the qualia journal

One of the cute and poignant things I encountered during my recent stay in Hong Kong was the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. There you could tak...

In the Christmas Special episode ("Party Games") of my favorite British political comedy, "Yes, Minister", Sir Arnold, t...

The fifth Asia-Pacific Computing and Philosophy Conference. 1st & 2nd October, 2009, at University of Tokyo You are invited to submit an...

When I was a kid, I used to imagine that it is always sunset somewhere on earth. Actually, as the earth rotates on its axis, the relation to...

Findings in the cognitive neurosciences suggest that the orbitofrontal cortex, along with other loci, is involved in regret. Regret is fasci...

There are countless electrons in the universe, and yet they all have exactly the same mass and charge. Why should all the electrons have exa...

On 3rd January 2007, I posted in this journal an essay titled "Managing insanity in a proper way" . Therein I quoted Ken Shiotani,...

I am in Hong Kong now, attending a conference on the science of consciousness. In the morning, I gave a talk in the auditorium of the Hong K...

On August 9th, 1945, an airplane approached Kokura, a city in the northern part of Kyushu island. My mother, a girl of 9 then, lived in Koku...

I have not figured out how and why yet, but I do observe that creative people sometimes have very strong visions, bordering on the hallucina...

I regard this blog as an experimentation in the expression of things I encounter during the course of my life. I started to learn English at...

The speeches of some people reach us as heavenly music. With some people under certain situations, every second of listening to becomes a to...

I admit I used to be very clumsy in my youth. During my senior high school days, I found it difficult to talk to girls naturally. I attended...

Laughter is very much related to the emotion of fear and uneasiness. The classic act of a man tripping over a banana skin involves the dange...

When I was a kid, I used to eat a lot of bad things. Outlets of dagashiya, which literally translates as "junk sweets shop", used ...

Garigarikun is an ice cream bar brand popular in Japan. A few days ago, after the usual rounds of jogging in the park, I felt like eating on...

In an artistic piece of sublime joy, you can sometimes discern a hint of pain. Take J.S. Bach's Air on the G string for example. The mus...

Despite the ups and downs, I have kept my habit of going for a run in the park forest near my house. A few months ago, I sprained my right a...

The emergence of a new contagious disease makes one ponder on his own mortality. Humans today tend to think that they are to live "fore...

I have been to Salzburg quite a few times, visiting my very good friend Gustav Bernroider at the University of Salzburg. The stroll in the g...