Philosophy

The concept of 'open source' is centred around the use of the word 'free'. Open source products are free, as in freedom. Every person involved with the open source product, from its inception through to its use and marketing, has the freedom to interact with it as they see fit. Further, this freedom extends to ownership for the individual interacting with the open source product truly owns this interaction and anything resulting from this interaction. Individuals can keep their 'property' or they can give it away, they can even sell it. This property is truly theirs. Other uses of the word 'free' are often mentioned in relation to open source, particularly the use of free as in cost. It is true that many open source products are cost free but I will be focusing solely upon the use of 'free' as in freedom. I want to explore the implications of freedom, specifically relating to open source software, as it relates to the active externalism view of the extended mind thesis proffered by Clark and Chalmers.

Well the title was nearly neatly alliterated.  Anyhow, the following video should appeal to all you Aussie philosophers who don't mind a drink - I assume that's all of you -.

The Philosophy of Mind is an area that I'm quite interested in.  Last year I studied a course by the same name (Philosophy of Mind) which I found fascinating.  I wasn't quite sure where I stood before I started the course, and, to be honest, I'm not that certain where I stand after the course too.  I was, however, attracted to the philosophy of Ned Block.

 I've now received all of my mid-term grades and considering how poorly I've been going just keeping up I'm not too displeased with the results.  I wasn't expecting anything fantastic as, unfortunately, all of my assessment has been written the day before submission. Anyhow, my grades to date are:

PHIL2400: Ethics and the Passions.
Tutorial Seminar - High Distinction
Mid-Term Essay - Distinction

PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema.
Film Review - Distinction
Mid-Term Essay - Distinction

REL22: Buddhist Meditation Traditions.
Mid-Term Essay - High Distinction

ABT31: Comparative Indigenous Studies.
Mid-Term Essay - Credit

The following ramble of ideas, scribbled hastily between writing a paper on Philosophy and Cinema, another on Ethics and the Passions in Aristotle, and yet another on Methodological approaches in Comparative Indigenous Studies (ahh, the joy of being an undergraduate), is intended to explore, with a little more depth, the philosophical concepts surrounding the term 'Open' particularly as it is used in the composite term 'Open Source'.

I haven't written a journal entry for PHI350: Philosophy and Cinema in a few weeks so this is a first attempt to catch up.  I'm catching up on my reading material today so I'll likely follow this post with another reflecting upon that material.  What I would like to focus this post upon is my second piece of assessment, a short essay.

The question I chose asked about Rancière's three 'regimes of the arts' in relation to cinema.  I loved this topic and there is such a wealth of information out there.  This, of course, was my first problem.  Because I had a passion for the topic and the depths that I could see it reaching a short essay couldn't do it justice.  My notes alone were twice as long as the essay was allowed to be, and if I included all of the topics I desired to cover then a rather detailed book would have been the result.