A publication by The Atlantic going over his works:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/
My immediate intuition is that this is just bad philosophy disguised as pseudoscience, and from a philosophical perspective none of this makes sense. Am I wrong here? I would like insights.
He believes in so-called "conscious realism", which believes that matter does not exist, and in fact, only consciousness exists.
Here's a critical analysis of some of his stuff: https://philarchive.org/archive/ALLHCR
Edit: Please don't downvote if you think this guy is a nerd, I am skeptical of him myself, but please, upvote so a particularly strong of constitution comrade can detail their opinions and dunk on him
Do popsci authors have a reputation?
My mental health has been repeatedly ruined by scientists reporting similarly ground-breaking and kind of shaky findings. Am I supposed to... not freak out about any supposed scientific fact that gets more than 1000 upvotes on Reddit?
Like in general? They are usually well educated, and sometimes are tenured profs or whatever, but a lot of the time they make wild claims that are deeply ignorant of philosophy, etc, and/or are completely non-falsifiable (I.e. A waste of time). As long as the idea is catchy, they will find their audience though usually not respect from their own peers.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Unfortunately, the science or philosophy which filters through into pop culture is generally either sensational or misrepresented.
look at me over here, assuming any part of hellworld works. what a stupid