Should We Trust Physicists?
There’s an element of truth to the meme above. Personally, I feel like I’m encroaching on sacred territory when I comment on physics — especially on string theory. Put simply, I don’t know the maths. Thus, I must rely on what philosophers call testimony…
Not that any single testimony — even large scale — could ever be decisive when its comes to a layperson accepting a scientific idea or theory. After all, the Set of Physicists that is relied upon has members who often disagree with each other.
The other thing about this meme is that particle physicists themselves say that other “particle physicists are wrong”. And some physicists say that “string theorists are wrong”. Indeed, some string theorists say that other string theorists are wrong — at least on details.
Apart from all that, I don’t believe “physics influencers” influence physicists.
Analytic Philosophy Is…
Is analytic philosophy a Platonic Form?
Do all analytic philosophers do what John Gregg says that (other people?) say that they do?
As it is, analytic philosophers tend to take many different positions on many different subjects.
That said, I’m not even sure if I even understand John Gregg’s words. Are they an expression of his literary skills?
So if you take away John Gregg’s literary flamboyance, is there any actual argument left underneath?
Shorter
“computationalism is really popular among science-oriented people who don’t care much for philosophy”
— frances kafka
Well, since the 1960s, many philosophers have embraced “computationalism”. It also became a major part of the philosophy of mind. (Check out what the American philosopher John Searle has had to say on this subject.)
“and think metaphysics is a waste of time, but computationalism itself’s a type of Hegelian idealism”
What?!
Carlos Fernandes Shouts About Sam Harris and Free Will
The notion of “free will” isn’t really a part of neuroscience. It’s a philosophical notion. Citations of neuroscience may help advance a philosophical argument. However, talk of “free will” itself isn’t really a part of neuroscience…
What are “pseudo-intellectual morons” anyway?
Are they people who dare to disagree with Carlos Fernandes?
Do people become pseudo the moment they articulate views Fernandes doesn’t agree with?
By the way, I don’t usually defend or attack the notion of free will. That’s because it entirely depends on how the words “free will” are being used in the specific debate, and by specific disputants. Also, I don’t spend much time on this ancient subject anyway…
But what I do know is that Fernandes’s rhetoric is best suited to the mindless political “debates” one often finds on X. In other words, the debate won’t move in any direction if all the people involved in it shout and display their emotions, just as Fernandes does.
Shorter
Should readers on X comment on tweets without actually reading the essays/papers/articles linked in those tweets?
I was tempted to respond to this one. But it just seems pointless without reading the paper.
So this must solely be an advert for her paper — if in the form of a tweet/post on X. Perhaps this academic wouldn’t deny that. I do the same thing.
The infinite… what!?
It may seem rhetorical, but I must be honest… I have absolutely no idea what any of that post/tweet means. Perhaps this is simply the problem we all face when we come across philosophical prose from a subsection of philosophy we’re unfamiliar with.
So we need to be careful not to be dismissive in a kneejerk manner. That said, I’m familiar with Kant, etc., and I still don’t understand it.
The passage/tweet comes across as some kind of “spiritual” set of pronouncements delivered in the prose style of a French poststructuralist… on six acid tabs.
Can anyone help me out here?
Perhaps I’m simply dumb.
Either that, or not spiritual enough to get it.
(*) Are the words “The infinite ‘I am’” from David Bowie’s song ‘Blackstar’?
Marijuana and Alcohol…
I’m not sure that the single sentence “Why should marijuana be illegal if alcohol is legal?” is meant to be a full self-sustained argument. At least, I don’t know many people who’d stick to a single statement on this controversial issue.
Various long and short arguments have been given for this position. Some of these arguments include data, analysis, interviews, studies, etc.
I also doubt that all the positions are “abstract” and “utilitarian” when it comes to what was stated in this tweet . Actually, I can imagine all sorts of takes on this — utilitarianism being just one of them.
“Political feasibility”?
Is that a hint at the simple fact that alcohol is now legal, whereas marijuana isn’t? Thus, it wouldn’t be politically feasible to make another (dangerous?) drug legal?
Why should people who smoke cannabis accept that?
So why not make alcohol illegal, and cannabis legal?…
That’s a joke. Well, it’s partly a joke.
And, of course, it may not be politically feasible…
A lot of good and bad things are deemed not to be politically feasible…
Shorter
So the human brain is a “quantum brain”. (This is an actual phrase which has been used many times.) There are also quantum cups, quantum trees, quantum genitals, quantum books on “quantum weirdness”, etc. etc. etc.
Of course, an object being constructed and run by human beings according to quantum logic and principles, is very different to inanimate and animate objects being simply… quantum (i.e., regardless of human beings).
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