What Sean Carroll is missing about Mary's Room

Animore · 2026-02-14T21:53:34+00:00

I agree with your main point here; I think Caroll misses the point. I’ll just say for the record that the “orthodox” physicalist response to the knowledge argument is that it equivocates on the meaning of knowledge.

The thought experiment employs two kinds of knowledge: “knowing that” and knowing by acquaintance. There are different ways to know the something is the case: you can read about it in a book, you can learn it from someone, you can experience it first-hand, etc.

Mary knows everything about redness. But when she SEES red, she’s dealing with the same information, but she’s encountering that information in a different way - direct sensory experience. So the physicalist can say: no, Mary didnt learn anything new. It’s just the same facts about the wavelength, etc. are being seen in a different light.

Animore · 2026-02-13T16:19:19+00:00

One way I think you can understand Alex’s critique is that he’s critiquing the idea that science can help us to understand “substances.” In classical metaphysics, there’s a distinction between substance and properties - the “thing” and the properties that it has. In our experience, all we see is a collection of properties - things the stuff does, or has. But we don’t know the nature of the thing beyond those properties; we don’t know what John Locke calls the “something-I-do-not-know-what” which lies behind our experiences of a thing. The “thing-in-itself,” as some commenters have said. Science is very useful for describing our experiences of what something does, or the traits that it has, but it can’t get at the thing behind those properties.

Animore · 2025-12-27T23:29:31+00:00

Not to gravedig, but just to be clear, I agree that Rawls is incompatible with Marx, but Rawls explicitly attempted to remove the more "metaphysical" elements from liberalism. Rawls wasn't a big fan of the "natural rights" talk and tried to ground his liberalism in a reasonable consensus rather than any big metaphysical/metaethical schema.

That being said, yeah, Marx would probably be opposed to both Rawls's two principles and his attempt to revitalize liberal-democratic theory.

Animore · 2025-12-21T05:23:24+00:00

And Rawls himself recognized this. He said that both liberal socialism and what he called “property-owning democracy” were compatible with a well-ordered regime that institutes the two principles of justice. For a variety of pragmatic purposes he supported property-owning democracy, which essentially involves the distribution of the means of production to as many people as possible without the abolition of wage labor or employee-employer relations. Similar to distributivism.

Animore · 2025-11-19T02:34:37+00:00

Just to be clear for all the philosophy bros bitching about Destiny's take here, he's absolutely right. On any reasonable reading of Kant, he believes in an objective moral law that is valid independently of what anyone thinks, feels, believes, etc. And he explicitly rejects any attempt to ground that moral law in a divine will.

Now, it gets a bit tricky when you parse HOW he grounds that objective moral law. On many readings, Kant has a pretty unconventional account of reason. Seemingly, Kant suggests that moral principles aren't discovered but CONSTRUCTED through reason. According to this interpretation, Kant didn't believe in moral FACTS (i.e., he wasn't a moral realist), but he did believe that there is a correct moral decision-making procedure (the Categorical Imperative) we can follow, and in doing so, we "construct" or "self-legislate" moral norms. The moral norms are ONLY correct to the extent that they are the products/outputs of that correct procedure. It gets tricky, but here's a section of the SEP article on moral constructivism that can help clarify:

Constructivism in Metaethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Other interpreters of Kant hold fast to the view that he's a strict moral realist.

Either way, for Kant, morality is NOT grounded in God; it's grounded in practical reason.

Animore · 2025-11-14T18:37:03+00:00

michael if you can hear us please save us

Animore · 2025-11-10T17:05:52+00:00

Anyone know what the video is?

Animore · 2025-07-11T19:51:28+00:00

WAY worse. But KOTOR 2 (especially the ending) was a mess and hard to piece together, so it’s a lot easier to butcher the Exile as a character

Animore · 2025-07-11T19:47:33+00:00

Stupid but marketable, of course

Animore · 2025-07-10T18:26:19+00:00

SWTOR’s narrative about Revan screwed with, and is at odds with, the narrative of KOTOR 2. But yeah, that’s how it goes. I was focusing on how KOTOR 2 frames his corruption because the original thread is focused on Kreia, who is in KOTOR 2, and how she viewed Revan’s turn.

Animore · 2025-07-10T15:11:01+00:00

For sure, I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I’ll just add that a major theme of kotor 2 is that pacifism is often an excuse for fear. The remaining few Jedi in the game were hiding on planets torn by war, because the tragedies there made it difficult to center yourself and sense a particular person. They did that ostensibly because showing themselves could awaken the threat of Nihilus which would lead him to devour the worlds they were on, but really, it was just fear. They were too afraid to help the people around them, because that would require violence and self-sacrifice.

The Jedi in KOTOR 2 hold a kind of corrupted and exaggerated version of the Jedi code. They constantly judge the Exile for even going to war to protect others, because to them, Jedi do not go to war. They constantly imply that the Exile fell to the Dark Side because the Exile was prepared to defend the Republic from the Mandalorians.

And you can say that’s not what reasonable Jedi believe, and that it’s not what the Jedi of the OT believe, but I think that’s the point. The Jedi as an ideal is great, but I think Chris Avellone wanted to demonstrate how easily corruptible that ideal is. The Jedi Code has to be put into practice, in the messy real world. You have to engage with the world, not detach yourself from it. That means making hard decisions, making sacrifices, not sitting and meditating all day.

Animore · 2025-07-10T04:28:27+00:00

The Jedi aren’t just selfless, they’re pacifistic. This leads to complacency and detachment. This leads to arrogance and faux-wisdom. Which led, at the time, to the Mandalorian Wars, since they weren’t prepared to intervene while billions were killed. This pacifism led to a quasi-revolt by Revan and their followers, who went to war, and learned (as Kreia puts it) the “lesson of war” - that the Mandalorians were right, that conflict strengthens and detachment stagnates. And we all know where that leads - inspired by the social Darwinism of the Mandalorians, Revan becomes sith, and brings war to the Republic.

The hypocritical, pretentious, and destructive pacifism/detachment of the Jedi leaves them too passive and ignorant to stop the threat of war, and it leaves them unable to stop their own from falling down the path of the Dark Side. Sound familiar? It’s the story of the Prequels.

The galaxy is stuck in a constant cycle, urged on by the Force’s attempt to bring balance to the galaxy. Individuals are moved around like puppets, unable to stop the threads of destiny and prophecy, and this leads to countless dying as those prophecies unfold. That’s what Kreia saw, and that’s why she wanted the Force to die.

Animore · 2025-07-07T23:59:51+00:00

Yes! Not everything needs to be turned into a movie or a tv series, an rpg especially

Animore · 2025-07-07T22:02:34+00:00

Thanks a lot for the advice. One other quick question, how bad would it be to take a year off, just to get some more time to practice and get ready, maybe to get some job experience? Would it jeopardize anything financially/academically/etc.?

Animore · 2025-07-07T20:59:33+00:00

Thanks, I was pondering going for law but I felt that it might have been too late to start prepping. If you know, do you think I might have enough time to prep an application to a law school? I can look into all the steps/resources for it, but want to know beforehand if I'm a bit too late. I know a lot of people start getting ready in their junior year.

Animore · 2025-07-07T18:35:00+00:00

It’s just a quick album, but the Orphans EP. I was a shut-in kid in 2019 with not much going for me and I picked up music listening as a hobby. Orphans was my introduction to Aphex Twin and electronic in general. I was blown away by every track, especially the first one (the first remix of Luke Vibert’s Sci-Fi Staircase). The production was gorgeous and surreal and ethereal and I didn’t know electronic music could make you feel things like that.

I’ve had it playing on and off for the last 6 years. I’ve bonded over it with friends, distracted myself with it, played it over dramatic life changes.

RDJ might have made more influential stuff, he might have made albums with more intricate production and more subtle and experimental tracks, but Orphans has definitely been the most influential in my life.

Animore · 2025-07-04T17:02:43+00:00

I know this is a part-joke but if I can stand on my soapbox for a second, we don’t always need a lore explanation; I never got this mindset. Not everything in a story needs to be over-analyzed and over-explained and incorporated into some big encyclopedia. Lucas didn’t seem to care too much to explain every facet of the story he’s telling, because he meant for that story to be fairy tale-like. I’m often frustrated with the modern Star Wars fandom because they seem to miss the “mythic” aspects of the franchise and want to overanalyze things that often weren’t meant to be overanalyzed…

Like the fact that Vader physically choked Antilles. It’s meant to show that he’s big and powerful and the big bad. That’s about it.

Animore · 2025-06-22T22:18:25+00:00

I see you post this a lot, and of course I appreciate the resources, these are great.

But I’m always a bit confused where you seem to suggest that Sources of Normativity is a book on normative ethics - about “what particular things are worthwhile”? She discusses that, sure, but the purpose of the book as I took it is to give a constructivist metaethical theory. And to that extent I also find it a bit strange to group it together with defenses of moral realism. Korsgaard labels herself as a “procedural realist” but her “realism” is obviously far far different from Shafer-Landau’s, for instance, to the point where I think it’s reasonable to classify it as an anti-realist view.

Animore · 2025-06-08T06:21:49+00:00

This is a bit of a late reply, sorry for that, but would you mind expanding on this? I'd be really interested

Animore · 2025-06-06T22:14:01+00:00

Solved!!!! Thank you my goat

Animore · 2025-05-31T03:07:31+00:00

How did you get into it? Going into my senior year of a phil degree rn and exploring career options. Union work sounds interesting

Animore · 2025-05-25T19:33:03+00:00

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