Consciousness, time, existence.
Essays on the structure of reality, the conditions of experience, and the interpretation of evidence.
The present may disclose only a small part of what exists. Eternalism provides a central line of inquiry here: a reality whose temporal depth exceeds our access to it. Competing accounts of time and consciousness are examined on their own terms.
A route through the archive
Begin with eternalism, follow its consequences for a life and its choices, then examine chance and competing accounts of time.
- The future as part of reality
Eternalism gives future events the same ontological standing as the past. Taking that proposition seriously changes what it means to inhabit a life.
- A life in spacetime
A worldline places events in a temporal geometry. It helps us think beyond an isolated present without supplying a theory of the observer.
- Destiny and deliberation
A future that exists cannot be replaced with another actual future. That leaves a harder question about what our reasoning contributes to the history we inhabit.
- Chance and the existing future
Unpredictability, indeterminism, and an unwritten future are separate claims. Quantum uncertainty does not settle the ontology of time by itself.
- A present that belongs to the world
Presentism and the growing block preserve objective becoming. Their strongest motivation is also the source of their hardest physical problem.
Essays
Essay indexA present that belongs to the world
Presentism and the growing block preserve objective becoming. Their strongest motivation is also the source of their hardest physical problem.
Destiny and deliberation
A future that exists cannot be replaced with another actual future. That leaves a harder question about what our reasoning contributes to the history we inhabit.
Does experience make a difference?
Our lives respond to pain, thought, and feeling. Explaining their causal role becomes difficult when experience is treated as something added to an already sufficient physical process.
Hoffman and the useful world
Donald Hoffman's interface theory separates successful perception from faithful depiction. Its challenge reaches beyond ordinary perceptual error.
Notes
Note indexA choice without an alternative
The experience of considering several actions can be real even if only one future is actual. The remaining dispute concerns what freedom requires.
A life in spacetime
A worldline places events in a temporal geometry. It helps us think beyond an isolated present without supplying a theory of the observer.
Chance and the existing future
Unpredictability, indeterminism, and an unwritten future are separate claims. Quantum uncertainty does not settle the ontology of time by itself.
Subjects
Subject indexMind & Consciousness
Experience, perception, selfhood, and the competing accounts of how minds arise.
Time & Reality
Eternalism, simultaneity, identity through time, and the difference between a model and the world.
Physics & Cosmos
Cosmology, quantum theory, entropy, and the boundary between mathematical prediction and interpretation.
Meaning & Existence
Freedom, ethics, existential thought, and the human search for a life worth inhabiting.