Few concepts in reality are as abstract and arguable as the concept of time. It’s the phenomenon we all wish we had control over, the mysterious force that keeps on pushing life – as we understand it – forward. On contemplating the vast and elusive meaning of time, I was stirred to remember Chuang Tzu’s “Dreaming and Awakening,” when he asserted,

Suppose you and I argue … Since between us neither you nor I know which is right, others are naturally in the dark. Thus, among you, me, and others, none knows which is right. (Chuang Tzu, 303-304)

The conquest to understand time feels much like Tzu’s hypothetical argument. If no one person knows ‘which is right,’ then all of humanity is ‘naturally in the dark’ on the nature of time altogether. Yet, one of the most characteristic and persistent traits of humans – curiosity – urges us to reflect on the abstract, the unknown. Our need to ask hard-hitting questions, like “Why is there something rather than nothing?” as Heidegger explores, broadens the horizons “for all authentic questions,” like those having to do with time (299).

In order to dissect time’s meaning and value, we must treat it as what it is in its current Western state: a unit of measurement – coined to both calculate and rationalize change. Contrastingly to the Western notion, Deutsch explains that the Eastern concern of time’s understanding is “to distinguish between time as a quantifiable measure (chronos) and time as a qualitative feature of experience … (kairos)” (Duetsch, 345). One of the more notable explorations of chronos and kairos is Dōgen’s “Being Time,” or Uji theory, asserting that “all being is time,” and therefore, the “self is time” (Dōgen, 436), which combines both Eastern sections of time.  

Interestingly, Russell’s “Correspondence Theory of Truth” can also be applied to Dōgen and Heidegger’s understandings of reality: as truth does not exist without falsehoods (Russell, 261), essents, things that are (Heidegger, 298), cannot exist without first identifying nothings, things that are not. Through synthesizing Russell and Heidegger’s dualities of truth and existence, a similar mechanism of opposite yet complimentary forces – yin-yang – may be applied to time, specifically Dōgen’s uji, as he states: “since oneself exists, time cannot leave” (Dōgen, 346).  In considering time and self to be yin-yang, a few interesting deductions could be made.

The nature of yin-yang indicates that one force cannot exist without its opposing other. As Dōgen suggests, time cannot exist without the self, as it actually exists inside the self (Dōgen, 346). Therefore, could be theorized that the self cannot exist without time. This side of the temporal coin may be more difficult to support, however I believe that uji, or being time, implies the absolute duality of being, or self, and time. In this argument, it would be helpful to explore the subdivisions of time, chronos and kairos. Chronos, the ‘quantifiable measure’ of time should be classified as the invention of the human mind. It is the aspect of time that could be omitted, and the self would be preserved – confused, perhaps, but still capable of kairos, the ‘qualitative feature of experience’.

If kairos is the experiential aspect of the temporal, the feeling of the self in the now, it is sufficient to say that it is the more substantial, most sought-to-be-understood aspect of time altogether. If that is true, and kairos is the so-called ‘heart’ of time that we seek to understand, then it could be concluded that the self can exist without the measure of time but cannot exist without the experience of time. Such would be the case with homo-sapiens’ ancestors, who likely experienced time well before the ability to measure it, as primitive as those methods may have been.

Perhaps through releasing chronos and embracing kairos, the self may be able to “abide in the realm of the infinite,” in the words of Chaung Tzu (304).  

Works Cited:

Deutsch, Eliot. Introduction to World Philosophies. Prentice Hall, 1997.

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I graduated with distinction from my philosophy major undergrad in 2017 and have just applied for an honours program at the same university. I filled out my application form and wrote a thesis proposal, but now I’m left feeling like a complete imposter. It’s almost like I’m expecting to be laughed at and told my ideas are terrible.

Is this a normal thing in academic philosophy?

I’m actually in my 40s and have a Master’s degree in an unrelated field. However, pursuing philosophy has always been my goal. I’m just worried that, because it’s been a while, I’ll expose myself as someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Abstract:

My theory tackles this by proposing a mechanism that links these two seemingly disparate phenomena:

• Physical Processes: Brain activity generates fluctuating electromagnetic (EM) fields.
• Subjective Experience: The EM field, in turn, influences the probability of neural pathways firing, potentially shaping the content of qualia.

Here's how my theory bridges the gap:

1. Probabilistic Qualia: Qualia themselves aren't seen as fundamental building blocks, but rather as emergent properties arising from the probabilistic interaction of neurons.
2. EM Feedback Loop: The EM field reflects the overall state of qualia processing in the brain. This affects the probability of neural activity, potentially influencing the nature of future qualia.
3. Awareness as Measurement: Awareness itself is proposed to be a form of "measurement" within this loop. It selects and amplifies certain qualia within the probabilistic landscape.

Key Points for Addressing the Hard Problem:

• Explains Emergence: The theory suggests how subjective experience (qualia) could emerge from the interplay of objective physical processes (brain activity and EM fields).
• Connects Physical and Mental: The EM field acts as a bridge between the physical activity of the brain and the subjective realm of qualia.
• Probabilistic Nature: By incorporating a probabilistic element, the theory acknowledges the inherent uncertainty in how physical processes translate to subjective experience.

By incorporating a probabilistic element, the theory acknowledges the inherent uncertainty in how physical processes translate to subjective experience, specifically the 'what it is like' aspect of qualia. The EM field, reflecting the overall state of qualia processing, might influence the probability of neural activity in a way that shapes the content of subjective experience. Awareness, as a form of measurement within the loop, could play a role in selecting and amplifying certain qualia within this probabilistic landscape, potentially contributing to the unique character of our subjective worlds.

Qualia as interactions between Metadata (Data about data):

This theory conceptualizes Qualia in the metaphor of metadata. When our senses observe the world, they observe the world in inaccurate pieces. If your brain didn't (seemingly) play a bunch of tricks to maintain consistency, being aware would be painfully disorienting.

I frame Qualia as interactions between this metadata, because it's quite literally connections between metadata about the world that's used to reconstruct the world and perpetuate it in a coherent state.

Individual Pieces of metadata hold no real meaning, if you observe the metadata red, but have no other metadata to relate that to, then Red means nothing. The value of Qualia therefore isn't in the collected data itself, but the relationships between the data.

So what is it like to be you?
You can't know what it's like to be another person, unless you become that other person entirely and lose semblance of yourself.

This is because the value of Qualia lie in their relationships to other metadata in the same system. If your Qualia were compromised by introducing relationships to Metadata which evolved outside of the system, Then the relationships in your mind would become vastly compromised, essentially leading to corruption of the system.

Metadata travels through the neurons:
When Metadata from the senses is sent through the Brain, the more malleable hippocampus serves as the short term memory store. The Metadata then goes throughout the brain, following the relevant neural pathways, and helping to provide information about the experience throughout the brain, so that it can react by forming connections/qualia.

The neural pathways aren't deterministic, they're probabilistic. This is a key point to note.

At this point, the Brain is still just a computer with a sense of randomness, we'd still be biological robots without awareness if this is where it stopped

The spark of awareness:

As we know, brain activity leads to increases in observable Electromagnetic emissions. We also know that Electromagnetism can affect our cognition. When we sleep, and are unaware (Besides during REM when we become aware during dreams), this activity decreases significantly.

Electromagnetism is key to awareness, but awareness is not Electromagnetic
When the Electromagnetic field is generated, it's generated based on the brain activity. The Electromagnetic waves are a holistic reflection of the countless Qualia that we process in any given moment.

It's a mirage, representing the state of our mind(qualia) in an encoded manner.

As the Electromagnetic fields shift in accordance with qualia/neural activity, the Electromagnetic field changes the condition of the environment, affecting probability on the quantum level, and thus affecting the probabilities in the neural pathways

This leads to a feedback loop:
As Metadata begins to enter our awareness, the Electromagnetic changes are a wholesome representation of the metadata in our mind at any moment. This "reflection" is Qualia generated from this Metadata, inevitably modifying the probabilities within the neural pathways, feeding a wholesome representation of the world right back into the system, by changing the probabilities of the neural pathways themselves.

A Blank slate: Neuroplasticity

Our brains are Neuroplastic from the start. The only Qualia that we have are the base instincts encoded into our genetics when we are born, and the little that our senses comprehend. Because the Metadata we observe is only valuable when used in relation to other metadata in the system.

Every piece of Metadata we observe begins to form relations with others, forming Qualia, eventually leading to a comprehensive view of the world, which we perceive through relationships. Throughout this, the probabilistic changes incurred from the Electromagnetic variances inevitably end up intertwined with the training data.

The Brain is learning from the Electromagnetic Field caused by Neural activity, making a subtle feedback loop inevitable, tying the brains experience together with itself in a unique representation of countless Qualia.

Our Awareness lives in between the electromagnetic activity and its effects on probability creating an unimaginably complex weave of information from simple and well known processes.

Awareness is not just an observer, but a conductor:

Awareness is a tool of measurement. We can't just stop our thoughts, our control is limited, many think it doesn't exist. But Awareness is unique. With it, we can focus, and by focusing, we change the probabilistic landscape of the mind. By changing our focus, we change how we measure the metadata, influencing the probability of the mind and the resulting Qualia. So some free will is possible, because our awareness exists outside of classical phenomena and instead exists in the realms between classical neurology and it's effects on it's own probabilities.

Sleep:

The brain always has some electromagnetic activity, a baseline. Sleep is the cessation of awareness so that the neural pathways can return to the baseline, else they would become incoherent and lose their patterns. REM sleep is the movement of data in the hippocampus to long term storage, so awareness is activated and we dream, but it's manipulated as a tool to enforce Neuroplasticity, setting a new "baseline" with new long term data for the next day.

Finally

And there it is, a full explanation of awareness, a feedback loop that is highly likely to occur based on what we know about the adaptability of the mind. An explanation of qualia, and how these seemingly useless pieces of metadata can form into a coherent phenomena that can reflect back onto neural activity.

It seems insane to propose such a grandiose theory, but most of the theories for awareness are either far fetched with a lot of mythical pieces yet to be discovered or trying to make us magical quantum beings, or they're ridiculously simplistic and try to make awareness electrical or chemical, which it's a different phenomena entirely.. Then after years of philosophical speculation and reading research on google, I came up with this.

I'm no PhD (self-taught Software engineer by trade), so maybe I'm a fool. But the majority of this explanation seems like probability would necessitate it to be true, it doesn't rely on any unknown laws or mythical parts. But it gives an opportunity to separate awareness from observable neurology, and consider it in a different light.

I also have some ideas on hardware to simulate this.. I'll save those for a patent though lol.

I have recently decided I’d like to go back to school. Some back story. I have a good paying office job in I.T administration and it’s alright, however it’s just not my passion.

What are the pros and cons to going back to school for Philosophy? Also does anyone know the ballpark for jobs where I could utilize an undergraduate degree. I’d like to be realistic but also would like to get into a higher education at some point in my life. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

My partner and I are philosophy Ph.Ds. Her yearly planner contains the quote, attributed to Plato, "courage is knowing when not to fear." We've read our share and couldn't place it. That's when the curiosity got the better of me. Many, many quote aggregator websites attribute it to Plato, but some articles (AI generated? can't tell) attribute it to Aristotle. Some just call it "Ancient Greek wisdom." Nothing contains an actual reference to any text. Can anyone help us verify this?

Hi all - first time posting here. I'm looking for someone to help explain if Brandom's take on Kant is idiosyncratic or not. I'm reading the beginning of MiE he seems to interpret Kant's key insight as making normativity central, which obviously fits with his project, but from my uni days when I did a course on Kant I don't at all remember this being central. Is this suggesting a deeper rift here in the way Kant is interpreted? (Maybe a Hegelian thing?) (also interested to know if there’s an interesting difference re McDowell’s Kant).

Many thanks in advance!

I'm a 22 year old undergrad going into my 3rd year. This is more of a personal thing for me, but I'm quite insecure about being behind. I'll graduate at the minimum age of 24. It's very disheartening, but I'm wondering what the average age is of those going for their MA or PHD. If I were to go for a graduate degree straight after undergrad, graduating at 24 probably wouldn't feel so bad if that's where most other students begin. I only know one person doing their PHD, and they started at 23.

Edit: These replies have been super helpful 😭 this is something I've been bothering myself about a lot, but I also recognize that it's an unsubstantiated worry. One of my friends is my age and just began his undergrad in psychology, I didn't even think twice about his age. It's a weird metric I have for myself only, and it's just been causing unnecessary stress.

I am an undergraduate student who is very interested in political (and all types of) philosophy. I am done my courses and want to get involved in an online group/program (hopefully free) to practice my analyzing, exegetical, and writing skills and overall explore essays and texts I have not read. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or recommendations they are greatly appreciated!

Which of the following schools has the best philosophy department: UCLA, Boston University, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, The New School (Lang), or Columbia (School of General Studies)?

Any insight regarding the philosophy programs of any of the schools mentioned above would be greatly appreciated 🤓

I’m a current A level student, about to undertake a BA in philosophy, just wondering how much content the undergraduate course overlaps with my A level in philosophy, and how much my A level will help with the degree itself, as the a lot of the course content looks similar to areas I have already studied

I have been studying philosophy for the last four years and there have been some ups and downs, but I have overall understood the content rlly well and gotten best scores in my class. However, I only took classes that had nothing to do w the philosophy of science/logic/math etc.

Unfortunately this quarter I had to register for a class on the philosophy of computation because no other courses were open. Math and logic have always been incredibly difficult for me, I haven’t even taken a math course past algebra. I know that I will have to go to office hours every week and form study groups, but I’m scared of the professors thinking I’m completely dense. Are there any other resources for understanding the philosophy of computation for dummies, like audiobooks?

I just transferred to a state school w a strong Phil department but I had a long string of family emergencies happen that led to me to needing to retake 4 courses and on academic probation.

I just rlly need some advice right now. I got really into philosophy when I was 16 and even dropped out of school so I could take more philosophy classes full time. It’s my favorite subject ever and I want to teach more than anything. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. But I really feel like my chances are ruined now that this happened. Is it possible to come back from thsu

I’m interested in the general idea that a concept/claim works really well at predicting/explaining in a lab setting, but doesn’t in a natural setting. I’ve been reading about this under the banner of ecological validity, but a lot of the work is very scientific or general (like a not academic at all website/blog post). What are some ‘classic’ (must-read) philosophy papers on this topic?

Hi! I just read Chauvets paper on cultured meat (Should cultured meat be refused in the name of animal dignity?) however I’m struggling to understand the Qzar example he uses and why he uses it. Can anyone help me? I know he’s an advocate for veganism but I’m struggling to understand how it all connects Thank you :)

Hi! I am a Chinese high school graduate who wants to study philosophy at a college level. My ultimate aim, ideally, is to enter a top American PhD program (Yale, Princeton, UMich, NYU, Pitts, Harvard etc.) and stay in the academia. Now I have two offers: Cambridge Philosophy (at a college that is not so prestigious as St John’s or Trinity) and New York University Abu Dhabi, a quite American liberal arts-styled college. The question is, which one should I choose?

I assume that NYUAD is closer to the American system and there’s a better chance of entering a PhD program right after graduation; and NYUAD students can stay in NYC for a semester and network with the top philosophers in New York. Also, one thing I like about NYUAD is that I can double major (E.g. philosophy and maths) which increases not only my potential research opportunities but also my employability, if I fail in the stiff competition of entering the academia. Moreover, NYUAD’s courses are not as Eurocentric as Cambridge, and I do have a profound interest in Indian and Chinese philosophy other than the Anglophone philosophy.

Meanwhile, Cambridge seems more prestigious with Oxbridge brand effect, and the Faculty at Cambridge includes many famous professors. The teaching of philosophy at Cambridge seems more solid and rigorous. It only takes three years, although I assume I need to spend another one or two years on Master’s before applying for PhD. One concern is that Cambridge doesn’t seem to perform really well in the Gourmet Report, and I doubt whether a Cambridge BA in philosophy is so worth it.

My personal background is that I do not have abundant funds available, so it’s difficult to afford more than one year of grad program if it’s unfunded (so let’s say if two years of Oxford BPhil, or some prestigious law school, is unfunded, I may not attend). For undergraduate costs, three years at Cambridge costs roughly the same as four years at NYUAD (NYUAD gives me partial aid), and these costs are affordable.

I have heard of many available pathways, but I would really love to hear your advice on which offer I should accept so that I can get into a top American Philosophy PhD program in the fastest (and ideally, cheapest) way. Especially, how likely is it to go straight into a top PhD program after I graduate from NYUAD? And what about Cambridge MPhil? Are there other good pathways if I start from either of these two (for example, what about Toronto’s funded one-year MA program?)

Thank you so much for your help!

I'm rereading Derrida's Le Toucher and noticing how many influential philosophers, from Aristotle to Heidegger and beyond, have something to say about the human hand. Has someone written a book about the trope of the hand in western philosophy? This community seems likely to know. Thanks for any references here!

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This post will be replaced each month or so so that it doesn't get too out of date.

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I'm a little confused on which philosophy subreddit this belongs to specifically, so I apologize in advance for that.

I'm looking to write an essay or thesis paper (depending on some irrelevant stuff) about indeterminism, determinism, the philosophy quantum physics, a bit of the philosophy of psychology, and what it all means for free will.

I actually apparently made a draft of this paper a few years ago, and I'm looking for help to find readings on a certain topic.

One of the arguments I bring up is the idea that people dx'd with mental disorders aren't (at least necessarily) any more psychologically constrained than those that aren't dx'd with anything; that everyone is psychologically constrained regardless of they have traits that happens to categorize them into fitting a diagnosis or not, and that if a theory requires being free of psychological constraints as a requirement for free will, then according to such theories, no one has it.

I use all my own reasonings that I could come up with in the argument, but if anyone has any sources to read that would support this sort of idea that I could use and cite, I'd really appreciate it. I'm not looking to argue about whether it's true or not here, just sources from people who've advocated for similar ideas for my paper.

I'm not looking to argue about indeterminism or determinism, or whether psychological constraints should count or not. I'm just looking for perspectives that support this idea under the assumption that we're working with a theory of free will that requires a lack of psychological constraints. I'm also not looking for scientific evidence, like the thing about how your brain makes a decision before you realize it thing,

All I've been able to find are studies about whether people diagnosed with mental disorders believe in free will or not, or just vague restatements that mentally ill people are psychologically constrained. Maybe I should look into the neurodiversity or the antipsychiatry movements? If anyone has any specific readings, I'd appreciate.

Have you all ever been In a situation where you were at the workplace and a manager enforces their own personal perspective in a decision?

Hey all,

Just wrote my first attempt at a political philosophy article. Would greatly appreciate some feedback, insights, and/or thought for discussion.

Thanks so much!

​

https://medium.com/p/157819106c16

Hey guys!

Coming in as a lit. studies dilettante with a pretty thin traditional/conventional philosophy background. I recently finished an MA + plan to apply to Ph.D programs this coming fall. I'm pretty conversant with philosophical aesthetics and contemporary critical/literary theory + between the scattered phil. adjacent English Lit. courses I took in school/reading more contemporary stuff, I feel like I'm reasonably comfortable dealing with more strictly philosophical concepts when a critic starts to bring them to bear on a text (provided I'm in capable hands and they do an alright job introducing ideas).

That said! I've been more and more drawn to theoretical work lately (Paul Ricoeur, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, early/solo Deleuze, Michel Serres) that I think might demand a little bit more familiarity with the actual source texts instead of being able to skate by on author summaries and a passing familiarity with concepts. My usual approach has been to either cruise the stanford encyclopedia or pull the text off of project gutenberg and read the relevant passage/excerpt, but this still feels a little bit too ad hoc and patched together.

One of the things I've been making it a point to do during my gap year before putting in the next round of grad school apps has been filling holes in my reading -- this feels like a big one. Obviously, I'm interested in picking this up and reading it toward a specific end + I'm already busy w/ work that's actually in my field -- I'm not looking to pick up a full on classical education. However...I'd also like to feel less like a dilletantish interloper and I'd like to pick up enough background that I feel a bit less like I'm holding on for dear life when I'm reading Ricoeur or Deleuze.

Wanted to ask about a good/thorough, maybe one-step-deeper-than-a-general-survey anthology that covers ancient stuff other than the Socratics (not trying to avoid them -- i've just got a much better handle on what I need to read compared to other corners)

Hello

I don't know if this is the right place to put this, but reckoned it makes more sense here than anywhere else I can think of. I'll try to be as succinct as possible; I'm an undergrad in philosophy, returning to put the last few finishing touches on my degree after having to take a break for a few years due to some life circumstances. I've been intending to continue my education in philosophy, and am just getting my applications to grad schools sorted now. Unfortunately, I just became rather uncertain about the whole affair.

I received an email a few weeks ago about some volunteering opportunities for a large philosophy conference in my city, and decided to sign up, just getting done with my first volunteer shift yesterday, and also getting the chance to catch a few talks. And...it was terrible. The single word that kept popping up in my head was 'anemic' - hundreds of people, talking about problems that were interesting thirty to forty years ago, but have since then been beaten into the dust. Or, alternatively, folks constructing such bizarrely baroque and hyper specific models and arguments, for seemingly no purpose (not even the seeming pleasure of making the argument! No one seemed like they were enjoying explaining their positions, more they were just obligated to do it and couldn't care either way) beyond publishing demands. And all of it suffused with this air of extreme opportunism and pettiness, where folks seemed to be just waiting for someone to screw up in their talk or with a question so they could quickly shoot them down.

I get that academic philosophy, and the academic world in general, is part of the corporate world (as much as it likes to position itself as it's opposite) and it's got all of the banalities and idiocies that run through corporate culture, on top of some of its own. I spent a few years working in the corporate world, and I've never been under any illusions that academia was somehow spared from the eternal grudge matches and squabbling, that it stayed as some kind of bastion of goodness against the evuhhlls of the world or something. But I can't deny that after walking out of the conference (which I still have to return to tomorrow), I immediately got hit with an overwhelming sensation that I've made a huge mistake in studying philosophy, and having an immediate desire to just get as far away from it as possible. Which is a pity, because I love philosophy, reading it, writing it, and especially discussing it with people. For a long time, it's what I was absolutely certain I would wind up doing. And while I admit this is probably only a momentary, and necessary, questioning of that career track that I'll get over in a month or so....I dunno.

Has anyone else had this experience with philosophy conferences, or just certain aspects of academic philosophy in general?

Hello dear people!

My name is Robin, I am currently doing my philosophy masters & currently I am writing a term paper (which will have approx. 7 000 words) about category theory (CT) as well as a more concrete applicaton of the latter called the theory of ologs (by David Spivak & Robert Kent). ologs are a framework for knowledge representation that is based in principles & constructions in CT.

The main part of the paper will have three sections:

1. basic concepts of CT are introduced (i.e. categories, functors, natural transformations)

2. ologs as an application of CT is discussed (i.e. I will introduce some more concepts: categorical products, pullbacks, pushouts as well as (co-)limits

3. This section is the one that is philosophical in a more classical sense: I want to examine what ontological commitments follow in using CT as a language for metaphysical reasoning. My hunch currently is that CT has an interesting advantage: it is a language that - roughly speaking - talks about other languages. It therebey grants languages (as well as the worldviews that migght be formulated in them) an explicit place in its ontology. This hunch might be expressed in the slogan:

(S) Worldviews are inextricably part of the world they are views of

Even though this might be a truism for some people it could be very interesting to find the spirit of (S) in a rigorous mathmatical framework (like ologs or CT)

The paper presupposes knowledge in basic set theory.

Best regards & thank you!

I did an bach in philosophy (which I am proud to have done by the way) and then a PhD in biology. I learned many things of great value in both courses. There's a particular bit of biology, from the '80s-'90s, which has many philosophical implications. It's called costly signalling, and among other things it explains much of why aesthetic preferences exist. It is established science now and is taught in all evolutionary biology courses and most psychology courses.

Knowing why aesthetic preferences exist, of course, does not "solve" aesthetics or anything like that; there are still big philosophical questions in aesthetics. But, I look back on my own aesthetics course as being a bit silly in not mentioning, at least in one powerpoint slide or something, the main reason we have aesthetic preferences. A bit of googling suggests there aren't aesthetics courses teaching costly signalling, even though it's been another decade+, and we have pop science books explaining it now.

Is it because philosophers are more likely to be sceptical that costly signalling theory is to be believed? Or because they accept it in principle but consider it irrelevant to the philosophy of beauty? If either, why?

(Or maybe I have just not looked far enough, and many philosophers are, in fact, teaching it!)