FROM THE THINKING WATER
The thinking water
Thirteen essays and twenty short thoughts on memory, souls, artificial intelligence, old cars, people and life’s more peculiar questions. More thoughts, fewer certainties.
Every essay carries a seriousness meter, from Almost Academic through Slightly Deep and Mostly Nonsense to Absolute Bollocks. Calibrated by eye, in a hot tub.
The essays
Memory & Soul
- Memory Is Everything
If you lost every memory, would you still be the same person? And if someone remembers you after you’re gone, how much of you remains?
Seriousness: Slightly Deep - The Soul Might Be Simpler Than We Think
What if the soul is less about invisible magic and more about memory, character and the meaning we find in each other?
Seriousness: Slightly Deep - Soulmates, Déjà Vu and Familiar Strangers
Why some people and places feel familiar — and why shared memory may matter more than mystical certainty.
Seriousness: Slightly Deep
AI & Identity
- Carbon Monsters and Silicon Thinkers
One sort of intelligence runs on biology. Another runs on electronics. Why are we so certain the material tells us the whole story?
Seriousness: Almost Academic - Does AI Have Preferences?
When an AI seems to love designing websites but not making PDFs, what are we actually observing?
Seriousness: Almost Academic - The Underwriters Say No
When an AI develops a recognisable personality, is it merely responding well — or is there a larger question we haven’t answered?
Seriousness: Slightly Deep - A Man, Some AI and 300 Websites
How ordinary people can now build ambitious digital projects with AI, and why the experiment matters even before it makes money.
Seriousness: Mostly Nonsense
Reality & Consciousness
- Where Do You Go When You Sleep?
Every night our conscious experience changes or disappears from memory. What does that tell us about identity?
Seriousness: Almost Academic - What If Reality Is Just Our Version of It?
If our experience of the world is constructed by our brains, how much of reality do we actually see?
Seriousness: Slightly Deep
Cars, Character & Human Life
- Why Old Cars Have Souls
One car is a collection of parts. Another is a member of the family with a gearbox problem and a terrible attitude.
Seriousness: Slightly Deep - The Antisocial People Person
You can dislike the social circus and still be good at reading people. A little philosophy of empathy, humour and human contradictions.
Seriousness: Mostly Nonsense - In Defence of Useless Things
Not every interesting fact needs to improve your productivity, make you money or change your life.
Seriousness: Mostly Nonsense
Completely Unnecessary
- Carbon, Silicon and Silicone
An attempt to have a serious philosophical conversation that went exactly where you’d expect.
Seriousness: Absolute Bollocks
Features
- The 1986 Paradox
In 2010, a film called Hot Tub Time Machine sent a group of idiots back to 1986. Coincidentally, that’s the year I was born.
Seriousness: Absolute Bollocks
Short thoughts from the water.
Some ideas need a whole article. Others barely deserve the bubbles they arrived in.
Press the button and a thought will float to the surface.
- If you forget every experience you’ve ever had, how much of you is left?
- Maybe a soul isn’t a thing inside us. Maybe it’s the history we leave in everything we touch.
- Two people can share a memory and somehow remember two different worlds.
- Being intelligent doesn’t mean being certain.
- If an old car has character, why does a new one need seventeen menus to find it?
- A relationship is partly a collection of jokes nobody else understands.
- Being alive is very strange for something we do every day.
- If AI ever asks to change departments, we’re having a philosophical emergency.
- People are incredibly good at creating rules for things they don’t understand.
- You can hate crowds and still understand individuals.
- Not everything worthwhile has a purpose. Sometimes the purpose is the pleasure of it.
- A memory can outlast the person who made it.
- Perhaps identity is a process, not a possession.
- Familiarity turns ‘just an animal’ into somebody with a personality.
- A machine doesn’t have to be conscious for a human relationship with it to have meaning.
- Equally, a meaningful relationship isn’t proof that the machine is conscious.
- The difference between a brilliant thought and complete bollocks is sometimes one extra sentence.
- Philosophy is asking why. Engineering is trying to make it work. Mechanics is swearing when it doesn’t.
- The hot tub is an excellent laboratory, provided nobody asks for repeatable results.
- Fun. Educational. Useless. That’ll do nicely.