Mind-Bending Science and AI Rights
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
1w ago
Today I'm leaving the Toronto area (where I gave a series of lectures at Trent University) for the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology meeting in Cincinnati. A couple of popular op-eds I've been working on were both released today. The longer of the two (on how to react to weird scientific theories) is behind a paywall at New Scientist (but if you email me I'd be happy to share the final manuscript for personal use). The other (on AI rights) is open access at Time.com. ------------------------------------------ How to wrap your head around the most mind-bending theories of reality F ..read more
Visit website
Religious Believers Normally Do and Should Want Their Religious Credences to Align with Their Factual Beliefs
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
2w ago
Next week (at the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology) I'll be delivering comments on Neil Van Leeuwen's new book, Religion as Make-Believe. Neil argues that many (most?) people don't actually "factually believe" the doctrines of their religion, even if they profess belief. Instead, the typical attitude is one of "religious credence", which is closer to pretense or make-believe. Below are my draft comments. Comments and further reactions welcome! Highlights of Van Leeuwen’s View. Neil distinguishes factual beliefs from religious credences. If you factually believe something – for e ..read more
Visit website
The Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
2w ago
Suppose you encounter something that looks like a rattlesnake.  One possible explanation is that it is a rattlesnake.  Another is that it mimics a rattlesnake.  Mimicry can arise through evolution (other snakes mimic rattlesnakes to discourage predators) or through human design (rubber rattlesnakes).  Normally, it's reasonable to suppose that things are what they appear to be.  But this default assumption can be defeated -- for example, if there's reason to suspect sufficiently frequent mimics. Linguistic and "social" AI programs are designed to mimic superficial featu ..read more
Visit website
The Leapfrog Hypothesis for AI Consciousness
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
3w ago
The first genuinely conscious robot or AI system would, you might think, have relatively simple consciousness -- insect-like consciousness, or jellyfish-like, or frog-like -- rather than the rich complexity of human-level consciousness. It might have vague feelings of dark vs light, the to-be-sought and to-be-avoided, broad internal rumblings, and not much else -- not, for example, complex conscious thoughts about ironies of Hamlet, or multi-part long-term plans about how to form a tax-exempt religious organization. The simple usually precedes the complex. Building a conscious insect-like enti ..read more
Visit website
Could Someone Still Be Collecting a Civil War Widow's Pension? A Possibility Proof
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
1M ago
In 1865, a 14-year-old boy becomes a Union soldier in the U.S. Civil War. In 1931, at age 90, he marries an 18-year-old woman, who continues to collect his Civil War pension after he dies. Today, in early 2024, she is one hundred and ten years old, still collecting that pension. I was inspired to this thought by reflecting about some long-dead people my father knew, who survive in my memory through his stories. How far back might such second-hand memories go? Farther than one might initially suppose -- in principle, back to the 1860s. An elderly philosopher, alive today, might easily have seco ..read more
Visit website
What Types of Argument Convince People to Donate to Charity? Empirical Evidence
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
1M ago
Back in 2020, Fiery Cushman and I ran a contest to see if anyone could write a philosophical argument that convinced online research participants to donate a surprise bonus to charity at rates statistically above control. (Chris McVey, Josh May, and I had failed to write any successful arguments in some earlier attempts.) Contributions were not permitted to mention particular real people or events, couldn't be narratives, and couldn't include graphics or vivid descriptions. We wanted to see whether relatively dry philosophical arguments could move people to donate. We received 90 submissions ..read more
Visit website
Swallows and Moles in Philosophy
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
1M ago
In his review (in the journal Science -- cool!) of my recently released book, The Weirdness of the World, Edouard Machery writes: There are two kinds of philosophers: swallows and moles. Swallows love to soar and to entertain philosophical hypotheses at best loosely connected with empirical knowledge. Plato and Gottfried Leibniz are paradigmatic swallows. Moles, on the contrary, rummage through mundane facts about our world and aim at better understanding it. Aristotle, William James, and Hans Reichenbach are paradigmatic moles. Eric Schwitzgebel is unabashedly a swallow. Machery admits to hav ..read more
Visit website
The Weirdness of the World: Release Day and Introduction
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
2M ago
Today is the official U.S. release day of my newest book, The Weirdness of the World! As a teaser, here's the introduction: In Praise of Weirdness The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! the charm’s wound up. —Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene iii Weird often saveth The undoomed hero if doughty his valor! —Beowulf, X.14–15, tr anslated by J. Lesslie Hall The word “weird” has deep roots in old English, originally as a noun for fate or magic, later evolving toward its pre ..read more
Visit website
Demographic Trends in the U.S. Philosophy Major, 2001-2022 -- Including Total Majors, Second Majors, Gender, and Race
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
2M ago
I'm preparing for an Eastern APA session on the "State of Philosophy" next Thursday, and I thought I'd share some data on philosophy major bachelor's degree completions from the National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS database, which compiles data on virtually all students graduating from accredited colleges and universities in the U.S., as reported by administrators. I examined all data from the 2000-2001 academic year (the first year in which they started recording data on second majors) through 2021-2022 (the most recent available year). Total Numbers of Philosophy Majors: The D ..read more
Visit website
Credence-Weighted Robot Rights?
The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel
by Eric Schwitzgebel
2M ago
You're a firefighter in the year 2050 or 2100. You can rescue either one human, who is definitely conscious, or two futuristic robots, who might or might not be conscious. What do you do? [Illustration by Nicolas Demers, from my newest book, The Weirdness of the World, to be released Jan 16 and available for pre-order now.] Suppose you think there's a 75% chance that the robots have conscious lives as rich as those of human beings (or, alternatively, that they have whatever else it takes to have "full moral status" equivalent to that of a human). And suppose you think there's a 25% chance th ..read more
Visit website

Follow The Splintered Mind By Eric Schwitzgebel on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR