Reflections on the Work Invested in Intellect's Cove

Over the past 2.5 months I have created some 30 short (15-20) lecture videos for my new YouTube channel Intellect's Cove.  To date only videos for the Introduction and Chapter 1 of my new book are released, but I intend to release the others as the publication date approaches over the coming weeks.  And I still have to design and record the videos for the last 5 chapters of the book.  Here I just offer a few thoughts about the process so far.

Firstly, I have to say that this undertaking involves a massive time investment and has a steep learning curve.  I already had some on-line lecture video editing proficiency acquired during the COVID pandemic era, when I had to create some 100+ online lecture videos.   But for my new book I wanted to design lecture videos that had a more polished and engaging feel to them.  So this required a lot more work. 

Secondly, there has been a steep learning curve, with some of the time-commitment burdens being reduced as I improved certain things.  In the first few weeks I experimented with different cameras and microphones and lights (who knew good lighting could be so complicated!).  I really had to be patient during that process.  Learning what worked well, and what didn't, was itself a sizeable time commitment but I told myself that going through this learning process would be worth it in the long run. 

The process has an interesting "division of labour", and falls into the following 4 stages: 

(1) creating the lecture content; 

(2) recording the lecture; 

(3) editing the lecture video and 

(4) post-video stuff like uploading the video onto YouTube (which can take 2 hours), creating thumbnails, writing the video summary and editing the captions.  

And this is the process with only 7 subscribes and no comments, so I haven't had to invest any time into things like comment moderation, etc.

For me, (1) and (2) are by far the most rewarding and enjoyable parts of the process.  While (3) and (4) are the parts that make me doubt whether I can stick this process out long term. I would rather read and write then create video thumbnails and struggle to ensure the recording audio links up with the video recording after 100 minor video edits!

In stage #1 I create around 12-15 power point slides that will form the basis of the lecture video content.  I approach this part of the process in the same way I would if I was invited to give a 20 minute talk at a conference.  I decide on the topics and issues to cover, structure the lecture/slides, chose some appropriate imagery and info to share, and memorize the talking points I wish to convey so i am not reading a script. 

I am averaging 3 lecture videos per chapter, which enables me to survey the major themes and issues covered in each chapter.  This part of the process is the most rewarding.  Having expressed the ideas and arguments of the book in the written text is one thing.  But then selectively choosing only a subset of those points, and expressing them with visuals (chosen to ensure there are no copyright restraints on them, another time investment part of the process!) compels one to re-frame their thoughts in different ways.  This is both enjoyable and challenging.  

Stage #2:  recording the video.  I really enjoy this part of the process.  It is like giving a lecture from my spare bedroom.  I have a number of box lights shining in my face and I have to remember to connect a whole bunch of different wires and turn on various switches (like the microphone).  Over the first two months I switched from recording on my iphone to a webcam to, finally, a higher end laptop.  After the first 20 lectures were recorded I would say I hit my stride in this process.  There were a few times when I had to record complete lectures over again because the audio didn't work or some other such reason.  I remained patient through these frustrating experiences, telling myself I am learning.  And now the recording process is pretty much hassle-free for the most part.  I prefer to record lecture videos in the early morning (7-9am), and to record all the videos from a chapter together at the same time.  And I do the recording on the weeks when my youngest son is not at my home (I leave the work of stages #3 - #4 for the weeks when he is here as that is easier to do then).

Stage #3:  editing of the videos.  This is the most time consuming process. I use camtasia, which I learned to use during the pandemic when I first created online lecture content.  There are always time-consuming edits to make, editing out a cough, or long pause, or repeated points, etc.  The audio also needs to be edited, cancelling out noise, compressing it and increasing the volume, etc.  Sometimes the timing of the audio and video become disconnected, which results in one having to spend a great deal of time linking things back together.  It also takes a lot of time to upload the video, and watching the final video before uploading it.  One wants to ensure the audio is consistent throughout the video, and that the transitions between slides is smooth and somewhat visually engaging.

Stage #4:  As the number of videos I have created over the past 2 months has increased, this part of the process takes up more time.  I have about 15 videos I need to write the summary of, create thumbnails for, and update/correct the captions for.  I say "um" much more than I ever realized, and try to delete some of those from the captions so I appear at least more articulate than I really am!  It can take up to 2 hours to upload the final video onto YouTube which can be frustrating as the progress is paused if one's computer goes into sleep mode.  

So my overall impression so far:  the process allows me to experience some "flow-like" experiences while refining my research and lecturing skills.  But it also takes up a lot of time and can be frustrating.  I do have some new ideas for papers that emerged from doing a deep dive into how I would visually express the points of various chapters. However, taking this work on while also being a full-time researcher and teaching a full course load is not sustainable.  There is an "opportunity-cost" to creating YouTube videos- it comes at the cost of doing more research and writing.  Once I finish (by the end of the summer) the videos on my new book I will probably take a break and focus more on reading and writing.  At leas that is how I feel at the moment, after having created over 30 videos in 2.5 months!  I might feel differently by the end of the year.

Cheers, 

Colin

New Book Promo (Short video trailer)

 

...coming summer 2026.

Cheers, 

Colin

20 Year Anniversary! (new YouTube Channel)

 

Twenty years ago this week I created this blog (here is that first post).  It amazes me that that was 20 years ago, the time seems to have flew by in the bat of an eye.

I have really benefitted from this blog, treating it as a space to file interesting scientific studies I wanted to catalogue, as well as testing out ideas that eventually became journal articles and books.

After 20 years on this blog I have decide to take the journey of my intellectual development in a new and exciting direction....  I have launched a new YouTube Channel entitled "The Intellect's Cove".  

After painting the wall in my spare room, and acquiring some equipment, I have already posted a few videos, including this intro video.

Over the summer months I plan to post a video about each chapter of my forthcoming book on longevity science.  So if you have enjoyed checking out this blog over the past 20 years, I invite you to subscribe to my new YouTube channel and stay up-to-date on my research interests and teaching with 1-2 videos I expect to post each month.  And thanks for checking in on this blog!

Cheers, 

Colin

Contributing to Philosophical Biology

BioScience has this interesting article on the philosophy of biology.  Of particular note is the following list of suggestions for philosophers:

Suggestions for philosophers who want to contribute to philosophical biology

1. Justify engagement with philosophical biology by its capacity to improve biology. Do not justify engagement with a topic by pointing to its interest to philosophers, or by a generic appeal to interdisciplinarity, or by apparent thematic overlap.

2. Understand that conceptual analysis needs to make a difference to scientific reasoning and practice. The development and clarification of biological concepts is best when based upon actual biology as opposed to imaginary counterfactual scenarios and thought experiments (Hull 1989).

3. Attain at least the level of comprehension of biology possessed by a senior undergraduate major in biology.

4. Publish normative claims about biology in biology journals, not just in philosophy journals.

5. Attend and present work at biology conferences. Collaborate with biologists.

6. Ensure that articles or books about a philosophical issue in biology are reviewed by a biologist with relevant expertise.

7. Do not claim what author X means (without documentation), as in “what Smith really means here is ….” Accept potential ambiguity as a part of human communication.

8. Anchor a descriptive claim about biology in the actual practice of biology (De Regt and Dieks 2005). Engage with current biology and not just biological authorities from the past (e.g., Darwin).

9. Understand that claims by biologists need to be understood in their social and historical context in addition to their epistemic context.

10. Avoid appeals to authority of biologists just because they support POB as an endeavor. (p.6)

Cheers, 

Colin 

RIP Habermas (1929-2026)

I was sad to hear the news that one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century passed away- the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas. His passing elicited in me some thoughts about how the intellectual culture which helped create, and celebrate, such an innovative, ambitious thinker has changed.  I wrote my thoughts out below for this blog post.

I first encountered the work of Habermas while an MA student back in the mid 1990s.  I never took a university course that covered, in any depth, the work of Habermas.  His name would come up in different classes, and then one of my graduate supervisors suggested he might be someone I wanted to engage with given the embryonic ideas I was developing for my MA thesis.  That project involved defending free speech from a commitment to the pragmatics of dialogue.  Habermas's Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action had just been published in English a few years earlier.  

As I read through that book I felt like the universe had delivered Habermas to me at precisely that time to provide me with the theoretical commitments I needed to develop and defend my MA thesis!  The academic year of 1995/1996, a year devoted primarily to researching and writing my MA thesis, was so critical to my intellectual development.  

When I proposed my potential PhD thesis the following year I initially intended to explore Habermas for it.  In the summer after my MA thesis I enrolled in an introduction to German language course but dropped out as I found it too difficult.  In my first year of the PhD program I had proposed the faculty and students in our reading group read through Habermas's new book Between Facts and Norms, which had just been published that year.

However, that book proved a very challenging read.  And that same year I began to learn about John Rawls, and the exchange between Rawls and Habermas in the Journal of Philosophy.  I found Rawls's social contract theory a bit easier to comprehend and engage with.  But Habermas was the thinker that lead me to Rawls (for many it was the other way around), and I think that played a substantive part in my eventual departure from the Rawlsian project. 

For many years my research then developed in ways that had minimal contact or engagement with that of Habermas.  But my path crossed his again when he published The Future of Human Nature in the early 2000s.  

By that time I had already devoted most of my post-PhD research to studying and writing about the impact of the genetic revolution.  This was a bit of an intellectual risk for me, as it was not (and still isn't) a topic of interest to most political theorists.  But having a heavy-weight like Habermas engage with these topics, even if I disagreed with much of what he argued, was a major source of both inspiration and reassurance that these were important issues that political theorists should address. 

Habermas was my first intellectual "crush", and in many ways I consider him one of my "intellectual grandfathers".  As a 25 year old grad student reading Habermas's research on discourse ethics was one of the most transformative experiences of my intellectual life.  Which leads me to some broader reflections on how things have changed in academia and society more generally, over the past few decades.  

I see Habermas as a figure who represents the last of an intellectual era in two important respects.  Firstly, he was a creative and ambitious thinker who wrote great works of philosophy that spoke to a large audience.  The professional norms that came to dominant the field by the 1990s, with the proliferation of publication venues, department rankings, sub-field specializations, etc.  incentivized the inward specialization which, in my opinion, narrowed (rather than expanded) the intellectual interests and problem-solving tool-kit of philosophy.  Habermas's work pre-dated that era, which I think is a main reason why his work will remain a work "for the ages". 

Habermas is also the last of the tradition of public intellectuals who were relevantly well known for the ideas he published in scholarly works covering decades of research versus tweets or social media posts.  The latter has also, in my opinion, had a corrosive impact on the field.  Habermas would have never developed his creative ideas had he been preoccupied with reducing his communication to the size of a "tweet" and being preoccupied only with the problems dominating the news/ social media of his day.  

When I think about the reasons I am so saddened by the news of Habermas's passing, my feelings extend beyond the loss of just him as one intellectual and scholar.  I am sad for the passing of the culture and time that made someone like Habermas possible in the first place.  That is not to say it is not possible for an intellectual giant on par with him to emerge today.  But I do believe the changes in the norms and practices of academia, as well as technology and society, have altered the intellectual landscape in significant ways.  Making it unlikely that someone with Habermas-like potential could spend many decades developing and refining such creative and ambitious ideas.  

The world of ideas was meaningfully impacted in a positive way by having had the good fortune to have enjoyed Habermas an active participate for so many decades.  Let his example inspire the public intellectuals and philosophers of tomorrow. 

Cheers, 

Colin 

Rule #31

Yesterday I came across this excellent 1997 essay by the sociologist Gary Marx.  Brilliant description of the moral imperatives of intellectual inquiry.

Cheers, 

Colin

Nature Commentary on AI

 

Nature has this excellent comment on AI I wanted to make a note of for future reference. A sample:

Intelligence, as we have seen, does not require strong autonomy — a finding that complicates debates about legal and moral responsibility of artificial-intelligence systems, which often assume the two go together. We need more careful, empirically grounded ways to assess and establish responsibility for AI. Furthermore, conventional methods of governance are unlikely to work for AGI, precisely because of its generality. Technology is typically governed on the basis of its possible uses, but AGI can be used almost anywhere.

Cheers, 

Colin