Hey there steemians!
After running my best author/post contest a few weeks back, I had a re-think due to the fact I spend about a week's worth of my author rewards on it, and that I actually have specific kinds of content/writing/thinking that I'd like to encourage.
On the basis of a lot of thought, about 6 pints of beer (Melbourne has great beer), and at least one other steemian basically telling me to stop complaining and do something constructive, this is what I came up with:
The Inagural, Make-Sense-of-Things-Monday, Steemit philosophy contest!
(I was going to go with Philoso-Friday, but didn't quite make the deadline. Maybe next time).
This is a philosophy contest, so what I'm looking for is people doing philosophy; trying to answer questions like: What is moral or immoral, and why? What is real or not? What does it mean to know something? What is valuable or important - does this just apply to you, or should more people think this way? How should society work? What is 'fairness' or 'justice'? How does some book or movie or game explore or illustrate some philosophical concept? Who was a bigger tool, Socrates or Confucius?
You get the idea.
By 'doing philosophy', I don't mean telling me what you believe in terms of your "personal philosophy". I want to know why you believe it, and why a reasonable person (whatever that is) should accept it. There's no need to pander to my values either. If you think my entire framing of philosophy (or anything else I've ever posted) is wrong, tell me why! You know that university lecturer or teacher who marks you down just because you disagree with them? That's not who I am.
If you aren't sure where to start, I've listed some free philosophy resources and books here.
How to enter:
- Create a post on something about philosophy, and post the link to it in a comment below.
Conditions of entry:
- Your entry must be no more than 1 day older than this post.
- You must have a reputation of 48 or under at the time of entering.
- You must upvote at least one other entry.
- Your entry post must have both the #philosophy and #newbieresteemday tags.
- If your account is worth a massive amount of Steem/SP/SBD, you can still enter, but I might decide to donate your prize to someone who needs the money more than either of us.
How to win:
- The winner will be the person with the highest number of votes (not the highest pending payout) on their entry comment at the time of this post paying out in seven days time.
- Second place will be the person with the second highest number of votes (not the highest pending payout) on their entry comment at the time of this post paying out in seven days time.
- At least two additional prizes for best overall philosophical argument and most scholarly entry (you know, with references and research and all that) will be decided by me. These might be people who won the popular vote, but they might not be either.
- I reserve the right to award anything extra for whatever reasons I like.
What you can win:
- Winner gets 1.5 SBD
- Second place gets 1 SBD
- Best overall philosophical argument gets 0.5 SBD
- Most scholarly effort gets 0.5 SBD
- In addition, I am willing to sponsor all winners into the @steembasicincome program - check it out here.
If this post makes more than expected (or any profit at all over what I'm spending on prizes), expect bonuses.
Note: I am a compulsive plagiarism checker. If I catch anyone cheating, they will regret it.
After this post has paid out, I'll tally up the votes on entries, make my decisions and send the prizes out a day or two after (depending on how busy I am next Monday/Tuesday).
Finally, if you are a newbie and are Australian or an Aussie ex-pat, residing in Australia, or have some other Australian connection, you should consider applying to join #TeamAustralia for fun, meetups, mentoring, support, and the best discord channel in existence. For more on this, including how to join, see @choogirl's excellent post here.
Whether you are from Australia or not, feel free to find me somewhere in one of the 15 discord channels I'm known to frequent.
And remember: Philosophy is for everyone, not just privileged eggheads like me.
Thanks for reading. Upvotes and resteems are deeply appreciated, both emotionally and financially.
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Why evaluate posts on Steemit according to scholarly citations? I'm new here, but I don't see an audience for scholarly work here.
I spent many years studying philosophy as a hobby before I realized that there are entire categories of philosophy that are better classified as literature... so citing them might be nice for giving credit, but not for building a rational case for your point.
I see the challenge of philosophy in a place like this is to help people overcome cognitive bias and learn methods for discerning between psychobabble and some kind of rationality. I also see people here (and in every other philosophy forum) talking about philosophy, then telling people what to do in the real world. The real world is the domain of science, not literature.
Why? I think you've almost answered the question for me. A scholarly approach to anything is underappreciated on Steemit - but I'm only qualified to assess philosophical scholarship. I don't see citing sources as a matter of building a case. The last thing I want people to do is indulge in appeals to suppose authority. However, it is also the case, both in philosophy and (I suspect) in general, that at least one of the two following ideas are somewhat true:
Ah - the philosophy as literature idea. This depends on what your view of literature is, and whether or not it can actually do anything useful or tell us anything about the world or ourselves. I do agree on the value of philosophy in helping discern psychobabble and , to use the technical term, bullshit, from views that actually have some good reasons for believing them. And you know, broadly construed, some science could also be considered literature...
Rather pedantically, I'd categorise this as a philosophical statement, such is the value-judgement and metaphysical baggage being smuggled therein. You are right, in that there is a very real sense that the domain of empirical and technological endeavours rightly belongs to science. I want things like power stations and cars to be designed and run by electrical and mechanical engineers, not philosophers!
But, I don't want engineers to tell me why I should value individual rights over collective utilitarian outcomes, how I should live my life, whether or not animals (or indeed anyone) has a 'soul', or why we do/don't live in a simulation. What certainly don't want them doing is telling me that the only things that are 'real' are that which are captured by what we can observe, and/or what our current theories describe. Science, as Neil deGrasse Tyson regularly proves, does not necessarily qualify you to say anything sensible about any of these sort of questions.
All of that said, I'd love to hear your views on this, (and anything else really) - be as scholarly, or not, as you like.
As a scientist, I would say that there is a lack of evidence to suggest that any rights exist. I can not observe or measure them.
I was previously a believer in the Bentham's utilitarianism.... it took me 6 months of internal struggle to admit that a particular utilitarian belief that I had was unscientific. I need to post that story here on Steemit.
The short version for utilitarianism is that I'm OK if you make personal decisions about your own behavior using some kind of utilitarian calculus, voodoo, astrology, or whatever, but politicians who force peaceful people to do things against their will are rationalizing their misdeeds by referring to utility. There is a lack of evidence to support the accuracy and reliability of ANY utilitarian "common good" measurement procedure... specifically, one that can measure something that people like (free money for not working) on the same scale as loss of liberty (e.g., from government regulations that restrict behavior or loss of real or financial property from government tax or action).
If you are a believer in utilitarianism, I'd like to arrange a conversation some time.
...p.s., Look ma! No citations!
As it happens, I, like most philosophers except utilitarians, do not think any one system of ethics can give coherent answers in all situations. Sometimes it makes sense to consider the greater good, sometimes individual rights or individual lives are more important.
(The only system of ethics I can never quite get into is virtue ethics. This approach is, IMHO, nowhere near being capable of generating action-guiding principles.)
Aha, by 'scientist', you mean 'empiricist'. What an amazing coincidence that the only things that exist are those which you can observe. I mean really, what are the odds of that? I am being a bit facetious, but my point is that sometimes we conflate 'things that don't exist' with things that 'we can say nothing about within certain boundaries'.
Also, you do know there are lots of things we do not observe directly, or indeed at all. I have seen 2 objects, and I have seen a squiggle on a page that is said to represent but I have never seen the number 2, but I am not sure I have ever observed the number 2 itself. Likewise, I have observed examples of things in a category, but not the whole category. I certainly have no objective reason to think that categories or types have any objective existence.
And don't give me that line about 'lack of evidence' - I know that trick too. Let me rephrase this: You rule certain things out of existence on the basis of an absence of proof. But absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence, or in your case, evidence that something lacks the quality of 'existence'.
Here's a question: How do you observationally prove that the only things that exist are the things that we can observe?
Let me clarify. I am not trying to trick you. The ethical and moral beliefs of others have a profound impact on me personally and on nearly everyone else on the planet, so I take it seriously.
When I say "there is a lack of evidence...." I am not claiming that the thing does not exist. It is possible that the main characters in Star Wars existed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I have a lack of evidence to suggest that those characters existed in the real world. I stand ready to modify my statement upon seeing the evidence. If you want to pray to the Jedi or guide your own behavior via virtue ethics, and you do so peacefully, that is OK with me. I would prefer people to not use the type of sloppy reasoning that causes harm to OTHERS (either directly or by proxy through their government) based on belief in things for which there is no evidence.
I say this in part because I have an abundance of evidence that suggests that conflict exists and is often justified by moral beliefs or similar beliefs about the way things should be (e.g., most wars, all political conflict, and domestic conflict, such as "my wife left the house during the day and had lunch with her friend and her friend's husband, so I punched my wife's teeth out").
I prefer for people to recognize the lack of agreement on political, religious, and moral issues, consider the possibility that humans lack an accurate and reliable internal mechanism for determining the truth of such beliefs, and follow the path by which we all refrain from harming peaceful people based on these beliefs. I would like people to understand that those beliefs are prone to error despite how emotionally attached we are to our own moral beliefs and how confident we are that the other guy is wrong.
I suspect that you prefer to not be harmed by somebody who uses sloppy reasoning to justify their harm against peaceful people, because you said in your previous reply:
Congratulations you have been upvoted and resteemed as part of my personal #newbieresteemday’s / #newbiegames top 10 posts of the day
To reach more people, try out the #newbieresteemday Discord Chat channel Post Promotion Box.
We invite everyone to use our #newbieresteemday tag for their next post (or #newbiegames for their next game or contest) to connect with more of our members.
To learn more visit: Come Join Us!!! (Newbie Resteem Initiative)
Thanks for the support @simplymike. Also, thanks for including the discord link - I meant to put it in, but forgot :)
You're welcome. :0)
You can also use the #newbiegames tag for any of your contests
A nice contest, and I will try and remember and come back in 6 days and vote some of the comments up. Maybe a re-drop by you on day six back into the post promo box on newbie discord would be a good, idea, but I will try and remember.
Thanks @bashadow, your votes, and input in general, would be great.
i'm in! resteemed and upvoted;
https://steemit.com/newbieresteemday/@psilocybit/it-s-artist-endeavour-to-bring-that-which-is-in-the-realms-of-the-mind-navigators-psychonauts
Excellent!
Excellent initiative! I hope it will get many people to write philosophy, and make the world a better place because of it.
(Will resteem later, during a time when the US is awake, for maximum impact.)
Thanks - on all counts.
great idea. if i find the time i would love to contribute
Thanks, I look forward to reading what you've got to say.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by SamD (at samueldouglas) from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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I would like to enter but my rep is too high for some reason.
If you are into stuff like this, you will like my privacy workshop "truth now vs truth never" posts.
I ask serious questions and dig deep, most people are too afraid to even upvote my things because I have already proven major accounts on steemit to be fake, and also asked some questions of steemit inc which they are unable/unwilling to answer.
You can find out more about someone or something by asking a direct question than you can by reading 10 books most of the time, I employ the internet to do this all the time and the results are quite disturbing.
I find very very few willing to look, and many many strange accounts trying to play games with my head and distract from my work.
I set the rep lower as I was running this contest for newer account holders, or those yet to find success. If people are interested, I could do something open to everyone - though I probably don't need to offer cash rewards to higher rep authors. I wonder if I could recreate something like the old Philosophers' Carnival that many of us used to participate in, way back in the early 2000's.
Your work sounds like my kind of thing. I will most certainly check it out.
I was going to write something on the topic of "philosophy of mind" shortly.
I'm looking forward to reading it.
I dont have the time but if i were to write on a topic i would have briefly touched on natural law which states that a right is an action that does not cause harm to another sentient being. I believe that if we were to follow the principle of do no harm and if we respected the principle of autonomy then morally speaking we would not be far off the righteous path. By simply practicing the golden rule in morality, that is, stated negatively 'dont do to others what you would not want others do to you', we would change this world over night. According to natural law there is an objective difference between right action and wrong action. The former is based in the truth and does not cause harm to another sentient creature. We have an infinite number of rights that is actions we can morally and legitimately do in this world, so it is a lot more efficient if we define our rights apophatically. We cannot trespass, coerce, steal, rape, assault, or murder. That's it. So as you can see its much easier to define our rights by outlining actions that we can not/should not do as opposed to what we can do. In the end every immoral act is a form of theft because they involve taking something from another.