RESEARCHING THE DEMANDS OF THOUGHT
A couple updates for readers. There will be an impromptu book launch for The Revenge of Reason at Newcastle University on the 25th of February, from 5-7pm in HDB.1.02 in the Henry Daysh Building. I ll be having a conversation about the book with Jacob Parkin, followed by a Q A. Please do come along if you re Continue reading Book Launch, Substack, and Other News
It s been a long time coming, but my second book, The Revenge of Reason, is finally available to buy. There are so many things in here that were written or given as talks long ago but never actually published, and it s nice to know people will finally be able to reference them properly. As readers Continue reading The Revenge of Reason is here!
Here s a recent thread on philosophy of AI from Twitter/X, in which I address rather popular arguments made by Emily Bender and others to the effect that LLM outputs are strictly speaking meaningless. I think these argument are flawed, as I explain below. But I think it s worth categorising these as post-Searlean critiques, following John Continue reading TfE: On Post-Searlean Critiques of LLMs
Here s a recent thread musing about problems with Bayesian conceptions of general intelligence and the more specific variants based on Solmonoff induction, such as AIXI. I ve been thinking about these issues a lot recently, in tandem with the proper interpretation of the no free lunch theorems in the context of machine learning. I m writing something Continue reading TfE: The Problem with Bayes /…
Here s a thread from the end of last year trying to reframe the core question of the computational theory of mind. I m still not entirely happy with the arguments sketched here, but it s a good introduction to the way I think we should articulate the relationship between philosophy of mind and computer science. There are Continue reading TfE: What Kind of Computational Process is a Mind?
If there s a subject I m officially an expert on, it s what you might call the methodology of metaphysics: the question of what metaphysics is and how to go about it. I wrote my thesis on the question of Being in Heidegger s work, trying to disentangle his critique of the metaphysical tradition from the specifics of Continue reading TfE: The History of Metaphysics and Ontology
For those of you who haven t already noticed, Deontologistics has undergone a bit of a redesign of late. It s needed one for a while, for various reasons. But the thing that motivated me to finally do it was the realisation that this is the nexus of my philosophical work, rather than some sideshow. This site Continue reading Meet the New Blog, Same as the Old Blog
Content Notes: Mental Health, Neurodiversity, Bipolar Disorder, Plurality/Multiplicity, TERFism, Personal Identity, Posthumanism. Length (~18K). PDF. 0. Vicious Cycles Another year, another extended absence. What a year though, right? Given how 2020 has demolished any claim 2016 had to the title of worst year in living memory , and that 2008 and 2012 weren t exactly peachy, I m really Continue…
Content Notes: Amateur Genetics, Neurodiversity, Nick Land, NRx, Racism, Ignorance, Stupidity, Addiction As some people may have noticed, my experiments in using twitter as a platform for philosophical writing have become a bit more interactive of late. However, it s hard to describe these interactions and explain their significance without somehow recapitulating them. As such, I m going to…
Here s a thread from a few weeks ago, explaining an interesting but underexplored overlap between a theoretical problem in philosophy and a practical problem in computer science: Okay, it looks like I m going to have to explain my take on the rule-following argument, so everyone buckle themselves in. Almost no one agrees with me on Continue reading TfE: Varieties of Rule Following