The following post is a critique of a particular class of worldviews and perspectives. What is naïve realism and what do I mean by folk science? Realism is a class of philosophical positions that assert the bona fide existence of certain objects, or that certain objects have certain discernible properties. The definition is vague because…
Author: Kenneth
Cat owner, educator, learner
The imperfect Chinese room (a note on the conditions for AI consciousness)
First, a note about the obvious racism: western philosophy has long used China as the prototypical example of the foreign. In the Chinese room thought experiment, the Chinese language is used because it is not understood by the person. Ultimately, Chinese is being likened to machine code, notoriously unreadable by humans. This is not the…
Why do unlikely things happen?
I find that people often seem to have trouble understanding how an unlikely event can occur. I have heard people ascribe supernatural causes to such events, and I have also heard people express incredulity at the event occurring at all. This is one of many ways in which probability can be counterintuitive. We usually expect…
Owner, chairperson, CEO, president: Who’s really in charge of the company? An expository essay on corporate governance in the US
In a publicly traded company, the shareholders actually own the company. The shareholders collectively appoint members of the board of directors according to an agreed upon process, and the board of directors controls the company for the shareholders. The board then hires C-level executives, including CEO (chief executive officer), to do the actual work of…
Stories in the history of written language (Part 2)
In Part 1, we looked at the early development of writing, the spread of different scripts, and the historical example of ancient Egyptian. In Part 2, we’ll look at a modern example of written language, some scripts that were invented in unusual ways, and how writing has been used as an art form. The history…
(A little bit of) the math of AI
Artificial intelligence is a vague term for computer applications that carry out some kind of decision making. In general, we’re more inclined to call something AI the more sophisticated and independent its decision making capabilities are. AI are usually designed for a single task or a small collection of related tasks. Many tasks we would…
Free will, personal responsibility, and fault
I want to outline my view of these topics. First, I’ll address some major mainstream positions. Most people believe in free will; within academic philosophy, the modern free will debate is characterized as compatibilism vs. incompatibilism. The “compatibility” in question is between free will and determinism. Technically, neither of these views necessitates certain beliefs about…
Stories in the history of written language (Part 1)
Homo sapiens is the only species known to have developed language. Many other animals have the ability to communicate, especially through vocalization but also through visual displays, pheromones, etc. Human language is thought to have originated from more basic vocalizations. However, no animal aside from humans uses anything quite like written language. Like most technology,…
There is a psychiatrist who believes in the evil eye (and what that can tell us about psychology)
The evil eye is a very ancient superstition. The basic idea is that looking upon another person with hatred or envy actually curses that person. Moreover, the beholder need not intend to cast a curse on their victim; rather, the curse is a natural consequence of the person’s emotionally charged gaze. The evil eye seems…
An analysis of biological arguments against transgenderism
One of the principal types of arguments against LGBTQ+ rights is the appeal to biology. Specifically, these arguments say that humans are divided into two biological sexes and the sexes are inherently different in ways we can understand scientifically, gender corresponds exactly to biological sex, humans evolved to engage in monogamous heterosexual relationships, and so…
thoughts on mind 