Dilemma Podcast

Jay Shapiro looks back at Episode 6 with Erik Hoel and speaks about a central question about the mind/body problem. What is fundamental? Plus a guest joins the hindsight and throws some good questions his way.

Jay's fun primer on consciousness is here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb7VcWaQLT0&

Is it wrong to listen to the music after the musician is revealed to be a terrible person? Join us as we discuss the morality of a young girl named Frankie who is devastated to learn that her favorite band, Pan Fried Onions, is fronted by a real jerk.

Hosts Jay Shapiro & Coleman Hughes & Danielle Lee Tomson

Are the kids alright?

Sigal Ben-Porath and Jay discuss the thorny issues of free speech on college campus by first traversing some philosophical groundwork offered by Hannah Arendt. Together they explore what speech is "beyond the pale", "a waste of time", "too dangerous", or simply disingenuous cover for nefarious politics. Ultimately, the questions of what kinds of responsibilities educational (and housing) institutions have to their students and tenants and what the purpose of school really is become central to the conversation.

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Have artificial intelligence fears been overblown? Are we glossing over the much more pressing issue of weaponized quantum computing? Or are these tandem problems? What the heck is a computer anyway and what would make one "quantum"?

Jay discusses these issues and more with philosopher, consultant, and co-Founder of the QC Ethics Initiative (QCEthics.org) Sean Holland.

In the open, three famous rules of technology from Arthur C. Clarke help Jay demystify the computer with metal buckets, rocks, ropes and pulleys on the side of a desert cliff.

What is it like to be a baseball bat?

This episode is a dive into the philosophical approach known as Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) with the author and philosopher Ian Bogost. Ian Bogost is a video game designer, author, and philosopher known for his most recent book Play Anything, but this episode is all about his book Alien Phenomenology: or What is it Like to be a Thing?