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World Philosophy Day
We missed World Philosophy Day last Thursday, but we can still celebrate it today. The BBC magazine gives us four philosophical questions to consider. Feel free to comment with your own answers.
1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?
Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?
2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?
If surgeons swapped George Bush’s brain for yours, surely the Bush look-alike, recovering from the operation in the White House, would be you. Hence it is tempting to say that you are a human brain, not a human being.
3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?
[Y]ou cannot independently check your senses. You cannot jump outside of the experiences they provide to check they’re generally reliable. So your senses give you no reason at all to believe that there is a computer screen in front of you.”
4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?
Suppose that Fred existed shortly after the Big Bang. He had unlimited intelligence and memory, and knew all the scientific laws governing the universe and all the properties of every particle that then existed. Thus equipped, billions of years ago, he could have worked out that, eventually, planet Earth would come to exist, that you would too, and that right now you would be reading this article.
back to top13 Comments to “World Philosophy Day”
I am violating my suggestion, but not to comment on anything today. I am just reminding “rebels” of my request that you take one day’s break from posting.
This post will be here tomorrow. (Maybe.) You can comment tomorrow. Maybe.
We tell my granddaughter to say “Please.” Please take one day break from posting. We tell RG to say “Thank you.” Thank you.
I am setting a good example for RG.
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“We missed World Philosophy Day last Thursday..”
Forgivable. Just don’t miss National French Toast Day this Friday.
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Is it really “National French Toast Day”? I was hoping for ham and eggs. Bill O’Rilley once wanted us to boycott things French. I had already given up on cuffs and perfume. The only things left are Toast, Fries and Kisses. I will not give that up.
My Michelin’s BTW, were made in Spartanbugr, SC.
Is this what the thread was about?
I’m afraid Harrison was hoping for something serious.
Maybe an intelligent person will come and kick off a serious discussion about why I chose to respond.
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I’m not quite sure what #4 is supposed to mean, but I have some thoughts on the others.
As for question #1, I’d have to say no in most instances, because killing someone is still killing them. However, it might be different if the scenario were like that in Ted Dekker’s Circle series, where a man gave up his life voluntarily to save the world.
#2 is confusing, because yes, your brain is what controls your body, and your body is just like a suit of armor or a house for your brain, but I’ll have to think this one through.
My favorite by far is #3, because it’s basically a reiteration of what I’ve said on here before (fairly recently, in fact).
I said something like this:
“Since it’s a well-known fact that you can’t trust your senses, what’s to say that you aren’t dreaming right now, in a simulation (like in Ted Dekker’s book, Skin), or anything else? Or the other train of thought: “You are just a figment of my imagination.”
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#1 No. Lefties will be so overcome with compassion for those who need their organs more than they do will kill themselves instead saving you teh trouble.
2. Of course not. How can you ask that when people are dropping dead, by their own hand, all over the place. Driving is going to be treacherous if the rivers of blood freeze on the roads.
3 No. Llamas have implanted HUD’s on the inside of their eye lenses to help in targeting wads of llama spit. It can be used to project the Internet too. We learned this from the US military and Darwin – a weird combo of evolution and the military complex used to benefit all llamas everywhere.
4. I did before I read it and now I wish I hadn’t so I am going to claim I didn’t like any lefty would. I’ve been victimized by the evil HSK again and with our new messiah I will receive compensation adn heads will roll.
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1. As Rio pointed out, this could be acceptable only if it was voluntary on Bill’s part. Even then, it would be hard to tell what was really voluntary, because there are some very subtle means of coercion.
2. If it ever becomes possible to do brain transplants, we’ll find out whether or to what extent identity goes with the brain. In the meantime, it’s just speculation, and I’m not sure whether it’s really a philosophical question. When I read the question, I thought it was getting at the question of whether you remain the same person over time – as your cells are constantly replaced, your experiences and your attitudes change, etc. I don’t have a good answer to that, but I would think it a more thought-provoking question.
3. For all practical purposes, yes. There’s a sense in which we can’t know if anything we think is real really is, but there’s no point in pursuing the question because it is unanswerable. Anything that could possibly be suggested toward answering it would be subject to the same problem, that our understanding of it is inside our own minds. If I’m going to answer the question at all, I have start with the assumption that there really is a person out there asking it, as it appears on my computer screen.
4. Yes, I did. What led to that choice I don’t fully know. My interest in philosophy, nourished by people I have known and classes I have taken, and further back by the intellectual background of my parents – who in turn were shaped both genetically and socially by their families and environments, and so forth. Our choices are not made in a vacuum, even when they feel like they are independent of outside factors. But even having read of a study recently that showed the brain activity involved in choosing started before a person indicated (by pressing a key) making a choice, I am not ready to assume that my choices are wholly predetermined. I have agonized over enough choices that I think the outcome was in question.
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Re: #2. Transferring the brain to another body doesn’t mean the person is transferred. If somebody with the body of Burt Lancaster had my brain, he would act differently becsuse people would respond to him in different ways. If someone with Burt Lancaster’s body had a sub-normal brain, he would not have been a good actor, but will have had some social life because people would initially be attracted to him.
If Einstein had Burt Lancaster’s body, he would likely not have been a mathematician.
The brain and body together make the person what he is.
#3. There may not, in fact, be a computer screen in front of me, but whatever it is works well. The question may be a good philosophical query, but it doesn’t make practical sense. It works for me.
#4. That’s a question for Calvanist. We Baptists choose to read the post and finally get around to responding.
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I finally also went back to read the link. Interesting philosophy, but I have an engineers mind. I wouldn’t change any comments. I say again, If my mind were in George Bush’s body, he wouldn’t be me. But he would pardon the two border guards and Scooter Libby.
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#1 No. Why focus on his organs? Why not his money? Kill him, take all his money, and you could use the money to save the lives of lots of destitute people.
#2 Yes, it’s still I.
#3 Yes. I can see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it. Five witnesses that all say it’s there. My dreams never engage all five senses.
#4 No, I didn’t choose to read this; the devil made me do it. It’s not my fault; I couldn’t help it; I was born this way. Ok, maybe I DID choose to read it, but only because I COULD. And it was just THERE, you know? Enticing me . . .
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1. No
2. A really badly phrased question meant to start a discussion on the nature of identity. A better thought experiment involves the slow replacement of every part of a boat until every part has been replaced — is it still the same boat? An materialist would say no but those who look at concepts such as continuity, categories etc may have a less definite response.
3. Although there are serious epistemological issues raised by this question, I believe Berkley was once refuted by a colleague kicking a stone to prove its existence. The real questions that neeed to be decided include the nature of colors, innate categories vs. social categories, the power of definition etc,
4. Free will vs. Determinism — flip a coin — does it matter?
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The TV show “Enterprise” dealt with question number one and came out with the answer “Yes”. When the Chief engineer was injured, they cloned him for a body part. Before they could do the operation they discovered that the transplant would kill the clone. The clone didn’t want to die but they forced him because they lives of all them depended on saving the engineer. I was surprised that they went this way.
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#7:4 Amen, Chas!
I’m not a Calvinist and I don’t consider myself a Baptist any more, but that’s good one.
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#10:4
HRW,
A lot of pro-choice people think it matters.
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