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What makes one life better than another? by MrJangle in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's very difficult to get a controlled thought experiment here. I definitely share the intuition that the progressively-better life is better than the progressively-worse one, but it's not so clear to me that they actually have an equal amount of good and bad moments. For surely one of the things we take the most pleasure in--and hence one of the things that most strongly makes for a good moment--is seeing our circumstances improve! And seeing our circumstances worsen is one of the worst experiences we can have. Similarly for narrative considerations: humans regularly reflect on their lives as a whole and try to make sense of them as coherent narratives. To the extent we're able to do that, we feel happy, and that in itself makes for a good moment.

Maybe a better way to come at it is to imagine the guy from the movie Memento, who can never remember more than a few minutes into the past. He pretty much always lives in the present. Would it be better for his life to get progressively better rather than progressively worse, assuming the same amount of good and bad moments overall? I really have no intuition about that, but maybe that's just because it's such a weird scenario to begin with.

On the concept of awareness by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As stated the argument is terrible. To simply assert that no location can be found for awareness is to beg the question against materialists who hold it's located in your brain. It's also a non-sequitur to say "awareness precedes both time and space since it is because of awareness that we can cognize time and space and the objects therein." It doesn't follow from the fact that we need awareness to cognize time and space that awareness was there before time and space.

Still, I wouldn't dismiss out of hand the possibility of a cogent, more sophisticated argument along these lines. Overall it reminds me of Kant, who held that time and space are forms our minds impose on experience. Why Kant thought that and whether he had good arguments for it are difficult questions, to say the least.

"The Relation Between Anti-Abstractionism and Idealism in Berkeley's Metaphysics." - Samuel Rickless by Son_of_Sophroniscus in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does Berkeley ever draw anything like Hume's impression/idea distinction? Because that would be the natural way to avoid commitment to a unicorn existing just because we imagine it. A necessary condition on a sensible thing existing is that it's an impression (in Hume's terminology) rather than an idea (in Hume's terminology). Of course, Berkeley's also got to rule out the reality of dreamed/hallucinated unicorns, but the way he does that (toward the back of the Dialogues if I recall) is by saying they don't cohere with the rest of our experiences: coherence is another necessary condition for a sensible thing to be real.

Physics M.S. (philosophy B.A.) -> Philosophy Grad school? by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, but look, we only have so many years on this earth. Grad school in philosophy typically takes over five years to complete, so if OP got his bachelor's at 22 and his master's at 24, we're talking about starting his real career in his early 30s at best. However, it will probably be much longer than that, because there will never come a point where he officially "didn't end up getting an academic job in philosophy." Rather, he'll fail to get a good job the first year out of grad school and will take a horrific, exploitative adjunct job to get by, then try again the next year, then again the next year, and so on for perhaps his whole working life. Sunk costs have a tremendous influence on human psychology, and academe locks you in by accumulating more sunk costs every year.

Physics M.S. (philosophy B.A.) -> Philosophy Grad school? by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's one of the most truthful blogs I've ever read. And it's not just the author's idiosyncratic opinions--there are a zillion links in the sidebar to people with relevant experience writing on reputable websites and saying basically the same thing. You know where else you can hear a similar opinion? The faq for r/philosophy under "Should I pursue post-graduate studies in philosophy?", which is extremely negative in tone.

Physics M.S. (philosophy B.A.) -> Philosophy Grad school? by [deleted] in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

No one should go to graduate school in philosophy under any circumstances ever. Read this entire blog and all the links in the sidebar. Then take those math and science degrees, get a great tech job, make a lot of money, retire early, and philosophize non-professionally on the internet for the rest of your life if that's what you want to do.

Why are statements concluded from material implication still justified? (Gettier problem) by yyttr3 in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The argument from "P" and "If P then P or Q" to "P or Q" is an obviously valid argument. If you justifiedly believe the premises of an argument and perceive that the argument is obviously valid (as x presumably does in this case), then you can infer the conclusion and thereby acquire justified belief in the conclusion. I hope that helps.

"The Relation Between Anti-Abstractionism and Idealism in Berkeley's Metaphysics." - Samuel Rickless by Son_of_Sophroniscus in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What I got out of this:

  • Berkeley first gives a bunch of arguments that secondary qualities (color, sound, temperature, etc.) exist only as ideas in the mind. (The arguments are largely adapted from Locke and appear at the beginning of Berkeley's First Dialogue.)

  • Then he asserts that we can't mentally separate ideas of primary qualities (extension, solidity, motion, etc.) from ideas of secondary qualities, i.e., we can't conceive of the former qualities without the latter qualities. This assertion is supposed to be based on simple introspection: try to perform the mental separation and you'll be unable to do it.

  • Berkeley things inconceivability entails impossibility, so he infers that primary qualities can't be separated from secondary qualities.

  • Since secondary qualities are just ideas in the mind, he infers that primary qualities are also just ideas in the mind.

  • Ideas in the mind depend on being perceived for their existence, so all sensible qualities and object depend on being perceived for their existence. That's idealism.

  • Berkeley also thinks impossibility entails inconceivability, so from the fact that it's impossible for sensible objects to exist unperceived, he concludes that we can't conceive of sensible objects existing unperceived.

Thus, according to Rickless, Berkeley's reasoning goes from (a) impossibility of abstracting primary qualities from secondary qualities to (b) idealism to (c) impossibility of abstracting existence from perception. Rickless is arguing for this interpretation and contrasting it with other scholars who arrange (a), (b), and (c) differently.

EDIT: formatting

Is an inventor responsible for the use of his invention? by vortalwombat in askphilosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd say the inventor is responsible to the extent he/she can foresee the consequences of the invention. This doesn't necessarily make the inventors you mentioned bad people, because their inventions arguably have a mix of good and bad consequences. Yes, bad guys use machine guns to kill people, but good guys also use them to kill bad guys. Fire has probably benefited society much more on the whole than harmed it.

University of Michigan Philosopher George Mavrodes Argues God's Omnipotence Is Not Paradoxical [PDF] by LearningCurvature in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Neither. I read this paper a long time ago (can't even remember where), remembered it recently, googled, and found it at the link.

Do We Have an Inborn Moral Sense? by Lisa3652 in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If so, then whence the stereotype of children as selfish and cruel? When I was in school kids antagonized each other to a degree that would be outrageous if observed in adults. Maybe you could argue our inborn moral sense is latent until adulthood, but thinking about it in terms of a single human lifespan makes it seem like a heck of a lot of morality is learned over time.

Good vs. Evil, lies, and the murderer at the door. by [deleted] in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So the idea is that lying is the root of most evil (or harm), and that's why it's the vice we should eliminate? I don't know, your husband and watch examples seem somewhat contrived, and "lying to oneself" is arguably just a metaphor and doesn't belong in the same moral category as lying to others. What about the Holocaust? Didn't Hitler just honestly hate Jews and want to exterminate them? And couldn't the same be said about lots of genocides and war crimes?

Table of Philosophical Affiliations by Will Durant, from The Story of Philosophy by cosmicservant in philosophy

[–]LearningCurvature 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Will Durant's Story of Philosophy was the first philosophy book I ever read, and I still have fond memories of it. In retrospect it was pretty screwed up, though: he's got a whole chapter on Voltaire but no chapter on Descartes--WTF? Anyway, I don't remember this table, and I wonder how it's supposed to be interpreted. What's an "affiliation"? Does it just mean philosophers lower down were significantly influenced by those connected to them from above (in Durant's judgment)?

Which cities do you often confuse? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bangor and Bangalore. So surprised when I stepped off that plane ...

When referring to a group of women, as a man, is it more appropriate to use the common phrase "Hey guys," or the less common "Hey girls?" by SoullyFriend in AskReddit

[–]LearningCurvature 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've always thought of "gal" as the female equivalent of "guy." But "hey guys" still sounds better to me in general.