Poured Brews

The Invisible Workforce

On the Mechanics of Work and What Machines Can Absorb

Dec 30, 2025 • Taylor T Black

3

The Texture of Memory

On how insights accumulate, how the past inhabits the present, and what AI can (and cannot) remember for us.

Dec 23, 2025 • Taylor T Black

1

Layers of the Given

On waking consciousness, patterned experience, and the new role of AI in shaping what we see before we understand

Dec 19, 2025 • Taylor T Black

3

In Defense of Memorizing

Introduction: The Puzzle Pieces We Learn by Heart

Dec 19, 2025 • Taylor T Black

6

October 2025

Beauty will save the world

How Beauty Discloses Reality—From Balthasar’s Glory and Goethe’s Living Form to Pieper’s Leisurely Gaze, and What Their Wisdom Reveals in an Age of…

Oct 8, 2025 • Taylor T Black

5

1

From Data to Understanding: Tools as Patterners of Experience

On the distinction between organizing data and arriving at insight in the age of AI thought tools

Oct 3, 2025 • Taylor T Black

2

September 2025

Rust and Radiance: Asceticism Beyond Detachment

We live in an age of neon delirium and endless scroll, a time of hyperstimulation and spiritual dehydration.

Sep 22, 2025 • Taylor T Black

1

Memory is Not a Database – It’s the Substrate of Thought

“Memory is probably my favorite recent feature,” Sam Altman mused earlier this year, reflecting on how an AI that remembers can “get to know you over…

Sep 10, 2025 • Taylor T Black

4

August 2025

The University as Cosmopolis

From drift to renewal: forming scholars, institutions, and cultures that refuse half-measures

Aug 21, 2025 • Taylor T Black

2

1

1

Building the Not-Numerous Center: Cosmopolis in a Time of Drift

A small, patient center formed by intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversions. It bridges old and new, corrects bias, and insists on complete…

Aug 13, 2025 • Taylor T Black

The Land That Speaks Its Name: Tolkien, Toponyms, and the Poetry of Precision

Oh, I do love maps! I have quite a collection of them.

Aug 7, 2025 • Taylor T Black

1

Not Just a Tool: Why AI “Agents” Need a New Approach to Trust and Accountability

AI systems are rapidly moving beyond simple chatbots and data-crunching tools.

Aug 6, 2025 • Taylor T Black

3