Bad Philosophy » philosophy of mind

Episode 082: Saunders on Saunders

StephenTorrence — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:51:57 +0000

Imagine if falling in love was as easy as taking a pill. Scary? Exciting? Kind of rad? Well, to make up for the distinct lack of anything resembling actual philosophy last week, we decided to delve straight into this and other hardcore questions, courtesy of George Saunders and his recent short story in The New Yorker. Don’t let the sub-par audio or the happy-go-lucky children chuckling in the background of Panera Bread fool you. We got REAL SERIOUS AND STUFF. You can tell by the caps lock. Drip on? Hell yeah!

This Week’s Post-show Song Pimpage: “I Feel Fantastic” by Jonathan Coulton

Episode 071: What’s in the News, Robin?

StephenTorrence — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:04:38 +0000

For no particular reason we’ve decided to try something *BRAND NEW* on this week’s episode of Bad Philosophy. Kevin and I pulled a few articles and a comic out of the news, grabbed a couple of beers, and dove in to the stories for an hour. What came was something of a nice balance between F-isode and B-isode. We hope you agree! Here are the articles if you’d like to read them first:

1. Neil Patrick Harris expecting twins
2. SubNormality – “Do Something”
3. Beware of fake Facebook ‘dislike’ button
4. Man tries living on coupons for a year

Now that you’re prepared, have a listen!

This Week’s Post-show Song Pimpage: “The Princess Who Saved Herself” by Jonathan Coulton, part of the Many Hands album for Haiti relief. Buy this song or hell, buy the whole album. Haiti might not be in the news cycle anymore, but they still need help rebuilding. Do your part!

Episode 065: Whoa…

StephenTorrence — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:02:48 +0000

It should come as no surprise to y’all out there that a great percentage of the world indulges in the wily wonders of psychotropic drugs. Whether it’s that requisite pot of coffee in the morning or just… pot, lots of folks like to take a walk on the wild side of the mind every now and then. In this episode of BF Kevin Saunders, Bryan Mitchell and I explore some of the philosophical and political issues behind psychotropics in a solid B-isode. Oh, and we get TOTALLY BAKED at the end. Really. Listen all the way through. It’s hilarious.

This week’s post-show song pimpage: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” by William Shatner (seriously, Kirk singing a drug song, it’s awful)

Episode 051: Reading Rainbow

StephenTorrence — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:31:55 +0000

It’s easy to take our perceptions for granted. Colors, shapes, smells, and so forth are for the most part universal. But some people have this kickass condition called synesthesia, where their wires get crossed and their perceptions get… interesting. BF was privileged to get a man who sees letters and numbers as colors on the show, Shawn Brackett. Never one to miss out on a good freak show, Damn Good Philosopher of Religion Dr. Mark Webb also decided drop by, with Numero Uno Fanboy Jed Cummins and the Uke-tastic Kevin Saunders. Best f***ing believe, it was the trippiest BF ever. Take a look…

This week’s post-show song pimpage: “Roy G. Biv” by They Might Be Giants

Episode 042b: Plato’s Movie Theater

StephenTorrence — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:34:16 +0000

Imagine yourself in a movie theater. It is the only place you’ve ever known. The smell of popcorn, the sticky floors, and of course the endless projected movies on the screen are your reality. What would you believe about “the real world” if this was all you knew? Would you even believe there was one if someone told you?

Plato asked questions like this over 2000 years ago in his infamous “Allegory of the Cave” from The Republic. On this historic episode, Kevin Saunders and I read and discuss the dialogue itself… in character (yes, we are that awesome). You can read along with us if you’d like (trust us, the wording can get pretty thick).

On a side note, we’re also ONE YEAR OLD as of a few days ago! Please wish us a happy birthday if you’d like, and then go listen to Episode Zero while shedding a nostalgic tear.

Stickam version below of course:

This week’s post-show song pimpage: “Bruce’s Philosophers’ Song” by Monty Python

Episode 035: Intellectual Hedonism

StephenTorrence — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:53:47 +0000

Why are we here? What’s this all about? What is my purpose? What is yours? Is there even one at all? These are easy questions to ask, but answering them is a whole different story. Wolfram Alpha has one idea. We’ve got some others. Composing my party in an epic aural quest for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything this week were BF newcomer, veteran philosophy major, and budding teleologist Joshua Clemmons, Numero Uno Fanboy Jed Cummins, and electricity-less Kevin Saunders via Skype. This one’s deep folks. We’re talking Edward Norton in Fight Club deep. Have a listen…

This week’s post-show song pimpage: “Purpose” from Avenue Q. Puppets with life lessons? Yes, please!

Episode 031: Farewell to a Legend

StephenTorrence — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:01:13 +0000

Seasons come and seasons go, but here at Bad Philosophy one thing has never really changed: the utter ubiquity of one Kevin Saunders. Fortunately for him but unfortunately for us, the big man himself has jumped through his last hoop of fire and is graduating our fair university. But fear not! He will be participating in episodes still, albeit via the wonders of Skype rather than in person.

Joining us for Kevin’s last live episode was Bryan Mitchell and Numero Uno Fanboy Jed Cummins. We had some audio woes (read: Bryan turned his microphone off) and video stream woes that ruined the opening bit, but through the magic of GarageBand I have made all right with the world. We talked Dollhouse, philosophy of mind, and Swine Flu, leading Kevin to do a classic rant on politics. Relish this episode, everyone, it’s special…

This week’s outro song pimpage: “I’m Your Moon” by Jonathan Coulton (yeah, we love him dearly for very good reasons)

Weekly Why 004: Reflections on Dollhouse

StephenTorrence — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:28:18 +0000

This past Friday the 13th, Joss Whedon’s new series “Dollhouse” premiered on FOX, and unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past two episodes of BF, you’ll recall that Kevin and I are huge fans of Mr. Whedon’s work. We were there on the scene to record our immediate reaction, and now you get to listen to it (don’t you feel lucky?).

Episode 018: How Long for Copywrong?

StephenTorrence — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:38:16 +0000

It’s here, people! We’re inching our way ever closer to becoming bona fide, honest to goodness procasters. We’re back in the DMS and managed to rig up their spiffy, expensive microphones into the best audio configuration we’ve had yet. Julie Meadows joins us this episode for a finagled foray into copyright, Mickey Mouse, and sneezing… among many other decidedly BF things. So pull up an ideal chair and get ready for the audio bliss that is Episode 18…

Update: We realized shortly after posting this episode that Kevin’s brilliant publicity plan has been thwarted by none other than Cory Doctorow himself. Ah, happenstance… such a strange bedfellow you are…

Episode 005: Leveraging Excellence

StephenTorrence — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:10:50 +0000

Why do bad things happen to good people? Do cheaters ever prosper? And what the heck does it mean to “leverage excellence” anyway? We’re not quite sure, but apparently it has something to do with setting baby deer on fire, Ray Kurzweil, and slurpees. Eminent Texas Tech philosopher, fencer, and all-around good guy Dr. Mark Webb joins us to tackle these issues and lend some academic credibility to our incredible little experiment. Don’t panic if his benevolent, authoritative voice puts you into a trance. It’s all part of the plan…

Episode 004: Benn Diagrams

StephenTorrence — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:03:51 +0000

What do Warhammer, Ayn Rand, and Westerns have in common? Darned if we know. Ben Brown joins us on this episode as we dive into the realm of speculative fiction, sci-fi, and modifying the human body/mind with technology… among other things. Apologies about the awfuller-than-usual sound quality. We tried to use a bunch of different microphones to do the recording, but I think we created some sort of time distortion field that caused all our microphones to record out-of-sync. Subsequently we were left using just the one. I swear that next time we’ll go back to the dependable old MacBook Pro internal microphone. Try to enjoy this one, if you dare…

Episode 001: Hello EveryWelcome

StephenTorrence — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:32:00 +0000

Beyond all odds, lightning has struck twice, and the first “official” episode BF is here. Matt, David, and Stephen discuss Stephen’s article in the campus newspaper, spawning a deep, meandering, extravagantly philosophical discussion on neuropsychology, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of a robot future. Join us for a journey deep into the mind, if you dare…

We are also now officially on iTunes. Click “Subscribe” and enjoy all the philosophical goodness fed automatically to your computer via RSS. You can also manually subscribe by copying the following address into your podcast client of choice:

http://www.badphilosophy.com/blog/?feed=podcast

Duration: 60:18 | Format: MP3 | Rating: Clean

Bad Philosophers: Stephen Torrence, David Ronderos, Matt Legler