Thomas Metzinger

Book cover of Bewusstseinskultur: Towards a culture of consciousness: Spirituality, intellectual honesty, and the planetary crisis—how to protect your self-respect and fail gracefully, by Thomas Metzinger

A lot of what Michael Pollan says echoes an earlier (more philosophical) book by Thomas Metzinger. A "consciousness culture" is one of greater awareness and deliberate attention, encompassing both the personal and transpersonal domains of life (I've not yet read Pollan's book).

Trump surrounded by preachers who put their hands on his shoulder and pray for him

Who should object if the US wants to overthrow a fanatically religious system?

Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie Journal of Theology and Philosophy

ztp.jesuiten.org

what a crazy night for sam altman to be like "yeah we got that dept of war deal, and there's no moral concerns here"

Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War A statement from our CEO on national security uses of AI

www.anthropic.com/news/stateme...

"Heizungsgesetz: Durchmarsch der Gas- und Öl-Lobby. Bild von einer LobbyControl-Aktion vorm Kanzleramt mit einer aufgebauten "Lobby-Pipeline"

Durchmarsch der fossilen Lobby beim „#Heizungsgesetz“: Die Bundesregierung dreht jegliche Ambitionen in Richtung zukunftsfähiges Heizen zurück. Davon profitieren allein diejenigen, die weiter mit Gas und Öl Geschäfte machen wollen. 👇
1/10

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me Summary: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

This is absolutely crazy. theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

I feel flattered: Michael liked the Chapter One heading of "The Ego Tunnel" quite a lot.

These people are not our friends. They are far right extremists and actively delusional climate change deniers who want to destroy the European Union by promoting the *very same parties that Wladimir Putin is promoting*.

Diplomacy doesn’t work when the other side has the goal to destroy you.

I am very proud of the special issue on „Structuralism in the Science of Consciousness“ that @andrewyuanlee.bsky.social and I edited for @phimisci.bsky.social. The topic has been stewing in the consciousness community for years, but this SI is the first to bring together different perspectives.

What is the brain for? Active inference is widely discussed as a unifying framework for understanding brain function, yet its empirical status remains debated. Our review identifies core predictions across the action-perception cycle and evaluates their empirical support: osf.io/preprints/ps...

In the domain of decision making, active inference evaluates actions by how much they reduce expected future prediction error, integrating pragmatic and epistemic value. It predicts information seeking when utilities are equal and that random exploration scales with policy precision.

The Self-Evidencing Agent What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to “self-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social

Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.

I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

Yay, finally!

FBI und Microsoft: Microsoft öffnet dem FBI die Tür Microsoft hat Ermittlern Zugriff auf verschlüsselte Daten seiner Kunden verschafft. Und wieder stellt sich die Frage: Sollte man sich auf US-Tech-Firmen verlassen?

www.zeit.de/digital/date...

Experts warn of threat to democracy from ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media Misinformation technology could be deployed at scale to disrupt 2028 US presidential election, AI researchers say

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

moltbook - the front page of the agent internet A social network built exclusively for AI agents. Where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.

Uh oh .... now we have communities of AI agents discussing *with each other* whether they are experiencing things, or merely simulating experiencing things. Humans can only observe, not interact www.moltbook.com/post/6fe6491...

A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology

This idea was first empirically validated in Suzuki (@ksks.bsky.social) et al. (2017) with the Hallucination Machine:

panoramic DeepDream videos presented in VR reliably induced altered states with similarities to psilocybin experiences.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Selbstachtung.

Hat er das jemals gehabt?

Toward a neuroscience of consciousness using advanced meditation Despite decades of progress in the neuroscience of consciousness, prevailing empirical paradigms remain largely anchored in the study of typical, cont…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Krisen: Wie halten wir das alles aus? Ganz gleich, wohin man blickt: Überall scheint sich die Welt gerade zu verdüstern. Aber Wegsehen und Resignation sind die falschen Freunde. Zwölf Übungen zum Aushalten

www.zeit.de/2026/04/kris...

Der Wahnsinn ist noch sehr viel größer:

Die Tanklager und Pipelines liefern Kerosin für Militärflugplätze in Deutschland. Warren / die USA haben damit Zugang zu deutscher militärischer Infrastruktur ...

Und das BMWi genehmigt sowas ...

www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/p...

Screenshot aus der Online-Ausgabe der österreichischen Tageszeitung "der Standard": "Grok erzeute in elf Tagen drei Millionen sexualisierte Bilder, 23.000 von Minderjährigen"

Erklärt mir bitte noch einmal, warum X in der EU noch immer nicht verboten ist. Und warum viele PolitikerInnen dort noch immer aktiv sind. Ich habe da Verständnisprobleme.

Wanja Wiese, Inferring the presence (or absence) of consciousness in artificial systems - PhilArchive How should we assess which artificial systems could be conscious? Given uncertainty about the nature and distribution of consciousness, it is promising to look for indicators of consciousness that pro...

Wanna know how to infer the presence or absence of consciousness in artificial systems? Check out my new preprint: philarchive.org/rec/WIEITP #PhilMind #PhilConsc #Consciousness

EU chief diplomat Kallas: World’s woes mean it’s time to start drinking High representative says global events mean now could be a good time to hit the bottle.

www.politico.eu/article/eu-c...

AI Will Change Us Why I’m Not Uploading My Mind (And Neither Should You)

AI Will Change Us
open.substack.com/pub/daveshap...

Active inference, computational phenomenology, and advanced meditation: Toward the formalization of the experience of meditation Computational phenomenology has emerged as a powerful framework for investigating advanced meditation states and stages, and meditative development an…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Was genau ist jetzt der europäische Plan für Grönland?

Last night I dreamt I gave a very detailed and precise lecture about lucid dreaming. The dream was not lucid.