Philosomaxxing today

If anyone is teaching the mind-body problem at undergraduate or masters level, then I recommend this overview :) oecs.mit.edu/pub/7fjwb5k3...

TIL how AI can achieve General Intelligence. Just sprinkle behaviorism.

A good reminder from JS Mill at the start of another term. h/t @michaelhannon.bsky.social

Nothing says "I deserve a peace prize" like claiming to no longer be under an obligation to be peaceful because you didn't win a peace prize.

Definitely a philosopher. May have gazed a bit too long into the abyss. (Antykithera Philosopher. Bronze. ~240 BC)

Grueland: Green before Trump takes control, blue after.

Sorry not sorry.

They’re gonna need all that Venezuela oil for all the gaslighting

Damn

Then arc of the moral universe has a limited context window

A friendly reminder not to fall in love with your tape dispensers. (Sam Gross, 1998, New Yorker)

TIL via a NYT opinion article that maybe people who paid for a premium love bot on Replika have better, more inclusive concepts of intelligence and consciousness than I do.

I might just slap on some extra fingers and go as a low-quality deep fake of myself for Halloween

Thinking of going as a Black-Box AI for Halloween. I’ll output tricks or treats, candy or insults, without explanation. Or maybe a Black-Box AI trained on Philosophy Twitter—99% snark 1% reasons?

My prompt: "I shave any and all those who do not shave themselves". ChatGPT5 says this is a version of the Barber paradox. It's not. ("I shave all and ONLY those who do not shave themselves" is.) ChatGPT erroneously added that "the barber *only* shaves people who do not shave themselves"

“The conscientious path forward is to create educational structures that minimize the temptation to outsource thinking.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/o...

Soon we may be hearing people say: “I don’t care if she is a chatbot. I love her.”

"In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace, you aren't moving at all." -- Iris Murdoch

“By week one, I was already tired of his anti-rich, pro-Samaritan bullshit. I wanted to take a course in Christianity, not liberalism.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/sel...

After years of watching tennis, I think I finally understand what “unforced error” means.

America once took pride in not requiring citizens to carry national ID—no "Show me your papers!" Now we have to carry passports to avoid being disappeared.

Sorry, philosophers of inquiry. Spelling Bee doesn’t accept it

I’m betting this will get more likes than anything else I post

Free speech is for ideas we like; otherwise, it's sparkling terrorism

Everyone: Hitler was a murderer Elon: Ackchyually, …

Today’s episode of The Apprentice was wild!

Thom Yorke: "I'm not here. This is not happening." Pfft. This guy doesn't know how demonstratives work.

Student from my ethics class: "I actually really like this course just wished that there was more of a straight answer to questions." Me too, bruh. Me too.

US joins Russia to vote against UN resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Very sad to hear that David Keyt has passed away. I took my first ancient philosophy class with him, and a class on Gödel's incompleteness theorem. I learned so much from him. He also had a great sense of humor. A student asked him what the difference is between a lemma, theorem, and a corollary...

Adding to my slides for my meaning of life lectures.

But what about "Grueland" and "Bleenland"?

Supervillain vibes

Frantically doing a keyword search on a pending federal grant application was not on my Bingo card.

Birds can use materials intended to stop the building of nests, in order to build nests. There should be a specific label for using materials meant to prevent some act of creation or activity, for that very activity. Rebellious ad hocism?

I have a new paper coming out in Ergo about algorithmic fairness, for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing. philpapers.org/rec/FLEAFC

Accidentally wrote ‘tacos’ instead of ‘thanks’ in a work email yesterday. It was on taco Tuesday though, so I’m sticking with it.

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

Not one of Kant’s most well-known quotes. But probably more defensible. (Cafe Allegro, Seattle, some 10 or so years ago)

Ohhhh. Now I get it. The plan to lower egg prices is to cut NIH funding for medical research. Brilliant.

“Stand tall, artists. You are the true creators of value. Stand tall, philosophers. You are part of the most ancient and powerful tribe. Illegitimis non carborundum.”

Trump still obsessively going after windmills is quite quixotic

Had a great conversation with @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social about attention as power. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/o...

Around 2006, I lived near North Bend, Washington, and would occasionally go to Twede’s Cafe—the diner where Twin Peaks was filmed—to work on my dissertation. The coffee was so-so. The cherry pie was good enough. The vibes were perfectly Lynchian. RIP David Lynch.

I was going to teach my class this term entirely through TikTok videos, with dance routines for “Kant touch this”, “I think therefore I Tik”, “Gettier lucky”, “I’m on a boat (of Theseus)”…. Now what!?