Philosophy

From Adam Becker at Scientific American: Quantum physics, Everett pointed out, didn’t really reduce to classical physics for large numbers of particles. According to quantum physics, even normal-sized objects like chairs could be located in two totally separate places at once—a Schrödinger’s-cat–like situation known as a “quantum superposition.” And, Everett continued, it wasn’t right to appeal to classical physics to save the day, because quantum physics was supposed to be a more fundamental theory, one that underpinned classical physics. … Everett’s work fell into deep obscurity. It wasn’t revived until the 1970s, and even then, it was slow to catch on. Everett did make one last foray into the academic debate over his work; Wheeler and his colleague Bryce DeWitt Read More ›

Pos-Darwinista writes to say that Stephen Hawking’s ashes are to be interred beside those of Isaac Newton at Westminster Abby, as reported at BBC: The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, said: “It is entirely fitting that the remains of Professor Stephen Hawking are to be buried in the Abbey, near those of distinguished fellow scientists. “Sir Isaac Newton was buried in the Abbey in 1727. Charles Darwin was buried beside Isaac Newton in 1882.” He added: “We believe it to be vital that science and religion work together to seek to answer the great questions of the mystery of life and of the universe. More. Okay, yes, they’re all Brits. And Hawking did courageously fight off Read More ›

From Meghan Bartels at MSN: Hawking approaches the problem by offering a detailed analogy, comparing space-time to any other continuous, curved surface, like the surface of the Earth. “There is nothing south of the South Pole,” Hawking says. The same principle holds with the universe: “There was nothing around before the Big Bang.”More. “Nothing” is actually a big word. It can mean many different things while purporting to be one big Nothing. Fine print. Ken Francis replied to this line of thinking at New English Review: About seven years ago, during a talk on Hawking at a university, I raised my hand and criticised comments he made in his then latest book, The Grand Design, which he co-wrote with Star Read More ›

Reflecting on Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, from Denyse O’Leary at ENST: Measurement, and thus categories, come to be seen as oppressive. Recently, David Klinghoffer drew attention to modern heretic Jordan B. Peterson, a once-obscure Canadian clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University Toronto (formerly of Harvard), who has achieved worldwide infamy for saying, as an academic, nothing more than what most people believe. Klinghoffer suggests that those in sympathy with intelligent design can learn from him: “unfailingly polite, unruffled, but razor sharp, deftly resisting manipulation and intimidation at every single step.” Indeed they can, and some background may be helpful. … I was surprised by the extent to which Peterson understands Read More ›

From theoretical physicist Paul Davies at Cosmos: It turns out that the set of all points on a continuous line is a bigger infinity than the natural numbers; mathematicians say there is an uncountably infinite number of points on the line (and in three-dimensional space). You simply can’t match up each point on the line with the natural numbers in a one-to-one correspondence. … If it is continuous (and some physicists think it may not be) then it will contain an uncountably infinite number of points. But that doesn’t mean it has to go on forever. As Einstein discovered, it may be curved in on itself to form a finite volume. More. One would have thought that once we get Read More ›

Here. Readers will recall William Lane Craig and Jordan B. Peterson. They may not know of Rebecca Goldstein but, by way of brief introduction, she is Steven Pinker’s wife and he has been on our radar a few times. Enjoy! On January 26th at the University of Toronto 1500 people packed into Convocation Hall to watch a fascinating dialogue on the meaning of life featuring philosopher William Lane Craig, psychology professor Dr. Jordan Peterson, and philosopher and author Dr. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein See also: New Scientist vs. William Lane Craig on infinity explanations Canadian psychologist takes on the howling post-modern void, largely alone and Steve Pinker on faitheism Hat tip: Ken Francis, journalist and author of The Little Book of God, Read More ›

As videos: In April 2017, philosopher Alvin Plantinga received the Templeton Prize. To celebrate Plantinga’s most influential ideas and arguments, the Center for Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame is producing a series of ten videos that explore his philosophical contributions. More. First four launched. Plantinga bio here. See also: First Things, on Plantinga’s surprising Templeton win

Further to “New Scientist embraces politics,” we also learn, from Alice Klein at New Scientist, The love drug that could draw people away from any addiction: The “cuddle chemical” oxytocin boosts social bonds. Soon a version of it will be tested in pill form to see if it can reset the brain wiring that gets us hooked Would it be possible to reverse substance addiction by switching the brain back from drug-chasing mode to social mode? If McGregor’s hunch was right, this could be the silver bullet – a universal treatment for all addictions at once. (paywall) More. Prediction: The love drug won’t work because addiction is more than about finding love; it is about finding power, death, excuses, and escapes Read More ›

From Ken Francis, journalist and author of The Little Book of God, Mind, Cosmos and Truth, at New English Review: The atheist Karl Marx—whose belief in moral autonomy and non-belief in Hell was his opium—said that religion was the opium of the people. But nowadays, it seems technology, consumerism and opiates have replaced that for many. But, Francis says, they do nothing to alleviate boredom. Another philosopher, Martin Heidegger, renowned for his bleak writings, wasn’t optimistic about boredom and the technological age. He believed we might be stuck in the darkest night for the rest of human history. But some of his solutions to this problem are weak if not transient and ultimately in vain. He encouraged getting involved in local concerns Read More ›

From philosopher Edward Feser at Claremont Review of Books, reviewing Daniel Dennett’s Bacteria to Bach and Back: How do you get blood from a stone? Easy. Start by redefining “blood” to mean “a variety of stone.” Next, maintaining as straight a face as possible, dramatically expound upon some trivial respect in which stone is similar to blood. For example, describe how, when a red stone is pulverized and stirred into water, the resulting mixture looks sort of like blood. Condescendingly roll your eyes at your incredulous listener’s insistence that there are other and more important respects in which stone and blood are dissimilar. Accuse him of obscurantism and bad faith. Finally, wax erudite about the latest research in mineralogy, insinuating Read More ›

From Serif Tekin at Aeon: I call my proposed model the ‘multitudinous self’. ‘Do I contradict myself?’ asks the poet Walt Whitman in ‘Song of Myself’ (1891-92), ‘Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)’ The multitudinous self is empirically tractable and responsive to the experiences of ‘real people’ who do or do not have mental disorders. According to this model, the self is a dynamic, complex, relational and multi-aspectual mechanism of capacities, processes, states and traits that support a degree of agency. The multitudinous self has five distinct but functionally complementary dimensions: ecological, intersubjective, conceptual, private, and temporally extended. These dimensions work together to connect the individual to her body, her social world, her Read More ›

From Christian Scientific Society: The meeting will take place January 26-27 at Biola University. On Friday night, we will have a debate between David Snoke (me) and Mike Keas on “Are predatory animals a result of the Fall?” (Mike: yes; David: no). This question lies at the core of much of the debate about science and Christianity: could God have had a hand in what we consider to be natural evils? Are they the result of people’s sin, or random forces, not God? Saturday afternoon, we will have four speakers addressing issues on the general topic of natural evil More. Christian Scientific Society also notes, Save the date for the April meeting in Pittsburgh Dates are April 6-7, at the Read More ›

From math prof Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: Sean Carroll has a new paper out defending the Multiverse and attacking the naive Popperazi, entitled Beyond Falsifiability: Normal Science in a Multiverse. He also has a Beyond Falsifiability blog post here. Much of the problem with the paper and blog post is that Carroll is arguing against a straw man, while ignoring the serious arguments about the problems with multiverse research. … the problem with the multiverse is that it’s an empty idea, predicting nothing. It is functioning not as what we would like from science, a testable explanation, but as an untestable excuse for not being able to predict anything. In defense of empty multiverse theorizing, Carroll wants to Read More ›

From the Babylon Bee: One Oregon man, who rejects the idea that humanity can even be sure the universe exists in any meaningful sense, was nonetheless disturbed by the idea that websites could publish completely false information, for anyone in the world to read. “It’s just absolutely wrong, in my opinion,” said the man who doesn’t believe in absolute ideals of right and wrong at all. “What if someone reads the information and gets like, deceived? That just seems totally wicked.” More. Probably, the fabled Oregonian thinks that all news of which he disapproves is—for that very reason—fake. It makes sense. He feels he should have the power to shape the world or else command that news which he disapproves Read More ›

Philosopher Jerry Fodor attracted attention in recent years by Incorrect criticism of Darwinism. During the news flurry around his recent passing, we learned of a free pdf from Rutgers, Against Darwinism, which provides an introduction to his thought on the subject. From the conclusion: From the viewpoint of the philosopher of science, perhaps the bottom line of all this is the importance of keeping clear the difference between historical explanations and covering law explanations. Just as there is nothing obviously wrong with historical explanations, there is likewise nothing obviously wrong with covering law explanations. Roughly, they start with a world in which the initial conditions and the natural laws are specified, and they deduce predictions about what situations will transpire Read More ›