Essays
All essays
Everything published by Arising, newest first. Some pieces are a gentle way in; others go deep. All of them are free, and published in the open.
02 Jul 2026
Solve the Wheel, Break the Chariot
AI is now fluent enough to make an old error visible. It mistakes a useful working boundary for the real object. On reification, scale, and how to draw boundaries without believing them.
reification
01 Jul 2026
Machinal Bypass: When Reaching for AI Is a Way to Avoid Yourself
The healthy and unhealthy ways to use AI turn on one thing, the posture you bring to it. On machinal bypass, sycophancy, emotional dependence, and why curiosity is the first medicine.
mental health
30 Jun 2026
The Mind Has No Address: The Category Error in the AI Consciousness Debate
The question "is AI conscious" is usually malformed. Every camp hides the same error. Madhyamaka, read through Nagarjuna and Jay Garfield, dissolves the search for where consciousness really lives.
consciousness
29 Jun 2026
Nothing Inside the Word: What Language Models Reveal About Meaning
Do language models understand meaning? No, and the reason is the interesting part. Self-attention, Wittgenstein and Nagarjuna converge on one answer, meaning is a relational field, empty of intrinsic essence.
meaning