Om Vents Graciously

The following is a philosophical analysis in the pop-culture space; the second one I've done since the one on 'The Boys' I wrote last year. Check that one out on the blog if you like that show. Enjoy. I finally have some downtime where classes haven't gone haywire in my final semester yet, and I have just finished my first research project and paper submission (yay!), which leaves me with time to think about things with zero practical use, as I love to do. With that, let's get into a very interesting thought I had when I came across an Instagram reel about the show Bojack Horseman. Admittedly, I was properly late to the Bojack Horseman bandwagon -- I only saw it in 2019, one year before the show ended its six-year run on Netflix. However, it has easily become one of my favorite shows of all time: the heaviness of the themes, the natural writing, the juxtaposition of a world of anthropomorphic animals dealing with problems that are all too real -- it all just works ...

The following is a philosophical analysis in the pop-culture space. I like the overall concept and I might write a couple more in the future. Enjoy!  Amazon Prime’s The Boys has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon – it came out towards the end of a long-running global Marvel fever in 2019, and completely flipped their altruistic (admittedly well-worn) formula on its head. With the fourth season currently underway, we have had enough time to see the birth and evolution of arguably one of the most terrifying villain characters in recent television history: the Homelander. I do not want to focus on the technical aspec ts of writing a good villain, nor do I care much about the in-universe canon elements – believe me, there are experts on the Internet who could do a much better job writing about that than me. However, on trying to analyze Homelander’s psyche, I have come to realize a particularly interesting perspective to do exactly that, and it comes from classical German phil...

Please read Part II (click!) and Part I (click!) first! This is going to be the final (and most exciting) article in the series, because it all comes together! Here, we will use the concepts of p-zombies and Searle's thought-experiment about conscious machines, and try to think about the philosophical interplay between them - what happens when we put a zombie inside the Chinese Room? I will then go on to defend the theory following this logic. Before that, we will explore another haunting idea - is the algorithm that this allegory is meant to represent actually a zombie in disguise all along?! 1. Algorithms Are Moral p-Zombies: We can now restate the Chinese Room in the context of the anti-physicalist arguments laid out earlier. If we can conceive of p-zombies, we can use the same arguments that refute physicalism to refute computationalism. Recall that understanding is a qualia, which is in the realm of semantics in Searle’s terminology, while an algorithm is only allowed syntac...

Welcome back! We are continuing directly from Part I (click here!) , so please read that first! This article will explain the basic idea of "philosophical zombies", and why it is interesting to introduce them into the world of Searle's ideas and his Chinese Room thought-experiment. Let's get into it! The decades of work that followed Searle involved discussions about everything, from solipsism and Boltzmann brains to symbolic logic and existentialism, when it came to the effort of quantifying intelligence. Meanwhile, well-established theories in the philosophy of science made strides in attempts to solve fundamental questions such as the mind-body problem. That problem and the surrounding debate between physicalism and dualism was reinstated in the concept of “philosophical zombies”, a hypothetical creation whose conceivability itself poses a threat to the idea of physicalism (aptly named the Conceivability Argument) and confirms the existence of nonphysical “qualia” ...

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 ...

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...