minor updates to survey

src/reflections/survey.pdc

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 Just a few thoughts on my answers to PhilPapers excellent [survey] for
 philosophers. I'll explain my positions somewhat and almost certainly go into
-more details in separate articles.
+more details in future articles [citation needed].
 
 Background
 ==========
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@ Background
 Philosophically, my strongest early influence comes from Satanism and
 Discordianism. I tried to, but never really got Nietzsche and felt very much at
 home when reading Robert Anton Wilson. Later on, I picked up many Buddhist
-influences (many distinctly Zen) and some Taoism. I belong to no school of
-thought and my belief system is very idiosyncratic, with most pieces coming from
-Theravada Buddhism, Discordianism and different schools of Rationality (mostly
-Bayesian, though).
+influences (Zen at first, later mostly Theravada) and some Taoism. I belong to
+no school of thought and my belief system is very idiosyncratic, with most
+pieces coming from Theravada Buddhism, Discordianism and different schools of
+Rationality (mostly Bayesian, though).
 
 I was motivated at first by fascinating problems, then making sense of madness
 and currently understanding consciousness and fate[^why_fate].
@@ -22,11 +22,12 @@ and currently understanding consciousness and fate[^why_fate].
     To clarify, I'm not interested in "What is fate?", but "Why do I perceive
     the world ordered in a way that is consistent with fate?". 
 
-In my opinion, the two most important philosopher are the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama,
-for the three principles of [anatta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta),
+For me, the most important philosophers are the Buddha (who I believe to be
+fiction and do not identify with Siddharta Gautama), for the three principles of
+[anatta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta),
 [anicca](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anicca) and
-[dukkha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), and [Wang
-Yangming](http://www.iep.utm.edu/wangyang/) for the unity of knowledge and
+[dukkha](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), and
+[Wang Yangming](http://www.iep.utm.edu/wangyang/) for the unity of knowledge and
 action. Without those, no understanding of the world is ever
 possible.[^understanding]
 
@@ -117,7 +118,7 @@ for trivialism.)
 However, more fundamentally, the basic *assumptions* of logic, especially
 definite, discrete truth values, seem very questionable to me. I suspect that
 most problems in logic today, like the Liar's paradox, Curry's paradox, the
-debate around the contradictions and so on, really derive from an
+debate around contradictions and so on, really derive from an
 oversimplification or basic misconception about what is exactly *meant* by truth
 and a discrepancy with what we actually *want* it to be.
 
@@ -148,11 +149,11 @@ No form of pluralism holds up even under mild scrutiny, so they can be safely
 rejected. But I simply don't see how physicalism ever *could* explain the
 subjective experiences of the mind, so I'm fairly skeptical of this view, too.
 This is, of course, a statement about my understanding and not about the world,
-so physicalism may very well be right. It is, after all, currently the basic
-model in existence. I strongly suspect, though, that a major revolution, similar
-to quantum physics, will be necessary and that certain universal assumptions,
-like the idea of a "particle" in physics a century ago, are fundamentally
-broken. I have no idea *which* assumptions these may be, however.
+so physicalism may very well be right. It is, after all, currently the best
+model in existence. I strongly suspect, though, that a major revolution will be
+necessary and that certain universal assumptions, like the idea of a "particle"
+in physics a century ago, are fundamentally broken. I have no idea *which*
+assumptions these may be, however.
 
 To further clarify, I fully support that "the mind is what the brain does" and
 there is no such thing as a separate mind floating around somewhere, but I feel
@@ -193,7 +194,9 @@ is simply wrong.
 Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-None. There is no self and no personal identity.
+Depends on what you mean by "self". One "self" has a name, a job, status,
+friends, memories and so on. This one is linguistically constructed. Another has
+experiences. I have no idea how it works.
 
 Politics: communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism?
 --------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -221,7 +224,7 @@ Rebirth. Literally. (Similarly to sleep.)
 Time: A-theory or B-theory?
 ---------------------------
 
-Unsure. I'm not familiar with either.
+A-theory. B-theory can be useful, but is fundamentally false.
 
 Trolley problem: switch or don't switch?
 ----------------------------------------