The Dawdler's Philosophy

Ya like how last week we did death? This week we do birth. It also sucks! Can a Dawdler catch a break? What's that? Is that what we are basically known for? Look, don't be a hater. We mean, hustler...

Imagine a beginner's luck without a point of reference, without any obvious design  and you'll have a better picture of intuition and the role it plays in ego and illusion. So there is no luck. There is no accident. Some thinkers are just so in touch with the universe they need not appeal to another authority because they ARE the authority. 

In this episode we Dawdlers try to critique how intuition is used in philosophy. Fair warning however. Harland gets pretty chimpy and Ryan enjoys Harland's chimpy-ness perhaps a little too much.

Doesn't matter if you lean in or lean back. Either way, your armchair is being sold on Craigslist tomorrow. 

-The Dawdlers 

00:02:20 - The Armchair Activities, Intuition, Herman Cappelen's Philosophy Without Intuitions & Centrality: What is 'Intuition', How central to philosophy, Is that 'good'/'bad'?

00:22:30 - Cappelen's Questions to the Centralists, Epistemic Hedging, Trophy Problems, Common Ground

00:31:18 - 'Intuitive Plausibility' vs. Conditionals vs. Proofs, Intellectual Egos

00:41:00 - Argumentation Norms and Intellectual Progress, Chimp Warning, Hilary Putnam's Reason, Truth, and History

00:45:30 - Putnam's Intuitionalistic Methodology: Artistic Ants, Twin Earth Dendrology, & Brains in Vats

00:53:50 - Intuition Pumps, Similarity, Representation, & Reference, Sleight of Mind

01:10:10 - Monkeys on Typewriters & Intrinsic Meaning, Causal Theory of Reference, Alternative Intuitive Teleologies

01:22:45 - Putnam Butchers Turing

01:32:12 - Throwing Putnam at Cappelen, An Argument for Centrality

01:43:50 - Ryan puts Harland on the spot to make a bunch of irresponsible snap judgments

Tick, tick, tick, tick... Happy New Year!  Tick, tick, tick... The clock doesn't stop ticking when the ball drops.  Another trip around the sun and we're all another year older.  They haven't fixed aging yet.  Death still seems a likely part of our future.  What's your take on that?  

We are as much our biases as we are our perception to others. Fallibility. It works in mysterious ways.

This week the Dawdlers present a discussion from an earlier time than the present moment. It's a conversation they've been meaning to have but not really sure when to have it. But they did...eventually.

The topic? An Edge.org annual question: 2005's What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

Harland and Ryan wax on about some things they think fit the bill, but not until after Harland rewords the question to meet their Dawdler perspective.

We all have our trust in ourselves. Let's hope it doesn't make us into overly prideful fools of the double-down.

00:05:00 - An Edge.org question / A Harlandonian re-wording

00:17:21 - Harland's First Claim / Grok talk / Subclaim: language is unlimited

00:32:31 - Ryan's First Claim / Edge question respondents talked about aliens and brains alot

00:43:00 - Harland's Second Claim / Anything is possible / There are no laws of the universe / tendency vs. habit

01:01:35 - Ryan's Second Claim / "new" geological ideas

01:27:54 - Harland's Third Claim / SMIILE

01:42:02 - This topic is tailor-made for Harland to get radical / Episode devolves into math talk

The Dawdlers offer some takes on the concept, possibility, and consequences of time travel.   Not the kind we're all doing every day [real time "forward"], but that kind from the movies where you can go at high speeds in both directions on the entropic autobahn.  Does the idea even make sense?  What might happen if we succeeded?  What's your take?

Harland and Ryan were born on the same day 3 years apart. December 22. To celebrate they're doing an episode on consciousness and how you, yes you, dont have it!! Happy birthday to us, eh? Eh...

They don't know philosopher Keith Frankish's birthday, but he doesn't think you have consciousness either even if he doesnt say it explicitly. C'mon Keith!! It's the Dawdlers' birthday!! Jerk.

Here's deep birthday vibe dives into a piece Keith wrote about Illusionism and Consciousness.

-Dawds

00:00:00 The Great Silliness: Keith Frankish's Consciousness as Illusion

00:06:58 Provocative v. Defensible Claims, Definition of Consciousness, The Hard Problem

00:13:39 The Illusion Problem, Realist v. Illusionist Theories, Psychokinesis example

00:24:25 Phenomenal v. Access Consciousness, What-its-like-ness

00:28:36 Quasi-phenomenal properties, Penrose triangle & Operating System User Illusions

00:40:55 Representations, Interpretations, & Counting transductions

00:50:13 Zombies & What-its-like-type-II, How quasi-phenomenality works in illusionism

00:57:51 Arguments against Realism & for Illusionism, Epiphenomenalism & Occam

01:07:20 Qualia & the Alien Ashtrays, Objections to Illusionism considered

01:28:46 Illusionism v. Eliminativism, Harland's Metaphilosophical Argument

01:39:57 Ryan's Big Question: Why do people care about what they care about?

In this episode, the Dawdlers take on determinism. Are killers gonna kill? Haters gonna hate? Chefs gonna cook? Eh...Anyway, Harland plays therapist and Ryan plays games because they're fun. And this is just the way it is because it has to be, as all things must be in the Determiverse.

People love to talk about the pitfalls of statistics and how we can "lie" with it. Those people don’t do statistics. In science, statistics is often quite difficult. It's there to help us with very complicated problems, not to hurt others with simple craven power leveragings.

The Dawdlers discuss the positive side of this dichotomy through a paper by the mid-to-late 20th Century statistician George E.P. Box. Here, he forays into the big vistas of Science and Statistics with his mantra in hand--"All models are wrong, but some are useful." Through discussions of an exemplar, the infamous early 20th Century “scientist” (who was also his father-in-law), R.A. Fisher, Box unpacks the statistical insights of his century's deepest dives into epistemology.

Bring an extra pair of socks, muck rakers, things are about to get saturated.

00:02:26 – Science and Statistics by G.E.P. Box / Box’s bumper sticker / Ryan has no plan / More “what is science?” shit

00:19:50 – What is statistics? / Qualitative data

00:33:56 – Who is R.A. Fisher? / Experimental design / Basic concepts in statistics

00:58:32 – Using English to express math / Mathematistry and cookbookery / Trying to control complicated systems

01:10:32 – Does one need advanced math to address complicated problems / Ryan wants to know how to speak math equations well in English / Thinking in words vs thinking in pictures

01:26:10 – Harland has two things to say still / Harland is paranoid Box is talking about him / Mathematical modeling

Hello World. It’s us Dawds, trying out yet another new thing. We thought we’d discuss a kinda off-the-cuff, shootin’-from-the-hip type format in addition to the usual 2+ hours we do. It’s more of a relaxed stroll with intermittent skipping as opposed to the marathons we’ve been doing so far.

This time the Dawdlers wanna get each other’s take on whether or not everyone has a “right” to their own opinion. Do they? Should they? What does that even mean? Listen to find out what they think and let them know what you think.

What's *your* take?

There are these people in workplaces who have a talent for completing assigned tasks well. Their results are basically always excellent and up to the specifications and requirements for getting the job "done right". Worker bees, we call them. And they are essential for the consistent and routine operation of a workplace. Without them the riffraff hand in a suboptimal and incomplete product.

What if someone had this type of talent, but for thinking? How might it look? What is a correct and (nearly) complete thought? A good candidate for the worker bee of thinking might be Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this episode, we Dawdlers focus on this dying man's thoughts on common sense and the external world.

Help yourself to the questions because there are no answers.

The Dawdlers

00:03:58 - Wittgenstein the Life & Times - The Two Phases of W-'s Thought

00:12:34 - Wittgenstein of the Tractatus v. Wittgenstein of the Investigations

00:19:55 - G.E. Moore's "Proof of an External World"

00:38:07 - G.E. Moore's "A Defense of Common Sense"

00:47:48 - W- First Pick for My Team! - Because he's a Thinker, That Boy!

01:11:25 - Wittgenstein Wrestling His Inner Skeptic

01:33:30 - Language, Epistemology, & Other Infinite Games

02:03:08 - Hinge Epistemology