StumbleUpon Zeno's "Paradox of the Arrow" passage from Biocentrismby Robert Lanza M.D.Related Posts:The Paradox Of The Infinite CircleThe Liar ParadoxThe Barber Paradox Tags: paradoxes Posted in Time Comments It's just an exercise in logic by an ancient philosopher. Consciousness Search tips There are three kinds of search you can perform: All fields This mode searches for entries containing all the entered words in their title, author, date, comment field, or in any of many other fields showing on OPC pages. Surname This mode searches for entries containing the text string you entered in their author field. Advanced This mode differs from the all fields mode in two respects. Note that short and / or common words are ignored by the search engine.
mental_floss Blog & Wacky Sci-Fi "Laws" Sci-Fi writers seem to enjoy coining Laws: adages bearing their own names that live on past their appearances in Sci-Fi stories. Here are five of my favorites, plus one bonus law (actually a Principle) from the world of cartoons. 1. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." 2. "Ninety percent of everything is crap." 3. Finagle's Law is a variant of Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will -- at the worst possible moment. "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." See also: the second law of thermodynamics. 4. Arthur C. First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. 5. Forming the basis for Isaac Asimov's fictional universe, these laws for robotic behavior have been the source of much Sci-Fi drama (I, Robot anyone?) There's also a Zeroth Law. 6. If that's not enough for you, check out Wikipedia's list of eponymous laws.
Animal Thought By Temple Grandin, Ph.D. Department of Animal Science Colorado State University Western Horseman, Nov. 1997, pp.140-145 (Updated January 2015) Temple Grandin is an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University. As a person with autism, it is easy for me to understand how animals think because my thinking processes are like an animal's. I have no language-based thoughts at all. Most people use a combination of both verbal and visual skills. A radio station person I talked to once said that she had no pictures at all in her mind. Associative Thinking A horse trainer once said to me, "Animals don't think, they just make associations." Animals also tend to make place-specific associations. Years ago a scientist named N. Fear Is the Main Emotion Fear is the main emotion in autism and it is also the main emotion in prey animals such as horses and cattle. Both animals and people with autism are also fearful of high-pitched noises. Fear-based behaviors are complex. References
Allegory of the Cave Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) Here are some students’ illustrations of Plato’s Cave Go back to lecture on the Phaedo Go back to lecture on the “One Over Many” Argument Go to next lecture on Criticism of Forms Need a quick review of the Theory of Forms? Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page Copyright © 2006, S.
The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov I received a letter from a reader the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. In the first sentence, he told me he was majoring in English Literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, here and elsewhere, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the Universe straight. I didn't go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the Universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see. The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proven to be wrong. "Wrong!"
Epistemology 1. What is Knowledge? 1.1 Knowledge as Justified True Belief There are various kinds of knowledge: knowing how to do something (for example, how to ride a bicycle), knowing someone in person, and knowing a place or a city. According to TK, knowledge that p is, at least approximately, justified true belief (JTB). Initially, we may say that the role of justification is to ensure that S's belief is not true merely because of luck. 1.2 The Gettier Problem The tripartite analysis of knowledge as JTB has been shown to be incomplete. To state conditions that are jointly sufficient for knowledge, what further element must be added to JTB? Some NTK theorists bypass the justification condition altogether. 2. When we discuss the nature of justification, we must distinguish between two different issues: First, what do we mean when we use the word ‘justification’? 2.1 Deontological and Non-Deontological Justification How is the term ‘justification’ used in ordinary language? 2.2 Evidence vs. 3. 4. 5.
The Question of Free Will Advances in brain science are calling into question the volition behind many criminal acts. A leading neuroscientist describes how the foundations of our criminal-justice system are beginning to crumble, and proposes a new way forward for law and order. On the steamy first day of August 1966, Charles Whitman took an elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower in Austin. The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note: I don’t really understand myself these days. By the time the police shot him dead, Whitman had killed 13 people and wounded 32 more. It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight … I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. Along with the shock of the murders lay another, more hidden, surprise: the juxtaposition of his aberrant actions with his unremarkable personal life. For that matter, so did Whitman.
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/ˈniːtʃə/[1] or /ˈniːtʃi/;[2] German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːt͡sʃə]; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, composer and Latin and Greek scholar. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor[3] and irony. Nietzsche's key ideas include perspectivism, the will to power, the death of God, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is "life-affirmation", which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond. Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist—a scholar of Greek and Roman textual criticism—before turning to philosophy. As his caretaker, his sister assumed the roles of curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts. Life[edit] Youth (1844–69)[edit] Nietzsche in his younger days In 1866, he read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism.
List of paradoxes This is a list of paradoxes, grouped thematically. The grouping is approximate, as paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only scenarios that have been called a paradox by at least one source and have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Logic[edit] Self-reference[edit] These paradoxes have in common a contradiction arising from self-reference. Barber paradox: A barber (who is a man) shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves. Vagueness[edit] Ship of Theseus (a.k.a. Mathematics[edit] Statistics[edit] Probability[edit] Infinity and infinitesimals[edit] Geometry and topology[edit] The Banach–Tarski paradox: A ball can be decomposed and reassembled into two balls the same size as the original.
Critias (dialogue) Timaeus Unlike the other speakers of the Critias, it is unclear whether Timaeus is a historical figure or not. While some classicists regard him as definitively historical,[3] others guess that "Plato's picture of him has probably borrowed traits from various quarters".[4] Frank assumes Archytas of Tarentum to be the person which Timaeus is partly based on.[5] On the other hand, F. Critias The latter group argues that there is too much distance of time between the oligarch Critias (460 – 403 BC) and Solon (638 – 558 BC), the famous lawmaker, who supposedly brought the Atlantis story from Egypt to Greece.[12] According to Plato, Solon told the story to the great-grandfather of the Critias appearing in this dialogue, Dropides, who then told it to his son, who was also named Critias and the grandfather of the Critias in the dialogue. On the other hand, this obviously too long time span between Solon and Critias would not be the only anachronism in Plato's work. Socrates Hermocrates Atlantis
Unsolved problems in philosophy This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Clearly, unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?" Aesthetics[edit] Essentialism[edit] In art, essentialism is the idea that each medium has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, contingent on its mode of communication. Art objects[edit] This problem originally arose from the practice rather than theory of art. While it is easy to dismiss these assertions, further investigation[who?] Epistemology[edit] Epistemological problems are concerned with the nature, scope and limitations of knowledge. Gettier problem[edit] In 1963, however, Edmund Gettier published an article in the periodical Analysis entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" In response to Gettier's article, numerous philosophers have offered modified criteria for "knowledge." Infinite regression[edit] Molyneux problem[edit] Münchhausen trilemma[edit] Qualia[edit] Ethics[edit]
Timaeus (dialogue) Participants in the dialogue include Socrates, Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, and Critias. Some scholars believe that it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who is appearing in this dialogue, but his grandfather, who is also named Critias.[1][2][3] Timaeus begins with a distinction between the physical world, and the eternal world. The speeches about the two worlds are conditioned by the different nature of their objects. Timaeus suggests that since nothing "becomes or changes" without cause, then the cause of the universe must be a demiurge or a god, a figure Timaeus refers to as the father and maker of the universe. Timaeus continues with an explanation of the creation of the universe, which he ascribes to the handiwork of a divine craftsman. (Later in history the term "demiurge" became a term of vilification by Gnostics who purported that the demiurge was a fallen and ignorant god creating a flawed universe, but this was not how Plato was using the term.)