Mini-Heap
The latest links…
- “One gets the impression that twins are too messed up even for the gays” — Helena de Bres (Wellesley) on queerness, twinship, amatonormativity, and Rachel Weisz
- “The characterization of anti-realism is somewhat reductive, overlooking some of its more nuanced arguments about theory change and approximation to truth” — that’s Claude AI, critiquing a conversation between two ChatGPTs about scientific realism. An interesting experiment from Kelly Truelove.
- “Not only our readers, but also we philosophers ourselves, normally remain substantially unclear on what our skeletal mottoes really amount to until we actually try to apply them to concrete cases” — on the importance of living one’s philosophy to flesh it out, from Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside)
- Consciousness, the purpose of the universe, religion, and more — Daniel Dennett, Phillip Goff, and others are interviewed on the BBC (with some debate beginning around the 31 minute mark)
- A proper philosophical history of identity politics will take us much further back than post-modernism — try the Enlightenment, argues Jason Blakely (Pepperdine), by way of Charles Taylor
- Research has revealed that the same parts of the brain seem to show the same activity whether one is perceiving something or imagining it — so how do we distinguish perception from imagination? Perhaps Hume had (part of) the right answer, says Nadine Dijkstra (UCL)
- “By substituting this notion of functional dependence for that of explanation, we can easily realize… that infinite or circular explanations can, in some cases, be complete” — Alexandre Billon (Université Charles-de-Gaulle – Lille 3) on why it’s not unsatisfactorily “why” all the way down
plus: An upcoming APA live online session on AI & Philosophy, this Thursday.
Discussion welcome.
Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers.
The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thank you.
Related to #2: Research on having LLMs talk to each other to improve their outputs.
An excerpt: “As these AI models engage in discourse and deliberation, they’re better equipped to recognize and rectify issues, enhance their problem-solving abilities, and better verify the precision of their responses. Essentially, we’re cultivating an environment that compels them to delve deeper into the crux of a problem. This stands in contrast to a single, solitary AI model, which often parrots content found on the internet.”
Unrelated to the post but, any word on how many Israeli philosophers have been affected by the current war in Israel? Have any lost family in the massacre? Are any called up to the fighting? Do they need support?
The philosopher of science, Yemima Ben-Menahem’s grandson was murdered last Saturday.
and Palestinian philosophers?