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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 1d

The volume is edited by @davidfriedell.bsky.social and looks wonderful.

Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 1d

Ted Chiang: "In the here and now, a philosophical question might be strictly theoretical, but in the world of a science fiction story, it could have practical consequences. That means there could be inhabitants of that world for whom the answer to that question is hugely important."

Amy @amyinvernizzi.bsky.social · Aug 11

Ted Chiang is one of the most insightful science fiction writers of our time.

This volume, which includes a foreword by Chiang and twenty-one short essays by philosophers, analyzes the philosophical significance of Chiang’s popular science fiction.

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

#PhilSky

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 4d

Nice. I assume this is a hot ones type show where philosophers are grilled on their views while having to play the host at table tennis.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 4d

join the club! www.iapct.org

home - iapct.org

Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) provides a mathematical foundation, a common methodology, and an integrating framework for the sciences of life. It explains the observation that living things control ...

www.iapct.org

Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 5d

On control theoretic approaches to the mind, every problem is a regulation problem. It’s plausible with misophonia that (felt) inability to ignore sounds is a driver.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 12d

interesting case, but not a counterexample. Just like masochism is not a counterexample to the intrinsic unpleasantness of pain, since the negative aspect is precisely the point, even if additional factors get you to embrace it.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 12d

Ange has a particular expertise in addiction. A key idea is that artistic practice has a special role to play in treating the emotional dysregulation that is core to addiction. Check out her PhD here: ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/...

ses.library.usyd.edu.au

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 12d

I'm a co-author on a paper led by Ange Weinrabe, who is a recent PhD from Sydney Uni. It's mostly about a program that she's run for many years with collaborators in Pakistan to improve youth mental health through arts interventions. www.frontiersin.org/journals/edu...

Frontiers | Reframing culture in youth mental health: introducing a neurocultural framework through participatory arts and emotional scaffolding

IntroductionYoung people are experiencing an escalating global mental health crisis, intensified by the effects of COVID-19, cultural disconnection, and the ...

www.frontiersin.org

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 13d

Right, there's a nice paper by Robert Solomon where he comes up with 17 distinct interpretations- and that's non-exhaustive! I prefer that positive = tendency to increase presence of the object, and negative = tendency to decrease presence of the object

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · 18d

The tooth/truth puns just write themselves!

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Sep 6

The fact is that scientists aren't engaging with philosophers enough. I'm not saying philosophers all agree either, but we specialise in the art of defining things, and we have made considerable progress on emotions in the last 30 years.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Sep 5

Is anyone really going to count? Maybe you can join words by putting a letter between them and then colour that letter white.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Sep 5

You can find the AJP paper on death here (there's also a downloadable version on philpapers) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Fear of Death and the Will to Live

The fear of death resists philosophical attempts at reconciliation. Building on theories of emotion, I argue that we can understand our fear as triggered by a de se mode of thinking about death whi...

www.tandfonline.com

Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Sep 5

Jason Chen interviewed me for his podcast series The Ethical Frontier. We began by discussing a recent paper of mine on the fear of death, and branched out from there. Fascinating stuff! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynjg...

The Fear of Death | Tom Cochrane | Ep. 74

YouTube video by Jason Chen

www.youtube.com

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 29

He recovered fine. It was just highly disturbing!

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 29

Yes I remember when my kids got it about 10 years ago, and how annoyed I was when I found out that there was already a vaccine. My son had a chicken pox spot on his eyeball!

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 28

it's one thing to say various components are involved, but quite another to clarify how bodily responses contribute to emotional meaning. If you are interested in emotions, I think you had better just read the books.

Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 27

Amelie Rorty also argues against the emotion category on historical grounds. Both her, and Paul Griffiths' view are discussed at length in Ch1 of Robert Roberts (2003) book Emotions: An essay in aid of moral psychology. In my opinion, Roberts eviscerates their sceptical arguments.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 24

I feel bad for my friends at Adelaide University. Philosophy has been reduced to 8 generic topics that every student must now take. And because it's all laid down as recorded lectures, topics will be harder to update in the future to reflect new ideas or relevant issues.

Matt Fitzpatrick @kilderbenhauser.bsky.social · Aug 24

People who haven't been in a classroom for a decade making a pretence of pedagogical innovation when it's just cynical cost cutting in the domain of teaching and learning. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Adelaide University students and staff to stage sit-in over ‘travesty’ of fewer in-person lectures

Students unhappy about lack of course choice and flexibility, as they await clarification about which subjects will move online

www.theguardian.com

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 24

The attitudinal approach to emotion is defended by Deonna and Teroni (2012), Jonathan Mitchell (2021) and myself to some extent. It's the latest iteration of a debate that's lasted more than a century about to reconcile the meaningful and bodily aspects of emotions.

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 24

What, besides government policies, do you think is causing the apparent decline in the numbers of humanities students?

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 22

I outline all this in 'The double intentionality of emotional experience' (EJP, 2017) philpapers.org/rec/COCTDI-2 and elaborate it a bit more in ch4 of The Emotional Mind: A control theory of affective states. 6/6

Tom Cochrane, The Double Intentionality of Emotional Experience - PhilPapers

I argue that while the feeling of bodily responses is not necessary to emotion, these feelings contribute significant meaningful content to everyday emotional experience. Emotional bodily feelings rep...

philpapers.org

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 22

But most of all, we can refute the silly claim philosophers sometimes make that moods lack content. All moods present the overall condition or affordance pattern of your body. In this way we maintain the most important claim about the mind- that all mental states have content. 5/6

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 22

Meanwhile, bodily patterns/feelings can be generated in several ways. E.g. by unconscious appraisals, by depression, by drugs, by a series of emotions that leave a lingering trace. Given this, we can classify moods into a few sub-types. 4/6

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Tom Cochrane @doctorcochrane.bsky.social · Aug 22

Response patterns/feelings *by themselves* present to us a sense of affordances: How one is disposed to respond to things. This explains the generality of moods, or why moods can seem to be about everything. You feel vulnerable, ebullient, under pressure etc... 3/6

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