Philosophy on Stephanie Rebecca

Atlas Shrugged

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Notes from the book I have most gifted to others, that solidified friendships, and that I am sometimes afraid to admit my admration of. Resentment often disguises itself as morality. This book is divisive. The criticism I received for liking this book most often came from those that hadn’t actually read it. Rand Worships Greed? It is perceived by critics as praise of selfishness and the pursuit of personal happiness as the highest moral purpose, placed above the collective good. I disagree with this take, and I further respect Rand for creating such controversial work.

Corpus Hermeticum

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of philosophical and spiritual texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic figure that combines elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Written between the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, these writings form the core of Hermeticism, a religious, philosophical, and esoteric tradition that seeks the knowledge of divine truths through mysticism, alchemy, and theurgy. The texts discuss topics like the nature of the divine, the universe, the mind, and the relationship between humanity and the divine. They emphasise the process of spiritual ascent, where the soul rises through different layers of existence to reunite with the divine source. The Corpus Hermeticum teaches that through knowledge (gnosis) and self-transformation, individuals can experience a profound connection to the divine. This path of enlightenment encourages the understanding of the cosmos as an interconnected whole, where human beings play a crucial role in bridging the material and spiritual worlds. It emphasises the belief that divine wisdom is accessible through personal spiritual practice and introspection.

Prometheus Rising

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A simple model for the brain: a computer that can run several different types of programs. Genetics determine the “operating system”, but at certain stages of our development, we are vulnerable to imprints; programs that modify the circuits in our brain and thus constrain the other programs (conditioning, learning) that we can run in later life. For example, the first experience a newborn has with their mother is a strong determinant of their future anxiety/self-confidence; an adolescent’s experiences during puberty shape their sexual preferences as an adult. Wilson explores these ideas through the lens of Timothy O’Leary’s Eight-circuit model of consciousness. The first four circuits are closely analogous to the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung: the bio-survival circuit that codes for “advance vs retreat”, the emotional-territorial circuit that codes for socially dominant/submissive behaviour, the time-binding semantic circuit represents the rational mind, and the socio-sexual circuit encodes our morality. Wilson also tugs on some interesting speculative threads about the role of these circuits in society, for example, how politicians tap into circuits I and II (e.g. Trump creating an “us vs them” emotional-territorial circuit II trigger) to subvert the rational circuit III. He playfully explores the links between these psychoanalytical ideas and various aspects of mysticism and religion; in particular, there is some lucid commentary of Finnegan’s Wake, which had previously been beyond incomprehensible to me. The subsequent chapters, discussing circuits V-VIII, become very weird: according to Wilson the neurogenetic circuit VI would allow our brain to read into our DNA to understand our genetic history and tap into “previous lives”; the non-local quantum circuit VIII can supposedly connect us with the quantum foam of the universe, allowing for extra-sensory perception, astral projections etc. Some of circuit V-VIII capabilities do seem plausible: there is growing evidence that breathing techniques and certain yoga practices can materially improve health outcomes (see the Huberman Lab podcast), supporting Wilson’s description of the neurosomatic circuit V. The chapter on metaprogramming (circuit VII) was especially interesting to me: the ultimate expression of neural plasticity and self-awareness should be our ability to actively change our circuits. Another thing: almost all of Ws predictions are very wrong: commercial life extension by 1998, widespread genetic editing in humans by 2004, large scale space colonisation by 2028. His criticisms of rationalism were thought-provoking and incisive: for instance, “rationalist” scientists historically have a very poor track record of accepting new paradigms (Kuhn). As Max Planck said, “science progresses funeral by funeral”.

Simulacra and Simulation

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I first encountered Baudrillard from a friend in Brooklyn. He was embarrassed by his interest in the author - “I love him, I’m weird, it’s crazy”. and so decided to read his books myself. Later, I reconnected with an old friend, she was much cooler than me and loved literature, when I mentioned Baudrillard she became animated and we reconeccted stronger. She told me no one she knows get’s this. The feeling I got from each of these encounters, was that anyone reading Baudrillard felt they stumbled across something secret, and they felt connected to his writing, even alienated. I first heard about Baudrillard from a friend in Brooklyn, he was embarrassed by how much he loved his writing labelling it (and himself) as weird, crazy, disgustingly grandiose. This made me read it immediately. Later, I mentioned Baudrillard to a friend I had grown apart from. She was a literature major, and though we had shared interest in philosophy in the past, became animated in a way I hadn’t seen before. She said no one she knows gets this. We became closer again. Baudrillard’s readership feels like people who noticed something, and then feel alienated in holding of that knowledge. That feeling is probably intentional, or at minimum fitting. The book’s argument is that we live in hyperreality, a condition in which the simulation precedes and eventually replaces the thing it was meant to represent. The map comes before the territory. The price comes before the value. The model comes before the phenomenon. Once this has happened far enough, pointing it out sounds slightly mad, because the simulation is now the shared ground everyone is standing on. Of course the map is the territory. What else would it be? Baudrillard moves through four stages of this displacement. An image begins as a reflection of reality. It then masks and distorts reality. Then it masks the absence of reality. Finally it bears no relation to reality at all and becomes a pure simulacrum… a copy with no original. Disneyland (staged as fiction so that the surrounding Los Angeles feels real, even though it isn’t), Watergate (a manufactured scandal whose function was to prove that scandal is still possible, therefore that power is still accountable), and the Borges fable of the map so detailed it covered the territory exactly, now inverted: it is the territory rotting beneath the map, not the map that fades. The limitation is Baudrillard himself. He writes in cascading assertion rather than argument, and at several points the opacity feels load-bearing, as though certain claims would not survive being stated plainly. The style does real damage. Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, written fifteen years earlier, makes most of the same points with more rigour and less performance. Read Debord if you want the argument. Read Baudrillard if you want to feel the argument, which is a different and sometimes more useful thing. This is for people who have already sensed the thing the book describes and want a vocabulary for it. Key ideas

Tao Te Ching

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I came to this book in my first year of university, hearing it referenced many times in Jim O’Shaughnessy’s Infinite Loops podcast, cited as foundational to his worldview, treating it not only as an interesting historical artefact but as working infrastructure for how he thinks about probability, and navigating complex systems. Coming to a 2,500-year-old Taoist classic through a quantitative investor is a strange entry point, but it turned out to be a revealing one.

The Master and Margarita

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Picking up The Count of Monte Cristo in a bookshop, someone recommended this alongside it. Both books are about a figure who arrives from outside the normal order, Dantès also turns a corrupt system’s logic against itself. Dumas believes in justice as a recoverable state. Bulgakov isn’t sure? A metaphysical study of power, truth, repression, and psychological freedom under systems that demand ideological conformity. Woland functions more like a force of metaphysical revelation. He exposes vanity, greed, cowardice, performative morality, ideological conformity, and the fragility of supposedly rational systems. Consistently punishes people for what they actually are rather than what they claim to be.