(Seth, 2018) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. The Libet Myth: Why a Wrist Flick Did Not, and Could Not, Refute Free Will 1. Introduction Benjamin Libet’s experiments from … [continue reading]

(APP, 2013-2024) In his essay, “Against and Beyond Professional Academic Philosophy: A Synopsis,” Robert Hanna raises the question: what are the material conditions for the real-world implementation of what he calls “life-shaping philosophy”? Then he argues that three material conditions need to be jointly satisfied in order to implement life-shaping philosophy in the real world: … [continue reading]

(BBC, 2022) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. The Ufological Paradox: Why Interstellar Visitors Still Make Poor Explanations. 1. Introduction For nearly eighty years, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have … [continue reading]

(Smith, 2014) In his essay “Analytic Philosophy is Ending Not With a Bang But a Whimper,” Robert Hanna argues that first, Analytic philosophy as originally conceived, has been dead since the early 1950s, and actually has no future whatsoever, and second, Kant’s theoretical philosophy is actually significantly closer in content and methodology to classical Analytic … [continue reading]

(Lee, 2025) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Holes in the Net: Neural Networks and the Hard Problem of Consciousness 1. Introduction The rise of sophisticated neural network architectures … [continue reading]

In his essay “Philosophy Professionalized: How We Killed the Thing We Loved,” Robert Hanna defines “real philosophy” as follows: By real philosophy, [I] mean authentic, serious, synoptic, systematic reflection on the individual and collective human condition, and on the natural and social world in which human and other conscious animals live, move, and have their … [continue reading]

(Medical Xpress, 2024) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Part A: Exposition 2.1 From Passive Reception to Active Inference 2.2 Mathematical Foundations: Bayesian Inference and the Brain 2.3Core Principles of Predictive Processing: The Brain as a Prediction Machine 2.4 Empirical Evidence for Bayesian and Predictive Processing 2.5 Applications to Cognitive Phenomena 2.6 Applications to Psychopathology … [continue reading]

(Hanna and Paans, 2020: p. 35; diagram created by Otto Paans) In a companion-piece essay to his essay “Running On Empty: Why Hasn’t Professional Academic Philosophy Produced Any Important Ideas in the Last 50 Years?,” namely, “How To Make Two Neglected Brilliant Ideas into Important or Even Revolutionary Ideas,” Robert Hanna identifies two of those … [continue reading]

Spirals and Souls You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Radical Thinking: Spirals, Souls, and Immortality 1. From Spirals in Prehistorical Art, To a Projection of the Eternity of the … [continue reading]

(Medical Xpress, 2024) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Part A: Exposition 2.1 From Passive Reception to Active Inference 2.2 Mathematical Foundations: Bayesian Inference and the Brain 2.3Core Principles of Predictive Processing: The Brain as a Prediction Machine 2.4 Empirical Evidence for Bayesian and Predictive Processing 2.5 Applications to Cognitive Phenomena 2.6 Applications to Psychopathology … [continue reading]