Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Notes

• The author is a card-carrying analytic philosopher and science supporter, with philosophy filling in the gaps that science cannot reach … that’s a great start!
• I doubt that ignorance of the Star Trek corpus – apart from a few episodes of the TV series – will be fatal to understanding these essays.
• While the book – "Hanley (Richard) - The Metaphysics of Star Trek" – may seem rather frivolous, the various Chapters cover several topics germane to my PhD Thesis on Personal Identity¹, and the reading lists include many items on my radar.
• The Sub-Topics of my Thesis that are touched on include:-
  1. Androids²
  2. Computers³
  3. Consciousness⁴
  4. Fission⁵
  5. Free Will⁶
  6. Fusion⁷
  7. Human Beings⁸
  8. intelligence⁹
  9. Language¹⁰
  10. Lewis¹¹
  11. Life¹²
  12. Parfit¹³
  13. Persons¹⁴
  14. Teletransportation¹⁵
  15. Thought Experiments¹⁶
  16. Time¹⁷
  17. Time Travel¹⁸
  18. Universals¹⁹
• All-in-all, this book – despite being aimed at a philosophically unsophisticated audience – should be stimulating, and an easy read.