The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog
Dave Hamilton (from Gig Gab) joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to weigh concert-going (and theater-going) against the technological alternatives. Why are tickets so pricey? Do tribute bands fulfill our needs? Should audiences ideally be on drugs? These are but a few of the questions we breeze through.
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This podcast is curated by openculture.com.
Continuing on Simone Weil’s essays “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” (1939) and “Analysis of Oppression” (1934) with guest Corey Mohler.
We talk about the self-contradictions of power, why oppression and war are so intractable, and her positive solution (what there is of it here). Weil cuts through our left-right political dichotomy in a way that might interest you. Plus, why the Iliad is so great.
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End song: “Throw Down the Sword” from Wishbone Ash; hear Andy Powell on Nakedly Examined Music #51.
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Mark, Erica, and Brian take on both Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel plus the TV series, getting into the transition from page to screen, taking the work as political speech vs. art, Atwood’s phenomenology and neologisms (prayvaganza!), plus the roles of race and (lack of) comic relief in the story.
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
On Simone Weil’s essays “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” (1939) and “Analysis of Oppression” (1934).
How do circumstances oppress and dehumanize us? Weil describes the mechanisms that keep people at war and maintain oppression even through revolutions as inherent to the logic of power. With guest Corey Mohler.
Don’t wait for part two; get the full, ad-free Citizen Edition now. Please support PEL!
Dave was the original guitarist for Yo La Tengo in the mid ’80s and left to lead The Schramms for six albums plus two solo albums while being an in-demand guitarist supporting artists like Freedy Johnston, Richard Buckner, Kate Jacobs, and Chris Stamey.
We discuss three Schramms songs, “Faith is a Dusty Word” from Omnidirectional (2019), “I’ll Believe” from 100 Questions (2000), and “Wild Innocence” from Dizzy Spell (1996), and conclude by listening to another Omnidirectional tune, “The Day When.” Intro: “The Way Some People Die” from Walk to Delphi (1989). For more info, see theschramms.com.
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Are cartoons an inherently juvenile art form? A guilty pleasure when viewed by adults? Dee, whose voice can be heard in substantial portion of today’s cartoons (especially animal/monster noises like Boots in the new big-screen adaptation of Dora the Explorer or Momo and Appa in The Last Airbender), defends cartoons as providing primal delights of humor, justice, and narrative meaning.
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
Continuing on “The Present Age” (1846), plus Hubert Dreyfus’s “Nihilism on the Information Highway: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age” (2004) with guest John Ganz.
Does K’s critique actually apply to our present age? We address K’s view of humor, romance, authenticity, actual community vs. “the public,” the leveling that occurs without anyone specific actually doing it, and the virtue of silence.
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End song: “Wry Observer” by Aaron David Gleason, as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #71.
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Mark, Erica, and Brian discuss the function of super-hero films and how this new one fits in. Do we need “realism” in such stories? When does a premise like this get too old to keep recycling?
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
On Soren Kierkegaard’s essay “The Present Age” (1846) and Hubert Dreyfus’s “Nihilism on the Information Highway: Anonymity vs. Commitment in the Present Age” (2004).
What’s wrong with our society? Kierkegaard saw the advent of the press and gossip culture as engendering a systematic passivity and shallowness in his fellows, and Dreyfus thinks this is an even more apt description of the Internet Age. With guest John Ganz.
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Jonathan built his career playing 19th century Indians on horseback, was John Redcorn III in King of the Hill, Chief Ken Hotate in Parks and Recreation, was featured in The Magnificent Seven and True Grit, and is currently playing Sitting Bull in Annie Get Your Gun (also featuring Erica) in Sag Harbor.
He talks about Hollywood’s record portraying indigenous Americans, his own struggles to get native views reflected in the works he’s participated in and the differences between acting on stage vs. film and TV.
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
As it turns out, if our purpose is to test the simulator hypothesis against religious belief, it is only in the specifics that we can easily distinguish between the two. The Deist God, who creates the universe, and then leaves it to run entirely on its own, is not easily disambiguated from the hands-off simulator. One might well call them one and the same. Similarly, the Platonic ideal of good, which remains removed and remote in eternal perfection while the demiurge creates the world in imitation of it, needs not change at all if we choose to think of the demiurge as working with pixels and electrons rather than with primal matter. Such abstract, philosophical conceptions of God are general enough that even a shift as dramatic as reconceptualizing reality itself as a simulation can be integrated relatively easily. It is more of a challenge, however, to reconfigure the simulation hypothesis in order to yield the specificity of Christ.
We talk with Ned about a second Blockheads (2019) article, Michael Tyle’s “Homunculi Heads and Silicon Chips: The Importance of History to Phenomenology,” which provides a variation off of the David Chalmers fading qualia argument, and then Mark, Seth, Dylan, and Wes continue exploring the details uncovered by our interview after Ned leaves.
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End song: “Your So Dark Sleep/Goodbye” by The Black Watch, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #102.
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The Residents were formed in 1969 and have released around 50 albums of theatrical, experimental music with humor and humanity. They’re great to freak people out with. The band is anonymous; Homer is the head of their management arm, The Cryptic Corporation.
We discuss “Good Vibes” from Intruders (2019), “Blue Rosebuds,” from Duck Stab (1978) and the live Shadowland (2014), “Kiss of Flesh” from God in Three Persons (1988), and we listen to “If Only” from the Hardy Fox tribute album The Godfather of Odd (2019). Intro: “Fire (Santa Dog)” (1972) and outro: “The Simple Song” from Commercial Album (1980). For more, visit residents.com.
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Ian Maio (who’s worked in e-sports marketing) joins Erica, Brian and Mark to talk about why adults play video games, types of gamers, gaming disorders, gamer shaming, inclusivity, and more.
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com. Please go check out Modern Day Philosophers at moderndayphilosophers.net and See You on the Other Side at othersidepodcast.com.
The climax and denouement of our summer philosophy of mind series: Ned Block visits to fill in the gaps about functionalism and attributing consciousness to machines and discuss essays from Blockheads (2019), focusing here on Brian McLaughlin’s “Could an Android be Sentient?”
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Please go check out Modern Day Philosophers at moderndayphilosophers.net and See You on the Other Side at othersidepodcast.com. Also, subscribe to Mark’s Pretty Much Pop at prettymuchpop.com.
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Lucy Lawless (Xena the Warrior Princess, currently starring in My Life Is Murder) joins Mark, Erica, and Brian to think about the true crime genre, of both the documentary and dramatized variety. What’s the appeal? Why do women in particular gravitate to it?
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
Cezary Baraniecki, Laura Davis, Nathaniel Hanks, Daniel Johnson, and Jennifer Tejada. In this episode, we discuss the classic Latin American novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Continuing on Ned Block’s “Troubles with Functionalism” (1978) and David Chalmers’s “Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia” (1995).
What would it be like to be halfway between person and machine? If you think the machine can’t have consciousness, then Chalmers thinks that there’s no sensible way to describe such an experience, ergo the machine (if functionally equivalent to the person) must have consciousness after all.
Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: “Machine” by Helen Money as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #101.
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Mark, Erica, and Brian consider the HBO mini-series, plus “based on a true story” and why do we enjoy witnessing suffering?
For more, visit prettymuchpop.com. Hear bonus content for this episode, and more episodes in advance, at patreon.com/prettymuchpop.
This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
