Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• AI Use Can Compromise Our Serendipity, Creativity, Autonomy, and Sense of Agency.

  I have been reading numerous articles on pitfalls of using AI, and want to point to two in particular that I highly recommend for a slow and careful read. Read more

  Posted on 31 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• One Terminal Chats with Another to Start Vibe Coding a New Dericbownds.net

  Writing MindBlog posts is on temporary hiatus because I have recently followed Claude's instructions to set up my Mac mini M3 to use Claude code, getting my... Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Polyvagal Theory is Dead - and HRV Isn't a Simple Indicator of Arousal

  I was recently struck by Baxter's Substack post (its title copied to be the title of this MindBlog post), which noted work critical of Porges' Polyvagal theory... Read more

  Posted on 18 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Nature of Intelligence and Selves.

  I want to pass on the result of my extracting what I felt to be crucial chunks of text from Chapters 5 through 9 of Agüera y Arcas’s "What is Intelligence" whic... Read more

  Posted on 16 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Seismic Shift in Our Understanding of Intelligence

  I've just spent the last three days reading large chunks of the remarkable book "What is Intelligence" by Agüera y Arcas. It is best accessed at... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• AI Makes Workloads Worse, Not Better

  An article in today's Wall Street Journal by Ray Smith conforms so completely to my own work experience over the past week (I'm currently feeling fatigued from... Read more

  Posted on 12 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Will Deric’s Mind Blog Be Firing Deric Soon? Is AI is Doing His Job Better?

  The short answer to both questions is yes and no. I am finding that ChatGPT 5.2 ($20/month version) will scan the TOCs (tables of contents) of journals such as... Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Empathy as a Brain Rhythm: Orexin, Theta Oscillations, and Prosocial Behavior

  (The following is the final installment of a series of three posts on using ChatGPT to assist in the generation of MindBlog posts. I think this final product... Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A MindBlog-ready ChatGPT Synthesis

  This post continues from the previous one to show ChatGPT's response to my prompt "Let's go with the empathy / orexin paper for your producing a MindBlog-ready... Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Geometries of Change and the Value of Being Human

  I pass on and also archive for myself the following three ChatGPT 5.2 summaries of three recent Johar essays:Summary of The Geometries of Change by Indy Johar... Read more

  Posted on 23 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Changing Our Systems of Governance

  I have found Johar's essay From Power Diagrams to Settlement-Construction: What we may be missing about the New Right to be worth several re-readings. Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Ferality - Seeking New Ways of Being Wild in New Nature

  This post is to archive this link to a recent Venkatesh Rao essay, and also pass on condensations of its main ideas done by Google Gemini and ChatGPT 5.2. Read more

  Posted on 18 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Buying Futures, Renting the Past: How Speculation and Nostalgia Became the...

  I want to pass on this condensation by Google Gemini of a recent essay by Kyla Scanlon In her essay, "Buying Futures, Renting the Past," Kyla Scanlon explores... Read more

  Posted on 16 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• MindBlog is Now 20 Years Old.

  I just realized that MindBlog is now starting its 21st year. I asked both Chat GPT 5.2 and Google Gemini about this, and paste in Gemini's sycophantic response... Read more

  Posted on 13 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Against the Machine

  I'm using this blog post to archive for myself ChatGPT 5.2's summary of Paul Kingsnorth’s "Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity" [In this same vein... Read more

  Posted on 12 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Future of Being Human

  

  I want to point to Patrick Tanguay's recent Sentiers piece and in particular to Johar's essay. I asked both ChatGPT and Google Gemini to summarize ideas in... Read more

  Posted on 08 February 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Mythology of Conscious AI

  I've just read through an excellent article in Noema Magazine by Anil Seth explaining why consciousness is more likely a property of life than of computation an... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Case for Being Human

  ...This Colin Lewis lecture and essay on "Character, Clarity, and connection in a Century of Curated Selves" is a welcome breath of fresh air. Read more

  Posted on 23 January 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Do We Have an Appetite for Transcendence?

  I've been working on a long rambling post on finding meaning in the flow and evolution of the cosmos rather than in the varied anthropomorphic religions that... Read more

  Posted on 20 January 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Venkatesh Rao's 'World Machines'

  As usual, I found Venkatesh Rao's writinting in his latest piece "The Divergence Machine" a bit opaque and wordy, so I asked ChatGPT 5. Read more

  Posted on 05 January 2026 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE