Philosophy of Computer Science: Boundaries
One of the reasons that I’ve decided to spend my life studying Computer Science is its deep connections with philosophy. Mankind has been asking deep philosophical questions for a very long time, but we’ve been able to chip away at…
Weakening of the Teleological Argument
Wikipedia defines the Teleological Argument as “an argument for the existence of god based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design, or direction — or some combination of these — in nature.” I’ve always found it a really tough one…
Can an Instutition be immoral?
Last night I was embroiled in a long argument with my flatmate about the Government. I used the typical Libertarian claim that the government was an immoral institution because it uses coercive force to collect taxes. Of course, he countered…
An interesting series of questions.
I caught this scribbled on a piece of paper, as I was cleaning my desk today. Is there anything more valuable than human life? If No: Then when reason have we to live? If Yes: Then do such things justify…
Atheists can pray too
Two weeks ago, a good friend of mine asked me a hypothetical question: I have a daughter with leukemia; The doctors say she might not pull through. Will you pray for her? Well, as an atheist this puts me in…
Thinking about Thinking
So far, in my reading of Minsky’s Society of Mind, his hypothesis, that the mind is an agglomeration of specialized agents working in conjunction with each other completely meshes with observations of my own behavior. In particular, I’ve noticed that…
Bounding Problution.
Problutions (noun, pl.): the problems that are an inherent part of solution to a very difficult and complex problem. These problems arise from within the solution itself, and are extrinsic to the original problem. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit…
Learning to Learn.
It wasn’t until I was actually done with my undergraduate years at college, and had already gotten my self a job, that I learned the most valuable lesson of life: The programmer that wants to advance himself cannot afford to…
Weekly Summary of Noospheric Echolocutions
This past week I finished my reading of Mandelbrot’s most recent book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. I actually didn’t like it that much. I found the book to be especially light on details; for a mathematical empiricist Mandelbrot didn’t actually…
Enlightened Materialism
I keep finding interesting stuff on this old HD; Here’s a documented e-mail conversation between myself and a high-school friend Jeff Peoples on materialism and the mind. It was dated 2004-04-07 and appears to have been written in response to…