I caught a talk tonight by NYU’s own Ned Block, whose papers on functionalism are a staple in the philosophy of mind. (Some of his work is available on the web - check that link.) This evening he presented a potential case in favor of physicalism (as opposed to functionalism) on the basis of some empirical evidence from recent work in neuroscience, including possible support for a distinction between phenomenology and perception that I don’t think I would previously have been able to accept. If you’re interested, this paper (PDF) is along the same lines.

I think the telling difference between my brother’s faithful Red Sox fandom and my own traitorous half-hearted version of the same can be summed up in the following way: while I’d much rather the Red Sox win when the possibility arises, I’m also perfectly happy rooting for the Yankees now that they’ve made it to the Series. This is not supposed to happen - if I were a real Sox fan, I would just stop watching baseball altogether until next season, but at least I’m completely shameless about my turncoat ways.

Isaac and I caught the indefatigable David Foster Wallace at that ever-popular Union Square B&N tonight. Although I’d read a couple of articles on his new book Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity and I did pick a copy up at the store tonight to have it signed, I haven’t of course read it yet. I was therefore first startled and then pleased when his reading from the book’s first chapter turned out to deal almost entirely with the Humean problem of induction - a little corner of epistemology very near and dear to my philosophical heart. After the reading, I spoke with him briefly about some of the literature on the topic and he recommended a paper (”Will the Future Be Like the Past?”) by Frederick Will; it’s on JSTOR and worth looking up if you’ve got access to it. (NYU students, this means you - just use the web proxy if you’re not on campus.)

I dove into the new DFW book on the train ride home, and I can now safely recommend it - although it is, of course, a change of pace from his fiction. However, even in Infinite Jest I noticed his ability to take immensely complicated things - including mathematical things - and make them into something you want to read without any unforgivable degree of oversimplification or dumbing down of the material. His writing is full of this sort of infectious enthusiasm, and that’s true whether he’s talking about drug addicts or Hume - something few people can pull off.

Overall, I was impressed with what I’ve read (and heard read) of the new book, but I was also impressed with the way he handled the reading and discussion. There were some stupid questions and some difficult ones, and he managed to answer the ones worth answering and tactfully deflect the others.

It’s true that the past few Yankees/Red Sox games have dragged out into the open my somewhat divided loyalties - I live in New York and like the Yankees as most people here do, but at heart I’m a Red Sox girl, born and bred. My brother and I watched too many games at Fenway in our younger days for me to not be excited at the way tonight’s game is playing out so far. As of now, it’s 4-2 Red Sox in the 8th. I won’t say anything to tempt fate, however. (Update: Well, my grandfather would say you can’t have all dog pups, but it was still quite a game.)

It has, of course, been weird seeing Roger Clemens on that Other Team these past few years. And he’s said he’ll retire this year, so it may be that we’ve seen his last innings tonight, but even as a Red Sox fan I’m not terribly sad to see him go. He’s always been kind of an asshole, even if he is quite a pitcher.

I think that those of you who have expressed interest in reading that paper I’ve been working on may get your wish sooner than the spring - it’s likely that I’ll shift the primary focus of my thesis a bit, enough that I don’t mind sharing the preliminary work I’ve done that has turned out to be less relevant to the bigger argument. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to read up on photorealism and the philosophy of photography before I post my paper in the near future.

There’s an interesting piece over at the lair of the Invisible Adjunct that collects some current posts on university policies regarding faculty/student relationships. I say interesting not because I’ve secretly got the hots for one of my professors but because I am, after all, a philosophy student, and ethics is one of my Things. (Remind me sometime to wonder out loud why ethics remains more popular among undergrads than all of the other branches of philosophy combined. But not right now.)

There are the paradigmatic cases about which there’s little to no battle of intuitions - most of us probably think it’s wrong for Professor Lecherous to seduce the fresh-out-of-Catholic-school teenager, especially if he or she is currently teaching the rosy-cheeked youngster in question. But what about, say, a graduate TA and a senior? Is the supervision relationship the most important factor, or are department and age just as big? Maybe it shouldn’t matter at all as long as everyone is over the age of consent?

Either way, I do think it’s unfortunate that most schools (among, of course, other workplaces of all sorts) take a sort of all-or-nothing approach when it comes to regulating this sort of thing. Obviously there’s a huge potential for abuse (in some cases) that most schools recognize, and consider it better to disallow faculty/student hanky panky of all kinds rather than risk it. And of course a straightforward ban is easier to apply, but I would think a group of academics might be more willing than not to consider the gray areas. Take a look at some of the comments on the IA’s post and those on the other posts linked. There are some interesting first person accounts that might alter your intuition one way or the other, including this one:

And even then—pretend I’m a grad student, and a fellow grad student gets involved with a professor of about her own age. The professor doesn’t supervise or evaluate the work of my fellow in any way, so there’s no harm there. However, when it comes time to recommend grad students for positions, who has the advantage? Me, or the fellow grad student who’s boinking a professor? If I’m a student of that professor, do I think I’m going to get a fair shake if we’re all applying for the same jobs or post-docs? In a world where jobs and post-docs are definitely finite and limited, this isn’t a trivial consideration—if I’m shut out now, I may not be able to stick around.

And this response to the comment I quoted above:

But this is an illusory problem (or rather, an illusory aspect of a real problem). Say that none of you are shagging the professor. But one of you shares his obsession with Ayn Rand, or his athletic interests, or his political views. Say that one of you just hits it off with her a whole lot better, and they have a sort of mentorship relationship going on. Or maybe one of you is the grandson of someone who can help him with his career. The rest are just as screwed.

I had brunch with my brother this afternoon, and we discussed that crazy shit from last night’s Sox/Yankees game. I mean, what the fuck?

In the top of the fourth inning, with runners on second and third on nobody out, Martinez threw a pitch that, seemingly headed toward Garcia’s helmet, hit Garcia in the back as he tried to duck out of the way. Garcia had some words for Martinez, suggesting the inside pitch was intentional. Home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez warned both benches.

When Ramirez took exception to a Clemens pitch in the bottom of the inning, both benches cleared, and off to the side of the usual pushing and shoving, Zimmer and Martinez were involved in their own fracas near the Red Sox dugout. The grandfatherly Zimmer, nicknamed Popeye, went straight at Martinez, motioning as if attempting to make physical contact. Martinez pushed Zimmer aside and to the ground.

It’s amazing how difficult I still find it to write academically. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it, but after four years I would have expected the production of a fully-grown philosophy paper to be a little less like pulling teeth. I’m incapable of writing more than a page or two without getting up and doing something else for a while, so even a little ten pager will end up taking me all day. Which is, of course, how I spent today - writing a page, washing dishes, writing a page, watching Pokémon, writing another page, grading quizzes. But I finished up with the current draft in time to listen to PHC (further revision can wait until tomorrow).

As I mentioned yesterday (or the day before), the luminous Crispy and I had tickets to see Eddie Izzard last night, and see him we did. Spencer and Viv were there as well, although our seats were a few rows apart. And what seats - I mean, the view was fantastic, but the seats themselves were possibly the most uncomfortable thing in which I have ever sat for three consecutive hours. I am not unreasonably tall - barely 5′6″, in fact - but my knees were mashed up against the back of the row in front of me. Now, remember that Chris is a giant at something like nine feet tall (or 6′5″, whichever), and imagine the suffering of his poor knees.

It was, however, totally worth it. By the time we left, my stomach hurt from laughing too hard, and I could barely speak without coughing. You can see for yourself when the DVD eventually comes out, but a great deal of it was improvised in response to things like a woman throwing three crumpled dollars on stage. Additionally, his boots were positively to die for.

My favorite bit was probably the one concerning the Alien series - everything from the prevalence of things being blown out of airlocks to the difficulties the Alien might face when attempting to get a work visa in the US. And did you know that Eddie was born in Yemen?

We’re now officially in the middle of the semester, never mind that I cannot fucking believe it’s been six weeks already. The class I’m TAing has its first midterm next week, so I’ve been fielding the usual flurry of pre-exam questions for the past few days, and I have to say the whole thing is actually more fun than I would have expected. And, shit, I’m going to know SL and PL inside out by Christmas - there are worse things. As for my own midterm woes - a hugely important paper and a slightly less important program due Sunday, a writing assignment of indeterminate description due Wednesday, then an actual midterm test and two more papers the week after. I’ve had to start making metalists in order to keep track of all my to do lists.

I haven’t quite withdrawn into my usual mid-semester academic seclusion, though - there’s so much stuff going on that I’m forced to be out and about a few nights a week, which is good and bad. Good for my sanity, I suppose, but bad for my productivity. Between Neal Stephenson last night and Eddie Izzard tomorrow night, when will these papers be written (much less revised)?