Observation: I have never broken a bone Hypothesis: I am boneless Data: I appear to have broken at least two bones in my foot slipping on the ice Conclusion: I have at least two bones. Strong evidence suggests the possibility of a third one.
I’m an astrophysicist.
SOMEbody has a broken funny bone.
layperson: there’s a brown cow in that field
scientist: there’s at least one brown cow in that field
mathematician: there’s at least one cow in that field, at least one side of which is brown
Freshman philosopher in “God is: no there isn’t
Socrates: but how do you know it is brown? What is the true nature of brown?
Plato: It is the fundamental nature of fields to contain brown cows.
Aristotle: There is a brown cow in that field. It has more teeth than the black cow.
Pythagoras: The cow doesn’t matter. That is a field of beans and we need to get out of here right now.
Thales: Did you know that cows are 100% water?
Zeno (of Elea (no Citium doesn’t get a place on this list)): To have a cow you must first have half a cow.
Anselm (refusing to look at the field): There is no need to observe the field. The best possible field contains a black horse. Furthermore, the best possible field would be improved by existing, and by being right next to me. Therefore that field over there contains a black horse.
Descartes: there’s a brown cow in that field. I know this because God would never be so cruel as to hide a cow from my sight, or to make a cow appear brown when it is only half so.
Leibniz: I will use that cow to handle I/O and state in a pure manner.
Hobbes: The cow is not attempting to jump the fence, and therefore it consents to being in the field.
Voltaire: That is not the best possible cow.
Hume: no there isn’t
Wittgenstein:
Older Wittgenstein, stepping out of a time machine: This is actually just a problem of language.
Russell: I’m gonna fuck that cow’s wife. It’s okay: I’ve devoted my life to the pursuit of love.
Rousseau: That cow would be better if it was getting torn apart by wolves
Hegel: The World-Spirit is in a state of Becoming/Not-Becoming the State of having been, being, and will always having been a Bovine. The Notion of the cow is a duality of Forces existing/not-existing to Conceive a sense-colour. *wanders off to suck Bismarck’s dick*
Marx: *suplexes Hegel* THAT COW IS ALIENATED FROM ITS NATURAL MILK-MAKING STATE
Heidegger: That cow is dying.
Derrida: *inscrutable scribbles*
Foucault: The “fence” is a social construct, created by the millennia old power structure designed to oppress cows and use them for meat and milk. Is it not just as true that *we* are fenced in by the *cow*?
Sartre: I am also going to fuck that cow’s wife, but only after Simone reels her in for me.
Simone de Beauvoir: What is cow? It is defined by its difference from Man.
Camus: I’m going to fuck that cow, its wife, its parents, the milkmaid, the farmhand, the landowner, his wife, and every other philosopher here. And every single one of them is going to love it. Might kill someone afterwards.
Eliezer: there’s a brown cow in that field, p=0.999
Hanson: This post isn’t about cows or philosophy. It’s about signaling.
Bostrom: The cow is nothing compared to the future of humanity.
Ray Arnold: Someday, cow, you will reach the stars. Here, let me sing you the song of my people.
Kurzweil: in ten seconds, it will become cybercow.
Tegmark: I’m very tall, so I can see that behind that cow is every possible variation of that cow. At least one of them is brown.
Scott: there’s a brown cow in that field, p=0.99. I’m not sure why everyone yells at me when I say that.
Singer: We should save the cow and kill its calves.
MacAskill: there’s a brown cow in that field, and I will save it.
Ord: *saves cow*. Everyone is too busy staring at MacAskill’s dreamy face to notice.
CFAR: pay us $1000 and we’ll teach you how to see the brown cow
Leverage: pay us $10000 and we’ll teach you how to see the black horse
MIRI: That cow is dangerous!
OpenAI: That cow is dangerous, so we’re going to give one just like it to everyone!
@ambivalencerelations: *ignores cow, stares at fence post. There’s some dung at the base*
@cptsdcarlosdevil: I’m gonna pretend that cow is Daveed Diggs, then I’m gonna fuck it.
@sinesalvatorem: I would fuck that cow, but I don’t have enough sharpies.
@theunitofcaring: there’s a brown cow in that field, and we will save it.
@dataandphilosophy: Bryan Caplan told me there’s a cow in that field.
@slatestarscratchpad: there’s a brown cow in that field, p=0.999
@nostalgebraist: there’s a brown cow in that field, but it would be ridiculous to put a number on it. It’s not dangerous either.
@funerealdisease: that cow would look great in this hat.
@gruntledandhinged: there’s an adorable brown cow in that field
@loriphos: The field would be better with a brown dinosaur
@evolution-is-just-a-theorem: What, you think I can’t go more meta? This isn’t even my final form.
i would like to be friends please
You seem like a wise man. Could you explain what it is to be friends?
reckon i’m wise enough to know i can’t explain it 😀
This reminds me a great deal of the time when some people on a religious discussion forum were first exposed to the observation that it is unclear whether the farmer or the dog is named Bingo. Conclusion: After a couple hundred years of violence and bloodshed, we’ve all agreed that Bingo is both fully farmer and fully dog. But what about the part where letters get gradually replaced with clapping?
Catholics believe that the letters are still there when you’re clapping.
Lutherans believe that the letters are still there in spirit when you’re clapping.
Eastern Orthodox still sing all the letters.
etcetera
There’s this philosophical dilemma known as The Ship of Theseus. It goes something like this: there’s a ship made out of wood. One of the planks is rotting, so that plank is replaced with a new one. It’s still the same ship as it was before, right? Just with a new plank. Overtime, more and more of the wooden planks start to rot and are replaced. Eventually, after many years, every piece of wood is replaced. The question is, is the ship the same ship as it was before? How many planks of wood have to be replaced before it is an entirely different ship. One? Two? Half of them? All of them? The point of the thought experiment is to understand how objects survive change. At what point does an object fundamentally, irreversibly changed? Nobody really knows.
Being in a sick body is comparable to Theseus’ ship. First, one thing goes. Then another, and another, and another- until you are no longer the same person. How much hardware can a body hold before it is no longer a body?
At what point, when there is more titanium than bone, more drugs than blood, more scar tissue than skin, more electric impulses than nerves, is a body- and the person within that body- no longer the same? At what point are you more medicine than flesh?
Are you really the same person you were before? Are any of us?
I️ know this is trying to make a point but yes you are still you. That ship is still that ship.
We are more than the sum of our parts just as that ship was. The capitan who ordered a new mast for the ship still sees the ship as their own and as the same ship – changed yes but the same. We are not defined by what we are made of. We are defined by ourselves, that being. That ship is that ship because the captain and he crew and everyone believes it. You are still you because you know it to be true.
Change does not equate distraction, only strength. For every time a plank was replaced that ship got stronger.
just moving along like everyone else 