‘What it feels like to be an other’: imaginations of displacement in contemporary speculative fiction

What it feels like to be compulsorily detained for treatment.

It was a Bic—the biro—that changed my life. I’ve wondered since if the doctor using it knew that many years later his signature that day would still have impact. I hadn’t seen it coming. I do now; watching for it affects all my interactions in healthcare. But that day, when the doctor arrived in the emergency department, I thought he’d come to discuss my blood tests. Less than 10 minutes later ...

What it feels like to have a facial disfigurement.

The first time I realised that I looked different was when a boy called me “fat chin” at primary school. Thirty years later I still remember the burning shame and humiliation. I was born with cherubism, a rare genetic condition which is associated with variable degrees of abnormal bony overgrowth of the lower part of the face. I started to show signs of this when I was 4. Before then I looked l...

What It Feels Like To Hear Voices: Fond Memories of Julian Jaynes

Julian Jaynes's profound humanitarian convictions not only prevented him from going to war, but would have prevented him from ever kicking a dog. Yet according to his theory, not only are language-less dogs unconscious, but so too were the speaking/hearing Greeks in the Bicameral Era, when they heard gods' voices telling them what to do rather than thinking for themselves. I argue that to be co...

What Is It Like to Be a Brain Simulation?

We frame the question of what kind of subjective experience a brain simulation would have in contrast to a biological brain. We discuss the brain prosthesis thought experiment. Then, we identify finer questions relating to the original inquiry, and set out to answer them moving forward from both a general physicalist perspective, and pan-experientialism. We propose that the brain simulation is ...

What is it like to be a peahen?