10 Mind-Blowing Theories That Will Change Your Perception Of The World by Anna LeMind Reality is not as obvious and simple as we like to think. Some of the things that we accept as true at face value are notoriously wrong. Scientists and philosophers have made every effort to change our common perceptions of it. The 10 examples below will show you what I mean. 1. Great glaciation is the theory of the final state that our universe is heading toward. 2. Solipsism is a philosophical theory, which asserts that nothing exists but the individual’s consciousness. Don’t you believe me? As a result, which parts of existence can we not doubt? 3. George Berkeley, the father of Idealism, argued that everything exists as an idea in someone’s mind. The idea being that if the stone really only exists in his imagination, he could not have kicked it with his eyes closed. 4. Everybody has heard of Plato. In addition to this stunning statement, Plato, being a monist, said that everything is made of a single substance. 5. 6. Enternalism is the exact opposite of presentism. 7.
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments Logical Fallacies Logical Paradoxes Encyclopedia of Philosophy We're Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction Unthinkable as it may be, humanity, every last person, could someday be wiped from the face of the Earth. We have learned to worry about asteroids and supervolcanoes, but the more-likely scenario, according to Nick Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at Oxford, is that we humans will destroy ourselves. Bostrom, who directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, has argued over the course of several papers that human extinction risks are poorly understood and, worse still, severely underestimated by society. Despite his concerns about the risks posed to humans by technological progress, Bostrom is no luddite. Some have argued that we ought to be directing our resources toward humanity's existing problems, rather than future existential risks, because many of the latter are highly improbable. Bostrom: Well suppose you have a moral view that counts future people as being worth as much as present people. Of course there are also existential risks that are not extinction risks. How so?
Clash of the Titans: Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault Debate Human Nature & Power on Dutch TV, 1971 Today, we’re revisiting the clash of two intellectual titans, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, the American linguist and the French theorist/historian of ideas appeared on Dutch TV to debate a fundamental question: Is there such a thing as innate human nature? Or are we shaped by experiences and the power of cultural and social institutions around us? 42 years later, you can watch the debate on YouTube in parts or in its entirety. Looking for free, professionally-read audio books from Audible.com? Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. If you’d like to support Open Culture and our mission, please consider making a donation to our site. Related Content: Michel Foucault: Free Lectures on Truth, Discourse & The Self (UC Berkeley, 1980-1983) Michel Foucault – Beyond Good and Evil: 1993 Documentary Explores the Theorist’s Controversial Life and Philosophy
The Feminist Theory of Simone de Beauvoir Explained with 8-Bit Video Games (and More) Simone de Beauvoir, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist, author of The Second Sex, whose birthday we celebrate today. Metroid, an action-adventure video game designed for the Nintendo in 1986. At first glance, they’re not an obvious pairing. But in 8-Bit Philosophy, a web series that explains philosophical concepts by way of vintage video games, things kind of hang together. Gamers remember Metroid for being the first video game to feature a strong female protagonist, a character who blew apart existing female stereotypes, kicked some alien butt, and created new possibilities for women in the video gaming space. And that lets Metroid set the stage for talking about the intellectual contributions of Simone de Beauvoir, who, back in the late 1940s, gave us new ways of thinking about gender and gender-based hierarchies in our societies. Clocking in at just 3:45, the clip offers but a brief introduction to de Beauvoir’s theoretical work. Related Content: Free Online Philosophy Courses
ECOLOGY WITHOUT NATURE: Object-Oriented Buddhism 14—A Buddhist Fourfold Antirealism has had its fling with Buddhism. But Buddhism asserts that things are real—in particular, Buddhas! Deconstruction has claimed Buddhism as its own. But the only aspect it's really like is the cutting edge of Madhyamika reasoning (Prasangika style to be exact). The eco crew claimed Buddhism, believing that phenomenological “embeddedness” in a lifeworld constituted a blow to Cartesian dualism. The process crew wants a turn too. But for sure process philosophies have trouble with the other seven or whatever the number is (I'm counting all the different tantras as separate forms of Buddhism here). But OOO? Graham Harman's Tool-Being provides the first detailed and straightforward interpretation of Heidegger's notorious das Geviert (fourfold), an account of the thing that has baffled and embarrassed many a Heideggerian for decades. In Harman's view of the quadruple object (the title of his imminently forthcoming book), and in Buddhism, each entity has four different aspects. Sky.
Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy? There’s no doubt that Bill Nye “the Science Guy” is extremely intelligent. But it seems that, when it comes to philosophy, he’s completely in the dark. The beloved American science educator and TV personality posted a video last week where he responded to a question from a philosophy undergrad about whether philosophy is a “meaningless topic.” The video, which made the entire US philosophy community collectively choke on its morning espresso, is hard to watch, because most of Nye’s statements are wrong. Not just kinda wrong, but deeply, ludicrously wrong. He merges together questions of consciousness and reality as though they’re one and the same topic, and completely misconstrues Descartes’ argument “I think, therefore I am”—to mention just two of many examples. And Nye—arguably America’s favorite “edutainer”—is not the only popular scientist saying “meh” to the entire centuries-old discipline. “It often gets back to this question: What is the nature of consciousness?”
The Entire Discipline of Philosophy Visualized with Mapping Software: See All of the Complex Networks Daily Nous, a website about philosophy and the philosophy profession, recently featured a detailed mapping of the entire discipline of philosophy, created by an enterprising French grad student, Valentin Lageard. Drawing on a taxonomy provided by PhilPapers, Lageard used NetworkX (a Python software package that lets you study the structure and dynamics of complex networks) to map out the major fields of philosophy, and show how they relate to various sub-fields and even sub-sub-fields. The image above shows the complete map, revealing the astonishing size of philosophy as an overall field. The images below let you see what happens when you zoom in and move down to different levels. To explore the map, head over to Daily Nous–or open this image, click on it, wait for it to expand (it takes a second), and then start maneuvering through the networks. via Daily Nous Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. Related Content:
Trailblazing Physicist David Bohm and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard on How We Shape What We Call Reality We never see the world exactly as it is — our entire experience of it is filtered through the screen of our longings and our fears, onto which project the interpretation we call reality. The nature of that flickering projection has captivated the human imagination at least since Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave. Philip K. Dick was both right and wrong when, in contemplating how to build a universe, he wrote that “reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s what molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard and Buddhist-raised astrophysicist Trinh Thuan explore in The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet (public library) — an infinitely mind-bending conversation at the intersection of science and philosophy. Reality is what we take to be true. Ricard adds:
An Animated Introduction to French Philosopher Jacques Derrida Since the bold arrival of his book Of Grammatology in 1967, French philosopher Jacques Derrida has been understood—or misunderstood—as many things: a radical relativist who ”rejects all of metaphysical history,” a fashionable intellectual playing language games, a brilliant phenomenologist of language…. One association he vehemently rejected was with the kind of ironic, laissez faire postmodernism represented by Seinfeld. But when it came to clarifying his work for puzzled readers and onlookers, Derrida could seem as willfully, frustratingly evasive in person as he was on the page. His work, writes Williams College professor Mark C. Most people familiar with some of Derrida’s work know a few key terms of his thought: différance, trace, aporia, pharmakon. Derrida’s meditations on the inability of language to contain or communicate natural or metaphysical truth developed in unique life circumstances. Related Content: 140 Free Online Philosophy Courses
To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right — Quartz The 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for Pascal’s Wager which, in the first formal use of decision theory, argued that believing in God is the most pragmatic decision. But it seems the French thinker also had a knack for psychology. As Brain Pickings points out, Pascal set out the most effective way to get someone to change their mind, centuries before experimental psychologists began to formally study persuasion: When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. Pascal added: People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. Put simply, Pascal suggests that before disagreeing with someone, first point out the ways in which they’re right.