Recent Responses
Are logical inferences hardwired into our brains?
Richard Heck
October 18, 2005
(changed October 18, 2005)
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One might add that it is by now well established that people are, in general, terrible at probabilistic reasoning. So if there's anything hard-wired in that case, it probably doesn't conform to the laws of probability. It's a nice question why not, but it might be, for example, that reasonin... Read more
If the future doesn't exist until it happens, then does it exist? Wouldn't that make it the present and not the future?
Peter Lipton
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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Some philosophers think that time is a lot like space: just as all places are equally real even though I am only in one place, so all times are equally real even though I am only in one time. On this view, the fact that the future exists now no more makes it present than the existence of a... Read more
How is it that I know how important an event is yet I cannot bring myself to do it even though I really want to.
Peter Lipton
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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This is the ancient and excellent question of how weakness of the will is possible. Alas it seems all too common that we don't do B, which is what we most want to do, because something less important to us -- our desire for A -- gets in the way. On the other hand, if we freely choose to do... Read more
Can we be right in viewing ourselves -- our lives, our decisions, our contributions to social issues -- as important, if that means important, period, not just important *to* someone? I mean, I'd feel meaningless if what mattered to me mattered only to me, or to any particular people...but is there a sensible way to view ourselves as important, with a capital 'I', to no-one in particular?
Jyl Gentzler
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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Alex is suggesting that unless something is “important, period,” nothing can be important at all in a way that gives meaning to human lives.
We might understand Alex’s argument for this conclusion as a kind of reductio of my suggestion that I could be reasonably satisfied with the meaning... Read more
I hear a lot of people say they believe in God because 'Who made us, the earth and the universe? It had to come from somewhere.' But if that's what you're basing your beliefs on, then shouldn't you want to know the answer to who made God? and who made who made God, and who made that? And shouldn't you be praying 'Oh all the things that made God and all the things that made them?' Ryan Gossger, Pottstown PA
Sean Greenberg
October 17, 2005
(changed October 17, 2005)
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A version of the story that Alex recounts about the sage is deployed by John Locke in Book II of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in order to suggest that the concept of substance makes no sense. Locke attributes the story to an 'Indian philosopher', and says that "the Indian...s... Read more
Is it possible for someone to think about more than one thing at exactly the same time? I don't know what it was, but sometimes I have moments when I have a song in the back of my head, and I'm thinking about something entirely different. And I never get my thoughts crossed, while maintaining the song in the back of my mind, and the thought in front.
Peter Lipton
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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Here is another sort of case. I'm driving in heavy traffic, so I must be thinking about the movement of cars around me, but at the same time I am thinking hard about a philosophical argument. And I'm a safe driver!
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Question 156 asked about thought with the absence of the common human stimuli, and the consensus seemed to be that someone deprived of their senses does not develop to a “normal” mental state. However, this brings up the question of what a “normal” mental state actually is. Isn’t it possible that there are beings, even within the examples you cited of those deprived of their senses in early life, who do not share our senses and stimuli but nevertheless have complex thoughts and even a possibly firmer grasp on the existential questions we discuss here? Isn’t it possible that these beings are simply unable to communicate these thoughts with us because we do not share a “common ground” of communication or a common interpretation of reality?
Amy Kind
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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Let's separate two questions. One is the question of whether there could be beings with mental lives far different from our own, who process the world far differently from the way we do, and with whom we can't presently communicate. I am inclined to answer that question "yes." Perhaps we are... Read more
If enough people believe in something, will it be true? For example, does reality conform to the laws that we, as a group, choose to believe in?
Joseph G. Moore
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
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It might be worth adding, nevertheless, that there are some facts that obtain in virtue of enough of the right people believing that they do. You and I are "going out" if and only if we each believe that we are--or so it seems. It also seems that the market will go up if and only if enoug... Read more
Can we be right in viewing ourselves -- our lives, our decisions, our contributions to social issues -- as important, if that means important, period, not just important *to* someone? I mean, I'd feel meaningless if what mattered to me mattered only to me, or to any particular people...but is there a sensible way to view ourselves as important, with a capital 'I', to no-one in particular?
Jyl Gentzler
October 16, 2005
(changed October 16, 2005)
Permalink
Alex is suggesting that unless something is “important, period,” nothing can be important at all in a way that gives meaning to human lives.
We might understand Alex’s argument for this conclusion as a kind of reductio of my suggestion that I could be reasonably satisfied with the meaning... Read more
According to Descartes, there is only 1 truth, I think therefore I am. But if the fact that there is only 1 truth is true then there is not only 1 truth. I would like to know what the panelists' thoughts on this are.
Sean Greenberg
October 17, 2005
(changed October 17, 2005)
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Just a couple of remarks about Descartes. First of all, Descartes doesn't even use the phrase, "I think, therefore I am" in the Meditations; the phrase only appears in the Discourse on Method. In the Meditations, Descartes writes: "So after considering everything very thoroughly I must f... Read more