14. July 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

My days at seekinglogos.com are numbered.  I will be deleting the blog soon.  Please head on over to my new blog:

critiqueofpureseasoning.blogspot.com

Cheers!

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8. June 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

I’ve been running barefoot and I’m planning to run a half marathon in november without shoes on.  I get stubborn sometimes, and I act as if people’s concerns are silly and completely unfounded.  There is a grain of truth there: people tend to assume that it’s obvious running barefoot is dangerous, but articles like this remind me that the jury is still out.  The author of the article writes that “everyone is an experiment of one”.  I have to remember this.  I’m not running barefoot because it’s hard and fast obvious that it’s better, i’m running barefoot because there is some reason to think that it’s better.  But it’s not decisive reason, and I could be wrong.  I haven’t heard of any serious problems with BFR, but I keep my ears perked.  In the meantime, I just know that it’s an open question whether x or y is better, that everyone works under the assumption that x is better, and I’ve chosen to work under the assumption that y is better.  That’s all.

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9. May 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

Suppose in circumstance C I experience phenomena p to degree n where n>0.  Nothing unusual about C is novel in its contribution to p, and the degree to which I experienc p is pretty normal.

Suppose p is annoying.

Suppose at the onset of event E, I enter a new circumstance, C’, the degree to which I experience p is increased by degree m, where m is noticeable but not very significant.

In these circumstances, I feel inclined to get angry at E for p. Not p to degree o, where m-n=o, but p, period.

Effectively I blame the event for the fact of the annoyance’s existence, even though I would have experienced p only slightly less should E not have happened.

Does anyone else do this? Is there a name for this? There should be.

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4. May 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

This isn’t the most impressive flashmob you’ll find, but it’s the only one with respect to which I can have a reaction somewhat akin to pride.

Is it weird that the older I get, the more enjoyment I get out of people randomly breaking out into song and dance?

Also, I’m glad that I get to be an Ohio State student for a half a decade or so. I feel pretty lucky.

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3. May 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

“This sentence is false”

• If the sentence is false, then it’s true, but in that case it’s not the case that it’s false, so it’s false.

“Suppose Gamma is the set of all sets that aren’t members of themselves.  Is gamma a member of itself?”

• If Gamma is a member of itself, then it isn’t the case that Gamma is one of the sets that aren’t members of themselves, so it doesn’t belong in Gamma…but in that case, it’s not a member of itself, and as a set that isn’t a member of itself, then it belongs in Gamma.

Here’s something that is disanalogous, but of an interestingly similar spirit.S: “If I’m not mistaken, p.” Read the rest of this entry »

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24. April 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

I’ve recently decided to be barefoot as often as I can.  This includes being barefoot at home, when I’m outside, when I’m going for my run, when I’m at the grocery store, when I’m at restaurants….all the time.  It turns out this is not the kind of thing you can do without people giving you hell about it.  So, I felt like publishing this…a manifesto of sorts. Read the rest of this entry »

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20. April 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

Here are three nascent ideas.  Well…two nascent ideas.  The third is just a little bit of silliness.  But the first two, they’re ferreal…potential blog posts, potential papers, potential considerations that could figure into a broader position on relativism, perspectivalism, and the relationship between the two.

Read the rest of this entry »

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16. April 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

Last night, my buddy Joe wanted to know what disagreement among persons over first-person perspectival facts looks like for the metaphysician that wants to be a realist about such facts.  I think I gave a bad answer.  So I’m going to try again.  In particular, I want to try to make the point by exploiting an analogy that I am increasingly impressed with: the analogy between modal, temporal, and first-personal perspectives.

First, here’s the thesis.  Perspectives are sets of facts.  Sets of facts disagree when some propositon is in one set and its negation is in the other.  Two first personal perspectives disagree if some proposition is true from one perspective and its negation is true from the other.  This is disagreement among perspectives and it is (if I can get away with saying this) a metaphysical phenomenon.  It is distinct from conversational disagreement, such as two people arguing or debating over whether a proposition is true.  However, it’s plausible that faultless disagreement of the sort exploited by contemporary analytic relativism arises when conversational disagreement is over metaphysical perspectival disagreement of the sort I will be outlining here. Read the rest of this entry »

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30. March 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

I want to follow up on some of the issues on the strip clubs post below, and I want to get back to writing on philosophy, all after i finish this damned paper on tense and temporal passage.  But I just wanted to ask something…real real quick…

Apparently this has been rocking everyone’s world recently, findings that show that erectile dysfunction is a predictor of heart disease.

There’s an interesting explanation as to why this could be the case, that the arteries in the penis are thinner and thus get clogged more easily, so the early signs of heart disease might have their first manifestations in the penis…

But isn’t there a far easier explanation? Shouldn’t we have expected this all along?

I want to publish a study that shows a link between extra-large sweatshirts and heart disease.  I CAN HAZ GRANT MONEY PLEEZ?

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27. March 2010 by Raleigh Miller.

Recently, Iceland banned strip clubs.  In response, I posted that link on facebook, along with the message:

 ”I almost wrote that I had ‘mixed feelings’ on this, but then I thought for 3.5 more seconds…and decided my feelings weren’t mixed at all.  I’m in favor.  Well done, Iceland.”

This immediately gave rise to a lively debate, which was inexpressibly helpful, interesting, and clarificatory.  With the contibutors’ permission, I’ve reproduced the conversation in full. Given that this took place on facebook, please forgive any expressive laxity, including mistakes in spelling, grammar, or any unsettling casualness of tone.

  Read the rest of this entry »

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