If you were a dragon and had 3 heads, would you still be one person?

I once made a philosophy major cry.

I had left my head at home, and I didn't think very hard about it, and didn't think that perhaps philosophy majors get a lot of crap and thus don't like answering the repeated question: "Yes, but what will you do with it?" I was genuinely curious. I wasn't trying to give him a hard time. Really. You don't believe me, do you?

I should have asked him why he chose it instead of something else, because he had a plan, I just didn't see what philosophy had anything to do with that plan. It was more sensible to me that someone trying to go into that line of work go for a business major or some such.

But that's pretty much how I feel about philosophy. As demonstrated by this excerpt the 'engineering ethics' paper I just wrote:

Kantian ethics or deontological views entail that since we are rational beings, reason alone can be used to determine what is moral and what is not. The main argument against this view seems to be stupid people. The analogy presented here is a babysitter who spills water on the cat and in her determination to get the cat dry before the adults come home puts him in the microwave. In her capacity for reason, the microwave seemed like the best option. Her reason and intention keep her in the morally right area with deontological ethics. Perhaps Kantian ethics has a learning curve.

That's my favorite version of ethics. The one that involves reason. Sheesh. I should say that this was how the philosophy professor who guest lectured my chemical engineering controls class so non-chalantly discarded kantian ethics, which is why this paragraph is dripping with sarcasm. I was annoyed with him, but the man has years of philosophy training up on me, so I couldn't think quickly enough to argue with him. I could have argued it in the paper, but this was more fun.

I find philosophy interesting at times ... like when I'm on the toilet. Or just spacing in Kinetics class. I often think about why we're here and how in the world we got here and what I really want out of life, etc. Apparently last Thursday was 'World Philosophy Day.' My friend shared a BBC article with me that included four questions 'to make your brain hurt.' It was interesting, because I've actually thought about a few of them before. It was also interesting, because it demonstrated what kills me about philosophy. It's the so amazingly loosely based analogies they love so much. Sometimes it seems like they just say whatever they want, and it automatically applies ... just look at this bit: They get you piece by piece to admit that you are not your body, but rather your mind (ok, ok), and then out of nowhere ... Bam!

what if surgeons imprinted your mental states on two pre-wiped brains: George Bush's and Gordon Brown's? Would you be in the White House or in Downing Street? There's nothing on which to base a sensible choice. Yet one person cannot be in two places at once. In the end, then, no attempt to make sense of your continued existence over time works. You are not the person who started reading this article.

Whooaa there. There's not really any part of this I agree with anymore ... I don't even know how we got here. Obviously I am not only my mental states, but also my experiences--basically memories. And I feel as though if we had the technology to reformat brains and install new OS's on them, we would probably end up with more than one someone running around, so I do not accept that premise, either. Then all of a sudden I am not the same person who started reading the article ... maybe I've just watched too many sci fi shows or have a vivid imagination, but it just seems crazy to rule in that we can copy brains and rule out that there can't be copies of ourselves .... oi.

Don't get me wrong, I find Philosophy to be rather interesting and often useful, but this is just crazy talk ... and it's 5:30am and I'm writing this to avoid finishing my homework, so I should go. Read the rest of the article, though. It's pretty cool!