Bill Vanderburgh

Yay, Kaity! (She is my chair.)

"Pluribus" and Philosophy Part Four A Philosopher Watches Sci Fi: Why not eat the dead?

My fourth installment on philosophy in the Apple TV show “Pluribus.” My take seems to be quite different than the other commentary about the show I’ve seen.

#philsky #philosophychat #scifi

open.substack.com/pub/billvand...

(Except N does speculate, wildly, in his religious & alchemical writings!)

You can go deep, get into D's instrumentalism in science, which comes from his belief that we can only have real knowledge about Body (metaphysics), not bodies (the realm of physics). Newton (& Hume, echoing N) thinks we should not speculate beyond what can be observed.

I like Newton's take-down of Descartes' vortex theory of motion. The Bucket Experiment shows that Descartes' distinction between motion in the vulgar vs. philosophical senses is nonsense and that there is a *physical* answer to what is really moving.

I’ve been trying to figure out if the Doctrine of the Double Effect is in play, but I don’t think so. Your way of describing it sounds Kantian: the perfect duty not to harm vs the imperfect duty to aid. But that doesn’t fit with their willingness to override autonomy. It is all very intriguing.

I mention that idea from Mill in a previous installment, so yes, I agree. But violating autonomy is a harm whether it’s to harvest stem cells or assimilate. The harvesting is merely a step towards an unalloyed good (if Joined are right). They’re willing to kill 10% of humanity, so why not hip pain?

Thanks for reading!

That’s the only way they can be thinking, I just don’t think it works.

"Pluribus" and Philosophy Part Four A Philosopher Watches Sci Fi: Why not eat the dead?

My fourth installment on philosophy in the Apple TV show “Pluribus.” My take seems to be quite different than the other commentary about the show I’ve seen.

#philsky #philosophychat #scifi

open.substack.com/pub/billvand...

The Tragedy of Becoming Post-Human Mobile devices, Gen-AI, and the End of Reading

Exactly. AI is for folks who have already mastered the skills of a liberal education. Or so I argue in this piece:

billvanderburgh.substack.com/p/the-traged...

Bad framing: ACIP voted to scrap the universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for newborns.

Accurate framing: Anti-vax conspiracy theorists appointed to ACIP by Robert Kennedy Jr., who made a fortune as an anti-vax profiteer, voted to expose babies to a preventable, incurable, deadly illness.

*Nothing Bundt Cakes. I will have to revoke my typing prize.

Frank will be incensed if I do that.

Earlier I won the Bill Vanderburgh Piece of Cake Prize, awarded occasionally by me to me, most often when we visit Anything Bundt Cakes.

“It is not called a pie hole for nothing.”

For the #blueskyartshow on Dec. 6. #Sky

Sunset and clouds reflecting symmetrically on a wet beach.

For the #blueskyartshow on Dec. 6. #Sky

I guess I don’t have a good excuse not to attend this one!

I did my “third voyage” about a year ago. It is taking a lot of will power to not start my fourth already.

A good movie, and my favorite book series ever!

"Pluribus" and Philosophy, Part Three, by

Apple TV's "Pluribus" is a hit in part because it is interesting philosophy. Check out the three posts I've written about it so far. And please subscribe to my Substack!

open.substack.com/pub/billvand...

The topic and approach you are proposing is right up my alley. I’d be happy read drafts of proposals, etc. Good luck!

The other option is a textbook, but then the market looks tiny (there aren’t many HPS courses, and even fewer on astronomy).

In both cases you need to sell a proposal, which is good since you don’t have to write the whole thing first and you’ll get editorial guidance along the way.

Part of that is finding “comparables.” Two potentials come to mind in case you don’t know them DeWitt’s Workdviews and Hannam’s The Globe.

Top rec: Portswood-Stacer’s _The Book Proposal Book_. Need to figure out if you want to write an academic, trade, or crossover book (sounds like the latter). There are some advantages to crossover (don’t need an agent) and disadvantages (typically much lower sales) as compared to a trade book.

That would be great.

Me! I’m proposing a course on Philosophy and SF.

Seems to work well enough for law school and grad school apps (pretty high success rate, which I attribute to the students rather than my letters).

Ditto. I aim for true description, telling a story of talent & ability to learn. I met x in class y, when they stood out b/c z. They were nth of m students in the class w/ a grade of g. Then, they took my class y+1, and …. Their writing/speaking/analytic ability struck me as…. (w/ concrete examples)

Sometimes I think authors should be allowed to force referees to submit revised reports.