April's Updates for Mid-2025

Some updates from this year and a preview of what's ahead

Presentations

• Presented a chapter of my undergraduate thesis, “Thinking On Our Feet: Towards an Embodied Functionalism” at the American Philosophical Association’s Pacific Division meeting in San Francisco. The thesis argues that the whole brain-body system, not just isolated neural processes, forms the physical basis of mental processes. Professor Robert Rupert gave comments.

• Presented “Cultivating Crap-Detection: Tutoring Using the Inquiry Method” at the Southern California Writing Centers Association meeting in San Diego, as well as to colleagues at El Camino College’s Reading & Writing Studio. The presentation outlines what’s been called the inquiry method of education, which focuses on asking questions rather than delivering answers. It sketches how the inquiry method can help students reflect on their own thought processes, helping them become better critical thinkers (what Postman and Weingartner call “crap-detectors” in their book “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”), and in turn become better writers.

• Presented “Misinformation, Disinformation, and Bullshit: Staying Smart in the Attention Economy” to students in English 1A at El Camino College. The presentation aims to a) shed light on how misleading information spreads like wildfire in the attention economy and b) give students tools for navigating hostile information environments.

Works Under Review

• “The Duty Not to Scroll: Individual Ethical Responsibility in the Attention Economy.” An academic philosophy paper which argues that the three main Western ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics) converge on an imperative for individuals to reclaim their agency from algorithmic recommendation feeds of the kind used by contemporary social media platforms.

• “Simone Weil on Paying Attention.” A public-facing piece about French philosopher Simone Weil’s perspective on attention as prayer.

Other Fun Stuff

• Attended the Marginalized Body Epistemologies and 4E Embodied Cognition conference at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.

• Attended Professor C. Thi Nguyen’s keynote presentation at the Emerging Technologies as Social Goods conference at USC.

• Helped out as an abstract reviewer for the upcoming International Society for Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind e-conference.

Looking Ahead

These days, I’m thinking a lot, firstly, about the conceptual foundations of cognitive science: how we define and study cognitive concepts, whether cognitive processes might extend beyond individual brains into bodies, environments, and cultures. This bleeds into my interests in cognitive offloading and the affordances of technology and media: how, if at all, is cognition itself changed or augmented when mediated by social and technological structures? How might a refreshed understanding of the mind and how it works help us better understand the effects of our information environments on the way we think?

I’ve had a great time exploring these topics in an accessible way on Substack this past year, and I’m really grateful to all of you who have taken the time to read and engage. As I transition into full-time graduate studies, I'll be focusing my writing energy there, but please stay subscribed as I may post occasional updates, reflections, and essays when time permits!