Episode Notes and Links
Does all of reality exceed what we believe about it? Even the reality of fun? How about the reality of pain? Eric Linus Kaplan is an author (Does Santa Exist?), a TV writer (Big Bang Theory, Futurama), and an all-around philosophical dude (Buddhist monk, UC Berkeley philosophy doctoral student). Eric joins philosophy professors Richard Brown and Pete Mandik, co-hosts of the SpaceTimeMind podcast, for a discussion of ontology, clowns, parties, tattoos, dentists, and experimental philosophy.
(Audio for this episode is drawn from the last part of the video chat viewable here: @YouTube.)
Episode Notes and Links
Philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik continue their discussion from the SpaceTimeMind podcast’s Episode 11 on Scientism. Here they focus on naturalistic versions of truth and reality. Can evolution by natural selection ground our ability to represent truths that transcend usefulness? If it can’t, what can?
(Audio for this episode is drawn from the last part of the video chat viewable here: @YouTube.)
Episode Notes and Links
Neuroscientist and rock star Joseph LeDoux (NYU) joins SpaceTimeMind podcast co-hosts and philosophers Richard Brown (CUNY) and Pete Mandik (WPU) to discus the neural bases of memory, emotion, and consciousness in human and non-human brains.
(The audio for this episode is drawn from this video chat: @YouTube.)
Episode Notes and Links
Philosopher kings Richard Brown and Pete Mandik are once again joined on the SpaceTimeMind podcast by science fiction author and essayist Roger Williams. In the first part of the episode we discuss the technological singularity as well as Williams' own singularity tale, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. The themes of transformation continue on through to the last part of the episode, where we discuss Roger's essay, "Hannibal Lecter as Transhumanist Icon." So, slap some sim-stim 'trodes on your forehead, pour yourself a nice chianti, and kiss your precious meatspace goodbye, oh you pretty pre-post-humans. We're gonna find out what's at the bottom of the bag of infinite free ponies.
(The audio for this episode is drawn from this video chat: @YouTube.)
Episode Notes and Links
In this episode of the SpaceTimeMind podcast we discuss supernature, a hypothetical realm that is, in some sense, above and beyond the world accessible to the natural sciences. In part one of the episode, Richard Brown and Pete Mandik are joined by science fiction author Roger Williams. In part two, we are joined by philosopher Gregg Caruso, who you may remember from episode 7 on free will. If you notice anything strange occurring while you listen to this episode, please let us know about it at spacetimemind.com. It may have just been a coincidence. Or it may, just possibly, have been an intrusion into our world from the world of SUPERNATURE.
(The audio for this episode is drawn from this video chat with Roger Williams and this video chat with Gregg Caruso.)
Episode Notes and Links
A 3-D object, fully present in the now, walks into a bar where the bartender is a 4-D spacetime worm. The worm asks the object “Why so tense?” Further instantiations of such high-grade philoso-physical hilarity ensue in this, the third episode of the SpaceTimeMind podcast on the topic of time. Brit Brogaard is back by popular demand, and this time a Brogaard/Brown presentist team-up gives Pete “Erstwhile Eternalist” Mandik a run for his money…forever.
(The edited audio of this episode is drawn from the first half of the video, "Brit Brogaard on the Metaphysics of Time and the Neurophilosophy of Consciousness" viewable on theSpaceTimeMind YouTube channel.)
Richard Brown from ground control talks Pete Mandik through some repairs to the mothership. Along the way they find time to discuss the question of whether you can be absolutely certain that you have conscious experiences.
Episode Notes and Links
Hide your brains; the neurophilosophers are coming! Philosopher and neuroscientist Berit (Brit) Brogaard joins Richard Brown and Pete Mandik on the SpaceTimeMind podcast to discuss what makes some states of the mind or brain conscious and others unconscious. Is this sort of question answerable from a psychological or philosophical perspective that makes no essential reference to neuroscience? Or, instead, are neuroscientific data unavoidable in this domain? And: Can Brit go a full ten minutes without using the word “brain?"
(The edited audio of this episode is drawn from the second half of the video, "Brit Brogaard on the Metaphysics of Time and the Neurophilosophy of Consciousness" viewable on the SpaceTimeMind YouTube channel.)
Philosopher and neuroscientist Brit Brogaard joins Richard Brown and Pete Mandik to discuss the nature of time and the conscious experience of time.
Speaking of MindChunks, what are the metaphysical consequences of the supposition that the brain is a finite system of chunks that can each be in only a finite number of states?
Pete Mandik on Turing's argument from the finite nature of the brain.
Episode Notes and Links
Episode Notes
In this episode of the SpaceTimeMind podcast, Richard Brown and Pete Mandik continue their discussion from Episode 9 ("A Journey to the Edge of Hypertime”) and consider the view that time constitutes a fourth dimension analogous to the three spatial dimensions of height, width, and depth. What’s gained and what’s lost in viewing moments other than the present as analogous to places other than here? Do we lose an ability to account for change and motion? And if a computer simulation of a brain can have consciousness when we run the program, could it have consciousness even when the program isn’t being run?
Links
- SpaceTimeMind Episode 9: "A Journey to the Edge of Hypertime”
- "Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.” -- Ray Cummings. Quote often misattributed to Woody Allen. See also John Archibald Wheeler @WikiQuote
- Richard Brown and Pete Mandik "On Whether the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness Entails Cognitive Phenomenology, or: What is it Like to Think that One Thinks that P?” @PhilPapers
- Ruth Milikan’s Dewey Lecture
- Richard Dawkins interviews Deepak Chopra @YouTube
- "Time In Time": supercut of "time"-based dialog from movie "In Time" @YouTube
- The Ritdijk-Putnam argument @Wikipedia
You are listening to SpaceTimeMind, a podcast by two philosophy professors, Richard Brown and Pete Mandik, who talk about philosophy, science, and all sorts of other stuff. Please be advised that this podcast contains strong language and abstract ideas not suitable for all intelligent lifeforms.
Our helper drones took some time off from repairing the mothership to whip up yet another theatrical trailer giving glory to the great blue mind-sack and also to our excellent and esteemed forthcoming guests on the SpaceTimeMind podcast. Orient your irritable surfaces screenward and let your lobes luxuriate in this premium infotainment.
Coming this fall on the SpaceTimeMind podcast: Philosophy professor co-hosts Richard Brown and Pete Mandik are joined by neuroscientist Joe LeDoux, philosopher-scientist Brit Brogaard, and science fiction author Roger Williams to discuss topics including, but not limited to: consciousness, the singularity, the physics and metaphysics of time, memory and emotion, the simulation hypothesis, and music.
If you haven't already, direct your clicking finger (or tentacle) to the SpaceTimeMind RequestBucket. Taking a peek at what others have requested is like taking a peek into the future. Deposit something yourself while over there. Do not insert head into bucket. Bucket is a tool, not a toy.
In today's MindChunk we bring you an uplifting discussion (although the part about cannibalism in the middle gets a little NSFW). Animal "uplift" is basically transhumanism for animals. See, for example, The Planet of the Apes. See also the Arcturean major cow from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, an animal genetically engineered to talk you into eating it. Psychologist Lara Beaty joins philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik for the discussion. The longer discussion appears as Episode 6 of the SpaceTimeMind podcast: "The Extended Mind (with Lara Beaty)."
Download: MP3 Audio (96MB)
Episode Notes and Links
Episode Notes
Good news, everybody! SpaceTimeMind turns it up to 11 as science-obsessed philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik duke it out over which one is the most egregious purveyor of scientism, the view that anything worth knowing is worth knowing scientifically. Or is scientism just empiricism? And what the bleep is that, anyway? Is it simply an affirmation of the superiority of sensory knowledge? Or is it at bottom a denial of necessary truths? Or is being a scientismologist just what happens when you label yourself as such to achieve greater societal respectability and sell more books? Put on your goggles have a clean beaker handy, for today we science!!!
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