Meg

Drawing the Moustache: Loneliness, The Look, and AI How a forgotten novel foresaw our search for witnesses in digital places

When I started Substack I wrote a post about A Five Year Sentence, a book that I can't stop thinking about, even years later. That post... Was shit.

So I've rewritten it. I'm so proud of it now that I want to share it everywhere. Please read it and validate me

open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

I wrote about Thief of Time but focusing on Mrs Cosmopilite and Lu-Tze's interpretation of her. What's the difference between "truly, yesterday, I was not born" And "I wasn't born yesterday"?

A How to Guide on Achieving Cosmic Understanding Without Leaving Your House Follow the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite and create your own meaning

I wrote about Derrida and Terry Pratchett. I think I'm quite funny

#derrida #discworld #terrypratchett #philosophy #booksky

open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

I was in the gym earlier and saw on the news that there is a rise of Christian nationalism in the UK.

I can't even find the words to express how worrying this is...

All Men Are Mortal: On the futility of immortality On Max Winter's short story, 'bunny never sleeps', Simone de Beauvoir and the beauty of dying.

I found a short story on Substack and I loved it, so I wrote about it.

If you enjoy existentialism and death, have a read

#philosophy #existentialism #substack #shortstories

open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

As a PhD student looking at consciousness, it's the stuff about memory and brains that's making my brain fire.

It also reads like everything that ACOTAR and those kinds of books want to be but fall short

I am not reading enough. My current read is Alchemised and the weight of it is pressuring me to read it quickly

#booksky

"the self is not a sealed container, but a window in a larger house of mind"

I've been experiencing a crisis of self based on cosmopsychism and ego death, so I had to write about it because apparently that's what I do when I get worried by an idea.

This post is about Spinoza, cosmopyschism and a wonderful book called The End of Mr Y ➡️ open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

Why is kafka so relatable?

“Is it not said, every second counts?” - The Way of Mrs Cosmopilite

We can find meaning in the mundane. It's only the setting that gives something a more lofty meaning

We are everyone, we are no one: consciousness and god in the end of Mr y "Individual things are not nothing but modifications of the attributes of god, or are modes by which the attributes of god are expressed in a fixed and definite manner" - Spinoza

I've just written a new post about The End of Mr Y and Spinoza open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

I got a puzzle for free from my local library. Loads of pieces are missing and I feel that's basically a crime

The Authenticity of Being Bunny — The Secret History, Authenticity and Instagram When I was in Japan earlier this year, I was frustrated by the amount of tourists, especially in Kyoto, flocking to ancient Shinto and Buddhist sites to take a perfectly unposed and natural picture fo...

A post on The Secret History, inauthenticity and how Bunny is actually the best character

open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

I hate how Richard is trying to make it seem like Bunny had it coming. Like somehow he deserved it. I think if I'd found out my friends had killed a man in some kind of pseudo-intellectual ritual, I'd probably be freaking out at them as well

The thing about The Secret History is that it reads like a warning against confusing elegance with depth. The characters perform their intellect and study greek for the aesthetic rather than for the deepening of knowledge. It's like an Instagram feed before Instagram

My poster at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Studies Symposium (say that three times fast)

I'm reading The Secret History because it's the Ber months and what's struck me most is... Well they're a bunch of wankers, aren't they? They've convinced themselves that their intellect sets them apart from normal society in the worst way possible

Elizabeth is Missing and the Extended Mind On memory and the fragile boundaries of consciousness

I've written a new post about extended cognition and the novel Elizabeth is missing. Subscribe to my substack for free!

open.substack.com/pub/philosop...

Two permanent Lecturer posts at Birkbeck (equivalent of Assistant Professor). Area of specialisation is open but with teaching needs in ethics & phil of AI, ethics and poli phil, ancient, gender, continental, engaged. Closing date August 28th, start in Jan 2026 'a significant advantage' #philsky

Studying Philosophy Does Make People Better Thinkers

This study “offers the strongest evidence to date that studying philosophy does indeed make people better thinkers.” www.cambridge.org/core/journal... (h/t @greggdcaruso.bsky.social) #philosophy #PhilSky

I can't imagine this! (Nagel, 1974)

I always do! When there's a robot uprising I want them to know I'm one of the good ones and to treat me nicely

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

Philosophers tempted to design and play games and make art!

New call for papers: think.taylorandfranc... Philosophy through Art, Games, and Fiction. Deadline: 31 July 2026.
Submit your work! What a lovely way to honour our editorial board member Helen De Cruz who was a philosopher, a musician, an artist, and a fiction writer! #philsky

YouTube video by Sky News Doctors on the frontline: Victoria Rose and Tom Potokar take you inside the war in Gaza

The suffering of children in Gaza is unbearable. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bycL...

I bet it was written by an LLM

An image of the cover of The End of Mr Y. An old fashioned lamp in the centre casting out a yellow light that gradually changes to a dark red. In a circle around it is the title, the author and some recommendations in spidery writing. Over the top is the title of my post– Thinking reality: language, thought and mind if the world in The End of Mr Y

I first read The End of Mr Y as an undergrad and have returned to it ever since. A novel where thought becomes world, and reading opens portals. On Philosophical Marginalia: panpsychism, language, and literary metaphysics.

philosophicalmarginalia.substack.com/p/thinking-r...

This feels like a ✨prime✨ week to close the book on Amazon.

Actually it's quite small but very close