analects noun, pl

/ˈan.ə.lɛkts/

a collection of ideas, extracts, or teachings.

On the Nature of Things

stuff On metaphysics

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

  • ai isn't that scary 22 Aug 2026 [audio + edited transcript] AI is human-like, not human. Its output looks like ours but its purpose doesn’t, and purpose is what builds a mind. It isn’t heading towards...
  • purple doesn't exist 8 Aug 2026 [audio + edited transcript] Purple isn’t on the light spectrum. Your brain invents it to stand for a green that should be there and isn’t—and it does the same with your...
  • the value of ritual 25 Jul 2026 [audio + edited transcript] You don’t get a choice about whether you ritualise. Only about whether you chose the ritual.
  • there are no levels 1 May 2026 [article] Ideas that stick are shaped to be interesting, not true. Some of these are weaponised; snuck by our faculties of reason. AI uses them in spa...
  • overengineering calming down 4 Apr 2026 [audio + edited transcript] Pop neuroscience is just “calm down” in a lab coat. The theories are scaffolding around trivial advice, attractive because they make your pr...
  • atavism isn't the answer 7 Feb 2026 [audio + edited transcript] Seed oils, raw milk, cold plunges, tradwives—one template runs them all: name a modern ill, invent an ancestral past, sell the return as cur...
  • 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....
  • stupid questions: consciousness 10 Jan 2026 [audio + edited transcript] The hard problem of consciousness isn’t a problem. It’s a beautiful argument with no stakes. Behaviour is what matters, not the ghost behind...
  • stupid questions 1 Jan 2026 [article] 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...
  • stupid questions: free will 27 Dec 2025 [audio + edited transcript] Whether free will is real changes precisely nothing. The world’s too complex for the answer to bite, and behaviour bends the same way no mat...
  • stupid questions: nature/nurture 13 Dec 2025 [audio + edited transcript] Nature is just nurture given time, and nurture is obviously the one in charge. The whole debate is Gladwell bait: superficially sexy, practi...
  • evolution is overrated 18 Apr 2025 [article] Without time-travel, evolutionary narratives can only identify theories that don’t make sense (like death drives). It can’t tell you what th...
  • there is no authentic self 11 Apr 2025 [article] There’s no hidden version of you. If anything, we are a collection of bits and pieces that we weave together from the stories we learn from...
  • ai is never human-like 14 Mar 2025 [article] AI has human-like output, but a very different environment and different values for than environment, and until all three align, they will n...
  • how neurons influence behaviour 30 Aug 2024 [article] Neurons link into ‘pathways’ that map perceptions to actions. But, neural pathways don’t just link one thing to one other thing—each pathway...
  • 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...
  • how does the brain 'think'? pt. iii 26 Jul 2024 [article] The brain almost certainly has many processes that contribute to any decision. Here we have one that cares about what it sees, and maybe ano...
  • how does the brain 'think'? pt. ii 19 Jul 2024 [article] The brain probably enhances colour information, inhibits word information, or some combination to solve the Stroop task. I found inhibition,...
  • how does the brain 'think'? pt. i 12 Jul 2024 [article] It’s not exactly clear how often humans really ‘think’. Most of what we do is automatic—habitual responding to a predictable world. But ther...
  • ai isn't that scary 22 Jun 2024 [article] AI alarmism thrives on speculative, worst-case scenarios, but our understanding of AI’s fundamentally alien nature and the complex forms of...

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