Category Archives: metaphysics

Death and Vagueness

August 28, 2008 – 10:36 am

Consider the following theses.
(A) For any person P, P exists iff P is alive.
(B) For any person P, P is alive iff P is not dead.
(C) Whether or not some person is dead is vague.
(D) Whether or not someone exists is not vague.
On the face of it, these four theses seem to be incompatible. If [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in philosophy, philosophy of language | Comments (5)

Seeing in Four Dimensions

August 24, 2008 – 9:12 am

Attention metaphysicians and philosophers interested in the four-dimensionalist/three-dimensionalist debate. A few mathematicians have created some videos that are designed to help people try and visualize a four-dimensional object.
Pretty cool.

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in philosophy | Comments (1)

Presentism: Through Thick and Thin

August 21, 2008 – 9:01 am

The journal mashups are still churning out interesting stuff. This article came up. Here’s the abstract.
Presentism: Through Thick and Thin
Abstract: Presentism is the view that whatever exists presently exists. Without defending Presentism, I argue first that Presentists should be Time-Free Presentists – Presentists whose views do not imply that there exist irreducible times. Second, I [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in philososophy | Comments (0)

Now I Have A Puzzle About “Now”

August 3, 2008 – 9:00 am

In an earlier post (How Long Is The Present?) we had a little warm-up exercise. I assumed that presentism must hold that the only time that exists is a durationless present moment. I also tried to motivate it with two arguments. Let’s just take that assumption for granted in this post. Presentism must hold that [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in Uncategorized, philosophy | Comments (2)

How Long Is The Present?

July 31, 2008 – 4:14 pm

I have some half-baked puzzles for presentism, but before I lay those out - I have a quick warm-up exercise.

How Long Is the Present?
I assume that if presentism is true, then the answer is durationless. This seems like a fair assumption. However, I vaguely remember someone describing a version of presentism according to which the [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in Uncategorized, philosophy | Comments (3)

Mysteries of Time and the Multiverse

July 5, 2008 – 11:18 pm

Here’s a recent pop-science article from the LA Times. It’s an interview with physicist, Sean Carroll (Caltech). He discusses the possibility of multiverses and the hypothesis that our universe is an off-shoot of some other universe in the multiverse.

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in philosophy | Comments (0)

Plan for Immortality Presupposes Psychological Continuity Theory

June 16, 2008 – 10:15 am

Here’s an interesting article about a group of people, including one neuroscientist, who plan to cheat death by uploading an exact copy of their brain states to a computer.
Of course this plan does assume some kind of psychological continuity theory of personal identity. I hope someone has seriously discussed The Duplication/Fission Problem with them.

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in fun | Comments (0)

Are We Killing the Internet? (Have we already?)

June 16, 2008 – 9:56 am

Net-neutrality debates and the issue regarding re-instating a metered internet are starting to get more MSM attention. Here’s a recent New York Times article that came out yesterday.
And here’s a related, interesting column that came out a year ago on pbs.org. It’s not about net-neutrality per se, but it is interestingly related. It argues [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in Uncategorized, epistemology, philososophy | Comments (0)

Strange Communities and Common Sense Ontology

June 6, 2008 – 12:44 pm

Dan Korman just posted a nice little discussion on Hawthorne’s objection to common sense ontology here. I don’t dispute anything Korman says, but this has inspired to test drive another response to this kind of argument that I’ve been kicking around for awhile.
Here’s the quote from Hawthorne that Korman uses.
“Barring a kind of anti-realism that [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in Uncategorized, philosophy, philosophy of language | Comments (4)

Why Care About The Possibility of Time Travel

May 25, 2008 – 2:08 pm

In one of Ted Sider’s recent papers, he’s got a nice section trying to explain why philosophers should care about the metaphysical possibility of time travel. Here’s a passage.
Before expending too much energy on the topic, it is worth thinking a bit aboutits point. Beyond the (perfectly legitimate) desire to set the record straight, isthere [...]

By Andrew Cullison | Also posted in philosophy | Comments (2)