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December 1st, The Last Day of Class

Today in class, we wrapped up this semester by going over one more point about the entirety of the semester, noted things we got out of the course, and got to ask Thad about his views and anything we wanted. The last point we covered was that there is no good reason to assume the reliability of our memory. Coming from a psychological point of view, there really isn't in a lot of scenarios. Our memory can hold certain things better than others, especially if there are emotions involved. Our memories are flawed, whether it comes from recollection of events, or in our cases school topics. In this time of the school year students feel a lot of stress about cumulative final exams. Odds are that many students will not perform well because of the stress and the mental toll school is taking on them, and the burden of scoring high on exams feels like the world is on their shoulders for the last few weeks of school. While on the other hand, some students excel in school and knowledge comes naturally to them, as the concepts in lectures are easy and make perfect sense. Then, to some things we learned over the course of the semester. I learned that philosophy is in everyday life, with how we make decisions, and how the world works. I also learned to look at details in statements and how to pick claims apart and ask powerful questions about those statements. I can now deconstruct ideas and analyze them deeply, alter and change things around to make more sense. In the end, I really enjoyed this class, and in the future am looking to possibly take another class with Thad as my professor.

November 29th Continued

In this post, I am sharing the thought experiment I came up with related to David Hume’s view on how there’s no good reason for the claim that our future will resemble our past. So, here is my thought experiment I came up with:

An evil scientist concocts a poison, this poison is deadly and will kill any living thing with the right amount at exactly 5 minutes after consumption. The poison was tested on the main species of animals, each one died at exactly 5 minutes after consumption. Many trials were performed and the poison had a 100% success rate and perfect precision for the 5 minute death. The poison is odorless, colorless, and tasteless, literally invisible but deadly. The scientist decides to try it on a person one day. He poison’s an unconverted criminal that has committed crimes that should place him on a death sentence, so the scientist sys this is a morally right thing to do. The poison was added into a bagel that the criminal was going to eat. The criminal begins consuming the bagel, and so the scientist begins his countdown. Before the 5 minute mark hits, the criminal chokes on a bite, and suffocates to death. (Anything that could’ve killed the criminal could've happened before the 5 minute mark hit).

My question is, how does this get analyzed? Will it follow Hume’s idea since the future was inferred, but it didn't happen as the scientist expected, or does this fall into another category? I asked Thad and a couple peers and we had an interesting conversation about unforeseeable events.

November 29th

This class, we looked deeper into the view that David Hume has. David Hume says that there is no good reason for the claim that our future will resemble our past. This statement he said is going against the scientific method and anything that can help predict and make inferences about our future. No matter how certain we may seem about our future based on past events, there is no good reason to have faith that our future will resemble our past. We got into groups and discussed our views on what this means. My idea that puzzled my group was about making a claim about the past, predicting what is happening in the near future, but at the same time using judgment on the current situation to determine something. I am not sure if an instinctive judgment falls into the spectrum of using past events to determine our future or not. This overall, was a difficult and mind bending concept to grasp because a majority of people use past events to make inferences about our future. I tried to come up with a thought experiment to see what the meaning of it would be, whether it supports or objects David Hume’s view, and then ran it by Thad.

November 21st

Today, we mainly covered the same argument as last class with the same stunning prizes up for grabs. There were a lot of ideas in which my peers had their ideas, but they were no match for Thad’s knowledge and expertise. Nobody has claimed the prize yet. I have thought of some objections, but none solid enough to say out loud, and none that were in depth enough to cover the full argument. I hear what my classmates say and they seem like they are on track, but then have a point that makes them lose the argument. I Have ideas, but none that can hold a debate on the level to which they will be challenged by Thad. In the meantime I will try come up with objections and post ideas on this blog.

November 17th

This class was bring a friend day. I brought one of my good friends, that I am recommending to take this class with Thad. We went over some basic things that we went over early in the semester to introduce and welcome our friends to the class. We were then introduced to very stunning prizes, that we could win in the case that we proposed a solid objection to the thought experiment Thad modified. The prizes were some chocolate bars and $200!!! We were introduced to the tricky concept of luxury. A luxury is something one purchases the purchasing of which has very little or no positive moral value. Would refraining from a luxury purchase be morally good? Or is it immoral to refrain from purchasing and indulging in the luxury? The morally relevant difference is the difference between two situations that clearly illustrates how one agent behaves immorally while the other is morally permissible. My idea on this from a wealthy, or person with spending money is, the person worked hard to earn the money, and they can and deserve to have their luxuries because it is their own reward for hard work and they can indulge in their luxuries out of their own free will. What they do with their money is up to them whether it is immoral or morally correct. From a low income point of view, these people have their luxuries too, whether it is eating gout or just getting something very small, they will appreciate it. everyone has their own luxuries. When it comes to lives and morality of the actions like Kent and his extra air, this really puzzled me on what view to take, and what solution to land on. My idea would be for Kent to provide air to the kids, enough to survive and keep them alive, notify coast guard or someone that can save the kids, but still have enough air to go on his dive.

November 15th

I was ill and unfortunately wasn't able to make it to class

November 13th

Today in class, we covered more moral content. The biggest takeaway I got was with immoral, obligatory, and permissible. Immoral is something you cannot perform. Obligatory is that you should perform the action, regardless of the morality. Permissible is performing an action that is not immoral and like any other action you’d perform. The order of which these fall will be obligatory, immoral, and permissible. We then learned what moral nihilism is. This is when there is no such thing as moral truth, no behavior is immoral. Next, there is subject relativism and cultural relativism. In some cultures, some actions are acceptable, in others they are not permissible. There are degrees of open mindedness and tolerance in each culture and group of people. Finally, there is a tie to philosophy of religion. This is the divine command theory. Actions are morally obligatory because God commands then, and then there are immoral actions because God prohibits them. A good example of this is the ten commandments that God has for his followers and what everyone should live by. God creates morality.

November 8th

We have moved onto a new unit, ethics! Today was an introduction to the new concept, so we covered some basic points within ethics. First off, everyone makes judgments about anything, whether a person, place, and/or thing. A judgment is a situation of which we size up to our standards, then whether it fails to meet our standards, meets our standards, or exceeds them. The definition of ethics we are looking at is, the study or morality using tools and methods of philosophy. Next up there are a couple key words used in ethics and having to do with obligation, “should” and “ought.” The first case is legal, this has to do with laws and how we should follow them. Second is etiquette, this is just everyday things that should be common knowledge before encountering a situation. A couple examples are using the outside fork first when dining, especially at a fancy restaurant. Another would be a gentleman holding and opening doors for his wife. the third situation is being rational, one should not believe blatant conditions. The fourth big term is practical. This is following rules, but it isn't necessarily a big deal if they're broken, one will just miss out on something. For example, one should not show up late to philosophy with Thad. The last term(s) are moral/ethical. This is just doing the right thing according to your best judgement and morals in the given situation, this varies between different people. Next up we moved onto a few more concepts within ethics. Applied ethics are the use of moral principles, concepts, and arguments to resolve practical moral issues. Normative ethics are the search for, and justification of moral standards or norms. Some fun things that can occur in ethics and morals is the overriding of certain concepts because the reasoning for one has greater power in making a decision. I am looking forward to this unit because ethics is a fun and interesting topic. It may be a difficult concept for some however, as people have different views, beliefs, and ideas on how things should be done.

November 6th

This lecture, we continued to breakdown the metaphysical problem of free will and looked into another reply to the argument by Henry Frankfurt. Frankfurt’s reply to the argument was that he rejects premise 5. He rejected it with a thought experiment, using fictional characters, Dr. Jones, Dr. Black, and Smith. Dr. Black, in the scenario, is a dark person or being that has bad intentions, and wants to kill smith. Dr. Jones is a person that is working with Smith, which I presume to be a patient. If Dr. Jones doesn't kill Smith, then Dr. Black will make Dr. Jones kill Smith, if Dr. Jones kills smith on his own, then Dr. Black does nothing. Either way, Dr. Jones chooses to kill Smith. This is confusing to me because I was thinking if Dr. Black was actually a physically present being or if it was like the id of Dr. Jones, but based on the scenario it seems like they are just a malicious person. The key point of the scenario is that Jones is responsible for killing Smith even though Jones could not have done otherwise. That is, Jones is morally responsible without having any alternative possibility. My idea that was sparked in class was, when Jones won't kill Smith and Black takes over, Jones is not killing out of free will, or is he? Is Jones conscious, wanting, and aware that they are killing Smith? Is there any way that Jones doesn't kill Smith? If there is no way, then why can't Jones Is the objective of the situation to actually kill Smith? Or is it just Black’s will to do so, and making Jone’s do the killing for them. In the end it all comes down to Jone’s choice and Smith’s death.

November 3rd

Today we covered more of the metaphysical problem of free will. We started class by looking at the same argument as October 30th. We looked at the reply to the argument by Robert Kane. He rejects premise 3, he says that there are certain choices that form our character. The view that Robert has is a libertarian view. This is that a determined free action is impossible, an undetermined free action is possible, and clearly there are free actions. A libertarian says what our future is open, they leave room for ultimate responsibility and self-forming actions. Kane also said that, either choice, if made, would be in-deterministically caused by the beliefs and/or desires that favored the choice. Chance does not automatically rule out responsibility. We covered examples throughout the lecture about choices people (made up characters) make and how or what they do when weighing the responsibilities and desires. The example that made the most sense to me was with frat boy Freddy. Where his pledge master tell him to write the pledge master’s name on the attendance card while he is out partying, while frat boy Freddy doesn't know if he should write his own name or his pledge master’s name on the attendance card. He needs to make a choice. All in all this lecture started off as confusing to me by the way the concepts worked. Once we went through examples the topic was clarified to me. Also I took exam 2 yesterday and was satisfied with my score, so close to the A I wanted but I’ll take it!

November 1st

It is crazy to think that it is already November and the fun lectures with Thad are almost over. Today we looked at ways to respond to the metaphysical argument. A philosopher that rejects premise 2 of the previous argument we looked at is AJ Ayer. He has a conservation or compatibilism approach to the argument. The compatibilist account of free will is that you freely perform action A, you want to perform action A, therefore you perform action A. We then were asked questions. Have you ever something you did not want to do? Yes, I have, this happens often, in my life and everyone’s life. Whether that having to go to class when you don't feel like it, or when someone doesn't like they're job, but they have to go so they can earn money, etc. The second question we were asked was, who would ever use the power to do what you don't want to do? The answer to this is probably nobody. Freedom is not doing what you don’t want to do. This then ties to determinism. Your wants are determined, your wants determine what you do, so your free action is determined.

October 30th

In class, we looked at a second definition of determinism then deeply analyzed an argument about the metaphysical problem of free will. The definition of determinism we discussed in this lecture was that, at any instant, there is exactly one physically possible future. Then we were asked a question. Intuitively, what happens right before you perform a free action? My answer to this was, I weigh the possible outcomes, what will I get out of this? Is it worth the energy and time, is it a responsible thing to do? This is my answer to everyday situations that come up that would require some thought. Most things are just committed to because they are beneficial or something I need to do. Others such as eating out or making other decisions, I will ponder and weigh more. For bigger decisions that will make a significant impact to my life, there will be much more thought going into the decision. The answer to the question that Thad provided was that the free will action is done out of beliefs, desires, deliberation, brain states, environmental stimuli, and a last line that was a fill in the blank for any other factors that would impact free will. We then moved into the metaphysical problem with free will. 1. Every action is either determined or not determined. 2. If an action is determined, then the action is not free. 3. If an action is not determined, then the action is not free. 4. Thus, either way, there are no free actions! 5. Moral responsibility requires that there is a free action. 6. Thus, there is no moral responsibility. There was an objection to 3 that whether there is determinism or not, there is causal influence to the decision being made. I agree with this objection for many reasons, one example that comes to mind is peer pressure. A personal idea I noted in my notebook ties in philosophy in religion. There was scripture I read from the bible during a bible study that states how God is all knowing and loving. God weaves us in our mother’s womb, and knows everything we will do before we know what we are going to do, he thinks about us more times a day than there are grains of sand. So, even though we don't know what we will do sometimes, God knows what we are going to do because he has our lives planned out for us already. We can live our reality, or God’s reality, but God’s reality for us is way better than the reality we live when we make our own decisions, whether for the good or for the bad. Later we covered other ways to respond to the argument. Paul Holbach had the idea of hard determinism. This would say that 2 and 5 are true, more over, determinism is in fact true. Finally, incompatibilism states that determinism is incompatible with free will. That is, a determined free action is impossible. This part was a little confusing just thinking about how this can be true, I am still trying to figure out and juggle ways of how this would work out. Exam 2 is now live and I am hoping for the best as I am feeling good about taking it either today or tomorrow.

October 27th

Up to here, we have covered everything for exam 2, we are now beginning to get into content for exam 3. In class we talked about the new topic, freedom and determinism. Along with this, a couple things not related to class bugged me. First off, there are two sides to freedom and determinism, one side is free will, the other side is the morals and responsibility. Everything we do will have a weigh on either side. We do things out of free will everyday, but we also factor in morality and responsibility. Just today, I have to use this. I could’ve gone and hung out with my friends and had a good time, but then I wouldn't be able to study for exam 2 and my psychology exam, and get other homework assignments done. The determination I made was not to go out with them, and instead stay at my apartment and do work all day. I weighed the responsibility with great emphasis. Determinism is that each and every event is determined ahead of time. Determinism does not require materialism. WE then covered events. Event “E” is determined that there are antecedent sufficient causal conditions “C” for E; that is, given that conditions C occur, E had to occur. Given what precedes, the event E, event E was inevitable. Then the entailment, given prior conditions C and the laws of nature L, C & L => E. That is where we finished up class. This discussion was interesting and made good flowing sense. Now for the two things that I noticed in class that I was observing. The guy three seats over was using his personal electronic device the entire class and it was distracting, I was hoping Thad would catch it and call him out on it. Second a person in class asking questions that were way different than normal questions asked was on his laptop. This led me to presume that he wasn't a student enrolled in the class, because no other student in class takes notes on their laptop because they know Thad’s rules. Also it bugged me cause I am paying out of state tuition with some scholarship help, but I am paying to take the course, but he got to just freeload and be present for our lecture. I feel like classrooms should be more secure for that reason and many others. Despite that I got a lot out of todays lecture.

October 25th

This lecture, we covered a lot, as if we just ran a 5K and the only water fountain was a fire hydrant full of knowledge water. It was kicked off with the type identity theory, there is the types and tokens. This led to Leibniz’s law, if x=y, then x and y have exactly the same features/properties. The good example we used to describe this was about Superman and Clark Kent. What feature does one or the other have that the other one doesn't? In order to show that x is different than y, you need to find a feature that one possesses that the other doesn't. If that is the case then x does not equal y. All in all, nobody disputes Leibniz’s law. There are then some essential features, this is a key point, objects x’s essential properties are those that object x has in every possible world in which x exists. When I think of this, I think about objects that have a property that is essential to it being that object. A couple examples that come to mind are: a candle needs a wick, without it, it would just be scented wax. All humans that identify as male have a penis, etc. We then covered a couple arguments about intentionality (aboutness). A good example we did was about a picture of an object that says, “this is a pipe” but it is not a pipe, it is a picture of a pipe with that statement in it. Tricky play on words that most people will look at and not think anything of it. I have seen many examples of things with this in the real world, but now will look at those pictures and bumper stickers differently now after taking this course.

October 23rd

We kicked off class by debating about the Frank Jackson proposal. I still stand strong with my opinion that the woman learned something new, as she saw color for the first time. I think that first of all there is a lack of evidence and background information that can be broken down for hours. People in class had ideas about how the example was not dualism and she never learned something new, and so on. My proposal to the objectors of dualism is to put themselves into the woman shoes. Imagine they are color blind, go through the same things the woman did, then ask them, did you learn something new? If people looked at it as if it were them going through the change, they might believe the dualism and that they learned something new, despite the physicalism and materialism being technically the correct answer. For the rest of class, we talked about how the physicalism view is correct and topics that back it up, disproving dualism. This was a very interesting and thought provoking lecture.

October 20th

Today we looked into problems with interactionist dualism. We looked at the causal closure of the physical argument. At the end of class, we then were proposed a situation that Jackson came up with, that really determined who in class believes what side of the argument, physicalism or dualism. The argument we looked at was, if interacts is true, then some non-physical events cause some physical events. If some non-physical events cause some physical events, then there are physical events that cannot be fully explained by prior physical events. Every physical event can be fully explained by prior physical causes. Thus, no non-physical events cause any physical events. Thus, interactionism is false. From this argument, I would most disagree/object to the third statement. At least one physical event cannot be fully explained by a prior physical event. Then we went on to look at epiphenomalism. This is when physical causes mental, but mental cannot cause physical. The mind is a by product of things in the physical world. The last thing we looked at was a situation proposed by Frank Jackson. This was that if a color blind woman saw sunsets and normal things, just not in color. Some day she gets a procedure done, then she takes the bandages off her eyes and sees the sunset in color for the first time. Did she learn something new? In my opinion, yes she learned something new. She has learned what the colors actually look like. She could have known the names of colors before, but not actually been able to place the actual visual, wavelength and pigment of the color to the names before.

October 18th

Since class on Monday was cancelled, we had to make up and cover a lot of material today in class. We started by wrapping up inconsistent tetrads and getting some final thoughts in on it. I feel more comfortable with the concept especially after Thad drew visuals for us to better understand the topic. We looked at the spatial dimensions of things that would be in the mind and body to determine if they were physical or non-physical, I then determined what is tangible and intangible. We were introduced to parallelism, where neither causes the other. Physical does not cause mental, mental does not cause physical. A subtopic of this was how there are pre-established harmonies. The example that made a lot of sense for this was how there are two clocks. They both tell time, they both work and are set to the same time, but at the top of the hour, the digital clock will beep, while the analog clock does nothing special at the top of the hour, and counts that second just like it would any other minute. We moved onto problems with interactionalism dualism after that. An example of a neurological dependency argument is, if interactionalism is true, then there is not a precise one-to-one correspondence between drugs and brain disorders and mental events. There is a precise one-to-one correspondence between drugs and brain disorders and mental events. Thus, interactionalism is false [MT]. In the end of this, my takeaway is that interactionalism is false, and even though things may seem connected, there are reasons as to why are are also not connected directly.

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