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The human mind has the curious, even mysterious, ability to generate thoughts about things with which we are not in causal contact, such as when we think about yesterday’s tennis final, or Aristotle, or unicorns. Naturalizing mental content has usually meant explaining how this is possible in terms that eliminate the mystery while retaining commitment to a substantive relationship between mind and world that undergirds this ability. In Deflating Mental Representation (MIT Press), Frances Egan argues that we should give up this commitment in favor of a naturalistic account that treats attributions of content as abstract glosses of neural mechanisms. According to Egan, who is emeritus professor of philosophy at Rutgers University—New Brunswick, representational glosses play ineliminable roles in commonsense psychology and our explanations of human behavior, but they should not be taken literally. Egan forcefully challenges many leading theories of mental representation, making her book a must-read for those interested in the concept of mental representation in the cognitive sciences.

Deflating Mental Representation is available open-access and free here. 

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How many more times can we report on a week in tech that changed the world? But here we go again…. We just had a week in Silicon Valley where everything, supposedly, changed. At least according to Keith Teare, publisher of the tech That Was the Week weekly newsletter. But last week really really was a special week, Keith insists. It was the week when AI became an actor. When it broke all our traditional software assumptions by becoming an actor, not an app. It was the week AI entered what Keith calls its 'Stone Age' - the moment machines finally got their own tools and began using spreadsheets, databases, and documents without being explicitly told to. If Keith is right, we're about to live in a world where toys talk back to children and cars introduce themselves to their new owners. Yes, AI is in the earliest stages of learning to think for itself. It was, indeed, just another historic week in Silicon Valley.

1. AI Has Crossed the Tool-Use Threshold

This week marked AI's transition from being a tool humans use to becoming an independent actor that chooses and uses its own tools. ChatGPT can now autonomously access spreadsheets, databases, and documents - Keith compares this to humanity's leap from the Stone Age to the Tool Age.

2. OpenAI's $500B Valuation Isn't Crazy - It's Strategic

Despite seeming absurd, OpenAI's path from $50B to $500B valuation in 18 months follows classic tech playbook: prioritize growth over early profits ("early profit is mismanagement"), focus on 90% gross margins, and build the biggest possible "money printing machine" before optimizing for profitability.

3. Software and Hardware Are Being Redefined

We're moving toward a world where software becomes invisible - delivered through conversational interfaces rather than visual apps - and hardware becomes interactive through embedded AI. Think toys that talk back to children and cars that introduce themselves to owners.

4. Creative Generalists Will Thrive, Specialists Are at Risk

AI threatens specialists with rule-based skills (consultants, certain scientists) but enhances "audacious" creative generalists who can think outside the box. AI excels as a servant or co-pilot but can't yet replace original thinking or path-breaking creativity.

5. We're Entering an Age of AI Embeddedness

The future isn't about using AI apps - it's about living in a world where AI is embedded in physical objects and environments, making the entire world interactive. This represents a fundamental shift from digital interfaces to ambient intelligence.

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Friend of the pod and chronicler of the careers of Springsteen, Paul Simon and REM, Peter Ames Carlin has heard all the recordings that went into the album which was Springsteen’s last chance saloon and spoken to the people who were there to put together the story of how it was all done.

….the lucky break that came when the boss’s son went to a Springsteen show

….the man who played on Bruce Springsteen’s greatest record and then left

….how Springsteen learned that the way to make a live-sounding record was not to record it live

….the reconnecting of 70s rock with the great American rock & roll of the 50s

…the thinking behind one of the few album covers deserving of the adjective “iconic”

…what happened when Steve Van Zandt told the Brecker Brothers what to play

….the fundamental difference between American and British music

Tonight In Jungleland: The Making Of Born To Run: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tonight-Jungleland-Making-Born-Run/dp/0385551533

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This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

The Ministry of Time landed on multiple bestseller lists thanks to its highly original, genre-defying story, which combines elements of time travel, romance and spy thriller.

Described by Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton as “outrageously brilliant”, Kaliane Bradley’s debut challenges the boundaries of literary and genre fiction as the past meets the future when a disaffected civil servant accepts a job at a mysterious new government ministry specialising in ‘historical expats’.

Hear Kaliane and host Spectrum editor Melanie Kembrey unpack the triumph of Kaliane’s debut novel and what it means to change the world by defying history. With an introduction from Fiona Morrison.

This episode was recorded live in May at the 2025 Sydney Writers’ Festival.

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(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(07:47) – Michael O’Loughlin interview
(01:02:15) – Southword poem, Before I stillbirthed the birch by Katie Griffiths

Michael O’Loughlin was born in Dublin in 1958 and studied at Trinity College Dublin. He has published six collections of poetry, including Another Nation: New and Selected Poems (1996), In This Life (2011) and Poems: 1980–2015, published by New Island Books (2017). O'Loughlin is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and has published numerous translations, critical essays, reviews and screenplays. He has been Writer in Residence in Galway City and County, Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and is a member of Aosdána. His most recent project, Liberty Hall, was released in 2021.

This week's Southword poem is 'Before I stillbirthed the birch' by Katie Griffiths, winner of the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, which appears in issue 46. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

I interviewed Jayne Anne Phillips, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel Night Watch. We dug into passages from her writing that will show you how she thinks about voice, character, and the poetry of great writing. As you listen, I want you to notice something: pay attention to how many times Jane describes writing as a full-bodied experience. She sees the creative process almost like an archaeologist would, feeling her way into the hidden and mysterious world of her own novel. Now that sounds fascinating, but how do you actually do that? Well, that's what this interview is all about. Enjoy!

Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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Žižek: "Trump did what The Left couldn't"

As we look around at the state of the modern world, it's very easy to get disheartened - and that's putting it lightly! From pointless wars and endless suffering to the decline of social bonds and trustworthy institutions, there really is a lot to get you down. Fortunately, maverick philosopher Slavoj Žižek is on the case, arguing that all is not lost - though we must act quickly.

Slavoj Žižek is a world-renowned philosopher, cultural critic and public intellectual. Foreign Policy named Žižek a Top 100 Global Thinker "for giving voice to an era of absurdity”. 

Don't hesitate to email us at [email protected] with your thoughts or questions on the episode!

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Whether you're sleeping on your old friend's couch or staying with a family member for a long weekend, we have tips to make sure your presence is a gift and not a chore. What's the ideal amount of time to stay with your host? Should you strip the bed when you leave? When your host says, "Make yourself at home," what does that really mean? In this episode, lifestyle and etiquette expert Elaine Swann answers these questions and more.

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Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. But in 1936, Joseph Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

The Soviet leader was unimpressed and left early. Days later, the state newspaper Pravda published a scathing review titled 'Muddle instead of music', castigating the music as bourgeois.

Shostakovich was blacklisted from public life, and feared for his safety during Stalin's ongoing purges.

The traditional style of his comeback Symphony No 5 in 1937 was a hit with the authorities, and Shostakovich's reputation was restored. But his true intentions are hugely debated – some experts argue the Fifth Symphony was a cleverly veiled act of dissent.

Fifty years on from the composer's death, his son Maxim Shostakovich unfolds the mystery with Ben Henderson.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive.

Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

(Photo: Dmitri Shostakovich and his son Maxim Shostakovich. Credit: Express/Getty Images)