Any entity that engages in intentional action must be able to distinguish changes in itself from changes in the world and to represent the world in light of this distinction.

Macrocognition (2013)

Portrait of Bryce Huebner

Bryce Huebner

Philosopher

Bryce Huebner is an American philosopher and academic. He attended Westminster College of Salt Lake City for his undergraduate studies in philosophy and history, then pursued graduate studies in philosophy at Colorado State University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he obtained his Ph.D. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

Huebner's research interests span a wide range of topics across the cognitive, biological, and social sciences. His recent work has explored the role of allostatic regulation in biological cognition and the integration of insights from Yogācāra Buddhism with models from computational and cognitive neuroscience. Additionally, he has a keen interest in the aesthetics of extreme metal and horror, drawing upon Buddhist philosophy and cognitive science to investigate the possibility of cathartic contemplation in these contexts.

In his teaching, Huebner emphasizes the practical application of philosophy as a tool for engaging with the world. His courses often delve into questions related to cognitive architecture, cognitive diversity, aesthetic experience, planning, prefigurative practice, propaganda and social exclusion, and the relationship between ethics and psychology.

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John Danaher and Stephen Petersen

In Defence of the Hivemind Society

The idea that humans should abandon their individuality and use technology to bind themselves together into hivemind societies seems both farfetched and frightening—something that is redolent of the worst dystopias from science fiction. In this article, we argue that these common reactions to the ideal of a hivemind society are mistaken. The idea that humans could form hiveminds is sufficiently plausible for its axiological consequences to be taken seriously. Furthermore, far from being a dystopian nightmare, the hivemind society could be desirable and could enable a form of sentient flourishing. Consequently, we should not be so quick to deny it. We provide two arguments in support of this claim—the axiological openness argument and the desirability argument—and then defend it against three major objections.