Essays
Extended arguments on time, consciousness, existence, and the interpretation of evidence.
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.
Coherence and the burden of evidence
An internally consistent account can organise observations while leaving its central claim unconfirmed.
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.
The brain as a filter
A filter theory treats the brain as a condition of access to consciousness. Its strongest question concerns dependence; its hardest task is explaining what the filter actually does.
The fact of experience
A description of what a mind does leaves a disputed question about why there is anything it feels like to be that mind.
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.
The present and the limits of simultaneity
Relativity changes the physical meaning of a shared present. The metaphysical conclusions require a further argument.
The witness and the biography
The immediate fact of experiencing differs from the story of a particular person. That distinction opens a serious inquiry into selfhood without proving a timeless observer.
Judgment under uncertainty
Incomplete knowledge still permits discriminating judgments. The difficulty is deciding which commitments the evidence warrants.
What physicalism commits us to
Physicalism makes a claim about the foundations of reality. Its success depends on explaining experience, rather than merely locating the machinery associated with it.