You could call it the “cryo” paradox— if death is irreversible, and cryonics patients are dead, then cryonics won’t bring them back from death; and if the patients are not dead, then cryonics won’t bring them back from death, either
Five myths about philosophy— video of a talk by Nigel Warburton, plus a discussion of it with ChatGPT, plus a brief podcast about the discussion made with Google’s new NotebookLM (from Kelly Truelove)
Is my blue your blue?— find out how your color judgment matches up with others. Could be a fun teaching tool (via Keith Wilson)
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Solution to the cryo paradox:
Cryonics doesn’t work by bringing people back from the dead. It works by reminding us of people who are dead. And how stupid they were.
Re: 4. I’m grateful for my suburban upbringing, which included Catholic schooling in Texas and California (until college), helping me cultivate what I believe (hope?) to be a “critical attitude,” as well as an abiding interest in inequality, social justice, Marxism, psychoanalysis, worldviews, science, law, history, and inter alia, philosophy. It also served to shape my views of life, death, work, leisure, ethics, and community (I concede to not being sufficiently aware of all causal forces in this regard), as well as the values of freedom and equality. Since high school, the vast majority of my jobs have involved manual labor of one kind or another (some skilled, such as carpentry), although I—unexpectedly and thus surprisingly—was able to teach part-time in a community college Philosophy Department for a bit more than 15 yrs. As for a “deep understanding” of anything—and speaking as a senior citizen— I cannot (indeed, should not) say (over the years I’ve come to appreciate the moral psychological parts played by self-deception, wishful thinking, illusions, “faking it,” deadly sins, and so forth). All the best to our post-doc lecturer!
Solution to the cryo paradox:
Cryonics doesn’t work by bringing people back from the dead. It works by reminding us of people who are dead. And how stupid they were.
Re: 4. I’m grateful for my suburban upbringing, which included Catholic schooling in Texas and California (until college), helping me cultivate what I believe (hope?) to be a “critical attitude,” as well as an abiding interest in inequality, social justice, Marxism, psychoanalysis, worldviews, science, law, history, and inter alia, philosophy. It also served to shape my views of life, death, work, leisure, ethics, and community (I concede to not being sufficiently aware of all causal forces in this regard), as well as the values of freedom and equality. Since high school, the vast majority of my jobs have involved manual labor of one kind or another (some skilled, such as carpentry), although I—unexpectedly and thus surprisingly—was able to teach part-time in a community college Philosophy Department for a bit more than 15 yrs. As for a “deep understanding” of anything—and speaking as a senior citizen— I cannot (indeed, should not) say (over the years I’ve come to appreciate the moral psychological parts played by self-deception, wishful thinking, illusions, “faking it,” deadly sins, and so forth). All the best to our post-doc lecturer!