Meet Alex Kerr
by Alex Roberts
AR: Let’s begin with a question about your philosophical interests. How about you tell us a bit about what you have worked on so far, and what you will be working on in the near future?
AK: My work so far has been about how things appear in sense perception. I'm interested in explaining why things look, feel, sound, taste, and smell the way they do. So far, I've worked on musical experience, spatial experience, and our experience of color. In the near future I'll be working on a paper that tries to pin down what it would be to "explain consciousness"---to specify what philosophical and scientific explanations of consciousness are trying to explain---and another paper about how we should let feelings guide decision-making.
AR: That sounds fascinating! Could you give us a sense of your view on how feelings should guide decision-making?
AK: Sometimes our feelings can get in the way of making good decisions. For example, you might be scared of flying, but know it's perfectly safe. If you want to see your family overseas, you shouldn't "follow your heart" and stay off the plane; you should try to get rid of the feeling, however you can---try therapy, hypnotism, etc. But things seem different with matters of the heart. Suppose you're deciding whether to stay in a relationship, for example. You probably shouldn’t immediately end things just because you get the ick. Still, if the feeling lasts long enough and you've done your best to rekindle the spark organically, you could reasonably follow your heart and end things. This still seems reasonable if you have no idea why your feeling changed; and it also seems reasonable to refuse (for example) hypnotism, or a love potion, or other treatments that get rid of the feeling. So it seems like we should manage our feelings pretty differently depending on what kind of decision we face: sometimes it’s reasonable to follow your heart, but other times it isn’t. I’m trying to understand why.
AR: Very interesting. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the project. Have you always been interested primarily in the philosophy of mind, or did your philosophical interests start elsewhere? Please tell us a bit more about your philosophical trajectory, how you got interested in the questions you ended up working on.
AK: Like other angsty high schoolers, I got interested in philosophy after reading some Nietzsche (On the Genealogy of Morals). I loved it but in hindsight I definitely didn't understand it. Chalmers' The Conscious Mind was the first time I both loved and (sort of) understood philosophy. The book is about the hard problem of explaining why anyone is conscious. Why should putting meat together in just the right way give rise to an inner life? Why don't our bodies go through the motions without experiencing anything? I was hooked and stuck to philosophy of mind from then on. I got interested in sense perception later just because it seemed like a good and somewhat more constrained way into the broader problems about consciousness.
AR: Nice. We not only share a first name in common, but also a similar entry point to philosophy too. Let’s shift gear to your interests outside of philosophy. I heard from colleagues that you play jazz guitar. I’d love to hear more about that. Has it been a passion of yours for a long time?
AK: I still love to play and practice whenever I can! I was trying to be a professional musician for awhile, and for a couple years in college I was doing both a philosophy degree and a jazz performance degree in the conservatory, but I wound up dropping the music degree. I never really had what it takes to go pro, and in any case jazz is not exactly a boom industry, but I loved getting to play with so many great musicians and learned a ton from the experience. At the moment I'm trying my best to channel Thelonious Monk by transposing his solo stride piano approach to the guitar, and I'm also trying to get some RnB stuff together.
AR: Well, we are all happy things unfolded the way they did! One last question. I know a philosopher who is passionate about both music and philosophy, but absolutely hates the idea of letting philosophy intrude on his relationship with music. Your work in the philosophy of perception has clear connections with music. For you, do the philosophy and music come together, or do you prefer to separate them?
AK: I get how over-analyzing the music could ruin the experience a bit–music and humor are similar that way. I definitely don’t want to think philosophically about what I’m hearing every time I listen to music. On the other hand, I love having music intrude on my relationship with philosophy: there is so much we don’t understand yet about how music perception works, and I think it’s super interesting to think about when I’m not busy trying to enjoy the music itself!