btrmt.

Analects

Here you'll find all the btrmt. content from across the projects.

Other Projects | About btrmt.

btrmt.

Analects

filter by:

Everything

stuff from all anthologies

show:

audio

The hard problem of consciousness is just a complicated debate with no real outcomes. It’s the behaviour that matters, not whether there’s ineffable qualia behind the curtain.

Stupid Questions: Consciousness

audio

What is consciousness? From Mary’s Room to philosophical zombies, from panpsychism to eliminativism, everyone has theories about the “hard problem.” But under what realistic circumstances would it actually matter whether something is truly conscious versus merely appearing conscious?

The hard problem of consciousness is just a complicated debate with no real outcomes. It’s the behaviour that matters, not whether there’s ineffable qualia behind the curtain.

Check it out

filed under:

betterment thought-architecture on-being-fruitful on-ethics on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning

article

Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge; nothing changes if free will <em>isn’t</em> real; and the same is true of consciousness. They’re just complicated debates with no real outcomes.

Stupid Questions

article

There are a few questions which, on the surface, seem hugely important. Then, on closer inspection, turn out to be more or less irrelevant. I need a place to write about them, so I thought I’d make it a sort of always-evolving article. So far, I talk about how useless the nature-vs-nurture debate is and how boring the questions of whether free-will is real, and what consciousness might be are.

Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge; nothing changes if free will isn’t real; and the same is true of consciousness. They’re just complicated debates with no real outcomes.

Check it out

filed under:

betterment thought-architecture on-being-fruitful on-ethics on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning

audio

Nothing changes if free will isn’t real. The world is so intractably complex that it doesn’t matter, and we can shape behaviour either way. Why bother asking?

Stupid Questions: Free Will

audio

From Libet’s experiments to modern neuroscience, evidence keeps mounting that our decisions might be predetermined. But even if free will is an illusion, what would actually change? Behaviour is still something we can modify, determinism doesn’t excuse us from consequence, and the debate itself is practically irrelevant.

Nothing changes if free will isn’t real. The world is so intractably complex that it doesn’t matter, and we can shape behaviour either way. Why bother asking?

Check it out

filed under:

betterment thought-architecture on-being-fruitful on-ethics on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning

audio

Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge. The debate is Malcolm Gladwell shit—superficially sexy but practically useless.

Stupid Questions: Nature/Nurture

audio

The nature versus nurture debate seems foundational to understanding human behaviour. But evolutionary stories are just stories, genetics is shaped by environment, and the environment matters far more anyway. So why are we still arguing about it?

Nature is just nurture over time, and nurture is far more obviously in charge. The debate is Malcolm Gladwell shit—superficially sexy but practically useless.

Check it out

filed under:

betterment thought-architecture on-being-fruitful on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning

article

Control the water, control the people. Today’s water is energy, social media, infrastructure. We’re coerced through convenience, not malice. There are many vectors for control—we don’t need to hand them over.

Hydraulic Despotism

article

If you control the water, you control the people: Karl Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic civilisations gives us a tidy little insight I think is worth extracting. Today ‘water’ is many things: water, electricity, social media and it has some interesting implications. There are some better theories to get after this insight of ours, but better doesn’t mean interesting, and none sound nearly as sexy as Hydraulic Despotism. So I’m going to bring it back.

Check it out

filed under:

connection thought-architecture collective-architecture digital-architecture wealth-architecture on-politics-and-power on-leadership on-being-fruitful on-culture on-ethics

Newsletter