USUPhilosophy

An oldie but a goodie:

Suppose you’re on a game show and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. The car and the goats were placed randomly behind the doors before the show. The rules of the game show are as follows: After you have chosen a door, the door remains closed for the time being. The game show host, Monty Hall, who knows what is behind the doors, now has to open one of the two remaining doors, and the door he opens must have a goat behind it. If both remaining doors have goats behind them, he chooses one randomly. After Monty Hall opens a door with a goat, he will ask you to decide whether you want to stay with your first choice or to switch to the last remaining door. Imagine that you chose Door 1 and the host opens Door 3, which has a goat. He then asks you “Do you want to switch to Door Number 2?” Is it to your advantage to change your choice? (Wikipedia)

What do you think? If you want to try out the problem, and see the results of the “sitchers” vs. the “nonswitchers”, click here.

Students should seriously consider submitting papers to an upcoming conference at SLCC. The conference is focused on John Rawls, the most important social-political philosopher of the 20th century, but if you haven’t studied Rawls, I think any paper in the general area of personal liberty vs. social responsibility would be acceptable. Contact Huenemann for further details.

Here is a pdf of the conference flyer:

slcccfp

Very interesting 20-minute lecture here, presented to U. S. State Dept. Rosling has a very interesting set of moving graphs indicating how the world is changing, with respect to income and mortality. The old “developed vs. developing” dichotomy seems to have disappeared.

Gettier problem for T-Rex! (Thanks to Mike Linford for the link.)

Many of my students decide to go on to law school. Sometimes I worry that the decision is made for not the best reasons: a person is smart, wants to make money in a way that commands a certain degree of respect, and isn’t sure what else to do, so — law school. I haven’t gone to law school or been a lawyer, so I can’t really give a lot of advice about it. So I write letters of recommendation and hope everything works out.

But a couple of years ago I came across this interesting essay by Paul Gowder. It offers interesting insights about choosing a career in the law, and knowing whether it’s right for you. I highly recommend it to everyone thinking “law school.”

Also, you might want to read this further post: Why You Shouldn’t Go To Law School. (Answers: the jobs suck, lawyers are unhappy, you’ll be surrounded by jerks, have I mentioned the debt?, and the law will make you into the worst kind of person.) Just food for thought.