Standalone essays.
Artificial Life and General System Theory
As an undergrad I opened ‘General System Theory’ expecting the ultimate design principle, and found biology instead. Half a century ago Bertalanffy said life is not matter but organization: Lenia proves it on a computer.
The Curse of Talent, the Blessing of Temperament
Is talent a blessing or a trap? An analysis of how talent conditioned by short reward cycles sabotages long-term effort, and a look beneath what we call grit, at the two engines underneath: taste and lack.
Shooting Dead Enemies: Why Academia Keeps Fighting Zombie Debates
Why we keep resurrecting settled debates, and the irony of this very essay doing the same
My Father's Technology Timeline
In 1990, my father bought a computer for his five-year-old son.
The Idea That Lost and Came Back: Skinner, Chomsky, and the Talking Machines
One man argued that language was a matter of reward and habit, and lost famously. Half a century later, the machines that talk to us are trained with exactly that: reward.