The Existential Cat

23/07/2025

31/05/2025

~Malcolm Gladwell (Book: Blink)

Painting: 'Interior with a woman reading', 1928 by Poul Friis Nybo

31/05/2025

Not just one. Or two. Or five. https://trib.al/GqW1mTy

31/05/2025

A letter by distinguished scientists sought to discredit a leading theory of consciousness as pseudoscience. That was mistake.

No theory of consciousness is currently empirically testable, so strictly speaking, no such theory is scientific, argues Erik Hoel.

Hoel is a Neuroscientist, neurophilosopher, and fiction writer. He’s been a close collaborator of Giulio Tononi, and a Forbes 30 under 30 in science.

"Pretending that other theories of consciousness are somehow directly testable in their entirety, and offer neuroimaging results unique to those theories, is just untrue," argues Hoel.

Tap the link to read more about how we can challenge the "pseudoscience" objection: https://iai.tv/articles/no-theory-of-consciousness-is-scientific-auid-2610

31/05/2025

She had no shoes. No steady roof. No idea where her next meal might come from. But she had this cat.

And in that moment, that was enough.

The year was 1902. Photographer Horace Warner wandered the worn streets of Spitalfields, one of London’s poorest districts, when he saw her—this barefoot girl with a dress hanging off her shoulders, arms wrapped around the only thing in the world that seemed to belong to her.

A cat. Tucked close like it was made of something sacred.

She’s nameless in the archives. Forgotten by history. But not by us.

Because what this photo captures isn’t poverty. It’s presence. It’s the way two beings, both likely cast aside by society, found something precious in each other. A comfort. A reason to stay soft when the world around them was anything but.

We spend so much of our lives chasing things. More money, more space, more status. But here, in a crumbling doorway, a child and a cat remind us of something far more real.

That when all else is stripped away, what matters isn’t what we own. It’s who we hold. And who holds us back.

31/05/2025

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Adam Douglas Thompson.

31/05/2025

When engineers solve philosophy problems

31/05/2025

31/05/2025

I don't want to marry or build a family as my friends have. Not only can I not afford it, but I'm happy being alone. I also have a great s*x life.

31/05/2025

What do you think?
Babylonians are said to have used applied geometry over 1,000 years before Pythagoras.