Influences on my work, including an organization chart. Here you can also buy many good books on philosophy and other subjects via amazon.com. I have included brief reviews of hundreds of books.
As a sometime teacher I've developed one. Includes book resources.
Papers, etc.
On this page you will find links to various papers, presentations, theses,
reviews, articles, etc. that I have written over the years. I have annotated
each to explain its context and, briefly, the content. Except as noted, these
are unpublished and appear within each subject in order oldest to newest. You may not distribute any of these without permission; if
you wish to cite any or make use of any in your own projects, please contact
me for advice and permission. Feedback and commentary is of course also welcome
here, but I am not working on these
directly at the moment. Current projects are linked to on the current research
page. All papers are in PDF format unless otherwise stated. Formatting is lost in
many cases due to changing computers and wordprocessors at one point. I have
documented this as appropriate. I hope to fix this eventually. (Note to those
not familiar with the Quebec system: Undergraduate arts degrees are typically
3 years, so a "third year paper" is analogous to a "senior" paper in the context of the US, for example.)
Philosophy of technology, including AI:
Some responses to critics of AI. A
survey of artificial intelligence criticisms and rebuttals to each. Written
in my 2nd year at McGill.
Similarity in computer programs. Presentation
notes for a class talk in my third year at McGill. Very shaky and rough around
the edges - more of a "consciousness raising" piece than a paper.
Some images missing in this version.
The scientist-technologist distinction. An exploration
of this distinction, complicated by a discussion of applied science as an
"in between" category. Written as a philosophy graduate student
at UBC.
Turing's Hidden Legacy: Metaphysics of Computing. Notes for a talk given at CAP@CMU 2002 about the implicit metaphysics present in Turing's famous "On Computable Numbers ..." paper. (I have yet to locate the overhead projector slides that should go with this as they seem to have been misplaced during my shuffling between computers at some point.)
Notes on Issues in Multimedia Authoring, part 1.
Written as answers to a take home exam, these notes include critical remarks
on Kay's discussion of the Dynabook, Vannevar Bush's Memex, Nelson's introduction
of hypertext, Berners-Lee's initial proposal for the World Wide Web and Heilig's
"Cinema of the Future". Written as a logic and computation student
at CMU. This and the three papers following it were all work for the same
directed reading course.
Notes on Issues in Multimedia Authoring, part 2.
Written as answers to a take home exam, these notes include critical remarks
on DeLany and Landau on the nature of hypertext, Janet Murray on the aesthetics
of digital media, and Brenda Laurel on HCI. Written as a logic and computation
student at CMU. Warning: big file, lots of graphics; also the original printed
document reproduced a MacNN forum which is lost in this version as it was
just a printout (as opposed to a screen capture) of this website. At the time
of compilation of the current site's papers, MacNN was more or less the same
as it was when the notes were written, so the reader should have little difficulty
following along.
Notes on Issues in Multimedia Authoring, part 3.
Written as answers to a take home exam, these notes include critical remarks
on Horn's notion of a visual language, Tannebaum on communication theories,
and Spinello's discussion of property rights and "cyberspace". Written
as a logic and computation student at CMU.
Aesthetics and HCI. The role of beauty and other cognate
concepts in human-computer interaction. Written as a logic and computation
student at CMU. This paper is also one I have given as a short lecture to several audiences. Here are some slides from the original version of the lecture. Warning: large file!
Super-Turing Computation: A case study analysis.
My MS thesis from CMU. Analyzes the claim of Hava Siegelman concerning her
super-Turing computation model. Supervisor on the project was Wilfried Sieg.
Similarity in Computer Programs, redux. A rewritten version of the similarity in computer programs paper, originally intended as a conference submission but unlikely to be used for that at present. This version is more correct / useful from a computability theory standpoint and also less ambitious. More of a "consciousness raising" type piece than a paper with a definite conclusion.
Through an Event Log, Darkly. This paper (presented at NACAP 08 in July 2008) is (as far as I know) the world's first philosophy paper about VMWare and its limitations. The slides (PDF'd - email me if you want the PowerPoint or Keynote version) are also available. There is also an expanded and modestly revised version in The Information Society, for which see here.
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics of Computer Networking. Happy 90th birthday, happy 50th aniversary of Causality in Modern Science, Professor Bunge! This is a first introduction to what I take to be the issues surrounding the metaphysics of computer networks. It is simply an application of Bunge's metaphysics to this question. As it was designed to be presented at NACAP 09 in June 2009, it is merely this. I hope to expand it (or write a sequel) to deal more with the issues raised and give more of "me" in the work. Slides (PDF'd - email me if you want the PowerPoint or Keynote version) are also available. [Warning: Large file!]
What Does a Computer Simulation Have to Reproduce? The Case of VMWare. This is a sequel to "Through an Event Log, Darkly" (see above) and a cousin to "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics of Computer Networking." (above). It discusses the question of its title through the work of David Wiggins and an updated notion of what "possesses" laws which is my own (though with a strong influence by Walter Dean). Presented at NACAP 2010 (July 2010); slides are available. (As usual, email me if you wish the Pages or Keynote versions of the material.)
Learning to Hypercompute? An Analysis of Siegelmann Networks. Presented at AISB/IACAP 2012 in honour of the Turing Year, this is a continuation of the MS thesis above. It answers questions arising from it (implicitly or otherwise) with an appeal to new work by Norton on idealizations. Presentation is here.
Philosophy of science:
Psychoanalysis and pseudoscience. Once more unto
the breach, old friends. Yes, psychoanalysis is a thorough going pseudoscience
(and pseudotechnology) and yes, it matters. Written in my third year at McGill.
(Current version slightly corrupt for some reason.) It was also presented as a talk in the same class.
Relational account of colour. A criticism of Hardin's
view of colour on the grounds it is not psychophysically realistic. Written
in my third year at McGill.
Neuroscience, Qualia, and Representationalism. Part of the controversy in philosophy of perception as I see it centers around what is represented with regards to the “representation” and “phenomenism” debate and how these influence what one would want to say about “qualia”. I feel that a large portion of the confusion centers around what exactly is represented by the brain when it has received “sensory input.” Philosophers generally have ignored what is known here and are still relying on what appear to be outmoded notions on (neural) representation, particularly when it comes to representation of non-propositional facts. In this paper I sketch out some of is known about what is represented by the brain when it one is looking at, say, a puddle of water (or twater?). This will allow a beginning of a cutting of the gordian knot around qualia. Written in my third year at McGill.
Human sociobiology. A analysis of some claims
for and against human sociobiology. Written in my third year at McGill.
Philosophy, History, Sociology, Rhetoric: Avoiding
“Nothing But-ism” in Science Studies. I have noticed that many
practitioners of "science studies" (rhetoricians, sociologists,
etc.) think that they can, by themselves, demonstrate that their particular
factor of interest (language, social structure, etc.) explains the content
of scientific findings. This thesis is prima facie unlikely, at
best. But to demonstrate it one cannot merely appeal to from
within one's discipline: the question is necessarily interdisciplinary, if
only in a negative sense. This paper defends the aforementioned claims and
argues for some means to their solution. Written at UBC.
What is probability? A survey of factual interpretations
of the probability calculus. Somewhat sloppy in parts, it nevertheless pulls
together a lot of important material. Written in my time as a logic and computation
student at CMU. Warning: includes untranslated French.
Descartes, Language, Neuroscience. Presentation
given to the students of The Nature of Language for which I was a TA spring
2003 semester at CMU. This material also led to a examination question which I co-wrote and is, unfortunately, not available here. I owe a word of thanks to McGill's Jim McGilvray for
suggesting the general idea behind the "Chomskian" aspect of this
talk.
Epistemology:
Gärdenfors' Belief Dynamics. A critical discussion
of some aspects of Peter Gärdenfors' theory of belief dynamics, focusing primarily on his theory of epistemic expansions.
Gärdenfors on Causal Beliefs. A critical
discussion of some aspects of Peter Gärdenfors' theory of belief dynamics
as applied to causation.
Normative-Descriptive-Idealized. How do we
make the distinction between these branches of epistemology? What does it mean to claim that although no real agents can live up to a standard, the standard is nevertheless normative for their behaviour? Makes special
reference to discussions involving subjective probability (particularly, but not exclusively, subjective Bayesianism). Written while a
logic and computation student at CMU.
Prospectus for a Special Theory of Events.
An early draft of the prospectus for my MA thesis (see below). I include it
because it contains substantially more detailed bibliography of the literature
on events than the thesis itself or indeed the prospectus that passed. (It
is thus rough in many places.)
A Special Davidsonian Theory of Events. My MA thesis,
written at UBC. Criticizes Donald Davidson's theory of events using insights
from the special theory of relativity. Updates Davidson's account in this
light by use of a few insights taken from Kim. Contains a slight error in the discussion of quantum mechanics which is not of direct importance to the main results. Supervisor on this project
was Gary Wedeking. Here is a copy of the introductory sections (due to limitations in page numbering, it is a different file): the abstract, tables of contents and figures.
Turing's Zeitgeist. A compilation of important
mathematical concepts and ideas that are useful for understanding the mathematical
side of Turing's "On Computable Numbers ..." paper. Written for
a directed reading while I was at CMU.
Turing's Reception. An unfinished draft
of a sequel to the above paper concerning the immediate reaction and responses
to Turing's paper. Written for a directed reading while I was at CMU, though
it was never used in its current form. Focus is partially on the nature of
the Church-Turing thesis (seems it should really be called the Post-Kleene thesis, as Church and Turing had different ideas about the matter and neither are theses, but that's for another time ...) and its development.
Philosophy of language:
Idealism in Language and Linguistics A critique of several views about language on the grounds that they are (in various ways) idealist. This version has lost its formatting. Presented in my third year at McGill.
Words of Power, Words of Precision.
A discussion of how to make one's words clearer. Written for the Social Justice Committee. (They
have not as yet used it for anything.) Contains a slight error: discussion
of Lavoisier should say that his book was one of the first chemistry
textbooks, not the first. Word format.
Ex Falso Quodlibet, Twin Earth, Philosophical Method . I'm not sure if this piece is worth reading or not. Sometimes I think it is gravely important, and sometimes not (sort of like the earlier student papers on this page!). In any case, I first wrote it for myself and, a bit, as a new years present one year for Audrey Yap. I am also not sure it counts as philosophy of language. Regardless of my misgivings, this is an expanded version written after some off the cuff discussions at IACAP-2011 with Mark Waser, Matthias Scheutz and Tony Beavers. Gist: Be careful with Twin Earth thought experiments. Text format.
History of philosophy:
What is? A very short paper on the contemporary
relevance of Anaxagoras and Parmenides. Written as a first year student at
McGill for the course that got me interested in ancient natural philosophy.
Aristotle the Mechanist. Discusses the thesis
that Aristotle's chemistry is as mechanistic as one could hope for a natural
philosophy at the time. Written as a first year student at McGill for the
course that got me interested in ancient natural philosophy.
Plato, Truth and Conservatism. Makes the case that
Plato is a progressive, at least with regards to truth. Written in my last
year at McGill. This version is corrupted and lost its formatting. I am looking
for a better copy.
Substance and Mode in Locke. This paper
was written in my 3rd year at McGill and discusses epistemological and ontological
considerations in this ubiquitous topic.
Kant's Unrequited Love. This is about Kantian
metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics and was written for the same course
as the above one. It is a bit chatty in places and has a passage that the
PDF corrupts for some reason. Copy and paste the blacked-out text to a
text editor or word processor to read it.
Why atomism? A somewhat haphazard discussion of
the origins and possible motivations for presocratic atomism. Written as my
BA honours thesis under Eric Lewis at McGill university.
Metaphysics and Modern Science. Presentation
given at the UBC philosophy Socratic Sphere (a philosophy discussion group
aimed at undergraduates). Missing the handout of
a stylized picture of a molecule that accompanied the talk. Text format only.
Review of Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online
2.0. Review of this online encyclopedia, also available in print in the Dec.
2003 issue of Teaching Philosophy. The review addresses both the content and the implementation of this massive online encyclopedia, as befits a review of "new media".
Science and technology policy:
What is a Science Oriented Approach to
Development? First in a series of papers on science, technology and development
for the SJC. Written in a popular rather than academic style. A slightly different
version of this (and the 3 papers that follow in this section) can be found
on their website. Their version also includes
a response from a critic and my responses to that response. RTF format.
Sociotechnology. Second in the above series.
Explains what a sociotechnology is and why one should care. RTF format
Science and Technology Policy. Third
in the above series. Discusses science and technology policies in a very broad
way as they affect the SJC's mandate. RTF format.
Some remarks on the C&E News article
on water treatment and chemistry. Summary for a popular audience of a
Chemistry and Engineering News article (July 19th 2004) about a chemists'
conference on water supplies. Written for the SJC as an illustration of how
scientifically grounded knowledge intersects with questions of social justice.
(Has not been used by them for anything as of yet.) Word format.
Hydrocarbons. A continuation of the above
paper on the importance of hydrocarbons in our day-to-day lives. I wrote this
in part because many discussions of "peak oil" and the like often
pertain to fuels only. Word format.
Using Shares. A document written to teach users at the SJC about Windows file sharing.
Writing for the Web. At the SJC I was responsible for a lot of web implementation. The next best thing to having others learn HTML would be to have them learn to write in some ways to make transferring their documents to the web easier. This discusses how to do said writing.
