Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
David Chalmers in his new book: : Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, takes the philosophical stance of virtual realism. As I understand it, virtual realism is the thesis that virtual reality is genuine reality, with emphasis especially on the view that virtual objects are real and not an illusion. In general, “realism” is … Continue reading Criteria for being real
I'm currently making my way through David Chalmers' new book: Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. Chalmers explores the simulation hypothesis, using it as a portal into a wide ranging selection of philosophical issues, including discussions on God, information theory, structuralism, and a lot of other topics I haven't gotten to yet. His … Continue reading Can we know if we’re in a simulation?
I recently completed Anil Seth's new book, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Seth starts out discussing David Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness, as well as views like physicalism, idealism, panpsychism, and functionalism. Seth is a physicalist, but is suspicious of functionalism. Seth makes a distinction between the hard problem, which he characterizes as … Continue reading Anil Seth’s theory of consciousness
Back in 2009, David Bourget and David Chalmers conducted a survey of professional philosophers, asking for their positions on 40 questions. Over the years, a number of people have pointed out the existence of that survey. While I don't think anyone should change their position purely based on what large numbers of philosophers think, it's … Continue reading What philosophers believe, 2020 edition
John Horgan recently wrote a column which has received a lot of attention. Horgan's thesis is that when it comes to three topics: the existence of God, the mind-body problem, and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, science can't provide the answers and may never be able to. Horgan advises that the only responsible position … Continue reading Clarifying agnosticism
We all have ideas or concepts that exasperate us when they're brought up. Mine have changed over the years. When I was younger, anything that called into question certain ideas, such as the religious faith I was raised in, or the mantra of American patriotism, irritated me to no end. I tended to reject propositions … Continue reading Scrutinize what makes you angry
Ronnie de Souza has an interesting article at Aeon on why he thinks the concept of morality isn't helpful. His overall thesis is that the idea that there are things that are right or wrong without qualification, in and of itself, adds nothing useful to the conversation. We can find reasons why or why not … Continue reading Some words might simply no longer be productive for precise conversations
I've only recently discovered Ricardo Lopes and his interviews of all kinds of interesting people. Here is one from a couple of years ago of Keith Frankish, the most prominent contemporary champion of illusionism, the idea that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion, that it doesn't exist, and much of this is him giving the standard … Continue reading The necessity of weak emergence
The other day I did a post on structural realism. If you found that interesting, you might find this interview of James Ladyman by Sean Carroll worth listening to (or reading, since there's a transcript). Ladyman is the author of the SEP article on structural realism I linked to, and seems to be a major … Continue reading Interviews of James Ladyman on metaphysics
Daniel Issing has an interesting article at Quillette on the hard problems of vegetarianism. Vegetarianism, and its more pure form, veganism, are often seen as the obvious moral thing we should all be doing, but that most of us aren't. Issing, himself a vegetarian, explores the messy details that make this a more complicated proposition … Continue reading The scope of animal wellbeing
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