Apropos my earlier rant on people who think that paradoxes are meaningless, I figured I ought to take a stab at giving some meaning to paradox. To this end I reformulated a paradox in my terms. I suppose I should called it the Mirror Paradox, though ‘Looking-Glass Paradox’ seems more lyrical and has an historical nod. My apologies to whoever actually came up with this first, though I am sure I haven’t heard it before… […]
Category: philosophy
Are Paradoxes Meaningless?
Aaron Cotnoir has suggested that people think that paradoxes are meaningless. I think they are lucky that they hadn’t suggested that to me unless they wanted to see me freak out. It was my good fortune to have my first real exposure to the work of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein be from Thomas Ricketts. I can’t remember verbatim what he said, but this is close: No one knows how long it took Frege to understand […]
Philosophers’ Carnival: Call for Submissions
I’m pleased to announce that this blog will be hosting the 63rd Philosophers’ Carnival. Submissions can be made by clicking on this link. Though I’ve written better papers, one of the few I think about regularly has to do with a philosophical theory of comedy. Since I believe we could all use a laugh, funny posts and posts having to do with comedy will take precedence. Still, if you know of a post that is […]
On The Scientific View of the World
Many people have a “scientific” view of the world. This means that the world operates according to the laws of science, i.e., there are no mysterious forces that cannot be explained by some combination of physics, biology, psychology, economics etc. It is a mistaken view. The scientific view of the world can be summarized by this formulation: S) The world is governed by science if and only if, given a specified way things are at […]
Consciousness Dilemma
I watched Dan Dennett’s Ted Talk “Can We Know Our Own Minds” yesterday and it reminded me of a problem I had with the study of consciousness. I am convinced a solution cannot be written down or said. Assume someone knows what consciousness/mind/divine spark/what-you-will is. If someone knows something, then it is part of their consciousness. If someone knows what consciousness is, then the consciousness has a part that contains consciousness. Therefore someone has a […]
Philosopher’s Carnival to be hosted here!
I’ve agreed to host the Philosopher’s Carnival here on February 18. So if you think you got what it takes, tough guy/gal, submit a post and I’ll tell you whether you’re up to snuff.
Why Intelligent Design Is Correct
Darwinian Evolution is a theory of Intelligent Design. Darwin argues for Natural Selection by starting with ‘Artificial Selection’, a theory of Intelligent Design. When Artificial Selection is generalized to Natural Selection Darwin is entirely cognizant of and makes no attempt to remove the elements of intelligent design embedded in the theory. In fact, he recognizes that these elements of intelligent design are what make evolution by natural selection so compelling and he specifically exploits them […]
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a Gift of an Ontological Razor from Me to You!
There is no preferential ontological perspective. I hope your new year is awesome.
The Terminator Television Show
There is a television show coming out in the new year called “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. At first I was massively excited. My father said that he thought it is taking place in between the first and second movies when Sarah was learning to be a hardcore bad-ass. I thought this was a brilliant idea: someone traveling through Mexico and the U.S. with a baby engaged in what amount to ostensibly terrorist activities. All […]
Positive and Negative Biological Time
In my biorelativity series I used mutations per generation as a measurement of distance. However, with my recent historical/generative musings, specifically the post on the logical foundations of biorelativity (the logic of which is at the foundation of how I arrived at biorelativity), I fear I may have ignored the distinction between a mutation and an adaptation. Consider an organism with some feature. The feature can be considered both a mutation or an adaptation depending […]