Monday, August 22, 2016

Interview on Crazyism

Julia Galef at Rationally Speaking interviews me about the idea that something that seems "crazy" must be true in ethics and the metaphysics of mind.

Along the way, we discuss, among other things, Solar-System-sized orgasm machines, the possibility that the U.S. literally has conscious experience over and above the experiences of the individual people composing it, and the awesomeness of Jorge Luis Borges.

The interview is about an hour long. Listen during your commute or workout!

The written transcript is also available in PDF and DOCX.

3 comments:

Kaiser Basileus said...

This ought to settle it: https://plus.google.com/+KeisarBetancourt/posts/Xve4yZHA24S

Callan S. said...

Nice interview - nice to have some talk about where far out ideas might cease becoming far out and may even come all the way in and become day to day. It's just not a common enough concept to not just dismiss wild ideas.

Funny how quantum physics is described as a gateway drug!

'satisficing' is a word? Neat.

Heh, sounded like Julia touched a nerve on the whole 'moral questions are more like questions on our preferences...it's a stronger case that our preferences didn't evolve to be internally consistent' heh heh!

I was programming while listening so not giving it a really a fair listen, but downloaded it so can play it again latter.

Callan S. said...

Also, why can we just dismiss the whole '17 seconds of consciousness on your 18th birthday'?

What is the way the human mind processes things - can '17 seconds' just go way to the back of the que in terms of consideration? Or in terms of evolution and rapid thinking efficiency, are we inclined to prune what we will consider - and some things just don't make the cut?