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Tommy Blanchard
Personal blog · cognitivewonderland.substack.comsciencephilosophy
Tommy Blanchard writes Cognitive Wonderland, a personal blog at cognitivewonderland.substack.com about science and philosophy. Since 2025, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times, most often “Science Communication and the Hype Machine”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Tommy Blanchard's Substack posts on aphantasia, overclaiming when there is no objective ground truth to test against, and why social media algorithms behave as they do.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Science, philosophy, and science fiction geekiness, with a special interest in neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Publishes weekly on Thursdays.
Most-linked posts?
- Science Communication and the Hype Machine2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-04-09
What Hacker News says?
Another thing is this effect: https://cognitivewonderland.substack.com/p/meta-knowledge-an... People will claim a lot of things but if there is no external "ground truth" to test against, people tend to overclaim. They will tell you they can imagine a penny or the apple logo or whatever it is, but then fail these objective tests. If you can pass or fail the aphantasia test simply by saying words that are up to intro…
Comment linking /p/meta-knowledge-and-meta-ignorance
on “Aphantasia and Psychedelics”Submitted Why the Algorithm Hates You as a story · 9 points
HN discussionhttps://cognitivewonderland.substack.com/p/why-the-algorithm...
Comment linking /p/why-the-algorithm-hates-you
on “Why the Algorithm Hates You”Submitted Why So Much Psychology Research Is Wrong as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted It's Not Irrational to Have Dumb Beliefs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Attention Spans Aren't Shrinking as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Your Intelligence Isn't Making You Lonely as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted I Don't Often Mention Neuroscience as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Science Communication and the Hype Machine as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Science Communication and the Hype Machine as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Strawmen and Worldview Solipsism as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted In Defense of Podcasts and Expertise as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Myers-Briggs Is Pseudoscience as a story · 1 points
HN discussion