Here's a funny story about two friends. They formed a group called TEAL (Typo Eradication Advancement League), and they travel the country correcting typos.

At first I thought, "This can't be real."



But I looked into it more, and found an article that sheds a bit more light on the video. The guy in the video is Ronald Mallett. He's a professor at the University of Connecticut, and yes he intends to build a time machine. Here's a link to an article that discusses it more.

I just discovered Phd Comics today. I'm posting two of the strips below. Here's a link to their top 200 rated comics.

Funny article from The Onion [HT: Justin Conroy]

Tyler Hansbrough Staying In School To Take This One Awesome Philosophy Class

CHAPEL HILL, NC—University of North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough told reporters yesterday that his decision to forgo the NBA Draft and return for his senior year stems from a desire to "take this one awesome philosophy class that is, like, only offered in the fall [semester], I think." The class, PHIL 740: Philosophy of the Mind, is reportedly taught by Professor David Hartz, who Hansbrough described as "like the coolest guy in the world especially because the only grade is just this one big paper at the end [of the term], and he doesn't even take attendance." "He's like super smart and he makes you think completely differently about your perspectives on stuff, which is awesome," said Hansbrough, adding that he is going to read all the books and everything. "And my girlfriend is taking it too, so it should be pretty sweet." Hansbrough denied allegations that he is staying in school because his socio-economic background allows himself the freedom to have fun and not worry about the welfare of his family.

Isn't this picture amazing? The newspaper running this story claims that this is the first time an orangutan has been spotted using a tool to hunt.

If you read the article it turns out that he's not very good at it, but it's pretty impressive none the less.

There are a lot of areas in philosophy where it is sometimes useful to think about non-human animals that are close to us in the evolutionary chain (e.g., metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and ethics)

With that in mind, I thought people would enjoy this article and the photo.

[HT: Daily Mail.]

In the comments from this post - Joshua writes:

Google images has taught me that I have several false views. Here are some questions that I asked and my interpretation of the answers:

Q: Is endurantism or perdurantism true?
A: Perdurantism

Q: Is the pointy view of simples true?
A: Yes

Q: Is there a God?
A: Yes and he is Muslim.

You can verify that these are the correct interpretations of the answers yourself.

I decided to go and ask Google Images Joshua's questions. Google images has spoken to me, and I concur with Joshua's interpretation of the Google Image answers. You can verify these. Here they are.

Q: Is endurantism or perdurantism true?















Q: Is the pointy view of simples true?














Q: Is there a God?

Is Concrete Modal Realism true?
I think the answer here is clearly, yes! I used to be a linguistic ersatz kind of guy, but thanks to Google images I stand corrected. This is clearly a snap-shot of that possible world where not only is Santa clearly concrete, but I think that's David Lewis' counterpart.

(ok...back to work)

A friend of mine introduced me to a fun time waster. I'm told it's called Ask Google Images. Here's what you do.

1. Go to Google Image Search
2. Type in a Question
3. The first image in the results is your answer. (Don't ask me how images can be answers!)

I thought - this is going to be really funny with philosophical questions. Here are the answers we philosophers have really been looking for.

1. Is Direct Reference Theory True?


(I really don't even know what to do with that...)

2. Is Internalism About Epistemic Justification True?


(Hey, Matthias Steup is the winner! Sorry BonJour and Sosa...It looks like you guys were the second best answer to the question...)

(Your image was also blurry which indicates that it lacks the sort of clarity we're looking for in good philosophical answers to questions)


3. Is the Problem of Evil a sound argument?


(Wow! I really wasn't expecting that one...take that J.L. Mackie! A little Van Inwagen in your face! Note the sharpness and clarity of the image. This is a much more impressive answer.)

OK...enough time wasting. I've gotta get back to grading.

Gmail introduces Custom Time. Who says that backwards causation isn't possible? Never be late with your email again!

A pretty funny April Fool's Day prank. Well, it better be one. Note that in the testimonials column one of the beta testers occupation is listed as an epistemology professor. They also give a shout out to the Grandfather Paradox.

Calling all metaphysicians! Would you like a simplified explanation of the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics? Would you like it to be presented to you using Super Mario World? Well, look no further.

Interesting Philosophical Applications
Metaphysical Modality
Some people think that the parallel universes in the multiverse hypothesis could play the role of Lewisian Possible Worlds. I have serious doubts about this. The main issue is that the multiverse that some physicists take seriously probably won't have enough universes to represent all metaphysical possibility.

The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God.
One possible response to The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God involves appealing to some kind of Multiverse Hypothesis. (Shameless plug - Check out Beebe's presentation of the Fine-Tuning Argument over at Young Philosophers)

Anyway, whatever your thoughts about the potential philosophical applications of the multiverse hypothesis - the video is pretty excellent. Enjoy.

[HT: Popsci.com - Checkout the full article here]

I'm in Phoenix. First blog post from an airport. I'm rushing, so it's got me thinking about typos. Which is really awesome given the main thing I want to post about here.

One worry about blogs is that you may rush yourself and publish too quickly. You're bound to miss typos. Sometimes I'm bad with the typos. I try to tell myself that this is OK. Most of my substantive blog posts are rough drafts anyway, and I've already managed to throw together a couple of rough drafts from philosophy posts on this blog. Which is awesome awesome because I've only had this blog running for about 3 months now.

So I think, "Get the ideas up here, and worry about the typos later."

It's OK to have some typos in your blog posts (or so I tell myself).

Now for my real point. Below is not an OK context for typos.



[Link to the PhotoBasement page]

There's a lot of talk in philosophy about gender. Most of the focus is on how weird gender expectations/norms affect women. But there are weird gender expectations/norms for men too. For example, the Man Hug.



This is pretty funny, but it is also a pretty accurate description of the norms that seem to govern man hugs.

You've gotta love it when a car commercial picks up on the semantic/pragmatic confusion that sometimes goes with the logical connective 'and'...

Finally! They're doing a Terminator in the future when all the robot war stuff happens. I've wanted this movie ever since I saw the first one (way back when). Christian Bale is playing the adult John Conner.

I gained a new respect for the Terminator movies when I first discovered philosophy of time, read "Paradoxes of Time Travel" and realized that Terminator 1 and 2 were consistent. If I'm not mistaken (and somebody correct me if I'm wrong) Terminator 3 did something toward the end that made it an inconsistent time travel story; however, now I can't remember what that was.

(Bleg, can someone tell me if I'm right about Terminator 3 being inconsistent. Whatever it was it struck me as being pretty minor - e.g., the time of judgement day ended up being off by just a few seconds or something like that.)

Hopefully, Terminator 4 will be (a.) good and (b.) consistent.

(HT: Justin over at Show Me The Argument)

A former student pointed this blog out. It's great...especially for those of us who like to encourage students to be mindful of use-mention confusion.

(hat-tip: Justin - check his blog out here. It's called "Broadly Construed")

My semester is going to be awesome!

1. We started a faculty paper workshop last semester. We met every other week at the White Inn. I got great feedback on two works in progress. It was awesome, and we're doing it again this semester. I'm up this Friday.
   
   
2. I'm commenting on papers at the Central and the Pacific APA. I love APAs.
   
   
3. James Beebe was kind enough to let me sit in on his epistemology seminar at SUNY-Buffalo. It's on contemporary epistemology - and the topics are all right up my alley. I just got back from the first meeting today. This is going to be a great seminar.
   
   (Mental note: I think Buffalo is a program for people to keep a eye on. It looks like they've made quite a few good junior hires in analytic M&E over the past few years, and they had good people prior to those hires that are still there.)
   
   
4. I'm going to the Wisconsin Epistemology Conference in May.
   
   
5. I'm teaching an upper-level philosophy of science course. There are some issues in philosophy of science that I've wanted to explore for awhile. Now is the perfect time.
   

Here's a new Chuck Norris Fact:
When Chuck Norris doesn't like your Chuck Norris Fact ...he sues you. Serioulsy, Chuck?

Erik Wielenberg on Chuck Norris Facts and Philosophy!
Also, a couple of years ago, some editor for the undergraduate run paper at DePauw University belittled someone for using a Chuck Norris fact in a philosophy paper. Erik Wielenberg wrote a clever response to that editorial. This didn't get nearly the attention it deserves.

Here it is.

The main idea is that a well-placed Chuck Norris fact could be a nice illustration of a philosophical concept. For example...

Teleological Explanation
Outer space exists because it's afraid to live on the same planet as Chuck Norris

Explicate the Notion of a Success Term
Chuck Norris doesn't go hunting. Chuck Norris goes killing.

So we're interested in time travel when we think about philosophy of time. This guy claims to have time traveled to the future and visited his future self. He's got video footage from his mobile phone that he hopes will prove it.




(For the record - I don't think this is legit. If I had traveled back in time, I would have chosen to bring back more (and better) evidence than what this guy did claims to have done.)

With things like Kagan's death course and Young Philosophers Lecture Series (don't forget to submit), your Ipod is going to help you love wisdom more than you already do.

However, all that listening to and watching philosophy on the go will put extra demands on your Ipod. The diggers out there have pointed out a nice handy solution to that...MacGyver would be so proud.

Mine is going to have a picture of David Lewis or Roderick Chisholm on it.

I just got an invitation to revise and resubmit a paper. Sweet! I thought, "This is pretty exciting. It's gonna be hard to top this one." As far as break plans were concerned, I was all set with something fun to do.
But then all the diggers out there pointed out this how-to-video. And now I have to ask...What should I do over break?

1. Work on a revise and resubmit.
OR
2. Build my own personal hovercraft.

I have a coffee addiction, but it's good for doing philosophy. I get my best work done at a coffee shop. I can read through several articles, pound out a rough draft, or revise something that I'm working on. It's great, but it's hard on the wallet. If you got a standard latte everyday of the semester, (at about $3.30 a latte) it would cost you close to $250 a semester. That sucks.

Well, at least I'm not buying the most expensive Starbucks drink ever.

This is pretty cool. Being able to listen to (or watch) philosophy on an IPOD is awesome.

Some people have asked why I named the blog "Wide Scope" - Here's the reason. "Wide Scope" is a term that often gets used in philosophy and logic. Also, while I will mostly post stuff directly related to philosophy, I will occasionally post some stuff that's simply funny. "Wide Scope" seemed to be a fitting title for a philosophy blog that sometimes contains other cool stuff.

For example...

So...this is kind of funny. My department chair just pointed it out to me.