Recent Responses
I have a question in a very sorely neglected area of philosophy: that of chess! What does it mean for a move to be the "best"? Does it mean 1) It is the move that leads to the most winning variations? 2) It is the move that will most likely cause one's specific opponent to collapse? 3) The move that initiates or executes a plan of action that the player is most comfortable with? Or something else entirely?
Alexander George
January 5, 2009
(changed January 5, 2009)
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You're right to observe that the evaluative word "best" as applied to a chess move appears to be used in many different ways. In some circumstances, the best move will be the one that ineluctably leads to checkmate of one's opponent. (Though if that move demands subsequent overwhelming c... Read more
A friend posed a problem that according to him reveals an inconsistency in mathematics. There are two envelopes with money in them, and you are given one envelope. One envelope has twice the amount of money as the other, but you don't know which one is which. The question is, if you are trying to maximize your money, after you are given your envelope, should you switch to the other envelope if given the chance? One analysis is: let a denote the smaller amount. Either you have a or 2a in your envelope, and you would switch to 2a or a, respectively, and since these have the same chance of happening before and after, you don't improve and it doesn't matter if you switch. The other analysis is: let x denote the value in your envelope. The other envelope has either twice what is in yours or it has half of what is in yours. Each of these has probability of .5, so .5(2x) + .5(.5x) = 1.2x, which is greater than the x that you started with, so you do improve and should switch. Is there something wrong with the latter analysis? If so, where does it go wrong? Does this bear on inconsistency in mathematics or in probability?
Daniel J. Velleman
January 4, 2009
(changed January 4, 2009)
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I'd like to add a little bit to what Thomas has said. Probability problems can be tricky because the answers sometimes depend on small details about exactly what procedure was followed. For example, the problem says that "you are given one envelope." Who gave you the envelope? Did th... Read more
A friend posed a problem that according to him reveals an inconsistency in mathematics. There are two envelopes with money in them, and you are given one envelope. One envelope has twice the amount of money as the other, but you don't know which one is which. The question is, if you are trying to maximize your money, after you are given your envelope, should you switch to the other envelope if given the chance? One analysis is: let a denote the smaller amount. Either you have a or 2a in your envelope, and you would switch to 2a or a, respectively, and since these have the same chance of happening before and after, you don't improve and it doesn't matter if you switch. The other analysis is: let x denote the value in your envelope. The other envelope has either twice what is in yours or it has half of what is in yours. Each of these has probability of .5, so .5(2x) + .5(.5x) = 1.2x, which is greater than the x that you started with, so you do improve and should switch. Is there something wrong with the latter analysis? If so, where does it go wrong? Does this bear on inconsistency in mathematics or in probability?
Daniel J. Velleman
January 4, 2009
(changed January 4, 2009)
Permalink
I'd like to add a little bit to what Thomas has said. Probability problems can be tricky because the answers sometimes depend on small details about exactly what procedure was followed. For example, the problem says that "you are given one envelope." Who gave you the envelope? Did th... Read more
Has not science (more specifically, neurobiology) resolved the mind-body question? For example, we know that when the pleasure center(s) of the brain are stimulated the person experiences pleasure. Once again, we know that when we affect one certain part of the brain, this causes the person to lose consciousness. Many thanks, Todd T.
Jennifer Church
January 3, 2009
(changed January 3, 2009)
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Long before the advances of neurobiology, people recognized that certain mental states were correlated with certain physical states. Contemporary science has been able to discover more and more correlations, with more and more precision, but there are still many different understandings of... Read more
When a child asks a question like "Where do babies come from?", why do all parents consider giving an answer that is far from the truth? once on TV, a parent, in respnse to this very question raised by his baby, he stated:"When a father and a mother love each other very much, they close their eyes, and they make a wish.". For a child, that seems pretty convincing, but not at all truthful. My question is: is that really moral?
Jean Kazez
January 2, 2009
(changed January 2, 2009)
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I don't think it's wrong to lie to children, if there's a good reason for the lie. I recall my daughter hearing the word "rape" and asking what it is at a very early age. I said I didn't know with a "that's not important" tone of voice. Sure, I could have made an honest statement about her b... Read more
What makes people cruel?
Allen Stairs
January 1, 2009
(changed January 1, 2009)
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Let me offer what may seem to be an annoying answer. There are two things you might mean. One is what causes people to become cruel? And if that's the question, philosophers have no special basis for answering, since philosophers have no special insight into the causes of human conduct. But th... Read more
Why is it that the subject Philosophy is irrelevant for the secondarian level? Do we really have to wait until College just for us to enjoy this "mysterious gift"?
William Rapaport
January 1, 2009
(changed January 1, 2009)
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Iagree with Peter that the older you are, and the more you have read andstudied, the more likely it is that you will get something out of astudy of philosophy. But I think that philosophy can usefully bestudied before college (at what is called in the US the "secondary"level of education,... Read more
Hi, What are the best ways to get informed about the current research areas/topics in philosophy (especially in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science)? Thank you.
Cheryl Chen
January 6, 2009
(changed January 6, 2009)
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Here are two other sources: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/): for helpful introductions and bibliographies on topics in all (or at least very many) areas of philosophyDave Chalmers's "Mind Papers" (http://consc.net/mindpapers/): a compilation of papers in phi... Read more
Are so-called "slippery slope" arguments effectively appeals to modus tollens?
William Rapaport
January 1, 2009
(changed January 1, 2009)
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I'm not sure that there's any single standard form for a slippery slopeargument, so let's look at just one, a "sorites" or "heap": If I havea heap of stones and remove just one of them, I still have a heap. Repeating that, I will always be left with a heap. But, obviously, atleast when... Read more
I've been reading some philosophy stuff and I noticed that philosophers sometimes make a difference between "causing" and "bringing about". But I really can't understand what that difference is. My English dictionary says those verbs are synonyms. Could you help me?
Marc Lange
January 1, 2009
(changed January 1, 2009)
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I am not aware of a conventional way in which philosophers standardly draw this distinction. However, if a particular author distinguishes between "causing" and "bringing about", she might have in mind any one of several possible distinctions. Here are three candidates:
(i) causing versus being... Read more