Essays, notes, open questions, and half-finished thoughts. Newest first.
tags: match
- October 6, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Why is almost everything a tradeoff?
Pick any two good things and you usually cannot have both at full measure. Time or attention. Storage density or fast access. Depth or breadth. Explore or exploit. The pattern is so common it starts to feel like a law of nature rather than a coincidence. Is a tradeoff a feature of the world itself, or a sign that you're at the edge of what is possible? And if it is the latter, how far can you move that edge, or get both after all?
- September 19, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Is déjà vu a real memory event you could learn to trigger?
We sometimes get the feeling of having been here before. It fades fast, leaving nothing to point to, no earlier scene, just a strong certainty you have experienced this moment already. Is it a memory glitch, a near-match firing without its source? Or a real glimpse into the future? And can it be reproduced on demand?
- June 12, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Inherited fault: scars, sin, and what crosses over
Two traditions say the same unsettling thing: you inherit a burden you never chose. Biology calls it epigenetics. A parent's stress leaves marks near brain-development genes that cross generations. Theology calls it original sin, Augustine's 'seminal nature... vitiated by sin,' propagated to every child. What does each mean by an inherited fault, and do their accounts of how it passes line up?
- June 5, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Does the brain always take the cheapest fix?
The brain seems to make the smallest change that solves the problem in front of it, and to spend that effort on the most urgent need first. Where does this rule come from, and is least effort for the most urgent need really how the brain decides what to fix?
- June 5, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
How does the brain map the body?
The brain has detailed maps for touch and movement, but the trunk barely shows up in the motor map even though the organs inside it run all the time. So what keeps track of those organs, and what other body maps does the brain hold beyond touch and movement?
- June 5, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Why some brains can't read faces
A person can lose the ability to recognise faces, sometimes even theirs, while the rest of their vision works fine. What breaks in the brain for this to happen, and what does that failure reveal about how we normally recognise faces?
- June 5, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Why does music move our emotions?
Music sometimes has an effect on how we feel. Why did we evolve to be moved by sound, and how does it connect with the emotional system?
- June 5, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Why we only see what we're aiming at
We mostly notice what serves our current aim and stay blind to everything else. How does a goal reshape what we perceive, and can we widen that filter without losing the focus it gives us?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
What's funneling young adults into the same narrow set of interests - algorithms, peer effects, education tracks? And what genuinely different paths are we being steered away from?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
How does synaptic plasticity actually work at the biochemistry level - LTP, LTD, Hebbian rules - and do any of those mechanisms transfer to artificial networks?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Can the environment write code into your children?
Can environmentally-triggered mutations actually reach offspring? Where's the line between germline and somatic, between an epigenetic mark and an inherited disease?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
The language of thought, before words
Before words landed in our minds, what was the language of thought? How did we communicate with ourselves before language gave us an inner voice - and what got lost or gained when speech moved in?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Is logic predicated on values?
How and why is logic predicated on values and personality? Two people can share facts and inference rules and still land in different places - what does that say about the parts of 'logic' we mistake for universal?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Why pain beats pleasure as a motivator
Why does pain-avoidance pull on us harder than pleasure-seeking? Evolutionary asymmetry, loss aversion, the design of incentives, and culture - what's primary and what's downstream?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Piaget's game of life and the substrate of reciprocity
Reciprocity is the substrate that holds iterated games together. How do Piaget's children at play translate to adult moral reasoning - and what does 'winning' mean once the game isn't zero-sum?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Predicting the brain's response to language
How can a model predict how the brain reacts to language? What does that say about language being a mostly-predictable signal - and where's the line between reading thoughts and reading correlations?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
Psychology and the cost of subjectivity
What makes psychology subjective in a way the hard sciences aren't - and what does that subjectivity actually cost (or buy) in how the field gets done?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
How do you actually verify reasoning in LLMs? Do neuro-symbolic approaches (LTNs, DeepProbLog) give us real proof structure, or just a fancier place to hide hallucinations?
- May 23, 2026 · Essay · 1 Min Read
What does the brain see in a face?
How does the brain recognise within-race face similarity even when the distinguishing features aren't obvious? What is holistic face-processing keying on that the rest of us can't put into words?
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