Patrick J. Casey

Really pleased to see that a preprint of my essay, "Speaking of Depersonalization: Reality Testing, Language, and Lived Experience" is now available at Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology.

@second_sailing Flexeril is a godsend.

Although, I must admit that missing two days of work and convalescing in a flexeril-induced haze has left me feeling *very* sharp and well-rested today

After my most recent back spasm* I've decided I am no longer going to sit unless totally necessary. *I do all the PT exercises, lift weights, yoga, etc.

Gotta love Bryce Harper!

@hanno_sauer I had a similar experience recently with Gemini. I couldn't remember a prominent academic's name and described their position and beliefs and it said that there was no such person. Though there is (as it later admitted).

Claude a question about the biography of a relatively well-known person in post-War Germany, and it confidently gave a totally wrong but sort of truth-adjacent answer even though the correct answer was easily verifiable. LLMs do make distinctly "inhuman" mistakes

astralcodexten.com/p/shameless-gu… Excellent essay as usual by @slatestarcodex but I still think there is a distinct AI failure mode that is interestingly different from anything humans do that deserves a catchy name, and "hallucination" isn't a bad choice. For instance, I recently asked

@Muslim_guy8888 @PAHoyeck Ha ha, no, I'm being dramatic with this one. She gave a talk and like 15 of us went to lunch after. I was at the opposite end of the table. I didn't even try to speak to her.

@PhiloCasey @PAHoyeck Ouch. Was there a reason for that?

Habermas' passing right after the McDowell discourse has made me think about my interactions with both. And it occurred to me that I may be the one person on the face of the earth who was personally told by both these great philosophers that they weren't interested in my work.

@Dubious_Angel I think it was about whether his works are intelligible (especially to normal humans and not great intellects) and ultimately whether he's ev en a good philosopher. I was just a sideline observer!

@PhiloCasey What was the McDowell discourse??

@PAHoyeck I don't remember quite how I framed it at the time, but essentially religious exemptions to liberal policies. I did eventually publish the paper!

@PhiloCasey What was the topic Habermas was tired of talking about ?

@PAHoyeck Who else... Keith Ward scoffed when I said I wanted to study with him at Oxford. Bob Adams just looked past me when I was introduced to him. I have a long and distinguished history of being ignored by major philosophers! (To be fair, it was all completely justified.)

@PAHoyeck Nussbaum didn't countenance my existence. Which, in hindsight was probably for the best.

@PAHoyeck Part of McDowell's reasoning was that he was too busy with PhD students. So basically, on a personal level, I blame @FreyChristopher.

@PAHoyeck When I was an undergrad at Pitt, I asked McDowell if he'd do an independent study with me. He said, in effect, "Yeah, not going to happen." When Habermas was at SBU, I went to talk to him about a paper I was working on and he said, "Oh, I'm so tired of talking about that topic!"

Oh, and I had a mutual friend with MacIntyre who I asked if they would introduce us. They said "no." So close to a trifecta.

I suppose it is a distinction of a kind.

@mattyglesias America... from April 2025-October 2025. And every year prior. RIP.

I also miss when the weather was nicer last weekend and tons of people were picnicking in Logan Circle .

@cribbenMerrill One of my two favorites!

Till We Have Faces, which I grudgingly set out to cram in last minute for a couples book club, turned out to be an incredible page-turning read.

As much as I LOVE the quiet, it does make me happy to hear the neighborhood kids yelling and running around like maniacs.

@karenvaites @moultano The motives don't have to be bad, but the design *is* intentional (unless they are simply throwing darts at a board to pick how they do things). Good motivations and negligence (or stupidity) can still be catastrophic.

I agree there are no bad intentions. But there is a LOT of poor execution in K-12 Education, and it doesn't get the attention it deserves from the media. Most education journalism covers either education policy or school board meetings, not what happens in classrooms. So you get problems like these, hiding in plain sight: x.com/karenvaites/st…

I challenge anyone mad at this to avoid attributing bad motives to the people involved. This sort of thing does not happen because anyone's intentions are bad.

@moultano If people don't know that this would be experienced as painful by children and aren't paying attention to how it affects children, then they should not be working with children.

@AlecStapp It *is* torture!

This sounds like torture

A type of disgruntled academic has been denigrating my romanticization of vagabond intellectual life. I heard these voices too when I was 19. “The job market is terrible, don’t even bother.” Ignore this noise; one day you will be food for worms. Live life boldly and romantically.