Brain in a Vat

A debate on whether Captain Janeway should kill Tuvix, a merged individual formed from Tuvok and Neelix, or let him continue to exist. The podcast explores the ethical dilemma of killing Tuvix to save two others and discusses philosophical perspectives on identity and continuity in relation to teleportation. It also touches on the relevance of embracing authenticity in a world consumed by the digital experience machine and questions the authenticity of our existence in a simulated reality. The speakers engage in a philosophical debate about the moral implications of killing Tuvix as an independent being and discuss the concept of authorship and ownership in creative works.

Are lockdown regulations lawful? Do we have a duty to obey the law? What if the law is immoral, contradictory or unknowable?  The famous philosopher Lon Fuller wrote a thought experiment about King Rex  who failed to make law in eight different ways.  1) A failure to achieve rules at, all so that every issue must be decided on an ad hoc basis. 2)A failure to publicize, or at least make available to the affected party, the rules he is expected to observe. 3)The abuse of retrospective legislation, which not only cannot itself guide action, but undercuts the integrity of rules prospective in effect, since it puts them under the threat of retrospective change. 4)A failure to make rules understandable. 5)The enactment of contradictory rules. 6)Rules that require conduct beyond the powers of the affected party. 7) Introducing such frequent changes in the rules that the subject cannot orient his action by them. 8) A failure of congruence between the rules as announced and their actual administration.

Expert on time travel and the grandfather paradox, Helen Robertson, discusses the possibility of changing the past and creating parallel universes. They explore the differences between causal loops and paradoxes in time travel, using examples from popular movies. The podcast also touches upon the logical limitations of time travel and debates the possibility of achieving it through reversion.

Your brother has been missing for months and there is mounting evidence that he is dead. Is it rational to hope that he is alive and keep searching for him?   Is it rational to have faith in the existence of God because, if he turns out to exist, your faith may let you into heaven while a lack of faith could condemn you to hell?   Liz Jackson's public interviews: http://liz-jackson.com/public-philosophy/  Her paper on Belief, Faith and Hope: https://philpapers.org/archive/JACBFA.pdf   Thumbnail image by Jeff Lemire from Issue #1 of Royal City

Language is ambiguous at the best of times, think about how much gets lost in translation. Imagine hearing a tribesman in a remote land utter the word "gavagai" upon seeing a rabbit. A speaker of English could do what seems natural and translate this as "Lo, a rabbit."   But other translations would be compatible with all the evidence she has: "Lo, food"; "Let's go hunting"; "There will be a storm tonight" (he may be superstitious).

What can eating Marilyn Monroe's thigh and the pain of teenage heartbreak tell us about the value of human life? We discuss what makes life worth living and ending.

John Rawls thought we needed to wear a veil of ignorance to remove our biases before deciding on the rules of a just society. Are his ideas useful in a world where the elderly and the vulnerable are exposed to higher risks? Should the healthy and the well off accept limits on their freedom?

An out-of-control trolley is rumbling toward five innocent people trapped on a track. You can divert the trolley onto another track by pulling a switch, but the other track has one person on it. Do you pull the switch?  Governments around the world have used lockdowns to save lives, but this choice has had severe economic consequences. Did they pull the right switch? Hosted by Dr Jason Werbeloff and Mark Oppenheimer.