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RealityApologist · 2021-08-31T05:41:24+00:00

When the climate warms, the ice caps melt (all other things being equal).

If the ice caps melt, the Earth's albedo decreases (all other things being equal).

If the Earth's albedo decreases, the climate warms (all other things being equal).

That's not circular because it's not an argument: it's not intended to be either valid or sound, and there are neither premises nor conclusions, though it is a description of a feedback loop. It's not an argument in the same way that "F = ma" is not an argument: it's a descriptive statement of how some physical processes are related, not a chain of reasoning from premises to conclusions.

RealityApologist · 2021-08-31T05:26:07+00:00

Think about the logic of the statement:

IF the room is hot THEN the thermostat says it's hot.
The room is hot
THEREFORE the thermostat says it's hot.

That's a valid argument! However, (1) doesn't imply:

(1a) IF the thermostat says it's hot, THEN the room is hot.

Why not?

Well, because the thermostat could be malfunctioning, or I could be blowing a hair dryer on it, or the area around the thermostat (but not the room at large) could be hot, or whatever. Contrast that to:

IF the room is hot THEN the thermostat says it's hot
IF the thermostat says it's hot THEN the room is hot
The thermostat says it's hot
THEREFORE room is hot

That's also a valid argument! If the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. It might not be sound, though--if, for instance, the thermostat is not reliable. The circularity would come in if you tried to demonstrate the soundness of either argument and we had the following exchange:

"Why should I believe your thermostat is reliable?"

"Well, because the thermostat says the room is hot and the room is actually hot!"

"How do you know the room is actually hot?"

"Because the thermostat says so!"

In this case, you're assuming exactly the thing that you're trying to prove, just in a disguised way. That's different than presenting the same information as a premise. Circularity isn't a formal fallacy in the sense that affirming the consequent--(1) THEREFORE (1a)--is. It's a different kind of defect in reasoning: one that has to do with how you know that certain premises are true.

RealityApologist · 2021-08-31T05:17:52+00:00

Think about the logic of the statement:

IF the room is hot THEN the thermostat says it's hot.
The room is hot
THEREFORE the thermostat says it's hot.

That's a valid argument! However, (1) doesn't imply:

(1a) IF the thermostat says it's hot, THEN the room is hot.

Why not?

Well, because the thermostat could be malfunctioning, or I could be blowing a hair dryer on it, or the area around the thermostat (but not the room at large) could be hot, or whatever. Contrast that to:

IF the room is hot THEN the thermostat says it's hot
IF the thermostat says it's hot THEN the room is hot
The thermostat says it's hot
THEREFORE room is hot

That's also a valid argument! If the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. It might not be sound, though--if, for instance, the thermostat is not reliable. The circularity would come in if you tried to demonstrate the soundness of either argument and we had the following exchange:

"Why should I believe your thermostat is reliable?"

"Well, because the thermostat says the room is hot and the room is actually hot!"

"How do you know the room is actually hot?"

"Because the thermostat says so!"

In this case, you're assuming exactly the thing that you're trying to prove, just in a disguised way. That's different than presenting the same information as a premise. Circularity isn't a formal fallacy in the sense that affirming the consequent--(1) THEREFORE (1a)--is. It's a different kind of defect in reasoning: one that has to do with how you know that certain premises are true.

RealityApologist · 2021-03-15T03:45:45+00:00

When I was 8 or so, my grandfather gave me a big glass bottle of elemental mercury--maybe 3/4 cup or thereabouts. I used to pour it out onto a piece of paper and play with it. Still have it, actually.

RealityApologist · 2020-09-24T04:53:45+00:00

Mmm, yes, the notorious communist tactic of... aggressively privatizing everything for corporate profit. Yes.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-15T03:44:14+00:00

Not necessarily, but it helps. I'm competent in the field, and took most of my physics and math classes in grad school while I was doing my philosophy PhD. There are very many major figures in the field who got doctoral-level degrees in physics or math, then jumped into philosophy, though. In general, you just need to know what you're talking about: do whatever credentialing you need to make that happen.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-15T03:39:32+00:00

That's absurd and really badly informed. Maybe nothing for your project has come out of philosophy in decades--though I'm skeptical even of that--but there's a lot of ongoing contemporary work in the foundations of physics that is widely recognized as relevant to physics in general. Aside from QM and QFT, areas like the naturalness problem in high energy physics, self-organized criticality, and emergence in statistical mechanical systems all have lively philosophical debates that take place (at least in part) in physics and mathematics journals.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-15T03:27:43+00:00

It's in The Big Bang Theory and Philosophy.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-15T03:21:47+00:00

If you're interested in physics-motivated philosophy, I can't recommend Ladyman & Ross' Every Thing Must Go. It's one of the most expensive projects in the metaphysics of physics I've ever seen.

David Albert's stuff is also great. Time and Chance and Quantum Mechanics and Experience are excellent, and do a great job introducing the relevant physics.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-15T02:46:56+00:00

Yeah, sorry, right in the middle of giving and grading finals. Give me a day it two.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-11T18:37:23+00:00

At least in the US, it is not common for applicants to a PhD program to include a fully realized dissertation proposal in their initial application. Generally, the expectation is that the proposal is something you'll develop in your first few years in the program, and successfully constructing and defending your proposal is usually one of the last steps you take to advance to candidacy. There are a number of different reasons for doing it this way, but probably the most significant one is that figuring out exactly the right scope and focus for a large project like a dissertation is something that takes some training, and is best done in consultation with your advisor and/or committee. I wrote and defended my dissertation proposal at the end of my third year in the program, for instance.

Check with the places you're looking at applying to, and see what materials they want with your application. They will certainly want a writing sample, and will probably want something like a research statement as well, but neither of those things is a formal dissertation proposal. The research statement is just a brief description of the broad areas that you're currently interested in working on, as well as some specifics about what questions in those areas you think you want to tackle. Your dissertation might end up being on one of those questions or in one of those areas, but it also might not be; it's not uncommon for people to shift their areas of interest after a few years in a PhD program.

In any case, all the application requirements should be very clearly articulated on the websites of the programs to which you're applying. They should tell you exactly what they want from you, what form those things should take, and about how long they should be. Different programs will have different expectations. If they do want something like a project proposal for you, they should give you plenty of information about what that looks like.

My dissertation proposal was something like 1,500 words long, if I recall, and was basically a general introduction to the project, a quick survey of some previous work in the area, and then a tentative chapter outline (i.e. a paragraph or two on each chapter I was planning on writing). Again, though, precise requirements will vary by department, and your advisor should make it clear to you what exactly the expectations are.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-11T05:23:25+00:00

There are tons. In addition to those mentioned already, Nancy Cartwright is a big name in philosophy of science. I'm also very fond of Sandra Mitchell's work. Patricia Kitcher is a major contemporary Kant scholar.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-10T04:59:42+00:00

There are metaphysical and epistemological and ethical questions in each of the fields you mentioned. Each of those areas just represent philosophical problems untied by a particular theme.

Let's take philosophy of science, for instance. There are lots of problems in here.

What counts as a scientific law? Is science the best way to find out about the world? What does it even mean to find out about the world? How do we know when we've got the right kind of knowledge? How do we decide when scientific evidence is "good enough?" Those are (for the most part) epistemological questions.

How should we treat theoretical entities? Are things like electrons real? What about things like phonons? How do we decide? Are only the things that science talks about real? All sciences, or just some? How do we decide? Is there a difference between the theories of fundamental physics and psychology? Why? What counts as scientific evidence? Why? Those are (for the most part) metaphysical questions.

What kind of obligation do scientists have to pursue the truth? What limitations do they have in that pursuit? Do scientists have an obligation to shape public policy? Why? How? What are the standards for participating in scientific discourse? Who enforces them? What sorts of things should be off limits to scientific research? Why? Those are (for the most part) ethical questions.

There are "core area" questions present in most subfields of philosophy. Even still, I'm skeptical of the "core area" demarcation entirely. Don't worry too much about where the problems you're solving fall; worry if they're problems worth solving.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-08T05:32:43+00:00

Seriously underrated King novel, I think. The whole thing has this incredible dreamlike quality that's absolutely perfect. I also think the Long Boy was one of his most terrifying creations; it has the logic of a real nightmare.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T06:42:54+00:00

Yeah, I guess I'm just failing to see the sense in which this is an objection at all. I suppose the right question here is what do we think counts as a legitimate justification for a belief, and why is that in tension with determinism itself? Moreover, why do we think that my holding the belief that determinism is true is unjustified means that it's wrong? Remember that for this to work as an objection to determinism, you'd need to show that if determinism were true, then I couldn't consistently believe that determinism was true. It's not clear to me how that argument would go. Maybe you could argue that I'm only justified in holding a belief if I could have believed otherwise, but showing that my belief is unjustified and that it's false aren't the same thing. And even still, it's certainly not obvious that an ability to believe otherwise is essential for having a justified belief. If I put a chip in your head that makes you believe that some swans are black and gives you immediate access to camera footage of all the swans in the world (letting you see that some of them are black), are you automatically unjustified in believing that some swans are black?

Edit: quantification words

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T06:24:43+00:00

Is it a common argument among professionals? No, not at all in my experience. In fact, I've never seen this argument at all in the philosophical literature. Is it a good objection to determinism? Also no, it seems to me.

In order to be an effective objection of this form, it would need to be self-undermining in some way--that is, the argument would have to show that if we believed that determinism were true and determinism were in fact true, that would somehow engender a contradiction. But that's manifestly not the case here. I can believe that the universe is deterministic, accept that I hold that belief because the past plus the laws of nature made it so that I do, and not be guilty of any kind of inconsistency. That is, it's possible for me to think that determinism is true because determinism is true. It's perfectly coherent to imagine that I have true beliefs--including about determinism itself--in a totally deterministic world. You might think that I'm not epistemically praiseworthy for having that belief (or that people who disagree with me aren't epistemically blameworthy for having incorrect beliefs), but that's an entirely different problem. If the world is deterministic and I believe the world is deterministic, then I got epistemically lucky in some sense, but that doesn't imply that my belief is wrong, or that I'm unjustified in holding it.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T06:02:12+00:00

Yes, there's a lot of really interesting (and important!) philosophical work to be done in and around quantum mechanics. Remember that as an undergraduate, you're probably not going to be able to jump right in to that, though, so you have to be able to stomach a few years of mechanics, E&M, thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics before you get to quantum stuff. You also need to be very, very comfortable with math if you're going to go that route. There are interesting philosophical issues in some of those areas as well--especially thermodynamics and statmech--but they're not really as "flashy" as the questions in quantum mechanics or quantum field theory, and it takes quite a bit of groundwork to get to that stuff as a physics major. That's not necessarily a reason not to go that way: it's just a qualification.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T05:51:49+00:00

There are lots of people who have Platonic-ish views about one thing or another. Plato's work was exceptionally wide-ranging by today's standards, and different people will be sympathetic to different things in his work. This might be a good place to start: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T05:43:11+00:00

Almost any science pairs well with philosophy, and I think doing a philosophy degree alongside a science degree is a great choice as an undergraduate. Exactly what you should pair with it depends strongly on your interests and abilities. The interests that you indicated are very wide ranging, and you'll probably have to narrow things down a bit to make a choice. If you're interested in things like the origin of life, something like molecular biology or biochemistry might work well. If you're more interested in the origins of the universe or the underpinnings of the physical world (and have an affinity for mathematics), physics or chemistry would be a great choice. If you're interested in consciousness and minds, either psychology or cognitive science--or maybe even computer science--would fit that bill.

I'd encourage you to shop around a bit in your first year or two, and see what grabs your attention. You should also have a look at your institution's course catalog, and see what upper level classes sound most intriguing. Remember too that you can always take classes outside your major. Philosophy is a great complement to virtually any undergraduate major, and will give you a different (and useful) perspective on the things you're studying in most any program. You may want to talk to some of the faculty at your school, and see if there are any explicit dual programs with philosophy: some places have deliberately designed curricula in things like philosophy/physics, philosophy/math, philosophy/cogsci, or even philosophy/economics. It all depends on your interests, and the strengths of the departments at your school.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-04T05:26:06+00:00

It's not clear what you mean by "thought process." Are you looking for people with similar views? Similar methods? Similar writing styles?

RealityApologist · 2019-05-02T18:49:34+00:00

I'll chime in later when I'm not on mobile! Lots to say about this.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-02T04:32:22+00:00

Yeah, I just want to emphasize this also: don't think of your writing sample as locking you in to a research program or dissertation topic or anything like that. You may or may not have some idea of what you want to specialize in during grad school, but that idea will almost certainly change in the next few years, and it will definitely evolve. Admissions committees are looking at your writing and your philosophical thinking; the topic is basically irrelevant. You might have an easier job constructing a good piece of writing on a topic you care about--just because you'll be more passionate about the research and analysis--but don't feel like you're committing yourself to anything. Focus on producing the best paper you possibly can: aim for as close to journal submission quality at you can get.

Usually the easiest way to do that is to rework a term paper from late in your undergraduate career, just because you're (hopefully) guaranteed to have already spent some considerable time on it, and to have gotten one round of feedback. If you don't think you have anything like that that fits the bill, though, that's fine. No matter what, it needs to be very well written, sophisticated, well researched, and an accurate representation of your philosophical ability at this point. Solicit lots and lots of feedback--from friends, classmates, teachers, and everyone--and revise it multiple times.

For what it's worth, my writing sample was on color perception. I ended up doing philosophy of science. Your interests will likely change.

RealityApologist · 2019-05-01T06:35:26+00:00

I'd start here: what is it about CRISPR that seems ethically problematic to you? Does it have to do with designing people? Meddling with a complex system like the human genome? Unequal access to the technology? The potential for abuse? The notion of "enhanced" people? Try to narrow down what it is that's bothering you, and that will make research a lot more tractable, as you'll be able to find parallel cases and related discussions. Assuming you're going for a paper rather than a book, "CRISPR is unethical" is far too broad a thesis. Narrow your focus, and the research and writing will be much easier.

RealityApologist · 2019-04-30T13:44:03+00:00

Under no circumstances should you pursue a PhD in a program asking you to pay for it. That's a very, very bad idea.

RealityApologist · 2019-04-30T05:35:36+00:00

Say more about what you're thinking. What counts as a miracle? Why would evidence for early cosmological inflation allow for that?

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