BrainJunk is an ongoing personal project involving opinions on the internet. It’s also an ongoing personal project in website maintenance, and if there’s any content on the site as you’re reading this then the project is probably going well. (I have something of a history of lovingly creating websites that remain empty and unused until I eventually stop funding their existence.) While I have studied and am primarily interested in cognitive science and related topics surrounding mind and brain, this site is the result of my interest in a variety of disparate fields and my attempt and desire to interact with those communities in some small way. I ambitiously hope to be able to contribute to, or at least learn from them as a consequence of maintaining this site. These primarily include the peak energy movement, the skeptical community, political activism, law, and journalism (the good sort that brings you Information You Need to Know, à la Good Night, and Good Luck). More generally, you could say I’m a fan of critical thinking and the application of logic and the scientific method to all domains. Written down that seems like a ludicrously obvious notion (I’m also in favour of happiness and sunshine!), but then again I’m writing in a country where homeopathic treatments are available through the NHS.
BrainJunk is also a place where I intend to construct a cohesive written statement of my thoughts on various other assorted topics. Through a process of writing, publishing, and revising, I hope to be able to spot and correct contradictions or flaws in logic in my thinking. This will not only straighten out and refine said thinking and teach me a new fact or two, but it might even change one or more of our minds on some subjects, and perhaps help me become an insufferably smug and correct bastard should conversation about them occur in real life.
