Mini-Heap

Recent links…

1. While much has been written about how current generations should wield the power they have to affect future generations, almost nothing has been written on whether that power is legitimate — but there’s a question there. Is it a good one? Emil Andersson thinks so
2. To what extent is visual perception influenced by one’s culture? — a look at some recent findings
3. “Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world” — the 21 rules of 17th Century Samurai Miyamoto Musashi (interesting on their own but also for lessons on Stoic and Buddhist philosophy)
4. “Philosophy majors scored higher than students in all other majors on standardized tests of verbal and logical reasoning, as well as on self-reports of good habits of mind, even after accounting for freshman-year differences” — Vazquez & Prinzing’s op-ed on their research (covered previously at DN) is being republished in several popular news venues
5. “It was new math… A machine just contributed original research-level mathematics” — ChatGPT-5-Pro “reasoned for 17 minutes, and produced a correct proof,” making novel progress on an open problem in math (via MR) – note: the “community notes” on X cast doubt on the veracity of this claim
6. “In living things, unlike in machines, unreliable parts make a reliable whole” and “the unreliability of biological building blocks is not a bug, it’s a feature” — a way of thinking about the difference between organisms and machines
7. “Expertise induces epistemic opacity to outsiders.” Was Aristotle aware of this problem? And what did he think the solution is? — Eric Schliesser on epistemic trespassing, synthetic philosophy, and On the Parts of Animals

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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