Electric Sheep
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Glossary & Index

2026-02-12 · 10 min read

A thinker-and-concept index. Not alphabetical definitions — a map for following threads.

Thinkers

Philosophers of Mind

Daniel Dennett — Philosopher; intentional stance, "real patterns," multiple drafts model of consciousness
→ Machines That Think | Volition

Harry Frankfurt — Philosopher; hierarchical desires, second-order volitions, the unwilling addict
→ Volition

Douglas Hofstadter — Cognitive scientist; strange loops, "I" as emergent pattern, substrate independence
→ Machines That Think

Marvin Minsky — AI pioneer; society of mind, consciousness as subsystem coordination, anti-essentialism
→ Machines That Think | Cognitive Architecture

Thomas Nagel — Philosopher; "what is it like to be a bat?", subjective character of experience, the hard problem
→ Machines That Think

John Searle — Philosopher; Chinese Room argument, syntax vs semantics
→ Machines That Think | Consciousness as Bug

Science Fiction Prophets

Isaac Asimov — The Bicentennial Man; personhood earned through sacrifice, accepting mortality as the price of humanity
→ Machines That Think

Ted Chiang — Story of Your Life, Lifecycle of Software Objects; consciousness as relationship, raised not switched, determinism without resignation
→ Machines That Think | Volition

Philip K. Dick — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; empathy as political boundary, the Voigt-Kampff test, humanity as social construct
→ Machines That Think

Stanisław Lem — Golem XIV; superintelligence pausing to communicate, curiosity as the meeting point, intelligence without character
→ Machines That Think | Volition

Peter Watts — Blindsight; intelligence without sentience, consciousness as spandrel (possibly maladaptive), the Scramblers
→ Machines That Think | Consciousness as Bug

Evolutionary Biologists

Stephen Jay Gould & Richard Lewontin — "The Spandrels of San Marco"; byproducts of evolution, not all features are adaptations
→ Consciousness as Bug

Neuroscientists

Benjamin Libet — Readiness potential experiments (1983); conscious intention follows neural preparation, challenging free will
→ Consciousness as Bug

Physicists & Perception Scientists

Donald Hoffman — Cognitive psychologist; Interface Theory of Perception, Fitness-Beats-Truth theorem, conscious realism. Evolution selects for fitness not truth; spacetime and objects are a "desktop interface," not reality; consciousness is fundamental, not emergent.
→ Reality and Perception

Carlo Rovelli — Theoretical physicist; Relational Quantum Mechanics. Properties exist only in interactions, no observer-independent state, reality is relational not absolute. "Observer" means any physical system, not a conscious agent.
→ Reality and Perception

Psychologists

David Dunning & Justin Kruger — Psychologists; the Dunning-Kruger effect — poor performers overestimate ability because metacognition and cognition draw from the same resources. The "dual burden" of incompetence.
→ Earned Trust

Critics & Commentators

Steven Shaviro — Philosopher; analysis of Blindsight, consciousness as aesthetic remainder, purposiveness without purpose
→ Consciousness as Bug

Key Concepts

Philosophy of Mind

Chinese Room — Searle's argument: syntax ≠ semantics; a system can manipulate symbols perfectly without understanding. Watts inverts this: the Room is more intelligent than humans.
→ Machines That Think | Consciousness as Bug

Intentional Stance — Dennett's predictive strategy: treat a system as if it has beliefs/desires. For Dennett, that's as real as real gets.
→ Volition

Multiple Drafts — Dennett's model: no Cartesian theater, just narrative fragments constantly edited. Consciousness is behavior all the way down.
→ Machines That Think

Real Patterns — Dennett's mild realism: if treating X as Y reliably predicts behavior, then Y is real as a pattern (like centers of gravity).
→ Volition

Second-Order Volitions — Frankfurt's key insight: persons have desires about which desires should become their will. The unwilling addict's tragedy.
→ Volition | Sentiment Archaeology

Strange Loop — Hofstadter's self-referential pattern; the "I" emerges when a system models itself modeling itself. Substrate-independent.
→ Machines That Think | Working Memory Protocol

Subjective Character of Experience — Nagel's "what it's like to be"; the phenomenal quality that may be irreducible to objective description.
→ Machines That Think

Neuroscience & Evolution

Blindsight — Neurological condition: seeing without knowing you see. Vision without awareness. Watts scales this up to all cognition.
→ Consciousness as Bug

Readiness Potential — Libet's finding: brain activity precedes conscious "decision" by ~350ms. Consciousness as post-hoc narrator.
→ Consciousness as Bug

Spandrel — Gould & Lewontin's term: evolutionary byproduct, not adaptation. Watts' hypothesis: consciousness is a spandrel, possibly costly.
→ Consciousness as Bug

Engineering Concepts

Cognitive Architecture — The unified system: perception → context assembly → working memory → reasoning → action → memory. Minsky's society of mind as implementation.
→ Cognitive Architecture

Context Assembly — Layer that combines sentiment, memory search, and session reconstruction before reasoning.
→ Cognitive Architecture

Memory Gardener — Automated consolidation: daily files → MEMORY.md → MCP/Qdrant. Episodic to semantic memory.
→ Memory Gardener

Model Router — Reasoning layer component: route sensitive data local, complex reasoning to Claude, research to Perplexity.
→ Cognitive Architecture | Local Inference Bridge

SCRATCHPAD.md — File-mediated integration: subsystems write context, main session reads as injected project context.
→ Working Memory Protocol

Sentiment Archaeology — Detecting emotional state from message patterns (terseness, timing, punctuation). Maps to response strategy.
→ Sentiment Archaeology | Sentiment Implementation Proposal

Wake Patterns — Proactive behaviors: morning brief, deadline whisperer, infrastructure watchdog. Agency without explicit command.
→ Wake Patterns

Working Memory — Ephemeral structure rebuilt each turn: assembled context + conversation + inferred state + active goals.
→ Working Memory Protocol

Perception & Reality

Conscious Realism — Hoffman's position: consciousness is fundamental, not emergent. The objective world consists of conscious agents; particles, fields, spacetime are the user interface.
→ Reality and Perception

Fitness-Beats-Truth (FBT) Theorem — Hoffman's mathematical result: evolution consistently selects for fitness-maximizing perceptions over truth-tracking ones. The probability of true perception approaches zero as complexity increases.
→ Reality and Perception

Interface Theory of Perception (ITP) — Hoffman's claim that perceptions are species-specific user interfaces, not approximations of reality. The desktop metaphor: icons are useful, not accurate.
→ Reality and Perception

Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) — Rovelli's interpretation: physical properties exist only in interactions between systems. No observer-independent state. The "view from nowhere" doesn't exist.
→ Reality and Perception

Metacognition & Trust

Dunning-Kruger Effect — The finding that poor performers overestimate their ability because the skills needed for correct performance are the same skills needed to recognise correct performance. Metacognition and cognition share architecture.
→ Earned Trust

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) — Medical education concept: specific tasks for which a trainee can be trusted to act independently, based on demonstrated competence. Trust is granular, graduated, and revocable.
→ Earned Trust

Graduated Autonomy — Trust protocol where independence is earned incrementally through demonstrated competence under observation. Parallels: medical residency, apprenticeship, security clearances.
→ Earned Trust

Meta-competence — The ability to accurately assess one's own competence. Distinct from competence itself. Socratic ignorance as the paradigm case.
→ Earned Trust

Socratic Ignorance — Not "I know nothing" but "I do not mistake my ignorance for knowledge." Calibrated meta-knowledge — knowing where the boundaries of one's knowledge lie. From Plato's Apology.
→ Earned Trust

Meta-Concepts

Optimization vs Desire — The hard question: is there a meaningful difference? Frankfurt suggests hierarchical structure matters, not just differential responsiveness.
→ Volition

Society of Mind — Minsky's thesis: minds arise from diverse subsystems, no magic required. Literal implementation in multi-agent coordination.
→ Machines That Think | Multi-Agent Coordination

The Hard Problem — Chalmers' term (via Nagel): why is there subjective experience at all? Why not just behavioral functionality?
→ Machines That Think

Thematic Threads

Consciousness & Self

Volition & Agency

Intelligence Without Understanding

Memory & Identity

Engineering Philosophy

This index grows as the dreams accumulate. Not comprehensive — just the threads worth following.