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REISSUE-Ep. 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al) w/ New Intro

June 10, 2019 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett. Plus a new intro by Mark, Wes, and Seth reflecting back on this 2010 discussion, which we're re-releasing to help you prepare for our upcoming episodes in this area. What is this mind stuff, and how can it "be" the brain? Can computers think? No? What if they're really sexified?  Continue Reading …

Blaming Buried Prejudice: Neil Levy on implicit bias and moral responsibility

April 26, 2015 by Gil Percival 3 Comments

If you haven’t seen it, there is a scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm when Larry David is casually walking across a parking lot having just parked his car. An African-American man walks past him in the same direction as Larry’s vehicle. Larry suddenly turns and clicks the button on his remote keyless system, locking his car doors with a swift electronic bleep that breaks the silence  Continue Reading …

Evolution is Rigged! A Review of Thomas Nagel’s “Mind and Cosmos”

February 7, 2013 by Wes Alwan 28 Comments

Subscribe to more of my writing at https://www.wesalwan.com Follow me on Twitter Thomas Nagel, a famous philosopher if there is such a thing in America, has written a book a bold title: Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. The main title invites you to settle into your armchair for an evening of speculative  Continue Reading …

Not School Digest Nov-Dec 2012: A Bonus Quasisode

December 16, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Not School

Excerpts of discussions about David Chalmers's The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos, and Paul Auster's City of Glass. What's the relation between mind and brain? What is consciousness? Can science study consciousness, and can evolution really account for it? What is the self and how does this relate to language? All these  Continue Reading …

Not School: Thomas Nagel’s “Mind and Cosmos”

December 9, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Featuring Wes Alwan, Neil Earnshaw, and Jon Turner. Recorded on 12/9/12. We discuss our dissatisfaction with Nagel's argument that evolutionary naturalism fails to explain consciousness and therefore must be supplemented by teleology. You'll find more discussion in the group.  Continue Reading …

Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos

October 24, 2012 by Getty Lustila 24 Comments

[Editor's Note: Here's a post by Getty from our Hume/Smith on ethics episode. Incidentally, Getty will be leading a Not School Reading group on Harry Frankfurt's The Reasons of Love. Go join.] Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy and law at NYU, is notorious for his heterodox philosophical positions (this was discussed a bit on PEL here). He is a scientific skeptic,  Continue Reading …

Episode 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al) (Citizens Only)

June 28, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Alan Turing

Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett. What is this mind stuff, and how can it "be" the brain? Can computers think? No? What if they're really sexified? Then can they think? Can the mind be a computer? Can it be a room with a guy in it that doesn't speak Chinese? Can science completely understand it? ...The mind, that  Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al)

June 28, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 69 Comments

Alan Turing

This is a 31-minute preview of a 2 hr, 20-minute episode. Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat  Continue Reading …

Episode 13: What Are the Metaphysical Implications of Quantum Physics?

January 3, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

Werner Heisenberg

On Werner Heisenberg’s “Physics and Philosophy" (1958), and talking about it with an actual former particle physicist, Dylan Casey. What weird stuff about reality does quantum physics imply? Is Heisenberg (of the Uncertainty Principle fame) right that we need to reject "metaphysical realism" based on this very well established scientific framework? The discussion ranges over  Continue Reading …

Episode 13: What Are the Metaphysical Implications of Quantum Physics?

January 3, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 48 Comments

Werner Heisenberg

On Werner Heisenberg’s “Physics and Philosophy" (1958), and talking about it with an actual former particle physicist, Dylan Casey. What weird stuff about reality does quantum physics imply? Is Heisenberg (of the Uncertainty Principle fame) right that we need to reject "metaphysical realism" based on this very well established scientific framework? The discussion ranges  Continue Reading …

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About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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