Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like…
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philosophy
Designer James Victore On Truth Telling
Q: You mentioned that a lot of people write and tell you how much they’ve been impacted by your work. What do you think touches people so profoundly? A: I don’t know. I got a message from someone this morning telling me he liked the way I told the truth. Q: How do you think…
Mumford & Sons, Descartes & Unchanging Substances part 2
And death is at your doorstep And it will steal your innocence But it will not steal your substance Above is an excerpt from the song Timshel by Mumford and Sons, the folk rock band from the UK which continues to grow exponentially in adoration. Put simply, I find their music to be exceedingly brilliant….
Mumford & Sons, Descartes & Unchanging Substances part 1
And death is at your doorstep And it will steal your innocence But it will not steal your substance Above is an excerpt from the song Timshel by Mumford and Sons, the folk rock band from the UK which continues to grow exponentially in adoration. Put simply, I find their music to be exceedingly brilliant….
The philosopher should not care about eating and drinking
The philosopher should not care about eating and drinking, but of course he should eat as much as is necessary; there is no suggestion of fasting. And we are told that Socrates, though indifferent to wine, could, on occasion, drink more than anybody else, without ever becoming intoxicated. It was not drinking that he condemned,…
The Man Who Loves Beautiful Things
Consider a man who loves beautiful things, who makes a point of being present at new tragedies, seeing new pictures, and hearing new music. Such a man is not a philosopher, because he loves only beautiful things, whereas the philosopher loves beauty in itself. The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the…
Pessimism Is Not Brave
“Pessimism is an attitude that may look brave—and I think this is really quite interesting—because there are certain people who propose it with a rather macho stance, you know: ‘I’m tough enough to see the facts!’ But it’s actually a very cowardly way of dealing with the world. Because if you only think that things…
Embodying the Abstract: Damon Lindelof Is A Great Thinker
“…because the one thing we can all relate to is character. And the harder thing to relate to are these sort of highfalutin concepts. And when we find ourselves getting away from the “who,” that’s when we start getting into trouble.” This quote came from Daman Lindeloff, one of the co-creators of LOST. He was…
Why We Believe in Causation
“I push and the world pushes back. If I am struck, I feel the presentational immediacy of pain constructed by my nerves and brain, but I experience that pain with and arising out of the physical causal energy of what strikes me. A flying rock carries physical force, and that force is the ground of…
I think he is unattractive because he is ugly
A pet peeve of mine has been bubbling over lately, and I need to set things right. What I cannot stand is when people use the phrase “begging the question” improperly. In most cases when people use the phrase “begging the question,” they mean to say that something “raises a question.” “Begging the question” is…