Om Vents Graciously

Hello, and welcome to a new philosophical exploration! This one is near and dear to my heart, because it discusses two of my favorite things, and I feel like this was one of the wildest ideas I had when taking my Epistemology class in undergrad! In this article, I will explain a thought-experiment which is one-half of putting forth my thesis: Searle's famous 'Chinese Room Experiment'. In the later articles in this series, I will explain the second half, which is something called "philosophical zombies" (I know, it sounds so cool!), and I will draw a very explosive inference using the two. But for now, let's dive into Searle's thought experiment.  1. Introduction: After the famous ‘Turing Test’ asked the question of whether intelligence can be achieved by a machine, Berkeley philosopher John Searle posited an argument that has now become the most discussed topic in the field’s history. Called the ‘Chinese Room Experiment’, it is meant to highlight a subtle ...

"Voices on A Train" Waiting at the station, the train to take me home finally arrived. It seemed different than every other time - The colors were a bit faded, The sounds were a bit muffled; Maybe I was just tired. An older woman sat in front of me Looking out the window with a tense curiosity That was all too familiar. A little girl sat with her father across from me And reminded me of how I used to annoy my Dad: "Are we there yet?" It had only been a few years,  But I could only faintly remember him. Both of us used to be different people. Happier, maybe. More  naïve for sure . I was finally going to meet him and Mom that night. For a moment, the train was all that existed And I, a lonely traveller finding my way back. Perhaps my soulmate was sitting somewhere in that train, Waiting to make conversation with me out of boredom. Perhaps my past was in the seat right behind me, Waiting to tap my shoulder and look me in the eyes. Perhaps Redemption was roaming the cab...

This will be the final article in our series of articles reviewing the almighty nudge. I genuinely hope you guys have been following the comprehensive explanations and flow of discussion through Part I , Part II , and Part III ! Here, I will take a look at Saghai’s [7] “corrected” definition for a nudge, and Mongin and Cozic’s [15] three extrapolations of nudges from T&S original definition. In doing this, I aim to conclude with a discussion about the impact of nudges in the social philosophy landscape.  Based on the defense that Saghai puts forth regarding the permissibility of nudges, his aim is to ensure that nudges are easily resistible and do not go beyond employing what he calls “shallow cognitive processes” – methods which primarily consume very few resources and abstain from engaging in full-blown deliberation. Based on this, he comes up with an ‘amended nudge’:  “Nudge: A nudges B when A makes it more likely that B will φ, primarily by triggering B's shallow cogni...

Hello everyone! Welcome back to our discussion on nudges. This one is pretty straightforward: we will go over two sections where the different perspectives from both sides of the 'nudge war' are presented. I have tried my best to summarize multiple philosophers' works as succinctly as possible without any bias. Make sure to also read Part I and Part II to get some additional context, although it is not required if you know the basic concepts of nudges well enough. Hope you all enjoy! 4.1. Against Nudging:  The case against nudging extends towards a general disagreement with liberal paternalism itself since the main uncertainty with both surrounds autonomic ideals. Hausman and Welch argue that the fault of nudging lies in its leveraging of aspects separate from rational persuasion to steer individuals towards a decision [6]. These non-trivial indicators are far less quantifiable or in our active control compared to rational persuasion, yet they still affect choices: “Their...

The following is a continuation of my series on nudges. We are picking up directly from the 401k plan experiment that was discussed at the end of the first article , but I will also re-state it below.  Make sure to read that! Let's continue with our exploration of liberal paternalism. 3. The Grounds for Liberal Paternalism: Let us consider an employer who wants to increase the savings rates of their employees. Option 1 is to set a default of enrolling all employees in a 401k plan unless the employee requests not to be enrolled. Option 2 is to provide employees with a choice to agree to increase their contributions to savings with every raise. Both work towards achieving the employer’s goals – however, Option 1 sets the default setting to encourage savings while Option 2 sets the default setting such that all earnings will only contribute to current income. In this scenario, an automatic opt-in design can be considered purely paternalistic since it steers employees towards saving ea...