The Dawdler's Philosophy

Take yer stinkin’ proteins off me you damn, dirty microbe!

This time Harland asks the question: Is there any way for us provincial primates—with all our adaptations for dealing with smaller scales—to address planetary-sized problems?

We discuss from there topics ranging along the lines of logistics, motivational strategies, and hopelessness and helplessness.

Unfortunately, we are the mercy of this pan-troglo-demic. What else are we at the mercy of that is of our own making?

-Dawds

Stay in yer lane, puny pedants!! This time the Dawdlers ponder the question: What is preferable, being a pedant or a magister? Tune in to find out which!

Then celebrate by doing the ma-corona! [moves: go to beach, dig hole in sand, stick head in]

Longest. Dawdle. Yet.

But we come back to you now at the turn of the tide. This time Ryan asks a question and Harland gets it wrong (of course). But we're ok. Are YOU ok?

Let's talk about how the world will end then, shall we?

Tastes like chicken!

What does?

Dinosaurs…

Happy Harrahdays,

-Dawdlers

Metaphysical outlaws?  Does our universe operate according to some set or other of fixed, eternal rules?  Enforced by whom/what?  Could these "laws" themselves "evolve"?  This week the Dawdlers consider some lawlike generalizations from Alfred North Whitehead's book Adventures of Ideas where he presents a quadruple of suggestions for how "laws" might function metaphysically, and how various influential thinkers have developed this concept family historically.  

 

What makes humans special? Is it language? Culture? Throwing? Semiotics? Impossible burgers?

Ryan thinks it’s the extent to which we combine ("meat", cheese, bun - see!?). In this episode we Dawdlers discuss this in this “short long” and will perhaps revisit it again sometime.

Join hands and feel our infinite combinatorial power, people!

-The Dawdlers

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00:01:13 – Ryan’s deep passions // A way in // Physics and the humanities and nothing in between!!!

00:06:58 – Without further ado, another story // Ubiquitous combination // Human exceptionalism?

00:12:54 – Cognitive combinatorialism // A simple definition // Conceptual blending/integration // Possible worlds

00:28:32 – A framework // Analogy and categorization // Actions and conditions // Shark test bites // It’s the extent to which we combine that’s different about us

00:39:57 – Biotic exceptionalism, not human exceptionalism // Photosynthesis comparison // Waste, extinction, and niche construction

To be or not to be, that’s the question, isn’t it?

In this episode, we Dawdlers discuss Jacques Derrida’s idea “Hauntology.” Not an easy philosopher to understand, we do our best to work out what spooks a Frenchman. In the end, this was but a first foray into the thoughts of an intellect that dealt in as much enigma as he did in misunderstanding.

Happy Halloween you cavity-riddled chompers!

-Dawds

P.s. Be warned, there’s some narration in this one.

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00:03:40 – First narration interruption

00:04:54 – Background to Derrida and Deconstruction

00:10:43 – (Metaphysical) Hauntology // Temporal and ontological disjunction // Melody example // Specters of Marx // Commodity/value example // The word itself

00:26:17 – (Cultural) Hauntology // Mark Fisher’s “Ghosts of My Life” // The slow cancellation of the future // Anachronism

00:33:15 – Second narration interruption

00:34:51 – (Cultural) Hauntology cont’d // Role in society and economy // Another Einstein-Brian Greene spacetime loaf idea comparison

00:51:54 – Harland asks, “So what?”

00:52:53 – Third narration interruption

00:53:52 – Ryan’s answer to Harland’s question // Part 1: improving judgments and decision making // Part 2: Hauntology is a symptom of important human cognitive processes // Conceptual blending // Arthur Koestler’s Buddhist monk riddle // Foreshadowing the next episode

In this episode Harland engages in some more of that pesky normative semantics and proposes a new definition of the word 'definition' (n): a paraphrastic replacement function.  Huh?  Well then he defines all those words too! 

The primary intent is to provide a pragmatically, anthropologically useful interpretation of current usage while not relying on a putatively unsupportable definition that includes notions like 'meaning' or 'speaker intentions', or other conceptual frameworks that Harland doesn't like. 

Instead it hopes to accord smoothly with physicalism and functionalism, which the Dawds suspect are probably the best models we have available at this time.  Let's try to bring philosophy of language into closer consilience with the rest of our intellectual edifice! 

 

Fnord.  This week the Dawdler's dip a toe into the wild and wacky world of parody religion and spread a few memes and participate in their small way to the Pan-Pontification Project.  Duck!  Here comes a golden apple, thrown into our little party.  Let's not fight over it, k?  

~The Dawds

The Principia Discordia Online:

https://principiadiscordia.com/book/1.php

Do we need to explain to you what breathing is? It's obvious. The evidence is in the doing. Or is it?

In this Short, we discuss Harland's disdain for the phrase and its strange loopiness.

Song: Can't Get Used To Losing You

Artist: Andy Williams