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The trope that changed my mind
Major spoilers for Get Out and lesser spoilers for Six Wakes follow below. This got long and warnings around topics that touch on (but don’t discuss in detail) body image. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes occupy different genres of speculative fiction. One is a contemporary horror film that examines privilege and…
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Ockham, the neo-Thomist right and transgender rights
Micael Gustavsson asked a good question in the previous post and my reply got so long that I thought it should be a post instead. [A caveat – I’m not an expert on Medieval philosophy or Ockham but I have been to Surrey. Any philosophy professors or expert on the theology of the middle ages…
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Meat Robot cont. Wright’s Noughts & Crosses Parable
I thought this post of John C Wright’s was quite good: http://www.scifiwright.com/2016/09/parable-of-the-naughts-and-crosses/ While I disagreed with a lot of it, it was thoughtful and structured. Indeed, it makes the contrast with his posts on Islam, politics or sexuality seem worse in comparison – Wright is capable of arguing on the basis of something other than…
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Meat Robot 2: Omniscience & Omnipotent
At the discussion at John C Wright’s, I didn’t get to discussing my thinking about what I think free-will is. Because the discussion was couched in terms of Wright’s religious stance, I ended up at this point a lot quicker. I won’t repeat what I said there but I’ll rephrase and explain. A divine being…
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Meat Robot 1: Free Will
John C Wright started an interesting discussion at his blog http://www.scifiwright.com/2016/08/a-general-query-to-all-panphysicalists-and-radical-materialists/ Let us cut to the chase. Think back to the day when you first discovered that you were a meat robot without free will, without freedom, and without dignity. Did the discovery fill you with awe, rapture, wonder and gratitude? For, if not, the…