Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links post that seem interesting. Physics A defense of the reality of time Is inflationary cosmology science? Technology Boom: The future of supersonic flight? Sergio Canavero: Will his head transplants roll? Lockheed compact fusion reactor design about 100 times larger than first plans UK Tokamak Energy startup has a test fusion reactor Philosophy Acton, deontology, and risk: Against the multiplicative model Assessing Greene's Epist…

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links post that seem interesting. Psychology Why more highly educated people are less into conspiracy theories Neural correlates of political attitudes: emotion and ideology in the brain Perhaps less dissimilar than initially thought Education as liberation? Education may increase political violence in poorer countries? Child SES does not explain the IQ-mortality gradient In Norway Analytic cognitive style and cognitive ability …

I got some replies in my previous post about consciousness. Here I reply to those, and add a few more thoughts about consciousness. Comments from David Pearce are deliberately ignored, as I will devote a full post to his proposed solution to consciousness in a future post. Identity theory and functionalism Commenter Simon disagrees with me on my characterisation of identity theory (under which functionalism will fall). Note that I didn't discuss functionalism in my previous post. Functionalism can be unders…

I'll be moving to London next May for a new job in Data Science. This means if you live there you may suddenly see me walking around absentmindedly thinking about my next blog post. Or something. Next post will be a followup to my post on consciousness. After that one, no more philosophy for a while, and I'll blog on something TBD, one strong candidate is the history of the railway system in Japan, the history of Embraer, or the fall of the Soviet Union. Or maybe about supersonic aircraft. There's also a ha…

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted the last two weeks that seem interesting. Economics When economics failed Half of Americans are responsible for only 3 percent of health care costs US Healthcare: most people don't know what they're talking about Fifty years of growth in American consumption, income, and wages Economic mobility in America The end of the past Left wing governments are no more anti-immigration than right-wing governments Insurance may not save lives, but it saves money …

Here I present some thoughts about consciousness, especially arguing against the idea that consciousness is somehow not real, or an illusion. Descartes was the famous originator of cogito ergo sum. He argued that even if your senses were deceived, you could still be sure that you were conscious. And so consciousness would be the Tier 1 truth amongst the beliefs we hold. This is indeed the case for me, at least. Consider the following set of things: quantum field theory, the theory of relativity, neuroscienc…