There are different sorts of constraints on thought. We forget things, we fail to infer consequences of our beliefs and we have features of perception, like blind spots, that affect our understanding of our surroundings. We also can be greatly affected by our emotions: when we are angry — when we see red — we are unable to see the anything but the things that are making us mad; when we are infatuated we are, […]
Яandom Logic
If we try to represent tossing a coin or a die, or picking a card out of a deck at random, in logic, how should we do it? Tossing a coin might look like: Toss(coin) → (Heads or Tails) Tossing a die might be: Toss(die) → (1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6) Picking a card: Pick(52 card deck) → (1♣ or 2♣ or … or k♥) This begs asking, do […]
new york
Book Review: The Genial Gene
The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness by Joan Roughgarden In The Genial Gene Joan Roughgarden seeks to replace the competitive understanding of evolution, known as sexual selection, with a cooperative one. The first sentence of her book reads, “This book is about whether selfishness and individuality, rather than kindness and cooperation, are basic to biological nature” (p. 1). So what is the argument? Taking this first line, she wants to conclude something about basic biological […]
Philosophy Carnival #2
Well, it’s the second philosophy carnival I’ve hosted. So let’s get started. Counterfactuals and time traveling cold-blooded murderers! Why is it we always want to see what happens when we kill ourselves (or others) when time traveling? Does time travel make one murderous? Anyway, besides the weird questions that occur to me, the discussion over at Kadri Vihvelin’s philosophy blog does try to tackle Counterfactuals, Indicatives and What Time Travelers Can’t Do. If that isn’t your […]
Philosophy Carnival 8 August
I’m hosting the next philosophy carnival, on August 8th. If anyone is thinking about submitting to the next philosophy carnival, I have a preference for philosophy of science, though feel free to submit on any topic. Also, I like to be entertained by my academic philosophy, so the more off the wall the better.
The SEP on the Kindle
Reading on a computer screen is often not pleasant, especially when a lot of reading has to be done. This is a general problem for philosophy since nearly everything is in PDF format and if you don’t want to print out a tree’s worth of paper you are stuck. I got a Kindle. Kindles can handle PDFs, but what I just found out is that Kindles can do the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy quite well. […]
Spell Sorites. No really.
Since none of the other philosophy blogs I follow have mentioned it, one of the final round contestants of the National Spelling Bee was eliminated last night by misspelling “sorites.” I believe the contestant put a ‘p’ in front of the word. It makes me wonder if these kids know how to do anything other than spell words.
IF Logic and Cogito Ergo Sum
(∃x∃x) → ∃x Descartes Law If something has informational dependence upon itself, then that thing exists. For example, thinking that you are thinking is informationally self dependent and therefore a thinking thing (you) exists.
Wittgenstein and Sun Tzu (on throwing the ladder away)
Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus #6.54 My Propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them — as steps — to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must overcome these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Chapter XI #38 At the critical […]