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Re:Death by Tichy on Wednesday August 20, 2008 @12:28PM (#281607)
Stuff like "brain in a vat" is exactly why I dismiss most philosophy. Where is the reference to that possibility in the lecture that was posted here? If we (or one of us) is just a brain in a vat, surely it would have a lot of implications for the value of life?

I think "brain in a vat" only makes a stronger case for mathematics. After all, in the end what else but information and it's transformation matters? Everything else can be stripped away. And stuck with pure information, I think we are talking maths.

Re:Death by GavinB on Thursday August 21, 2008 @02:05AM (#282387)
Amusing that you dismiss philosophy in the first paragraph and then go right ahead and engage in it in the second.
Re:Death by Tichy on Thursday August 21, 2008 @06:26AM (#282515)
Yes, as probably becomes evident from my other posts, I am just disappointed by the shallowness of most philosophy out there. In the sense that I consider mathematics to be philosophy, of course I accept it. I just don't like that almost all non-mathematical philosophy texts I have encountered start from invalid assumptions.