Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").
Very Bad Wizards21 Joulu 2021

Episode 227: A Terrible Master (David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water").

David and Tamler dive into David Foster Wallace's celebrated and surprisingly earnest Kenyon College commencement speech "This is Water". How can we escape the prison and prism of our (literally) self-centered perspective? Can we choose to adjust our natural default settings, take a break from our running inner monologue, and pay attention to what's in front of us right now? Is DFW appealing to Buddhist ideas or something more general that you can be found across all spiritual traditions?

Plus we ask the AI ethics program "Ask Delphi" some tough moral questions (spoiler alert: "just the tip" is "rude"), and almost get into a big fight about the potential of AI ethical robots (but we're saving that argument for a future episode).

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Episode 118: We Don't Love Them Hoax

Episode 118: We Don't Love Them Hoax

David and Tamler try to put the topic of campus politics to bed once and for all – with limited success. First, we get into a big fight about the prevalence and danger of political correctness in Amer...

28 Kesä 20171h 12min

Episode 117: Extended Minds, Extended Foreskins

Episode 117: Extended Minds, Extended Foreskins

David and Tamler break down a recent classic in the philosophy of mind: "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. What is boundary of your mind? Is it contained with your body, or does it ...

13 Kesä 20171h 11min

Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises

Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises

David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or...

31 Touko 20171h 16min

Episode 115: Which Field is More Fu@%ed: Philosophy or Psychology?

Episode 115: Which Field is More Fu@%ed: Philosophy or Psychology?

David and Tamler go ambulance chasing for scandals in their own fields. Inspired by a tweet from Jay Van Bavel, they argue about which of their disciplines--philosophy or psychology--is more completel...

16 Touko 20171h 37min

Episode 114: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger (Top 5 Movies About Revenge)

Episode 114: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger (Top 5 Movies About Revenge)

Somehow, after 113 episodes David and Tamler have never done a top 5 movie episode about revenge (so unbelievable that we had to double-check). That changes today. Among the things we learned: good re...

4 Touko 20171h 21min

Episode 113: Pascal, Probability, and Pitchforks

Episode 113: Pascal, Probability, and Pitchforks

David and Tamler break down what may be the best argument that it's rational to believe in God: Pascal's Wager. (No, we're not just trolling our Sam Harris listeners.) Does the expected value of belie...

18 Huhti 20171h 18min

Episode 112: Gettier Goggles

Episode 112: Gettier Goggles

For four years Tamler has been bitching about Gettier cases without even explaining what they are or why he hates them. That ends today. David and Tamler talk about the famous paper that challenged th...

4 Huhti 20171h 31min

Episode 111: Our Language Doesn't Have a Word For This Title (with Yoel Inbar)

Episode 111: Our Language Doesn't Have a Word For This Title (with Yoel Inbar)

In Part 2 of our episode with film scholar Yoel Inbar (AOS: Quebecois New Wave Cinema), we break down the philosophy and psychology of the movie Arrival. [Note: Massive spoilers, see the movie first!]...

22 Maalis 20171h 3min

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