It's the season for giving, and The Persuaders are giving you the chance to put your questions to them. The stream will be live on Tuesday 16th at 1pm ET / 6pm GMT but the chat is already open and you can post your questions there in advance www.youtube.com/live/149ZxHC... @petemandik.bsky.social

Does reality require observers? Amanda Gefter has an article at Nautilus a couple of you have asked me about: Reality Exists Without Observers? Boooo! The title is an accurate summary of her thesis. Gefter is responding to a book by... selfawarepatterns.com/2025/12/13/d... #philosophy #philmind

Towards a Deeper Understanding of Our Age of Monsters and Predators talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/towar...

Mind Chat is back! Join us live at 4.30pm GMT tomorrow when @philipgoff.bsky.social & I talk to host of Closer to Truth and creator of the Landscape of Consciousness project, Robert Lawrence Kuhn. Landscape format youtube.com/live/2o7RvGV... Portrait format (for phones) youtube.com/live/wzVGSzV...

It's the first Friday of December, which means it's time for the last Philosophy Booth of 2025! If you have questions, we meandering have follow up questions that say more about us than about your question, which we have already forgotten. TONIGHT! 8pm-10pm EST twitch.tv/askaphilosopher

Tomorrow at 1pm ET / 6pm GMT, The Persuaders will be discussing Cory Doctorow's latest book Enshittification, which describes how monopolistic online platforms make all our lives worse. Join them for edification about enshittification! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLwn... @petemandik.bsky.social

Sinners, and other TV notes Since I've been reviewing a lot of horror lately, I could see you being skeptical about my constant disclaimers that I'm not much of a horror fan. But the truth is some horror is so good in its non-horror elements that it's compelling even for people not into horror.…

There is a nice discussion comparing panpsychism and panqualityism in @philipgoff.bsky.social ’s substack. (Link in first reply) The Psychule (aka Pattern Recognition) Theory of Consciousness is a Minimal Unifying Model, so the following thread shows how to unify panpsychism and panqualityism .

Fifteen Years xkcd.com/3172/

Today’s xkcd made me cry. In a good way. xkcd.com/3172/

Maybe we’re already part of a hive mind I recently discovered the new TV show Pluribus, about a scenario where the whole world gets turned into a hive mind, an annoyingly nice one, at least in the initial episodes, but where a few humans turn out to be immune to the virus that converts everyone…

New blog post! The fourth of my five-part review of Sapiens by Yuval Harari. This one covers the Scientific Revolution and its entanglement with capitalism. www.evphil.com/blog/review-...

Here's the recording of today's episode of The Persuaders, in which Pete and I have a rational discussion about irrationalism www.youtube.com/watch?v=duI3... @petemandik.bsky.social

Overheard at #SfN25: “It’s up to us to reflect the truth.” “This is not a sprint, this is not a marathon, this is a relay.” (Advocate for science, and when you get tired, let someone else do it for a while, then get involved again… #StandUpForScience #SciPolicy #Advocacy #Neuroscience #Neurosky

The Persuaders will be live again tomorrow at 1pm EST, 6pm GMT, when they will asking if our beliefs are formed by rational processes and if it matters. The Truth Demon may also put in an appearance. www.youtube.com/watch?v=duI3... @petemandik.bsky.social

Guess what? youtu.be/zpXvEhl2YXE?...

What if ALL the sun's power was focused in one place? What the latest What If? video in collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social! youtu.be/qu8nx1qUwEU

John von Neumann Shot Lightning From His Arse

Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus After watching the new Frankenstein movie this weekend, I decided to correct something. I'd never read the original novel by Mary Shelley. I was familiar with the overall story, but I think it came from reading a comic book adaptation at some point decades…

www.theguardian.com/science/2025... I’m a fan of this opinion. It’s another reason billionaires shouldn’t exist and drive our culture.

Can you having feelings you're not aware of? My latest Substack post on "Unconscious Consciousness." philipgoff.substack.com/p/unconsciou...

The sparky, disorderly, collaborative flow of progress. We've come a long way in understanding the deep physical structure of everything, but humans realising things is always a messy business. Wonderfully clear short presentation by @seanmcarroll.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT7D...

Frankenstein and other TV notes Last night I watched Guillermo del Toro's new version of Frankenstein. As I frequently point out on this blog, I'm not a big horror fan, but I've frequently been impressed with del Toro's work, and Frankenstein is a classic. And it strikes me as more of an…

The Persuaders have been reading Jonathan Birch's The Edge of Sentience, and they will be asking which animals are conscious and what policies we should adopt to minimize animal suffering. Live tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1pm EST, 6pm GMT! www.youtube.com/live/J9ueoVk... @petemandik.bsky.social

Canada's NICE agent greeting Americans disembarking cruise ships is how we mock Trump's dystopianism while making you all feel welcome.

I’ve mentioned that we are *in* the singularity. This is what I’m talking about. (H/T @adamfrank4.bsky.social ) www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5k7...

For anyone interested in the idea that pattern recognition is the basis of consciousness [Psychule Theory!], this video w/ @drmichaellevin.bsky.social will be a useful discussion of the role of patterns in nature and intelligence: youtu.be/imTnPhE20YQ?...

sure, if you enjoy the horrifying limits of human perception

This is a really good discussion, and now I can never watch a video with Chalmers without thinking “Math Guy” …

Videos from the Natural Philosophy Symposium are coming online at last! We start with the opening plenary by David Chalmers @davidchalmers.bsky.social: Can There Be a Mathematical Theory of Consciousness? Commentary by Ryan Smith. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsve...

Listen to @petemandik.bsky.social and me talking persuasively about consciousness www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ow4...

The Dragons of Marrow and Hammerwing I've done a couple of posts on Robert Reed's Greatship series, about a giant spherical Uranus-sized megastructure moving through space at a third the speed of light. It's discovered in intergalactic space and claimed by humans, who then invite anyone who can…

Yeah baby!

Does consciousness require biology? Ned Block has a new paper out, for which he shared a time limited link on Bluesky. He argues in the paper that the “meat neutral” computational functionalism inherent in many theories of consciousness neglect what he sees... selfawarepatterns.com/2025/10/12/d...

Alien: Earth, and other TV notes I've noted on this blog many times that I'm not much of a horror fan. But the Alien franchise has always been kind of an exception. Space horror might be a little better than the garden variety, just because it's space. But mostly I just enjoy the sci-fi…

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. @aptshadow.bsky.social @abraham.bsky.social

Will you thank in print using a pseudonym? Asking for a friend. * [ :) ]

Marrow and The Well of Stars A few weeks ago, I talked about Robert Reed's story collection, The Greatship. It's about a spherical Uranus-sized megastructure moving through space at a third the speed of light. Humans manage to reach it first and claim it, and then decide to take it on a tour of…

Wow this is good.

FWIW, I think Ben here has it mostly correct. I think it’s unlikely AGI is gonna kill everybody, but we may get bruised along the way. [got this link from some post, but too lazy to go find and repost it, so here …] bengoertzel.substack.com/p/why-everyo...

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥 We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪 Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇 open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

Tomorrow (Tue 30) at 6pm GMT, 1pm ET, Pete will trying to persuade me that AI will kill us all. The Persuaders. Episode 4: Are We Doomed? - YouTube www.youtube.com/live/kRLB5Jp... @petemandik.bsky.social

I’m officially no longer just a crank who just argues about philosophy on the Internet. I’m now a crank who has had a paper accepted to Synthese! Here’s a post about it. open.substack.com/pub/disagree...

As a PacificNorthwesterner, i can say this is pretty awesome …

Wow! This is such a strong effect I had to cover the green ball to make sure the brightness changes weren't just in the video!

FWIW, I’d say it’s worth reading if you’re interested in understanding consciousness, if only because it recapitulates my own theory of consciousness. It also kinda recapitulates Peirce’s semiotics, just renaming terms and focusing on mechanisms where Peirce ignored mechanisms. 🧵

How did I miss the original post from Ruth Millikan?!? Here is that link: [btw, where you see “unicept”, think “pattern recognized by a unitracker”] [also see comments therein for my proposal as to the real anatomy of unitrackers] philosophyofbrains.com/2025/09/15/r...

Ruth Millikan: Reply to Nick Shea If offered ten more years to think about these matters with someone, give me Nick Shea.  (And let me very strongly urge Nick’s recent book Concepts at the Interface!! (Oxford University Press. Open Access 2024) [“Unicepts at the interface’??] I am ashamed how…