Mini-Heap

Links of late… (with a corrected link)

1. “This is a really grave threat to the constitutional order” — Graham Parsons, the philosopher who resigned from West Point last month, on PBS News Hour
2. For the first time ever, a patient with a genetic disorder was been successfully treated with a customized CRISPR gene editing therapy — showing a way that “gene editing technology be successfully adapted to treat individuals with rare diseases for whom no medical treatments are available”
3. “The Age of AI is the Age of Philosophy… [and] now is a great time to be a human philosopher” — Rebecca Lowe, prompted by the trend of “prompt theory” (simulation thesis) videos, sees AI as a boon for philosophy. Here is one of the prompt theory videos
4. “A philosopher is basically someone who has never grown up” — says Adrian Moore, in the inaugural episode of a new video series in which he has philosophical conversations with kids
5. Do we need “a new conception of what ‘real’ means” in order to resolve the debate over whether quantum mechanics describes “the deep nature of reality”? — Alyssa Ney examines the interplay of science and philosophy through the lens of quantum mechanics
6. “I am sorry to say that requests for clarification are still ‘a thing’ in analytic circles” — Kieran Setiya looks at at Christoph Schuringa’s “ideology critique” of analytic philosophy
7. “In its lack of clear focus, theology might be the most undisciplined discipline in the American academy today. And that undisciplined discipline feels like it’s dying” — Beatrice Marovich with a report from a neighboring discipline
8. “Our neurons… have an average firing rate of 4 hertz, 50 to 60 times less than what is optimal. What’s more, many synaptic transmissions fail.” — an article about what the brain mostly does may have you reflecting on how much normativity is implicit in our typical take on what brains (and humans) are for

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when several 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.
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