Submitted by Jacob Weiskopfh Ph.D on
Derivative Images
Eric Schwitzgebel's musings on his currently published manuscript "Kant Meets Cyberpunk" - find manuscript here https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/disp/ahead-of-print/article-10.2478-disp-2019-0006.xml
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In "Kant Meets Cyberpunk" , I entertain the possibility that we are artificial intelligences living inside a computer simulation. But unlike computer simulations as they are typically conceived, the computer that implements our reality is a non-physical thing, an immaterial spirit named Angel. Angel can implement any Turing-equivalent machine by sadly humming while shifting back and forth along an imagined musical score.
If that were the nature of our reality, transcendental idealism would be true. Spatiality would be a property not of things as they are in themselves, but rather the form of our empirical perceptions of things; and beneath the familiar world of empirical appearances would be a more fundamental reality that is unknowable to us. (This isn't full-blown Kantian transcendental idealism, but it knocks on Kant's door.)
Now, I suspect that you'll agree that this view is weird. I hope that is also fun, in a nerdy sort of way. Philosophers should celebrate weirdness and fun!
The weird and fun are intrinsically valuable. They are part of the richness and delightfulness of the world. But philosophical weirdness is especially useful, I think. Philosophical weirdness pushes against the boundaries of what we normally take for granted about the fundamental values and structures of the world.
The weird undercuts our expectations. And if it's also fun, it does it in a joyful, interesting way. This is true both in philosophy and in ordinary life. "She wore that to work? How weird and fun!"... and suddenly a new possibility is open. You could wear something weird too.
Philosophy has a wide range of possible functions. Different people might reasonably want different things from it. You might want the secure, sensible answer to an important question, for example. Or you might want to know what ideas were culturally influential in the past. Or you might want an ethical system that confirms your prejudices so that you can bludgeon your foes with formidable argumentation.
What I want most from philosophy, I find, is a sense of wonder. I want to challenge what I previously thought I knew. I want to feel awed by the strangeness, complexity, and incomprehensibility of the world. I want a philosophy that opens up new possibilities for me and induces interesting doubt, rather than one that primarily seeks to close possibilities by settling definitively on the right answer.
Right answers are great in a way, too, of course, and I wouldn't toss one away if I find it has landed in my hands. But I suspect we discover right answers much less in philosophy than we think we do, and thinking one has found the right answer typically incites a different mood than wonder -- a mood that is already abundant and doesn't need to be especially encouraged.
We are almost certainly not artificial intelligences living inside of a Turing-machine-equivalent angel sadly humming. But I think if we can insert that weird, fun idea into our possibility space, however tiny and remote the possibility, that opens up something philosophically valuable. The range of ways our (or at least someone's) world could be is wider and weirder than we might have previously assumed, and that's wonderful.
Read more here: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2019/08/why-i-write-weird-stuff-like-kant-meets.html