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What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

philpapers.org

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Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#71

Post by bcoates »

knowtheory wrote: post #13

What should hackers expect regarding the subjectivity/objectivity of aesthetic value? Should we have expected that particular choice to have broken down into thirds? What does it mean that it did break down into thirds? Even with a minor in philosophy & a degree in linguistics which involved a good deal of philosophies of language and mind, i'm not sure what to make of the results of this survey. Anyone have a better…

That was one of the most surprising results for me, I wasn't aware that objective aesthetics was even taken seriously.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#72

Post by tekacs »

Zikes wrote: post #61
patdennis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person who popped out of the other end of the teleporter would be doubtful. Does it make a difference if it's a teleporter that destroys the original as an necessary part of its function, vs one that destroyed the original but didn't need to do so, vs one that did not destroy the original?

I don't think there's much doubt about whether a document received via fax is the original or not, regardless of whether or not the sent document is shredded immediately after.

Yes but surely that has something to do, at least in part, with the implied reduction in quality between the sent and received document?

I would hope that any working 'teletransporter' would provide a near-enough-perfect replica?

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#73

Post by knowtheory »

Herring wrote: post #56
knowtheory wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your prejudice is showing. Philosophy is about knowing and reasoning about reality. There are charlatans who try to pass off their weak ideas through obfuscation, but there is a core to the endeavor of philosophy, and good philosophers out there making noteworthy observations about reality.

I think if you're running experiments you're called a scientist. Talking about has limited utility.

It's sad that more people don't study the philosophy and sociology of Science, especially people in engineering and the sciences.

Scientists make ontological and metaphysical claims about the nature of the universe, and unless they avail themselves of the philosophy of science there are a lot of arguments that one can't defend against.. There are a lot of fundamentalists who avail themselves of Thomas Kuhn's argument that scientific progress is entirely just cultural consensus amongst scientists, and has no additional metaphysical reality.

Fighting off that argument is squarely in the philosophy of science, as is being able to articulate what it means to observe, theorize about, and know reality.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#75

Post by goldfeld »

Wintamute wrote: post #67
patdennis wrote: post #39

Here's one of my favorites. Glad to see the pros are evenly split, because this one really toasts my brain too. Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Accept or lean toward: survival 337 / 931 (36.2%) Other 304 / 931 (32.7%) Accept or lean toward: death 290 / 931 (31.1%)

I lean towards a sort of death. But perhaps we're all dying and reanimating in between each Planck time instant anyway, in which case we shouldn't worry about it too much :)

That quite defines how I think about it. The current "me" is as different from the me within a second from now as from a theoretical me at the other end of a teleportation device that delivers me there within a second. The three selves are all distinct from each other and in fact are as distinct (and as close) to each other as from any other human being, with the caveat that the 'me's a second from now inherit all the memories and physical state from the current me, whereas a different person does not.

But in terms of selves, of consciousness, they're all isolated phenonema. I think consciousness is merely an illusion, we think we have continuity because we inherit the memories and thought processes from the self from the moment before, but all that exists is a moment of awareness (the "now"), which is analogous to a clock of a computer processor.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#76

Post by spiritplumber »

tekacs wrote: post #72
Zikes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's much doubt about whether a document received via fax is the original or not, regardless of whether or not the sent document is shredded immediately after.

Yes but surely that has something to do, at least in part, with the implied reduction in quality between the sent and received document? I would hope that any working 'teletransporter' would provide a near-enough-perfect replica?

Only if you are careful to not let flies in.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#77

Post by Zikes »

tekacs wrote: post #72
Zikes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's much doubt about whether a document received via fax is the original or not, regardless of whether or not the sent document is shredded immediately after.

Yes but surely that has something to do, at least in part, with the implied reduction in quality between the sent and received document? I would hope that any working 'teletransporter' would provide a near-enough-perfect replica?

It could create a replica that's exactly the same atom-for-atom, but it would still be a replica. Destroying the original at the source would make it a 'teletransporter', and not destroying the original at the source would make it a 'duplicator'.

By any external measure the replica could be functionally and physically identical to the original, but so long as new matter is used it would still be a replica.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#78

Post by wissler »

chime wrote: post #30

I was surprised to see so many leaning towards the switch in the Trolley problem. I still haven't made my mind on that.

One person can get out of the way more easily than 10. Of course, abstract hypothetical questions don't answer what one would do under real circumstances, e.g. there's a difference between seeing an athletic, aware guy on one track who you know can get out of the way vs. a blind lady.

Re: What professional philosophers believe – Survey results

#79

Post by RivieraKid »

memla wrote: post #68
RivieraKid wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does help to answer most of the true philosophical problems about reality etc. Many problems on that page are IMHO psychological or sociological problems, e.g. the ethical problems.

I think this claim is just confusing descriptive and normative ethics. Probably the most common confusion about ethics there is. True, descriptive ethics is almost entirely composed of various facts about human psychology and sociology, but no normative claim can be deduced from these facts alone.

My view of ethics is that it's basically just a (often vague) set of principles in our minds. Some of ethics is in our genes, some of it is cultural. Different cultures may have different ethical principles. Fundamentally, it's about feelings – something is good, because it feels good.
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