Philosophers In Space

Well, we're really in the philosophical soup of it now. Out here at the edge of the universe, doing B&Es on a Chinese Room filled with scramblers, not knowing if our sentience is the only thing worth saving our a sad joke that should be shuffled offstage in the gentlest way possible. Or maybe it already has been and we're too zombie to even notice. We're into the middle section of Blindsight, which does not get enough credit as a master work of science fiction philosophy in my opinion. We've moved from discussion of the possibility of philosophical zombies to discussion of the value of sentience/phenomenal experience. We wrestle with the limitations of several accounts of the value of consciousness. This sets us up for discussing the connections between sentience and moral realism in part 3, assuming our sentience lasts that long. The Function of Consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#FunQueWhyDoeConExi Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Thomas was just on Cog Dis talking trash about me. You should go listen and then talk trash about everyone involved to defend my honor. CONTENT PREVIEW: Blindsight and Moral Realism

Okay, well, lets see if I can convey some information to you through this absurd thing we call sentience, using this even more absurd thing called language. I'll never know if any of this is getting through, or even if there is a through to get to. If you're a zombie (and there's no reason to assume you're not) this should still work out just as well as if you're conscious. So you'll respond with happiness to hear we're covering Peter Watt's Blindsight, a treasure trove of topics in the world of philosophy of mind. Seriously, this may be the single best sci-fi on the topic of phenomenal consciousness. We start off with a discussion of philosophical zombie, of which you may or may not be one. WARNING: AFTER DARK CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE BOOK AT THE VERY END OF THE SEGMENT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED Philosophical Zombies: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/ Metzinger's phenomenal self model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_model Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Thomas was just on Cog Dis talking trash about me. You should go listen and then talk trash about everyone involved to defend my honor. CONTENT PREVIEW: Blindsight and the Value of Sentience

Well, the level of meta connections involved in these show notes has gotten so interconnected it has formed a singularity of infinite metaness. If you're reading this you're sadly trapped in the meta and will not be able to escape until things get a bit more straightforward around here. We read A Subway named Mobius and Jeremiah Traeger joined us to discuss emergent properties and how absurd they are as a term of art. Emergent Properties: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ Jerb's Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmE8jnO-2WwKYjSpRXEu2Hw/featured?view_as=subscriber&fbclid=IwAR0wFydQ9_V_XpsKwDI5qx9-UtEZiek0vQrKlt5zBEVO6QVrhcZeyARcqW4 Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Thomas was just on Cog Dis talking trash about me. You should go listen and then talk trash about everyone involved to defend my honor. CONTENT PREVIEW: Blindsight and Philosophical Zombies

::blows the conch shell of fan service:: In the spirt of social cohesion, we provide you with a triple dose of fan service. We present The Society, a much requested A- tweets in a bottle series, and we explain how it perfectly encapsulates the war of bro against bro that would arise in the absence of the social contract. To sweeten the deal, we even throw in some prisoners dilemmas and stag hunts to help understand why the state of nature is just the worst. Game Theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/ Hobbesian Trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbesian_trap Hobbes and Game Theory: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0953820809990069 Hobbes and Game Theory Revisted: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2011.00071.x Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron just gave his Moral Luck talk to the NYC Skeptics. If you have a local skeptics group and want to hear a talk get us invited! CONTENT PREVIEW: Blindsight and Philosophical Zombies

My usual urge to be snarky here is tempered by concern that we're already about to get teabagged into some hot water for our treatment of the good Dr. Who. Please forgive us our Yankness, and maybe consider a more moderate position for your media output, somewhere between 6 episodes a show and 6,000. Feels like there's room for some middle ground there. Oh right, enough meta banter, we watched Dr. Who season 2 episode 4 of the rebooted version, so the one with David Tennant. We discuss how the story is a classic case of misaligned AI and recommend several ways to better tune your AI so they don't cronenberg your ship. Enjoy! McCarthy Making Robots Conscious of their Mental States: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/56fd/32741b91482798c35c3344f9fceba7a846f0.pdf Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron just gave his Moral Luck talk to the NYC Skeptics. If you have a local skeptics group and want to hear a talk get us invited! CONTENT PREVIEW: The Society and The State of Nature AND Game Theory

An excerpt from Rorschach's rebooted journal: Viewers are afraid of HBO, for it has seen their true faces. The shows are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and boobies and when the drains finally scab over, all the bingers will drown. The accumulated filth of high budget, high concept sex and murder will foam up about their waists, and all the millennials and the boomers who's log ins they use will look up and shout "can't you make less compelling content", and HBO will look down and whisper "no." We're doing the first episode of Watchmen (with some minor references to the second episode)! The HBO version for the main show, and the movie version for NASA this month, so definitely get on that if you want to here Thomas complain about three hours of Zach Snyder. For the main show we'll be discussing the arguments for and against reparations. The case for reparations: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ The case against reparations: https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/05/case-against-reparations-kevin-d-williamson/ Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron just gave his Moral Luck talk to the NYC Skeptics. If you have a local skeptics group and want to hear a talk get us invited! CONTENT PREVIEW: The Society and the State of Nature

Here's what's going to happen, I'm going to do a matrix like voiceover and you're going to listen, and when that's over, you're going to have even less of a clue what's going on. It all started with a box... We're doing primer! Y'all asked, and we finally looped enough times to find the timeline where we deliver! You get to hear Thomas explain the 60% of the plot he was able to follow and then we haggle a bunch over the nature of time travel as per usual before settling in to argue if it's wrong to do what they do in the movie, whatever that is. The Ethics of Time Travel: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/may/time-travel.html Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron just gave his Moral Luck talk to the NYC Skeptics. If you have a local skeptics group and want to hear a talk get us invited! CONTENT PREVIEW: HBO's Watchmen and Reparations

Now imagine an even greater and glorious afrofuturist podcast, where everyone gets equitable access to boxes. What price would you be willing to pay for that podcast?! Could you truly enjoy such a podcast knowing that those who challenge the podcast are summarily executed? What if we call their objections a disease that must be cut out at the root? Better or worse? This week we're doing the N.K. Jemisin's The Ones Who Stay and Fight, and we cover the paradox of tolerance and try to interpret what the story is saying about this very relevant issue. The Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Tweets with Jemisin: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy/status/1184975338784382978 Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron just gave his Moral Luck talk to the NYC Skeptics. If you have a local skeptics group and want to hear a talk get us invited! CONTENT PREVIEW: Primer and Science without Values

Imagine a great and glorious golden podcast, filled with as many or as few boxes as your heart could desire. What price would you be willing to pay for that podcast? I don't mean on patreon, I'm talking cost in human suffering. Could you truly enjoy such a podcast knowing that it relied on the constant pain of one poor co-host at the hands of the other cohost? Would you continue to partake of the pernicious podcast, or would you be one of the ones who unsubscribes away? This week we're doing the much requested classic The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin and we're covering the various options in the field of distributive justice. Spread the love around! TOWWAFO: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Ones-Who-Walk-Away-from-Omelas-Guin/e57397df8d6841d62d5771eae936d60028fffd4e Distributive Justice: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/ Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron and Thomas each got their own episodes of GAM. Lots of bonus content! https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/scathing-atheist/god-awful-movies/e/64118049 https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=64281252 CONTENT PREVIEW: The Ones Who Stay and Fight by Jemisin

Hey friends, show notes guy here. This one's a feels show so I'm gonna play it straight. Aron Eisenberg, the actor who played Nog on DS9, passed away recently. He was a beloved member of the Star Trek community and we wanted to do a tribute episode to pay our respects. So, we brought on the perfect person to guide us through, Callie Wright. Besides being an amazing podcaster, Callie is very active in the Star Trek community and brings with her a wealth of Star Trek background stories. We cover the first episode where Nog really gets to shine, season 3 episode 14, Heart of Stone. Given his love for duty, it felt right to use this story to introduce the Deontological theory of ethics, something we'll of course develop in further episodes. We hope you pour yourself a tall glass of root bear and enjoy a bit of Nog glory. Also, Callie mentions a charity at the end of the episode, which has since stopped accepting donations. I didn't want you to think we'd just left it out. Here's the link if you're interested: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-aron-fight-to-right-this-wrong?fbclid=IwAR3XgaPcrBTRPTTvbFCyTOqb6WyQebrjxGsqNoUQelDukNePxrDuAuiowHY Callie's Show: http://www.queersplaining.com/author/callie/ Deontology: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/ Support us at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/0G Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/0gPhilosophy Join our Facebook discussion group (make sure to answer the questions to join): https://www.facebook.com/groups/985828008244018/ Email us at: philosophersinspace@gmail.com If you have time, please write us a review on iTunes. It really really helps. Please and thank you! Sibling shows: Serious Inquiries Only: https://seriouspod.com/ Opening Arguments: https://openargs.com/ Embrace the Void: https://voidpod.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6nTSfz0GmyJ1DtWsF--vvdI9W1ug3XW7IAtU6dQ36s Recent appearances: Aaron and Thomas each got their own episodes of GAM. Lots of bonus content! https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/scathing-atheist/god-awful-movies/e/64118049 https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=64281252 CONTENT PREVIEW: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas and Distribution Ethics