal moral system exists or can be devised. Moral values are cultural artifacts reflecting human "drives" and the "will to power". Nietzschean drives and will to power are basic features of human self-interest.

An interesting & rare aeon video chat with philosopher/theologian Paul Tillich moderated by Huston Smith. Tillich remarks that authoritarian regimes to be successful must “first dispense with truth and justice”. Tillich fled the Nazis in 1933. His talk begins at 13.30. aeon.co/videos/leadi...

Finally, some good news from Washington DC. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Conservative columnist David Brooks is smarter and has better judgment than we thought. Brooks is calling for an uprising against Trump, something Democrats should have done long ago. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/o...

Another example of Ross Douthat's nostalgic dreck whining about the influence of technology on good old fashioned dating, churchgoing, social elitism, going to the movies, and other pre-digital rituals. He wants America to go back to the 1950s. An astonishing poverty of imagination.

Whatever problems the United States now has, the tax exempt status of Harvard is not one of them. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/u...

How individual self-interest undermines group interests & collective action. Ultimately people cooperate in social groups to advance individual interests through collective efforts. But much of the time some individual interests conflict with group goals. www.optimallyirrational.com/p/why-we-so-...

Understatement of the year. www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/t...

Yes. The tariffs are based on "The Stupidity Ratio" or "TSR" (trade deficit with the US divided by exports to the US). It's the stupidest ratio ever devised by anyone for any purpose. #Trump probably thought, "No one will ever figure it out". #DumbandDumber.

This talk with @charactergap.bsky.social is a wonderful example of the uselessness of moral philosophy. Dr Miller is a virtue ethicist who believes that people must have virtuous motivations to be "good." The problem with virtue ethics like most moral philosophy is that it has no way to define good.

@KeithFrankish means well but his arguments about qualia & illusionism are purely semantic. They don’t refer to anything existing in nature. The word #qualia idoesn’t have an agreed meaning. But if you substitute the word experience for qualia whenever Frankish uses it, all his arguments dissolve.

This has to be one of the most hilariously idiotic philosophical questions ever raised on a podcast: whether human life is morally justified or whether humans "ought to" somehow "go extinct". Life does not have to be justified. It just is.

#MarkCarney is a superb choice for Canadian Prime Minister. He is respected by the business and financial communities around the world, is a stabilizing influence, has charisma and good judgment and can stand up to Trump's idiotic & destructive policies, ideas & vengeful tactics better than anyone.

A pitch perfect portrait of #TyrantTrump by #MaureenDowd in today's NY Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/o...

Ethics? Who needs #ethics? Just another waste of money. www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/p...

A worldwide stock market crash is already building for tomorrow in response to Trump's declaration of economic warfare on America's closest and most important trading partners.

The #AI bubble just burst.

And underwear shall be changed 6 times a day and worn on the outside so we can check. www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/p...

Both propositions are true.

Correct and one of several important reasons #AGI is far in the future and no one has a clue how to build it. To resemble human intelligence, AGI needs free will. And likely also sentience, goals, motives & emotions. We use emotions to navigate the world & decide how to act in our own interests.

Xi Jinping is gutting China's financial sector one banker at a time. "Being loyal is now more important for Chinese finance professionals than being competent." Like Trump, Xi is appointing know-nothing loyalists in key positions. This will sink China's financial sector. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

There's a lotta #Lebensraum for Republicans in #Canada and #Greenland! Remember the #Sudetenland.

This is overly cautious. Animal consciousness is not in the least controversial. Animals must be sentient or they couldn't survive. Skeptics on animal consciousness have the heavy burden of proving animals could be philosophical zombies because that's the only alternative to animal consciousness.

There is also a wonderful documentary on photographer Harry Benson's life with interviews with many of his subjects. I recommend "Shoot First" to everyone. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhB-...

#MAGA hats for the poor, a dead bear in every car and a brain-worm in every garage.

My article in Aeon on Paul Tillich, a liberal philosophical theologian who opposed authoritarian rule and dogma in whatever guise it appeared, from the rise of Nazism in Weimar Germany to literal mindedness and conformity in religious and philosophical thought. aeon.co/essays/my-gr...

Nice essay at Aeon on Paul Tillich, whose ideas seem to (because I'm not sure and need to learn more) resonate within me.

The Road to Annihilation. All ideologies contain the seeds of authoritarianism. The absence of doubt is the greatest danger to civilization. Cf. Paul Tillich Dynamics of Faith. Nationalism & purity of origin myths enabled & actualized the Holocaust. It can happen again. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

#SeanCarroll gets everything right in his new solo podcast on Artificial Intelligence: AIs have no values, goals, wants, motives or desires. AIs are not conscious and don’t care about anything they do. AIs can’t be aligned with human values. AIs are no more of an existential threat than your laptop.

"Classical determinism is clearly false." In fact, classical hard determinism is a childish fantasy based on treating "cause & effect" as an absolutist god that controls the universe.

Newtonian physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity are deterministic & quite different from each other. Quantum mechanics is probabilistic & uncertain and can’t be reconciled with Einstein’s theory. Animal behavior is probabilistic & self-interested. So how do you get determinism out of all this?

If you are determined to be a determinist you are going to be pretty lousy at arguing for determinism.

Physicalists famously argue that everything is "physical". Yet they can’t define the word “physical” or distinguish it from the non-physical. If everything is physical and nothing is non-physical, the word “physical” doesn’t mean anything and physicalism has no explanatory value.

Determinism is childish ideology that views people as machines & flies in the face of evolution, everyday experience and the obvious fact that the choices we make are driven by our own individual needs and goals. We react to, make decisions about & change our environment in every hour of every day.