An Essay | Aharon Avitzur Hi Emerson, I wanted to send you something and say thank you. I came across your work and what struck me was the directness — the way you point past every framework without handing anyone something to hold onto. It stayed with me. I write and think about consciousness, and I recently wrote an essay about how large language models expose the "I" as just a word — a token that works perfectly with nothing behind it, which means it may have always been empty in us too....

By Steve Warm What had been a routine game of tennis with a close friend became something else. I didn’t have the slightest idea at the time, but decades later I realized it was an example of what countless people search for all their lives. Suddenly, all I saw was the ball and my tennis racket with my extended right arm and hand effortlessly moving the racket and hitting the ball. My body was somehow making all the right moves as the ball was pummeled toward the net, but I wasn’t doing it!...

Words are echoes in an endless hall, Each one leaning on the next for meaning, Spinning a web of circularity— A mirage of clarity in the...