The apocalypse is here. Humanity is no more. Whose subject should be preserved for the next generation of sentient life?
This is the premise of the annual Apocalypse Debate hosted by Logos: The Cornell Undergraduate Philosophy Journal and Club. Students packed the 400-person Uris Hall auditorium Thursday evening to watch five Cornell professors battle it out to argue their academic discipline should be preserved if humanity was annihilated and replaced by another species.
Presenting their cases were Prof. Roger Gilbert, literatures in English; Prof. Andrew Hicks, music; Prof. Emad Atiq, law and philosophy; and Prof. Ryan Tapping, physics while Industrial and Labor Relations senior lecturer Samuel Nelson played devil’s advocate, arguing that none of the disciplines should be preserved.
Gilbert argued in his opening statement that “English literature provides a varied and granular picture of human experiences and cultural specificity,” which the next generation could learn from.
Hicks expounded on the “complex cognitive abilities embedded in the discipline of music that are critical for the evolution of other cognitive traits,” like the ability to “conform our own activities to [environmental affordances].”
“Who knows when some apocalyptic world may have a fantastic beat drop, and we need to respond to it?” Hicks said.
Atiq asserted the need for the hypothetical sentient race to read moral and legal philosophy to prevent a “state of nature” where the strong prey on the weak. He also compared choosing philosophy to choosing a “diversified portfolio” as it is embedded with all the other disciplines in the debate.
Atiq said, “By choosing any one of these other disciplines, you risk abandoning those most in need of help and protection. That’s a risk you can’t take. It’s immoral.”
Tapping championed the technological developments that physics affords, especially how it “provides a pathway for these future sentient beings to use resources efficiently and accelerate societal progress.”
Nelson started his speech by accusing the debaters of claiming that their respective fields were better than the others without addressing each of their weaknesses, which he listed as: English literature’s exclusion of literature in other languages, the indefinability of music, the impractical nature of answering philosophical questions and the destructiveness of the atomic bomb.
“Humanity has failed. We are a cancer. The only thing [these sentient beings] could learn from us is to not be us,” Nelson said.
With these words, the other professors refined their points for the next two rounds of the debate. While Nelson’s attacks on the other professors’ arguments were met with uproarious laughter, Atiq ultimately triumphed with the audience vote.
Audience member Sophia Dasser ’28, who voted for Atiq, thought his point that “philosophy is in everything” was “really well done,” and pointed out what some of the other professors could have done better.
“I wish that [Nelson] had verbalized what the crowd was thinking,” Dasser said.
Jared Heggenstaller ’28 agreed with Atiq’s point that one could “gain insights from philosophy as a guide for what to do.”
Heggenstaller also thought that Nelson’s speeches relied too much on humor and stereotyping the disciplines.
Sophia Gottfried ’25, president of Logos, expressed her love for the event.
“I love that it exposes philosophical debates and thinking to a wider audience,” Gottfried said.
Yuhan Huang ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].