Blogosophy

Zombies in Comics!

qwantz.com - dinosaur comics - June 10th 2005

And, yes, they are that kind of Zombie. Quantz has a surprising amount of philosophy (and linguistics) for a clipart comic strip featuring dinosaurs.

WorldView Quiz

QuizFarm.com :: What is Your World View? (corrected...again)

This is a really weird quiz, I think, because the questions are so vague. I took it once and was outraged that it pegged me as being substantially post-modernist, so I took it again trying to divine what the questions were driving at instead of just rating them literally on the 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale. My comments after the questions are a mixture of complaining about the questions and simply explaining my thinking about them:

1 Anything can be reduced to simple understandable components.

Anything? No, of course not...it's possible to design things deliberately to avoid making them easily decomposable, not to mention the fact that there are certainly limits to what human brains are capable of apprehending (along the lines of computer-produced mathematical proofs that we believe are correct because of how they are produced, but no human being can actually hold in mind all at once). Nevertheless as a research strategy, that's the only game in town. The quiz author is undoubtably thinking that to disagree with this is to embrace the mystical, irrational and ineffable.

2 The world was a more ideal place years ago.

Yeah, why it was more ideal just last year. I guess there are people who actually believe this, for some value of years ago, but I suspect most of them aren't taking into account some pretty important things like modern medicine allowing them to survive childhood.

3 Science has destroyed or at least severely lessened the original purpose of life.

There's a glimmering of a Nietzschean idea in there, maybe, if you think that life is something that was once believed to have a purpose and that belief historically was destroyed or lessened by the advance of science. But if you're not talking about beliefs, but saying that life--not just human lives, but life itself, is actually the kind of thing that can have a purpose, it's hard to see how Science could possibly diminish or destroy that. A mad metaphysician with an De-Purposifying ray? It all seems to be a garbled way of expressing the proposition "Science undermined religious authority and that was bad."

4 Meaning always depends on the context.

Um, yeah? That's Grice, if not Wittgenstein.

5 All that exists is matter and energy.

This is the kind of thing I mean. If somebody were of a rationalist and scientific bent, and knew something about modern science, they would of course disagree--there's the whole of space-time to consider, if nothing else. What the question is trying to get at is whether you believe in either the supernatural or some form of platonism, idealism, or dualism.

6 Language itself must be put under a critical eye.

Unfortunately if you're interested in analytic philosophy answering in the affirmative to this gets you lumped in with the pomos. My take is that language must indeed be put under a critical eye--in order to understand language. If you think by doing so you're understanding something about physics or the universe, though, you've got another think coming.

7 There is no truth.

This is self-contradictory. Again, what they seem to be getting at is whether you intend to deny or affirm that there are certain universal verities (likely of morality or behavior--the kind of thing people refer to when they capitalize is as the Truth), not tricking you into admitting that everything you think is incoherent.

8 Religions have lost their focus and should be returned to their founding principles.

Like human sacrifice? Ok, this question at least does seem to straightforward. I disagree, naturally, but I don't have to second guess what it's driving at.

9 In order to progress we must look to the past.

See, as someone who did History as an undergrad, I would think that understanding the past is important for any human endeavor (whether or not you want to call that progress). But by look to the past they mean emulate the past, because agreeing with this ups your romanticism score.

10 In the end there will be a togetherness (or oneness) of all things.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I doubt it means you subscribe to the Big Crunch theory. Probably some sort of mystical gobbledygook. Agreeing ups your idealism score, but that's not how I understand philosophical Idealism, and it doesn't make much sense to me in the ordinary language sense of having strong ideals, either.

11 Mankind is condemned to be free. (there is no outside control)

Another puzzler. You could believe this because you were existentialist (which is how the quiz scores you), but you could equally well believe this because you're an orthodox Christian and believe that God has granted you free will, or for that matter a Buddhist working out your karmic debt.

12 The potential of the divine is within us.

Nah, but a simple enough question.

13 Religious dogma and scientific empiricism are both steps in the wrong direction.

Say wha-? Steps in what direction? It doesn't take much sophistication to regard those two as being orthogonal. In any case agreeing ups your cultural creative score, disagreeing drops it.

14 If given free range, humans will find their own place in the universe.

If given free range, so will chickens. Or as Buckaroo Banzai puts it, "Wherever you go, there you are." Apparently agreeing with this makes you an Existentialist.

15 Our modern society has been plagued by an absence of emotion.

It's a veritable plague, I tell you. Nothing like the mass hysterias and riots we had in the good old days, when men were more in touch with their inner hatred of their fellow men, and burning people at the stake or dashing the babies of your enemies against the rocks was regarded as a darn good idea.

16 Morals are socially constructed.

The details, sure, but a lot of the basics (concerns of justice, or at least fairness) seem to be hardwired--unless you believe Bonobos construct theirs socially.

17 There are no more heroes like there once were.

Because now we idolize athletes, unlike, say, the Greeks...

18 The majority of religious scripture should be taken literally.

Does anybody believe this? I mean even if you're a Christian Biblical literalist, would you agree that the majority of all religious scriptures should be taken literally? The Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Book of the Dead?

19 The idea of god is purely for comfort.

Well, not purely...the idea of God has been pretty uncomfortable for a lot of people (and what a lovely day it is for an auto da fe). More seriously, there's at least some evidence that it may be built in to the way brains work, at least in part (I'm thinking of the people who become religious monomaniacs when a very specific part of the brain gets damaged). My guess is that it's closer to the idea of God(s) begins as a malfunction of the part of the brain that interprets intentionality, but there are real philosophical issues on top of that. I happen to think Atheism is correct, but it's not obviously crazy or wish-fulfillment to ponder Ontological or Cosmological proofs of the existence of something that might fit the label "God".

*20 Evolution is taking us closer to the spiritual realm, whatever
that may be.*

"What do you mean we, White Man?" Even if evolution is teleological, or there's a milder time's-arrow effect towards increasing complexity, and even if that direction is towards "the spiritual realm" why would it be taking "us" rather than our successors there?

21 Everything is rational if given the right amount of effort.

Another of those where it seems that answering according to the thrust of the question (the world is basically rational) yields an opposite response to the literal interpretation (everything is ultimately rational, even the irrational).

22 Science can solve all problems and answer all questions, eventually.

Including this one? I'm not sure whether science eventually subsuming philosophy is a dream or a nightmare, but I'm pretty sure that my commitment to rationality and empiricism doesn't require that I believe it.

23 Life is just a complex arrangement of physical particles.

See prior comments.

24 Life has been a self-alienation of the divine and we're moving closer to realizing our true nature.

Another of those Bizarro idealism questions. You hear that, you stupid bacteria? You're a self-alienation of the divine! Evolve to your true nature or be damned! Bwahahaha!

25 Humans created God.

Old guy with a big white beard that sits in the clouds? Yeah. The fundamental reason, if there is one, for the existence of everything? Mebbe not so much. Whether such a thing should be identified with God is an open question, to me.

26 Our ethical nature is pre-programmed.

See prior comment about Bonobos. There are certain ways of looking at things that form the presuppositions of ethics that are natural to humans, and are in that sense "pre-programmed"; attempt to reform humans that ignore or attempt to reverse these are, imo, pretty much doomed to failure without genetic engineering or some other way of changing the wiring.

*27 Life includes and transcends fundamental physical particles. *

I think this is asking whether Vitalism is true. See previous posts on Zombies and Deadites.

28 Interpretation is an intrinsic feature of the fabric of the universe.

You might think that this was getting at some kind of modern physics interpretation, but you'd be wrong. Agreeing with this pegs you as a pomo who thinks that the fabric of the Universe is just another example of text.

29 Spirituality halts the progress of society.

Marxism is the opiate of the people who think religion is the opiate of the people.

30 There is a spiritual side to being human.

Probably. At least according to my understanding of what's the best available empirical evidence.

31 It is humanity's responsibility to progress.

Sounds like an invitation to the fallacy of division to me. Suppose humanity had such a responsibility? So what? If my suicide would help humanity to progress ought I feel moved to help humanity along in that fashion? What if I could help humanity to progress my nuking a bunch of people?

32 Scriptures should, at times, be open to symbolic interpretation.

Again, does anybody, even people who think that the Bible is the literal word of God, really think that those words are never meant symbolically? Is there someone who thinks that the parables of Jesus aren't parables? Mohammed was incapable of speaking metaphorically?

*You scored as Materialist.

Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.

Materialist 75%

Existentialist 56%

Modernist 44%

Postmodernist 38%

Romanticist 31%

Cultural Creative 25%

Fundamentalist 19%

Idealist 0%
*

Dark Thoughts at 3AM

One explanation that's been offered to explain the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations, even if intelligent life is common in the universe, is that civilizations technologically capable of producing such evidence (e.g., radio transmissions) are likely also capable of destroying themselves through war. The speculation is sometimes formulated as a race between the ability to make contact, or more tendentiously advancing philosophically to a peaceful society, and the ability to self-destruct.

One thought, though, that bothers me (particularly on a night when I can't get to sleep) is what if philosophy does indeed advance and further that nihilism is true, so that philosophers eventually prove it? What if every sufficiently advanced civilization self-destructs deliberately? Stanislaw Lem wrote a story, Fiasko, with a theme not to far from this, where a spaceship is sent to investigate a planet that shows signs of intelligent life but completely refuses all contact.

Then I get a good night's sleep and cheer up, but the thought still worries me a bit. I don't know of any good arguments against nihilism, I only know that humans aren't built to take it seriously unless they're clinically depressed.

Continuing the Zombie Discussion

Once again, I've pulled part of Camilo's comment up into an entry of its own, so it doesn't get overlooked:

Although there is no logical link between the possibility of Zombiehood, and concluding that if a Zombie can exist, then the rest of humanity must be a Zombie as well.

I think the link is pretty direct, as I'll try to explain.

If you're a physicalist, who believes that mind is just something that happens with the right configuration of matter, then according to your (physicalist) theory the fact that you can observe things exhibiting the appropriate behavior and having the appropriate physical structure counts as evidence that those things have minds¹. So there's lots of evidence for other minds.

But if you believe in the possibility of Zombiehood, then explicitly what you disbelieve is that any of that stuff counts as evidence of minds. But if that's the case, what possible reason do you have for supposing that there are any minds except the one and only case for which you do have observations of the type that you think count? It seems to me not at all kosher to help yourself to physicalist intuitions to kick-start a supposition that other minds are a possibility, let alone a probability, while strongly denying the possibility of empirical evidence of the existence of another mind in any specific candidate for Zombiehood. A person who thinks that Zombiehood is at all a live possibility owes some kind of explanation of why the existence of other minds is more than a bare logical possibility, the way other invisible intangible metaphysical entities such as malevolent senses-fooling demons are, and particularly why the rest of humanity is a better candidate than, say, rocks, clouds, glasses of water, or sunlight.

[1] I'm using have a mind to mean experiencing qualia

More Zombies

In another comment too interesting to leave hanging off an irrelevant entry, Camilo Libedinsky writes:

This is a comment on your March 16th 2004 blog on motion induced blindness... there you say: "Is it conceivable that the zombie sees but isn't really aware of seeing the yellow dot, and also sees but isn't really aware of not seeing the yellow dot, and yet somehow still can distinguish objectively between the two states (so it
can describe the illusion) just like someone with a mind?" I have a problem here with your definition of "seeing". Actually, in the rain, there are differences between the state of "seeing" the yellow dot and not "seeing" it during motion induced blindness. And that's precisely what neuroscientists are trying to pin down so as to find the neural correlates of visual perception. Back to your zombie argument, a zombie could in principle, given the change in neural activity, signal the appearance and disappearance of the yellow dot without a qualitative state associated to it. Of course here I am not at all defending the logical possibility of zombies; just pointing ut that motion induced blindness can't be used to target the zombie argument.

I think that's more or less my point, though. If neuroscientist pin down a specific brain-state that correlates exactly with "seeing" or "not seeing", that is being both aware of the perception when it's there, and aware of its absence and the peculiarity of that absence when it's not, then is there any reason not to identify that brain-state with having qualia? I mean, assuming that there's something empirical to the supposition about zombies in the first place; if there's not, then why stop at Zombies instead of going directly to Solipsism in the first place?

Top Five Philosophers

In a comment on the last post, MP asks:

Okay, so who are your all time, desert-island, top 5 philosophers? I'll go first.

1) Marcus Aurelius
2) Alain de Botton
3) Ludwig Wittgenstein
4) A. A. Milne
5) Robert Heinlein

Cheers,
-MP

By "desert island", I'm assuming that he means ones that you can read and re-read, not necessarily the philosophers that made the greatest impact, or the ones that you'd want to organize your desert island society around. On that score I'd go for Marcus Aurelius, too, even though I think Epicurus had much more influence on my thinking. But when mostly fragments and restatements survive, you want more to keep you busy on a desert island. For the same reason, I think most of the analytic philosophers fall by the wayside. Do I really want to keep rereading Wittgenstein or Searle? For me I think it's probably

1) Nietszche
2) Isaiah Berlin
3) David Hume
4) Marcus Aurelius
5) Plato

But, as usual with such lists, I reserve my right to change my mind at any time. At any time, I tell you!

The Conservative Philosopher

The Conservative Philosopher is a new group philosophy blog. The only philosopher I recognize is Roger Scruton, whom I usually find interesting and readable, but that doesn't mean much. I mean, before he'd started blogging I'd never heard of Brian Weatherson, and Thoughts, Arguments, and Rants got me started blogging about philosophy.

Tip of the hat Marginal Revolution