A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Sam Parnia released a new mini-documentary about Near Death Experiences (NDEs), which he now coined a new term for: REDs, for 'Recalled Experiences of Death.' His argument is that, physiologically, these people weren't merely near death, but actually died and were resuscitated thanks to modern medical technology. Indeed, defining death as a state one can never return from is operationally contingent; it is arbitrary and ignores the physiology—the science—of the process. So I am comfortable with the term RED. But I diverge. The point of this essay is a com ..read more

  As regular readers may have noticed, I've deleted earlier posts on this blog that discussed political and moral topics outside the realm of metaphysics. I did so because I want my participation in the cultural debate to remain focused on my key areas of expertise; I don't want to be perceived as a wanna-be political pundit. That said, as a citizen, I carry the responsibility to take part in our democratic political process to the same extent that any other citizen does. This is the spirit of this post. Since deleting the aforementioned posts, some have questioned whether my politic ..read more

Editorial note I originally intended to publish the essay below in an (online) magazine, not my own blog. I still have this intention, but opted to publish the complete draft here first for several reasons: (a) most magazines will place the essay behind a paywall (I already tried to negotiate this out, but it is not negotiable); (b) most magazines will require me to significantly shorten the essay (even Aeon Magazine, which publishes long-form essays, limits them to 5,000 words, while the text below has over 6,800 words); (c) most magazines will force me to edit at least some parts of my arg ..read more

You may have noticed that, since Essentia Foundation started in earnest in the summer of 2020, my philosophical output essentially ground to a halt. Indeed, my latest published book to-date, Science Ideated, was finished in April of 2020, even though it only came out in 2021. The reason for this is that Essentia Foundation took all my time in its first years. Starting a new organisation and team from scratch isn't trivial. Moreover, running Essentia Foundation resonated so profoundly with the path of meaning in my life that it basically became an 'obsession'—something I don't consider bad at ..read more

I recently was invited by Curt Jaimungal, of the Theories of Everything podcast, to debate philosopher Tim Maudlin on issues of philosophy of physics. I accepted after briefly looking up Maudlin's name and seeing that he was an academic. The result of this attempted debate, however, was a complete and unqualified disaster: As much as this unfortunate event is deserving of forgetting, I think I owe my audience some clarifications. I'll try to keep it brief, to the point, and factual. Did I know about Tim Maudlin's work before this attempted debate? No, I didn't. I essentially knew nothin ..read more

I thought I'd share with you something I observed today, which I thought was remarkable. Browsing YouTube video recommendations late this evening, I first clicked on a months-old video of a NASA press conference on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), which NASA has been officially investigating. In it, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the investigative team, discusses two types of UAP cases. The first is that of seemingly metallic spheres that, somehow, move (fast) and manoeuvre without any signs of propulsion or control surfaces: As you can see, Dr. Kirkpatrick: Shows a video of one such s ..read more

As discussed in my previous post in this blog, I admit to having been caught off guard by the latest developments regarding UAPs and non-human intelligence. Nonetheless, I cannot help but take these developments seriously, and thus felt compelled to explore the subject further in two directions: first, to understand clearly how (im)plausible it is that the allegations are fabrications, given the legal context of the case; and second, to apply reason and information already disclosed to speculate educatedly on what we can expect a non-human intelligence to be like. As luck would have it, the f ..read more

Over the past few weeks, the subject of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) and advanced non-human technology has been catapulted to the forefront of our cultural attention. The historical UAP hearing at the US congress has conferred on it a whole new level of legitimacy, and for good reason: this time, the whistleblower isn’t an ‘anonymous intelligent official’ shot in silhouette with a distorted voice, but someone with a name, credentials, a history, willing to appear on camera and make statements under oath, and with corroborating witnesses. Pilots with impeccable credentials are repo ..read more

I have just participated—literally 10 minutes ago as I write these words—in an online debate organized by the IAI, in which Donald Hoffman, Susan Schneider and I discussed the possibility that computers become conscious in the future, with the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). My position is that they won’t. Susan’s position is that they very well may, and Don’s position is that this isn’t the right question to ask. If you watched the debate live, you know that, at the very end, I wanted to reply to a point made by Susan but couldn’t, since we ran out of time. The goal of this es ..read more

I don't recall ever feeling so consistently angry and frustrated, for so long, as I have felt in 2022. I thought large-scale war was a 20th century thing, but here we are again, with large parts of Europe gutted by criminal, unjustified, heinous warfare. I have been having a very hard time contemplating this desecration of our continent and the brutalisation of one of our peoples with equanimity. I feel angry from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. I also feel betrayed by a country and a people I used to love, and secretly still do; a country that now openly calls me a satanic ..read more