Hi, I'm Willie Loftie-Eaton

A bit about me

I love Renae (you'll know her surname eventually), computer science, and running.

Interests

I aspire to bridge the worlds of Computer Science, Software Engineer, and Machine Learning Engineering. I'm currently (Aug 2026) devoting my time to studying the Church-Turing thesis and machine learning.

I am recovering from an ankle injury but hope to return to training for a sub 3-hour marathon.

Meditation is an important part of my life.

Philosophy

I will write blog posts that lay out the philosophies I hold, but here is a too brief summary.

Fundamentally, I buy Sam Harris's idea of the Moral Landscape (I've not read the book). I observe that I have experience, that there are qualia. I observe that some qualia are pleasant and some are unpleasant. I assume that my experience is a result of the interaction of atoms (which I also assume exists yada yada …) and more complex structures that emerge from how the atoms are arranged. I observe that there is one object that repeatedly appears in my observations, and I assume that that object is me, and that what happens to that object influences my experience. I observe that there are other objects that look and behave like me too - humans are the most obvious example, but dogs and shrimp also count. For multiple reasons (empathy, compassion, but ultimately because it is evolutionarily fit to do so), I assume these objects also have experience, and hence I don't want to cause them suffering and if I can help it, I want to bring them long-lasting wellbeing. Therefore, you should do what improves the wellbeing of conscious beings.

Another idea I strongly believe in is one Joscha Bach (roughly) stated on episode 126 of the Clearer Thinking podcast: “Something exists to the degree that it's implemented”. You are nothing other than what you are doing in this very moment - what is it that you want to be?