Philosophy Weekly Newsletter - Thursday, June 30, 2016

Philosophy newsletter

Top new questions this week: Why is an appeal to authority sometimes valid? I have an idea as to why it might be valid, but I would like confirmation, rebuttals, or maybe just better answers. fallacies argumentation   asked by vasshu 4 votes answered by vasshu 2 votes How might we define morality or ethics such that we can program it into an Artificial Intelligence? With the speed at which AI is being developed, there is a pressing need to develop a clear system of morality that we might have an Artificial Intelligence operate from. In my understanding, there ... ethics artificial-intelligence utilitarianism virtue-ethics deontology   asked by xeagu 3 votes answered by Alexander S King 2 votes What does it mean for something to exist? When we say something exists, what do we mean by X? Specifically, my question is about whether there's something more primitive than saying something exists. In mathematics, existence is asserted by ... metaphysics ontology existence   asked by Johannes Fankhauser 3 votes answered by jobermark 1 vote Philosophical Implications of Connectionism and Pattern Recognition As a machine learning researcher and amateur philosopher, I'm interested in the current status of the debate between the symbolic AI and connectionism\pattern-recognition schools from the perspective ... philosophy-of-mind artificial-intelligence   asked by RonenKi 3 votes answered by Alexander S King 2 votes Was fascism ever philosophically appealing? I remember reading, in better times about a decade ago, the fascism article in a philosophy encyclopedia. It summarily introduced the main ideas, and then dismissed them as utterly invalidated by ... political-philosophy fascism   asked by MATHEMETICIAN 3 votes answered by alampert22 0 votes Is one commiting the "argument from authority" fallacy and/or the "consensus fallacy" when one refers to a scientific consensus when asserting truth? Bob and Alice disagree regarding subject X. Alice holds view A regarding subject X. Bob holds view B regarding subject X. View A and view B are quite contradictory views. Both can not be true at ... philosophy-of-science fallacies argumentation debate popular-science   asked by Fiksdal 3 votes answered by Chris Sunami 4 votes What is mauvaise foi as it relates to ethics? Philosophy? The title says it all. I know it means 'bad faith' but I'm really looking for a more concrete explanation of what it means and how it relates to ethics. Additionally, it would be helpful to understand ... ethics human-condition   asked by Ares 3 votes answered by Chris Sunami 6 votes Greatest hits from previous weeks: Is it immoral to download music illegally? I should first point out that the title is more to capture a common occurrence of the broader idea I want to address in this question. It is also somewhat incorrect in that—at least in the US—I'm not ... ethics rights legal   asked by stoicfury 48 votes answered by Rex Kerr 22 votes In which way does quantum mechanics disprove determinism? I've heard this pop up in a discussion with my physicist/engineer roommates, but didn't care to ask at the time. Now I'm mighty curious about it. Wikipedia doesn't really seem to say much on this ... philosophy-of-science free-will quantum-physics   asked by glifchits 27 votes answered by Artem Kaznatcheev 22 votes Can you answer these? Is it right to deduce intention/action from circumstantial evidence from position of a skeptic? In many cases it might not be possible to have direct evidence to conclude intention/action of a person. Only circumstantial evidence may be available. From position of a skeptic, is it right to ... skepticism   asked by John 2 votes Does Quine's relativism only follow if the data of theories is the only source of a theory's justification? Quine saw that any group of theories could have the same pieces of data. There is a gap between any set of data and the interpretation we have of it. Quine then felt that in light of this, whether ... relativism quine   asked by Mos 2 votes What sort of things might a higher level of consciousness be capable of? While the nature of consciousness itself is still unclear, the products of consciousness are quite evident. A few of the perks of human level consciousness include: The capacity for complex ... consciousness artificial-intelligence   asked by xeagu 2 votes

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