FB Carp 2025-10-14
Apparently, John Searle passed away recently, and while I hate to say it, the existence of his work, especially those on philosophy of mind, has allowed me to understand the world much more deeply than otherwise, specifically:
1. That modern philosophy (in academia) is basically a game not dissimilar to social media where appealing to common sense of the masses let you "win" arguments based on sheer number of "likes" and "shares";
2. That people actually believe in obviously wrong arguments, and those who do not agree with those wrong conclusions nonetheless seem to believe the discussion is in any way meaningful. This fact is surprising (even today) and scary for me.
This has, in a sense, allowed me to deal with the "it's just a stochastic parrot" stochastic parrots with more grace than I could have otherwise without the decades of mental preparation.
I guess I should express my gratitude here. Maybe?
PS: As a Chinese I also think the name of the argument is racist.
1. That modern philosophy (in academia) is basically a game not dissimilar to social media where appealing to common sense of the masses let you "win" arguments based on sheer number of "likes" and "shares";
2. That people actually believe in obviously wrong arguments, and those who do not agree with those wrong conclusions nonetheless seem to believe the discussion is in any way meaningful. This fact is surprising (even today) and scary for me.
This has, in a sense, allowed me to deal with the "it's just a stochastic parrot" stochastic parrots with more grace than I could have otherwise without the decades of mental preparation.
I guess I should express my gratitude here. Maybe?
PS: As a Chinese I also think the name of the argument is racist.