weird. i was thinking about the phrase "speculative philosophy" when we were walking home from the daily last week. you were saying that "those things of which we can't speak" should not be included in philosophy, and i was thinking that maybe they could belong to some realm outside philosophy that wasn't necessarily theology. so, what i came up with was "speculative philosophy," but i figured you'd object to the word "philosophy" being in any way attached to the business of speculation.
It depends on what you speculate about, I think. If the objects and the situations are speculative, then I think you're in for trouble. But if the objects (and actors) remain the same and the situation changes I think you could glean something interesting.
Example: Imagine what it would be like for a cheeseburger vampire to live on jupiter, as opposed to what it would be like for a human to live on jupiter.
One of these thought experiments is more useful than the other. One is more fun, though.
I like in crappy Scifi pieces that deal with AI the best way to solve the problem is simply to unplug them. What's interesting is that the characters never seem to have very many moral qualms about it - it is seen as very different from, say, blowing someone's head off. But the effect of the action on the intelligent being is precisely the same. I also like the implication of many of these stroies that beings without emotion are morally inconsequential.
I think I'd like to write a good paper on morality and artificial intelligence sometime. Maybe I could publish it in that Speculative Philosophy journal.
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Example: Imagine what it would be like for a cheeseburger vampire to live on jupiter, as opposed to what it would be like for a human to live on jupiter.
One of these thought experiments is more useful than the other. One is more fun, though.
Reply
I like in crappy Scifi pieces that deal with AI the best way to solve the problem is simply to unplug them. What's interesting is that the characters never seem to have very many moral qualms about it - it is seen as very different from, say, blowing someone's head off. But the effect of the action on the intelligent being is precisely the same. I also like the implication of many of these stroies that beings without emotion are morally inconsequential.
I think I'd like to write a good paper on morality and artificial intelligence sometime. Maybe I could publish it in that Speculative Philosophy journal.
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