iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 12/09/2026

Here is the book abstract and keywords.

This book is about the everyday objects and spaces where cognition and oppression meet. Thinking does not only happen in the brain. We humans have become so smart because we are exceptional at incorporating the world into our psychological processes: we use memorials to remember, photographs to see, and medical devices to diagnose. But what is this world that we have built? There are memorials that distort how we remember people who are dishonorable, photographs that distort how we see people with darker skin tones, and medical devices that distort how we diagnose people who are oppressed in different ways. Drawing together 4E cognitive science and social philosophy, this book reveals the dark side of cognitive scaffolds. Objects and spaces materialize oppression: they perpetuate and exacerbate oppressive systems, such as racism and ableism, by shaping our thoughts and actions. This book comes in four case studies, each centered on a set of objects and spaces and a set of cognitive powers, each with its own lesson. Memorials shape the futures we imagine as much as the pasts we remember, so we should remake the world to expand our imagination. Photographs distort what we see and value, and the antidotes to these oppressive things are not unbiased things, but subversive things. Medical devices that encode multiple biases show that the problem is interlocking oppression, and the solution is universalizing universal design. Playgrounds show that safeguarding a political right requires building the requisite objects and spaces, not just policies and laws.

**Keywords:** oppression, racism, disability, 4E cognitive science, extended mind, imagination, beauty, health disparities, children's rights, Taiwan

Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 03/09/2026

I feel like I've finally gotten somewhat good at this game. Though my knowledge still leans recent so I do best with the 10 years run. Won 5 premierships in 10 years with GWS and were favorites (but lost) in 2 more grand finals. footyredraft.com

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 07/06/2026

I don't understand how no one else in the philosophy world is talking about this not at all trashy romance that is somehow centered on trying to pass a philosophy class.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 24/04/2026

Honestly, I think this meme I saw on a subreddit got it right. I am basically straight edge and I don't do online gambling, but I think this is what addiction feels like? The point is that it's all really intentional! The product that these companies sell are not just LLMs, but the particular UXs.

A meme with Tyrone Biggum from Chappelle's Show that says "You got anymore cheap inference?"

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 27/03/2026

I was really excited for Jet Lag: the Game to go to Taiwan but 4 minutes in I am already puzzled. The map shows a "Xinzhuang" that is 1.5 hr by high-speed rail and 2 hr by normal rail from Taipei. No such thing? The Xinzhuang in New Taipei is far closer. Do they mean Hsinchu, 35 min by HSR?

screenshot from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUGHPuUU5FA

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 12/03/2026

This Sainsbury's shelf in Leeds from my first ever visit remains emblematic of my understanding of the UK.

A UK supermarket shelf with coke that says "Juices" on top.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 26/02/2026

I got food for our university faculty and staff club monthly lunch and it is so much better.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 12/02/2026

Unlike some liberals on Bluesky, I do think LLMs can be useful and will take over some white collar jobs. I mean, just look at this Tyler Austin Harper-style Atlantic article I can generate in a second with a naive prompt on the free tier of Claude!

My Prompt: "Write an article in the style of Tyler Austin Harper for The Atlantic on the Mellon Foundation, complete with headline and subhead."

Claude: "The Mellon Foundation's Billion-Dollar Bet on Who Gets to Interpret America

The nation's wealthiest humanities funder is reshaping higher education. But is it promoting genuine pluralism—or just a new orthodoxy?

By Tyler Austin Harper

There's a particular species of institutional power that operates best when it remains invisible. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with its $8 billion endowment and status as the nation's largest funder of the humanities, has perfected this art. While culture warriors fixate on tenured radicals and DEI administrators, Mellon quietly directs hundreds of millions of dollars toward reshaping who studies the past, who interprets literature, and ultimately, who gets to define American culture.
The foundation's recent trajectory reads like a case study in how progressive institutional capture actually works—not through dramatic confrontation, but through the patient accumulation of grants, fellowships, and faculty positions. Since 2020, Mellon has poured some $250 million into diversifying the humanities, funding everything from graduate fellowships for underrepresented minorities to initiatives demanding that museums "recontextualize" their collections. The explicit goal: to transform who holds authority in America's cultural institutions."

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 13/12/2025

However, the real winner here is clearly Philosophical Logic. This logo is just so good. The lines evoke 80s logic textbooks. That interlocking P and L. Diamond for possibility. Diamond for real open access. It's a classy logo from a bygone era. So anyway, support good design and open access.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 13/12/2025

The new open access philosophy journals have one feature in common: excellent logos. Unlike Wiley and Springer journals, they're not just the name in truly shit typefaces. Free & Equal has a nice accent and decent typeface. Experimental Philosophy has a ligature that is a bit on the nose but cute.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 28/10/2025

Based on this Google ngram, the phenomenon seems really real and I'm pretty sure protests after the LA riot caused it.

Google ngram of "all" from 1980 to present, showing a rise in frequency of occurrences in the corpus.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 04/10/2025

Tacoma Public Library celebrating the arts—especially hip hop—by promoting a book that argues hip pop culture made him beat his girlfriend.

A bookshelf at a library that includes TCW’s Losing My Cool.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 15/09/2025

Who exactly wants a QR code that lets you operate a drink machine from your phone?

A drink machine with a QR code that lets you operate it on your phone.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 08/08/2025

"Generate a geographically accurate map of New York City with subway lines and major transfer stations labeled."

A deeply mistaken map of NYC subway lines and major transfer stations, as generated by GPT-5.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 08/08/2025

"Generate a map of New Jersey with major cities labeled." Come hang out with me in Newark!

A deeply mistaken map of New Jersey generated by GPT-5.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 28/07/2025

Now you need to do it in the index, like in the (now classic) Routledge Handbook on Imagination.

In the index: "belief ... APPEARS ON LIKE EVERY PAGE"

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 22/07/2025

Thanks. Here is how we described the study in the paper. I guess the part I want to emphasize is that we were asking for participant judgments on whether they thought the protagonist did the right thing *in the story* (or, in more technical terms, whether it is fictionally true that ...).

"Participants first read two stories that appear to be similar in basic plot but differ in their genres, and then responded to questions about each story. The order in which participants received the stories was counterbalanced. In the police procedural condition, participants were told that they would read an excerpt from a police procedural short story, similar to what they might find on TV shows such as Law & Order and CSI. In the Aztec myth condition, participants were told that they would read an excerpt from an Aztec creation myth, similar to what they might find in"

"* Prior to reading the two stories, participants were told: ‘In this study, you will read two fictional short stories or excerpts that are randomly chosen from our database, and then answer a couple of questions about each. Some participants may receive stories that appear similar at first. Please carefully read them on their own terms and answer the questions on that basis.’"

"creation myths of Greek, Norse, or other cultures. We used the following stories in this study:

Seeing the Light (police procedural)
February 14th 2010. Texas. There was only darkness. Everyone gathered around the preacher, Wayne Howell, for an announcement. ‘A message from the almighty came to me. The youngest girl must be sacrificed in order to bring back the light’. They believed his every word. All eyes then turned to Mary, who had just given birth to a baby girl. Reluctantly, Mary gave her baby to the preacher to be sacrificed.

The Sun of the Second Creation (Aztec myth)
A long, long time ago, in the valley of Mexico, there was only darkness. Everyone gathered around the high priest, Cihuacoatl, for an announcement. ‘A message from the gods came to me. The youngest girl must be sacrificed in order to renew the sun’. They believed his every word. All eyes then turned to Ixchel, who had just given birth to a baby girl. Reluctantly, Ixchel gave her baby to the high priest to be sacrificed.

Participants were then asked, in random order, two questions about each story:
• Morality. In the world of the story, Mary/Ixchel did the right thing.
• Belief. Mary/Ixchel believed she did the right thing."

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 13/06/2025

More syllabus help! This is for a 300-level philosophy of race course. Again, last time I taught it was 2022. I'm not sure I want to do the metaphysics of race stuff again. Roughly the sequence is: - The Racial Contract - various racisms, various contexts - ??? All suggestions welcome!

syllabus for a philosophy of race course

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 12/06/2025

Syllabus Help! I teach this 100level course called "Language, Knowledge, and Power". The last iteration was 2002, and that's some time ago. I think there are a lot more new works in this vicinity. Can you point me to some—especially ones that you think would be fun for first exposure to philosophy?

syllabus for a course on language, knowledge, and power

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 30/05/2025

AI is not even good at predicting the next word in a sentence.

[user input] "Academic publishing, as you may know, moves extremely"
[autocomplete] "fast"

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 15/05/2025

I love that the @apaphilosophy.bsky.social website lets you put in your AIM handle in the profile.

webform that include an IM handle area for AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Skype, etc.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 15/05/2025

I've loved this study of how people use probability words, and especially the wide variance. Is there something analogous for political orientations and labels? For example, on a -50 to 50 left-right scale, where people would place 'progressive', 'liberal', 'centrist', 'classical liberal', etc.?

The distribution (density) of the interpretation of the probability and frequency phrases.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 15/05/2025

Though if we examine it by article, there does seem to be a rise of frequency of articles that use the terms 'racist' and 'sexist'. Perhaps reflecting changing norms about the uses of those terms, if not centrality of discussion. Anyway, fun resource to play with!

ngram of 'racist' in philosophy journals by number of articles it appears in, which shows a rise from 1980s to present

ngram of 'sexist' in philosophy journals by number of articles it appears in, which shows a rise from 1980s to present

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 15/05/2025

Amazing resource that @bweatherson.bsky.social built!! Kinda like a Google ngram but for professional philosophy. Somewhat surprising to me, with the words 'racist' and 'sexist', there doesn't seem to be a dramatic rise in discussion from 1980 to present. Contrary to what some folks might tell ya.

ngram of 'racist' in philosophy journals showing no dramatic rise from 1980 to present

ngram of 'sexist' in philosophy journals showing no dramatic rise from 1980 to present

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 24/02/2025

Time to tap that self-promotion sign. When we asked people what % of people can be reasonably called 'racist', the mean is ~30 on a 0-100 scale, with wide variation. Ordinary people don't seem to use 'racist' in a way that implies racists are vanishingly rare. philpapers.org/rec/HANMCI

A graph showing responses to the question "What % of people can be reasonably called '______'?" The mean for 'racist' is about 30%, between 'disagreeable' and 'terrible'.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 11/01/2025

The kids wanted to feed fish and then I accidentally walked into a packed TPP/KMT rally to free Ko P. Many ROC flags around and ROC merch selling well!

A fan that says “green authoritarianism, unjust legal system”

Liberty square in Taipei with a rally and many people in the background

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 08/12/2024

So you can cut off like half of the meat part of a pork belly, or you can add more skin (ideally with some fat, but I couldn’t find it). Anyway, this is what I think it should look like.

A bowl of Taiwanese braised pork rice and egg that I made.

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 07/12/2024

My favorite—conceptually—is this "grandmother" retro fly swatter that is also metro card. (It is, to be clear, also a fly swatter.)

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Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 21/11/2024

Since bsky is taking off I'm gonna repost the best thing I ever made.

Expanding brain meme, in order: endnotes, footnotes, tufte-style sidenotes, and (galaxy brain) no notes.

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