i was waiting for a sign
to direct me in my indecision, and here it is: X-Phi.
no more affect, no more 'neuroeconomics', we're doing experimental philosophy (i think it's 'x'-phi, and not 'chi'-phi, though if the latter my former roomate was was ahead of the times)! the possibilities are endless.
Experiment 1: we take a just born infant - let's call her mary - and put her immediately, before a second of experience of the world outside the womb, into a sterile, white, soundproofed room. she learns everything that science has to offer - and by the time she is 20 this is a lot, 'cause in 20 years we'll have solved, like, everything. but the catch is she won't ever experience color! ha! even though she knows what color is from her reading (and understands the neuroscience to a degree we mere present mortals cannot imagine). the question: is there something about mary that is missing? something she doesn't know?
Experiment 2: we do phone surveys. asking unbiased questions like 'do you think in organized, literate, almost logical sequences of sentences, or in pictures that look like they were taken from a children's book?' to settle the age-old (or at least decades-old, damnit) question of whether or not there is useful picture-play in people's heads. i'm guessing NOT! oh, and another good one - is your Language Acquisition Device (LAD) functional, or wonky?
Experiment 3: ok, so this is a good one. zombies have recently been a problem in philosophy, probably because one of the current old poo-bahs had a fear of them when he was wee or something. but to settle the issue. people watch classic zombie movies (you know what i'm talking about) to acclimate them to the terrain upon which their clouds of imagination will scruffle. then, we have subjects imagine a case where their neighbor bill suddenly is replaced by an exact replica of him that arose from the local dump. exactly - exactly! - everything is the same about him, down to the quark. but this bill - call him bill' - doesn't actually experience anything. question: is this possible? if bill molests his cows before killing and eating them, does he not enjoy it? and regardless, is zombie bill' at fault here - is he free? or just some pile of atoms moving according to pseudo-probabilistic mechanics? is there some kind of essence that is lacking in your zombie neighbor that prevents him from really experiencing things? i think so! materialism: 0. x-phi: 1
and this is just 10 minutes into my new career! imagine decades and decades of these rigorous questions! i apologize in advance, but i'll probably be throwing new schtuff out like this for a while. talking to people is going to be so much more fun from now on, too, because the whole conversation will be just a x-phi experiment in disguise. oooh, maybe i'll get a costume!
no more affect, no more 'neuroeconomics', we're doing experimental philosophy (i think it's 'x'-phi, and not 'chi'-phi, though if the latter my former roomate was was ahead of the times)! the possibilities are endless.
Experiment 1: we take a just born infant - let's call her mary - and put her immediately, before a second of experience of the world outside the womb, into a sterile, white, soundproofed room. she learns everything that science has to offer - and by the time she is 20 this is a lot, 'cause in 20 years we'll have solved, like, everything. but the catch is she won't ever experience color! ha! even though she knows what color is from her reading (and understands the neuroscience to a degree we mere present mortals cannot imagine). the question: is there something about mary that is missing? something she doesn't know?
Experiment 2: we do phone surveys. asking unbiased questions like 'do you think in organized, literate, almost logical sequences of sentences, or in pictures that look like they were taken from a children's book?' to settle the age-old (or at least decades-old, damnit) question of whether or not there is useful picture-play in people's heads. i'm guessing NOT! oh, and another good one - is your Language Acquisition Device (LAD) functional, or wonky?
Experiment 3: ok, so this is a good one. zombies have recently been a problem in philosophy, probably because one of the current old poo-bahs had a fear of them when he was wee or something. but to settle the issue. people watch classic zombie movies (you know what i'm talking about) to acclimate them to the terrain upon which their clouds of imagination will scruffle. then, we have subjects imagine a case where their neighbor bill suddenly is replaced by an exact replica of him that arose from the local dump. exactly - exactly! - everything is the same about him, down to the quark. but this bill - call him bill' - doesn't actually experience anything. question: is this possible? if bill molests his cows before killing and eating them, does he not enjoy it? and regardless, is zombie bill' at fault here - is he free? or just some pile of atoms moving according to pseudo-probabilistic mechanics? is there some kind of essence that is lacking in your zombie neighbor that prevents him from really experiencing things? i think so! materialism: 0. x-phi: 1
and this is just 10 minutes into my new career! imagine decades and decades of these rigorous questions! i apologize in advance, but i'll probably be throwing new schtuff out like this for a while. talking to people is going to be so much more fun from now on, too, because the whole conversation will be just a x-phi experiment in disguise. oooh, maybe i'll get a costume!
1 Comments:
oh, po, i was so going to e-mail everyone that article, too.
good show.
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