Very Bad Wizards

Latest Episodes:

Episode 117: Extended Minds, Extended Foreskins Jun 13, 2017

Show notes

David and Tamler break down a recent classic in the philosophy of mind: "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. What is boundary of your mind? Is it contained with your body, or does it extend to the external environment--to your laptop, notebook, smartphone and more? Is this a purely terminological question, or one with practical and moral significance? And what is the role of intuition in providing an answer? Plus, Dave shares an email alerting him to the psychological trauma of male circumcision along with an exciting all-natural method for restoring the foreskin (that was stolen from us as infants).

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Gay man, who suffered from depression over his circumcision, kills himself
Circumcision's Psychological Damage | Psychology Today
Foreskin restoration for circumcised males — "Non-surgical foreskin restoration was reinvented in the late 1970s by a movement of circumcised men, mostly from the United States, who were upset at having been mutilated against their will."
Break Music- In Effect by peez
"The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers
Distributed cognition - Wikipedia

Episode 116: Pain, Pleasure, and Peer-Reviewed Penises May 31, 2017

Show notes

David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or does it show that certain portions of the "skeptic" community are susceptible to the same biases as their opponents? In the main segment they discuss the problems with measuring pain, pleasure, and happiness. When your doctor asks you to rate your pain between 1 and 10 and you say a 7, does your '7' reflect the same subjective experience as another person's '7'? (That depends--have you experienced childbirth?) How can we get more accurate readings of pain and pleasure across different people with different experiences? Most importantly, which number gets you the Vicodin?

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Episode 115: Which Field is More Fu@%ed: Philosophy or Psychology? May 16, 2017

Show notes

David and Tamler go ambulance chasing for scandals in their own fields. Inspired by a tweet from Jay Van Bavel, they argue about which of their disciplines--philosophy or psychology--is more completely and irredeemably fucked. Is the recent controversy at the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia diagnostic of larger problems in philosophy? Can the replication crisis ever be solved? Can philosophy return to studying the big questions? What can psychologists actually discover about the human mind?

Warning: this episode features a more respectful and mature dialogue than some VBW listeners may be comfortable with.

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Episode 114: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger (Top 5 Movies About Revenge) May 04, 2017

Show notes

Somehow, after 113 episodes David and Tamler have never done a top 5 movie episode about revenge (so unbelievable that we had to double-check). That changes today. Among the things we learned: good revenge movies are harder to find than we thought, revenge (at least, movie revenge) is messy, and David knows at least one movie that Tamler has never heard of. Plus, should Jews be celebrating the killing of Egyptian first borns? Or atoning for it? (Or perhaps just pouring out a little more wine at Passover?)

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Episode 113: Pascal, Probability, and Pitchforks Apr 18, 2017

Show notes

David and Tamler break down what may be the best argument that it's rational to believe in God: Pascal's Wager. (No, we're not just trolling our Sam Harris listeners.) Does the expected value of believing in God outweigh the probability that you're wrong? How does belief work--can you just turn it on and off? What if you believe in the wrong God? This leads to a wide-ranging discussion on decision theory, instrumental rationality, artificial intelligence, transformative experiences, and whether David should drop acid. Your brain AND your future self will love this episode!

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Episode 112: Gettier Goggles Apr 04, 2017

Show notes

For four years Tamler has been bitching about Gettier cases without even explaining what they are or why he hates them. That ends today. David and Tamler talk about the famous paper that challenged the (widespread? non-existent?) notion that knowledge is, and only is, justified true belief. We talk about the so-called skeptics about knowledge that Gettier inspired, then discuss the real skepticism that Descartes examined with his evil demon thought experiment. Plus, you know how you're in a monogamous relationship because of science? Well, turns out that science may be flawed....

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Episode 111: Our Language Doesn't Have a Word For This Title (with Yoel Inbar) Mar 22, 2017

Show notes

In Part 2 of our episode with film scholar Yoel Inbar (AOS: Quebecois New Wave Cinema), we break down the philosophy and psychology of the movie Arrival. [Note: Massive spoilers, see the movie first!] Does our language shape our perception of reality? Would you have a child that you knew had a short time to live? What color is 'fuschia'? Why does right-wing radio make you want to dynamite alien spacecrafts?

For Part 1 of this episode, see https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/110

Special Guest: Yoel Inbar.

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Episode 110: Stepsisters and Neck Braces (with Yoel Inbar) Mar 14, 2017

Show notes

Any time the topic is campus politics there's a good chance we'll have to record more than once. True to form, David and Tamler yelled at each other for most of the first attempt to discuss the Middlebury College incident while special guest Yoel Inbar wept quietly in the corner. We did a little better the second time but the whole recording session took so long that we have to release it in two parts. In part one we talk about the most popular porn search terms by U.S. State and then wade into the Charles Murray protest at Middlebury. In part two (coming next week) we do a deep dive on the movie Arrival (so if you haven't seen it yet you have one more week!)

Special Guest: Yoel Inbar.

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Episode 109: Moral Pluralism: Behind the Lube Feb 28, 2017

Show notes

David and Tamler return to their repugnant roots to talk about Cornell's refusal to hire conservative faculty, Milo getting disinvited from CPAC, and a case in Canada involving child sex dolls and a bottle of lube. Then they launch into a discussion of moral pluralism. Do competing values ultimately reduce to a single set of moral principles? What defines and justifies the boundaries of pluralism? What should you do when your Amish friend is getting bullied? Plus, more lube.

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Cornell University Students Vote Against Intellectual Diversity, on Grounds It Would Harm Diversity - Hit & Run : Reason.com
Child sex doll trial opens Pandora's box of questions about child porn - Newfoundland & Labrador - CBC News
The 96 hours that brought down Milo Yiannopoulos - The Washington Post
Age of Consent - by Jesse Bering - The Stranger
Very Bad Wizards (@verybadwizards) • Instagram photos and videos
Overcast (Podcast client for iOS) — In addition to being my favorite podcast client, Overcast allows you to send time-stamped links to audio via the website as well.
Wolf, S. (1992). Two levels of pluralism. Ethics, 102(4), 785-798.
Value Pluralism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Yo, Judío by Jorge Luis Borges

Episode 108: The Gimp Exception Feb 07, 2017

Show notes

Inspired by a recent article, David and Tamler try to figure out what's behind our aversion to moral hypocrisy. Why do we have such low opinions of people who don't practice what they preach? Shouldn't we be happy that they promote the views we agree with? Plus we respond to an email about how to come up with ideas for research. (Hint: ask Paul Bloom). Note: this episode was recorded before the greatest comeback and sporting event in human history.

(Editor's Note: I'm sure Donald Trump is as happy as Tamler is about the Superbowl. Just sayin'.)

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The Real Problem With Hypocrisy - The New York Times — new research
Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling by Jillian J. Jordan, Roseanna Sommers, Paul Bloom, David G. Rand :: SSRN
Thrill of the chaste: The truth about Gandhi's sex life | The Independent — 'Gandhi would have women in his bed, engaging in his "experiments" which seem to have been, from a reading of his letters, an exercise in strip-tease or other non-contact sexual activity.'
Very Bad Wizards | Teespring

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