Questions tagged [philosophy-of-technology]
69 questions
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How is subjective experience of color mapped to the visible spectrum?
Kevin Warwick had a sonar sense implanted and could sense whether an object was close or far. Evidence is accumulating that our brains can make sense of "foreign" information like sonar (consider the vOICe).
It can be assumed/hoped that artificial…
Ruben
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14
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Who is responsible for damages of automatic drones?
I had a discussion about drones for civilian use, e.g. self-driving cars without a human at its wheels, transport devices that would fly products you otherwise would buy in the supermarket directly to your home, and robots that collect trash from…
k0pernikus
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How can I effectively apply philosophy to the business world?
In my graduate experiences, especially in the philosophy of technology, I saw that far too much philosophy is designed to be consumed by other philosophers. As a pragmatist, I am always interested in the utility of philosophy.
How can I take useful…
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
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What might be some of the most significant philosophical implications of a technological singularity?
Several prominent futurologists and technologists, most importantly Kurzweil and Moravec, have projected varying timelines for a forthcoming technological singularity in the next century or even few decades.
Assuming, perhaps naively, that we take…
Joseph Weissman
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8
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Current research on experimental philosophy and the philosophy of technology?
X-Phi, the practice of performing philosophy based on experimental measures from the "real world" tends to concern itself with moral philosophy testing. As I'm finishing up my thesis on the philosophy of data, I am wondering if there are other…
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
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7
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Does human progress ultimately reduce individuals to Nietzsche's last men?
Human progress – technological, scientific, social, etc. – seeks to reduce, and ultimately totally eliminate, the aspects of life we perceive as unpleasant – loss, tragedy, suffering ... However, an argument can be made that we require a possibility…
w128
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Is unauthorized downloading of music stealing?
On the one hand, when you download music you are merely making a copy of something. You aren't depriving someone of a physical object. You aren't really taking anything.
On the other hand, when you download music you are doing something that someone…
john
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Useful discussion of Heidegger's "Ready-to-hand" and "present-at-hand" concepts?
Heidegger, as a tangent in his discussion of Daesin, talks about objects/tools which can be either ready-to-hand or present-at-hand.
As I find Heidegger painfully unreadable, but his concepts useful, which philosophers discuss these concepts and…
Brian Ballsun-Stanton
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What are some new and interesting ethical issues that identify closely with Information & Communication Technologies?
What are some new, unique and interesting ethical/philosophical/sociological issues that are starting to present themselves as Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) advance?
Are there any intriguing issues related directly to a specific…
JHowzer
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5
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Why do Cohen and Levesque speak of overcommitment in this case?
I have to write a critic to this paper:
"Intention Is Choice with Commitment" by Philip R. Cohen and Hector J. Levesque
There is this one passage I definitively do not understand, right at the beginning:
Some time in the not-so-distant future, you…
Edgar
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5
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Is Turing test still serving as criterion of machine intelligence?
During the first half of the last century Alan Turing proposed his 'Turing test' as means by which to answer whether machines have intelligence. To recall: the test amounts to a conversation between human agent A and two other agents - B and C, one…
Leon
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How does technology makes us better humans?
I am wondering if technology makes us better humans. Technology undoubtably has its advantages, but technology also brings with it automation, uniformity and anonymity. Because there are more technical entities than humans, we begin to adapt to the…
guglielmo london
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What are some of the best rebuttals or alternatives to Ted Kaczynski's (aka the Unabomber) philosophy of technology?
In his manifesto* "Industrial Society and its Future", the mathematician, philosopher, and terrorist Ted Kaczynski espouses a deeply pessimistic view of the effects of technology on society. He argues that it has made life unfulfilling and has…
Max Muller
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Why does poverty still exist in the world that discovered advanced technologies?
For example some individuals may say 'a poor life of an individual is because that he doesn't work enough'.
The world advanced as much as inventing many advanced technologies such as gun, calculator, radio and car, yet people still have to work hard…
Koorosh
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4
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What is the argument posed by Katherine Hayles in "The Condition of Virtuality" as to the relation between matter and virtuality and why?
I am learning in class of the influence new media have on old-aged dichotomies such as matter-mind, subject-object and their like. Our new-media teacher asked us to read the paper "The condition of Virtuality" by N. Katherine Hayles - I read it and…
Luna
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