John C. Wright's Blog, page 176

Hoggy, Hoggy Hogwarts

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they’re bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we’ve forgot,
just do your best, we’ll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.”

At this point, if I had to decide whether to send my sons to Hogwarts as opposed to Roke, I would have t...

Cannot stop Debating Determinists stop I Have No Free Will stop Send Help stop Make me Stop

Before I bow out of this conversation and dismiss it as futile, please allow me, most patient readers, one last attempt. Part of an ongoing conversation that has been going on since the time of Lucretius, if not longer.

A determinist writes in an says that indeterminism violates the laws of physics.

Let us see if we can break this down:

“When Shakespeare decides to write “sea” instead of “host”, he has a reason for doing that. You state that no account of his brain can tell me what that...

Predictive Brainology

Part of an ongoing conversation. A reader (or perhaps a clockwork collection of inanimate brain atoms) writes in to ask:

“Can one, by knowledge of mechanical causes, say beforehand which way Shakespeare’s pen will go, as it traces words on paper?”

Are we assuming that thoughts are atoms and that the conclusions and deductions and imaginations and speculations of a thought as it thinks are the same as the motions of an atom as it is moved by the impulse of external forces?

With this...

That Shakespeare is Made of Atoms does not Mean Shakespeare does not Exist

In today’s episode of Philosophy 101, I continue to make a basic distinction first made by Aristotle sometime before 320 B.C. In other words, we are covering ground that was covered two thousand, three hundred and thirty years ago. Such is the nature of so-called progress.

Here are the questions of our friendly neighborhood radical materialist.

Q: I wonder if you could clear up a point: You have made a distinction between materialists and radical materialists. A radical materialist...

Which is the Best Evil Church of Evil in Outer Space?

In a discussion about SF tropes that are ready to be put to pasture (or sent to the glue factory) the worthy robertjwizard writes:

“Another trope is the “let’s take the church, and make them an all-powerful force of sinister evil”. I dislike it for its transparency and I have never seen it well done. I think it because the author has a bone to pick rather than a story to tell – see Phillip Pullman. Another one is the evil corporation and for the same reasons.”

Let me ask anyone willing...

Nell Stormfront and her Air-Ironclad versus the Shopworn Tropes of Mars

The fine fellows over at SfSignal asked a question this week: What are some of the SF/F tropes that need to be retired?

Read more

Yet another Visit to the Clockwork Brain

A reader, or perhaps the Tin Woodman of Oz, once again has a few questions about the distinction between final cause and mechanical cause, mind and brain, and why I am programmed to act as if I have free will.

Unfortunately, instead of calling tech support to simply have me rebooted, he insists on using symbols called words to appeal to my sense of reason and my integrity as a philosopher in order to let myself be persuaded that his metaphysical reasoning has that non-physical and...

Wright's Writing Corner: Ping-Pong Dialogue

A short article on Ping-Pong dialog.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/147824.html

Ping-pong dialogue is dialogue that pops back and forth so quickly that no sentence fills an entire page. The virtue of this kind of dialogue is that it is really easy to read.

Read the whole thing here

Today's Quote

“The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love.”

– Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. author of Life Everlasting.

Sherlock Holmes, Sleuth and Slob

I delightful short piece from the Flying Inn (you Chesterton fans will catch the reference) that I simply must share:

http://oldeship.blogspot.com/2010/06/sherlock-holmes-book-vs-movies.html

Since the article is so short, I hope I do not offend by reprinting the whole of it. Read more