Blog
Can an identity be true and not true?
On ‘constitutive tension’ in our concepts. Picking apart someone else’s identity? First ask: Why do you want to? What would be gained? And lost? What happens to your own identity in the process?
Gödel is sure Bach, and trans people are sure their gender
Reflections on the Pulitzer-winning ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ (1979). Their objection is an infinite regress. They’re laying a trap. If we needed rules about rules about rules, none of us could ever use language at all.
How do we know who we are?
Do we learn it from a crystal ball—or from our guts? How do others state with certainty that they know who they are? Do they have a crystal ball? Of course, we’re jealous. How can we know ourselves, too?
A hinge that opens the heavens
A small reflection on my daily reading. You’re at an apparent end due to a failure of wit. You can’t imagine what comes next. But you’ll recover wit, you’ll find horizon, and universe won’t end.
6 things mystified me in the trans film ‘I Saw the TV Glow’
This 2024 movie is tough to crack, but finally I think I get it. In art, opaque describes a substance you expect to see through but can’t: paint, glass, a thin layer. Metaphorically, it’s something you can’t understand.
Why are you trans?
Will they be mad that they were given a reason? If so, why did they ask? Trans people didn’t invent gender stereotypes. Collectively, we don’t reinforce them any more than anyone else. We navigate societies that stereotype us.
Jeffrey Epstein said ‘you might want to focus on transgender biology’
He suggested this to evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers in 2019. ‘Little public interest’, Epstein warned, ‘where genetics would be helpful. I’ll do no harm and won’t give you drugs if you ask because it’s bad for you.’
The Epstein Files show a rift between atheists & the consciousness movement
What I still want to know is: Why are Epstein’s close associates anti-trans? Dawkins is not open to the idea that trans people might make interesting or worthy arguments. He does, however, declare he’d listen to how people could merge with chimps.
Your gamete isn’t what wins a boxing match. That’d be your fist.
And other ideas I have after listening to Richard Dawkins tell Lawrence Krauss about his book chapter in ‘The War on Science’. If they’re accurately representing what trans people say, why don’t they invite a trans person on their show to say it? Why the intentional exclusion?