Recent Responses
What does it mean to be healthy? Is healthiness intrinsically good and ill health intrinsically bad? When we consider ourselves to be in good health, it seems like we are referring to a linked but disparate set of qualities such as 1) absence of pain generally and normal levels of environmentally-caused pain, 2) ability to experience normal range of pleasures, 3) lack of any bodily impediment to a full range of behaviour, and 4) absence of indication of impending issues which may lead to 1, 2, 3 or death in the future. Those are, at any rate, the qualities that I link with healthiness (though maybe it doesn't capture some issues, such as discomfort, as distinct from pain). Pain seems to be more basic and primitive than illness or health but why is it bad to be in pain? Pain is not a reliable indicator of damage to the body; it is just a feature of consciousness that has its own qualitative characteristics. Buddhism-as-therapy encourages detachment from the experience of pain in order to observe it as a spectator and view those characteristics dispassionately (or something of the sort). Levels of pain, life expectancy and degrees of freedom of action are just facts about each of us which do not seem intrinsically good or bad. We generally all share preferences about each of them (low, long and high, respectively) so is healthiness just good because it enables us to fulfil our preferences? If so, is there anything wrong with, for example, a heavy drinker who does not heed the warnings of health professionals? Can such a drinker form a rational preference for a sozzled lifestyle over her health?
Oliver Leaman
September 6, 2014
(changed September 6, 2014)
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Certainly, since even if drinking excessively is bad for us, we may choose to enjoy the sensations associated with it at the risk of future damage. She may decide that she will forego prudence for the sake of present pleasures. We do not have to want to be healthy, there are experiences a... Read more
Is there a role of mathematics in the development of human consciousness?
William Rapaport
September 6, 2014
(changed September 6, 2014)
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In addition to Hofstadter's wonderful writings, you might also be interested in work done on the relationships between mathematics and cognition (more generally than just consciousness). Take a look at these classics in that area:Rochel Gelman & C.R. Gallistel, The Child's Underst... Read more
Is there a role of mathematics in the development of human consciousness?
William Rapaport
September 6, 2014
(changed September 6, 2014)
Permalink
In addition to Hofstadter's wonderful writings, you might also be interested in work done on the relationships between mathematics and cognition (more generally than just consciousness). Take a look at these classics in that area:Rochel Gelman & C.R. Gallistel, The Child's Underst... Read more
Is it better to have a STEM degree than having a Humanities one? Most people today seem to think the Humanities are basically useless, and that the only thing worth doing is STEM. Do you have any opinions on this matter?
Andrew Pessin
September 5, 2014
(changed September 5, 2014)
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good, and timely, question. of course you're asking a bunch of humanities folks, so you might expect a not entirely unbiased answer. :-) On the other hand, it is probably the humanities folks who would be best equipped to speak to the value of a humanities degree. but just for a brief sta... Read more
Why should I be convinced by a hard determinist's argument against free will if, assuming his position is true, I am simply determined by causes other than myself to believe in free will? And I also wonder if there are professional philosophers who are hard determinists who try to convince other people of their view if in their view all people are determined (by causes other than their free choice) to believe whatever they presently believe.
Stephen Maitzen
September 4, 2014
(changed September 4, 2014)
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Your question seems to presuppose that one chooses whether to be convinced by an argument or whether to believe that one has free will. I don't find that presupposition to be psychologically plausible, and indeed it might be conceptually incoherent. Besides, wouldn't you rather form you... Read more
Atheists argue that some things are intrinsically good or evil. Pain, for example, seems to be an intrinsic evil. It is evil in and of itself; its badness is part of its intrinsic nature and is not bestowed upon it from some external source. Is there an argument for the claim that some things are intrinsically good or evil or are atheists simply begging the question against someone who maintains instead that pain is bad only because God made it so.
Stephen Maitzen
September 4, 2014
(changed September 4, 2014)
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Those who assert that pain is intrinsically bad are disagreeing with those who assert that pain is bad only because God made it so (i.e., only because God gave pain the property of badness). But I don't see how the former are begging the question against the latter, even if the former l... Read more
Does the acceptance of scientific naturalism commit one to the view that the universe is devoid of all meaning?
Stephen Maitzen
September 4, 2014
(changed September 4, 2014)
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There are at least two ways to interpret your question:
(1) Does scientific naturalism imply that no meaning at all exists anywhere in the universe?
(2) Does scientific naturalism imply that the universe itself has no meaning?
I think the answer to (1) is pretty clearly no. By "scientif... Read more
Are positive numbers in some way more basic than negative numbers?
Allen Stairs
August 28, 2014
(changed August 28, 2014)
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In more than one way, the answer is yes. It's clear that psychologically, as it were, positive numbers are more basic; we learn to count before we learn to subtract, for instances, and even when we learn to subtract, the idea of a negative number takes longer to catch onto. Also, the non-nega... Read more
If there is no god, why do people behave in a moral and ethical manner? One answer might be long-term self-interest: if you never tell a lie, for example, you will develop a favorable reputation among other people which will allow you to participate in all sorts of activities of which you would never be a part otherwise. Another answer might be "big picture" self-interest: people usually achieve more and have higher standards of living when they collaborate compared to when they compete: "competition" only works as a motivator when embedded in a broader collaborative structure first (i.e., if everyone plays by the rules, we aren't deliberately trying to injure a competitor because we don't want them trying to injure us and so we all place voluntary limits on our behaviors to promote a better outcome for all). While these answers are all well and good, there seems to be something missing: to be motivated SOLELY by self-interest, no matter how you dress it up, seems like a somewhat barren life. People also have passions, which one might consider to be supra-rational: while they may not be fully "rational" they are not "ir-"rational they transcend rationality. Passions, not logic, provide us the determination to persevere in the face of obstacles. People who believe that there is something greater than the self, of which we are a part, can draw upon this belief for a sense of connectedness with other people that provides a backdrop against which many great things can be accomplished. Much of what I just wrote, however, seems to me only to make sense in a spiritual tradition. If I understand correctly, atheists claim to reject these traditions. Other than "enlightened self-interest", is there anything else that would motivate an atheist to behave in a moral and ethical manner?
If we are only molecules in
Stephen Maitzen
May 7, 2015
(changed May 7, 2015)
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If we are only molecules in motion and a few hundred thousand years from now, the world and history will vanish, then are our moral rules any more than the rules of a club?
With all due respect to Prof. Marino, the antecedent of that question is tendentious. According to... Read more
I want ask about our trust to others, how we can thoroughly trust to others? How we know that we trust to right people? Why we must trust to others and what impact if we hard to give a trust to others?
Charles Taliaferro
August 21, 2014
(changed August 21, 2014)
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The topic of trust is very, very important on all sorts of levels, from everyday exchanges, to contributing to this website, to ordering food at a restaurant, signing a loan to buy a car....In fact, it may be that TRUST of some kind, even if it is the minimal sense of having to trust you... Read more