The only philosopher I know who has groupies. Gotta love a bit of David Chalmers...and some amateur videography :P
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
A little identity puzzle...Would you still be you?
A philosopher once invited us to imagine a great battleship belonging to Theseus. At some point a plank of wood on its deck became loose and in need of replacing. Nothing unusual or controversial right? Let's see...
Theseus wonders if his ship is the same ship as before, after having part of its structure replaced. Most intuitions answer yes as this point, all we've done is a little restoration. Well, suppose we replace another part, and then another, until the entire ship is composed of entirely new matter - No materials of the original ship have endured.
Do we still want to assert that this is the same ship as before? What does it even mean to say that it is the same ship? Isn't this paramount to asserting that something immaterial exists, that would survive this chopping and changing, that IS Theseus' ship?
Why should we even care about hypothetical ship maintenance Honestly, its amazing how relevant this is when we consider the human analogy...
Suppose you loose an arm or leg (I'm not sure why my analogies go so dark :P). Would you be the same person? Common sense intuition once again says yes. But at what point of removing body parts would you stop being 'you'?
A lot of philosophers, as is the tradition these days, demand that the part of the body keeping you essentially you, is the brain. We can see why, what with dementia, amnesia and trauma highlighting a deterioration of brain corresponding with a deterioration of mind.
So here's a thought for you. Suppose science has moved on a few years and now some tiny neurone or synapse within your brain can be swapped with an exact, functioning, silicone replacement. Would you still be you? And, by extension, lets hypothetically bit by bit replace your whole brain full of neurones and synapses with exact and functioning silicone replicas. If you're still you at this point we have created artificial intelligence....weird right?
For the 'your no longer you' camp - when did you end?
Maybe it was at the first point at which we fiddled with your brain and replaced old material for new material. Cue the response...does that mean we cease to be after receiving organ donation? Additionally, as every cell in our body is thought to have been replaced once every 7- 10 years...do we become a new person each time we are created from fresh matter?
Where on earth does our identity lie then? What makes you you and what makes Theseus' ship?
Whatever your answer I guarantee it will tie you in all kinds of philosophical knots....enjoy!
Read More
Theseus wonders if his ship is the same ship as before, after having part of its structure replaced. Most intuitions answer yes as this point, all we've done is a little restoration. Well, suppose we replace another part, and then another, until the entire ship is composed of entirely new matter - No materials of the original ship have endured.
Do we still want to assert that this is the same ship as before? What does it even mean to say that it is the same ship? Isn't this paramount to asserting that something immaterial exists, that would survive this chopping and changing, that IS Theseus' ship?
Why should we even care about hypothetical ship maintenance Honestly, its amazing how relevant this is when we consider the human analogy...
Suppose you loose an arm or leg (I'm not sure why my analogies go so dark :P). Would you be the same person? Common sense intuition once again says yes. But at what point of removing body parts would you stop being 'you'?
A lot of philosophers, as is the tradition these days, demand that the part of the body keeping you essentially you, is the brain. We can see why, what with dementia, amnesia and trauma highlighting a deterioration of brain corresponding with a deterioration of mind.
So here's a thought for you. Suppose science has moved on a few years and now some tiny neurone or synapse within your brain can be swapped with an exact, functioning, silicone replacement. Would you still be you? And, by extension, lets hypothetically bit by bit replace your whole brain full of neurones and synapses with exact and functioning silicone replicas. If you're still you at this point we have created artificial intelligence....weird right?
For the 'your no longer you' camp - when did you end?
Maybe it was at the first point at which we fiddled with your brain and replaced old material for new material. Cue the response...does that mean we cease to be after receiving organ donation? Additionally, as every cell in our body is thought to have been replaced once every 7- 10 years...do we become a new person each time we are created from fresh matter?
Where on earth does our identity lie then? What makes you you and what makes Theseus' ship?
Whatever your answer I guarantee it will tie you in all kinds of philosophical knots....enjoy!
Friday, 15 March 2013
Quote of the day...
In Conversation with Richard Dawkins - Hosted by Steven Law
"It's totally illogical to say that because we don't yet know what the physics and science of the future will be, therefore instead we should put our trust in a bronze-age document written by a gang of goatherds" - Richard Dawkins
Well, agree with it or not...he's a very eloquent man :)
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Flashes of Insight...
I love how philosophy creeps into all kinds of modern media....or maybe I'm so obsessed I just want to see it in everything....
Today's Horizon ('The Creative Brain: How Insight Works') is a great example of psychological and philosophical fusion. I was hooked by the time the title flashed up to be honest, this could have been created as inspiration for my grad work :P
The discovery of thought-brain correlation was one of those paradigm shifting moments in philosophy - effectively the nail in the coffin for the Cartesian conception of mind and laying the ground for neuroscience to have a real effect on our philosophical theories. I think we've been fighting scientific advances for too long in the worry that they threaten our metaphysical ideals.
Funnily enough this whole documentary would be a great starting point for a discussion of the philosophy of mind ("look! Correlation between white matter and intelligence/creativity!" It really is an identity theorists dream). But it was my neurotic obsession with free will that was ticking away for me while watching...
I had a conversation about free will with a colleague not long ago. I'm sure there will be many of you reading this who disagree (my friend surely did), but believe it or not 'free will' isn't really held in much regard these days in many philosophical circles. Yet its something which the majority of people hold onto with all their might, especially in the face of my protests and after a couple of beers...
My reasons for disregarding it obviously require a little more argument than this blog can accommodate but this Horizon documentary helped me create a nice neat analogy in my head. The kind of freedom people generally mean when they use the term 'free will' is that freedom which would allow us to have acted otherwise in some given situation. Say I decide to rob my local bank (I'm a thrill seeker - and broke). Most people will want to argue that, in order to be morally responsible here I must have been able to do otherwise....
....So here's the issue I see. imagine we rewind time. I go back to just before the robbery. Has anything changed? My environment? My thoughts? My motivations? My character? nope. So why on earth this idea that I could have done otherwise? I would be the same person, in exactly the same situation, with none of that oh-so-helpful hindsight we get after robbing banks and the like.
Basically, the common idea of 'free will' is the idea that I could have done otherwise, regardless of the fact that every moment leading up to the robbery was the same, I had no motivation to do otherwise, on a subatomic level all my neurones and synapses are exactly the same....can you see the issue?
For my very insistent colleague to be correct (But of course you could have chosen not to rob the bank! You chose to rob it godamit!) there would need to be something totally un-caused in the chain of events that led to the robbery in order for him to keep his stranglehold on this conception of free will. To me this sounds a lot like the 'flash of inspiration' which is the focus of the documentary...Alas, the crux of the programme is to explain the fascinating way in which scientists have tied even this elusive idea to causal chains within the brain. Nothing spontaneous or mysterious here in afraid. + 1 to materialism.
This conception of free will is something so many people defend, even though it would require them to throw out all science, physics...all Newtonian laws and really argue that something can stop causality in its tracks. Something would need to pop into my head, that wasn't governed by the causes before it, to make me choose otherwise...and if someone can demonstrate that something like this could exist...I'll buy them a pint :)
Read More
Today's Horizon ('The Creative Brain: How Insight Works') is a great example of psychological and philosophical fusion. I was hooked by the time the title flashed up to be honest, this could have been created as inspiration for my grad work :P
The discovery of thought-brain correlation was one of those paradigm shifting moments in philosophy - effectively the nail in the coffin for the Cartesian conception of mind and laying the ground for neuroscience to have a real effect on our philosophical theories. I think we've been fighting scientific advances for too long in the worry that they threaten our metaphysical ideals.
Funnily enough this whole documentary would be a great starting point for a discussion of the philosophy of mind ("look! Correlation between white matter and intelligence/creativity!" It really is an identity theorists dream). But it was my neurotic obsession with free will that was ticking away for me while watching...
I had a conversation about free will with a colleague not long ago. I'm sure there will be many of you reading this who disagree (my friend surely did), but believe it or not 'free will' isn't really held in much regard these days in many philosophical circles. Yet its something which the majority of people hold onto with all their might, especially in the face of my protests and after a couple of beers...
My reasons for disregarding it obviously require a little more argument than this blog can accommodate but this Horizon documentary helped me create a nice neat analogy in my head. The kind of freedom people generally mean when they use the term 'free will' is that freedom which would allow us to have acted otherwise in some given situation. Say I decide to rob my local bank (I'm a thrill seeker - and broke). Most people will want to argue that, in order to be morally responsible here I must have been able to do otherwise....
....So here's the issue I see. imagine we rewind time. I go back to just before the robbery. Has anything changed? My environment? My thoughts? My motivations? My character? nope. So why on earth this idea that I could have done otherwise? I would be the same person, in exactly the same situation, with none of that oh-so-helpful hindsight we get after robbing banks and the like.
Basically, the common idea of 'free will' is the idea that I could have done otherwise, regardless of the fact that every moment leading up to the robbery was the same, I had no motivation to do otherwise, on a subatomic level all my neurones and synapses are exactly the same....can you see the issue?
For my very insistent colleague to be correct (But of course you could have chosen not to rob the bank! You chose to rob it godamit!) there would need to be something totally un-caused in the chain of events that led to the robbery in order for him to keep his stranglehold on this conception of free will. To me this sounds a lot like the 'flash of inspiration' which is the focus of the documentary...Alas, the crux of the programme is to explain the fascinating way in which scientists have tied even this elusive idea to causal chains within the brain. Nothing spontaneous or mysterious here in afraid. + 1 to materialism.
This conception of free will is something so many people defend, even though it would require them to throw out all science, physics...all Newtonian laws and really argue that something can stop causality in its tracks. Something would need to pop into my head, that wasn't governed by the causes before it, to make me choose otherwise...and if someone can demonstrate that something like this could exist...I'll buy them a pint :)
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