Recent additions to the Heap of Links… “Ask yourself who will suffer the most if we fail to prevent catastrophic climate change. The answer is the young and those yet to be born—both categories unrepresented in our political systems” — Peter Singer (Princeton) on eco-activism, civil disobedience, youth, and democracy “Using the methods of analytic philosophy, we can identify problems in common thinking about motherhood” — Fiona Woollard (Southampton) provides some examples “Philosophy has brought more profit to the world than Ceres did who invented the increase of corn and grain, or than Bacchus did that found out the use of wine” — Richard Marshall “interviews” Isaac Newton “Everyone has strength; teach in a way that aligns with what you’re good at” — some general teaching tips from Paul Bloom (Yale) One robot built with the capacity to “form internal monologues” passed the mirror test, “the most famous test of animal self-consciousness” — the NYT on robot consciousness, with input from Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside) and Robert Long (Oxford), among others “Contemporary philosophers… don’t think that education matters as a subject of philosophical inquiry, and moreover, they take a rather dim view of those of us who do” — David Bakhurst (Queen’s) hopes this changes “A big knock on AI is that because it doesn’t really let you understand the things you’re predicting, it’s unscientific. And in a formal sense, I think this is true” — “But”, says Noah Smith, “science is only one possible tool for predicting and controlling the world” Discussion welcome. Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thanks!