5 ms·
> The author isn't a rando! This is a tenured professor of philosophy at a major university. You know, writing like a high school sophomore on a message board.
by pcwalton 4y ago
> The author isn't a rando! This is a tenured professor of philosophy at a major university. You know, writing like a high school sophomore on a message board.
Man, that's disappointing. I like Prof. Huemer's writings on free will and philosophy of mind [1] a lot ("Existence Is Evidence of Immortality" is a fun one). I was unaware of his blog up until now—reading it makes me think significantly less of him.
[1]: https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/papers.htm
- colpabar 4y agoIf you knew someone who didn't like mushrooms, and you saw them enjoy a dish with mushrooms in it without knowing, and then after you told them they said they didn't like it at all actually, wouldn't that seem silly?
- tptacek 4y agoNo? Sewer rat might, after all, taste like pumpkin pie. In Tokyo, my wife once very much enjoyed a piece of sushi that turned out to be whale. She's not all like, "I guess we eat whale now".
- colpabar 4y agook sure, can you answer some of the other questions you've been asked because they're much better than my dumb hypothetical
- DangitBobby 4y agoSaying you won't eat more because you disapprove of its origin is fundamentally different from changing you assessment after the fact of whether you "liked" it.
- jfim 4y agoThe bar for publishing in a blog is much lower than an academic paper. I don't know much about this particular professor, but part of converging towards the truth is to start somewhere which might be incorrect, then debate the flaws of that and come up with a better reasoning. Avoiding discussing or publishing thoughts that are not fully baked would be detrimental to that process, I believe.