In his short life, Alan Turing (1912-1954) made foundational contributions to philosophy, mathematics, biology, artificial intelligence, and computer science. He, as much as anyone, invented and showed how to program the digital electronic computer. From September, 1939, his work on computation was war-driven and brutally practical. He developed high speed computing devices needed to decipher German Enigma Machine messages to and from U-boats, countering the most serious threat by far to Britain..
The three puzzles here considered are shown to have a common structure. And in each, an agent is thrust into a cleverly contrived deliberatively unstable situation. The paper advocates a resolutely Pyrrhonian abandonment of the futile reasoning in which the agent is trapped and advocates an alternative strategy for escape.
Certain paradoxes set us reeling endlessly. In surprise examination paradoxes, pupils' reasonings lead them to reel between expecting an examination and expecting none. With Newcomb's puzzle, choosers reel between reasoning in favour of choosing just one box and choosing two. The paradoxes demand an answer to what it is rational to believe or do. Highlighting other reelings and puzzles, this paper shows that the paradoxes should come as no surprise. The paradoxes demand an end to our reasoning when the conditions (...) they set ensure no end. They equivocate between, so to speak, reasoning in heaven and reasoning on earth; and, on the conditions set, not even an infinite god could reach a conclusion. (shrink)
Successful jokes involve incongruities, but not any incongruity will do—not, for example, one as blatantly bare as an explicit instance of the form p.~p. Substitution in such is no secure generator of fun; and stand-up comedians would be lucky to escape with their lives, if—at the Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night—they delivered one-liners such as “She came from Dungeness and not from Dungeness.” Build-up context, alcohol level, and delivery skills—and it is not impossible that any line, even the p.~p (...) instance, could secure some laughs; but laughs alone need indicate no joke. At a level virtually platitudinous, jokes require an incongruity—a tension—between expectations typically aroused by initial words and resultant sabotaging revelations. We could, no doubt, be a species that laughed at every expressed contradiction, yet one for which banana skins, sexual spasms, and implied inconsistencies raised no flicker. Which particular sayings generate incongruities and not mere laughter is no empirical matter, but one of logic, logic taken sufficiently widely to include semantics and pragmatics. These incongruities, with the masking, the movement and unmasking—the teasing, stripping, and exposed sabotage—are to be found within many philosophical paradoxes as well as within jokes. Laying bare the jokes’ mechanisms can help to resolve such paradoxes. Joking matter itself need be no joking matter; and as jokes and paradoxes rely upon veiled incongruities, an all-seeing god would see no joke and meet no paradox. (shrink)
Much has been written about recidivist punishments, particularly within the area of criminology. However there is a notorious lack of penal philosophical reflection on this issue. This book attempts to fill that gap by presenting the philosopher’s view on this matter as a way of furthering the debate on recidivist punishments.
Peter Cave explains why he believes we can and should treat people well, even after they have ceased to exist. We should treat people well; therefore, we should treat dead people well.
John Stuart Mill was born two hundred years ago, on 20 th May, 1806. He died on 7 th May 1873. Peter Cave brings to life some of the thinking of this outstanding philosopher.
Look at any investment advertisement and you will encounter: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUIDE TO FUTURE PERFORMANCE. This statement is a tribute to the power of the Financial Services Authority. Let us see how past performance plays with those down on the farm.
Peter Cave's new book, Can a Robot Be Human? 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles, covers a wide range of perplexities and paradoxes. Here, Peter raises some timely puzzles.
Peter Cave juggles sex and God, Wittgenstein and language, and Kant and his lemons, pointing to some irredeemably paradoxical and perilous aspects of erotic love.
