A philosphers survey

Its common to find surveys on most things on daily life buts its very rare to find surveys on what (modern) philosophers think and believe... Here is an that rare survey and and a summary.

"... Philosophy is now a highly specialised discipline. A don working on, say, ethics, may not even know the terminology used by logicians, and vice versa. This will be grist to the mill of those who feel that analytical philosophy has given up dealing with the big questions of life and is now mired in technical minutiae. But not so fast. Even Plato was attacked in his own time for treating philosophy as if it were all mathematics. And 1,800 years ago the great doctor Galen moaned about “the over-refined linguistic quibbling of some philosophers”.

People have always wanted philosophers to provide digestible wisdom, yet it is as true now as it was in Plato’s time that disciplined thinking is hard. So next time you sit next to a philosopher on a plane, talk about the movie, not the meaning of life. "

More about this: [paper from PhilPapers.org link] & [article link]

I am an Informavore

In a recent edge.org article/video interview, German journalist Frank Schirrmacher gives an overview of what it means to be living in an age of informavore (originally attributed to George Miller, popularized by D. Dennet, S. Pinker and others). What are the consequences ...etc. It is certainly an interesting read.

A small snippet from the interview:
"As we know, information is fed by attention, so we have not enough attention, not enough food for all this information. And, as we know — this is the old Darwinian thought, the moment when Darwin started reading Malthus — when you have a conflict between a population explosion and not enough food, then Darwinian selection starts. And Darwinian systems start to change situations. And so what interests me is that we are, because we have the Internet, now entering a phase where Darwinian structures, where Darwinian dynamics, Darwinian selection, apparently attacks ideas themselves: what to remember, what not to remember, which idea is stronger, which idea is weaker."

More about this here: [The Link]

Tyranny for the Commons Man

In a recent article (aug 2009) Barry Schwartz talks about the Tyranny of the Commons Man. The problem is posed very elegantly. "How does one escape a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting in their own rational self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource—even when it is clear this serves no one in the long run?" Building upon recent works like Non-zero, Evolution of Cooperation and others, he puts forward few ways to overcome some of the dilemmas. One approach is to appeal to the moral side of the people and the states. Another approach is to appeal to the self-interest side, offering incentives for the good behavior and punishments for the bad. An interesting and relevant issue is also discussed, which is a slippery slope in cooperation issues - the issue of naive realism...
.."As states enter these negotiating processes, leaders must also beware of “naive realism” and “reactive devaluation.” Parties to a conflict tend to think that while they see the issue “objectively,” the other side is biased. Stanford psychology professor Lee Ross dubs this psychological characteristic naive realism, and it’s not hard to see how it can lead to a negotiating impasse (“We’re being so reasonable; why are they so intransigent?”). It is hard to get into a virtuous cycle of cooperation if the parties cannot see the negotiations from the other side’s perspective. Because not only do states suffer from naive realism but they tend also to devalue what the other party offers. Suppose, for example, limits on fishing rights in international waters and standards for smokestack emissions are on the table. “We’ll pollute less if we can fish more,” you offer. “No deal,” says your negotiating partner, “you’re getting more than you’re giving.” “OK, then,” you say, “we’ll fish less if we can pollute more.” “No deal,” says your negotiating partner, “you’re getting more than you’re giving.” And you, of course, would say the same thing if your partner made either of those offers. We seem to assume that if someone is willing to give something up, it must be worth less than we think it is."..

In the end, he puts out a thought which indicates simply how difficult this problem is and the solution could start with just one small action taken by one person in the right direction.

"I know, I know. America really is exceptional. We are entitled to drive Hummers. We need those tanks because the safety of our kids is more important than the safety of anyone else’s. This feels right and true, so I understand how it might govern the attitudes and behaviors of most people (in America). But then I remind myself of the phenomenon of naive realism. Everybody, everywhere, has exactly the same feelings as we do. Like us, they can’t understand how people in other places don’t see things the way they do—don’t see things as they “really are.” This reminder of the above-average effect, sometimes called the “Lake Wobegon effect,” is enough to get me into the market for a Prius."

More of this here: [The Link]

What you don’t know about your friends

Here is an interesting article from boston.com about relationships.
..."A growing body of experimental evidence suggests that, on the whole, we know significantly less about our friends, colleagues, and even spouses than we think we do. This lack of knowledge extends far beyond embarrassing game-show fodder - we’re often completely wrong about their likes and dislikes, their political beliefs, their tastes, their cherished values. We lowball the ethics of our co-workers; we overestimate how happy our husbands or wives are."

..."Although such blind spots might at first seem like a comment on the atomization of modern life, the shallowness of human connection in the age of bowling alone, psychologists say that these gaps might simply be an unavoidable product of the way human beings forge personal bonds. Even in close relationships, there are holes in what we know about each other, and we fill them with our own assumptions."

..."But perhaps most surprisingly, these blind spots might not be a bad thing, and may even strengthen relationships. Many of the benefits that friendship provides don’t necessarily depend on perfect familiarity; they stem instead from something closer to reliability. And it may be that a certain ignorance of our friends’ weaknesses, or of the realms where we disagree, may even help sustain the deep sense of support that friends are there to provide."

More about this here: [The Link]

Which one to choose? paperback, audiobook, Kindle, and iPhone

A book can nowadays be found in many different formats to be read in different ways. But which one better? Do all have a niche role? I came across this recent article in chronicle describing an experiment to read a book in four different formats: paperback, audiobook, kindle and iPhone. Its an interesting read...

More about this here: [the link]

The Uses of Adversity, Can underprivileged outsiders have an advantage?

Write Malcom Gladwell in NYT, Annals of business gives an interesting perspective of how adversity can be used to become successful.. Here is an excerpt from the article:

"The rags-to-riches story—that staple of American biography—has over the years been given two very different interpretations. The nineteenth-century version stressed the value of compensating for disadvantage. If you wanted to end up on top, the thinking went, it was better to start at the bottom, because it was there that you learned the discipline and motivation essential for success.....
...
Today, that interpretation has been reversed. Success is seen as a matter of capitalizing on socioeconomic advantage, not compensating for disadvantage. The mechanisms of social mobility—scholarships, affirmative action, housing vouchers, Head Start—all involve attempts to convert the poor from chronic outsiders to insiders, to rescue them from what is assumed to be a hopeless state. Nowadays, we don’t learn from poverty, we escape from poverty..."

More of this here: [the link]

Impact of sterotyping ourselves..

An interesting article from Scientific American about "How Stereotyping yourself contributes to your success (or failures)"

People's performance on intellectual and athletic tasks is shaped by awareness of stereotypes about the groups to which they belong. New research explains why— and how we can break free from the expectations of others.

Here are some key concepts from the article:

Sterotypes and Success

• Faults in performance do not necessarily signify a dearth of skills or abilities, social scientists have found. Instead the failures may arise from awareness of stereotypes that others hold about the groups to which we belong.
• Social identity research examines not only how we both take on (internalize) and live out (externalize) identities that are shared with our peers but also how these things can change.
• This research can help us identify ways of responding to others’ stereotypes so that human talent and potential are not squandered. Although stereotypes can promote failure, they can also lift a person’s or group’s performance and be tools that promote social progress.

More of this here: [The Link]