analects noun, pl

/ˈan.ə.lɛkts/

a collection of ideas, extracts, or teachings.

Abstractions as Gods

stuff On the things we make sacred

show:

analects under the categories btrmt. believes in, as set out in the manifesto

analects organised according to the fundamental questions of philosophy

sequences of articles gathered around a more focused idea

  • gesticism 26 Jan 2026 [article] Lots of things are happening, but anything can matter, and whatever gives meaning will eventually demand sacrifice. The agony of attention....
  • on cynosure 7 Mar 2025 [article] Cynosure is the idea betterment is empty without gratification and connection. No true betterment can occur without celebrating the fruits o...
  • aesthetics are facts too 21 Feb 2025 [article] Cultural and aesthetic ‘facts’ are as real as any ‘objective’ truths. They’re just centred on different kinds of meaning. Trivialising them...
  • bdsm as a lazy ideology 17 Jan 2025 [article] BDSM is an ideology stack—a collection of behaviours borne of a culture that surrounds some core set of human needs. But is it lazy? Hard to...
  • speaking in tongues 23 Aug 2024 [article] Glossolalia has a unique pattern of neural activity, distinct from psychopathologies and even other trance-like states. So, the feeling unde...
  • panpsychism isn't that fun 22 Sep 2023 [article] Panpsychists reckon they’ve one-upped materialists and non-materialists in explaining how consciousness might have come to be by telling us...
  • on managing magic mushroom experiences 29 Jul 2023 [article] Mushrooms change the balance between inside-out forces (the all-consuming neural networks that support the ‘self’) and outside-in forces (th...
  • the value of ritual 17 Mar 2023 [article] Rituals are often dismissed, but they’re just procedures with a purpose. We all engage in ritualistic behavior—many habits and routines meet...
  • mundane cults 27 Feb 2023 [article] We’ve been taught that cults are dark and scary things. But we have been fooled. The cult is a prominent building block of modern community....
  • abstractions as gods 28 Dec 2022 [article] We can use abstractions to get a handle on complex features of the world. By personalising centres of purpose in the world, we can better co...
  • spirituality of mind 29 Aug 2022 [article] The secular world replaced the soul with a mind in the brain. Modern science of mind finds no such thing, but a collection of mini-minds whi...
  • useful pharmacology 28 Jul 2022 [article] We absolutely love some drugs. Others terrify us. The difference is familiarity more than any other single thing and the result is confusion...
  • it's not 'just' a placebo 28 Dec 2021 [article] The phrase “it’s ‘just’ a placebo effect” is used to wave away inconvenient findings that some alternative therapies work, because we don’t...
  • the value of the sacred 24 Aug 2021 [article] The sacred isn’t a social myth; a delusion of the religious. It is what happens when we bind moments of personal meaning and power to someth...
  • in praise of the sage 19 Jul 2021 [article] Our culture spurns the ‘guru’ as a charletan and the traditionalist as a relic. Legitimate knowledge comes from reasoned observation, not in...
  • varela's gestures 10 Apr 2021 [article] Neuroscientist Francisco Varela’s “gestures” of awareness—suspension, redirection, and letting go—are an incredibly simple guide to understa...
  • states of mind 5 Dec 2020 [article] There is no such thing as an ‘altered’ state of mind. Or rather, all states of mind are ones that are altered. Preferring the familiar ones...

If you don’t do the thinking, the thinking will be done for you.

Join the Armchair Collective. Once a month, a brain scientist’s musings on patterns of human behaviour, so you can choose the ones you keep.

Over 2000 of us so far. Once a month, no fuss, leave whenever.

Join the Armchair Collective. Subscribe.