𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚗

“That’s Subjective”: Subjectivism about Truth, Beauty, and Goodness - 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology People sometimes say that judgments about what’s true, what’s ethical, what others find beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, and more are "subjective." What does “subjective” really mean? Are judgment...

From its description, "1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology is a constantly growing collection of over 200 original essays on important philosophical topics. These essays are introductions rather than argumentative articles."

However, Nathan Nobis recently wrote this article:

Reliable & Unreliable are Unreliable On the Philosophical Abuse of These and Other "-Ible/-Able" Words

An indictment of the terms "reliable" and "unreliable" in serious attempts at philosophy, and problems with "-ible/-able" terms generally.

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

I'll know it when I see it!

Too Weird Thought Experiments Are Too Weird You Don't Have to Get Too Weird

Latest philosophy post up at the StanStack. I don't post these very often, driving scarcity & value.
#philsky #philosophy

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

Everyone's Problem

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday."
- Isaiah 58

"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it." - Mary Ann Cross

A Straightforward Argument Against Goodness (Daisy-Chaining Polysemy's Weird Trick)

Turns out, you can show that goodness is bad using pure Facts & Logic. No "feelies" here!

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

Two years ago a 50-year-old mystery in Conway's Game of Life was solved. A pattern was discovered that cannot be generated by anything except for itself -- there's no way to procedurally build it within the ruleset.

conwaylife.com/forums/viewt...

Is Newcomb's problem a pseudoproblem? YouTube video by Lance Independent

Check out my chat with Dr. Lance Bush about how many boxes to take in Newcomb's Paradox.
#philosophy #philsky

www.youtube.com/live/pNwGnxd...

Min/Maxing Newcomb's Paradox And the Foibles of Philosophers as Puzzle Gamers

When we see what sorts of human foibles Newcomb's Paradox "trolls," it helps us unravel other thought experiments that continue to haunt philosophers even though they should have been dissolved long ago.
#philosophy #philsky

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

Min/Maxing Newcomb's Paradox And the Foibles of Philosophers as Puzzle Gamers

After several months, a new article is up at the StanStack. There's a lot here; I hope you get something out of it.
#philosophy #philsky

stanpatton.substack.com/p/minmaxing-...

We aren't used to talking in the most philosophically safe & coherent framings. This is an issue because "philosophical intuition" probably = "how we're used to framing things."

It is not important for responsibility that you can *actually* do otherwise, only that you could do otherwise *under a counterfactual*. Whether a "yes" is inculpating depends on the job or jobgiver(s).

Responsibility was never some ontological property. It's just a component of stewarding practice.

"This is not a picture of screw X" is how building this bunk bed is going.

How "Midstream Bivalence" Spawns Reckless Philosophy At Least It "SEEMS" To, I Humbly Utter

If someone is using straight bivalent deduction to persuade you of something, watch out.
There's a weird trick that religious (and anti-religious) apologists and other attention-grabbing folks do all the time:
#philosophy #philsky

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

What Metaphysics Are And How Many of Them There Are

Out: "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?"

In: "Is most philosophical chatter variations on ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?’?”

#philsky #philosophy

open.substack.com/pub/stanpatt...

I've found when people act like this it usually just means they can't find it again, or they misremembered it, or whatever, and they're going weird as a result.

It claimed that the benefit is even higher on shared roads, but I am interested in a source for what you are saying.

Effectiveness of bicycle helmets and injury prevention: a systematic review of meta-analyses - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Effectiveness of bicycle helmets and injury prevention: a systematic review of meta-analyses

Here's a meta:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

You can ride a bike without a helmet. It takes extra time to find and don the helmet, and it feels awkward. Riding without that bulk is quicker and more comfy, even if it invites big risks.

Framing "potential" as a property of an object is like riding without a helmet.

"Does this person worship the same God as that person?" has a boringly definitive answer, but definitive answers kill conversations, and dead conversations tell no tales.

Only a fool would M. C. Eschew this

"Evidence" does not have a tight meaning, so people will hop from neutral to arbitrarily laden meanings of it.
All polysemy is an opportunity for rhetoricians.

A new way to approach Newcomb's Paradox that makes it more intuitive that the only rational choices are "reject the scenario" or "1-box."
#philsky #philosophy

In epistemology, raise one eyebrow super high whenever you see a syllogism that treats the word "reliable" as if it is a "yes or no" thing, with a single probabilistic threshold to "count."

I wanted the commemorative boot glass but also the stout they limit to 8 oz pours...

Q: "If beauty is not an objective feature of things, and is instead in the 'eye of the beholder,' is a thing not beautiful prior to me discovering it?"

A: This puzzle, driven by the hybrid subjective & objective nature of beauty, value, etc., is solved by hypothetical framing: "If I had seen it..."

Here we have the reasonable runner vs. the fool's hope. Virtue ethics doesn't really know what to do here; anyone motivated to do so can describe one or the other as virtuous or vicious.

But exemplar ethics knows what to do: Keep watching and see what Luke/Ben, Frodo/Sam, etc. pull off.