A series of short essays published as a weekly newsletter to my friends and correspondents, published weekly every Wednesday beginning 12/6/23.
Very Accessible Content
NOBLE Group Chapter Edit: An assignment to edit several thesis points for Denis Noble’s new upcoming book. This is my editorial take on how Denis’ thesis should summarize his own work. It uses much of his own language and factual support to build an argument of my own making. Published in the group Friday, July 28, 2023
NOBLE Group Intro: My point of view about the state of biological philosophy. Written April 25, 2023. Delivered May 2nd.
Adaptive Plasticity as Causal Inference: An essay on Medium detailing my criticism of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. First published Jan 21, 2023.
Epistolution for Kids: How God Makes Our Cells Work: The simplest possible starting place for the concept of epistolution. Also published on my YouTube Channel as “Epistolution for Kids.”
Correspondence with NG: Letter to Nate Gaylinn, Reply to Charlie, How to Test Problem-Finding, 2024-4-27 Reply to Charlie, and Test Criteria for Epistolution
Technical Journals and Proposals
Program of Study: Synchronizers: This is the journal of my halting progress toward testing epistolution in silico. Updated in an ongoing fashion.
Epistolution From The Bottom Up: This is a slide deck demonstrating the exact programming steps required to build an AGI, I guess. I built this deck in response to Sam Goto’s challenge that I was unable to formalize the concept of epistolution. I think I have done so here. I am intending to hire an engineer to build this program and then use it to experiment with larger and larger thinking systems. In it I define some new concepts more rigorously, like “epistevolver,” “stynker,” and “stryver.”
Essays Posted as Open Google Docs (email me if they are not open for comment)
How We Got Here: A journal of the conversation collaboration between myself and Richard A. Watson, 11/29/23
Letter Exchange w/ Art Woods: A dialogue w/ a physiological ecologist, typical attempt to communicate epistolution, 10/6/23
Letter to Richard Watson: A critical response to his Natural Induction Youtube series, 10/5/23
Letters to Sara Walker and others: Emails sent to researchers over the past few weeks, October, 2023
Letter to Nicholas Maxwell: A critical response to the evolution discussion in his book Our Fundamental Problem
Letter to Stephen Meyer: A critical response to an argument for intelligent design
The Ladder: A thorough guide to how to understand epistolution
Being is For Knowing: my personal story about how I found epistolution
Bad Lamarckism, Good Lamarckism: a breakdown of the situation in evolutionary biology
How God Makes Our Cells Work: The best layperson-friendly version of epistolution yet!
Clinging To Existence : About the relation between epistolution and evolution
Voter Trust: A conjecture about the future of democracy
Surrendering Agency: A Dialogue with Slim and Charlie: A discussion of the moral implications of epistolution
Notes on Causality: An introduction to the logical necessity of epistolution
How Does Epistolution Explain… : FAQs for the epistolution paper
The Upside-Down Theory of Evolution : an early articulation of niche theory
Creativity is Sensitivity to a Niche : an early version of epistolution
The Human Niche Project : a summary of a project
Dont Be Confused : an opinion piece about the insurrection at the Capitol
Chronic Disease : a case for solving the mystery of health in asynchrony IMPORTANT UNFINISHED PAPER
Why Do We Sleep : a discussion of the purpose of sleep
Script For Canebrake Charlie YouTube Videos
The Human Body Is A Guess : one page synopsis
The Human Body is A Guess : nine page synopsis
The Human Body is A Guess : full length version
Competitive Information and Equality : an unfinished essay
How to Build A Thinker : an aphoristic essay critiqued by Anna Viertel
Five Papers, Summarized : an incomplete list of important concepts
The Niche as Final Cause : a note, incomplete
Unpublished Books
Illustrations
First Software Design w/ Beau Smith 11/3/21
PDF, Handwritten, or Email Transcript Letters
Response to “Natural Induction” by Watson/Buckley, March 2023
Letter to Erik J. Larson, January 2023
Letters to Luther Munford, January 2023
Letters to Paul Kirst, December 2022
Paul Allen Prize Application : Letter of Intent 2022
Deep Mind Application Cover Letter : April 17, 2022
2nd Letter to Michael Levin: This letter was entitled “Sleep and Dreaming”
Letter to Michael Levin: This letter was about epistolution. He wrote me back and sent articles.
Letter to Russell Bonduriansky: This was an exchange where I failed to convince, but fruitful
Letters to The World: a Google doc transcript of some of my email letters to various researchers. RESTRICTED: EMAIL ME FOR ACCESS
Letter of Thanks to Denis Noble
Letter of Thanks to David Deutsch
Papers Submitted for Publication See also Papers above ^ in the navigation bar
Epistolution: An Empirical Test for Holistic Causation in Biology Letter of Intent submitted to the Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator Award for Protein Lifespan February 25, 2022
Epistolution .AGI submitted to the Artificial General Intelligence conference (AGI 2021) July 7, 2021
Epistolution. Mic rough draft for submission to microbiology journals
Essays Posted to Medium See also Medium ^ above in the navigation bar
Deep Optimism: A summary of the philosophy of epistolution
Solutions Conjectured By Epistolution
What are the chemical properties required for heredity?
How Does Epistolution Explain Beauty?
How Does Epistolution Explain Hallucination and the Placebo Effect?
How Does Epistolution Explain Chronic Disease?
How Does Epistolution Explain Sleep?
How Does Epistolution Explain Morality?
How Does Epistolution Explain Lateralization?
What is Epistolution? The Best Elevator Pitch for this Theory NEW!!!
Epistolution: A Downward Causation Case Study
Criteria, Parameters, Assumptions
Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself?