Why Large Language Models Will Not Understand Human Language
A machine that can perfectly understand and respond to human language has been the paradigm of success in artificial intelligence since Turing. The last decade …
Reclaiming Slurs through Conceptual Engineering
Images generated by MidJourney AI, based on a prompt about a conceptual hammer destroying an ideological structure. Introduction Ideology can leave us “stuck in a …
How Imagining Can Set Us Free
Imagining gives us our freedom. Or so I argue in this paper, which aims to describe the neural basis of imagination and its role in …
The Critique of Spiritual Reason
Introduction Growing up Mormon, I often heard people talk about spiritual experiences. There is a near-endless variety of these experiences, from the classic example of …
Why We Need Emotion to Interpret the World
Heidegger’s Being and Time will be cited as BT with marginal pagination. Disclosing the world is a precondition for any engagement or concern with the …
The Sparks of Generative Creativity in Mental Disorders
“Almost everywhere it was madness which prepared the way for the new idea, which broke the spell of a venerated usage and superstition. Do you …
The Psychological Representation of Imagination
Imagining plays a key role in thinking about possibilities. Modal terms like “could,” “should,” and “might” prompt us to imagine possible scenarios. I argue that …
The Conceptual Engineering of Mental Illness
How could the concept of mental illness be engineered? Should it be abolished, ameliorated, or reformed in some way? Can the existing concept be vindicated? …
The Paradoxes of Joy and Suffering Abolition in Nietzsche
Note: All of Nietzsche’s works will be cited in paragraph citations with their standard abbreviations (e.g. BT for Birth of Tragedy) and their section, page, …
