An Argument Against Panpsychism Panpsychism holds that elementary particles have mentality, attenuated perhaps, but capable of yielding consciousness as we know it. Yet particles don’t generally instantiate many properties—mass, charge, spin, motion, and that’s about it. So, if they also instantiate mental properties, these too must be few in number—say, three or four (or maybe […]
What is it Like to be Gay? Answer: I don’t know, and neither do you if you are a straight man. For I have never had the desires or experiences of a gay man; I therefore don’t know what it is like to have such desires or experiences. The case is just like the bat […]
Sex and Maturity There is a strange medical condition that we have to endure or cope with that other animals are not afflicted by. We are all affected by it and take it for granted, but it is unnatural to the point of cruelty. I refer to the age at which puberty occurs. It comes […]
On Perception, Belief, and Knowledge Consciousness gets defined as there being something it is like. This isn’t a classical analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but it manages to elucidate what consciousness is (more or less); it captures the concept intuitively, if gnomically. In that spirit, I define knowledge as the world impinging […]
Sex and Dualism According to classical dualism, what we call a person consists of two separate substances, a mind and a body, the latter material and extended, the former immaterial and unextended. Each can survive the other; they have different essences. But this implies that when you have sex with someone, you are having sex […]
Sex and God There has always been the feeling that there is some sort of tension between sex and God, as if sex were not quite his thing. He turns a blind eye to it, even though he is supposed to have created it. You definitely don’t have sex in church—that would be sinful. It […]
Jannik Sinner and Me Last Thursday I went to the Miami Open, as I have done many times before. It was hard to get to, crowded, hot, expensive, and you had to wait forever to get into a court. I vowed not to come again—better to stay home and watch it on TV. I was […]
Sexual Logic Can we give a sexual account of logical operations? That may sound like a quixotic project, though an enticing one—stimulating, seductive. Quixotic is the word: as in, can’t be done. How could logic be sex? Sancho Panza would warn against it; it’s like that knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who […]
Philosophy Sexualized The basic fact of biology is reproduction; everything is centered around it. Animals live to reproduce. Reproduction is brought about by means of sex, in nearly all cases. The urge to reproduce is probably the strongest force in biology; it is the gravity of life, only a lot stronger. Prior to reproductive age, […]
The Sexual Gene We know the gene is a selfish little thing, but it is also a sexual little thing. Gene survival depends on a gene’s ability to navigate sexual reproduction: the better it is at having sex (conducing to it), the more likely it is to survive into the future, possibly for millions of […]