Debbie Foster

The sum of the phi’s of all distinctions and relations is the integrated information of the circuit in this state, symbolized by the uppercase letter phi, Q. This number measures the irreducibility of the substrate. Something with no integrated information does not exist as an integrated entity, as it can be reduced to two or more subsystems

God (as Nietzsche famously declared) is dead. But in the unconscious, God is eternal.

…believing in the naturalness of your mother tongue shows a lack of serious engagement with language and belies the entire premise of modern literature. This is why I believe that existing outside of one's mother tongue is not exceptional, but simply an extreme version of the normal state of things.

Sentience implies that an agent experiences the world subjectively. This means that as the brain goes about its business, it generates phenomenal states , that is, mental experiences that are detectable by its bearer.

All history is pastiche. In preliterate societies, collective memories from the distant past are embedded in rituals; they are remembered by being reenacted, not read. Literate societies remember through articulate myths and narratives whose secondhand, constructed nature has to be veiled if the stories are to hold their power.

The Enlightenment has worked—perhaps the greatest story seldom told. And because this triumph is so unsung, the underlying ideals of reason, science, and humanism are unappreciated as well. Far from being an insipid consensus, these ideals are treated by today’s intellectuals with indifference, skepticism, and sometimes contempt. When properly

In her stunning 2007 meshing of critical theory, physics, and gender studies, Meeting the Universe Halfway, Barad revisited Bohr and his then-untestable Gedanken-experiments from the standpoint of recent developments in what she calls “experimental metaphysics”—the

There is nothing more human than the experience of lying in the dark, wondering: What if I don't wake up? In that way, sleep becomes existential cross-training: dread faced nightly, and nightly overcome.

Anything shadowy, liminal or strange excited the Romantic imagination: atypical mental states, such as dreams, daydreams, madness and creative genius; paranormal phenomena, such as telepathy, ghosts, demons and doppelgangers. The Romantics were even fascinated by the 'otherness' of animals. Cats and dogs often behave as though they can see or hear