Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Personal Identity (2026 - March)
(Text as at 13/04/2026 19:33:36)
Rationale for this Project
- I am researching the subject of Personal Identity primarily because of its intrinsic interest and importance. But I think when I’ve sorted it out a bit, and have something to say, I’ll want to engage with other philosophers active in this field and re-starting a PhD at Birkbeck or elsewhere might be the only effective way to do this. While a PhD is not an end in itself, and certainly not the ultimate aim of my doing philosophy, it’s still true that a PhD would teach me research techniques, provide focus and direction, and furnish a professional qualification should I want to publish any results in this or any other area of philosophy.
- The best place to get an overview of my current views is here1.
- My draft Thesis is here2 and the jumping-off point for an alternative rendering, with an ever-expanding set of reading lists is here3, though follow the links from the Chapter Abstracts for the real work. A (currently not very helpful) progress dashboard is here4.
Summary of Progress during January - March 2026
- I spent 130.25 hours in 26Q1 on this Project, or related work (303 hours YTD, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2025). That's 62.4% of the planned effort (72.6% YTD). Overall, 17.1% of my Project effort in the Quarter was directed towards this project (making 19.3% YTD) - as against 24.6% planned (25.2% YTD).
- To make way for important work on my Web-Tools and other Projects (especially Bridge), I’d retained the time allowance on this project in 26Q1 at the somewhat reduced allocation of 16 hours / week. However, I only achieved just over 60% of this time allowance.
- Again, I made a fair amount of progress on the consolidated version of my Thesis - Personal Identity5. I have completed the first run-through and intend next Quarter to start working this into a Thesis-proper, with the rest of the website as supporting material.
- My time was washing-up and recycling-sorting time was mostly accompanied by listening to the podcasts in "RIP - The Royal Institute of Philosophy - Podcasts". I have to say that the series from 2014-15 (The History of Philosophy) is incredibly dreary and almost worthless. Why should the general public – towards whom the lecture series are supposedly aimed – care (for instance) about what Plotinus thought about matter? To motivate any connection to modern thought would require some detailed engagement with modern physics.
- A Christmas newsletter from one of Julie’s friends referenced "Ritchie (George G.), Sherrill (Elizabeth) - Return from Tomorrow", which I read and started looking into NDEs6 and OBEs7 again.
- I also started some work on AI and LLMs (relevant to Transhumanism8) and on Resurrection9. I also purchased "Stevenson (Ian) - Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation", another off-the-wall challenge to animalist ideas.
- I read through "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics" but haven’t had time to comment on it yet.
- I’ve been enjoying reading "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher At The End Of The Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films" while walking Bertie.
- I finished reading "Wohlleben (Peter) - The Inner Life of Animals: Surprising Observations of a Hidden World" and am making good progress with "De Waal (Frans) - Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?".
- To control the various links within my Thesis, I’ve created and maintained a PID Note Usage10 Page, though this didn’t get a look in this Quarter. However, I intend it to be a major focus in the near future.
- Progress between reports can be obtained from the relevant section of my Summary Task List11.
- A full list of items worked on in the quarter appears below:-
Thesis (Total Hours = 114)
- Thesis - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 107.75)
- BBC: Mystery of wolf-type dogs solved with DNA test (Read, 0.5 hours)
- BBC: Start the Week - Consciousness and Identity (Read / Write, 1 hour)
- BBC: 'The answer cannot be nothing': The battle over Canada's mystery brain disease (Read, 1 hour)
→ See "BBC - Miscellaneous iPlayer and Podcasts" (2.5 hours)
- "De Waal (Frans) - Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" (Read, 7.25 hours)
- "Dick (Philip K.) - Blade Runner: do androids dream of electric sheep?" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Dummett (Michael) - The Concept of Truth" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Dummett (Michael) - Truth and the Past: Preface" (Read, 0.25 hours)
- "Google DeepMind - The Thinking Game: The inside story of the AI breakthrough that won a Nobel Prize" (Read / Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Johnson (Mark) - Researchers have developed a model to explain the science of near-death experiences. Others have challenged it" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics" (Read, 8.5 hours)
- "Mannix (Kathryn) - With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Marcus (Gary) - The Massive Problems Facing AI & LLM Scaling" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Ozanne (Charles) - If there is no resurrection of the dead … What then? An exposition of 1 Corinthians 15" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Living virtuously with AI chatbots" (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "RIP - The Royal Institute of Philosophy - Podcasts" (Read / Write, 0.5 hours)
- RIP: YouTube - A A Long: What is the Matter with Matter (Read, 1 hour)
- RIP: YouTube - Peter Kail: Hume's 'Manifest Contradictions' (Read, 0.5 hours)
- RIP: YouTube - Robert Stern: Why Hegel Now (Again) – and in What Form? (Read, 1 hour)
- RIP: YouTube - Rupert Read: Wittgenstein and the Illusion of ‘Progress’ (Read, 0.75 hours)
- RIP: YouTube - Sarah Broadie: Looking at Aristotle Through Lenses from Bernard Williams (Read, 0.75 hours)
- RIP: YouTube - Sarah Patterson: Descartes on the Errors of the Senses (Read, 1 hour)
- RIP: YouTube - Sebastian Gardner: Kant's Third Critique (Read, 1 hour)
- RIP: YouTube - Simon May: Nietzsche and the Affirmation of Life (Read, 0.75 hours)
- "Ritchie (George G.) - Ordered to Return: My Life After Dying" (Read, 2 hours)
- "Ritchie (George G.), Sherrill (Elizabeth) - Return from Tomorrow" (Read / Write, 3 hours)
- "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher At The End Of The Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films" (Read / Write, 9 hours)
- "Stevenson (Ian) - Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Mill on the Higher Pleasures" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - 1 Corinthians: 15" (Write, 8.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 01 (Introduction)" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)" (Write, 1.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 04 (Basic Metaphysical Issues)" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 06 (Animalism and Arguments for It)" (Write, 1.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 08 (Arguments against Animalism)" (Write, 0.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 09 (Arguments against the Constitution View)" (Write, 0.25 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 10 (Thought Experiments)" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 11 (Resurrection)" (Write, 1 hour)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Chapter 12 (Conclusion)" (Write, 3 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Current Position" (Write, 6.75 hours)
- "Todman (Theo) - Thesis - Personal Identity" (Write, 13 hours)
- "Wachowski (Larry), Etc. - The Matrix Comics" (Write, 1.75 hours)
- "Wohlleben (Peter) - The Inner Life of Animals: Surprising Observations of a Hidden World" (Read / Write, 9.25 hours)
- "Wooldridge (Michael John) - This is not the AI we were promised" (Read / Write, 2.25 hours)
- "Wright (N.T.) - The Resurrection of the Son of God: Preface, Bibliography & Indexes" (Read, 1 hour)
- "Yong (Ed) - An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" (Write, 0.5 hours)
- "Zickgraf (Ryan) - The AI jobs-apocalypse is here: Prepare for the laptop-class revolt" (Read, 1.75 hours)
- Thesis - Research Repositioning (Total Hours = 6.25)
Thesis Background (Total Hours = 16.25)
- Thesis Background - Reading / Writing (Total Hours = 9.75)
- Thesis Background - Status
Plans for the Near Future – Top Priority Tasks
- As far as effort is concerned, I’ve had to retain the greatly reduced plan at 16 hours / week12 rather than increasing it as I’d like. This is on account of pressure from other projects, in particular Bridge.
- I have a skeleton thesis13 in place. This now needs to be filled out, based on the consolidated version: Thesis - Personal Identity14.
- I need to continually review15 the Note describing my Current Beliefs16 on the topic of Personal Identity, which now doubles as the Thesis Conclusion. I’m currently expanding it to include references and links to as many as possible of the Notes on PID that form the Thesis.
- The current quarter will focus on Resurrection17, as I have to deliver a paper on the topic at an OBT away weekend in May.
- Otherwise, I need to get my focus back onto Baker18 and Olson19.
- Most of what I’m working on appears in the reading lists for the Thesis chapters. Items below20 are either those that don’t, or which require particular focus:-
Detailed Task List
- Continue with my Thesis21; in particular
- Spend an hour a day updating the Thesis Document22 itself.
- Spend half an hour a day writing something original; namely, essays on:-
→ The difference between Forward and Backward Psychological Continuity23.
→ The persistence of Androids24.
- Continue filling out those sections of my Thesis that I can write something on without further research, using books / papers already analysed.
- Continually review the Note describing my Current Beliefs25 on the topic of Personal Identity.
- Regularly review and update of the Notes I’ve created on Personal Identity, focusing on those directly referenced by my Current Beliefs26.
- Complete the outstanding actions in the Appendix to my Thesis:-
- Priority 1 (38 items)
- Priority 2 (25 items)
- Priority 3 (10 items)
- Continuity and Connectedness101 feature often early in this Thesis before being discussed in Chapter 5. Add some signposting.
- Descartes102: Supply worthwhile Snippet Text, or treat as out of scope.
- Hylomorphism103: Replace the long Wikipedia quotation with my own work! Also, follow up on the references relating Hylomorphism to the CV104.
- Leibniz105: Supply worthwhile Snippet Text, or treat as out of scope.
- Race106: Read and apply "Lambrecht (Felix) - Reparative Justice for Historical Injustice".
- Replication107: This note is a mess. Follow up on amoebic division and get the science right.
- Supervenience108: Write something sensible!
- Aristotle: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to 'Other Philosophers of Note' in Chapter 1)
- Paradox: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to the Introduction in Chapter 1)
- Sexual Identity: Create Note and include in Thesis structure (Subordinate to Narrative Identity109)
- Priority 4 (11 items)
- Make progress on specific Chapters of my Thesis, using the tasks outlined in my Thesis Dashboard120, using the materials listed121 in the Chapters and underlying Notes.
- Read and comment on122 the following remaining PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis:-
- "Baggini (Julian) - Psychological Reductionism About Persons: A Critical Development",
- "Eddebo (Johan) - Death and the Self: A Metaphysical Investigation of the Rationality of Afterlife Beliefs in the Contemporary Intellectual Climate",
- "Gendler (Tamar Szabo) - Imaginary Exceptions: On the Powers and Limits of Thought Experiment",
- "Keles (Serap) - Personal identity and persistence over time : the hybrid view with regard to hylomorphism",
- "Kotak (Aakash) - The Hybrid Theory of Personal Identity" (MPhil Thesis)
- "Lechthaler (Manuel) - Composition and Identities",
- "Lybaert (Fauve) - Personal Identity and the Formal Self",
- "Paez (Eze) - Abortion: What We Ought to Believe - An Ontological and Normative Analysis",
- "Parsons (Josh) - Theories of Persistence",
- "Rau (Philipp) - The Author, Not the Tale: Memory, Narrative, and the Self",
- "Skow (Bradford) - Once Upon a Spacetime",
- "Southgate (Susan Jane) - Personal Identity: The Simple View",
- "Trakas (Marina) - Personal Memories", and
- "Woods (Evan Thomas) - The Problems of the Many".
- Apply the issues raised by recently-read PhD Theses relevant to my own Thesis to my various Notes:-
- "Atkinson (Thomas) - Human organisms and the survival of death: a systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism", see also the Section on Resurrection below
- "Hodson (Sommer) - A Hybrid View of Personal Identity",
- Follow up on Keith Augustine's comments on my review of "Hershenov (David) - Review of Nancey Murphy's 'Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?'".
- Teletransportation123 (Update Note using the following):-
- "Science Unbound - Teleporters: The Death Machines You Don't Want": Complete reading / reviewing relevant passages in these follow-up items
- "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek"
- "Gribbin (John) - Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality"
- "Kaku (Michio) - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel"
- "Krauss (Lawrence M.) - The Physics of Star Trek"
- "Penrose (Roger) - The Emperor's New Mind"
- "YouTube - Video - The Trouble with Transporters"
- Resurrection124
- "Atkinson (Thomas) - Human organisms and the survival of death: a systematic evaluation of the possibility of life after death given animalism", a PhD Thesis noted above
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke's Theory of Personal Identity",
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Personal Identity Before the Essay",
- "Gasser (Georg), Ed. - Personal Identity and Resurrection: How Do We Survive Our Death?",
- "Graves (Shawn), Hereth (Blake) & John (Tyler M.) - In Defense of Animal Universalism",
- "O'Connor (Timothy) & Jacobs (Jonathan D.) - Emergent individuals and the resurrection",
- "Locke (John) - Of Identity and Diversity",
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Constitution and the Falling Elevator: The Continuing Incompatibility of Materialism and Resurrection Belief",
- "Loose (Jonathan) - Materialism Most Miserable The Prospects for Dualist and Physicalist Accounts of Resurrection",
- "Mavrodes (George I.) - The Life Everlasting and the Bodily Criterion of Identity",
- "Mooney (Justin) - The possibility of resurrection by reassembly",
- "O'Donnell (Patrick S.) - Death & Dying: A Select bibliography",
→ Also "O'Donnell (Patrick S.) - Human Nature, Personhood, and Personal Identity: A Select bibliography",
- "Olson (Eric) - Immanent Causation and Life After Death",
- "Olson (Eric) - Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave",
- "Quinn (Philip L.) - Personal Identity, Bodily Continuity and Resurrection",
- "Quinn (Philip L.) - Some Problems about Resurrection",
- "Thompson (Evan) - Dying: What Happens When We Die?",
- "Thompson (Jon W.) - Individuation, Identity, and Resurrection in Thomas Jackson and John Locke",
- "Thompson (Jon W.) - Personal Identity and Resurrection: Early Modern Philosophical Perspectives",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - The Possibility of Resurrection",
- "Zeleznikow-Johnston (Ariel) - The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death",
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The “Falling Elevator” Model",
- "Zimmerman (Dean) - Bodily Resurrection: The Falling Elevator Model Revisited"
- Complete analysing the following papers125:-
- "Cofnas (Nathan) - Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry",
- "Corabi (Joseph) & Schneider (Susan) - The Metaphysics of Uploading",
- "FT, Baggini (Julian), Warburton (Nigel) - Five Books - The Best Books on How To Think (Like a Philosopher)",
- "FT, ChatGPT - Five Books - The Best Books on Artificial Intelligence",
- "FT, Coyne (Jerry A.) - Five Books - The Best Books on Evolution",
- "FT, Dennett (Daniel) & Warburton (Nigel) - Five Favorite Books",
- "Frary (Mark) - Beyond Repair",
- "Galton (Francis) - Visualised Numerals",
- "Giusti (Elena) & Derbew (Sarah) - Decolonizing Blackness, alongside the Classics Curriculum: A conversation with Dr Sarah Derbew",
- "Gradesaver - The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie: Study Guide - Introduction", Etc.
- "Harari (Yuval Noah) - Disruption, Democracy & the Global Order" (update in the light of YouTube video and CSER summary),
- "Hume (David) - Treatise I.IV.VI: Of Personal Identity",
- "Kobie (Nicole) - Neuralink: an old idea that could be the future of medicine",
- "Korhonen (Anna), Woodward (Sarah) - This idea must die: 'AI will outsmart the human race'",
- "Middleton (Anna), Welford (Megan) - The Ethics of Genomics"
- "Moreno Figueroa (Monica), Jolin (Lucy) - A world without oppression to you",
- "Mulhall (Stephen), LRB - Non-Identity Crisis",
- "Olson (Eric) - The Central Dogma Of Transhumanism",
- "Paris (J.J.) & Elias-Jones (A.C.) - Do we murder Mary to save Jodie?",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - AI, humanity and Christian ministry",
- "Putnam (Hilary) - Brains in a Vat",
- "Stenger (Victor J.), Lindsay (James A.) & Boghossian (Paul) - Physicists Are Philosophers, Too",
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Materialism and the Psychological-continuity Account of Personal Identity",
- "Velleman (David) - Beyond Price",
- "Walker (Robert) - Mary And Jodie – The Case Of The Conjoined Twins",
- "Watkin (Christopher) - Christianity and critical race theory",
- "Wikipedia - Large language model", and
- "Zangwill (Nick) - Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat"
- Consciousness126
- "JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies (Consolidated List)":
- This is a large project – I need to sort out all the volumes associated with author JCS. Some I have in hard copy. Others were once on-line for free, but now seem to have disappeared. Some I claim to have downloaded.
- For volumes I have in either hard copy or electronic form I need to 'burst' them into their constituent papers (at the least for the usual suspects).
- Ingenta seems to have the latest issue of JCS for free download: Ingenta - JCS.
- Imprint Academic - Journal of Consciousness Studies says its archive is available on Ingenta and is free for current subscribers. So, If I wanted to go ahead with this, it might be best to subscribe for a year (£102; £122 including print [not worth it]); but only if I can spare the time to address the archive!
- Aeon127: Read & annotate papers as they arise, especially ...
- "Chittka (Lars) & Wilson (Catherine) - Bee-brained": Write-up
- "Frankish (Keith) - The Consciousness Illusion": Write-up
- "Frohlich (Joel) - Frames of consciousness": Write-up
- "Parks (Tim) & Manzotti (Riccardo) - You are the world": Write-up
- "Pigliucci (Massimo) - Consciousness is real": Write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - The real problem": Write-up
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - How we build perception from the inside out": Write-up
- Panpsychism:-
- Set up Note on Panpsychism (as above)
- "BBC, Bragg (Melvyn) - In Our Time - Panpsychism": Review / revise.
- "Goff (Philip) - A Change of Heart on Fine-Tuning": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness": Book. Read.
- "Goff (Philip) - Is the Universe a conscious mind?": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Purposeful universe": Re-read & comment
- "Goff (Philip) - Why? The Purpose of the Universe": Book. Read.
- "JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 13, Issue 10-11 (2006)": Book. Read.
- Action the following Books and Papers:-
- "Birch (Jonathan) - The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI": Write-up
- "Bonhomme (Vincent), Etc. - General Anesthesia: A Probe to Explore Consciousness": Read & write-up
- "Crane (Tim) - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind": Re-read and review notes.
- "Dehaene (Stanislas) - Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts": Read.
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Illusionism as the Obvious Default Theory of Consciousness": Read.
- "Donald (Merlin) - A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness": Read.
- "Eliot (Lise) - What's Going On in There?: How the Brain And Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life": Read.
- "Kammerer (Francois) - The Hardest Aspect of the Illusion Problem - and How to Solve it": Read.
- "Koch (Christof) - The Quest for Consciousness: A Nurobiological Approach": Read.
- "Metzinger (Thomas), Ed. - Conscious Experience": Burst out Papers and add Metzinger's Abstracts
- "Seth (Anil Kumar) - Being You: A New Science of Consciousness": Read.
- "Shapiro (Lawrence) - The Mind Incarnate": Read.
- "Strawson (Galen) - The Consciousness Deniers": Read & write-up
- "Tegmark (Max) - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence": Write up Chapter 8: Consciousness
- "Veit (Walter) - A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness": Read.
- Ensure the annotations from recently-read Papers are added to the relevant Notes:-
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke on Living Things"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face"
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Review of 'What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology' by Eric T. Olson"
- As background tasks:-
- Ensure all items in:-
- "Various - Papers on Desktop", and
- "Various - Papers in Desk Drawer"
are either addressed or re-filed.
- Maintain "Various - Papers & Books Yet To Be Logged", and log papers therein if they become important.
- Convert old PDFs to Notes:-
- Review the two reports:-
- PDF-précis,
- PDF-essays128.
- Determine how the first is produced, and why the pdfs aren't highlighted, and compare with Write-ups Notes Jump Table
- Convert outstanding Essays & Précises.
- Complete cataloguing the books downloaded from Springer,
- Read and comment on129 the Short Stories in "Somerset Maugham (W.) - Collected Short Stories: Volume 2".
- Continue / complete reading / annotating various books130 that have landed in my in-tray:-
- "Ball (Philip) - How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology",
- "Barash (David P.) - Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are",
- "Berns (Gregory) - What It's Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience",
- "Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity",
- "Bliss (Rina) - What's Real about Race? Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society",
- "Bostrom (Nick) - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies",
- "Bradley (Ben), Feldman (Fred) & Johansson (Jens) - The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death",
- "Clark (Andy) - The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality",
- "De Waal (Frans) - Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking",
- "Dennett (Daniel) - I've Been Thinking",
- "Edmonds (David) - Would You Kill the Fat Man? The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us about Right and Wrong",
- "Erber (Joan T.) & Szuchman (Lenore T.) - Great Myths of Aging",
- "Green (Joel B.) - Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible",
- "Hofstadter (Douglas) & Dennett (Daniel), Eds. - The Mind's I - Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul",
- "Kagan (Shelly) - How to Count Animals, more or less",
- "Korsgaard (Christine) - Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals",
- "Loke (Andrew Ter Ern) - The Origin of Humanity and Evolution: Science and Scripture in Conversation",
- "Levitin (Daniel) - The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well",
- "Lyons (Siobhan) - Death and the Machine: Intersections of Mortality and Robotics",
- "Martin (L. Michael) & Augustine (Keith) - The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death",
- "Miller (Kristie) - Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition, and Time",
- "Peckham (Jeremy) - Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity",
- "Price (Huw) - Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time",
- "Ricard (Matthieu) - A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion",
- "Ritchie (George G.), Sherrill (Elizabeth) - Return from Tomorrow",
- "Ritchie (George G.) - Ordered to Return: My Life After Dying",
- "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher and the Wolf",
- "Sapolsky (Robert) - Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will",
- "Schechtman (Marya) - Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life",
- "Schneider (Susan) - Artificial You",
- "Shermer (Michael), Gould (Stephen Jay) - Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time",
- "Seung (Sebastian) - Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are",
- "Uria-Recio (Pedro) - How AI Will Shape Our Future",
- "Walker (Matthew P.) - Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams",
- "Wasserman (Ryan) - The Paradoxes of Time Travel",
- "Wohlleben (Peter) - The Inner Life of Animals: Surprising Observations of a Hidden World",
- "Wyatt (John) - Matters of Life and Death"
- Continue reading and reviewing papers issued by Aeon131 (and the occasional spin-off). In particular,
- Complete write-ups132 for 206 items: Follow this Link133.
- Add new items to the database as and when I have time to read and comment thereon, maintaining a 'top ten' Priority 1 items.
- Keep up with the Journals I have access to as a Cambridge Alumnus via via JSTOR, Cambridge Core & Project Muse. Update my Journals Note134.
- Keep up with the philosophical world by regular reviews of "Interaction - Philos-List", but only seriously pursue135 items relevant to my research.
- London Review of Books: update my LRB136 Note to reflect the fact that I've downloaded all relevant items up to the end of 2024. Develop a method of importing them into my database.
In-Page Footnotes:
Footnote 12:
- 25 hours / week – while still ludicrously inadequate for what I want to achieve – is approximately what would be expected of a part-time research student. So, planning to exceed this is ‘a good thing’ provided I use the time wisely and efficiently.
Footnote 15:
- Maybe I should expand it into a proper paper, let Sophie have a look at it and consider submission to Aeon?
Footnote 20:
- This list is absurdly long and cannot represent what I’m really working on. It’s really an aide memoir.
Footnote 121:
- I used to itemise in this Note an ever-growing list of items accummulated over time, broken down by Chapter and Note.
- However, now both Chapters and Notes are getting into shape, there is no need to list these items again here, so they have been cut after checking they are covered in their place elsewhere.
Footnote 122:
- There are rather a lot of these, so some will have to be skimmed.
- There were a few more on less central topics.
- I hope to whittle these down as time goes by!
Footnote 125:
- This list used to get inordinately long and has been culled.
- Ensure this doesn't happen again!
Footnote 129:
- This was supposed to be holiday reading, but there's little chance of me completing this project (and the two other volumes) unless I get a move on!
- My intention is to read and review a Story after each 'General' book read.
Footnote 130:
- This list is getting ludicrously long, and either needs addressing or pruning!
Footnote 132:
- I had managed to reduce the backlog of 'Priority 1' items on my Aeon page to the required 10 items (though it has now got out of hand again).
- To achieve this in an acceptable timeframe, as well as restricting the new additions, I've been either downgrading the priorities or reading the papers on my Kindle and then adding brief comments and logging them to my database.
- Consequently, most of them then get added to this list for more detailed investigation.
- I'll now - hopefully - start whittling down this list of 206 items, but there's a risk that it'll continue to grow ... as indeed it has.
- To help with the 'whittling' I've added both the date the item was added to this list and its current status, which is to progress down the following list:-
→ 1. Read, or ...
→ 2. Re-read
→ 3. Draft 'Paper' Notes
→ 4. Read Aeon Comments
→ 5. Update 'Paper' Notes
→ 6. Apply to PID Notes
- Above '2. Re-read' is a little directionless. It usually means 'Re-read with the intention of performing one or more of actions 3, 5 and 6.'
Footnote 135:
- Sadly, looking through the list diligently wastes too much time - there's very litle of relevanmce to my research - which is good to know.
- So - as of mid-February 2025 - I've decided just to dip in now and then to see what's going on.
- Philosophy seems very 'engaged' at the moment. Lots of conferences on AI and Climate Change.
Table of the Previous 12 Versions of this Note: (of 99)
| Note last updated |
Reference for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 13/04/2026 19:33:36 |
518 (Status: Personal Identity (2026 - March)) |
Status: Summary (2026 - March) |
Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Summary of Notes Citing This Note
| Simon - T1S1T1 |
Status: Consciousness Studies (2023 - September), 2 |
Status: Philosophy of Religion (2026 - March) |
Status: Priority Task List (2026 - April), 2 |
Status: Summary (2026 - March), 2, 3 |
| Status: Summary Task List (2026: April - May) |
Status: Summary Task List (YTD: 25Q4 - 26Q2), 2 |
Status: Web-Tools (2026 - March) |
Theo Todman's Philosophy Page, 2 |
Theo Todman's Philosophy Research |
| Thesis - Method & Form |
Website - Outstanding Developments (2026 - May), 2 |
Website - Progress to Date (2026 - May), 2 |
Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
|
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Chapman (Colin) |
The Israel-Hamas war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
| Todman (Theo) |
Thesis - The Form of the Argument |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026