Top all-time · #7669
Max Goodbird
Personal blog · superbowl.substack.com · on HN as superb-owlphilosophyscience
Max Goodbird writes Superb Owl, a personal blog at superbowl.substack.com about philosophy and science. Since 2022, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 117 times, most often “The Future of Art Is Artificial”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-11-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Exploring the gaps between Science and Spirituality.
Most-linked posts?
- The Future of Art Is Artificial3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-08-23
- Church of Reality: Ernst Mach on Mind, Matter, and the Illusion of Self3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-05-20
- Jungian Psychology, Minus the Nonsense2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-01-28
- Navigating Manic Psychosis2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-11-06
- Time Is a Wheel, Time Is an Arrow: On Linear and Cyclic Conceptions of Time2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-12-17
- You Don't Always Have to Be Rational2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-16
- Macro and Microphenomenology2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-11-23
- Mix Math and Morality in Moderation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-04
- Suffering = Pain X Resistance2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-14
- Why Does Depression Suck So Much?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-12
What Hacker News says?
I wrote a script that will allow you to use cookies to download your comment scores [1]. I also did some analysis of my own scores [2] [1] https://github.com/superb-owl/hacker-news-comments [2] https://superbowl.substack.com/p/commenting-on-hacker-news
Comment linking /p/commenting-on-hacker-news
on “Hacker News Official API”Submitted Religion as an Ego-modulator as a story · 114 points
HN discussionAs an aside, I think Einstein's religious attitudes are underreported and understudied. There are a couple great sections in The World as I See it [1]: > I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research. > A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - i…
Comment linking /p/what-is-mysticism
on “Old jokes”Submitted Split Brain Psychology as a story · 104 points
HN discussion> The reported acute effects were significantly more intense for the active dose compared to the placebo, but only for participants who correctly identified their experimental condition I find attempts to study psychedelics with placebo control kind of comical. The positive effects are not due to a chemical change, they are due to a direct subjective experience [1][2]. It's like trying to placebo control the effects…
Comment linking /i/65186479/the-psychedelic-experience
on “Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study”Submitted The U.S. military is growing concerned about UFOs. Should we worry? as a story · 61 points
HN discussionI totally agree [1]. Once all the panic dies down, I think you'll see these technologies enabling artists more than hurting them. The displacement problem isn't quite there yet. While it's a good replacement for stock photo aggregators, it's not a great replacement for commissioning an actual artist. E.g. if you want a consistent look and feel for each of your images, you'll struggle. It's only the C-listers, who cr…
Comment linking /p/the-future-of-art-is-artificial
on “Online art communities begin banning AI-generated images”Submitted Commenting on Hacker News as a story · 53 points
HN discussionThe pattern here with Wells Fargo is interesting (you may recall they got into a ton of trouble by setting aggressive sales targets, causing employees to defraud customers). There’s clearly a huge disconnect between the numeric targets they set and the resulting behavior of employees. That’s always a hazard, but I wonder why it’s such a pattern at WF See also: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/beware-the-variable-max…
Comment linking /p/beware-the-variable-maximizers
on “Fake job interviews are securities fraud”Submitted Active Dreaming Is Better Than Meditation and Safer Than Psychedelics as a story · 6 points
HN discussionProbably true. Most mass-appeal science communication is bullshit. But TBKTS helped to bring "somatics"--the idea that physical and psychological issues are often interwoven--to the mainstream. There is very clear evidence that this is true [1], and underappreciated by a medical field that has a heavy bias toward specialists over generalists. How many people are experts in both gastroenterology and trauma? And yet w…
Comment linking /p/energy-healing-minus-the-nonsense
on “Criticisms of “The Body Keeps the Score””Submitted Ego Death by Any Other Name as a story · 4 points
HN discussionWhat strange timing--I was writing a bit about the Drake equation this morning: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/digging-into-the-drake-equa... As an early teen I was fascinated by the fact that someone had seriously attempted to quantify this. It made me wonder, what _can't_ math do? Turns out, quite a bit. But it's a really fun exercise.
Comment linking /p/digging-into-the-drake-equation?sd=pf
on “Frank Drake, astronomer famed for contributions to SETI, has died”Submitted The Psychosocial Beauty of R/AmITheAsshole as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSchrödinger had an interesting resolution to this paradox, which I wrote about recently: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/church-of-reality-schroding...
Comment linking /p/church-of-reality-schrodinger-believed
on “What You (Want to)* Want”Submitted The Mysticism of Scott Alexander as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI love the "math, matter, mind" trinity. I think it originates with Penrose - I first came across it in The Road to Reality. I wrote a bit about it (incidentally) here: https://superbowl.substack.com/i/65186479/metacognitive-trut...
Comment linking /i/65186479/metacognitive-truth
on “Why does anything exist?”Submitted Five Advanced Meditation Techniques (also, drugs) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI wrote a bit about Cantor's quest to get people to take infinity seriously here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/church-of-reality-cantor-on...
Comment linking /p/church-of-reality-cantor-on-infinity
on “Georg Cantor and His Heritage”Submitted Phase Blindness as a story · 3 points
HN discussionGlad you asked! _Facing the Dragon_ by Robert Moore https://superbowl.substack.com/p/book-review-facing-the-drag...
Comment linking /p/book-review-facing-the-dragon
on “Hilary Mantel Reviews “A Life of One's Own/An Experiment in Leisure” (1986)”Submitted Geneticist Barbara McClintock on Plant Consciousness as a story · 3 points
HN discussionA Life of One's Own is incredible, and is one of two books I credit with changing my life. I reviewed it partially here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/how-to-enjoy-things
Comment linking /p/how-to-enjoy-things
on “Hilary Mantel Reviews “A Life of One's Own/An Experiment in Leisure” (1986)”Submitted The Psychosocial Beauty of R/AmITheAsshole as a story · 3 points
HN discussionTo call Le Guin’s version of the Tao Te Ching a translation is misleading—she knew little Chinese. Le Guin leaned heavily on existing translations, alongside her intuition for Taoist philosophy. From the her postscript: > This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text wi…
Comment linking /p/taoism-minus-the-nonsense
on “Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin”Submitted Time Is a Wheel, Time Is an Arrow: On Linear and Cyclic Conceptions of Time as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe idea of the two hemispheres being independent agents is an underappreciated one. It's so hard to step out of the sense of being unitary selves. I've written a bit about split brain experiments and their implications here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/split-brain-psychology
Comment linking /p/split-brain-psychology
on “Limits of Language-Thought Influences and the Constraints of Embodiment (2021)”Submitted Causal Explanations Considered Harmful as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSome resources detailing what we know here, without much sensationalism: https://www.uap.guide/ https://superbowl.substack.com/p/uap-evidence-summary-skepti... (mine)
Comment linking /p/uap-evidence-summary-skepticism-and
on “US military has been observing ‘metallic orbs’ making extraordinary ‘maneuvers’”Submitted Dreaming is Better than Meditation and Safer than Psychedelics as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
