Philosophy Now Forum

spike wrote:I have been told I don't have a sense of humor.

Don't worry, you can download an app to supply one.

The pensions crisis is not resolved by smoking-related diseases. These diseases are not lethal, they make you a cripple to be cared for by the community. I think that smoking does shorten life expectancy, and that if you impose a reasonable tax on tobacco, you can easily cover the healthcare costs....

You do know he's almost certainly a bot? Perhaps not. There are places where smoking in the home is banned: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/us/27belmont.html and some hellfire preachers will not rest until tobacco is driven from the land: http://ash.org/ This anti-smoking activity is economically...

Do you want to make your readers feel miserable, Richard? No, but when one deals with relatively complex ideas, there is a trade-off. We can use few sentences with complex structures, or we can use many sentences with simple structures, including ancillary sentences that show the logical relationsh...

Richard, honestly, by talking like this you discourage simple people from studying philosophy. I do hope not. I think that the remark makes sense in the context of the reference to Philippa Foot. If beginners do not get it, perhaps they will be inclined to take a look at Foot's work. And that would...

Hello Dave, and welcome. That's a wide range of interests, although I guess they are unified by the broad question of how we should live, both individually and collectively. The recent passing of Philippa Foot has led me to muse on precisely (or, more likely, imprecisely) how much distance we should...

John wrote:

duszek wrote:Nice Teddy !

Thanks Can you tell what he's reading?

I am not at all sure that The Communist Manifesto is suitable reading matter for bears. Bären aller Länder vereinigt euch!

I like the idea, and as you say Tom, it is already happening. I don't think it is quite as good as a traditional university where you can meet and argue over coffee (and still have access to colleagues around the world through discussion fora). But the cost is so much lower that cyber-universities c...

I missed this ethical bit? Sorry, I was casually extrapolating from what Bostrom says. He does not set out the issue in those terms. But at the bottom of page 10 and the top of page 11, he suggests that we should carry on as normal. I take that to include the ethical aspect of our lives. Ah! This i...

Hello Arising I do not know what Bostrom's own intentions were, but he does push us to take seriously the questions that he raises towards the end. We should not rule out our being in a simulation, therefore we should think hard about how ethics would look if we were. We might then draw lessons from...

So the simulation model, for me, that would fit both of these would be the one where the 'simulation' is not a deliberate one designed to suit the human but more like Conway's Life program with the laws of nature being the possible physics based upon the patterns produced by the simple calculating ...

As Étienne Gilson remarked, philosophy always buries its undertakers.

duszek wrote:Je vois la manoeuvre ... !
Richard B. wants to be asked to show the pictures of his own marriage ceremony ...

No, he does not. That was 25 years ago, and the marriage ended 19 years ago.

But what if there are no "real" laws of nature, only simulation. Perhaps we can dismiss "reality" as a failed concept. It would be interesting to see that position developed. I don't myself find it very plausible in its undeveloped state. If the choice is between hanging on to t...

RickLewis wrote:we were so busy getting our wedding vows renewed by Elvis.

Rick, I don't remember your posting a link to the video on this forum. Tragically, I think the chapel only keeps them online for a few months.