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What professional philosophers believe – Survey results
- rvkennedy 14y agoIn the question, "communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism", 40% said "Other". I'd really like to know if any one idea dominates here - for example, if 38% of philosophers espouse totalitarianism, that's worth getting into.
- jerf 14y agoIf you flick the setting at the top to "fine" you get a deeper breakdown. I won't paste it here as it would be quite tedious to format it here.
- RyanMcGreal 14y agoTl;dr: they're distributed among "unclear", "more than one", "intermediate view" and so on.
- jamessun 14y agoThe contrarian in me can't help but think that the least popular answer is the "right" one :-)
- PaulHoule 14y agoit would be interesting to have social games that could extract answers for these questions from ordinary people who don't know what the terms mean
- RivieraKid 14y agoIf you have a good understanding of consciousness / mind, you can derive the answer for most philosophical problems from that.
- Evbn 14y agoThat is a big IF. If I had a million dollars, I could buy your love.
- RivieraKid 14y agoI think I have a relatively good understanding of consciousness: * Content of consciousness is the only thing that we can be sure of. Let's say I'm scared. This fact is true no matter if I'm in a dream or hallucinating. (We could argue if "scared" is the correct label for the feeling but that's not the point.) * It's impossible to define consciousness objectively. Subjective definition is simple: Consciousness is my current feelings, perceptions, thoughts, etc. There's no way to create a definition, that 1) is logically consistent 2) matches our intuitive understanding of consciousness 3) is objective: you can say whether some group of atoms (like brain) is conscious or not.
- pessimizer 14y ago>Content of consciousness is the only thing that we can be sure of. Let's say I'm scared. This fact is true no matter if I'm in a dream or hallucinating. I admire your confidence.
- RivieraKid 14y agoThanks :)
- aaimnr 14y agoThe admiration seems to be sarcastic, though...
- losethos 14y agomaterialism idealism duality? ---- God says... lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel. 6:18 Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him. 6:19 Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. 6:20 And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? 6:21 Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. 6:22 My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. 6:23 Then was the king exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. ---- God says... cross rank me- instruction nine-and-twentieth you're_so_screwed X convenient edify fake heaven's thenceforth pricked seventh troublesome overflow boiling Those incline lungs Thither advised dates officers Hippocrates Suffer disliked renew boss deprived glorified dispose When morsel flagitiousnesses malignant all-changing warreth surprise_surprise gladsome trust rugged neglecteth heeded respective spreads Paulus listen_buddy overflowing curest support trembled passages oh_oh frown preparest leaveth 2002 commencement touching find wretchedness sittest among verily freed unchangeable Future resisted awful imbue desires vouchsafedst face_palm Tobias fumed ministry unlikeness disclose senseless weight Wales dominion
- purephase 14y agoA lot to dive into there, but the God results immediately jump out at me.
- jgesture 14y agoPeople who tend to be interested in philosophy and are theists probably tend to go into religion rather than philosophy.
- knowtheory 14y agoThat's one hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis would be to suggest that the more educated one becomes in philosophy the less that religion makes sense, and the clearer it becomes that there is no evidence for theism. (Note, I'm not advocating for either of these hypotheses, but correlation is not causation.)
- sramsay 14y agoI seriously doubt that. Most "professional philosophers" these days are doing analytical philosophy, and it's been at least 500 years since a non-crazy person has been persuaded one way or the other about God by studying logic. I suppose Georg Cantor might be an exception to this.
- manicbovine 14y agoGödel had an unpublished ontological "proof" [1] that's fairly simple to understand. It hinges on two things: 1.) accepting a logical system in which possibly necessary truths are necessary; 2.) accepting his argument that it's possible for god to exist. But I guess you said non-crazy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6dels_ontological_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6dels_ontological_proof
- Apocryphon 14y agoHow about Bayes's theorem for proving the existence of God? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Swinburne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Swinburne
- gizzlon 14y agoZombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible? Accept or lean toward: [..] Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 217 / 931 (23.3%) Uhm.. ? :) What does "metaphysically" mean in this context?
- rvkennedy 14y agoIn academic philosophy, a "zombie" is a person without a "soul" - it is physically indistinguishable from any other person, but lacks conscious experience. It simulates the outward appearance of conscious experience by virtue of having a fully functional brain. Sadly, this question is not related to the possibility that chemical spills can cause the dead to rise and eat brains.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jonhmchan 14y agoPhil major here. Imagine a being that acted exactly like a human, it spoke, laughed, etc. - everything that you'd imagine a human being to do. However, it does not actually feel or think. For example, if you were to prick one of these "zombies," they would say "ouch," recoil, perhaps berate you, but the zombie does not actually feel pain - it's a purely mechanical process. Metaphysics is concerned with the nature of being, properties, identity, etc. What one means by whether such zombies are metaphysically possible is really an answer to the question: are such zombies really any different than how we are? For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
- jbattle 14y agoIs this related to artificial intelligence? (strong vs weak AI)
- jonhmchan 14y agoIt is. A lot of what metaphysics is concerned with now has a lot to do with AI. You can think of zombies as the analog to robots (as is canonical with most AI questions). Robots are essentially philosophical zombies, should we get them to a level of sophistication such that they would be indistinguishable from a human being. Whether such robots could be considered "living," "thinking," or "feeling," is a question to be answered by philosophy. If you're more interested read about John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment. It gives a great example of what you're thinking of.
- knowtheory 14y agoWhat should hackers expect regarding the subjectivity/objectivity of aesthetic value? Should we have expected that particular choice to have broken down into thirds? What does it mean that it did break down into thirds? Even with a minor in philosophy & a degree in linguistics which involved a good deal of philosophies of language and mind, i'm not sure what to make of the results of this survey. Anyone have a better perspective on what the deal is here?
- bcoates 14y agoThat was one of the most surprising results for me, I wasn't aware that objective aesthetics was even taken seriously.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adbge 14y agoThere's quite a bit of further discussion (including explanations of a number of the questions) scattered across a couple different LessWrong threads. Explanations of many of the questions: http://lesswrong.com/lw/emj/poll_less_wrong_and_mainstream_philosophy_how/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/emj/poll_less_wrong_and_mainstream_p... What do professional philosophers believe, and why? http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hbw/what_do_professional_philosophers_believe_and_why/ http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hbw/what_do_professiona... Here's a list of links to more discussions: http://philpapers.org/bbs/thread.pl?tId=420 http://philpapers.org/bbs/thread.pl?tId=420 I haven't actually gone through these, though. You might also want to check out: Survey of eating habits among philosophers: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-eating-ethics-a-discussion-of-the-poll-results.html http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e... Survey of beliefs among economists: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists-agree.html http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists...
- Jacquass12321 14y agoSurvey of eating habits among philosophers: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e.. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e.... I assumed they all starved because one guy never passed the fork.
- lurkinggrue 14y agoIt's well know that most philosophers were heavy drinkers, I mean... Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, Who was very rarely stable.
- rthomas6 14y agoIs there a better source for the economists survey? That is very interesting and I'd like to see more details about the study. Specifically, how many economists were surveyed, and how were the questions asked?
- platz 14y agoI'm surprised scientific realism fared as well as it did.
- ExpiredLink 14y agoSi tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoSounds like nonsense to me. Quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
- chime 14y agoI was surprised to see so many leaning towards the switch in the Trolley problem. I still haven't made my mind on that.
- RivieraKid 14y agoSimple, switching results in fewer deaths.
- kruhft 14y agoBut switching requires an action that will cause the death of another. Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else. People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.
- RivieraKid 14y ago> People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies That's interesting. Do you know what is the rationale behind this?
- kruhft 14y agoI originally heard of the Trolly Problem in an episode of the The Brain Series on Charlie Rose where the guest neroscientists presented that viewpoint. I personally don't belive it, but that was the messaage they were presenting. The series is both fascinating and frightening in way. I reccomend watching it to see the current ideas in brain science presented by the people creataing them.
- manicbovine 14y agoIn addition to the aforementioned Charlie Rose episode, I recently saw Kevin Dutton talk about this in a short Big Think video [1] (or rather, the converse). I have no idea if it's valid. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsGDVOCLVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsGDVOCLVQ
- sramsay 14y agoI take "other" to mean "Well, it's complicated." I'm most surprised to see deontology so high (nearly as high as consequentialism) under normative ethics.
- saraid216 14y ago"other" at coarse granularity, or "other" at fine granularity?
- patdennis 14y agoHere's one of my favorites. Glad to see the pros are evenly split, because this one really toasts my brain too. Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death? Accept or lean toward: survival 337 / 931 (36.2%) Other 304 / 931 (32.7%) Accept or lean toward: death 290 / 931 (31.1%)
- Zikes 14y agoWhat if it didn't destroy the old one? Would there be any doubt at all?
- patdennis 14y agoThe person who popped out of the other end of the teleporter would be doubtful. Does it make a difference if it's a teleporter that destroys the original as an necessary part of its function, vs one that destroyed the original but didn't need to do so, vs one that did not destroy the original?
- Zikes 14y agoI don't think there's much doubt about whether a document received via fax is the original or not, regardless of whether or not the sent document is shredded immediately after.
- tekacs 14y agoYes but surely that has something to do, at least in part, with the implied reduction in quality between the sent and received document? I would hope that any working 'teletransporter' would provide a near-enough-perfect replica?
- spiritplumber 14y agoOnly if you are careful to not let flies in.
- Zikes 14y ago
- maxisnow 14y agoIt's great to see numbers but the reality is to get exact answers from any professional Philosopher you would need to let them rewrite the question every time. Working with pro and academic Philosophers on symposiums taught me that even the folks in the same micro sub-field with each other have these chasms of interpretation that led to huge difference in expression.
- deadairspace 14y agoI'm surprised how popular compatibilism is. It seems like a complete cop-out to me.
- gadders 14y agoI was hoping to see absolute or relative moral values, but couldn't find it on there.
- memla 14y agoNo, but there is a question concerning moral realism. Since moral relativism is a type of moral anti-realism which is entertained by 27.7% of respondents, it follows that less than 27.7% philosophers are relativists.
- skeltoac 14y agoSurveys of philosophers: normative or informative?
- jules 14y agoNeither.
- spenrose 14y agoTime to reread my favorite pg essay: http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
- snowwrestler 14y agoIt's a great essay but this passage highlights to me the sillyness of philosophy: > I learned that I don't exist. I am (and you are) a collection of cells that lurches around driven by various forces, and calls itself I. But there's no central, indivisible thing that your identity goes with. You could conceivably lose half your brain and live. Which means your brain could conceivably be split into two halves and each transplanted into different bodies. Imagine waking up after such an operation. You have to imagine being two people. Take a living person and excise part of their brain, and they will continue to live. There have been accidents, injuries, and surgeries that have proven that. I don't know about fully half, but I would not be surprised if it worked. BUT - take half a brain and transplant it into a different body? There is zero evidence today that that is even possible. One might say that such technology just hasn't been invented yet. True. But maybe it will never be invented; and thus it's really science fiction disguised as philosophy. I think quite a lot of philosophy ends up being disguised fiction--science or otherwise.
- tocomment 14y agoBy the way, what happens if you do a coin flip for newcomb's paradox? The entity can't predict that.