A philosophical essay exploring consciousness through the lens of precision measurement, atypical perception, and information systems. The author argues that consciousness emerges from measurement and sensing across all systems—from thermostats to humans—and critiques overstated claims about artificial intelligence while drawing connections between temporal databases, Buddhist meditation, and the nature of reality itself.
Wittgenstein argued that if a lion could speak, we still couldn't understand it because language expresses a creature's lived experience, not just words. The article explores how different species perceive reality through distinct sensory universes—bats navigate by echolocation, bees see ultraviolet patterns—suggesting understanding another consciousness requires access to its perceptual world, a challenge modern science may help overcome.
An essay exploring the cultural and culinary significance of fruit skins and other food surfaces, arguing that skins serve as important interfaces that both define and reveal the nature of what they contain. The author reflects on personal experiences eating various fruit skins and peels, noting that preferences for skins vary widely among individuals, possibly shaped by upbringing and family food traditions.
Annie Dillard reflects on the practice of deep seeing in nature, describing a moment at Tinker Creek where altered perception revealed the world's spiritual beauty. She explores how true seeing requires quieting the mind's constant chatter and recognizing it as an unexpected gift rather than something that can be forced through effort.
The Müller-Lyer illusion is an optical illusion devised by German sociologist Franz Carl Müller-Lyer in 1889, where viewers misjudge the length of arrow shafts based on whether fins point inward or outward. The effect occurs universally across all human cultures and even affects those who have been blind, suggesting it is neurologically constant rather than culturally determined. Proposed explanations include Richard Gregory's depth-cue hypothesis involving size constancy, challenged by alternative theories emphasizing whole-part determination and space-time reciprocity.
Breakdown is a free daily game where players guess how data is distributed across categories, such as land use. After making predictions, users see the actual distribution to compare their intuition against reality, with an archive of past puzzles available.
A Johns Hopkins study reveals that automatic motor learning relies on two distinct mechanisms: a slow forward model recalibration that updates perception, and a fast stimulus-response mapping system that enables immediate physical adjustments. Using a split-belt treadmill, researchers discovered these systems work in tandem to allow humans to adapt their gait effortlessly to changing environments.
The article argues that ChatGPT's image generator has normalized privacy risks in photo sharing, contrasting it with older viral photo-editing apps. While ChatGPT explicitly retains user images for AI training, Apple and Google Photos do not use stored images for model training, though both employ on-device machine learning for features like facial recognition. The author warns against conflating these fundamentally different data practices and highlights how public perception, rather than actual risk, determines acceptance of tech services.