Firstly, imagine a world consisting of a very thin, infinitely long and wide, slab of matter, in which various complex internal processes are occurring – up to and including the presence of intelligent life, if you like.

Put another way, a theory cannot be 99.99804% conceptually coherent.

I don’t know what she thinks the odds actually are, but I would give above an 80% chance of chicken consciousness and above, say, 85% for pig consciousness (compared against maybe 95% that you’re conscious).

The terror of onanism is that bodiless demons are able to make bodies for themselves from the spilled seed.

Over the years I’ve known many people with nicknames, including Lucky, Big O, Haywire, Turtle Eggs, Hercules, two guys named Hollywood, and three guys called Booger.

“Trump is offering an unusual combination of extreme language, moderate policy and rudeness, and so far it’s connecting with Republican voters,” Barro writes.

Brian Tomasik, the American writer of the website Essays on Reducing Suffering, told me that artists who abandon their craft to help others should take solace in the theory that all possible artwork already exists somewhere in the quantum multiverse.

I tried saying nothing for a whole day the other day. It’s hard. But it started to feel like melted chocolate was in my mouth the whole day.

Bassett’s posthumous Recollections contains the interesting suggestion that Kraus did not exist at all, the name being one of the pseudonyms adopted by the egregious du Garbandier to further his “campaign of calumny.”