rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    non sort: The
    title: weirdness of the world
  name:
    name part: Schwitzgebel, Eric
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nju
    date issued: 2024
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: viii, 362 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
  abstract: "How all philosophical explanations of human consciousness and the fundamental structure of the cosmos are bizarre--and why that's a good thing. Do we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? According to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, it's hard to say. In The Weirdness of the World, Schwitzgebel argues that the answers to these fundamental questions lie beyond our powers of comprehension. We can be certain only that the truth--whatever it is--is weird. Philosophy, he proposes, can aim to open--to reveal possibilities we had not previously appreciated--or to close, to narrow down to the one correct theory of the phenomenon in question. Schwitzgebel argues for a philosophy that opens. According to Schwitzgebel's 'Universal Bizarreness' thesis, every possible theory of the relation of mind and cosmos defies common sense. According to his complementary 'Universal Dubiety' thesis, no general theory of the relationship between mind and cosmos compels rational belief. Might the United States be a conscious organism--a conscious group mind with approximately the intelligence of a rabbit? Might virtually every action we perform cause virtually every possible type of future event, echoing down through the infinite future of an infinite universe? What, if anything, is it like to be a garden snail? Schwitzgebel makes a persuasive case for the thrill of considering the most bizarre philosophical possibilities" --
  table of contents: Part I. Bizarreness and dubiety -- In praise of weirdness -- Universal bizarreness and universal dubiety. Part II. Peculiar possibilities -- If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious -- 1% skepticism -- Kant meets cyberpunk. Part III. The size of the universe -- Experimental evidence for the existence of an external world / with Alan Tonnies Moore -- Almost everything you do causes almost everything (under certain not wholly implausible assumptions); or, infinite puppetry / with Jacob Barandes. Part IV. More perplexities of consciousness -- Consciousness, innocent and wonderful -- The loose friendship of visual experience and reality -- Is there something it's like to be a garden snail? Or, how sparse or abundant is consciousness in the universe? -- The moral status of future artificial intelligence -- Weirdness and wonder -- Appendix: Five more objections to U.S. consciousness.
  note: Eric Schwitzgebel.
  note: Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-345) and index.
  subject:
    topic: Mind and reality
    topic: Philosophy
  subject:
    topic: Consciousness
    topic: Philosophy
  classification: BD331 .S39 2024
  classification: 128.2
  identifier: 0691215677
  identifier: 9780691215679
  record info:
    record content source: YDX
    record creation date: 230303
    record change date: 20240105131021.0
    record identifier: in00004779615
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng