The Rubber Hand Illusion

What does this say about the self?

Nothing?

Some of you might recall a short discussion on Stephen Hawking's new book The Grand Design. I was a little concerned with how he might define "nothing," when he might say something like "the universe came from nothing." Here's a short video I came across with Michio Kaku talking about "nothing."

What Happened Before the Big Bang?

Meeting Tonight!

The meeting is tonight at 5pm at the Coffeehouse. Weston will be bringing his laptop tonight to help come up with some discussion topics on Philosophy Bites. If you haven't checked it out before, you can find more information here.

No Club Monday (11th)

For those of you who may have missed it, the club will now meet once ever two weeks. There will be no meeting tomorrow. The next meeting will be the 18th.

Next Meeting

We will be watching the movie "Waking Life" Monday, October 4th, in room 126 Stevenson, at 8:00pm. (Yes, our meetings are normally at 5pm. But, this week we're changing it up since the movie will last about an hour and a half.)

Meetings and Bertrand Russell on... Smoking?

Today's Meeting

We started off today's meeting with a few exercises. Jumping Jacks, push-ups, running in place... Just kidding, that's obviously a lie. Or is it? If you're officially confused, you now understand how we felt when we took a journey to the island of Knights and Knaves. (No, this is not an elaborate drug innuendo.) Wes brought a few logic puzzles with him. One of which is called (as you might have guessed): On the Island of Knights and Knaves. It goes like this. (The following puzzles are by Raymond Smullyan.)

On the island of Knights and Knaves, every inhabitant is either a knight or a knave. Knights always tell the truth. Knaves never tell the truth; any sentence uttered by a knave is false. A stranger came to the island and encountered three inhabitants, A, B, and C. He asked A, "Are you a knight, or a knave?" A mumbled an answer that the stranger could not understand. The stranger then asked B, "What did he say?" B replied, "A said that there is exactly one knight among us." Then C burst out, "Don't believe B, he is lying!" What are B and C?

Using the aforementioned knowledge of the island of Knights and Knaves, here is a second puzzle:

One day I went to the island of knights and knaves and encountered an inhabitant who said, "Either I am a knave or else two plus two equals five." What should you conclude?

I'm not going to post the answer. That would be too easy. If you think you've got it figured out, leave a comment with the answer. Feel free to have an open discussion about it.

After we felt pretty good about our solutions to these problems, we moved on to Zeno's Paradox. That led us into a discussion about infinity, mathematical concepts, etc.

Next Meeting (October 4th)

Next time we'll be watching the film Waking Life. I haven't been updated on the location, as of yet, but the meeting will be at 8:00pm. As soon as we've got a room locked down, I'll let you know which one it is. You can see the trailer for Waking Life below.



And now... *drumroll*...

Bertrand Russell, on Smoking.



Hopefully that wasn't too anticlimactic. I tend to find these bizarre little stories about philosopher's lives interesting (and funny).

So, to wrap it up, today we solved puzzles and talked about infinity. Next week's meeting is at 8:00pm and we're watching an interesting movie on philosophy and life. You will be there or you won't. Either way, I'm right.

Meeting Updates

For those of you who didn't make it to last Monday's meeting (like me), here is a little recap provided by Wes:

At our second meeting we met at the Coffeehouse and discussed Stephen Hawking's thoughts on whether god is necessary in an explanation of the universe.

A brief explanation of Hawking's New Book is available from abcnews.com here.

Hawking seems to argue that the laws of nature we recognize today such as gravity are sufficient in explaining what we observe of the universe.

We also briefly touched on different kinds of causation and how they might be confused.

Possibilities for future meetings include a discussion of Hume and skepticism and a viewing of "Waking Life," Richard Linklater's film.

There is also an important update regarding future meetings. Unless otherwise specified, we will now be meeting at 5:00pm (30 minutes earlier than we have in the past) on Monday evenings at the Coffeehouse, in Uptown Normal.

Hope to see you all Monday.

Department Of Philosophy Colloquia Series: Wild Bodies!

I just wanted to give those of you who are not philosophy majors a heads up, since you likely did not receive an email about this event. Dr. Jordan from the Psychology Department will be giving a talk on Wild Bodies: Toward A Metaphysics Of Meaning next Monday. If you're interested, stop by and check it out. See the image below for details.

Second Meeting

Our next club meeting will be at 5:30pm on Monday, September 20 at the Coffehouse in downtown Normal. If you need directions, check out the embedded map below:


View Larger Map

Hope to see you all there!

This blog title is false!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first meeting and congratulations to our new officers! Here are the results of the elections:

President: Weston Love
Vice Presidents: Eric Burns, Justin Lowe
Secretary Treasurer: Connor Allen

As you may have guessed from the title, we spent some time on the Liar Paradox. Have a look at this Star Trek episode that kicked off our discussion.



I'm sure if you were standing outside the room you would have seen a fair bit of smoke making its way out from under the door as we thought about this circuit-melting paradox. Think about it. "This sentence is false." But, if it's false, then it's true. But, if it's true... anyway. While its truth value is debatable, the fact that there is something strange going on in particular self-referential sentences, such as the Liar Paradox, is not. It's important to note that we said something strange is going on with particular self-referential sentences. Consider the following sentence: "It is true that this sentence is composed of eleven words." The sentence makes reference to itself but it seems like a perfectly normal thing to say. It makes sense. It's not some semantically random, syntactically correct combination of words. So, among other things, several of us agreed that the problem with the Liar Paradox does not lay merely within the fact that it is self-referential. If you'd like to learn more about the Liar's Paradox, check out the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on it.

What do you think? If you have an opinion you'd like to share, leave a comment or, even better, meet up with us next Monday at 5:30pm. The location is still pending but as soon as it is determined you'll find it here and if you're a member of the Listserv, you'll get an email. If you're an Illinois State University student and you'd like to join the ISU Philosophical Society Listserv, send Eric (ejburns@ilstu.edu) or Wes (wtlove@ilstu.edu) an email.

There is no set topic of discussion for the upcoming meeting but it has been suggested that we talk about Stephen Hawking's new book The Grand Design. If you have any ideas, bring them along! We're also looking for good, thought-provoking movies, so keep an eye out.

First Club Meeting!

Welcome to the first ISU Philosophical Society (Club) blog! Keep checking back to stay updated on club related information and events. If everything goes according to plan, we will also be posting interesting videos, interviews, and thought experiments.

The first club meeting will be Monday, September 13th, at 5:30pm in room 126 Stevenson. If you have any questions about the location and/or time, please email Eric (ejburns@ilstu.edu) or Wes (wtlove@ilstu.edu). The future meetings are likely to be on the same day of the week (Monday) but this is subject to change. If this date is inconvenient for you, please send us an email or show up to the first meeting and let us know what works for you. Our intention is to work out a date that works best for the majority of the members.

In case you weren't able to stop by our table at the ISU Festival this semester, we'd just like to let you know that we welcome all ISU students. The club is not just for philosophy majors. The Philosophical Society is just a group of individuals who like to get together, informally, and really think about different issues, ranging from current affairs to ancient philosophical inquiries. We also like to watch movies (who doesn't?). So, if you've seen any interesting, though-provoking movies, let us know. We'd love to watch it and discuss it with you.