Viewing profile — whittingtonaaon

I already posted a comment on this, but forgot to answer the actual question. I don’t think it follows that it’s wrong to commoditize basic necessities. Take, for example, food: th…

I think there is a big problem with housing affordability in many countries. It’s also a promising investment because, as Mark Twain says, “Buy land, they’re not making it any more…

I use the 13 mini and am satisfied. The battery life is good, which is important… but I actually prefer touchID to faceID. The reason, I guess, is more consistent success and no ac…

It’s like, people with scientistic views, praising objectivity, claiming that consciousness doesn’t exist, come out with conclusions like “a system understands Chinese.” I’m afraid…

I guess it is hard to define because it’s such a basic, essential thing. So does it matter that it’s hard to define? Even babies and puppy dogs experience pain and pleasure. They a…

I don’t know where you get the idea that these guys are dualists. Maybe Chalmers, but I don’t think so. My favorites are Nagel and Searle, and neither is a dualist or a neo-Cartesi…

When we say a camera can see—or a computer can sense—we are using an anthropocentric metaphor.

This is just full of ontological and epistemological assumptions which have been mainstream for a few decades but are very controversial among philosophers. Philosophers don’t sit …

I agree with you. The way I stated it was a little blunt. But no matter what the hard sciences show, they don’t really make claims about subjective experience. This is simply becau…

You’re right. I’m being repetitive. But it’s not really an argument. All I’m doing is saying the definition of science, at least as it’s historically been defined. The only bit of …

Because the victim is, of course.

But science has never said anything about it at all. The subject matter of science is the externally observable and consciousness is an internal category.

How can science, whose subject matter is the external world, explain the internal world of sentience? Not only has it contributed nothing to this question, it was also never suppos…

It is if you take “sentience” to mean “the ability to feel,” which is what my dictionary just told me. I think this category really is the most basic differentiating one. Higher le…

I’m not talking about self harm. I’m talking about the experience of pain—which most everyone has had! These are different things.

Philosophy is currently the only subject which can teach us about sentience (which I would define as the ability to experience.) This is because the subject matter of the sciences …

The only physical evidence is found in behavior and facial expressions. But the internal evidence is very convincing: try, for example, sticking yourself with a pin. Much if not al…

You just have to open the Preview tab.

Ask any dog if private property exists. Ownership is a very deeply ingrained, basic concept.

Our “societal system” does no such thing. If you wish to acquire something, you have to either trade for it (trade, for example, work), steal it, or acquire it from nature (as in h…

Well I have to admit, I don’t know their business model very well. But, at least in my case, if I did it for a while and calculated my reimbursement after the costs of running the …

Uber doesn’t force anyone to work for them. If they feel exploited, they quit and do something else. That the company is making a lot of money shows that there is demand among thei…

If Uber were holding guns to peoples’ heads and forcing them to work, then I would most definitely condemn them. But people work voluntarily for Uber. So I can’t see that as oppres…

But that argument portrays Uber as a godsend for such people. It sounds like without Uber, they might go hungry.

You can’t blame Uber for workers who make bad decisions, can you?