Musings on Middleness
We occupy a position that is necessarily in the middle of things. I have chosen to refer to this notion as the concept of middleness. It is a […]
Psychology
On the Musk-Bostrom Simulation Argument
Elon Musk has recently gotten a lot of press for reiterating the famous Simulation Argument, first espoused by Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, which loosely speaking states that we are almost certainly living in […]
The Evolution of Perception
The following was a conversation between my friend and colleague Brian Odegaard and myself that was spurred by the recent interview of Don Hoffman, professor of cognitive science at University of […]
Musings on the Misuse of the Scientific Method
What follows is a slight reworking of a letter (or the modern electronic version of such) that I wrote to a friend who sought my advice on the standards by […]
The C Word
In academic circles, the word ‘consciousness’ used to be so frowned upon that professional researchers often didn’t even dare utter it, and would euphemise it instead calling it the ‘C-word’. […]
My First Publication!
Here is a link to my very first publication! I am so very proud to have officially become a member of the scientific community. Although this first paper is by […]
What Do You Value?
Not many people understand what value is. I want to try and dissect the question here as much as I can, and hopefully arrive at a lucid description of what […]
Pay No Heed
A funny misuse of words, which, if taken literally, would be quite nonsensical, unless it referred to two people named “Pizza” and “Burger”. Pay no heed to people’s words, But […]
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety can be an extremely debilitating condition for those who suffer from it. It comes in various degrees ranging from mere shyness to full-blown avoidance personality disorder. I want […]
Left Brain Right Brain
This is for purely speculative purposes and should be taken with a grain of salt, obviously. I want to offer my intuitions regarding the dynamic equilibrium between the two independent […]
My Current Views and Directions in Psychology
Body Representation: The topic in psychology with which I am most engaged at the moment is that of body representation. This is essentially the question of how the brain constructs […]
Meditation Retreat Documentation 2011
This is intended to document the various experiences that I had during the most recent of the S. N. Goenka retreats that I have been on in order to maintain […]
Perceptual Load and Meditation
One of the most astonishing results of a 10-day meditation retreat such as the two that I have done in the past two years is the flourishing of perceptual clarity […]
Panpsychism and the Grand Scheme of Things
Panpsychism is the view that posits that all physical objects have mental states associated with them. This is an attempt to explain our consciousness without invoking specific soul-substances that inhere […]
Zombies
In a discussion of consciousness, the ‘zombie’ argument almost always comes up and is used as a thought experiment in order to demonstrate the impossibility of either one view or […]
Global Workspace Theory
Global Workspace Theory (GWT) is a conceptual framework proposed by Bernard Baars that rather elegantly explains consciousness, at least its functional aspect, leaving aside the phenomenal epistemically privileged sort, in […]
Consciousness
Consciousness is the greatest mystery. Its most fundamental nature has yet to be uncovered and while many discoveries about the intricate workings of the brain have shed light on the […]