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Philosophy and Why I Think It Matters:
Intro
First, I want to identify why I am writing this at all (other than for pure enjoyment, of course). I’ll start by saying that I think philosophy, as a discipline, is quite disrespected in today's (American) society. Occasionally, upon mentioning my interest in philosophy, I am met with mutual interest and all is well. However, more often than not my studies are condemned as useless and that I’m going to end up jobless as a result. You may recall when Stephen Hawking pronounced that "philosophy is dead" (in his book, The Grand Design) or perhaps you remember when Neil deGrasse Tyson said that majoring in philosophy can "really mess you up" among other, perhaps more grounded, criticisms. In my experience, it has seemed that a great deal of people look down on philosophy as no longer having a use. Though "academics" (professors, etc.) have been more sympathetic to the budding philosophy student, others outside academia seem to maintain quite a negative attitude. This is where I find fault.
Before really digging in, I just want to define a few terms so we're on the same page going forward. To define "philosophy" I’ll use the Oxford Dictionary description: "The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline." I don't think it's particularly controversial or useful to discuss for the sake of my argument. By things with "instrumental value" I mean the things that have values dependent on the thing’s ability to acquire something else of value. For example, a shovel has value insofar as it can dig a hole. A broken shovel has less instrumental value than a properly functioning shovel because it is less able to dig said hole which can be then used for some other purpose. By things with "intrinsic value" I mean things that have value in and of themselves, they are not a mere means of acquiring something else (yes, I did just open that can of worms but let me try to deal with this quickly). There are perfectly reasonable arguments regarding the existence of intrinsic value at all as well as arguments for what may possess such value. With my own limited time in mind, I will be fully accepting the position that some things do possess intrinsic value. That leads us to this question: if some things are intrinsically valuable, what are they? Hint: philosophy might be one of them.
I think that in the United States we have an obsession with instrumental value. The most perfect example one could ask for is the love of money. Money is arguably one of the least intrinsically valuable things in existence. After all, it is just fancy, over-glorified paper. Interestingly enough, this fancy paper can do pretty astounding things. Just about anything can be purchased with the fancy paper we call money, even things that have been argued to have intrinsic value (like happiness). When you pay for a child to ride the merry-go-round, you’re paying for something that’ll make the kid happy for a little while. Whether money can purchase lasting happiness is a different discussion altogether (though there have been numerous studies suggesting that it can’t). As the embodiment of instrumental value, our fancy papers are extremely versatile in what they can obtain; where the shovel can only do so many things, money can do many more. So it seems to make sense that we would put our fancy paper on such a pedestal, what’s the problem?
The problem is that we have entirely forgotten about the importance of things with intrinsic value. Once again using money and happiness, I’ll illustrate this dilemma. I really like green tea. Green tea has instrumental value because not only does it give me some obscure health benefits, but it also makes me happy when I drink it. I can purchase green tea with money and so I will work to acquire money to fuel my habit (edit: addiction). So far, there is nothing wrong; however, say I have to do something I really don’t want to in order to acquire my tea, for example, steal it. This would upset me more than the tea would lift me up. The problem is I don’t see the happiness as the end goal, I see the tea (or money to acquire it) as the end goal. In short, by putting the instrumentally valuable things on a pedestal, we forget why we are actually doing what we are doing because we are focused on getting some intermediary thing that gets us the intrinsically valuable object. If you’re thinking this has nothing to do with why philosophy is important, just wait.
Our focus on instrumentally valuable things is clear in our scientific pursuits. Science has incredible instrumental value in that it produces quite a bit in the form of technology. If you believe knowledge to be intrinsically valuable, then science is also instrumentally valuable because it gives us knowledge of things once mysterious. Although, if you believe knowledge to be intrinsically valuable, I’d have a much easier time convincing you philosophy is instrumentally valuable because it also produces knowledge. I will assume it is unclear whether knowledge is intrinsically valuable. This is where a discipline like science departs from that of philosophy: certainly both add to the wealth of knowledge that humans have gathered, but science, through engineering and technology, materially adds to our list of stuff; specifically, our list of instrumentally useful stuff (unless you think your iPod is valuable in and of itself). Philosophy does not. So, finally, why is philosophy important?
I could make the argument that it is instrumentally valuable. Those who take ethical arguments seriously (e.g. doctors, politicians, lawyers) may base their career decisions (whether to pull the plug, vote yea or nay, defend client x) off of such philosophical arguments and that these decision will have material value. However, this specific example applies to questions of right and wrong and less so to questions of existence or reality. Instead, I argue that philosophy is intrinsically valuable. The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline, is, in and of itself, valuable, even though it cannot be used to acquire anything else. This explanation may shed light on why philosophy is so looked down upon as well as why it retains importance regardless of that fact.
...to be continued
EDIT: Removed incorrect usage of "begs the question"
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Philosophy is important, but it is a discipline that is more focused on creating inward rather than outward value. That's a problem when you're trying to enter today's workforce. It's quite a pickle.
I say you need to study the practical disciplines to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But to really live a fulfilling life you need to complement this study with that of philosophy. Do the former to ensure you exist, and do the latter to ensure you really live.
(As an aside, your use of "begs the question" is a perversion of its old use, despite being the proper usage nowadays. When I took an introductory course on philosophy during undergrad my prof. said one of his biggest pet peeves was when students misused this statement. But then again, a phrase is generally defined by how the populace uses it so it's probably not incorrect anymore.)
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On July 27 2014 10:20 PassionFruit wrote: Philosophy is important, but it is a discipline that is more focused on creating inward rather than outward value. That's a problem when you're trying to enter today's workforce. It's quite a pickle.
I say you need to study the practical disciplines to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But to really live a fulfilling life you need to complement this study with that of philosophy. Do the former to ensure you exist, and do the latter to ensure you really live.
(As an aside, your use of "begs the question" is a perversion of its old use, despite being the proper usage nowadays. When I took an introductory course on philosophy during undergrad my prof. said one of his biggest pet peeves was when students misused this statement. But then again, a phrase is generally defined by how the populace uses it so it's probably not incorrect anymore.) I sense an Aristotle among us, living the for that Eudaimonea.
+ Show Spoiler [Dust in the wind, dude] +
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Philosophy often seems to me an excessive amount of narritive attempting to accompany an extremely complicated and difficult to understand desicion making process (probably the fault of my neuroscientist roomates). I don't see anything wrong with philosophy and the study of it but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. Bare in mind some of the ridiculous seeming cultural and scientific beliefs we have come to generate in the past due to pure mental exersizes and then try to assume that this relic of a way to search for truths is not a fragile process.
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I like reading about philosophy but I only see it as a diversion. I think it can be a helpful mental exercise but not an end in itself, because to me philosophy is more like the search for the ultimate end. The ultimate end cannot be the search itself
Also I don't think there is a universal ultimate end anyway, since people much smarter than myself have spent millennia debating it and not made much headway
As for studying it, I agree that it's a shame that people disparage it since it doesn't necessarily lead to a job, but at the same time employability is something to consider. I'd rather have to not worry about how to pay my bills than to worry but be able to call myself a philosopher and understand the content that is associated with such a title.
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On July 27 2014 13:37 puppykiller wrote: ...but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously.
I'm curious as to what disciplines you think we should take seriously?
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On July 27 2014 10:20 PassionFruit wrote: I say you need to study the practical disciplines to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But to really live a fulfilling life you need to complement this study with that of philosophy. Do the former to ensure you exist, and do the latter to ensure you really live.
I agree, though I think if we consider the more "practical" applications of philosophy (like ethics) it's not hard to see how it could "put food in your mouth" etc. I do think focusing on the very abstract corners of things is a good way to end up unemployed (and this should be avoided). I do think we should explore such distant and weird corners, but we shouldn't rely on this pursuit to be marketable
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On July 27 2014 14:15 TheGloob wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2014 13:37 puppykiller wrote: ...but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. I'm curious as to what disciplines you think we should take seriously?
Boom.
+ Show Spoiler +
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Why do you fault people for disliking something? Fish don't like deserts, mice don't like owls, cockroaches don't like people who step on them. Are these creatures "at fault"? What does "at fault" even mean in this context? Do you believe that people who dislike philosophy should like it? Or that people who think philosophers don't do well for themselves should think differently?
If you do hold these beliefs, it is the same as saying "it should always be sunny outside" or "this string should have only a right side and not a left side" or "this box should only have a top and not a bottom". You are saying "everyone should like this subject of philosophy". If people like and respect a subject, then obviously there are also people who dislike and don't respect it, like the front and back of a coin, and when you see that, this whole thing ceases to be a problem. Anyway, if people don't like what you love to do, who cares? Isn't it enough that you love it?
If, pardon my presumption, instead you are saying that you wish for philosophers to have more money, more prestige, and more respect then you wish to have money, prestige, respect, and so on and you aren't really interested in philosophy. If you truly love any hobby or interest or subject, you don't go into it for any other reason than that you love doing it!
The best dancers in the world don't become the best dancers in the world because they want the money, respect, and prestige that goes with being the best dancers in the world. They do it because they love dancing. In the same way, Magnus Carlsen isn't the best chess player in the world because he wants the prestige, respect, and money that go with being the chess world champion, he is the best chess player in the world because he loves chess. Success only comes from losing yourself in the subject, hobby, or interest and then the money, prestige and respect follow from that passion.
So if, as your title suggests, you think that philosophy matters, then do it with all of your passion and soul. But if you only wish to be a philosopher for the rewards associated with it, whether they be social, monetary, or any other kind of reward, then I'm afraid you're going down the wrong path. If you seek these things, fret not, for they are easy enough to acquire. Become a businessman and bully people or a politican and lie to people or a lawyer and argue with people!
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I'm working on a dual-subject bachelor, which is the norm at my uni when you are studying... oh crap there is apparently no particular english word for that. In Germany, we use "Geisteswissenschaften" as a collective term for basically everything that deals with subjects about man/created by man: society, culture, media, language and, of course, philosophy. The latter is the most popular choice for students at my uni. It was mine too, though I'm maining history. I recently finished my second semester, so I did the basics when it comes to philosophy. The basics (here) are scientific working, the basic problems of philosophy (overview of questions like "Do we have free will?" and which philosophers are dealing with it) and logic - mostly propositional logic, so basic argument forms like modus ponens. We also did predicate logic which can deal with extential and universal quantifiers, like the term "all". Finally, using this knowledge for derivations, formalizing arguments, detecting (formal) false arguments and exposing unproductive forms of argumentation (like the famous "ad hominem" and "post hoc ergo propter hoc") . The next thing philosophy students do here is specializing on theoretical (more logic, scientific theory, metaphysics, epistemolog and stuff) or practical (ethics, political and law philosophy...) philosophy while learning about the history of philosophy in their favorite epochs.
Soooo after listing all this stuff I think one can safely say that philosophy contains many aspects that are great to utilize in other fields. That's why it is so popular at my uni to use it as a second subject. Here's were I see value in philosophy: guiding and challenging the other sciences. The first aspect means making sure our scientific methods, arguments and conclusions are correct in a formal, logically way. The second contains moral and ethics for example. Science and progress without constrains is very dangerous. Like, we don't want a real life Rapture, do we? Heck, you can safely say that philosophy is the foundation of other sciences. Many great minds of ancient Greece who influenced other fields of study would mainly call themselves philosophers if you could ask them since there was no other term or concept for like a mathematician, for exampe.
I see no problem in maining philosophy. We need experts in logic, moral, ethics and such for what I mentioned above. There will always be people interested in such things and there will always be need for it, even when it's mostly hidden and not well paid. So it doesn't matter what the general public thinks. Many disregard even my main field of study... But I'm not in it for the money, I'm doing it because it is my passion.
Example of passion: + Show Spoiler +
PS: Mostly lurking around TL, this is my first post ever. Cheers!
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On July 27 2014 15:26 PoorPotato wrote: ...
I think you're arguing in a vacuum. Things that have intrinsic value still need significant respect from the outside to be 'okay' to pursue, to be enjoyable. Change the subject to the intrinsic value and disrespect in avant-garde art, and you can easily imagine how social expectations and reactions can be very important for a poor, unappreciated avant-garde student, even if most of what he wants to do is to dive into art fully.
This is besides the fact that underlooking philosophy is an actual problem in science, and even more so, with people in general (gullibility, seeing only from your POV, not copmprehending arguments, ethical thinking... everything and more can be helped with philosophy).
I agree with OP.
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As a philosopher, I always enjoy reading this.
When I was in high school I was always asking myself 'is philosophy useful?'. Now I know. It's kinda strange, the more you study it, the more you feel that question is self-explanatory.
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@OP: You have given us an outline of what you mean by intrinsic and instrumental goodness etc and then claimed that philosophy is intrinsically good without giving us any actual arguments to work with. Ending on a "to be continued" seems to promise that your next post will actually contain somesort of argument for the intrinsic goodness of philosophy, which I'm sure it will. There is however a pitfall that I would like to draw your attention to:
We must not confuse something being noninstrumentally good (i.e. "intrinsically good" as an end in itself and not as a means to something else) with something being nonprudentially good (i.e. "good as such," rather than good for anyone or anything). Things that are good for me are things that are prudentially good, but they can be "intrinsically" good insofar as they are not means to something else; they can also be instrumentally good insofar as they are means to something else. The question is whether something that is good as an end in itself can ever be good in a nonprudential manner, i.e. good as such without being for anyone or anything, and into which one of those philosophy is supposed to fall in.
Since you argue that philosophy is good as an end in itself, this can either mean that philosophy is noninstrumentally good for someone or that it is noninstrumentally good as such. This is something you must clearify before you go on arguing for the value of philosophy.
If you affirm that philosophy is noninstrumentally good for us and therefore (prudentially) valuable, this must be grounded in an ethical theory of what is good for us. You have a fair set of options here ranging from hedonism to flourishing with the most important question being whether the truth of the statement "x is good for us" depends on x being somehow liked/desired or not.
If you affirm that philosophy is noninstrumentally good, regardless of whether or not it is good for anyone or anything, then it raises quite tricky questions as to the relation between this particular good and other prudential goods. A common example for something noninstrumentally good as such is morality: If it is right that x, but x is contrary to your interests or desires, then x ought to be done regardless. With other words, doing what is right might require some measure of self-sacrifice, in extreme cases it might even require giving up ones life for what is right - but since death is bad for us, what is right might stand in conflict with what is good for us. You could argue that the value of philosophy somehow has a similar status like that. Taking "good as such" seriously, you could posit different realms of values: Things that are aesthetically valuable, scientifically, historically, morally, sentimentally, philosophically etc. independent of whether or not they are actually bad or good for anyone. So in that case there could be aesthetic value in your death, but you would be hard pressed to say that therefore your death is somehow good for you.
Now for some replies:
Philosophy is important, but it is a discipline that is more focused on creating inward rather than outward value. That's a problem when you're trying to enter today's workforce. It's quite a pickle.
I say you need to study the practical disciplines to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. But to really live a fulfilling life you need to complement this study with that of philosophy. Do the former to ensure you exist, and do the latter to ensure you really live. I think what you mean by inward and outward is mostly economic value: Philosophy doesn't sell very well, but then neither does basic science, yet we don't question someone's aspiration to become a theoretical physicist as much as we do their aspiration to become a philosopher. Neither do we think someone who has no love or talent for physics should pursue physics, so likewise I believe we should not think someone who has no love or talent for philosophy should become a philosopher. It would be rather presumptuous of us to posit that only someone who has done philosophy can lead a good and fulfilling life (not saying that you did posit that).
Philosophy often seems to me an excessive amount of narritive attempting to accompany an extremely complicated and difficult to understand desicion making process (probably the fault of my neuroscientist roomates). I don't see anything wrong with philosophy and the study of it but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. If your judgement about whether or not it is helpful to take philosophy seriously is based on your impression of what philosophy often seems like, something which you admit is probably more a fault of your roommates and not anything you yourself have thought much about, then surely we have good reasons to be skeptical about your judgement.
@PoorPotato: I don't think you disagree at all with the OP, since I don't think he equates people liking something with it being valuable. The question was whether philosophy does have any value or not - and if so, what kind of value. If it does have value, then pursuing it just for the sake of it can be good, but if it does not have any value at all, then pursuing it is a waste of time. Likewise: if the only kind of value philosophy has were to be economic, then pursuing it for its aesthetic value would be misguided.
Here's were I see value in philosophy: guiding and challenging the other sciences. The first aspect means making sure our scientific methods, arguments and conclusions are correct in a formal, logically way. The second contains moral and ethics for example. Science and progress without constrains is very dangerous. I certainly agree that those are important, but here you argue against OP insofar as you say philosophy is good as a means towards keeping science in check (ethically and methodologically), i.e. it has instrumental value. I believe it does, but the question is whether philosophy has -just- instrumental value or whether there is something else to it.
Also, with that focus on conceptual analysis in your first year, your curriculum sounds like something from the FU. If so, we should hang out sometime!
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On July 27 2014 15:26 PoorPotato wrote: Why do you fault people for disliking something?
I think you misunderstood me... I never said people should or need to like philosophy? I only ask that they respect it. For example, I do not particularly like or enjoy math, but I certainly respect it and those who study it. I'm not asking for anything but recognition as an equally useful human being which, I think, is a very fair request.
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On July 27 2014 16:17 Galika wrote: "Geisteswissenschaften"
I think "Humanities" might be the closest word, but as far as I know that's not a subject of study here in the States, it's more of an umbrella term.
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On July 27 2014 21:35 GERMasta wrote: @OP: .... Thank you thank you thank you!! This was very necessary feedback. I posted this here for responses like yours; it was very helpful. As I write the next part I will consider what you mentioned. I plan to affirm that philosophy noninstrumentally good, regardless of whether or not it is good for anyone or anything, and answer the tricky questions rather than argue within the bounds of different ethical theories.
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I love philosophy blogs on TL, I look forward to the next post (hopefully I catch it!). Very good discussion so far.
I think the problem is that with philosophy, the arguments don't seem to be as rigorous or clear as they are in other fields like the mathematical sciences. There are many modern philosophers who make arguments in their own published books, where the words they use are not clearly defined and the conclusions aren't rigorously supported by evidence or studies. For example, take one of the leading French philosophers Jean Baudrillard (quoting from Wikipedia):
Finally, Mark Poster, Baudrillard's editor and one of a number of present-day academics who argue for his contemporary relevance, has remarked (p. 8 of Poster's 2nd ed. of Selected Writings):
Baudrillard's writing up to the mid-1980s is open to several criticisms. He fails to define key terms, such as the code; his writing style is hyperbolic and declarative, often lacking sustained, systematic analysis when it is appropriate; he totalizes his insights, refusing to qualify or delimit his claims. He writes about particular experiences, television images, as if nothing else in society mattered, extrapolating a bleak view of the world from that limited base. He ignores contradictory evidence such as the many benefits afforded by the new media ...
So I think, at least to me, that if such people can be considered as leading academics in their field, then its hard to take something like postmodern philosophy as seriously as any other field of science; it just appears like most of their conclusions are based on opinion and conjecture rather than on formal logical arguments.
There's actually another quote from Noam Chomsky on this issue, whom I generally think of as a pretty rigorous person (although maybe too biased against the US sometimes): Link to Transcript
What you’re referring to is what’s called "theory". And when I said I'm not interested in theory, what I meant is, I’m not interested in posturing–using fancy terms like polysyllables and pretending you have a theory when you have no theory whatsoever. So there’s no theory in any of this stuff, not in the sense of theory that anyone is familiar with in the sciences or any other serious field. Try to find in all of the work you mentioned some principles from which you can deduce conclusions, empirically testable propositions where it all goes beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old. See if you can find that when the fancy words are decoded. I can’t. So I’m not interested in that kind of posturing. Žižek is an extreme example of it. I don’t see anything to what he’s saying. Jacques Lacan I actually knew. I kind of liked him. We had meetings every once in awhile. But quite frankly I thought he was a total charlatan. He was just posturing for the television cameras in the way many Paris intellectuals do.
Therefore even as a question of intrinsic value, I would have serious concerns about going into philosophy if I wanted to seriously gain a better understanding of the fundamental nature of knowledge, existence, and reality (or our relationship to the world, amongst other things). I think perhaps the only saving grace might be its study of logic (propositional logic, modal logic), but I'm not even sure if this is exclusively in the domain of philosophy or whether it can be studied as part of a math degree.
Compared to something like pure mathematics - there you definitely can apply their work to the field of theoretical physics so it does have some instrumental value. But I think you'd agree that there is a positive perception on the value of pure mathematics in an intrinsic sense as well. Some equations may turn out to be useful in the physical sciences or elsewhere, but there is a joy, say, in understanding the fundamental theorem of calculus and how gloriously simple it is to find the area under some function, so long as you can find its antiderivative.
I think its because in math there is a level of real, intellectual rigor, so people feel safe studying it because they know they can take it seriously. With philosophy, even as an undergraduate, we had discussions with our teaching assistant asking why it is that so many works of philosophy seemed almost deliberately obscurantist.
So yeah. I would also guess that Dr. Hawking said philosophy is dead because philosophy has run out of ways to meaningfully build off of certain axiomatic truths, that it has more or less reached its limit. For further knowledge we have to refer to science.
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@radscorpion9: There is good and bad philosophy, just as there is good and bad science (look up the Schön scandal or most recently the direct distortion of data over at Harvard). It would be crazy of us to say that because there is a good handful of celebrated scientists that have indeed messed with their data in unscientific ways and who have not maintained the rigour and care that science requires that therefore there is something inherently wrong with science as a practice and we should be insecure as to its value in doing the things that science is supposed to do.
Obscurantism was a bit of a cultural problem in French philosophy where at one time you had to be as obscure as possible to be taken seriously (see this article for details). The Germans had a bit of an issue with that after Hegel as well, mostly due to the influence of his thought, which unfortunately had people emulate his style of writing as well. Outside of the Hegelians, nobody comes to mind that has had a particularly horrible style, with Heidegger being somewhat of a modern exception. Regardless of the stylistic problems of some authors, I don't think it's fair at all to conclude that you therefore cannot take philosophy seriously.
But I think you'd agree that there is a positive perception on the value of pure mathematics in an intrinsic sense as well. Some equations may turn out to be useful in the physical sciences or elsewhere, but there is a joy, say, in understanding the fundamental theorem of calculus and how gloriously simple it is to find the area under some function, so long as you can find its antiderivative. Although I think pursuing mathematics can be done as an end in itself (i.e. 'intrinsically' valuable) and I can certainly relate to the joy of it, this nonetheless is an example of instrumental value: Mathematics has value because it brings us joy through our understanding of certain theorems and our application of them to problems, i.e. it is a means towards joy and joy itself is somehow good. A statement about the noninstrumental value of mathematics would be something like saying that it is a component of a person's well-being. In the other statement, what is implied is that joy is a component of our well-being, and since math leads to joy, math is therefore valuable as a means towards a component of our well-being, whereas here we can argue that math itself is a component of our well-being.
I'm not sure if it is, unless we specify "our" well-being as the well-being of a certain specific person who is really good at math and likes doing what he does. Otherwise we'd be committed to claiming that you can't have all the things that constitute well-being unless you do math, which is a bit of a shaky proposition.
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Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge.
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In all these philosophy and sciences discussions there seems to be a strange asymmetry. People in the science camp claim philosopher's have little idea of what scienctists actually do, and most philosophers will agree. Understanding current scientific work is so obviously difficult that noone in there right mind would claim to understand it without the right education. On the other hand, the same argument is not accepted for the philosophy side. Somehow anyone who did 2 courses of philosophy (if any at all) feels like s/he exactly knows what philosophy is and what philosophers do, and the general public does not call these people out, because society operates on a caricature of philosophy.
If I'd ask a layman what they think philosophy is it would be answered with a picture of pure speculation, thinking in ivory towers, or some obscure ideas of freedom of the will or god. But actual philosophy can also be something like an attempt to calculate coherence of propositions taken from physics with neural networks, just to build an understanding of inference to the best explanation. But that's certainly not what a layman takes philosophy to be.
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I think philosophy has value.
You don't have to come up with new big ideas, but I think it's a good idea to have a sense of what some of the great minds of the past had come up with.
the education of each generation should build on what has come before, and that includes not only technical knowledge but also more abstractly understood concepts.
i think it is vastly under-rated.
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On July 27 2014 14:15 TheGloob wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2014 13:37 puppykiller wrote: ...but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. I'm curious as to what disciplines you think we should take seriously?
Not a question I can or care to answer.
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On July 28 2014 06:45 Sapphire.lux wrote: Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge.
I don't think you really understand science either. Meet Paul Feyerabend.
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On July 28 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2014 06:45 Sapphire.lux wrote: Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge. I don't think you really understand science either. Meet Paul Feyerabend. I'm afraid you're going to have to explain yourself a bit more then giving a wikipedia link of a philosopher that you might share opinions with.
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On July 28 2014 17:06 IgnE wrote: Do you even do science? If you don't want to talk about something then please don't post. Giving links instead of arguments (suported by links), now answering to questions with questions.
Good day!
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On July 28 2014 12:16 puppykiller wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2014 14:15 TheGloob wrote:On July 27 2014 13:37 puppykiller wrote: ...but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. I'm curious as to what disciplines you think we should take seriously? Not a question I can or care to answer.
Well if you can't name anything we should take seriously it's unfair say what we shouldn't take seriously. I think we should take philosophy seriously among other things (though if you want to make some argument that we should take nothing or everything seriously that is fair). It's silly to say "we shouldn't take philosophy seriously, but I'm not sure what disciplines we should take seriously" because if you're in the position to say one is foolish, you are in the position to another is not.
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On July 28 2014 17:20 Sapphire.lux wrote:If you don't want to talk about something then please don't post. Giving links instead of arguments (suported by links), now answering to questions with questions. Good day!
If you don't do science and you don't do philosophy why should we care about your opinions on them?
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On July 29 2014 03:23 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2014 17:20 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 28 2014 17:06 IgnE wrote: Do you even do science? If you don't want to talk about something then please don't post. Giving links instead of arguments (suported by links), now answering to questions with questions. Good day! If you don't do science and you don't do philosophy why should we care about your opinions on them? You're a friendly champ aren't you?
I'm an engineer and i'm scientifically literate, that's why i commented on the OP that he should learn to differentiate between the two before making sweeping statements on what science does and does not.
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The reason philosophers are annoying is they know they lack relevance. To counter this they try to worm there way into conversations by questioning any shadow of a presumption that an individual makes. Usually they do this to an extreme degree almost as if it is nothing more than an excuse to listen to their mouths make words. They latch onto other diciplines that actually produce value and like a parasite try their best to toy with the framework and find some lack of conistency or contradiction in a process when framework isn't even relevant. Their dicipline sits from a standpoint where it grants itself the privilige to judge everything on nothing other than an assumption that practioners of philosphy are intrinsicly wiser than practioners of other subjects because they have read more philosophy or because they have surrendered to a soccratic approach at reasoning or because they are compensating for the fact that they are nothing more than an art critic assigning narrative and value to practitioners as he or she sees fit.
There is absolutly nothing wrong with the socratic method or questioning the underlying framework of a pursuit or situation. Just recognize your role as secondary to the pursuit and situation as you depend on it and it does not depend on you unless you can some how convince it to. Also please become aware of how limited the abillity for a human to generate rational thoughts is and how small a part of the world it is relative to how significant it sees itself.
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On July 28 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2014 06:45 Sapphire.lux wrote: Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge. I don't think you really understand science either. Meet Paul Feyerabend.
The distinction between science and engineering is largely correct, many of the modern inventions we attribute to science are created by amateur scientists, or engineers whose expertise lie in technology rather than science as philosophy. This gap has increasingly widened as science has become more abstract and theoretical, and technology has separated itself from pure science as seen in universities and corporate divisions. It's a common mistake to attribute to science the various inventions that have raised our quality of living. The effect of such a mistake is usually to attach some epistemological or moral justification to science based on its pragmatism. But theoretical science is in fact as unpragmatic as aesthetic philosophy, and the technology itself of, for example, designing and inventing things like hybrid cars has no moral alignment whatsoever.
A scientist philosopher like Feyerabend, who along with Lakatos were the pre-eminent examples of scientific philosophers in the 20th century, did not directly contribute to our quality of living like engineers could; but still their insights into the methodology of science were as important and practical as any advancements in moral or legal philosophy.
America is perhaps more concerned with instrumental value than other societies, but we are the country that gave birth to William James, the most practical philosopher of all. When you're coming out of college with 100k debt, Socratic intrinsic value is usually the last thing on your mind.
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Well, TheGloob, I think when you say that philosophy is not held in high regard in America, you need to distinguish between two cases: One is the bourgeois distaste that doesn't see the value in anything without practical value and the other is the society's attitude towards what sorts of knowledge are valued. There is certainly much of the first in the U.S., but it could be that western Europe simply thinks of pursuing a profession in academia as more normal without actually being more high-minded. As for the second, that's a very complicated question, but I think it's fair to characterize the U.S. as less experienced with many philosophical ideas. For one, there definitely has been a segregation between the Anglophone and Continental spheres for several centuries. This may not be totally to our detriment though. As Allan Bloom observed, some Americans have the opportunity to look on philosophy with fresh, eager eyes that Europeans may not in their urbanity.
The second point is more interesting and in that respect there certainly is antipathy to anything smacking of philosophy. Conservatives view philosophers as the destroyers of morals and social order (not a totally unjustified opinion). Across the Modern spectrum there is a whole host of reactions, but it seems apparent that a world view that seeks to immanentize all of human life will eventually turn against things that look beyond the low horizons it has set. Both Liberals and Leftists in the U.S. have taken on an economic vocabulary that makes it very difficult to get at essential discussions. Another current is, of course, the adherents of Scientism that advance their misbegotten positivism. Analytic philosophy, which should be a useful branch, seems to serve the dual suicidal purpose of casting philosophy as a client discipline to natural science and making philosophy itself so obscure and unappealing to anyone but a pedant.
To answer Prog, I don't think they know what science is themselves. If we're going to understand the attitudes of someone like Puppykiller, though, we're going to have to look at something far beyond mere individual rational though. It's a whole environment that has made their worldview possible (a process that I've only just now started to understand myself).
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On July 29 2014 03:36 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 03:23 IgnE wrote:On July 28 2014 17:20 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 28 2014 17:06 IgnE wrote: Do you even do science? If you don't want to talk about something then please don't post. Giving links instead of arguments (suported by links), now answering to questions with questions. Good day! If you don't do science and you don't do philosophy why should we care about your opinions on them? You're a friendly champ aren't you? I'm an engineer and i'm scientifically literate, that's why i commented on the OP that he should learn to differentiate between the two before making sweeping statements on what science does and does not.
You are the one making sweeping statements about science and philosophy, saying that science has superseded philosophy, rendering it obsolete. Philosophy is hardly a relic of the past, something you would at least have some inkling of if you had bothered to look into the philosophy of science at all.
Once again, you don't do science, and you don't do philosophy, so I don't see why OP or anyone else should care about your opinion. Bravo, lots of people of people aren't scientifically literate, but lots of people are, and a distressingly large number of those people seem to think because they have possession of this secret knowledge that it renders other modes of knowledge a moot point at best, and pernicious superstition at worst. And unfortunately just being a "scientifically literate" technocrat doesn't mean that you do science, or that you've thought about what science is.
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On July 27 2014 13:37 puppykiller wrote: Philosophy often seems to me an excessive amount of narritive attempting to accompany an extremely complicated and difficult to understand desicion making process (probably the fault of my neuroscientist roomates). I don't see anything wrong with philosophy and the study of it but it seems unhelpful to take it seriously. Bare in mind some of the ridiculous seeming cultural and scientific beliefs we have come to generate in the past due to pure mental exersizes and then try to assume that this relic of a way to search for truths is not a fragile process.
That's pretty much what I was going to say. I think philosophy isn't particularly important, because it really doesn't lead to anything except branches in ideology. This wouldn't be a problem if there were an ideology that promoted purely treating people with love and kindness, and trying to be a better person. However, the more idealized an individual sees his or her philosophical viewpoint(s), the more these ideas will clash with other people's ideas, giving way to conflict. You can argue against this assertion I'm making until you're blue in the face, but I will never budge an inch; philosophy is not useful.
+ Show Spoiler +If you started typing furiously "It's ironic that you..." or "Wow, you are such a hypocrite..." then get up from your computer, eat like ten dicks, then come back and realize it's just a joke.
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On July 29 2014 06:11 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote:On July 28 2014 06:45 Sapphire.lux wrote: Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge. I don't think you really understand science either. Meet Paul Feyerabend. The distinction between science and engineering is largely correct, many of the modern inventions we attribute to science are created by amateur scientists, or engineers whose expertise lie in technology rather than science as philosophy. This gap has increasingly widened as science has become more abstract and theoretical, and technology has separated itself from pure science as seen in universities and corporate divisions. It's a common mistake to attribute to science the various inventions that have raised our quality of living. The effect of such a mistake is usually to attach some epistemological or moral justification to science based on its pragmatism. But theoretical science is in fact as unpragmatic as aesthetic philosophy, and the technology itself of, for example, designing and inventing things like hybrid cars has no moral alignment whatsoever. A scientist philosopher like Feyerabend, who along with Lakatos were the pre-eminent examples of scientific philosophers in the 20th century, did not directly contribute to our quality of living like engineers could; but still their insights into the methodology of science were as important and practical as any advancements in moral or legal philosophy. America is perhaps more concerned with instrumental value than other societies, but we are the country that gave birth to William James, the most practical philosopher of all. When you're coming out of college with 100k debt, Socratic intrinsic value is usually the last thing on your mind.
There's some irony here, in that I think you misinterpret the motivation behind the distinction Sapphire is making. At least you don't make it plain that you are agreeing with the distinction for different reasons. Sapphire is saying, "don't confuse science for engineering, because even though engineering is merely instrumental, science (and the scientific method) has completely supplanted philosophy because it allows us to ascertain the true nature of reality," whereas you seem to be saying, "don't confuse science for engineering, because even though engineering is practical, and in many ways rather aphilosophical, science is actually intimately intertwined with philosophies of epistemology, metaphysics, and value."
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Perhaps what once was once called science is as you say it is, IgnE, but no mainstream current bears any resemblance to this conception. Empiricism and Positivism are the orders of the day. Either you are acknowledging the deficiency of the natural science that calls itself lord of all knowledge or you think they are the same thing. If it is the latter, I am most distressed because that is utterly unlike the promise Bacon made to deliver improvements without insinuating metaphysical questions.
@Ninazerg, you are a queer sort. The ultimate gambit to opinions such as Puppykiller's is that there is not an option to have "philosophy" or not have a philosophy: You will have a philosophy and your culture will have a philosophy. Your options are to investigate and understand these forces or allow them to shape you blindly.
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On July 29 2014 11:59 Jerubaal wrote: Ninazerg, you are a queer
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On July 29 2014 11:59 Jerubaal wrote: Perhaps what once was once called science is as you say it is, IgnE, but no mainstream current bears any resemblance to this conception. Empiricism and Positivism are the orders of the day. Either you are acknowledging the deficiency of the natural science that calls itself lord of all knowledge or you think they are the same thing. If it is the latter, I am most distressed because that is utterly unlike the promise Bacon made to deliver improvements without insinuating metaphysical questions.
@Ninazerg, you are a queer sort. The ultimate gambit to opinions such as Puppykiller's is that there is not an option to have "philosophy" or not have a philosophy: You will have a philosophy and your culture will have a philosophy. Your options are to investigate and understand these forces or allow them to shape you blindly.
What do I say it is? What conception are you talking about?
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On July 29 2014 09:40 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 06:11 zulu_nation8 wrote:On July 28 2014 14:35 IgnE wrote:On July 28 2014 06:45 Sapphire.lux wrote: Your understanding of science seems to be rather superficial. You make the mistake, a common one BTW, to equate science with engineering. While there is no engineering without science, they are not one and the same.
Modern science does what philosophy professes to do: deals with reality, the nature of things, energy, time, space, human behavior, human thoughts (including love, hate, lust, etc), etc.
In the past, we didn't have "science man", we had "natural philosopher". It's important not to mix the modern philosophers with the past ones. Old philosophy is by and large the science of today.
So with maybe one or two exceptions (setting on moral values and laws for a fair modern society), i to agree that philosophy is a relic of the past and doesn't serve humanity anymore. The methods, like introspection, are just outdated and have reached their limit. You have to look outward for knowledge. I don't think you really understand science either. Meet Paul Feyerabend. The distinction between science and engineering is largely correct, many of the modern inventions we attribute to science are created by amateur scientists, or engineers whose expertise lie in technology rather than science as philosophy. This gap has increasingly widened as science has become more abstract and theoretical, and technology has separated itself from pure science as seen in universities and corporate divisions. It's a common mistake to attribute to science the various inventions that have raised our quality of living. The effect of such a mistake is usually to attach some epistemological or moral justification to science based on its pragmatism. But theoretical science is in fact as unpragmatic as aesthetic philosophy, and the technology itself of, for example, designing and inventing things like hybrid cars has no moral alignment whatsoever. A scientist philosopher like Feyerabend, who along with Lakatos were the pre-eminent examples of scientific philosophers in the 20th century, did not directly contribute to our quality of living like engineers could; but still their insights into the methodology of science were as important and practical as any advancements in moral or legal philosophy. America is perhaps more concerned with instrumental value than other societies, but we are the country that gave birth to William James, the most practical philosopher of all. When you're coming out of college with 100k debt, Socratic intrinsic value is usually the last thing on your mind. There's some irony here, in that I think you misinterpret the motivation behind the distinction Sapphire is making. At least you don't make it plain that you are agreeing with the distinction for different reasons. Sapphire is saying, "don't confuse science for engineering, because even though engineering is merely instrumental, science (and the scientific method) has completely supplanted philosophy because it allows us to ascertain the true nature of reality," whereas you seem to be saying, "don't confuse science for engineering, because even though engineering is practical, and in many ways rather aphilosophical, science is actually intimately intertwined with philosophies of epistemology, metaphysics, and value."
He's right that today's natural and social sciences address questions that were all part of philosophy's domain in the past. There are very few topics philosophy can still call its own. Of course introspection is not the "method" of philosophy, and philosophy relies on empiricism often as much as scientists. But for example, in the case of Feyerabend, he is first and foremost a scientist with an expert understanding of physics. Against Method uses examples from quantum physics that would be incomprehensible to those who do not have the same technical knowledge. I don't think sapphire is trying to argue the scientific method itself has replaced philosophical inquiry, but I agree that philosophy is more empirical than ever.
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On July 29 2014 09:30 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 03:36 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 03:23 IgnE wrote:On July 28 2014 17:20 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 28 2014 17:06 IgnE wrote: Do you even do science? If you don't want to talk about something then please don't post. Giving links instead of arguments (suported by links), now answering to questions with questions. Good day! If you don't do science and you don't do philosophy why should we care about your opinions on them? You're a friendly champ aren't you? I'm an engineer and i'm scientifically literate, that's why i commented on the OP that he should learn to differentiate between the two before making sweeping statements on what science does and does not. You are the one making sweeping statements about science and philosophy, saying that science has superseded philosophy, rendering it obsolete. Philosophy is hardly a relic of the past, something you would at least have some inkling of if you had bothered to look into the philosophy of science at all. Philosophy of science, like any and all other types of philosophies, are of no concern to science. You don't need, and you probably should stay away actually from "philosophy of science" if you intend to do good science.
Once again, you don't do science, and you don't do philosophy, so I don't see why OP or anyone else should care about your opinion. Since you hold that against me, i take it you are a philosopher?
Bravo, lots of people of people aren't scientifically literate, but lots of people are, and a distressingly large number of those people seem to think because they have possession of this secret knowledge that it renders other modes of knowledge a moot point at best, and pernicious superstition at worst. "secret knowledge"? What?
If the people who can comprehend the scientific method tend to have similar opinions, then doesn't that tell you something? If nothing else, that you should at least get a decent grounding in what science is and what it is not.
Now what other methods are you talking about and more importantly what knowledge did they give? When you say "pernicious superstition" i really hope you are not talking about religion. I have a relatively low opinion on modern philosophy (with exceptions) but there is no reason to associate it with make beliefs and myth.
And unfortunately just being a "scientifically literate" technocrat doesn't mean that you do science, or that you've thought about what science is. I've said i don't do science but unlike some i tend to understand what it is, why it is the way it is and why it works. I didn't just think about it, i learned about it.
I'd be interested to see a small discussion on what exactly are the benefits to humanity brought on by modern philosophy (other then the ability to be making simple points in an over complicated fashion). That i think would be a better start to a conversation about whether it has any value or not.
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I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc.
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On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
Fun fact: This is exactly what Aristotle said 2400 years ago and what various philosophers actually do since then. There are excellent philosophers of mathematics/logic that have a good reputation in the fields of mathematics (Shapiro or Kripke, for instance), Philosophers of science that operate with historical evidence (like Hasok Chang), Philosophers that work with computational and neuroscientific approaches (Paul and Patricia Churchland, or Paul Thagard for example), Philosophers of physics that have background in physics (Simon Saunders or Richard Dawid for instance),...
For anyone with a decent background in philosophy there is no relevant gap between "old" and "new" philosophers based on knowledge of any subject matter. There were always philosophers operating with up to date tools and respect/integrate what is done in other fields. But you have to be in academic philosophy to even know these guys exist, the layman view on philosophy does not notice them.
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On July 29 2014 18:47 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
Fun fact: This is exactly what Aristotle said 2400 years ago and what various philosophers actually do since then. There are excellent philosophers of mathematics/logic that have a good reputation in the fields of mathematics (Shapiro or Kripke, for instance), Philosophers of science that operate with historical evidence (like Hasok Chang), Philosophers that work with computational and neuroscientific approaches (Paul and Patricia Churchland, or Paul Thagard for example), Philosophers of physics that have background in physics (Simon Saunders or Richard Dawid for instance),... For anyone with a decent background in philosophy there is no relevant gap between "old" and "new" philosophers based on knowledge of any subject matter. There were always philosophers operating with up to date tools and respect/integrate what is done in other fields. But you have to be in academic philosophy to even know these guys exist, the layman view on philosophy does not notice them. I will argue that Aristotle was, by today's standards, closer to a scientist rather then philosopher. He tried his best to understand the world he was living in using the tools and methods available to him at the time, at a time where the scientific method was not established. Had he lived today, i could see him in astrophysics :p
It's nice that you brought up mathematics, because that is probably the most misunderstood subject ever. You see, mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge.
In layman's terms, mathematics can be described as a language. Like the English language, it can be used to describe real things, or complete nonsense. For example, you can say: "What is the color of pain?". A correct sentence from every point of view of the language itself, but it holds no meaning, and thus it is completely useless (unless you go in to poetry-art- but that is different because it stops describing reality or dealing with knowledge and instead it tries to please the senses)
So when mathematics is understood in that light, one can see the difference between how it is used in physics, chemistry, astrophysics, etc, and how it is used by pure mathematicians. I think Lawrence K. described it best as "the language of the Univers" But without knowing the message or what it is you want to communicate, any language is useless. So it is a prerequisite of science and making advancement (and understanding for that matter) the nature of things, not science that decipher reality on it's own.
I think there is a massive gap between the old philosophy and the new, because the "old" tried to understand the nature of things based on what was available at the time. Now, we have the scientific method that has proved successful in doing just that, so philosophy has been broken in many ways (physics, psychology, etc.). It is possible of course that there are still some things of value there, that will inevitably break away to to form a new field of science, but as of now, philosophy matters little if at all to our progression in understanding the world we live in.
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How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess.
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On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote: How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess. It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems.
How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times.
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I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).
Furthermore, I think that any other science relies on mathematics being true. Additionally, scientists who use mathematics for whatever purpose believe that the operation they use are correct and they have reasons for that believe. Combined, this is likely enough to ascribe knowledge of mathematical operations to those scientists (they have a justified true belief about mathematical operations).
Finally, I'd like to point out that I gave you examples of philosophers who tried to understand the nature of things based on what was available at the time from the last ~30 years. Richard Dawid, for instance (I know him personally so I am confident in my claims here), has a PhD in theoretical physics and uses his expertise in physics for philosophical work. His book was even endorsed by John Schwarz and David Gross. Something interesting that he pointed out is that there are important physical theories, especially in high-energy physics, that are not something that can be easily (if at all) argued for with traditional scientific method (the one you praised so much). String theory is the prime example for that. A decision whether we should believe string theory to be true can not be made with experiments, so we need to rely on other ways to justify a belief.
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On July 29 2014 20:21 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote: How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess. It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems. How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times. Because Galileo was to my knowledge the first to formulate it "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics". So hey, you can hold to your 400 yo view if you want, I won't make that an argument against it, i'll just say that your anti Kantian argument is bullshit, but I guess you have no idea about Kant anyway.
And because it would be the strangest of miracle that the mathematics we'd developped independantly of physical problem would suddenly come up in totally unrelated area. Cf Wigner's famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Declaring "well, it just so happens mathematics is the language of the universe" is nothing but blind acceptance of this "coincidence".
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On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).
I think it probably originates from a proposition at the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which said maths proposition were always obiously false or wrong, because maths is just a logic language. Needless to say I think it's as hilarious as his claim about having solved philosophy.
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On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).
It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world.
So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding.
Furthermore, I think that any other science relies on mathematics being true. Additionally, scientists who use mathematics for whatever purpose believe that the operation they use are correct and they have reasons for that believe. Combined, this is likely enough to ascribe knowledge of mathematical operations to those scientists (they have a justified true belief about mathematical operations). They have that "believe" because it has been tested for hundreds of years. But again i think you misunderstood. I didn't say mathematics is false, i said it can describe real things, or useless things. Scientist use it for the former, most of what is done in school for example has little real world meaning (as it doesn't describe real world phenomenon).
Finally, I'd like to point out that I gave you examples of philosophers who tried to understand the nature of things based on what was available at the time from the last ~30 years. Richard Dawid, for instance (I know him personally so I am confident in my claims here), has a PhD in theoretical physics and uses his expertise in physics for philosophical work. His book was even endorsed by John Schwarz and David Gross. Something interesting that he pointed out is that there are important physical theories, especially in high-energy physics, that are not something that can be easily (if at all) argued for with traditional scientific method (the one you praised so much). I know there are "good" philosophers out there, that's why i usually write "most" or add in that there are "exceptions".
String theory is the prime example for that. A decision whether we should believe string theory to be true can not be made with experiments, so we need to rely on other ways to justify a belief. String theory is far from being anywhere near ready do prove itself, that's why it is a work in progress. It is not capable of making predictions for instance. Until that day, you will "believe" in it for 2 reasons: you like it and so you choose to believe it's true (hello religion!!) or you are invested emotionally and career wise (you work on it).
It is a nice theory that demands a lot of work, but as of now, the only real progress it has made has been in mathematics (we talked about this). Until the day it can make predictions (that will be tested), it has more chance of being wrong then being right (like most ideas have always been).
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On July 29 2014 20:40 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:21 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote: How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess. It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems. How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times. Because Galileo was to my knowledge the first to formulate it "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics". So hey, you can hold to your 400 yo view if you want, I won't make that an argument against it, i'll just say that your anti Kantian argument is bullshit, but I guess you have no idea about Kant anyway. And because it would be the strangest of miracle that the mathematics we'd developped independantly of physical problem would suddenly come up in totally unrelated area. Cf Wigner's famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Declaring "well, it just so happens mathematics is the language of the universe" is nothing but blind acceptance of this "coincidence". Oh FFS it's a figure of speech!!! We might just as well meet some super advanced alien life form and have it go "Mathematics? ahahaha yeah, we tried that, but it only takes you so far.. Now here is something MUCH better to describe reality!!"
But until that day it is the best tool we have that seems to describe the natural phenomenon and we can be proud as a species to have come up with such an abstract concept that applies so well in describing reality (though not perfect)
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On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route). It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world. So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding.
Let's try one last thing in simple argumentative form:
(1) Mathematics only brings knowledge when applied to real world things. (2) In real world things you will not come by a perfect circle. (3) We have equations that are true of a perfect circle. --- (4) We have true, but unknown equations with regard to a perfect circle. (based on 1, 2 and 3)
That seems valid, but very implausible to me. I personally think that the mistake is in (1). (1) seems just false.
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On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route). It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world. So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding. I've never seen a triangle in the real world. Please show me one. And why would you limit knowledge to physical things ? Or from another point of view, isn't mathematics more properly the knowledge of how said language works ? Because some proposition are true and false in maths, indepently of what they describe. I read your books when you'll read the Critic of pure reason.
On July 29 2014 21:04 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:40 corumjhaelen wrote:On July 29 2014 20:21 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote: How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess. It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems. How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times. Because Galileo was to my knowledge the first to formulate it "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics". So hey, you can hold to your 400 yo view if you want, I won't make that an argument against it, i'll just say that your anti Kantian argument is bullshit, but I guess you have no idea about Kant anyway. And because it would be the strangest of miracle that the mathematics we'd developped independantly of physical problem would suddenly come up in totally unrelated area. Cf Wigner's famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Declaring "well, it just so happens mathematics is the language of the universe" is nothing but blind acceptance of this "coincidence". Oh FFS it's a figure of speech!!! We might just as well meet some super advanced alien life form and have it go "Mathematics? ahahaha yeah, we tried that, but it only takes you so far.. Now here is something MUCH better to describe reality!!" But until that day it is the best tool we have that seems to describe the natural phenomenon and we can be proud as a species to have come up with such an abstract concept that applies so well in describing reality (though not perfect) So now you have no answer to Wigner's question, you're just saying "hey I won't complain". Much more reasonnable already. A pity though, it's really interesting, my physics teacher was right to talk about it. Crazy how he was interested in philosophy of science though...
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On July 29 2014 21:20 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route). It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world. So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding. Let's try one last thing in simple argumentative form: (1) Mathematics only brings knowledge when applied to real world things. (2) In real world things you will not come by a perfect circle. (3) We have equations that are true of a perfect circle. --- (4) We have true, but unknown equations with regard to a perfect circle. (based on 1, 2 and 3) That seems valid, but very implausible to me. I personally think that the mistake is in (1). (1) seems just false. We don't have perfect circles, but through slightly more advanced mathematics you can adjust the equations for those imperfect shapes. There are ways of determining the area for example of any shape using equations meant for regular shapes.
Tell me what knowledge does mathematics give us, when not applied to any real world phenomenon, shape, situation, etc? It seems to me that almost by definition your (1) is true. How can you get knowledge of the real world if you don't apply/ use/ look at the real world?
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On July 29 2014 21:31 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:55 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route). It seems like i wasn't clear enough so i'll try again. Mathematics, just like any other language, can "bring" knowledge when it is applied to real world things/ used to describe real world things. The geometry example you give, is mathematics applied to the real world. So in and of itself, it's just a tool, a "language", but when applied to real world problems, it can describe them and solve them. I don't think i can make it more clear that that, and i'm afraid that i'll just have to direct to to lectures of Lawrence K. and Brian Green for a more in depth understanding. I've never seen a triangle in the real world. Please show me one. And why would you limit knowledge to physical things ? Or from another point of view, isn't mathematics more properly the knowledge of how said language works ? Because some proposition are true and false in maths, indepently of what they describe. I read your books when you'll read the Critic of pure reason. Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 21:04 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:40 corumjhaelen wrote:On July 29 2014 20:21 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 29 2014 20:05 corumjhaelen wrote: How much philosophy in a post that claims it has no value. And the idea that mathematics doesn't bring any knowledge requires a very strange view of what knowledge is. How is Pythagoras' theorem not knowledge, I've always wondered. Plus the idea that mathematics are the language of the universe (it brings us back to Galileo btw) seems naïve at best. Kantian view seems to me in everyway superior, but hey, you don't care about reading philosophy, unless it agrees with your world view I guess. It is the language of the Universe because it is the only tool, or as i said "language", that can accurately describe it in detail. Pythagora used mathematics, like in all geometry, to describe and solve real world problems. How does it bring us to Galileo and why is that view naive? It's not mine btw, it's Lawrance K., one of the most important physisits of today. But hey, better hold a 200 year old view then to keep up with the times. Because Galileo was to my knowledge the first to formulate it "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics". So hey, you can hold to your 400 yo view if you want, I won't make that an argument against it, i'll just say that your anti Kantian argument is bullshit, but I guess you have no idea about Kant anyway. And because it would be the strangest of miracle that the mathematics we'd developped independantly of physical problem would suddenly come up in totally unrelated area. Cf Wigner's famous article The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Declaring "well, it just so happens mathematics is the language of the universe" is nothing but blind acceptance of this "coincidence". Oh FFS it's a figure of speech!!! We might just as well meet some super advanced alien life form and have it go "Mathematics? ahahaha yeah, we tried that, but it only takes you so far.. Now here is something MUCH better to describe reality!!" But until that day it is the best tool we have that seems to describe the natural phenomenon and we can be proud as a species to have come up with such an abstract concept that applies so well in describing reality (though not perfect) So now you have no answer to Wigner's question, you're just saying "hey I won't complain". Much more reasonnable already. A pity though, it's really interesting, my physics teacher was right to talk about it. Crazy how he was interested in philosophy of science though... The quote function seems to give me problems now so i'll write in one block.
In regards to your geometry questions, i've answered already (after you posted though). You get the "ideal" scenario, then you modify and apply to the real world. Sometimes just through approximation, other times by making rather complicated equations from the original "ideal" ones. Everything has humble beginnings though so in school you are usually thought the basics. Ask an engineer about "real world" mathematics if you are interested on the subject.
We did not invent it independently of the physical world. It has been build over thousands of years starting from real world needs and going in to the abstract (not connected to anything real). And it's far from perfect but it's the best we have.
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It does not matter for the argument that you can use equations for imperfect shapes. The argument just claims that if you think (1), (2) and (3) is true, you have to accept that we have true equations of a perfect circle, which are not knowledge (4). I think the conclusion (4) is implausible and believe that (2) and (3) are certainly true. You yourself just accepted (2) and I guess you also accept (3). Now you either have to accept (4) or discard (1). To accept (4) you must have a very strange notion of knowledge, that I cannot grasp at all.
I believe that (1) is false. I think we have knowledge that for a perfect circle C = 2πr. That is knowledge not applied to any real world phenomenon, but it is still knowledge.
On another note:
On July 29 2014 20:42 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).
I think it probably originates from a proposition at the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which said maths proposition were always obiously false or wrong, because maths is just a logic language. Needless to say I think it's as hilarious as his claim about having solved philosophy.
You are correct that this is something out of the Tractatus (for instance in 6.2 he writes that mathematics is a logical method [not sure whether my translation is good, I only have the german Tractatus] 6.234 is similar). In 6.21 he writes that sentences of mathematics do not express thoughts, which I never agreed with, or perhaps never really understood.
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I'm behind Prog on everything, and will let him keep on going, he's a better philosopher than I am^^ Also I have a very solid formation in maths (probably better than most physicists), did an engineering school, a project in astrophysics (sucky, but still) so don't worry, I'm quite aware what you're talking about, and I think it doesn't further your argument at all. For me it's just a description of how maths is used by some people, but I don't see how it gives away the nature of maths at all.
And thanks for the check on Wittgesteing Prog, I just quoted it from memory having read it once at least one year ago, so you're certainly more precise than I am. And happy to see I'm not the only one perplex by this...
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On July 29 2014 21:56 Prog wrote: It does not matter for the argument that you can use equations for imperfect shapes. The argument just claims that if you think (1), (2) and (3) is true, you have to accept that we have true equations of a perfect circle, which are not knowledge (4). I think the conclusion (4) is implausible and believe that (2) and (3) are certainly true. You yourself just accepted (2) and I guess you also accept (3). Now you either have to accept (4) or discard (1). To accept (4) you must have a very strange notion of knowledge, that I cannot grasp at all.
I believe that (1) is false. I think we have knowledge that for a perfect circle C = 2πr. That is knowledge not applied to any real world phenomenon, but it is still knowledge. It is not knowledge about the real world. You can call it knowledge of basic mathematics, but to have relevance to the real world (and this is what i was talking about as "knowledge") it has to be modified.
You may call many kinds of "knowledge", but i was and am talking about real world, human nature, phenomenon, etc knowledge. Things that philosophy says it deals with but science actually does. So talking about knowledge of the smurfs or gods or anything else that's not rooted in reality is fine, but not the objective of my post.
On another note: Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 20:42 corumjhaelen wrote:On July 29 2014 20:23 Prog wrote: I highly doubt that mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge. I'd like you to bring sources for such a bold claim. I personally think that a proposition like "The sum of all the angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees" is true, is known by us and is a proposition out of the realm of mathematics. [this point was also given by corumjhaelen] Please show how this does not qualify as knowledge (without some scepticist escape route).
I think it probably originates from a proposition at the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which said maths proposition were always obiously false or wrong, because maths is just a logic language. Needless to say I think it's as hilarious as his claim about having solved philosophy. You are correct that this is something out of the Tractatus (for instance in 6.2 he writes that mathematics is a logical method [not sure whether my translation is good, I only have the german Tractatus] 6.234 is similar). In 6.21 he writes that sentences of mathematics do not express thoughts, which I never agreed with, or perhaps never really understood. What do you, Prog, think mathematics is and does?
To stay relevant to the thread, i ask of anyone that is willing to participate (OP?) what real world knowledge has philosophy brought us in the last 50-100 years? Or if "knowledge" of the real world is to specific, then what kinds of knowledge does modern philosophy bring?
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On July 29 2014 22:05 corumjhaelen wrote: I'm behind Prog on everything, and will let him keep on going, he's a better philosopher than I am^^ Also I have a very solid formation in maths (probably better than most physicists), did an engineering school, a project in astrophysics (sucky, but still) so don't worry, I'm quite aware what you're talking about, and I think it doesn't further your argument at all. You don't have to validate yourself, just write arguments and counter arguments; especially since you have such an impressive background. EDIT: as in background in mathematics and science, so you can articulate your own opinions in a rational manner without just resorting to quotes and wikipedia pages.
For me it's just a description of how maths is used by some people, but I don't see how it gives away the nature of maths at all. What is the nature of mathematics?
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I don't know what (the nature of) mathematics is. That's a pretty difficult question. I could not even give a good answer to what (the nature of) philosophy is, even though I studied it the last 7 years. I think it is easier, and maybe even better to just give examples of mathematics, or of philosophy (and I tried to do that). However, my goal was in a sense humble. You said this:
On July 29 2014 19:44 Sapphire.lux wrote: It's nice that you brought up mathematics, because that is probably the most misunderstood subject ever. You see, mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge.
I thought this is false. And I believe that i gave a good argument why it is false. In this initial statement there was no further qualification to knowledge, so I do not care that the mathematical knowledge I argued for is not about the "real world" (whatever that actually means). It is still knowledge, it is still important to us and while maybe not directly knowledge about the "real world" it is something that helps us understanding our world. Without purely mathematical, abstract knowledge we certainly would not know so much about our world. This mathematical knowledge gives us tools to work with in other sciences.
Now in the next step, if anyone accepts this sort of mathematical knowledge as a tool used in other sciences, what's so different with philosophy as providing something similar? For instance: Inference to the best explanation is something that scientists frequently employ. (Not only sciences, we employ it in our everyday life all the time!) But it is something outside of the realm of the actual science. It is a problem of philosophy. If philosophy can provide a good account of inference to the best explanations it benefits sciences that employ it. This is certainly not a comprehensive account of philosophy, but it captures a lot of what is actually done in philosophy of science. Reflection on sciences to understand how scientific belief formation works and how it should work to produce knowledge reliably.
If philosophy can in some case function as providing tools and frameworks for sciences, then we have a pretty good reason to ascribe instrumental value to it.
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On July 29 2014 23:13 Prog wrote: I don't know what (the nature of) mathematics is. That's a pretty difficult question. I could not even give a good answer to what (the nature of) philosophy is, even though I studied it the last 7 years. I think it is easier, and maybe even better to just give examples of mathematics, or of philosophy (and I tried to do that). However, my goal was in a sense humble. You said this:
ha it's ok, i don't know what it is either (seems very philosophical to me :D). The question was addressed at corumjhaelen.
Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 19:44 Sapphire.lux wrote: It's nice that you brought up mathematics, because that is probably the most misunderstood subject ever. You see, mathematics does not bring or hold any knowledge.
I thought this is false. And I believe that i gave a good argument why it is false. In this initial statement there was no further qualification to knowledge, so I do not care that the mathematical knowledge I argued for is not about the "real world" (whatever that actually means). It is still knowledge, it is still important to us and while maybe not directly knowledge about the "real world" it is something that helps us understanding our world. Without purely mathematical, abstract knowledge we certainly would not know so much about our world. This mathematical knowledge gives us tools to work with in other sciences. You are correct, but that sentence was fallowed by a couple of paragraphs that explained it. However, this is where my writing skills are to blame and i can see how it gave the wrong impression.
Now in the next step, if anyone accepts this sort of mathematical knowledge as a tool used in other sciences, what's so different with philosophy as providing something similar? It depends what it provides and if that "thing" couldn't have been created by the scientist by himself without the need for external influence (from philosophy), lets see. For instance: Inference to the best explanation is something that scientists frequently employ. (Not only sciences, we employ it in our everyday life all the time!) But it is something outside of the realm of the actual science. It is a problem of philosophy. A problem of philosophy, but where did it come from? I highly suspect it's as simple as evolutionary deductive thinking. Or in other words, that is simply how our brains evolved to make sense of the environment, predict predators actions, food and weather cycles, etc. The basics of these are found in animals other then humans.
If this is now the study of logic, it is fine and interesting IMO, but you will see that it also creates massive problems since, like i said, it is an evolutionary trend, it is also highly limited.
If philosophy can provide a good account of inference to the best explanations it benefits sciences that employ it. This is certainly not a comprehensive account of philosophy, but it captures a lot of what is actually done in philosophy of science. Reflection on sciences to understand how scientific belief formation works and how it should work to produce knowledge reliably.
If philosophy can in some case function as providing tools and frameworks for sciences, then we have a pretty good reason to ascribe instrumental value to it. The argument is, like i said in the beginning, was this the result of the study of logic or not. Since it is present in a primitive degree even with animals, i think it's clear "inference" is simply a natural way our brains function. We can get in to evolutionary biology and neuroscience to find out the specifics of this, though logic does have it's merits.
I said there is a massive problem here, and that is that the world as a hole does not function by what our brains deem as "common sense" We evolved to escape tigers and throw rocks, not to understand quantum physics. As a result, much of what we call common sense or what logic tells us, is null when trying to understand how a particle can have no mass and act as a particle and as a wave at the same time; or how can there be particles created from nothing and in less then a fraction of a second disappear back in to nothing; or how a particle can be at 2 places at the same time; etc, etc
Things get so fucked up and mind bending that they can not be understood. Observed yes, calculated yes, tested yes, made in to predictions and then confirmed yes, but never truly understood by anyone because our brains are just limited in imagining and "naturally" deducing at a macro level (the tiger, the rock, etc).
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You're the one who has tried to give an answer to that, I never did. The most interesting I read, which I think is related, was written in the XVIIIth century by a German philosopher who though space couldn't have more than 3 dimensions and who was not talking about maths (so it necesseraly needs quite a few modifications to be even somewhat satisfactory), but I won't try to say something like "mathematic is" like you did, and then fall back on my unability to explain instead of recognizing that what I've read might not be the truth.
Also saying something is evolutionnary might sometimes help to understand its nature, but it answers more the question of "where does it come from ?" than "what is it ?" which remains undoutebdly in the domain of philosophy. So to come back to the initial question, while I'm not sure philosophy is "useful", and frankly I don't really care, but I do doubt philosophy of knowledge, political philosophy or ethics for instance will ever fall out of its realm.
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I'm going to have to strongly criticize Sapphire's position because he seems to be taking things far afield of modern scientific thought. The basis of modern natural science is that it is practical- provisional, if you will- knowledge that makes no reference to the actual basis of reality. This is what totally separates a Bacon from Aristotle. Aristotle is constructing a cosmology that makes reference to metaphysical truth, even if you think it seems more 'sciencey' than a Jewish Talmudic or a Hindu Brahmin.
Unfortunately, we have undergone what, in my mind, appear to be a series of bait and switches where this narrow slice of understanding has come to view itself as the totality of all knowledge.
If you think that we need a new kind of science that thinks it can do all the things you say it can, that's fine, but it bears no resemblance to the natural science of Dawkins and de Grasse. To further respond to IgnE, Dawkins et al must believe that there is no use in a field such as epistemology or that they are merely provisional until they are subsumed by a harder science.
To respond to the discussion on mathematics, it's worth thinking about the previous incarnations of education. We should call "the liberal arts"- logic, rhetoric, mathematics, music, philosophy poetry, among others- are the real sciences. The disciplines engaged in learning what actual truth is. Of course, most of them achieve this by being self-contained systems, like logic and rhetoric. They are perfect truths, but only within their frame of reference. Mathematics is like this, but, of course, has a much wider purview than the others and can adapt whatever "system", it's operating in. Philosophy is the set of all sets, as it were.
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On July 30 2014 00:50 corumjhaelen wrote: You're the one who has tried to give an answer to that, I never did. The most interesting I read, which I think is related, was written in the XVIIIth century by a German philosopher who though space couldn't have more than 3 dimensions and who was not talking about maths (so it necesseraly needs quite a few modifications to be even somewhat satisfactory), but I won't try to say something like "mathematic is" like you did, and then fall back on my unability to explain instead of recognizing that what I've read might not be the truth.
Also saying something is evolutionnary might sometimes help to understand its nature, but it answers more the question of "where does it come from ?" than "what is it ?" which remains undoutebdly in the domain of philosophy. Uh? It is a natural process developed for tens of thousands of years through natural selection. You want to know more details on the process you can read how evolution works. Maybe i'm completely misunderstanding your point here though.
So to come back to the initial question, while I'm not sure philosophy is "useful", and frankly I don't really care, but I do doubt philosophy of knowledge, political philosophy or ethics for instance will ever fall out of its realm. Those two are the exception i was talking about earlier. Even those 2 are completely dependent on science though as you need to know how and why certain things happen before you can call them immoral for example (like homosexuality, the rights of women, etc) But i agree this are probably the last bastion of useful philosophy.
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Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is.
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On July 30 2014 00:59 Jerubaal wrote: I'm going to have to strongly criticize Sapphire's position because he seems to be taking things far afield of modern scientific thought. The basis of modern natural science is that it is practical- provisional, if you will- knowledge that makes no reference to the actual basis of reality. This is what totally separates a Bacon from Aristotle. Aristotle is constructing a cosmology that makes reference to metaphysical truth, even if you think it seems more 'sciencey' than a Jewish Talmudic or a Hindu That's funny because the number 1 reason that is given to the refusal of funding different science experiments is "there is no practical use to came of this!!!!!"
There is no immediat practical use of understanding the inflation of the Universe, or the nature of black holes. It took what? 50 years before relativity was put to any practical use? The USA canceled a superconductor supercollider because it wasn't worth it "just for science".
Advancing the frontier of science and thus of human understanding has little practical value for the common folk IN THE MODERN TIME. The days of playing with toys on a table and discovering a new law that could immediately be put to use are long gone.
Unfortunately, we have undergone what, in my mind, appear to be a series of bait and switches where this narrow slice of understanding has come to view itself as the totality of all knowledge.
If you think that we need a new kind of science that thinks it can do all the things you say it can, that's fine, but it bears no resemblance to the natural science of Dawkins and de Grasse. I don't know what you mean by "the natural science of Dawkins and de Grasse". Maybe you could elaborate. Biology has it's field of study, astrophysics has it own as does cosmology/physical cosmology and theoretical physics. Maybe you could point out what are the things i've said that would require a new kind of science?
To respond to the discussion on mathematics, it's worth thinking about the previous incarnations of education. We should call "the liberal arts"- logic, rhetoric, mathematics, music, philosophy poetry, among others- are the real sciences. The disciplines engaged in learning what actual truth is. Of course, most of them achieve this by being self-contained systems, like logic and rhetoric. They are perfect truths, but only within their frame of reference. Mathematics is like this, but, of course, has a much wider purview than the others and can adapt whatever "system", it's operating in. Philosophy is the set of all sets, as it were. As a history lesson it's a lot of fun to think this way. If anything, it shows you how far education has come since then, even though it's still fairly poor.
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On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO.
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On July 30 2014 01:59 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO.
Exactly, I just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. Evolution as an explanation does exactly the same: it explains how something came to be, not what it is. That's corumjhaelen's point, if I understood it correctly. Just like with the knife, if someone asks what (for instance) the mind is and you answer with evolutionary descriptions, then you just explain how the mind came to be, not what it is.
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On July 30 2014 02:07 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 01:59 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO. Exactly, I just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. Evolution as an explanation does exactly the same: it explains how something came to be, not what it is. That's corumjhaelen's point, if I understood it correctly. Just like with the knife, if someone asks what (for instance) the mind is and you answer with evolutionary descriptions, then you just explain how the mind came to be, not what it is. Fair enough, but the nature of what it is comes simply from biology. I though that was self evident. Evolutionary biology will give the origin and biology the description and mechanisms. My point was that it definitely is not in the field of philosophy like he so vehemently put it.
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I must say i most enjoy the conversation with Prog and i hope we didn't derail the OPs thread to much. Hopefully it has some sort of relevance.
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Wow. This got super real super fast. I'm almost afraid to write the coming parts. Great conversation though guys, I did enjoy reading everyone's insight. I am but a new student to just about everything (but mainly philosophy). As such, I am far less qualified than most of you to be writing on this (or any) subject, but if somehow my post can generate such intelligent conversation, I'm proud and will hopefully continue! Keep up the good philosophizing everyone
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These discussions on the value of philosophy can be tiring though. I mean, everybody uses philosophy. Every "Philosophy has no use" smartass uses philosophy to base his arguments, everyone has ethical values, everyone bases his choices in life and discusses things using philosophy. Our societies were reshaped by ideas of philosophers just a few hundred years ago. Anything you're using logic in any way for has at least something to do with philosophy. Yet for those people doing their ignorant shitty philosophy, admitting that they could do better would be a direct affront, so they need to hide from that, even if they don't realize it. "You mean there's thousands of years worth of logical analysis and competition of ideas on topics that everyone touches? Hahah look how dumb discussion on weird thing X here is, and look at all the discoveries of science and engineering! How could that philosophy shit have any value LOL."
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On July 30 2014 03:10 son1dow wrote: These discussions on the value of philosophy can be tiring though. I mean, everybody uses philosophy. Every "Philosophy has no use" smartass uses philosophy to base his arguments, everyone has ethical values, everyone bases his choices in life and discusses things using philosophy. Our societies were reshaped by ideas of philosophers just a few hundred years ago. Anything you're using logic in any way for has at least something to do with philosophy. Yet for those people doing their ignorant shitty philosophy, admitting that they could do better would be a direct affront, so they need to hide from that, even if they don't realize it. "You mean there's thousands of years worth of logical analysis and competition of ideas on topics that everyone touches? Hahah look how dumb discussion on weird thing X here is, and look at all the discoveries of science and engineering! How could that philosophy shit have any value LOL."
This is an astute point, but you also need to distinguish (something I didn't do very well) between the philosophy that makes sense of the universe versus the philosophy that occurs inside of our heads and cultures. If you limit it to the second case, that we simply need to be rigorous and aware of our influences and choices, then philosophy is descriptive and predictive of human activity, but doesn't give us any real knowledge. You could still claim that immanent sources inform these assessments.
I find these sorts of discussions amusing because the Scientism advanced by some here is symbiotic on much larger currents of thought.
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On July 30 2014 02:19 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 02:07 Prog wrote:On July 30 2014 01:59 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO. Exactly, I just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. Evolution as an explanation does exactly the same: it explains how something came to be, not what it is. That's corumjhaelen's point, if I understood it correctly. Just like with the knife, if someone asks what (for instance) the mind is and you answer with evolutionary descriptions, then you just explain how the mind came to be, not what it is. Fair enough, but the nature of what it is comes simply from biology. I though that was self evident. Evolutionary biology will give the origin and biology the description and mechanisms. My point was that it definitely is not in the field of philosophy like he so vehemently put it.
I'll respond here in two parts and then say something about both of them together:
1) My first reaction was this:
I would neither claim that is definitely in the field of philosophy, nor that it is outside of it. It really depends on that specific thing we want to know what it is. (and in some cases it is a very contested matter which fields are relevant, for instance in questions about the mind, there are various hardline positions that disregard certain fields. I personally like to include as many as possible.)
To give some examples: For something like a knife it is everyday practice and use that are for the most part constitutive for what it is. For something like a hand the physiological aspects become important, but these alone are not sufficient either, because what a hand is, is still largely determined by what we can do with a hand.
This can be nicely related to the op, because if there are things whichs nature is largely (or completely) accounted by philosophy, we find another way to ascribe instrumental value to philosophy. What a good life is (the aristotelean starting point for ethics), for instance, could be one of those.
2) However, when I thought more about it it seems to me that one could also argue that philosophy is exactly the space where different scientific inputs can be melted together in answering questions about the nature of something. If I ask myself what is relevant to grasp the nature of something, I am already in the realm of philosophy. In this realm I will need to reach out to our everyday practice and also to the sciences to gather information. But what I do is not something those sciences do and it is not something we do in our everyday life. The theory of science in aristotle was already something like this. He argued that we (as philosophers) have to start with the sciences and from that starting point we can try to get a grip on the nature of things by employing logic to order and relate what all sciences give us. (Sciences included also things like metaphysics though. The greek term 'episteme' is very broad.) The main point of the study of logic by aristotle was that it should become a tool for exactly this project. This idea is also related to essentialism and still discussed today. Saul Kripke, for example, argued that necessary (and thereby essential) properties are discovered by sciences. For instance one can get to the essential properties (the nature of) a tiger by biological description of the organs and mechanisms of a tiger. (Can be found in 'Naming and Necessity'. I think this is one of the most important books of 20th century philosophy and I can only recommend reading it.)
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Now those two approaches to a response seem somewhat contradictory, but I think the reason for this is something that already Aristotle noticed. Like I said Aristotle had this idea of the philosopher as the one who brings order based on what sciences say, but under the label sciences he also had metaphysics. The point of his was, that philosophers have two roles. For one they are the "scientists of being" as a metaphysician. And as a second role they put this metaphysic beliefs right next to the other scientific beliefs (like biology, physics,...) and start ordering and relating them with logic. So there is philosophy as an individual science (so to speak) and then there is philosophy as something that comes after the sciences. Aristotle belived that philosophers have to be both. And I think in a sense he was right. There are subject matters that call for philosophy as an independent project (ethics, for instance). And then there are subject matters that call for philosophy as a discipline that uses scientific knowledge to grasp something (the mind, for instance).
This was long and felt difficult to express in a concise way, so I'm worried that I did not express myself clearly enough. Also even though I am not at all an expert on Aristotle I am always positively surprised by how his ideas fit to discussions I find myself in. This guy was a genius.
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On July 30 2014 02:19 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 02:07 Prog wrote:On July 30 2014 01:59 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO. Exactly, I just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. Evolution as an explanation does exactly the same: it explains how something came to be, not what it is. That's corumjhaelen's point, if I understood it correctly. Just like with the knife, if someone asks what (for instance) the mind is and you answer with evolutionary descriptions, then you just explain how the mind came to be, not what it is. Fair enough, but the nature of what it is comes simply from biology. I though that was self evident. Evolutionary biology will give the origin and biology the description and mechanisms. My point was that it definitely is not in the field of philosophy like he so vehemently put it. If we're talking about the mind, or consciousness or that kind of thing, I think holding biology will one day manage to describe those as self-evident is nothing but scientism. For now anyway, those are completely out of reach.
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I thought the op was simply asking if philosophy is worth studying, and most of the time that answer is no, at least in the US, unless you're dead set on going to law/med/philosophy grad school.
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On July 30 2014 03:42 zulu_nation8 wrote: I thought the op was simply asking if philosophy is worth studying, and most of the time that answer is no, at least in the US, unless you're dead set on going to law/med/philosophy grad school.
No he wasn't. He tried to show that it is in fact always worth studying because of intrinsic value, even though its unclear if it also has instrumental value.
The further discussion was mostly about whether it has instrumental value and how much of that if any. Also a bit about what current academic philosophy and sciences look like in relation to the value questions.
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I don't really think those Socratic distinctions of value really mean anything. But the question seems to be about education nonetheless, a liberal education curriculum consists of courses that are to be studied for their intrinsic value, and to cultivate free-thinking citizens fit for a democratic society. It's the basis for pretty much every undergraduate core curriculum in the US.
If you're really asking what the "use" of pure theory philosophy is, it's the same as asking what use does studying aesthetics or art history have? They make you more knowledgeable and cultured, and probably more intellectually interested. Otherwise like people have pointed out, the theory aspect of most social and natural sciences are still considered philosophy.
And also, yes, Aristotle's natural philosopher would be the theoretical physicist of today.
One of the defining qualities of modern education is specialization, and the same goes for philosophy.
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Prog, isn't the question we've really been dancing around whether or not there is a metaphysics?
Of course, that is a problematic question because an immanentized universe (I just love that word these days) is made possible by previous changes vis a vis those bait and switches I referred to.
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On July 30 2014 03:37 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 02:19 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 30 2014 02:07 Prog wrote:On July 30 2014 01:59 Sapphire.lux wrote:On July 30 2014 01:40 Prog wrote: Corumjhaelen's point can be explained, I think, by this analogy: Suppose I have never seen a knife before. Now I come across someone who has a knife and I ask him "what is this?". He answers with a detailed causel description of how the knife was forged. Then I still don't know what a knife is. I think you just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. You say it's a tool that cuts, say, like a cats claw. The description of something is very much grounded in reality and as scientific as it gets IMO. Exactly, I just explained how the knife came to be, not what it is. Evolution as an explanation does exactly the same: it explains how something came to be, not what it is. That's corumjhaelen's point, if I understood it correctly. Just like with the knife, if someone asks what (for instance) the mind is and you answer with evolutionary descriptions, then you just explain how the mind came to be, not what it is. Fair enough, but the nature of what it is comes simply from biology. I though that was self evident. Evolutionary biology will give the origin and biology the description and mechanisms. My point was that it definitely is not in the field of philosophy like he so vehemently put it. If we're talking about the mind, or consciousness or that kind of thing, I think holding biology will one day manage to describe those as self-evident is nothing but scientism. For now anyway, those are completely out of reach. They are not as out of reach as you might think, but even so, thinking that if something seems very difficult to understand now they will never be scientifically understood is nothing else then narrow thinking. Religious people used to do this a lot about every phenomenon that was unknown only to end up with egg on their faces ones the subject was understood. This is called the "God of gaps". You are doing something similar here.
I've already said that at the limits of our understanding, speculation...a philosophy begins. This is fine, but you (the philosopher) HAVE to know what these limits actually are and the direction they seem to lead. When you understand this, you understand that, for the mind for example, the best philosophy that can be had (the one that will most likely be grounded in reality and, well, true) will come from the top neuroscientists.
Here's an interesting bit about the brain changes that happen during meditation (in religion this happens during prayer) + Show Spoiler +
I'l have to mention that if you think that the mind or consciousness or anything else we don't have a clear understanding of is something to do with the divine, gods, souls or the like, then that's fine, but something that is outside of reason and the scope of this conversation(on my part). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prog, that's a great post that unfortunately i can't give it the attention it deserves now as it's getting late here. I hope i'l tackle it tomorrow.
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On the subject of "mind" i'd recommend Sam Harris, a philosopher that tackles subjects such as free will and death and many others. A PhD in cognitive neuroscience.
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well i think it's fair to say that the limits of empirical sciences are far narrower than the limits of philosophy. This is what every philosophy blog on TL turns into btw even if it starts off on a completely unrelated topic, that is into SCIENCE vs. PHILOSOPHY.
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On July 30 2014 05:02 zulu_nation8 wrote: well i think it's fair to say that the limits of empirical sciences are far narrower than the limits of philosophy. This is what every philosophy blog on TL turns into btw even if it starts off on a completely unrelated topic, that is into SCIENCE vs. PHILOSOPHY. Of course, and that's because making science is a lot harder then coming up with unverifiable ideas.
+ Show Spoiler +i hope my english didn't fail me again here. By limits i didn't mean as in "it can't go any further" but rather:"this is where we are now"
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On July 30 2014 04:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: On the subject of "mind" i'd recommend Sam Harris, a philosopher that tackles subjects such as free will and death and many others. A PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Yeah I think him and Dawkins and co are among the most idiotic people who ever graced the world of their opinion. He doesn't tackle it, he mubo jumboes some stuff and tries to pass it as an explanation. And I'm an atheist. Edit : Dawkins is as far as i know okay as an evolutionnary biologist obviously.
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The thing is you can choose to disagree with physics but then youre just wrong period. I can always take people to the lab and show them what actually happens and that its a thing and i can show them the mathematical models that accurately predict what is happening. If you dont accept that thats ignorance. It seems to me that there is no such thing in most parts of philosophy because you can simply disagree without being wrong when you just disagree on a certain point where you "reason up" from. Then i hate it when philosophers use intuition because in my opinion everything that seems logical to us or reasonable just has no meaning at all because nature is not intuitive at all and human minds can barely grasp it. Now you may say math is such a thing and math is philosophy. Okay fair enough as a physics student i say yes then philosophy is probably the most useful thing there is but not every mathematical concept is "reasonable" and with reasonable i mean it is just nonsense when applied to the real world.
But even if you have a mathematical theory that doesnt make it true in the sense of a physicist because if it disagrees with experiment it is just wrong. Everything that disagrees with the real world is just wrong. You cant argue with that and i think thats why scientists "dont like" philosophers because philosophy is seen as a subject where you can just argue about the theories without being wrong and there seems to be no ultimate conclusion you have to agree with.
Keep in mind i am very biased and i didnt sleep for a while and just today i finished my exams for this semester so please forgive me (and tell me) if i said stuff that is just nonsense. Also i do not claim by any means to be an expert in philosophy i'm just a regular layman.
Also i always keep thinking WWRFS: + Show Spoiler +What Would Richard Feynman Say: Sorry i can't help it ;D (not directly relevant to the discussion but still interesting) and a funny comment on philosophers: These videos obviously dont fully represent feynmans view on that because im cherry picking but whatever ;D Also there is this great video where Feynman mentions the guy doing experiments with mice it is really interesting but i couldnt find it TT Anyways have a nice day ;D
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On July 30 2014 03:33 Jerubaal wrote: This is an astute point, but you also need to distinguish (something I didn't do very well) between the philosophy that makes sense of the universe versus the philosophy that occurs inside of our heads and cultures. If you limit it to the second case, that we simply need to be rigorous and aware of our influences and choices, then philosophy is descriptive and predictive of human activity, but doesn't give us any real knowledge. You could still claim that immanent sources inform these assessments.
I'll try to be brief and argue a minimum to prove philosophy does provide knowledge, and when it doesn't it's still useful and important.
Even in the case where it doesn't prove what actually is, it proves what isn't, quoting Russel:
“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect”
As for what isn't, if you're looking for making sense of the universe, metaphysics is perhaps more important than physics. If you mean scientific facts about the universe, then what philosophy says about the mind, for example, can be as relevant or irrelevant as medicine or psychology.
If you mean real knowledge, then you should know that real knowledge includes more than scientifice - while philosophy doesn't have scientific falsifiability, as anything that comes up with it branches off as a new science (has happenned quite recently, too), mathematics, game theory, linguistics are real knowledge don't too, and in a more limited sense than philosophy, as it is much broader.
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Croatia9365 Posts
I like the anecdote that Lawrence Krauss, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, says when asked about philosophy. He asks people from various fields to tell him what contribution did their field bring to the human knowledge in the last 500 years. And then the chemists say "oh, we did this and this and this...", biologists say "this and this etc.", physicists say "this and black holes and this etc." and the philosophers say "define what you mean by knowledge".
On July 30 2014 05:28 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 04:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: On the subject of "mind" i'd recommend Sam Harris, a philosopher that tackles subjects such as free will and death and many others. A PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Yeah I think him and Dawkins and co are among the most idiotic people who ever graced the world of their opinion. He doesn't tackle it, he mubo jumboes some stuff and tries to pass it as an explanation. And I'm an atheist. Edit : Dawkins is as far as i know okay as an evolutionnary biologist obviously. Corum, you make me very sad Calling Dawkins, who was voted the world's best thinker last year, an idiotic person seems very wrong. I'm especially saddened, or perhaps even angered, that you would dismiss Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins as speaking some mumbo jumbo, while in fact they go to great lengths to speak with extreme clarity which their impressive vocabulary and eloquence allows; and also, they spoke on numerous occasions on how they hate obscurantism and "word salads" that some people, like Deepak Chopra, like to do.
Sam Harris in particular is known of presenting complicating ideas in a way that are easy to follow and comprehend. So I really don't understand how you formed such opinion on them.
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Some of Harris's ideas are very anti-philosophy and anti-intellectual.
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While Sam Harris may be known for presenting complicated ideas in an easy way, I can tell you one thing he is certainly not known for: published peer reviewed papers. Because he does not have them.
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On July 30 2014 08:15 2Pacalypse- wrote:I like the anecdote that Lawrence Krauss, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, says when asked about philosophy. He asks people from various fields to tell him what contribution did their field bring to the human knowledge in the last 500 years. And then the chemists say "oh, we did this and this and this...", biologists say "this and this etc.", physicists say "this and black holes and this etc." and the philosophers say "define what you mean by knowledge". Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 05:28 corumjhaelen wrote:On July 30 2014 04:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: On the subject of "mind" i'd recommend Sam Harris, a philosopher that tackles subjects such as free will and death and many others. A PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Yeah I think him and Dawkins and co are among the most idiotic people who ever graced the world of their opinion. He doesn't tackle it, he mubo jumboes some stuff and tries to pass it as an explanation. And I'm an atheist. Edit : Dawkins is as far as i know okay as an evolutionnary biologist obviously. Corum, you make me very sad Calling Dawkins, who was voted the world's best thinker last year, an idiotic person seems very wrong. I'm especially saddened, or perhaps even angered, that you would dismiss Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins as speaking some mumbo jumbo, while in fact they go to great lengths to speak with extreme clarity which their impressive vocabulary and eloquence allows; and also, they spoke on numerous occasions on how they hate obscurantism and "word salads" that some people, like Deepak Chopra, like to do. Sam Harris in particular is known of presenting complicating ideas in a way that are easy to follow and comprehend. So I really don't understand how you formed such opinion on them.
Deepak Chopra is a charlatan. No one is bashing Sam Harris because they prefer Deepak.
@ Jerubaal - my earlier posts were responding to sapphire's (in my view blatant) implicit scientism, not affirming anything about science themselves. I agree with the gist of most of your posts and was mostly just confused about what you thought I said.
@ sapphire - Your total ignorance of not only philosophy, but most of the humanities is telling. As I said earlier, I don't think you really understand science. You are "scientifically literate" which amounts to understanding some useful facts that you can use to build things that work and you know some fables about how people "discovered" some scientific laws. It's hard to have a discussion about meaning and epistemology with someone who comes into this so close-mindedly that they are unwilling to investigate any philosophy, including the philosophy of science, and don't even have a background of actually doing science themselves.
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I don't know much about Harris, but I'll assume he's in the same boat as Dawkins.
Dawkins is great in his actual area of expertise, and he's also, in many cases, great in explaining in layman terms the roles in science in terms of how they relate to the roles of religions, and he's good at debating. For this, we can conclude he is a smart man. However, he, among other people who haven't studied philosophy extensively, hasn't exactly understood many of the ideas of philosophy of science and religion, or real philosophy at all, so many of his arguments fall flat in the area which he's so often debating in the public eye. It doesn't help that he's become an idol of probably millions of kids who don't realize this deficiency of his, or that he's not exactly a principle-of-charity-using polite-champion-of-discussions.
Does that make him an idiot? No. Should we take pride in his role as the champion of atheists though? Probably not.
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On July 30 2014 09:30 son1dow wrote:I don't know much about Harris, but I'll assume he's in the same boat as Dawkins. Dawkins is great in his actual area of expertise, and he's also, in many cases, great in explaining in layman terms the roles in science in terms of how they relate to the roles of religions, and he's good at debating. For this, we can conclude he is a smart man. However, he, among other people who haven't studied philosophy extensively, hasn't exactly understood many of the ideas of philosophy of science and religion, or real philosophy at all, so many of his arguments fall flat in the area which he's so often debating in the public eye. It doesn't help that he's become an idol of probably millions of kids who don't realize this deficiency of his, or that he's not exactly a principle-of-charity-using polite-champion-of-discussions. Does that make him an idiot? No. Should we take pride in his role as the champion of atheists though? Probably not.
I liked _The Selfish Gene_. His atheism books are less intelligent, and I think that's where most people are directing their criticism.
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@Sox03- That's modernity in a nutshell, keep that horizon ever lower!
@son1dow- Hmm, I'm not quite sure you need philosophy to develop an expansive and critical worldview. Moreover, I'm not sure being an iconoclast follows being a philosopher.
@IgnE, I think I was just elaborating when I thought I was touching on something connected to your posts. I don't really remember. :p
I'm thinking about writing a blog about modernity. Might either be great or horrible.
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Harris' writings on anything is pretty awful. I've looked through his Ph.D thesis before and it would honestly be funny if it wasn't so alarming that such a poor scholar is such a popular "public intellectual". Out of all the popular "New Atheist" figures I think he's probably the worst out of all of them as he isn't just ignorant of things outside of his own field but even in his own field he's completely irrelevant.
And on the point of "obscurantism", I think it's a valid concern but the way a lot of people fling that word around is basically as a self-justification for talking shit about people who they just can't understand because of their general ignorance. It's perfectly fine for anyone to be ignorant about something. I'm never going to be able to understand high level math or academic composition but that's fine. It's not my field, and I can't hardly expect to know everything. It's hard to even be relevant in one's own field. I can't possibly think that it would be a valid for me to complain about the incomprehensibility of a journal article on biochemistry, that it's all filled with jargon and therefore these scientists are being "obscurantists" simply because I can't understand it. But today we have popular "public intellectuals" like Dawkins, for example, calling certain thinkers "obscurantist" almost purely because he doesn't have the prerequisite contextual education required to understand them. The fact that people say things like Dawkins so much in relation to a field like philosophy but never raises the same rhetoric to the natural sciences is just astounding to me. Have they even tried to read an academic science journal before? Probably not, since most of these scientism touting New Atheist types aren't science graduate students anyway.
On July 30 2014 05:02 zulu_nation8 wrote: well i think it's fair to say that the limits of empirical sciences are far narrower than the limits of philosophy. This is what every philosophy blog on TL turns into btw even if it starts off on a completely unrelated topic, that is into SCIENCE vs. PHILOSOPHY. Still better than religion and economics blogs, imo.
edit: holy fuck is this real life?
On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed.
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On July 30 2014 10:33 Jerubaal wrote:
@son1dow- Hmm, I'm not quite sure you need philosophy to develop an expansive and critical worldview. Moreover, I'm not sure being an iconoclast follows being a philosopher.
Being a top public intellectual discussing atheism and religion he should have a understanding of some philosophical arguments about those subjects. Being extremely uncharitable towards arguments from the religious is just anti-intellectual, and he should be shamed for that.
I'm not speaking of his works or discussions that aren't related to this.
Koreasilver, yup, that quote is pretty impressive.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy.
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On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote: Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy.
That wouldn't be relevant to proving his quote was any less dumb, or that philosophy was not a worthy discipline, even if it was true.
I was going to write up some arguments, but considering that you didn't really respond to much and just incited discussion, I have to ask first: Are you, by any chance, trolling?
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Thank you TheGloob for your op (read first page .; will finish thread after work)
The notion of philosophy is a n essential thing in life.. as important as History (with a capital H) is.
To forego any introspection (which derives from philosophical considerations) for instance, leads people to a rather dim place.
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On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy.
I would say that almost the opposite is true. While the philosophy scientists by necessity have to use may be unexamined or held tacitly, it most certainly exists as the foundation for science itself. Whereas quite a bit of philosophy does not rely whatsoever on science, in particular the continental tradition and phenomenology.
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On July 30 2014 20:56 trias_e wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote:On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy. I would say that almost the opposite is true. While the philosophy scientists by necessity have to use may be unexamined or held tacitly, it most certainly exists as the foundation for science itself. Whereas quite a bit of philosophy does not rely whatsoever on science, in particular the continental tradition and phenomenology.
That is not quite true. In fact the primary phenomenologist Husserl was very close to mathematics and the natural sciences. The idea of perviecing an object in its invariance has a background in thoughts about mathematical objects that were present in Göttingen (where Husserl and, for example, also David Hilbert were).
Take another example: Some of the main ideas in Kant's critique of pure reason are related to scientific ideas. It's not an accident that he is attributed with a copernican revolution. Pretty much on the first pages of his preface he even refers to ideas of Copernicus.
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Can any of you guys recommend a brief summary book of some of this stuff? (Think something like Bill Brysons - Short History of Nearly Everything). Because actually I'm ignorant on the topic and my views come from 2 philosophy students who I'd had random discussions with.
I'm not really sure exactly how much philosophy goes into stuff like evidenced based medicine (feels like most stats) or medical ethics (also feels like stats + clinical experience), although can get how the ideas behind them are founded in philosophy I do wonder how much it's philosophy and how much was arbitary.
That said it's really hard to shake the idea of a lot of this stuff being "intellectual"(i.e. loads of waffle, no useful ideas, no impact of life, over complication of simple notions, pretentious crap) partly since thats what they (those philosphy students) thought about some of their course, and that's sortof what the definition of it in the OP lends itself towards. Kinda mirrors art in that way.
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Since there is only one or two people in this thread that seem to have the desire, and maybe the capability, to actually argue points, i think there is no point in continuing for me. I'l quote a few of the "philosopher" arguments thrown around in the last page that IMO show part of the reason philosophy is viewed in a not so good light these days. Some great minds operating in the field of philosophy there might be, but the students of philosophy...oh dear.
On July 30 2014 05:28 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 04:53 Sapphire.lux wrote: On the subject of "mind" i'd recommend Sam Harris, a philosopher that tackles subjects such as free will and death and many others. A PhD in cognitive neuroscience. Yeah I think him and Dawkins and co are among the most idiotic people who ever graced the world of their opinion. He doesn't tackle it, he mubo jumboes some stuff and tries to pass it as an explanation. And I'm an atheist. Edit : Dawkins is as far as i know okay as an evolutionnary biologist obviously. I've heard religious extremists have more grace then this. But since the subject is philosophy, great arguments mate! Way to throw more dirt on the already poor image philosophy has now days.
On July 30 2014 09:21 IgnE wrote: You are "scientifically literate" which amounts to understanding some useful facts that you can use to build things that work and you know some fables about how people "discovered" some scientific laws. That's part of it but not the most important part. The critical point about it is understanding WHY science is done the way it is done and WHY the scientific method is so important. It's about having a rational mind the protects you from, to quote our dear philosopher corumjhaelen: "mumbo jumbo" along with superstition, currents of thought that don't lead anywhere (read Richard Feynman)
On July 30 2014 09:35 IgnE wrote: His atheism books are less intelligent You must consider yourself very intelligent to give such a clear verdict. You'l probably win this years world's top thinker award.
On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote: Harris' writings on anything is pretty awful. I've looked through his Ph.D thesis before and it would honestly be funny if it wasn't so alarming that such a poor scholar is such a popular "public intellectual". Out of all the popular "New Atheist" figures I think he's probably the worst out of all of them as he isn't just ignorant of things outside of his own field but even in his own field he's completely irrelevant.
And on the point of "obscurantism", I think it's a valid concern but the way a lot of people fling that word around is basically as a self-justification for talking shit about people who they just can't understand because of their general ignorance.
This one i quoted because it's just such a great example of irony lol
Anyway, OP, this is a big part why Philosophy (the students of) is seen in a bad light by other disciplines (the students of). You would expect to find the kind of people that you could talk all night to with a couple of bottles of wine and have a great conversation based on reason and arguments. The reality however is different; a lot of them just learn to speak in quotes from hundred year old currents of thought, and when that display of argumentative power and intellect doesn't do the job you get the kind of thing i quoted above.
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WWRFS 2: + Show Spoiler +What Would Richard Feynman Say 2: It is not direclty adressing the topic right now but it comes reasonably close to it i think and hey its Feynman ^^
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Croatia9365 Posts
On July 30 2014 19:42 son1dow wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote: Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy. That wouldn't be relevant to proving his quote was any less dumb, or that philosophy was not a worthy discipline, even if it was true. I was going to write up some arguments, but considering that you didn't really respond to much and just incited discussion, I have to ask first: Are you, by any chance, trolling? His quote wasn't dumb and I think you misunderstood it which I tried to clarify with my, granted tongue-in-cheek, remark.
The point he was trying to make is that the areas in which philosophy had a stronghold in the past (like consciousness, morality, causality etc.) are becoming more and more scientific questions, rather than ponderings of philosophers sitting in their armchairs.
And for philosophers to stay relevant in those fields, they have to keep up with the latest science in order to have the best available opinions on the subject. Science keeps making progress, regardless of the philosophy, and the philosophers are the ones that have to keep up with science. So with that in mind, the quote you labeled as 'dumb' makes much more sense now, because it's obvious that people who are at the forefront in science working on those problems are the ones who are most likely to have the best available opinion on them.
One example where this was relevant was in the discussions about Lawrence Krauss' latest book, "The Universe From Nothing", where he got critiqued heavily by philosophers for having the "wrong" definition of 'nothing'. Here's an interesting talk where he addresses such critiques: http://yotu.be/PL84Yg2dNsg?t=22m55s
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On July 30 2014 23:50 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 09:21 IgnE wrote: You are "scientifically literate" which amounts to understanding some useful facts that you can use to build things that work and you know some fables about how people "discovered" some scientific laws. That's part of it but not the most important part. The critical point about it is understanding WHY science is done the way it is done and WHY the scientific method is so important. It's about having a rational mind the protects you from, to quote our dear philosopher corumjhaelen: "mumbo jumbo" along with superstition, currents of thought that don't lead anywhere (read Richard Feynman) You must consider yourself very intelligent to give such a clear verdict. You'l probably win this years world's top thinker award. Thank you.
But you don't even do science. You don't understand why science is done the way it is done because you've never done it, and you just blindly accept the stories that people tell you about how it was done. They are fables told to children. Scientists have routinely, throughout the centuries, done things that contradicted well-confirmed theories. They have used instruments for experiments that have no theoretical basis for why the experiments should indicate what they indicate. Huge quantities of data are amassed, with the great majority of data, data that doesn't confirm accepted theory, being thrown out.
Why are you so unwilling to entertain the idea that Sam Harris is a bad scholar? Do you read scientific journals? Would you know what a good scholar looks like?
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On July 31 2014 00:44 IgnE wrote: They are fables told to children. Scientists have routinely, throughout the centuries, done things that contradicted well-confirmed theories. NO? I will speak for physics now ("all science is either physics or stamp collecting" - Ernest Rutherford) Scientists have [b]not contradicted well confirmed theories! So a theory is accepted and not pure imagination if it agrees with experiment (remember thats ALL that matters) If it agrees with experiment well then you CAN'T contradict it in a sense you're implying.
This is the most important part the example: So Classical Mechanics. IT WORKS! Okay classical mechanics works excellent we can describe gyroscopes, all kinds of motion and whatever very nicely. So you may say oh hey thats wrong it has been contradicted. We have to take relativity into account. It has not been contradicted in a sense youre implying. It is still right in the first approximation. Special Relativity still INCLUDES classical mechanics.
If a well confirmed theory is contradicted, it wasn't freakin well confirmed. The experiments that confirmed it if they havent been done terribly wrong ARE STILL RELEVANT
I think its rather interesting that you tell him he doesnt know what science and the scientific method is. There is not much to it. If it disagrees with experiment it's wrong period
Edit: I highly doubt any physicist would throw out data that contradicts modern physics (only one and the most primitive reason perhaps) simply because there would be a nobel price waiting for him. In case you adress to certain social sciences (i did read an article in the newspaper about this "scientist" who faked a bunch of data (here i would usually refer to feynman once again) but i cant imagine this being the case in the harder sciences unless you give me evidence)
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On July 31 2014 01:11 Sox03 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 00:44 IgnE wrote: They are fables told to children. Scientists have routinely, throughout the centuries, done things that contradicted well-confirmed theories. NO? I will speak for physics now ("all science is either physics or stamp collecting" - Ernest Rutherford) Scientists have [b]not contradicted well confirmed theories! So a theory is accepted and not pure imagination if it agrees with experiment (remember thats ALL that matters) If it agrees with experiment well then you CAN'T contradict it in a sense you're implying. This is the most important part the example: So Classical Mechanics. IT WORKS! Okay classical mechanics works excellent we can describe gyroscopes motion and whatever very nicely. So you may say oh hey thats wrong it has been contradicted. We have to take relativity into account. It has not been contradicted in a sense youre implying. It is still right in the first approximation. Special Relativity still INCLUDES classical mechanics. If a well confirmed theory is contradicted, it wasn't freakin well confirmed okay? The experiments that confirmed it if they havent been done terribly wrong ARE RELEVANT I think its rather interesting that you tell him he doesnt know what science and the scientific method is there is not much to it. If it disagrees with experiment it's wrong period
You honestly sound like someone who has never done an experiment. You don't know what you are talking about at all. You can't redefine "contradiction" to mean "not contradiction."
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If you dont agree with the sentence well confirmed theories still remain true under the circumstances of the experiment (uncertainties, special cases whatever) and new theories have to include those because there is no way around experiment (unless the initial theory was NOT well confirmed) then sorry i cannot believe you're a man of science sorry. If you want a serious discussion please deliver some arguments or examples. Maybe it was just because you seem to have a different definition of contradiction and for example assume that theories are exact.
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On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy. Right, because it's not like most of the natural sciences already presuppose particular ontological and metaphysical stances that ground their methodologies, right? This is like the problem of logical positivism from decades ago, but at least the Anglo-philosophical community were able to see, understand, and accept the problem. The contemporary pop-culture scientism riff-raff isn't just stupid because many of these figures are hardly brilliant, but also because they're essentially intellectual barbarians. Feyerabend wasn't wrong about the new generation of scientists in this regard. Listing Krauss as someone who does awesome philosophy is pretty much analogous to an American Bible Belt redneck listing some pop-culture creationist, who has no background in evolutionary biology, as someone who does awesome science.
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There are very few outright contradictions, as in the history of science, opposing evidence is usually reconciled into the existing framework through ad-hoc hypotheses. There is no such thing as a "confirmed" theory, it's logically impossible.
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On July 31 2014 01:31 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote:On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy. Right, because it's not like most of the natural sciences already presuppose particular ontological and metaphysical stances that ground their methodologies, right? This is like the problem of logical positivism from decade ago, but at least the Anglo-philosophical community were able to see, understand, and accept the problem. The contemporary pop-culture scientism riff-raff isn't just stupid because many of these figures are hardly brilliant, but because they're essentially intellectual barbarians. Feyerabend wasn't wrong about the new generation of scientists in this regard.
What he says is mostly correct, technology has become so important and prominent that every philosopher has to recognize its influence on today's world. It would help a scientist tremendously if he reads up on some philosophy of science, but it's not required. On the other hand, our society is dominated by scientific ways of thinking, and it would be ignorant for philosophers of any kind to be unfamiliar with its fundamentals. Likewise an overwhelming majority of past great philosophers had at very least an intellectual interest if not expertise in a technical field like math or science.
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On July 31 2014 01:31 zulu_nation8 wrote: There is no such thing as a "confirmed" theory, it's logically impossible. I agree the usuage of that term was probably not a good idea. I wanted to refer to theories that work so well that one could almost assume they are "fact". I think thats what IngE meant too.
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When I first viewed the thread it was like people sitting at a table having a discussion. I come in a couple of days later to see the table flipped over and people yelling expletives at each other while Sam Harris is prancing in the background.
5/5 for the shit show this has become.
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On July 31 2014 01:36 Sox03 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 01:31 zulu_nation8 wrote: There is no such thing as a "confirmed" theory, it's logically impossible. I agree the usuage of that term was probably not a good idea. I wanted to refer to theories that work so well that one could almost assume they are "fact". I think thats what IngE meant too.
If you look at the history of physics, those theories don't exist.
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On July 31 2014 01:36 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 01:31 koreasilver wrote:On July 30 2014 18:38 2Pacalypse- wrote:On July 30 2014 14:35 koreasilver wrote:On July 29 2014 17:58 Sapphire.lux wrote: I'd add that some form of philosophy is integral to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is, you have to have extensive knowledge on the subject matter first. So in essence, the "new" philosophers are the top, top scientific minds that are operating at the limit of our understanding of reality.
So philosophy is awesome, when done by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Greene, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Brian Cox, etc. is this for real? fuck me senseless I can't tell which is worse. the Muslim preachers on my university campus that seriously tried to tell me that evolution as understood by contemporary science was already laid out in the Quran, or this post. I'm going to bed. Say what you will about that quote, but the fact is that scientists don't need philosophy to do science; while philosophers absolutely rely on science to do philosophy. Right, because it's not like most of the natural sciences already presuppose particular ontological and metaphysical stances that ground their methodologies, right? This is like the problem of logical positivism from decade ago, but at least the Anglo-philosophical community were able to see, understand, and accept the problem. The contemporary pop-culture scientism riff-raff isn't just stupid because many of these figures are hardly brilliant, but because they're essentially intellectual barbarians. Feyerabend wasn't wrong about the new generation of scientists in this regard. What he says is mostly correct, technology has become so important and prominent that every philosopher has to recognize its influence on today's world. It would help a scientist tremendously if he reads up on some philosophy of science, but it's not required. On the other hand, our society is dominated by scientific ways of thinking, and it would be ignorant for philosophers of any kind to be unfamiliar with its fundamentals. Likewise an overwhelming majority of past great philosophers had at very least an intellectual interest if not expertise in a technical field like math or science. Yeah, you don't have to actually be aware of your own ontological and metaphysical presuppositions to simply do your own work. I don't mind that and I really don't care if someone in the natural sciences is ignorant of their own latent philosophical positions. It's not necessary to know and a lot of the time it isn't relevant. But that doesn't change the fact that they do possess them, and it does get annoying when they start talking in conversations like this completely blind to it. A lot of contemporary philosophy does deal with the natural sciences anyway, both in the analytic and continental traditions, and it's not as if Western philosophy was ever completely divorced from it.
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Scientists take philosophical positions derived from empirical activity, which is more philosophically noble than what moral philosophers can claim.
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On July 31 2014 01:22 Sox03 wrote: If you dont agree with the sentence well confirmed theories still remain true under the circumstances of the experiment (uncertainties, special cases whatever) and new theories have to include those because there is no way around experiment (unless the initial theory was NOT well confirmed) then sorry i cannot believe you're a man of science sorry. If you want a serious discussion please deliver some arguments or examples. Maybe it was just because you seem to have a different definition of contradiction and for example assume that theories are exact. You are refusing to engage with the real challenge here. Classical mehanics is an imperfect description of reproducible behavior not a true description of reality. Nor does this tower of science babel you are attempting to construct save you. In what way did Galileo "include" old theories into his new paradigm? He completely upended the old, using methods that had no theoretical underpinnings.
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On July 31 2014 01:50 zulu_nation8 wrote: Scientists take philosophical positions derived from empirical activity, which is more philosophically noble than what moral philosophers can claim.
I don't think most scientists think much about philosophy. Certainly they don't automatically update their ontologies based on new empirical evidence (what Badiou would call the process of the conditioning of philosophy by the truth procedure generated from an Event). Most scientists go about doing science just fine while continuing to subscribe to basically nineteenth century ontologies and epistemologies which haven't really felt the impact of 20th century science (because individual scientists don't work on "science," they work on a tiny piece of science and it simply doesn't matter to them for what they do, which is mostly very tedious)
On July 30 2014 23:43 MoonfireSpam wrote: Can any of you guys recommend a brief summary book of some of this stuff? (Think something like Bill Brysons - Short History of Nearly Everything). Because actually I'm ignorant on the topic and my views come from 2 philosophy students who I'd had random discussions with.
Sorry, it's impossible you either have to care, or you don't care, which is also fine. Whatever you do don't trust the philosophy students, they don't know anything and they're trained to keep it that way.
If you're gonna do philosophy you have to want it. I don't even think that philosophy can be supported by institutions, because if philosophy is done right it's dangerous and the institutions don't want it. Institutionalized philosophy is therefore either 1) imperial propaganda or 2) irrelevant scholasticism
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On July 31 2014 02:27 bookwyrm wrote:Sorry, it's impossible you either have to care, or you don't care, which is also fine. Whatever you do don't trust the philosophy students, they don't know anything and they're trained to keep it that way. If you're gonna do philosophy you have to want it. I don't even think that philosophy can be supported by institutions, because if philosophy is done right it's dangerous and the institutions don't want it. Institutionalized philosophy is therefore either 1) imperial propaganda or 2) irrelevant scholasticism
You can't learn philosophy by yourself.
Moonfire- you're going to have to be more specific about what you want.
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In my opinion there just is no challenge. I am well aware of the fact that classical mechanics is imperfect. Is your goal to get a "perfect" mathematical theory? Claiming that alone would imply that mathematics itself is indeed the language of the universe and it would imply a lot of other things that make me very skeptical if we will ever be able to know. I mean i dont think any theory in physics is accurate but i am happy with what we get, because it seems to me that the level of precision is pretty high. I dont know much about Galileo so i dont know what he did exactly. If we go one step further you get the classical mechanics example i mentioned earlier.
What i dont understand aswell is what you mean with my tower of science babel? People are working hard to figure out the best possible models about our universe and everything in it. Models are not exact. Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is? I think it's really impressive and wonderful how much we got to know in the last couple of years esp because of the natural sciences. It's not perfect but it is as best as they could get until know and it will probably only get better over time.
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On July 31 2014 02:45 Jerubaal wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 02:27 bookwyrm wrote:Sorry, it's impossible you either have to care, or you don't care, which is also fine. Whatever you do don't trust the philosophy students, they don't know anything and they're trained to keep it that way. If you're gonna do philosophy you have to want it. I don't even think that philosophy can be supported by institutions, because if philosophy is done right it's dangerous and the institutions don't want it. Institutionalized philosophy is therefore either 1) imperial propaganda or 2) irrelevant scholasticism You can't learn philosophy by yourself. Moonfire- you're going to have to be more specific about what you want.
Luckily there are a lot of people who wrote down their thoughts in books and you can read them. Much more interesting than talking to most people who are alive today. Some people are good philosophers, but most of them aren't in philosophy departments. I've studied philosophy in school, and I've taught myself philosophy sitting in my room with an amazon account, and I can assure you I learned much more philosophy the second way (and had to unlearn some stuff I learned the first way)
On July 31 2014 02:54 Sox03 wrote: Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is?
hahahaha that is the whole problem! that is the scientific and philosophical revolution we are living through at this moment which is not yet complete! how to think nonlinearity! it's the whole problem!
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On July 31 2014 02:54 Sox03 wrote: In my opinion there just is no challenge. I am well aware of the fact that classical mechanics is imperfect. Is your goal to get a "perfect" mathematical theory? Claiming that alone would imply that mathematics itself is indeed the language of the universe and it would imply a lot of other things that make me very skeptical if we will ever be able to know. I mean i dont think any theory in physics is accurate but i am happy with what we get, because it seems to me that the level of precision is pretty high. I dont know much about Galileo so i dont know what he did exactly. If we go one step further you get the classical mechanics example i mentioned earlier.
What i dont understand aswell is what you mean with my tower of science babel? People are working hard to figure out the best possible models about our universe and everything in it. Models are not exact. Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is? I think it's really impressive and wonderful how much we got to know in the last couple of years esp because of the natural sciences. It's not perfect but it is as best as they could get until know and it will probably only get better over time.
Please educate yourself on the history and philosophy of science if you don't see a problem. You want to discuss examples but don't even know why Galileo is important.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On July 31 2014 03:07 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 02:54 Sox03 wrote: In my opinion there just is no challenge. I am well aware of the fact that classical mechanics is imperfect. Is your goal to get a "perfect" mathematical theory? Claiming that alone would imply that mathematics itself is indeed the language of the universe and it would imply a lot of other things that make me very skeptical if we will ever be able to know. I mean i dont think any theory in physics is accurate but i am happy with what we get, because it seems to me that the level of precision is pretty high. I dont know much about Galileo so i dont know what he did exactly. If we go one step further you get the classical mechanics example i mentioned earlier.
What i dont understand aswell is what you mean with my tower of science babel? People are working hard to figure out the best possible models about our universe and everything in it. Models are not exact. Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is? I think it's really impressive and wonderful how much we got to know in the last couple of years esp because of the natural sciences. It's not perfect but it is as best as they could get until know and it will probably only get better over time. Please educate yourself on the history and philosophy of science if you don't see a problem. That's what philosophers are for Scientists will continue on not seeing the problem and continue making the progress.
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Well adressing the linearity issue. I have once been told by my math professor that you can distinguish a good and a bad physicist by their ability to know when to approximate stuff. In the branch of numerics there is the rule that as long as the error is smaller than what the engineer can measure you're doing just fine. And there is a lot of nonlinear behaviour in physics that seems to be quite well understood but all that should just be a side comment.
IgnE You hide behind your comparisions and your language and you haven't been able to explain your point to me at all. I would appreciate if you could just keep it simple a single time for me and explain your point without looking down on me (sorry but thats just what it feels like). I showed you that i am able to discuss examples because i presented you an example i can provide more examples if you wish, you just need to say a word.
What you did in response to my physics example (it was about physics not about names) was just to throw words at me that may contain an example which i am unable to grasp though. So would you please explain exactly why my examples are bad or what is wrong with them, because i just heard galileo and i associate a lot with that name (galileo transformations for example but thats almost it) but nothing that seems relevant.
So i tell you that science provides a very accurate explanation of the world that is by no means perfect but gets a lot better and it WORKS, in physics you can justify a lot of stuff because it works (okay i see it coming please dont misinterpret the last very sentence). So please tell me what is the problem with this simple principle of science that doesnt seem to fail us? Yes maybe some effects hide from us, maybe because of the nature of science or mathematics, things are unreachable to us (let alone the human mind) but it is the best that we can do and i think having this amount of complex knowledge is great. So i would have to read a couple thousand pages probably to understand your point which i honestly won't do because even though i'm on "vacation" now, i will rather improve my understanding of mathematics and physics and preparing for the next semester. I think it would be easiest for philosophically "illiterate" people like me if you could just tell me what the problem is so i could start thinking about it.
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On July 31 2014 03:10 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 03:07 IgnE wrote:On July 31 2014 02:54 Sox03 wrote: In my opinion there just is no challenge. I am well aware of the fact that classical mechanics is imperfect. Is your goal to get a "perfect" mathematical theory? Claiming that alone would imply that mathematics itself is indeed the language of the universe and it would imply a lot of other things that make me very skeptical if we will ever be able to know. I mean i dont think any theory in physics is accurate but i am happy with what we get, because it seems to me that the level of precision is pretty high. I dont know much about Galileo so i dont know what he did exactly. If we go one step further you get the classical mechanics example i mentioned earlier.
What i dont understand aswell is what you mean with my tower of science babel? People are working hard to figure out the best possible models about our universe and everything in it. Models are not exact. Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is? I think it's really impressive and wonderful how much we got to know in the last couple of years esp because of the natural sciences. It's not perfect but it is as best as they could get until know and it will probably only get better over time. Please educate yourself on the history and philosophy of science if you don't see a problem. That's what philosophers are for Scientists will continue on not seeing the problem and continue making the normal science.
fixed it for you
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On July 31 2014 03:25 Sox03 wrote: Well adressing the linearity issue. I have once been told by my math professor that you can distinguish a good and a bad physicist by their ability to know when to approximate stuff. In the branch of numerics there is the rule that as long as the error is smaller than what the engineer can measure you're doing a ok. And there is a lot of nonlinear behaviour in physics that seems to be quite well understood but all that should just be a side comment..
It works fine for boring stuff, but not for interesting stuff. Your rule only works for certain sorts of systems, usually those in a low enough energy state to preclude the onset of chaotic nonlinearity. But you will never make any progress in understanding really interesting phenomena (like say, economics or history) by thinking like that. Maybe you don't care about hard problems, but only easy problems in which this rule works for you (which is fine, and thinking about easy problems is also useful). But you can't elevate that into a general epistemological claim for reasons which should have been well known since the late eighties but have not yet been incorporated into our worldview (because the philosophical task is not yet complete).
edit: why do people in this thread subscribe to the following unspoken claim: "If philosophy is to have a purpose, it is to be the handmaiden of science; therefore, if it is not, it doesn't."
edit: Badiou speaks of philosophy as migratory and nomadic. I think it is a bumblebee. Science is only one of the flowers which we philosophers flit about pollenating And sometimes it stings you
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There's a lot of condescension (is that even a word?) coming pretty hard from both sides. I think if we ever want to actually talk about this stuff we should stop treating each other like this. I've enjoyed reading responses from both sides but it's sometimes hard to see past the "you're dumb" "he's dumb" and find the actual arguments. Obviously, I think philosophy is important or else I wouldn't have started this shitstorm and I wouldn't be majoring in philosophy. I think a lot of the "evidence" we've been giving is pretty shitty even by my "just finished one year of college" standard. So in the future I would ask that we a) stop attacking each other and b) give relevant evidence (for example, don't say something like "my school's philosophy department is shitty therefore I assume philosophy departments/students everywhere are shitty" or "all science students don't realize that x y or z" because neither of these are fair). Word. Dope. Swag. Keep up the debate. I might start chirping in more if people are less aggressive <3
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edit: Badiou speaks of philosophy as migratory and nomadic. I think it is a bumblebee. Science is only one of the flowers which we philosophers flit about pollenating And sometimes it stings you
Beautiful. I like the analogy.
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Oh well were talking about things like conciousness and economics and very complex physical systems^^ Yes i agree you cant apply that there but i covered that in my statement i think because those models probably wouldnt make any useful prediction and would probably be rather useless. I think a lot of mathematicians are looking down on financial mathematics a bit^^ (references to 2009 in a lot of conversation for example^^) But for me its not the interesting stuff you know... I mean economics is manmade i dont really feel interested in that kind of stuff ;D (purely personal views) I think the "easy" questions can be pretty damn hard ^^, but i agree with what i understood from your post
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On July 31 2014 03:37 Sox03 wrote: I think the "easy" questions can be pretty damn hard ^^, but i agree with what i understood from your post
yes, you're right! And if those are the easy problems just think how hard the hard problems are
Finance happens to be one of my main interests. The point of thinking about nonlinearity is to understand in a RIGOROUS way why our models are not very good at describing reality (with the aim of producing alternative epistemologies and pragmatics for acting in the world despite our constitutive finitude). Philosophy is what you have to do if you are going to think about a world in which all of these things exist together (that is, how can we think of the world which contains both "easy" linear problems and "hard" nonlinear problems all together at once, as a single world - that is the difficult problem and it's not one that can even be well-formed in a "scientific" way, it is a philosophical problem. Because also you have to think issues of human concern like morality and the meaning of life all together ALSO with these others things - that is, philosophy is what you have to do if you want to think about a world that has classical mechanics and quantum things and fluid turbulence but also love and beauty in it, all at once, together).
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On July 31 2014 02:58 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 02:45 Jerubaal wrote:On July 31 2014 02:27 bookwyrm wrote:Sorry, it's impossible you either have to care, or you don't care, which is also fine. Whatever you do don't trust the philosophy students, they don't know anything and they're trained to keep it that way. If you're gonna do philosophy you have to want it. I don't even think that philosophy can be supported by institutions, because if philosophy is done right it's dangerous and the institutions don't want it. Institutionalized philosophy is therefore either 1) imperial propaganda or 2) irrelevant scholasticism You can't learn philosophy by yourself. Moonfire- you're going to have to be more specific about what you want. Luckily there are a lot of people who wrote down their thoughts in books and you can read them. Much more interesting than talking to most people who are alive today. Some people are good philosophers, but most of them aren't in philosophy departments. I've studied philosophy in school, and I've taught myself philosophy sitting in my room with an amazon account, and I can assure you I learned much more philosophy the second way (and had to unlearn some stuff I learned the first way) Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 02:54 Sox03 wrote: Sometimes you linearize stuff. I am well aware of that but i dont really see where the problem is? hahahaha that is the whole problem! that is the scientific and philosophical revolution we are living through at this moment which is not yet complete! how to think nonlinearity! it's the whole problem!
You can, but it can only take you so far. I, for one, read The Republic in high school, but it was not until 3 university courses later that I got what I thought was a full interpretation of it. If I had never taken these courses, I probably would have thought I "understood" the text. Attempting to study philosophy by yourself can be horribly stultifying. For one, you miss out on, shall we say, the sociological aspects of philosophy; it's just too cold and sterile. You also run the risk of turning into Bertrand Russell where you think you're a special snowflake in a sea of ignoramuses. Philosophy should be understood as a long running conversation and you can't fully grasp it if you're not part of that conversation.
I can agree with many of your criticisms of contemporary academic philosophy but it isn't always so and doesn't have to be: Part of it is Modernity telling philosophy students that their ideas must be merely private, personal and wholly subjective (why wouldn't they develop this way?); part of it is the development of suitably dreary areas such as Rawlsianism and Analytic Phil, which seem to demean the role of philosophy why destroying it from the inside; part of it is just the segregation of the Anglophone community from the continent.
In my experience much of the best philosophic work in the last century has come from Political Science/Government departments and I don't think that's a mistake. Unlike the Philosophy departments, which seem to have turned into monks, The PoliSci departments are still trying to connect their ideas to the world.
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The last PoliSci presentation I went to was laughably incompetent, so if there's good work coming out of that I haven't seen it. I agree about all this russell and rawls and whatever, that's just boring anglo stuff.
I agree that philosophy is a running conversation but I think most "professional" philosophers have isolated themselves from it.
FWIW I have a B.A. minor in philosophy but it wasn't until years after graduating from college that I learned anything about philosophy. You really just have to sit down in a room and spend a lot of time reading infuriatingly impenetrable texts. Then you can go talk about it, if you can find anybody who also has put in the effort to actually read the books (but those people are very rare). It would be nice to be in a group of people who were studying philosophy together, but honestly those places don't really exist - you kinda have no choice but to study philosophy yourself, if you want to study it. I guess what I'm talking about is AFTER you've read Plato in high school and didn't get it, AFTER you've taken the three university courses and now you have some kind of handle on The Republic, and THEN you decide that you actually want to spend your life studying philosophy. If they could teach it to you in school, it wouldn't be philosophy, because everything you read in a philosophy class is there only because it's something that the person who wrote it didn't and couldn't learn in school. You can learn about what philosophy WAS DOING in school, but you can't really DO it, I don't think.
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The first polisci lecture I went to was about philosophy. I enjoyed it. But I'm a total simpleton so my opinion probably doesn't count.
Also this topic feels very masturbatory.
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Also this topic feels very masturbatory.
This is extremely masturbatory. I think I was doing some light stroking in the original post but now... I don't even know"
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On July 31 2014 01:50 zulu_nation8 wrote: Scientists take philosophical positions derived from empirical activity, which is more philosophically noble than what moral philosophers can claim. Aside from the fact that I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "moral philosophers", is it really true that scientists take philosophical positions derived purely from empirical activity? Even if the vast majority of scientific work is empirical work, which is the way it should be and is a methodological position that needs to be respected and upheld, I don't think that the ontological presuppositions of contemporary natural sciences is derived from empirical analysis, let alone that most scientists even really think about the ontological grounds of their methods. Again, I don't think this is all that important anyway, but methodological naturalism isn't derived from empirical activity - it's a method used to interpret empirical data in a particular way, and it presupposes particular ontological and metaphysical stances whether or not this is consciously apprehended or not. I'm really sympathetic to methodological naturalism because it works and I agree that these metaphysical problems shouldn't bog down the practice, but it gets silly when scientific method gets presented as some kind of monolithic answer to everything and becomes a scientism that doesn't really have any real resemblance to the actual ethos of the scientific method, which is noble precisely because of its open acknowledgement of its limits. I was born into a family of scientists and I was raised to follow that line since I could read. It's because of my love for the sciences which I grew up with that makes me react with such revulsion to this pop-science crap that has such a huge market these days in North America.
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^The problem is that the academic polemicists against 'scientism' are even more infuriating than their opponents. Like Latour and the rest of his "science studies" ilk, who are just a bunch of sophists.
I wish Latour and Dawkins would just collide and annihilate each other so we could get on with things in peace.
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On July 31 2014 04:19 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 01:50 zulu_nation8 wrote: Scientists take philosophical positions derived from empirical activity, which is more philosophically noble than what moral philosophers can claim. Aside from the fact that I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "moral philosophers", is it really true that scientists take philosophical positions derived purely from empirical activity? Even if the vast majority of scientific work is empirical work, which is the way it should be and is a methodological position that needs to be respected and upheld, I don't think that the ontological presuppositions of contemporary natural sciences is derived from empirical analysis, let alone that most scientists even really think about the ontological grounds of their methods. Again, I don't think this is all that important anyway, but methodological naturalism isn't derived from empirical activity - it's a method used to interpret empirical data in a particular way, and it presupposes particular ontological and metaphysical stances whether or not this is consciously apprehended or not. I'm really sympathetic to methodological naturalism because it works and I agree that these metaphysical problems shouldn't bog down the practice, but it gets silly when scientific method gets presented as some kind of monolithic answer to everything and becomes a scientism that doesn't really have any real resemblance to the actual ethos of the scientific method, which is noble precisely because of its open acknowledgement of its limits. I was born into a family of scientists and I was raised to follow that line since I could read. It's because of my love for the sciences which I grew up with that makes me react with such revulsion to this pop-science crap that has such a huge market these days in North America.
moral philosophers such as brian leiter who sits in his law school ivory tower while writing blogs about his misbehaving philosophy professor colleagues and condemning anything he sees as immoral or unethical in upper education all the way to Israel. Literally like 80% of his blog in the past couple of months has been about sexual harassment lawsuits in American universities.
I dn't know what you mean by the ontological presuppositions of contemporary natural sciences, but as a simple example, a physicist who is familiar with Schrödinger's cat might adopt a Kantian, Noumenon/phenomenon view of reality. And all theoretical physicists must have some opinion on the matter no matter how implicit their assumptions are. I never argued the scientific method is the answer to everything, and the term scientism seems to have varying meanings in this blog. I'm actually trying my best to maintain a neutral and unprejudiced perspective.
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I think quantum mechanics is a PROBLEM for kantian transcendental idealism, not a reason to ADOPT it... Doesn't it point to a more problematic mutual constitution of subject and object (and the transcendental schemas) that that allowed by kant... (?)
idk what the scholiasts think about this, these days. I'm not exactly a kantian
On July 31 2014 04:55 zulu_nation8 wrote: 2 advanced 2 discuss 4 dis blog
probably
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I never argued the scientific method is the answer to everything.
I wonder what would happen if we all just agreed to this. Would we be able to just love each other? I like to think so.
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loving one another is another problem entirely, it's probably the hardest problem
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2 advanced 2 discuss 4 dis blog
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Brian Leiter is a hack though, l0l. I don't think he even does any academic work anymore. His blog is basically a tabloid, and it's been like that for years, let alone months! If I did philosophical work on morality and heard someone refer to Leiter as a moral philosopher I would probably kill myself since Leiter doesn't even work on morality and the extent of his relevance to the topic is his moralistic gossiping.
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Let's consider the Foucauldian idea of the episteme. For Foucault, the episteme is the unconscious ordering of the production of knowledge, including science, in society. It is like a grid that is overlaid on top of culture, and defines not only what is known, but what can be known. It is a network that defines the conditions that make a controversy or problem possible. So science, situated as it is, a single discipline in a network of knowledge, is not just a tool that defines knowledge by addition, wherein one brick of knowledge is stacked onto another brick of knowledge. It does not just gradually add, bit by bit, in an ever-climbing slope of Progress. Such a short-sighted conception is a fiction that I likened to the tower of Babel. Changes in an episteme radically shift the underlying conditions for knowledge production, but in doing so, obscure knowledge that does not fit in the grid, and prevent new discoveries that cannot be mapped to it.
Foucault talks about a shift in the episteme beginning in the 17th century, what he deems the "Classical" age. In the Classical period, signs assume critical importance, as the means of knowing and the keys to knowledge. This is contrasted to the period preceding it, the Renaissance, in the 15th and 16th centuries, where modern science is typically said to have been born. Foucault says:
[t]he empirical domain which sixteenth-century man saw as a complex of kinships, resemblances, and affinities, and in which language and things were endlessly interwoven - this whole vast field was to take on a new configuration. This new configuration may, I suppose, be called 'rationalism.'
While the sixteenth-century episteme focused on what Foucault calls resemblances, wherein mental activity and thought consists in drawing things together, this changes during the Classical period. Rather than attempting to find some sort of kinship, attraction, or secretly shared nature between things, man in the Classical period discriminates between things, establishing identities and differences. This regime of identities and differences undergirds what he refers to as 'rationalism' above, and orders every field of knowledge, from grammar, to natural history, to political economy.
So for example, Foucault points out that "life" or "production" as concepts that we understand today within our own episteme do not exist in the Classical period. Natural history and political economy, ancestors to biology and economics as we understand them now, were ordered by different parameters for knowledge formation and understanding. Natural history had no conception of "life." All that existed were living beings, which were viewed through a grid of knowledge constituted by natural history. People like Hume would never have been possible in the Renaissance era, and people like Dawkins would never have been possible in the Classical period. But more importantly, it is not science steadily chugging along that changes the episteme, because science is merely one category of knowledge in a constellation that fits into a larger ordering of thought and consciousness.
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yes... the early chapters of the order of things... good read
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On July 29 2014 04:54 puppykiller wrote: The reason philosophers are annoying is they know they lack relevance. To counter this they try to worm there way into conversations by questioning any shadow of a presumption that an individual makes. Usually they do this to an extreme degree almost as if it is nothing more than an excuse to listen to their mouths make words. They latch onto other diciplines that actually produce value and like a parasite try their best to toy with the framework and find some lack of conistency or contradiction in a process when framework isn't even relevant. Their dicipline sits from a standpoint where it grants itself the privilige to judge everything on nothing other than an assumption that practioners of philosphy are intrinsicly wiser than practioners of other subjects because they have read more philosophy or because they have surrendered to a soccratic approach at reasoning or because they are compensating for the fact that they are nothing more than an art critic assigning narrative and value to practitioners as he or she sees fit.
There is absolutly nothing wrong with the socratic method or questioning the underlying framework of a pursuit or situation. Just recognize your role as secondary to the pursuit and situation as you depend on it and it does not depend on you unless you can some how convince it to. Also please become aware of how limited the abillity for a human to generate rational thoughts is and how small a part of the world it is relative to how significant it sees itself.
Fantastical, eloquent and funny post.
I'm not one who says philosophers have no role. I think there should be absolutely no battle between science and philosophy. Science is a way of finding out the nature of the world. How things work in reality. Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us. How we can or should use new technologies, and speculating about what the future might hold (speculative science).
In ancient times philosophy was the way people believed you could derive truths about the nature of reality. For the same reason it doesn't matter how well I know the Bible, or how many ancient Islamic documents I have read, it doesn't matter how much ancient philosophy I may or may not have read. It is clearly not the way to discover the way the world works. If you think it is, then I suggest you are treating philosophy itself as a religion.
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On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us.
That's still science.
On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: How we can or should use new technologies,
engineering i think
On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: and speculating about what the future might hold (speculative science).
social science or even futurology
On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: In ancient times philosophy was the way people believed you could derive truths about the nature of reality. For the same reason it doesn't matter how well I know the Bible, or how many ancient Islamic documents I have read, it doesn't matter how much ancient philosophy I may or may not have read. It is clearly not the way to discover the way the world works. If you think it is, then I suggest you are treating philosophy itself as a religion.
So do you thinking reading history is useless and tells us nothing about how the world works because it doesn't rely on empirical experiments
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On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So do you thinking reading history is useless and tells us nothing about how the world works because it doesn't rely on empirical experiments
Do you think if I became expert in the history of alchemy that I would be any more knowledgeable about how to turn lead into gold?
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yes.. you would probably be more knowledgeable.
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On July 31 2014 17:15 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So do you thinking reading history is useless and tells us nothing about how the world works because it doesn't rely on empirical experiments Do you think if I became expert in the history of alchemy that I would be any more knowledgeable about how to turn lead into gold?
You know they have a term for the discipline where people spend their time reading and interpreting ancient books in their original languages. Classics. Have you heard of it? It's not really the same thing as philosophy.
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On July 31 2014 17:26 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 17:15 deathly rat wrote:On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So do you thinking reading history is useless and tells us nothing about how the world works because it doesn't rely on empirical experiments Do you think if I became expert in the history of alchemy that I would be any more knowledgeable about how to turn lead into gold? You know they have a term for the discipline where people spend their time reading and interpreting ancient books in their original languages. Classics. Have you heard of it? It's not really the same thing as philosophy.
Do they have a term for describing conceptually difficult ideas using other comparable examples?
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Croatia9365 Posts
On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2014 04:54 puppykiller wrote: The reason philosophers are annoying is they know they lack relevance. To counter this they try to worm there way into conversations by questioning any shadow of a presumption that an individual makes. Usually they do this to an extreme degree almost as if it is nothing more than an excuse to listen to their mouths make words. They latch onto other diciplines that actually produce value and like a parasite try their best to toy with the framework and find some lack of conistency or contradiction in a process when framework isn't even relevant. Their dicipline sits from a standpoint where it grants itself the privilige to judge everything on nothing other than an assumption that practioners of philosphy are intrinsicly wiser than practioners of other subjects because they have read more philosophy or because they have surrendered to a soccratic approach at reasoning or because they are compensating for the fact that they are nothing more than an art critic assigning narrative and value to practitioners as he or she sees fit.
There is absolutly nothing wrong with the socratic method or questioning the underlying framework of a pursuit or situation. Just recognize your role as secondary to the pursuit and situation as you depend on it and it does not depend on you unless you can some how convince it to. Also please become aware of how limited the abillity for a human to generate rational thoughts is and how small a part of the world it is relative to how significant it sees itself. Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us. Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/220/
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On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: In ancient times philosophy was the way people believed you could derive truths about the nature of reality. For the same reason it doesn't matter how well I know the Bible, or how many ancient Islamic documents I have read, it doesn't matter how much ancient philosophy I may or may not have read. It is clearly not the way to discover the way the world works. If you think it is, then I suggest you are treating philosophy itself as a religion.
Here you seem to be equating philosophy with reading the Bible, the Koran, or "ancient philosophy," while tilting at the strawman you've set up wherein someone is supposed to have said something like, "no no, science is bullshit, if you really want to know how the world works, you should only do philosophy (which has, coincidentally, been defined to reside in ancient holy texts)."
I know you are trying to back peddle a bit on what you said, but that's not a "comparable concept" and I don't think the facile point you are attempting to make is very complicated anyway.
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If its not very complicated then why are you not directly addressing the point.
Yes, most philosophy that people quote does reside in ancient texts. Ideas which have long past their sell-by date. Said people then claim you can't be part of the discussion because you're not expert on these things. My comparison is to show that you don't have to be expert in nonsense to know that it is such.
Modern philosophy has to accept that discovering things about how the world works is done empirically. Once this concept is accepted then there is nothing to talk about. Everyone will accept that both Science and Philosophy have their place in the world.
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There's just so many people flooding this with ignorant "science is the only real knowledge", or "philosophy is just masturbatory esoteric irrelevant BS" kind of posts I'm inclined to just abandon the discussion It's sad that this is the standard state of affairs nowadays, and I'm saying this as a person who probably knows more about science, from inside or outside, than 90% of people I know.
2Pacalypse, that quote koreasilver quoted was dumb because he had no clue what philosophy is, and it showed in it. The fact, even if it was true, that science didn't need philosophy would have no relevance to it, it's just false period. It's ignorant to say it wasn't that dumb despite not having any idea what philosophy is.
Firstly, philosophy is extremely broad. It could as well have nothing to do with science and be of incredible use to us. Philosophy of language, mind, logic, ethics, or value theory in general, political philosophy, epistemology or anything else are valuable far beyond science.
It also deals with things below science (philosophy of science), it spawned the idea of modern science with falsifiability maybe three hundred years ago and continues to create new sciences, some quite recently. It helps scientists to do their work (I think neuroscientists work with philosophers of language to interpret what happens in the brain correctly). To think that philosophy has stopped it's influence on sciences, especially social sciences, is a joke considering how recently some of them have been spawned out of philosophy, or how connected they are with areas that will forever remain the domain of philosophy (ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of language and mind, value theory). You just wouldn't do anything without an amateur understanding of these, and in many cases you'd do better with a better understanding of these, obviously.
The idea that ethics is useless is just a product of refusing to think of it, period. It's perpetrated by the silly excuse that we haven't come up with perfect answers, but that's based on ignorance on what it has created. Having groups of carefully crafted and thoroughly cleaned ideas is of absurd value to our society. Any position you think yourself clever and more rational than your peers to hold is probably originating, at least in print and in good form, from a philosopher. The reason you hold it and society benefits it is because of the philosopher. Western liberalism so popular among netizens around here wasn't there 150 years ago, and it was met with opposition. You could say that it's all subjective, how there's no difference between caring for babies and eating them. Well, go ahead and do it then if that's your idea of morality. Chances are, you're never doing that, and once somebody does you'll be able to come up with logical reasons for why it's wrong. Any butchered reasoning the baby eater will have will be a worse than yours. Philosophers will do that better than you though. And they're advanced so that any ideas our descendants will hold 150 years from now will most likely have come from philosophy, only again it will be in butchered form. Any kind of argument between these will be an amateur philosophy hour, there's no way of escaping it but embracing it and becoming better at it... Via philosophy.
Political science has transformed the world quite recently, too. The advances in society everybody now agrees were great are there because of philosophers were there to come up with them when everybody was like fuck yeah we have slaves and dominate the lower classes, or damnit my life sucks but I can't do anything about it. Any advancements in our societies will have to come from philosophers' ideas permeating the society. They have to be freed of philosophical jargon, of course, but the less butchered they are the more clearly everybody will get them, and the more chances we have of advancing with them, or improving upon them later.
I don't see any way to argue this social, ethical and societal value of philosophy in any other way than what would be, methaphorically speaking, eating babies. Not that philosophers wouldn't perfect the eating babies ethos better than you would, any kind anti-ethics thing you can come up with is a thing in ethics, but if want to act within the society, in any case your brain will latch one to some semblence of philosophical ideas, and where you argue with your friends or foes will be where they either fall within a separate philosophical camp OR have worse of better philosophical grasp of the topic. The only way to get better at them is to study, once again, philosophy.
Finally, knowledge. Any kind of idea that there's only knowledge from science is denied by the very functioning of you and your brain. Humans rely on vast amounts of non-scientific knowledge to decide anything they need to. Look up the progress of neural networks (equivalent of the structure of our brain) in comp. sci., they've accomplished things thought not possible before by gathering a bunch of indicators and deciding via enough-consensus based educated guesses. That is knowledge that would be absurd to think is scientific, allowing you to do anything you do, ever, in your life.
Hell, history, classics or even literature are ways of acquiring knowledge, just to poke you there's-only-scientific-knowledge guys with no understanding of what knowledge actually is. The difference with philosophy from these arts is that while it's much harder to understand, because you have to understand the logical structure, it also is much more useful in any case where you have to communicate with other humans why your knowledge (or the closes thing you have to it in that area) is better than their fumblings towards it. Or to learn that their fumblings are actually better.
PS. I should add this great interview that explains a lot of what I said about the value of philosophy a hundred times better than I ever will.
http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=6854
Somewhat less important, here's just a brief list of what philsoophy has progressed in the last 50 years. I alone could add a lot, but we're just going for any proof it's valuable here, right.
http://www.quora.com/What-has-philosophy-contributed-to-society-in-the-past-50-years
Finally, here's a quote I've already quoted before that quite well explains how a lot of philosophy works, especially in the more murky areas, to give us knowledge and value without giving very definite answers. Not understanding this idea specifically seems to me like one of the main reasons why Philosophy is misunderstood. Said by Bertrand Russel:
“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect”
Have you ever met an ignorant person who has never considered your arguments, seemingly unable to even do it, but only went with biases learned through his life? Or a smart person who has seemingly considered all you have said and has good reasons for what he believes? It's merely a taste of what philosophy can give in rigorous academic form to such an absurd breadth of topics.
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Well done
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On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us. That's still science.
Don't be dense. There's no scientific method for interpreting something for human meaning. If you think there could be i'd love to see a proposal for an experiment.
Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: How we can or should use new technologies,
engineering i think
Come one. he said "should." engineering can't answer "should" questions. You know this.
Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: and speculating about what the future might hold (speculative science).
social science or even futurology
one of those isn't a science, the other isn't even real.
On July 31 2014 20:33 son1dow wrote: 2Pacalypse, that quote koreasilver quoted was dumb because he had no clue what philosophy is, and it showed in it.
koreasilver knows a thing or two about philosophy I can assure you
On July 31 2014 18:39 deathly rat wrote: Modern philosophy has to accept that discovering things about how the world works is done empirically. Once this concept is accepted then there is nothing to talk about. Everyone will accept that both Science and Philosophy have their place in the world.
your claim undermines itself. If there were nothing to talk about, there wouldn't be philosophy. So your claim is that "if philosophy would realize that it has no place in the world, then science and philosophy would have their place in the world."
this is leaving aside your weird unstated assumption that modern philosophy is somehow naive to the idea of empirical investigation into reality, which is cute
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On August 01 2014 01:46 bookwyrm wrote: koreasilver knows a thing or two about philosophy I can assure you
I'm well aware, I was speaking of a quote that koreasilver quoted and basically mocked. Not of anything koreasilver wrote
Thanks TheGloob, by the way. It's full of typos or 'accidentally a word's, messy, not very to the point, structured or full from a top-down view, but maybe I'll be able to write better next time. But if it shakes the idea of philosophy being worthless or extremely limited for a single person, I'll be happy. Which I think your OP and the discussion following must have done in higher numbers.
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One typical device people discussing philosophy usually use is to shift the goal posts constantly. If you include all of human reasoning within the realm of "philosophy" then you will of course find things of merit.
If I'm contemplating the relative merits of barely-legal vs milf, is that philosophy? How about the "mayonnaise philosophy" I have been considering, is it ok to eat with fried potato edibles?
While science was born out of philosophy, it is now clearly defined as a separate discipline. Both make theories about the nature of the universe. One makes it on the basis of observations, the other on a house of cards style theory upon theory style system.
Actually I like philosophy. It is indeed important to broaden horizons and take our reasoning to a higher level. It's just all the pompous self-satisfied rabid groupies of philosophy that have read half a dozen books, or have taken a course in university who have never themselves had an interesting thought in their lives, quoting this and that without being able to (and refusing to) have any kind of discussion in a coherent manner.
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On August 01 2014 09:44 deathly rat wrote: pompous self-satisfied rabid groupies of philosophy that have read half a dozen books
how many have YOU read?
edit: But yes, sure, most people don't know what they're talking about, about anything. What you say about philosophy follows a fortiori
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On August 01 2014 01:46 bookwyrm wrote:
your claim undermines itself. If there were nothing to talk about, there wouldn't be philosophy. So your claim is that "if philosophy would realize that it has no place in the world, then science and philosophy would have their place in the world."
By "there would be nothing to talk about" I mean that nobody would argue the relative importance of philosophy. Everyone would agree etc...
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On August 01 2014 01:46 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us. That's still science. Don't be dense. There's no scientific method for interpreting something for human meaning. If you think there could be i'd love to see a proposal for an experiment. Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: How we can or should use new technologies,
engineering i think Come one. he said "should." engineering can't answer "should" questions. You know this. Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: and speculating about what the future might hold (speculative science).
social science or even futurology one of those isn't a science, the other isn't even real. Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 20:33 son1dow wrote: 2Pacalypse, that quote koreasilver quoted was dumb because he had no clue what philosophy is, and it showed in it.
koreasilver knows a thing or two about philosophy I can assure you Show nested quote +On July 31 2014 18:39 deathly rat wrote: Modern philosophy has to accept that discovering things about how the world works is done empirically. Once this concept is accepted then there is nothing to talk about. Everyone will accept that both Science and Philosophy have their place in the world.
your claim undermines itself. If there were nothing to talk about, there wouldn't be philosophy. So your claim is that "if philosophy would realize that it has no place in the world, then science and philosophy would have their place in the world." this is leaving aside your weird unstated assumption that modern philosophy is somehow naive to the idea of empirical investigation into reality, which is cute
-In the big picture, nothing has meaning to anything. It's kind of pointless express the insignificance of anything in relation to another. (I don't share the same sentiment. I believe existentialism is humanity in essence).
-So, for something to be considered a science, truly, it has to be accepted by a group of people? You're in auto-pilot mode now. I believe you're going on a sentiment again (one that depends on human kind's approval of things). I think it's amusing you opposed zulu_nation8 about anything having any true meaning towards humanity, and yet you rely on the approval of mankind.
I believe you're well read, but in the case of common sense, you lack it.
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On July 27 2014 15:26 PoorPotato wrote: Why do you fault people for disliking something?
I think you misunderstood me... I never said people should or need to like philosophy? I only ask that they respect it. For example, I do not particularly like or enjoy math, but I certainly respect it and those who study it. I'm not asking for anything but recognition as an equally useful human being which, I think, is a very fair request.
Alright, let's modify the question a little bit. Why do you fault people for disrespecting something? And why do you further insist, however politely and with however many reasoned words, that people who do disrespect philosophy should think differently? Anyway why are people all of the sudden subject to your command, however innocuous and beneficial it may seem to you? Why must people do as you say and respect philosophy?
Do you fault a dog for disrespecting your orders for it to stop barking? It's a fucking dog lol if it wants to bark it will. Some dogs can be trained and some dogs can't, but at the end of the day it won't respect what you respect because it is a different creature, and in the same way different people have different views on subjects and many don't find value in philosophy and don't respect it as a result.
Don't read too much into it; don't say that "oh nobody respects philosophy I don't want to be a philosopher anymore!" Just do what you can't help but do and you won't have any more such problems; if you love philosophy, pursue it.
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On August 01 2014 10:00 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 01:46 bookwyrm wrote:
your claim undermines itself. If there were nothing to talk about, there wouldn't be philosophy. So your claim is that "if philosophy would realize that it has no place in the world, then science and philosophy would have their place in the world."
By "there would be nothing to talk about" I mean that nobody would argue the relative importance of philosophy. Everyone would agree etc...
I wouldn't want that. I don't think that would be a healthy sign for either philosophy or science. Much better when you argue about it.
On August 01 2014 10:12 1123581321345589144 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 01:46 bookwyrm wrote:On July 31 2014 17:03 zulu_nation8 wrote:On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: Philosophy should be a way of interpreting this knowledge into what it means for us. That's still science. Don't be dense. There's no scientific method for interpreting something for human meaning. If you think there could be i'd love to see a proposal for an experiment. On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: How we can or should use new technologies,
engineering i think Come one. he said "should." engineering can't answer "should" questions. You know this. On July 31 2014 15:34 deathly rat wrote: and speculating about what the future might hold (speculative science).
social science or even futurology one of those isn't a science, the other isn't even real. On July 31 2014 20:33 son1dow wrote: 2Pacalypse, that quote koreasilver quoted was dumb because he had no clue what philosophy is, and it showed in it.
koreasilver knows a thing or two about philosophy I can assure you On July 31 2014 18:39 deathly rat wrote: Modern philosophy has to accept that discovering things about how the world works is done empirically. Once this concept is accepted then there is nothing to talk about. Everyone will accept that both Science and Philosophy have their place in the world.
your claim undermines itself. If there were nothing to talk about, there wouldn't be philosophy. So your claim is that "if philosophy would realize that it has no place in the world, then science and philosophy would have their place in the world." this is leaving aside your weird unstated assumption that modern philosophy is somehow naive to the idea of empirical investigation into reality, which is cute -In the big picture, nothing has meaning to anything. It's kind of pointless express the insignificance of anything in relation to another. (I don't share the same sentiment. I believe existentialism is humanity in essence). -So, for something to be considered a science, truly, it has to be accepted by a group of people?
I'm not sure what specifically this is in reference to. From the way you phrased it, though, I would say obviously yes - "considered" already carries a social connotation... I don't think I claimed this though. Is it about social science? That discipline is poorly named, it's not a science - it's a field, it's just not a science because it's too statistical and the model is too impoverished vis a vis the object (on my view). Futurology is just a thing people call themselves, it's certainly not a "science."
You're in auto-pilot mode now. I believe you're going on a sentiment again (one that depends on human kind's approval of things). I think it's amusing you opposed zulu_nation8 about anything having any true meaning towards humanity, and yet you rely on the approval of mankind.
i'm not really sure what you're accusing me of, here.
I think about the most complicated thing that can be considered "science" is biology. And some of biology is not a science, but a history, which carries an entire other set of problems. Behavioral psychology is barely science. Nothing past that is in any way "science." on my view.
At any rate: chemistry - definitely science. biology - still pretty much science, but some aspects which are tricky. psychology - kinda science, but mostly not at all. Study of any systems in which individual minds are components - definitely not science. Economics could, in some aspects, be studied in ways which would be scientific, but mostly is not by economists, and is in large part not-science inherently because actually about history and society, which are not-science.
oh, and deciding about all of this can't be science, because there's no way to tell scientifically how "scientific" some particular mode of inquiry in some particular area is.
But framing this in terms of opposing "science" and "philosophy" is missing the point. Philosophy isn't defined by what it still clings on to from the advancing tide of Science. Philosophy is not a field, it's an activity that lurks at the poorly-defined edges of every field and exists in all the empty spaces where other fields aren't yet or can never be (but it's undecidable).
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On August 01 2014 14:57 PoorPotato wrote: <...>let me disrespect philosophy pls <...>
Hey, what about if you disrepsected any reasoning for ethical rights? What if you mocked any person with actual political views? What if you were ignorant of the philosophy of science and denied the scientific method's usefulness?
What if you used your pride in this ignorance to deny or confirm basically anything you want, so basically was a proud anti-intellectual?
(I mean, go ahead and dislike it yourself. But do it the same way kids hate math - they don't say they don't respect it, because they'll be laughed at by everyone.)
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On August 01 2014 14:58 bookwyrm wrote: I think about the most complicated thing that can be considered "science" is biology. And some of biology is not a science, but a history, which carries an entire other set of problems. Behavioral psychology is barely science. Nothing past that is in any way "science." on my view.
At any rate: chemistry - definitely science. biology - still pretty much science, but some aspects which are tricky. psychology - kinda science, but mostly not at all. Study of any systems in which individual minds are components - definitely not science. Economics could, in some aspects, be studied in ways which would be scientific, but mostly is not by economists, and is in large part not-science inherently because actually about history and society, which are not-science. You seem to have a very narrow definition of science. I don't really want to be the one to argue semantics and definitions, but once again, I'll invoke Lawrence Krauss and his definition of science: "Rational thinking applied to empirical evidence that makes predictions."
You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world.
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This si so simplistic. As if the greeks didn't look at the world... Also guys, i have seen how astrophysics models are constructed. Scientific method is thrown out of the window, because it's simple not realistic. The place of aesthetics in the history of science si also quite incredible, variationnal méthode for instance convince people before they se any application, just because minimazing stuff feel so amazing intellectually compared to diff équations. Hello economy btw. Also you can be a brillant scientist , or philosopher, and an idiot for about everything else, thinking the contrary is refusing to look at the world. Bookwyrm is right, social scientists denying any value to science are as annoying as scientism, I just have met way too much of the second category.
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People should read about the life of Grothendieck imo, rationnality...
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On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 14:58 bookwyrm wrote: I think about the most complicated thing that can be considered "science" is biology. And some of biology is not a science, but a history, which carries an entire other set of problems. Behavioral psychology is barely science. Nothing past that is in any way "science." on my view.
At any rate: chemistry - definitely science. biology - still pretty much science, but some aspects which are tricky. psychology - kinda science, but mostly not at all. Study of any systems in which individual minds are components - definitely not science. Economics could, in some aspects, be studied in ways which would be scientific, but mostly is not by economists, and is in large part not-science inherently because actually about history and society, which are not-science. You seem to have a very narrow definition of science. I don't really want to be the one to argue semantics and definitions, but once again, I'll invoke Lawrence Krauss and his definition of science: "Rational thinking applied to empirical evidence that makes predictions." You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. This is the general impression i get from some of the apparently well read posters here. Like scientists are some robots that only look at numbers and graphs that can't form an independent thought about the significance of something or what it means in a greater context or what the implications are or etc...
Some people clearly don't have the understanding of this, but others seem intelligent and well read so i wander if it's still just general misunderstanding of science or the blind desire to force the full time philosopher in to relevance in to different fields.
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Oh also, sapphire, about brain undersstanding, we're doing great progress, a team apparently managed to make a computer model of what is considered the standard model of one neuron, we're close to explaining counsciousness. People in the fiels are also protesting against the big brain modelization programm, saying their knowledge is not mature enough for it ans it is just wasted funds. But keep on listening to Sam Harris cause he has a PhD...
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philosophy without science is religion and science without philosophy is ... Frankenstein.
- the context in which they co-exist is evolution. philosophy and science are the tic's and tock's of evolution. if any would disappear, we'd go extinct. - the thing left to argue is their value and if that is left to individual valuation, after XXX conclusions/assumptions/outcomes/resolutions, you'll find patterns; evaluate those patterns, use them to create statistics and you'll get a glimpse at where your species (or a group of humans) is in relation to evolution.
that's all that matters. the heading.
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On August 01 2014 18:53 corumjhaelen wrote: This si so simplistic. As if the greeks didn't look at the world... By "looking", I didn't mean simply looking with your eyes. I meant empirically testing.
On August 01 2014 18:53 corumjhaelen wrote: Also guys, i have seen how astrophysics models are constructed. Scientific method is thrown out of the window, because it's simple not realistic. I think you have a gross misunderstanding of what scientific method is. And I'm pretty sure some astrophysicists would take great offense at you accusing them of not using the scientific method. EDIT: Here's one paper on astrophysical model: http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0505616v2.pdf Are you telling me they're not using the scientific method here? What are they using then, philosophical thinking? lol
On August 01 2014 18:53 corumjhaelen wrote: Also you can be a brillant scientist , or philosopher, and an idiot for about everything else, thinking the contrary is refusing to look at the world. I think you're over-generalizing here. Some examples (with evidence that supports your claim) would be helpful. Just because you don't like someone, doesn't make them an idiot.
On August 01 2014 19:07 corumjhaelen wrote: Oh also, sapphire, about brain undersstanding, we're doing great progress, a team apparently managed to make a computer model of what is considered the standard model of one neuron, we're close to explaining counsciousness. People in the fiels are also protesting against the big brain modelization programm, saying their knowledge is not mature enough for it ans it is just wasted funds. But keep on listening to Sam Harris cause he has a PhD... Listening to Sam Harris on certain topics is not in contradiction with your previous statements. In fact, it has nothing to do with it.
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The poor astrophysicist who told me they had to work very différently from particle physicists because they don't have a few supernovae in their garden certainly was on the verge of tears when he told me that. They're saying their as hoc model world ok and that people should look in that direction. Which is good, but I dont really see what the method is here, because a paper has little to do with what happens in the lab. I guess there's are formules, so that's the scientific method ? Newton and Grothendieck were very sane human being whose lives should be emulated, i had to look very far to find those. Also learn what irony is 2pad
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There are parts of sciences that have no direct empirical evidence whatsoever but are still parts of science. The standard example is string theory, but I like to point out the higgs-boson prior 2012. Yes, eventually there was empirical evidence, but even before pretty much every scientist believed that the higgs-boson exists. The reason were not empirical, but rather based on explanatory benefits of a theory with higgs-boson, compared to rival theories. A good description can be found in a part of this interview by 3am magazine:
+ Show Spoiler +3:AM: Is the Higgs-Boson discovery helpful in showing how your approach to scientific methodology works?
RD: The Higgs-Boson is an excellent example of the high degree of trust physicists can have in a hypothesis in the absence of empirical testing. Even though the particle was only discovered in 2012, physicists were quite sure that a Higgs-Boson of some kind existed since the standard model of particle physics got empirically well confirmed in the 1980s. Once again, the reasons for that confidence fit nicely within the pattern of non-empirical theory confirmation. Without the Higgs-hypothesis, the standard model could not explain the masses of elementary particles. No other theory than the Higgs hypothesis was in sight that could satisfactorily explain those masses. In addition, the standard model itself provided a very strong example of a theory that was first understood to be the only available solution to a technical problem (that was the problem of renormalizability in the 1960s and early 70s) and then turned out to be empirically viable in many respects. So the trust in the Higgs Boson before its discovery provides a very nice example of arguments of non-empirical theory confirmation at work. Moreover, the fact that the Higgs Boson was then actually discovered in 2012 demonstrates that those arguments indeed worked very well in the given case: they led us to trust a hypothesis that eventually turned out trustworthy. The next time a new theory in high energy physics will be assessed based on the method of non-empirical theory confirmation, the Higgs-Boson case will itself serve as an indicator that the method is reliable.
Note that the Higgs Boson case also exemplifies nicely that non-empirical theory confirmation is a critical method. Let us assume for a moment that the LHC experiments had demonstrated that no Higgs Boson existed. This would not just have refuted the Higgs hypothesis but would also have considerably weakened the trust in the reliability of non-empirical theory confirmation in high energy physics. Therefore, it would eventually also have weakened the trust in string theory. People would plausibly have asked: how can you still believe in your arguments for the viability of remote string theory after your strong belief in the existence of the much less speculative Higgs Boson has turned out unjustified?
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I think this thread accurately sums up the pros and cons of philosophy Builds good foundations for logical arguments / other stuff but is always on the edge of falling into self mastubatory word salad bullshit.
A bunch of politicians are (and have been for ages) discussing whether Assisted dying (euthanasia i guess) should become a thing in the UK. I wonder how much philosophy would be involved or how you would go about arguing this beyond common sense.
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On August 01 2014 21:57 MoonfireSpam wrote:I think this thread accurately sums up the pros and cons of philosophy Builds good foundations for logical arguments / other stuff but is always on the edge of falling into self mastubatory word salad bullshit. A bunch of politicians are (and have been for ages) discussing whether Assisted dying (euthanasia i guess) should become a thing in the UK. I wonder how much philosophy would be involved or how you would go about arguing this beyond common sense.
Majority of people arguing about masturbatory word salad bullshit had no idea what philosophy is, so I don't know how you came to that conclusion unless you just pandered to both sides somehow.
There are philosophers as consultants on ethics boards and such, I remember one interview of a philosopher who is a consultant in philosophy bites. However, they are rather rare, politicians tend to prefer doing their thing only pandering to philosophical ideas that have permeated the socium already, that way they can do them in a shallow manner. Easier and more space for political maneuverings and pandering to lobbyists.
PS. Nice post Prog, btw. Interesting stuff.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 01 2014 20:23 corumjhaelen wrote:The poor astrophysicist who told me they had to work very différently from particle physicists because they don't have a few supernovae in their garden certainly was on the verge of tears when he told me that. They're saying their as hoc model world ok and that people should look in that direction. Which is good, but I dont really see what the method is here, because a paper has little to do with what happens in the lab. I guess there's are formules, so that's the scientific method ? Newton and Grothendieck were very sane human being whose lives should be emulated, i had to look very far to find those. Also learn what irony is 2pad I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here.
Nevertheless, I still urge you to read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
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On August 01 2014 20:51 Prog wrote:There are parts of sciences that have no direct empirical evidence whatsoever but are still parts of science. The standard example is string theory, but I like to point out the higgs-boson prior 2012. Yes, eventually there was empirical evidence, but even before pretty much every scientist believed that the higgs-boson exists. The reason were not empirical, but rather based on explanatory benefits of a theory with higgs-boson, compared to rival theories. A good description can be found in a part of this interview by 3am magazine: + Show Spoiler +3:AM: Is the Higgs-Boson discovery helpful in showing how your approach to scientific methodology works?
RD: The Higgs-Boson is an excellent example of the high degree of trust physicists can have in a hypothesis in the absence of empirical testing. Even though the particle was only discovered in 2012, physicists were quite sure that a Higgs-Boson of some kind existed since the standard model of particle physics got empirically well confirmed in the 1980s. Once again, the reasons for that confidence fit nicely within the pattern of non-empirical theory confirmation. Without the Higgs-hypothesis, the standard model could not explain the masses of elementary particles. No other theory than the Higgs hypothesis was in sight that could satisfactorily explain those masses. In addition, the standard model itself provided a very strong example of a theory that was first understood to be the only available solution to a technical problem (that was the problem of renormalizability in the 1960s and early 70s) and then turned out to be empirically viable in many respects. So the trust in the Higgs Boson before its discovery provides a very nice example of arguments of non-empirical theory confirmation at work. Moreover, the fact that the Higgs Boson was then actually discovered in 2012 demonstrates that those arguments indeed worked very well in the given case: they led us to trust a hypothesis that eventually turned out trustworthy. The next time a new theory in high energy physics will be assessed based on the method of non-empirical theory confirmation, the Higgs-Boson case will itself serve as an indicator that the method is reliable.
Note that the Higgs Boson case also exemplifies nicely that non-empirical theory confirmation is a critical method. Let us assume for a moment that the LHC experiments had demonstrated that no Higgs Boson existed. This would not just have refuted the Higgs hypothesis but would also have considerably weakened the trust in the reliability of non-empirical theory confirmation in high energy physics. Therefore, it would eventually also have weakened the trust in string theory. People would plausibly have asked: how can you still believe in your arguments for the viability of remote string theory after your strong belief in the existence of the much less speculative Higgs Boson has turned out unjustified?
The good thing about science is that it doesn't care what you believe or what your biases are. This is one of the hallmarks of scientific method; it forces you to purge your beliefs and eliminate all biases. When scientists set out to determine whether the expansion of universe will start slowing down and eventually end up with a big crunch, or it will keep slowing down for eternity but never actually stop (which were the only two options at the time that made sense), what they actually discovered was that the expansion of universe is speeding up. They didn't stick with their their theories of big crunch and eternal slowing down, because they were empirically being proven wrong. If Higgs' theory was empirically being proven wrong, it would be thrown out like a yesterday's news paper.
The reason why a lot of scientists (not all, mind you) thought that there is a Higgs-Boson is because that theory was laying on shoulders of other theories which were empirically well substantiated. It's the same reason why scientists knew there were atoms well before they could verify it directly.
So your claim "There are parts of sciences that have no direct empirical evidence whatsoever" is a very bold claim indeed, because you're neglecting a lot of work that has been done to reach to that point. I'll grant you that not every theory can be proven empirically directly, eg. multiverse, but if there are 30 other theories that we can test and they all predict/support theory of multiverse, then we can quite confidently "believe" in the multiverse.
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Interpreting evidence is an inherently biased process, the examples are notorious throughout the history of physics.
I'm gonna type up some passages from Feyerabend's Against Method.
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My claim was not bold at all. It is a fact that there is currently no direct empirical evidence for things like string theory. I never claimed that there is no empirical data that is related to theories that are not directly empirically justified. (That is no different for some philosophical theories though.) Try to read carefully, please.
And it is very obvious that just relatedness to things that are directly empirically justified is not enough to show that sciences actually justify only empirically.
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I was responding to this sentence,
On August 01 2014 23:34 2Pacalypse- wrote: The good thing about science is that it doesn't care what you believe or what your biases are. This is one of the hallmarks of scientific method; it forces you to purge your beliefs and eliminate all biases.
This is a very general statement and I will provide the Galileo example in a sec, but science has often been used by dominant political powers to confirm societal and cultural biases rather than the other way around.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 01 2014 23:55 Prog wrote: My claim was not bold at all. It is a fact that there is currently no direct empirical evidence for things like string theory. I never claimed that there is no empirical data that is related to theories that are not directly empirically justified. (That is no different for some philosophical theories though.) Try to read carefully, please. I was more focused on your use of word whatsoever, which I deem a bold claim, because it implies looking at the things in a vacuum, devoid of any context. Besides that, your previous post was pretty much obvious; "there are parts of science which are not directly tested". Well duh, any scientific hypothesis which has not been tested empirically yet could be called a part of science.
And just to be clear, in strict scientific sense, string theory is actually a hypothesis. It would be better for your argument if you used multiverse as an example, because there's less chance we will ever be able to prove that empirically directly as we are seemingly casually detached from it.
On August 01 2014 23:55 Prog wrote: And it is very obvious that just relatedness to things that are directly empirically justified is not enough to show that sciences actually justify only empirically. And that's why string theory (hypothesis) is not yet justified. Give me one example of a scientific theory (and I mean that in scientific sense) that is not empirically justified.
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So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)"
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Just look at my original post: I think that believing in the existence of the higgs-boson was well justified based on non-empirical reasons, prior to 2012.
To sum it up:
You said: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world.
and
By "looking", I didn't mean simply looking with your eyes. I meant empirically testing.
I claim that is wrong, by citing parts of physics that are (or were) justified prior to empirical testing. The reasons for, say, the higgs-boson prior 2012, were not found outside by looking at the world (in terms of empirically testing). The reasons to believe in the higgs-boson prior 2012 were for the most part explanatory advantages compared to rival theories. Of course the higgs-boson hypothesis was related to empirically tested theories, but it was crucially underdetermined. So non-empirical justification had to be the main reason to believe in it.
Now you may claim that this sort of justification is not what you accept as "real justification" and only what is empirically justified is a real scientific theory. But I think if I had asked a physicist in 2011 whether the explanatory story around the higgs-boson is a theory of physics, I bet s/he would have answered "yes, it is". And if I asked them whether we are justified in believing it, s/he would also have said "yes, we are".
[I removed a wrong part]
Edit: The usage of "theory" and "hypothesis" is, as far as my inquiry shows not even consistent in physics. In theoretical physics "theory" is often just a label for hypothesis with a sufficient mathematical framework and does not refer to confirmations (in whatever way).
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On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 14:58 bookwyrm wrote: I think about the most complicated thing that can be considered "science" is biology. And some of biology is not a science, but a history, which carries an entire other set of problems. Behavioral psychology is barely science. Nothing past that is in any way "science." on my view.
At any rate: chemistry - definitely science. biology - still pretty much science, but some aspects which are tricky. psychology - kinda science, but mostly not at all. Study of any systems in which individual minds are components - definitely not science. Economics could, in some aspects, be studied in ways which would be scientific, but mostly is not by economists, and is in large part not-science inherently because actually about history and society, which are not-science. You seem to have a very narrow definition of science. I don't really want to be the one to argue semantics and definitions, but once again, I'll invoke Lawrence Krauss and his definition of science: "Rational thinking applied to empirical evidence that makes predictions."
Yes, I think that definition is much too broad and leads to confusion. It's close though, and it wouldn't apply to the things I'm talking about because "predictions" are not things you can make about, say, moral questions. You could make a scientific inquiry into the way that people behave in ethically difficult situations, you could not make a scientific inquiry into the correct way to behave in an ethically difficult situation. Do you see the difference?
Also, "rational thinking" is not a well-defined entity, it just means "the kind of thinking that I approve of because I am scientific and rational." It's circular, so it doesn't help you. I would be impressed if you could provide a non-circular definition of "rationality."
You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world.
no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please!
On August 01 2014 19:02 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 01 2014 14:58 bookwyrm wrote: I think about the most complicated thing that can be considered "science" is biology. And some of biology is not a science, but a history, which carries an entire other set of problems. Behavioral psychology is barely science. Nothing past that is in any way "science." on my view.
At any rate: chemistry - definitely science. biology - still pretty much science, but some aspects which are tricky. psychology - kinda science, but mostly not at all. Study of any systems in which individual minds are components - definitely not science. Economics could, in some aspects, be studied in ways which would be scientific, but mostly is not by economists, and is in large part not-science inherently because actually about history and society, which are not-science. You seem to have a very narrow definition of science. I don't really want to be the one to argue semantics and definitions, but once again, I'll invoke Lawrence Krauss and his definition of science: "Rational thinking applied to empirical evidence that makes predictions." You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. This is the general impression i get from some of the apparently well read posters here. Like scientists are some robots that only look at numbers and graphs that can't form an independent thought about the significance of something or what it means in a greater context or what the implications are or etc... Some people clearly don't have the understanding of this, but others seem intelligent and well read so i wander if it's still just general misunderstanding of science or the blind desire to force the full time philosopher in to relevance in to different fields.
Scientists can do whatever they like, not everything a "scientist" does is therefore "science."
You guys might be interested to know I'm being kicked out of my PhD program for defending science too much. I'm quite heretically pro-science. The way to defend science is by having a rigorous understanding of what is and is not science. And if it's any consolation, they are much dumber and about as equally infuriating as you guys in their dogmatic attachment to fashionable anti-science bullshit. I understand them more because I talk to people like this on the internet who actually DO believe that Science is Truth, but they are just as bad.
Remember that deciding about the boundaries of science is not a scientific question. It's a question which scientists could ask, but when they ask it they are not doing science. There's no experiment you can do to see if an experiment is the right way to ask some question (see Godel).
Also, when it is obvious to all that the following proposition "there are some questions which science can answer to which philosophy is not suited" is true, why is there such resistance to the inverse? Why can't you bear the fact that science is not a universal panacea to the human condition? Don't raise it to the level of a religious truth which can know no outside. It's not "attacking science" to say that there are some things that science can't answer, and some questions which are not its appropriate domain. To deny that, on the contrary, is really a sort of hysterical religious dogma.
On August 01 2014 23:58 zulu_nation8 wrote:I was responding to this sentence, Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 23:34 2Pacalypse- wrote: The good thing about science is that it doesn't care what you believe or what your biases are. This is one of the hallmarks of scientific method; it forces you to purge your beliefs and eliminate all biases.
Yes, that claim is quite absurd. I'm not sure Feyerebend is what you need though
"science" certainly doesn't force you to "purge beliefs and eliminate all biases." That is a religious notion (I have finally achieved the "true knowledge.") Scientific culture creates a whole set of its own biases (which often impede the progress of science, for example the reductionist paradigm). Furthermore, for the daily practice of science it doesn't really matter WHAT you believe or what your biases are, the daily practice of science is mostly just mindless tedium. You can be a scientists and believe whatever sort of crazy stuff you want. True believing christians are scientists. There are lots of chinese science grad students who are fundamentalists christians. It doesn't matter to the activity of science, they can still measure stuff and perform experiments. 2pac, you have a very romantic and unrealistic view of what science is and what it does for the Scientific Subject.
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On August 02 2014 00:37 Prog wrote: Just look at my original post: I think that believing in the existence of the higgs-boson was well justified based on non-empirical reasons, prior to 2012. You can't say that it was well justified based on non-empirical reasons and then neglect *everything* that happened before and *everything* that justified it. For example, "belief" (which is an ugly word that should never be used in science, but I digress) that Higgs-Boson exists was justified based on the theory that every energy field has a particle associated with it (or something like that, my understanding of the details is pretty amateurish) and that by smacking protons at high enough energies creates a bunch of particles, one of which might be Higgs-Boson. So the hypothesized Higgs field, which was a beautiful and simple way to explain why things have mass, could be proven right (although nothing is proven right in science, rather more likely, but again I digress) if we detected a Higgs particle at high enough energies.
Anyways, no matter what I say here can't do the justice to the real story on how the Higgs-Boson was detected. I urge you to watch this video by Lawrence Krauss where he tells the greatest story ever told:
It's ridiculous to suggest that scientists "believed" in the Higgs-Boson without any context.
On August 02 2014 00:37 Prog wrote:To sum it up: You said: Show nested quote +You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. and Show nested quote +By "looking", I didn't mean simply looking with your eyes. I meant empirically testing. I claim that is wrong, by citing parts of physics that are (or were) justified prior to empirical testing. The reasons for, say, the higgs-boson prior 2012, were not found outside by looking at the world (in terms of empirically testing). The reasons to believe in the higgs-boson prior 2012 were for the most part explanatory advantages compared to rival theories. Of course the higgs-boson hypothesis was related to empirically tested theories, but it was crucially underdetermined. So non-empirical justification had to be the main reason to believe in it. Now you may claim that this sort of justification is not what you accept as "real justification" and only what is empirically justified is a real scientific theory. But I think if I had asked a physicist in 2011 whether the explanatory story around the higgs-boson is a theory of physics, I bet s/he would have answered "yes, it is". And if I asked them whether we are justified in believing it, s/he would also have said "yes, we are". To add to what I've said above, even if I concede to you that "belief" in Higgs-Boson was based on non-empirical reasons (which is simply not true and insulting to all the work that led to the discovery of Higgs-Boson), the reality still wouldn't give a damn if we justified that belief or not. Now you should realize that the word "belief" shouldn't be used in science; because it's irrelevant what our beliefs are. Prior to Higgs-Boson discovery, it was very likely that it exists based on all the theories before it and that is all a good scientist should be able to tell you before we discovered it. And if it was proven to be false, it would be thrown out like yesterday's news paper.
On August 02 2014 00:37 Prog wrote: PS: I always thought the difference of theory and hypothesis in physics were based on whether there is a mathematical framework that has not been falsified. I think there are (at least partially) mathematical frameworks for string theory, so I called it theory. If you can show me (with sources) why that is false, please do so. [I edited this last part sligthly] There's no really a rigid definition of the word "theory" nor is it used consistently, because each field tends to treat it differently. However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language.
Here's a good discussion on string theory specifically: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10rir2/is_string_theory_an_actual_scientific_theory/
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On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language.
No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 00:36 zulu_nation8 wrote: So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)" This sounds like a whole bunch of philosophy to me (which I admit, I'm not that well versed in). If you could reiterate the main argument here in simpler terms by using an example from the last 100 year, that would be very helpful.
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On August 02 2014 01:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 00:36 zulu_nation8 wrote: So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)" This sounds like a whole bunch of philosophy to me (which I admit, I'm not that well versed in). If you could reiterate the main argument here in simpler terms by using an example from the last 100 year, that would be very helpful.
Oh come on, it's perfectly readable. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and go nanana. You might have to read it slower and think more about individual words than you're used to, but I promise you can understand what Feyerabend is saying, he's not that smart.
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On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact.
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On August 02 2014 01:51 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 00:36 zulu_nation8 wrote: So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)" This sounds like a whole bunch of philosophy to me (which I admit, I'm not that well versed in). If you could reiterate the main argument here in simpler terms by using an example from the last 100 year, that would be very helpful. Oh come on, it's perfectly readable. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and go nanana. You might have to read it slower and think more about individual words than you're used to, but I promise you can understand what Feyerabend is saying, he's not that smart. Holy condescending batman.
Let's just say I have a 7 year old nephew here next to me who wants to know. Can you explain it to him?
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On August 01 2014 23:06 son1dow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 21:57 MoonfireSpam wrote:I think this thread accurately sums up the pros and cons of philosophy Builds good foundations for logical arguments / other stuff but is always on the edge of falling into self mastubatory word salad bullshit. A bunch of politicians are (and have been for ages) discussing whether Assisted dying (euthanasia i guess) should become a thing in the UK. I wonder how much philosophy would be involved or how you would go about arguing this beyond common sense. Majority of people arguing about masturbatory word salad bullshit had no idea what philosophy is, so I don't know how you came to that conclusion unless you just pandered to both sides somehow. There are philosophers as consultants on ethics boards and such, I remember one interview of a philosopher who is a consultant in philosophy bites. However, they are rather rare, politicians tend to prefer doing their thing only pandering to philosophical ideas that have permeated the socium already, that way they can do them in a shallow manner. Easier and more space for political maneuverings and pandering to lobbyists. PS. Nice post Prog, btw. Interesting stuff.
It's when people come up with stuff like, well most of IgnE's posts. It like hes writing words, but whatever meaning there is in there is obscured by extra words that add no meaning.
I mean my view on philosophy from this thread seems to be that it's a way of putting meaning to everything which is useful. From the point of view of research articles. It crosses over with maths (P values, sample sizes etc.), it crosses over with science (confounding factors, bias, controls etc.). Philosophy probably explains why those factors lead to (more) reliable results and that your observations are sound. Or that philosophy makes you question both your hypothesis and observations to give the best interpretion of stuff, and in doing so birthed everything in brackets.
Oh actually I think that was the point zulunation might have been trying to make.
Yeah I probably do pander to both sides. When I read this article I see philosophy, statistics and biology, and can be confident that when someone goes "is eating fruit and veg good?" I can say "yeah". + Show Spoiler +
I doing that I am changing a >95% chance of being correct to "fact" which is 100% to most lay people. And usually when asked about outcomes of patients or coming to diagnoses without proof (i.e. imaging, blood tests) I will always favor an analogy of probability rather than stating certainty.
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On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them.
But then again, I'm pretty sure philosophy can't answer philosophical questions either
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Noone said that anyone believed in the higgs boson without context. What I argue for is that people believed it because of explanatory power, not because of it being empirically justified (because that was impossible for a very long time). But you seem not to understand this difference at all.The higgs boson fit well into the framework and could explain a bunch of stuff. Noone had empirical data that it existed. But still they had a good reason to believe that it exists.
And obviously you should use the term "belief" in science. Not using belief is hilarious. I don't know how it is in your native language, but in english "belief" is not something that is used in stark contrast to knowledge, neither is it solely used for unscientific stuff (religion, mysticism etc). Knowledge requires belief for 99% of english speaking people! Believing something just means regarding something as true!
Also:
...the reality still wouldn't give a damn if we justified that belief or not...
Last time I checked I was part of the reality. And I'd rather only believe in propositions I am justified believing in.
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On August 02 2014 02:00 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:51 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 00:36 zulu_nation8 wrote: So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)" This sounds like a whole bunch of philosophy to me (which I admit, I'm not that well versed in). If you could reiterate the main argument here in simpler terms by using an example from the last 100 year, that would be very helpful. Oh come on, it's perfectly readable. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and go nanana. You might have to read it slower and think more about individual words than you're used to, but I promise you can understand what Feyerabend is saying, he's not that smart. Holy condescending batman. Let's just say I have a 7 year old nephew here next to me who wants to know. Can you explain it to him?
No, he's not old enough. You, on the other hand, are.
On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact.
And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here.
there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror?
On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them.
and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples.
But then again, I'm pretty sure philosophy can't answer philosophical questions either
Figuring out what the questions are is enough task for a lifetime. Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in.
edit: At any rate, I wish I could put you and my professor in a room together and watch with a bag of popcorn. The only trouble is, the encounter would make you both feel like you were each right, when what you should both realize is that you are each horribly wrong and that I'm right... but alas...
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what counts as a philosophical question exactly? For example, "what is the nature of water?" used to be a purely philosophical question.
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On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here.
Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. What you do is hide behind words, twist definitions until they fit and throw them onto non-native English speakers, who're bound to "lose" in this fight. No point in argueing with you here.
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Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in.
Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis.
You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias)
Formulate answer based on above.
Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass).
Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required.
I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine).
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What about the passage I quoted is difficult? It's first saying sometimes when a new theory is proposed, there needs to be other, auxiliary sciences invented to support the main theory, the example of which I gave in the first sentence, that a theory of optics was needed to explain the images in the telescope, and thus support its legitimacy as a scientific instrument.
edit: specifically in why the images are blurry unless you adjust it. Galileo had little knowledge of optics when he decided to support Copernicus.
It then makes the point that observation can refute better and valid theories due to there not having been invented a theoretical language to describe observed evidence. For example the "natural" observation that a rock falls vertically from a high place to the ground directly contradicts the claim the Earth rotates, because if it does, the rock wouldn't fall vertically down but instead to a place opposite of the direction of Earth's rotation; unless the concept of relative motion is introduced to complement such a theory and explain the "natural" motion of the rock. Hence empirical evidence by itself can often wrongly establish or discredit theories, because the observation of evidence by itself assumes a language, a system of thinking that is implicit in the description of evidence.
This is the simplest example I can think of, and it comes straight from the book.
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On August 02 2014 02:33 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis. You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias) Formulate answer based on above. Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass). Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required. I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine).
That is a form of inference to the best explanation. The current standard book on that methodology is from Peter Lipton "inference to the best explanation". It's more with a focus on sciences though.
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On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts.
No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting.
On August 02 2014 02:29 zulu_nation8 wrote: what counts as a philosophical question exactly? For example, "what is the nature of water?" used to be a purely philosophical question.
I wouldn't want to make a prescriptive claim about what are philosophical questions. A good proxy for the current discussion is anything involving a normative claim, i.e. ethics. We can leave it at that for the purposes of the discussion. It's a good question though.
Also note that the question hasn't really gone away, just shifted further back. We no longer ask "what is the nature of water," but it is a valid sort of question to ask "when we speak about matter, what are we really speaking about - i.e. what is our ontology under which we are able to conceive of such things as "atoms" and "energy" (and how to we represent these things to ourselves, metaphorically, since we can't actually think "atom" directly but only in some metaphorical way - so what is the best metaphor that we should use?). It's not a scientific question - science doesn't really do ontology, it just postulates theoretical entities. Philosophy has to take scientific theories about these things as "conditions" (as badiou would say) but doing ontology based on these conditions is not "scientific" but rather philosophical.
On August 02 2014 02:33 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis. You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias) Formulate answer based on above. Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass). Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required. I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine).
But that's just a question about some scientific fact. That's not the kind of question that I'm interested in. I can leave that to science, I don't care.
I'm talking about a question like "What should I do with my life and why?"
That's a question which is impossible to answer but which nevertheless must be answered.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 02:15 Prog wrote:Noone said that anyone believed in the higgs boson without context. What I argue for is that people believed it because of explanatory power, not because of it being empirically justified (because that was impossible for a very long time). But you seem not to understand this difference at all.The higgs boson fit well into the framework and could explain a bunch of stuff. Noone had empirical data that it existed. But still they had a good reason to believe that it exists. And obviously you should use the term "belief" in science. Not using belief is hilarious. I don't know how it is in your native language, but in english "belief" is not something that is used in stark contrast to knowledge, neither is it solely used for unscientific stuff (religion, mysticism etc). Knowledge requires belief for 99% of english speaking people! Believing something just means regarding something as true! Also: Show nested quote +...the reality still wouldn't give a damn if we justified that belief or not... Last time I checked I was part of the reality. And I'd rather only believe in propositions I am justified believing in. I really feel this discussion has become pointless. You can go on believing (ha!) whatever you want. When beliefs are proven wrong in science, they're discarded/changed. That's why they're irrelevant, and instead the concept of probability is much more suitable; ie. something is either more likely or less likely true.
On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:00 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:51 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 00:36 zulu_nation8 wrote: So when Copernicus and later Galileo first argued for their theories, they were not only empirically unjustified but directly contradicted. This continued even with the invention of the telescope for there was no rational reason to believe it gave an accurate picture of the sky. It was only until Kepler developed his theory of optics that it could be used to argue, and justify very weakly Galileo's intuitions. Copernicus acted in large part on faith.
From Against Method:
"Consider the case of the Copernican hypothesis, whose invention, defence, and partial vindication runs counter to almost every methodological rule one might care to think of today. The auxiliary sciences here contained laws describing the properties and the influence of the terrestrial atmosphere (meteorology); optical laws dealing with the structure of the eye and of telescopes, and with the behaviour of light; and dynamical laws describing motion in moving systems. Most importantly, however, the auxiliary sciences contained a theory of cognition that postulated a certain simple relation between perceptions and physical objects. Not all auxiliary disciplines were available in explicit form. Many of them merged with the observation language, and led to the situation described at the beginning of the preceding paragraph.
Consideration of all these circumstances, of observation terms, sensory core, auxiliary sciences, background speculation, suggest that a theory may be inconsistent with the evidence, not because it is incorrect, but because the evidence is contaminated. The theory is threatened because the evidence either contains unanalysed sensations which only partly correspond to external processes, or because it is presented in terms of antiquated views, or because it is evaluated with the help of backward auxiliary subjects. The Copernican theory was in trouble for all these reasons.
It is this historico-physiological character of the evidence, the fact that it does not merely describe some objective state of affairs but also expresses subjective, mythical, and long-forgotten views concerning this state of affairs, that forces us to take a fresh look at methodology. It shows that it would be extremely imprudent to let the evidence judge our theories directly and without any further ado. A straightforward and unqualified judgement of theories by 'facts' is bound to eliminate ideas simply because they do not fit into the framework of some older cosmology . Taking experimental results and observations for granted and putting the burden of proof on the theory means taking the observational ideology for granted without having ever examined it. (Note that the experimental results are supposed to have been obtained with the greatest possible care. Hence 'taking observations,etc., for granted' means 'taking them for granted after the most careful examination of their reliability': for even the most careful examination of an observation statement does not interfere with the concepts in which it is expressed, or with the structure of the sensory image.)" This sounds like a whole bunch of philosophy to me (which I admit, I'm not that well versed in). If you could reiterate the main argument here in simpler terms by using an example from the last 100 year, that would be very helpful. Oh come on, it's perfectly readable. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and go nanana. You might have to read it slower and think more about individual words than you're used to, but I promise you can understand what Feyerabend is saying, he's not that smart. Holy condescending batman. Let's just say I have a 7 year old nephew here next to me who wants to know. Can you explain it to him? No, he's not old enough. You, on the other hand, are. Why are you being condescending towards my imaginary 7 year old nephew. He's a bright kid, try him.
On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact. And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here. there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror? When I said that I don't want to argue semantics, that's exactly what I meant. When someone says that evolution is just a theory; you correct him by saying that it's a theory in scientific sense of the word, a fact. You can go on explaining to him why it's a fact, but he will, hopefully, understand what you mean by the word fact.
On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them. and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is our universe real? Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system? etc
Also, as zulu said, there have been a lot of questions that were defined as philosophical questions that have been since answered by science. Eg, where did life come from?
On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +But then again, I'm pretty sure philosophy can't answer philosophical questions either Figuring out what the questions are is enough task for a lifetime. Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. edit: At any rate, I wish I could put you and my professor in a room together and watch with a bag of popcorn. The only trouble is, the encounter would make you both feel like you were each right, when what you should both realize is that you are each horribly wrong and that I'm right... but alas... Here's another philosophical question for you: what do you do when you ask yourself questions that are silly questions and/or don't have answers?
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On August 02 2014 03:07 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact. And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here. there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror? When I said that I don't want to argue semantics, that's exactly what I meant. When someone says that evolution is just a theory; you correct him by saying that it's a theory in scientific sense of the word, a fact. You can go on explaining to him why it's a fact, but he will, hopefully, understand what you mean by the word fact.
But if you tell him it's a fact, you will be telling him an incorrect thing. A theory is not a fact, it's much more interesting than a fact. The theory of evolution is not a fact, it's a theory, don't insult it by calling it a fact. If you try to shore up the epistemological force of "science" by confusing theory with fact you are just engaging in dogmatics and ultimately making your position weaker.
Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them. and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is our universe real? Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system? etc
right, so now you have to pose experiments which would answer these questions... that's what I asked... you've just listed possible questions...
still waiting
edit: To stave off the inevitable misunderstanding, let me try to separate two claims:
"science can answer philosophical questions."
"science can provide useful and interesting knowledge which must be considered when attempting to answer philosophical questions."
the first is false. the second is true.
edit: Let me just say how therapeutic it is for me to argue about this with you guys, since I've been going crazy pulling my hair out this last year arguing with your complete polar opposites. It's so funny to me how self-evident both sides think their positions are - it's not even possible for the two to communicate. And each side thinks I belong to the other one
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On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:29 zulu_nation8 wrote: what counts as a philosophical question exactly? For example, "what is the nature of water?" used to be a purely philosophical question. I wouldn't want to make a prescriptive claim about what are philosophical questions. A good proxy for the current discussion is anything involving a normative claim, i.e. ethics. We can leave it at that for the purposes of the discussion. It's a good question though. Also note that the question hasn't really gone away, just shifted further back. We no longer ask "what is the nature of water," but it is a valid sort of question to ask "when we speak about matter, what are we really speaking about - i.e. what is our ontology under which we are able to conceive of such things as "atoms" and "energy" (and how to we represent these things to ourselves, metaphorically, since we can't actually think "atom" directly but only in some metaphorical way - so what is the best metaphor that we should use?). It's not a scientific question - science doesn't really do ontology, it just postulates theoretical entities. Philosophy has to take scientific theories about these things as "conditions" (as badiou would say) but doing ontology based on these conditions is not "scientific" but rather philosophical. Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:33 MoonfireSpam wrote:Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis. You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias) Formulate answer based on above. Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass). Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required. I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine). But that's just a question about some scientific fact. That's not the kind of question that I'm interested in. I can leave that to science, I don't care. I'm talking about a question like "What should I do with my life and why?" That's a question which is impossible to answer but which nevertheless must be answered.
Actually I use almost the same approach to life, I go out and do something because the line of reasoning above tells me it might be enjoyable. But it's interesting because there's no right or wrong and everyone has a different take on it.
The obvious question back is:
Why does that question have to be answered?
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On August 02 2014 03:20 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. On August 02 2014 02:29 zulu_nation8 wrote: what counts as a philosophical question exactly? For example, "what is the nature of water?" used to be a purely philosophical question. I wouldn't want to make a prescriptive claim about what are philosophical questions. A good proxy for the current discussion is anything involving a normative claim, i.e. ethics. We can leave it at that for the purposes of the discussion. It's a good question though. Also note that the question hasn't really gone away, just shifted further back. We no longer ask "what is the nature of water," but it is a valid sort of question to ask "when we speak about matter, what are we really speaking about - i.e. what is our ontology under which we are able to conceive of such things as "atoms" and "energy" (and how to we represent these things to ourselves, metaphorically, since we can't actually think "atom" directly but only in some metaphorical way - so what is the best metaphor that we should use?). It's not a scientific question - science doesn't really do ontology, it just postulates theoretical entities. Philosophy has to take scientific theories about these things as "conditions" (as badiou would say) but doing ontology based on these conditions is not "scientific" but rather philosophical. On August 02 2014 02:33 MoonfireSpam wrote:Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis. You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias) Formulate answer based on above. Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass). Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required. I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine). But that's just a question about some scientific fact. That's not the kind of question that I'm interested in. I can leave that to science, I don't care. I'm talking about a question like "What should I do with my life and why?" That's a question which is impossible to answer but which nevertheless must be answered. Actually I use almost the same approach to life. But it's interesting because there's no right or wrong and everyone has a different take on it. The obvious question back is: Why does that question have to be answered?
You just did answer it. You said "there's no right or wrong and everyone has a different take on it." Which is an answer to the question (it happens to be one with which I strenuously disagree).
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:07 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact. And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here. there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror? When I said that I don't want to argue semantics, that's exactly what I meant. When someone says that evolution is just a theory; you correct him by saying that it's a theory in scientific sense of the word, a fact. You can go on explaining to him why it's a fact, but he will, hopefully, understand what you mean by the word fact. But if you tell him it's a fact, you will be telling him an incorrect thing. A theory is not a fact, it's much more interesting than a fact. The theory of evolution is not a fact, it's a theory, don't insult it by calling it a fact. If you try to shore up the epistemological force of "science" by confusing theory with fact you are just engaging in dogmatics and ultimately making your position weaker. If this is not a semantics discussion, I don't know what is. Telling someone that evolution is a fact and then explaining to him why it's a fact seems like a best way to actually give him a notion on what we think by scientific theory.
On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them. and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is our universe real? Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system? etc right, so now you have to pose experiments which would answer these questions... that's what I asked... you've just listed possible questions... still waiting edit: To stave off the inevitable misunderstanding, let me try to separate two claims: "science can answer philosophical questions." "science can provide useful and interesting knowledge which must be considered when attempting to answer philosophical questions." the first is false. the second is true. edit: Let me just say how therapeutic it is for me to argue about this with you guys, since I've been going crazy pulling my hair out this last year arguing with your complete polar opposites. It's so funny to me how self-evident both sides think their positions are - it's not even possible for the two to communicate. And each side thinks I belong to the other one Don't be a willful idiot please.
I've said: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." And you've said: "I asked for an example, which you didn't give." And then I gave you an example.
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Hmm. well this might be the end of the discussion since you're unwilling to even address what I'm saying and rely on sophomoric protestations about "semantics" (god I hate that word, the last refuge of the uncurious).
On August 02 2014 03:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 03:07 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact. And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here. there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror? When I said that I don't want to argue semantics, that's exactly what I meant. When someone says that evolution is just a theory; you correct him by saying that it's a theory in scientific sense of the word, a fact. You can go on explaining to him why it's a fact, but he will, hopefully, understand what you mean by the word fact. But if you tell him it's a fact, you will be telling him an incorrect thing. A theory is not a fact, it's much more interesting than a fact. The theory of evolution is not a fact, it's a theory, don't insult it by calling it a fact. If you try to shore up the epistemological force of "science" by confusing theory with fact you are just engaging in dogmatics and ultimately making your position weaker. If this is not a semantics discussion, I don't know what is. Telling someone that evolution is a fact and then explaining to him why it's a fact seems like a best way to actually give him a notion on what we think by scientific theory.
but it doesn't give a notion of what "we" think by scientific theory, because people who actually think about these things know that facts and theories are different things. You aren't actually saying that, what you are TRYING to do is saying that you think that scientific theories are more epistemologically robust than your interlocutor might believe (I probably agree with you about this)
the theory of evolution is a good example actually because most people now think that the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis of the 60s is an insufficient theory, that is, people working in evolutionary biology don't believe that they have a complete theory of evolution. It's a fact that organisms change over time, the theory about why this is and how it works is currently incomplete (please note: incomplete, not wrong).
On August 02 2014 03:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them. and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is our universe real? Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system? etc right, so now you have to pose experiments which would answer these questions... that's what I asked... you've just listed possible questions... still waiting edit: To stave off the inevitable misunderstanding, let me try to separate two claims: "science can answer philosophical questions." "science can provide useful and interesting knowledge which must be considered when attempting to answer philosophical questions." the first is false. the second is true. edit: Let me just say how therapeutic it is for me to argue about this with you guys, since I've been going crazy pulling my hair out this last year arguing with your complete polar opposites. It's so funny to me how self-evident both sides think their positions are - it's not even possible for the two to communicate. And each side thinks I belong to the other one Don't be a willful idiot please. I've said: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." And you've said: "I asked for an example, which you didn't give." And then I gave you an example.
You haven't provided an example. You've provided an example of asking certain sorts of questions in English. I want you to give an example of how science might investigate those questions. You haven't. I don't want an example of a philosophical question (which is what you gave), I want an example of science investigating one of those philosophical questions.
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On August 02 2014 03:22 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:20 MoonfireSpam wrote:On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. On August 02 2014 02:29 zulu_nation8 wrote: what counts as a philosophical question exactly? For example, "what is the nature of water?" used to be a purely philosophical question. I wouldn't want to make a prescriptive claim about what are philosophical questions. A good proxy for the current discussion is anything involving a normative claim, i.e. ethics. We can leave it at that for the purposes of the discussion. It's a good question though. Also note that the question hasn't really gone away, just shifted further back. We no longer ask "what is the nature of water," but it is a valid sort of question to ask "when we speak about matter, what are we really speaking about - i.e. what is our ontology under which we are able to conceive of such things as "atoms" and "energy" (and how to we represent these things to ourselves, metaphorically, since we can't actually think "atom" directly but only in some metaphorical way - so what is the best metaphor that we should use?). It's not a scientific question - science doesn't really do ontology, it just postulates theoretical entities. Philosophy has to take scientific theories about these things as "conditions" (as badiou would say) but doing ontology based on these conditions is not "scientific" but rather philosophical. On August 02 2014 02:33 MoonfireSpam wrote:Another philosophical question: what do you do when there are questions that you cannot answer, but must answer? This is one that I'm particularly interested in. Can't answer this in philosophy speak but in real life in the context of making a difficult diagnosis. You observe as much as you can (X-rays, CT, blood tests - not always with high degrees of probability. Not always available) You try and grasp context (patient history, previous admissions, risk factors - all very subjective stuff) Use past experience (bias) Use pre existing knowledge of others i.e. specialists, text books (also subject to bias) Formulate answer based on above. Screen answer to make sure it passes guidelines (gotta protect your own ass). Give answer and treat based on most likely outcome. Wait with interest to see what happens and repeat from start if required. I'd actually be interested in hearing a philosophy side to that methodology (or maybe there isn't one to be made - also fine). But that's just a question about some scientific fact. That's not the kind of question that I'm interested in. I can leave that to science, I don't care. I'm talking about a question like "What should I do with my life and why?" That's a question which is impossible to answer but which nevertheless must be answered. Then it's not a question that can't be answered <.< More importantly is why dwell on stuff like that (I'm not saying it's pointless, many people benefit from a certain amount of introspection). But like poop, there a point where it becomes diarrhoea and bad for you. Actually I use almost the same approach to life. But it's interesting because there's no right or wrong and everyone has a different take on it. The obvious question back is: Why does that question have to be answered? You just did answer it. You said "there's no right or wrong and everyone has a different take on it." Which is an answer to the question (it happens to be one with which I strenuously disagree).
Well yeah. But there's obviously no "solution" in an emperical sense.
More so is why ask that question? (Obviously for that example there's benefit to be had from introspection, but stuff does reach a point where it becomes pointless (as in "provides no tangable benefit" since we're on the verge of semantics)).
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Why is why my point is that such questions aren't really things you can investigate empirically.
I've lost track though. Which question is it which you believe is pointless?
edit: oh. "What should I do with my life?"
the problem is you can't NOT ask the question. If you don't think about it, you've just already accepted an answer. But there's always some answer to the question, you can't get away from it, because you are in fact doing something with your life.
edit: the problem is that taking a stance like "we must pass over the questions in silence" is already an answer to the question (and as such is disingenuous and self-refuting).
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On August 02 2014 03:49 bookwyrm wrote: Why is why my point is that such questions aren't really things you can investigate empirically.
I've lost track though. Which question is it which you believe is pointless?
edit: oh. "What should I do with my life?"
the problem is you can't NOT ask the question. If you don't think about it, you've just already accepted an answer. But there's always some answer to the question, you can't get away from it, because you are in fact doing something with your life.
edit: the problem is that taking a stance like "we must pass over the questions in silence" is already an answer to the question (and as such is disingenuous and self-refuting).
I think we just agreed then.
That got convoluted fast.
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On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting.
Nor does what you write respond to things others said prior to you. You don't have any clue whatsoever about what the difference between a fact, an observation and a theory is. Argueing with people not having an idea of what they're talking about makes no sense. I hope you at least feel smart.
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On August 02 2014 04:01 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:49 bookwyrm wrote: Why is why my point is that such questions aren't really things you can investigate empirically.
I've lost track though. Which question is it which you believe is pointless?
edit: oh. "What should I do with my life?"
the problem is you can't NOT ask the question. If you don't think about it, you've just already accepted an answer. But there's always some answer to the question, you can't get away from it, because you are in fact doing something with your life.
edit: the problem is that taking a stance like "we must pass over the questions in silence" is already an answer to the question (and as such is disingenuous and self-refuting). I think we just agreed then.
If you say so :D
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Honestly, at this point the problem with this thread isn't even really about the usefulness of philosophy or science or whathaveyou, but a far more simplistic and banal problem of people not even actually taking any of this actually seriously. If you're citing Dawkins, Harris, and Krauss you're basically showing the world that you don't study any of the relevant material seriously, especially the natural sciences, since you're throwing all your weight behind someone who hasn't done any work in his field for decades and is outdated in evolutionary biology, a charlatan who wrote an awful dissertation and is considered a joke in his field, and someone who talks endlessly on topics he has absolutely no training in and is a disgrace to his field. If the best you can do it constantly and endlessly refer only to these pop culture figures then I just can't take you seriously. It would be funny if it wasn't so exasperating that some of you, who like to have the pretense that you're "defending science and the scientific method" obviously are not scientists in any shape or form. This isn't really a problem of philosophy or science. It's a problem with education, ideological demagoguery, and an absurd lack of respect for real scholarship.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 03:38 bookwyrm wrote: Hmm. well this might be the end of the discussion since you're unwilling to even address what I'm saying and rely on sophomoric protestations about "semantics" (god I hate that word, the last refuge of the uncurious). I don't know what it is I'm even supposed to address when you first brought up the difference between scientific theory and a fact. I guess there's a difference in definition; fine, I'll agree to that. Does it matter when you try to explain to someone, who is not very interested in these differences, what scientists mean by the word theory? Probably not.
On August 02 2014 03:38 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 03:07 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. I really don't want to enter a semantics and definition discussion here. I'm just saying when you try to explain what a "scientific theory" is to a common person, the best way is by equating it with a fact. And I'm explaining why that's a bad idea, but you don't want to talk about it, apparently. Don't accuse me of condescension and then go around about what is the "best way to explain to a 'common person.'" My point was that doing so vitiates your own position and makes it weaker. Don't listen to me if you don't care, I guess, I'm trying to help you here. there's nothing more infuriating than a person who makes some claim and then responds to any possible criticism with "I don't want to argue semantics." What that sentence means is "I just wanna say whatever I want and have it be true without thinking about what I'm really saying or defending it against someone who disagrees." I don't understand why people who say the word "semantics" as a rebuttal even talk to other people in the first place. Do you not have a mirror? When I said that I don't want to argue semantics, that's exactly what I meant. When someone says that evolution is just a theory; you correct him by saying that it's a theory in scientific sense of the word, a fact. You can go on explaining to him why it's a fact, but he will, hopefully, understand what you mean by the word fact. But if you tell him it's a fact, you will be telling him an incorrect thing. A theory is not a fact, it's much more interesting than a fact. The theory of evolution is not a fact, it's a theory, don't insult it by calling it a fact. If you try to shore up the epistemological force of "science" by confusing theory with fact you are just engaging in dogmatics and ultimately making your position weaker. If this is not a semantics discussion, I don't know what is. Telling someone that evolution is a fact and then explaining to him why it's a fact seems like a best way to actually give him a notion on what we think by scientific theory. but it doesn't give a notion of what "we" think by scientific theory, because people who actually think about these things know that facts and theories are different things. You aren't actually saying that, what you are TRYING to do is saying that you think that scientific theories are more epistemologically robust than your interlocutor might believe (I probably agree with you about this) the theory of evolution is a good example actually because most people now think that the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis of the 60s is an insufficient theory, that is, people working in evolutionary biology don't believe that they have a complete theory of evolution. It's a fact that organisms change over time, the theory about why this is and how it works is currently incomplete (please note: incomplete, not wrong). You're really over-complicating this. All I've tried to say is that you can call something like an evolution a fact in everyday speech and it would be fine. While we're on the subject of calling evolution a fact, even one of its biggest popularizer, Richard Dawkins, calls it a fact:
On August 02 2014 03:38 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 03:12 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:16 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:06 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 01:23 bookwyrm wrote:On August 01 2014 18:13 2Pacalypse- wrote: You somehow think that science can't ask a single philosophical question, when I would argue it's just a way of pursuing knowledge, much like philosophy; it just goes about it by actually going outside and looking at the world. no, "science" can't. Can you give an example? I've argued about this with a lot of people, and nobody has ever been able to give an example. Design me a quick experiment that answers some sort of philosophical question. Please! I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them. and I asked for an example, which you didn't give. I didn't expect you to, as nobody ever has, out of the dozens of people who have made this claim and whom I've asked for examples. Why is there something rather than nothing? Is our universe real? Do we have free will? Is there life after death? What is the best moral system? etc right, so now you have to pose experiments which would answer these questions... that's what I asked... you've just listed possible questions... still waiting edit: To stave off the inevitable misunderstanding, let me try to separate two claims: "science can answer philosophical questions." "science can provide useful and interesting knowledge which must be considered when attempting to answer philosophical questions." the first is false. the second is true. edit: Let me just say how therapeutic it is for me to argue about this with you guys, since I've been going crazy pulling my hair out this last year arguing with your complete polar opposites. It's so funny to me how self-evident both sides think their positions are - it's not even possible for the two to communicate. And each side thinks I belong to the other one Don't be a willful idiot please. I've said: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." And you've said: "I asked for an example, which you didn't give." And then I gave you an example. You haven't provided an example. You've provided an example of asking certain sorts of questions in English. I want you to give an example of how science might investigate those questions. You haven't. I don't want an example of a philosophical question (which is what you gave), I want an example of science investigating one of those philosophical questions. I think moving the goalpost expression would be appropriate here...
But anyways, fine, I'll bite. Science is investigating how the universe began. Once/If we ever understand this, we might get a better glimpse into why is there something rather than nothing. Science is also investigating the brain which will, hopefully, help us understand conscience better. Once/If we ever understand it, we might be able to artificially create conscience beings and we would have a much better understanding of free will, or lack thereof. Is there life after death is pretty much already answered by science. Changing our brain chemistry changes our thinking and perception, essentially it changes us, so once the brain dies and rots away there's no room for something to stay after death; this is also tied to the conscience question. Morality is intrinsically tied to the science, because the only way to decide if something is moral is to predict the consequences of its action. I guess it's little harder to determine what should be moral with science, but even there, if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say.
Please note that these are not definitive things that science alone will answer 100%. It's just an example on how science can ask some of the philosophical questions.
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not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point
like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report
On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say.
lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away."
what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you
edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for.
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On August 02 2014 04:05 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. Nor does what you write respond to things others said prior to you. You don't have any clue whatsoever about what the difference between a fact, an observation and a theory is. Argueing with people not having an idea of what they're talking about makes no sense. I hope you at least feel smart.
I think the points that was trying to be made (and very valid) are:
An observation is only as good as your instrumentation / conditions. There may be factors messing with your observations you are unaware of. (as in the example of dropping a rock. It goes "down" but is also moving laterally at the speed of rotation of the Earth - but so are your instruments, so alll you measure is motion of the rock relative to the observer).
A theory is the mechanics you think are behind said observation, however flawed observations can falsely validate theories. (you could use that observation of the rock dropping to "disprove" that the Earth spins).
Because you obviously can't account for the unknown factors, it takes a lot (or should take a lot) for something to become "fact" i.e. a proven theory.
This stuff more applies to things from the last 300 or so years. For example when they found trilobyte fossils at the top of mountains, the two theories were: Mass flooding (popular opinion), Plate tectonics (dismissed for ages). Through further examination and observation of rock types etc. the reverse became the case and the prevailing dogma was broken.
I think the other point is that because you don't know the unknown, you will never know when you have a "complete" understanding however well a current theory is supported.
That is one of the values of philosophy (but has now sortof become "scientific method").
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 04:22 koreasilver wrote: Honestly, at this point the problem with this thread isn't even really about the usefulness of philosophy or science or whathaveyou, but a far more simplistic and banal problem of people not even actually taking any of this actually seriously. If you're citing Dawkins, Harris, and Krauss you're basically showing the world that you don't study any of the relevant material seriously, especially the natural sciences, since you're throwing all your weight behind someone who hasn't done any work in his field for decades and is outdated in evolutionary biology, a charlatan who wrote an awful dissertation and is considered a joke in his field, and someone who talks endlessly on topics he has absolutely no training in and is a disgrace to his field. If the best you can do it constantly and endlessly refer only to these pop culture figures then I just can't take you seriously. It would be funny if it wasn't so exasperating that some of you, who like to have the pretense that you're "defending science and the scientific method" obviously are not scientists in any shape or form. This isn't really a problem of philosophy or science. It's a problem with education, ideological demagoguery, and an absurd lack of respect for real scholarship. I'm sorry we offended your highness up there on the throne surrounded by quotations of obscure philosophers. Us normal plebs, who are denied higher education in intricacies of philosophy, have to rely on pop culture figures to guide us.
Nevermind the actual arguments being presented, unless you cite an authority on these issues, you're not taking it serious enough for me to even consider arguing with!
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you can just google karl popper + falsifiability to see why theories aren't facts, it's not some secret elitist knowledge, but rather should be required reading for anyone who claims they know what the scientific method is.
And you shouldn't get offended when you get called out on something very basic, if you don't understand the difference between a fact and a theory, you shouldn't be forming opinions in the first place. Literally the first lesson in my high school physics class was "theories can never be proven."
On August 02 2014 04:35 MoonfireSpam wrote: I think the points that was trying to be made (and very valid) are:
An observation is only as good as your instrumentation / conditions. There may be factors messing with your observations you are unaware of. (as in the example of dropping a rock. It goes "down" but is also moving laterally at the speed of rotation of the Earth - but so are your instruments, so alll you measure is motion of the rock relative to the observer).
A theory is the mechanics you think are behind said observation, however flawed observations can falsely validate theories. (you could use that observation of the rock dropping to "disprove" that the Earth spins).
Because you obviously can't account for the unknown factors, it takes a lot (or should take a lot) for something to become "fact" i.e. a proven theory.
The observation that a rock drops straight down is "correct," not wrongly observed. It's a natural interpretation of what we see according to common sense. But the description of "straight down" takes on different meanings within newtonian physics compared to aristotelian physics, specifically in relative vs. absolute motion.
They both explain the same phenomenon differently, but Newton's can explain stuff Aristotle's couldn't.
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On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them. Now you want me to write a fucking dissertation on answering them?
Oh why did I bite for this bait... now that's a good philosophical question.
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On August 02 2014 04:44 zulu_nation8 wrote: you can just google karl popper + falsifiability to see why theories aren't facts, it's not some secret elitist knowledge, but rather should be required reading for anyone who claims they know what the scientific method is.
And you shouldn't get offended when you get called out on something very basic, if you don't understand the difference between a fact and a theory, you shouldn't be forming opinions in the first place. Literally the first lesson in my high school physics class was "theories can never be proven." I said specifically "although nothing is proven right in science, rather more likely". And I never said that theories are facts; just that you can call scientific theory a fact in everyday language and no one would blame or call you out on it (except here it seems).
Seriously, it's like you focus on the most miniscule things you can find just so you can one up someone, and purposefully ignore what was obviously meant by it. Is this what it's like in a philosophy class? I would blew my brains out if it is.
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but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are.
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On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious?
completely
I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions"
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I thought everybody who has done some kind of scientific curriculum had huard about Popper. At least where I've been, almost everybody has. Btw, i thought of an utility of philosophe of science, something it has tried to do : defend science against its ennemies, intelligent design for instance. If we had left that only to New Atheism, I fear the debate would be gong even worse than it is... Thank god the supreme court asked epistemologists what they thought back then. Also, this thread goes wayyyyy too fast.
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On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into.
On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely Show nested quote + I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this.
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oh ok i was not aware there is a definition of fact that says it could be false. Sounds like a useful distinction.
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Didn't you learn in your first lesson in high school physics class that "theories can never be proven"? How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them?
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On August 02 2014 04:35 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:05 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. Nor does what you write respond to things others said prior to you. You don't have any clue whatsoever about what the difference between a fact, an observation and a theory is. Argueing with people not having an idea of what they're talking about makes no sense. I hope you at least feel smart. I think the points that was trying to be made (and very valid) are: An observation is only as good as your instrumentation / conditions. There may be factors messing with your observations you are unaware of. (as in the example of dropping a rock. It goes "down" but is also moving laterally at the speed of rotation of the Earth - but so are your instruments, so alll you measure is motion of the rock relative to the observer). A theory is the mechanics you think are behind said observation, however flawed observations can falsely validate theories. (you could use that observation of the rock dropping to "disprove" that the Earth spins). Because you obviously can't account for the unknown factors, it takes a lot (or should take a lot) for something to become "fact" i.e. a proven theory. This stuff more applies to things from the last 300 or so years. For example when they found trilobyte fossils at the top of mountains, the two theories were: Mass flooding (popular opinion), Plate tectonics (dismissed for ages). Through further examination and observation of rock types etc. the reverse became the case and the prevailing dogma was broken. I think the other point is that because you don't know the unknown, you will never know when you have a "complete" understanding however well a current theory is supported. That is one of the values of philosophy (but has now sortof become "scientific method").
No, he did not write this, and I assume he didn't mean this either. This is a stereotypical discussion in gaming boards, he desperately wants to be right, probably because he got mocked for his views by (natural) scientists somewhen in his life. I can totally relate to that, yet it doesn't help it.
Someone already pointed it out, there are tight definitions of what a theory is, what is counted as observation, how any observation can be interpreted and so on and so forth. This is the basic stuff you get taught and learn from day 1. He completely throws around terms, which he doesn't understand, then proceeds to to mock people, who're not used to discussing topics like this in a foreign language. Obviously, we can not help but lose here. Not saying I have experience in this field either, or that I'd be good enough to really explain the difference between having assumptions and creating a theory, or stating a deterministic (natural) law. This is a long way and he portrays "science" as static, stubborn approach.
Thing is, science itself is a very vague term. He quotes sources about Galilei, Kepler and others, yet I wouldn't classify them as scientists in a modern sense. Science, its methods and experiments changed and will change in the future. It's a self reflecting process. If it wasn't, the hysteria about not being able to rely on observations, rather than how they should be interpreted, would actually have a point. The way he presents his, whatever it is, let's call them theories, sound as if there's no way at all to approach any topic in any way. No assumption would be possible, there'd be no starting point, nor any reason in pursuing futher knowledge, because "we're too limited".
There's the off change I did not understand his posts or the context; however, that'd be his problem, not mine. The second you are forced to derail by quoting ancient language, you lost.
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by "he" do you mean me? because you're both confusing me with other people and misrepresenting my position. do other people think gecko is saying things that make sense? gecko doesn't really say anything he justs insults people. and he thinks that zulu and I are the same person I think
On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this.
but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me.
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On August 02 2014 06:18 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me. Sure, I'll agree to that. But will you agree that some things that were considered philosophical issues in the past are now part of some branch of science and do you agree that will continue to happen in the future?
EDIT: Here's a good discussion between a philosopher and a scientist similar to what we've been arguing about: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/09/science-philosophy-debate-julian-baggini-lawrence-krauss (quick, click on it and base your opinion on the actual arguments presented before I'm accused of citing pop culture figures!)
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On August 02 2014 06:56 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 06:18 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me. Sure, I'll agree to that. But will you agree that some things that were considered philosophical issues in the past are now part of some branch of science and do you agree that will continue to happen in the future?
sure, that's obvious. however in most cases I would argue that the philosophical question has merely been pushed back and not eliminated. or has changed forms in some way. or has imploded upon itself opening up several more philosophical questions in its wake. but there's no way you're going to be able to proceed from an existential claim to a universal claim of this type (i.e. to proceed from "there is an instance in which P problems have become S problems" to "all P problems will eventually become S problems") - it's at best undecidable (but actually quite obviously false).
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On August 02 2014 05:41 2Pacalypse- wrote: Didn't you learn in your first lesson in high school physics class that "theories can never be proven"? How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them?
the statement "theories can never be proven" is not a theory but a logical necessity, if a theory is not falsifiable then it's not a scientific theory because you can't empirically test it and hence has no place in science.
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On August 02 2014 05:50 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:35 MoonfireSpam wrote:On August 02 2014 04:05 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. Nor does what you write respond to things others said prior to you. You don't have any clue whatsoever about what the difference between a fact, an observation and a theory is. Argueing with people not having an idea of what they're talking about makes no sense. I hope you at least feel smart. I think the points that was trying to be made (and very valid) are: An observation is only as good as your instrumentation / conditions. There may be factors messing with your observations you are unaware of. (as in the example of dropping a rock. It goes "down" but is also moving laterally at the speed of rotation of the Earth - but so are your instruments, so alll you measure is motion of the rock relative to the observer). A theory is the mechanics you think are behind said observation, however flawed observations can falsely validate theories. (you could use that observation of the rock dropping to "disprove" that the Earth spins). Because you obviously can't account for the unknown factors, it takes a lot (or should take a lot) for something to become "fact" i.e. a proven theory. This stuff more applies to things from the last 300 or so years. For example when they found trilobyte fossils at the top of mountains, the two theories were: Mass flooding (popular opinion), Plate tectonics (dismissed for ages). Through further examination and observation of rock types etc. the reverse became the case and the prevailing dogma was broken. I think the other point is that because you don't know the unknown, you will never know when you have a "complete" understanding however well a current theory is supported. That is one of the values of philosophy (but has now sortof become "scientific method"). No, he did not write this, and I assume he didn't mean this either. This is a stereotypical discussion in gaming boards, he desperately wants to be right, probably because he got mocked for his views by (natural) scientists somewhen in his life. I can totally relate to that, yet it doesn't help it. Someone already pointed it out, there are tight definitions of what a theory is, what is counted as observation, how any observation can be interpreted and so on and so forth. This is the basic stuff you get taught and learn from day 1. He completely throws around terms, which he doesn't understand, then proceeds to to mock people, who're not used to discussing topics like this in a foreign language. Obviously, we can not help but lose here. Not saying I have experience in this field either, or that I'd be good enough to really explain the difference between having assumptions and creating a theory, or stating a deterministic (natural) law. This is a long way and he portrays "science" as static, stubborn approach. Thing is, science itself is a very vague term. He quotes sources about Galilei, Kepler and others, yet I wouldn't classify them as scientists in a modern sense. Science, its methods and experiments changed and will change in the future. It's a self reflecting process. If it wasn't, the hysteria about not being able to rely on observations, rather than how they should be interpreted, would actually have a point. The way he presents his, whatever it is, let's call them theories, sound as if there's no way at all to approach any topic in any way. No assumption would be possible, there'd be no starting point, nor any reason in pursuing futher knowledge, because "we're too limited". There's the off change I did not understand his posts or the context; however, that'd be his problem, not mine. The second you are forced to derail by quoting ancient language, you lost.
Can you point out which terms I don't understand and where I used foreign languages?
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I know i'm not playing fair;;;;; lollolooo i've have the plassure and delight to talk to the people that i've looked up to; that i loved;
If you are not here mate, then : GET FUCKED!
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i cn get "in " any time i want and piss on the non-scientific method
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I think you're confusing this with the drunk thread. on the other hand maybe not. in uino sophia
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On August 02 2014 04:42 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:22 koreasilver wrote: Honestly, at this point the problem with this thread isn't even really about the usefulness of philosophy or science or whathaveyou, but a far more simplistic and banal problem of people not even actually taking any of this actually seriously. If you're citing Dawkins, Harris, and Krauss you're basically showing the world that you don't study any of the relevant material seriously, especially the natural sciences, since you're throwing all your weight behind someone who hasn't done any work in his field for decades and is outdated in evolutionary biology, a charlatan who wrote an awful dissertation and is considered a joke in his field, and someone who talks endlessly on topics he has absolutely no training in and is a disgrace to his field. If the best you can do it constantly and endlessly refer only to these pop culture figures then I just can't take you seriously. It would be funny if it wasn't so exasperating that some of you, who like to have the pretense that you're "defending science and the scientific method" obviously are not scientists in any shape or form. This isn't really a problem of philosophy or science. It's a problem with education, ideological demagoguery, and an absurd lack of respect for real scholarship. I'm sorry we offended your highness up there on the throne surrounded by quotations of obscure philosophers. Us normal plebs, who are denied higher education in THE NATURAL SCIENCES, have to rely on pop culture figures to guide us. Nevermind the actual arguments being presented, unless you cite an authority on these issues, you're not taking it serious enough for me to even consider arguing with! There, I fixed it for you; better now? I wasn't even talking about philosophical scholarship in the post. And yes, I'm not going to take you seriously enough to even argue with. This is the same problem that plague(d) the economics threads and cause(d) endless headache for the actual economics students on this forum because of idiot gold-standard touting libertarians, who would ceaselessly link to youtube hacks and conspiratorial nonsense like the Zeitgeist series and other assorted Austrian crap, or leftists, for who the extent of their economic education was reading chapters of Naomi Klein.
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On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. BUT WHAT IF WE ARE MATE>>>>>>>>> WHAT IF WE ARE..............
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i am keeping you forever and forever and fore-always
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it's in the way you wanted me....
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On August 01 2014 16:51 son1dow wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2014 14:57 PoorPotato wrote: <...>let me disrespect philosophy pls <...> Hey, what about if you disrepsected any reasoning for ethical rights? What if you mocked any person with actual political views? What if you were ignorant of the philosophy of science and denied the scientific method's usefulness? What if you used your pride in this ignorance to deny or confirm basically anything you want, so basically was a proud anti-intellectual? (I mean, go ahead and dislike it yourself. But do it the same way kids hate math - they don't say they don't respect it, because they'll be laughed at by everyone.)
There are people who are immoral and unethical. There are people who mock people with political views (I'm not sure what you mean by "actual political views" as distinct from "political views" but it doesn't matter). There are people who are ignorant of philosophy and science and who deny the scientific method's usefulness.
There are people who take pride in ignorance and conform to anything that somebody else wants them to do.They're called followers of organized religions or patriots.
What's wrong with being laughed at by everyone? Why must I or anyone else strive to be liked or to have fame or to do as others tell us? Why do you feel that people must like you, and that everyone else should strive and work and adapt so that people like them as well? The answer is probably because you want to be liked and respected and to be famous (everyone wants to be famous!) and that's fine, that's your game, but it doesn't have to be done.
It's like if I was a physicist and I saw a man who was bragging that he hadn't ever been to school and didn't believe in gravity and therefore didn't respect it. I could stop and insist that he MUST respect gravity, that he must learn Newton's laws and that if he didn't he would be very lost and stupid indeed and that something must be done about his ignorance! The man would give me a confused look and perhaps hit me, and my comments would fall flat. So it is with philosophy, or any subject, not everyone respects it.
Do you fault a rooster for not respecting philosophy? Of course you don't, it has no impact on the creature's life and he would rather drag his head through the mud and fuck hens. So with people, they don't care and would rather do other things, and that's the state of affairs, there's nothing you can do about it, and so it isn't a problem. It's only a problem if you say that there is a problem and that things should be different.
You would do better, I think, to look at what is in the world, the ignorance, the hate, the violence, the sadness, the systematic failings of education and of the media, and stop making up what should be (i.e. "Everyone should respect philosophy, everyone should have lots of money and a car and a house, and food on the table and a happy family with loving friends, etc") because when you look at what is, uncorrupted by what should be, then you see reality clearly and are free of illusions. Or don't, if you want to look at the world in a way that is different from how it actually is, then that's entirely your prerogative as well. Cheers mate
P.S. I don't disrespect philosophy. In fact, I'm a philosophy major. But that doesn't prevent me from defending people who disrespect philosophy.
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I think the reason philosophy is so disregarded is because it does not help people anymore. It has just turned into a sort of mental masturbation without much practical application. Back in the day the Romans and Greeks(and many others) actually developed philosophies that were meant to better people's lives, to help people live meaningful lives in which they tried to ascribe value to objects appropriately. For example, Stoicism, cynicism, hedonism, all offered people with a way to make meaningful decisions. These types of movements have largely replaced by religions IMO because of similarities. However the the concept of god and afterlife have kind of overshadowed the actual philosophies.
It is not that one philosophy of life is superior to another, but that having no philosophy of life can lead to a lack of fulfillment and purpose, and more importantly will cast doubt on ones own actions. So basically, the shift from philosophy trying to help people to just pondering questions without much practical application has lead to it's tarnished reputation IMO.
According to Epicurus, " vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man"
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I think you're arguing in a vacuum. Things that have intrinsic value still need significant respect from the outside to be 'okay' to pursue, to be enjoyable. Change the subject to the intrinsic value and disrespect in avant-garde art, and you can easily imagine how social expectations and reactions can be very important for a poor, unappreciated avant-garde student, even if most of what he wants to do is to dive into art fully.
This is besides the fact that underlooking philosophy is an actual problem in science, and even more so, with people in general (gullibility, seeing only from your POV, not copmprehending arguments, ethical thinking... everything and more can be helped with philosophy).
I agree with OP.
Why does an action need to be respected by others to be enjoyable? When a dog humps someone's leg or rolls around in the mud or licks his own penis, people generally don't respect him for it and they don't think that what he is doing is a worthwhile pursuit, particularly amongst the cultural elite. But watch the dog, there he goes, licking his own penis happily! Don't say that this dog isn't enjoying himself!
Or perhaps you want a human example. People generally don't respect people with insect fetishes or people who fuck sheep, but that doesn't prevent these people from thoroughly enjoying what they do, which is putting insects on their genitals and fucking sheep respectively.
Or perhaps you'd like an example of a career. People generally don't respect esports and streaming careers ("What is it you do? People watch you play computer games all day? Get real! You need to work a horrible 60 hour a week office job that I hate like me to be a respectable human being!") but that doesn't prevent the career from being fun or rewarding or worth doing or, to use your words, "from having intrinsic value". Some people even kill people for fun! And it is people's general consensus that this is a bad idea and that it isn't respectable, but this doesn't prevent sociopaths from cutting up young women and wearing their skin as coats.
What do you mean something needs to be respected by people generally to have intrinsic value?! This is most certainly not the case. It may be the case for you, because you feel that you need to be respected and to have a "valuable" career, whatever the fuck that means, but this is an illusion that you have conjured up in your head and it isn't in accordance with reality. That's quite alright, you are entitled to your illusions, but I submit to you humbly, sir, that this is where you are incorrect.
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On August 02 2014 13:31 NerZhuL wrote: I think the reason philosophy is so disregarded is because it does not help people anymore. It has just turned into a sort of mental masturbation without much practical application.
the only solution to this is to do it yourself
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@PoorPotato: I don't think you disagree at all with the OP, since I don't think he equates people liking something with it being valuable. The question was whether philosophy does have any value or not - and if so, what kind of value. If it does have value, then pursuing it just for the sake of it can be good, but if it does not have any value at all, then pursuing it is a waste of time. Likewise: if the only kind of value philosophy has were to be economic, then pursuing it for its aesthetic value would be misguided.
It's true that he doesn't equate people liking something with it being valuable, but he writes that,
Though "academics" (professors, etc.) have been more sympathetic to the budding philosophy student, others outside academia seem to maintain quite a negative attitude. This is where I find fault.
So he finds fault with people who "maintain a negative attitude", whatever that means, towards philosophy, and what I wrote addressed that.
To understand your question of whether or not philosophy has value, we must understand what we mean by valuable. The root of the word is french and is related to "valor" in English, meaning the importance or worth or usefulness of something. This implies that somethings are valuable and others are not valuable. Surely by this definition then gold is valuable and dirt is not, so let's run with this.
Well, where do you draw the line between valuable and not valuable? You may say that dirt is not valuable and that gold is, but then without dirt you have nothing on which to stand or to build a house. So even dirt has some value or some worth or some usefulness.
Furthermore, gold certainly does have usefulness because you can make rings and things with it, and it is worth money (which is of course traded for other things with value or use"). But what use is gold to a cat? Or to a tree? If there was a mass extinction of human beings and we all died, would gold have value? If not, then it has no value of itself, it only has the value which we give it.
Of course it is impossible to draw the line between useful and useless, between valuable and not valuable. If we say that anything has value if it has some value to it, then there is nothing in the world that is not valuable. If we say that anything is valueless if it has some quality of valuelessness to it, then there is nothing in the world that is not valuable. If we say that anything has usefulness if it has some quality of usefulness to it, then there is nothing in the world that is not useful. If we say that anything in the world is useless if it has quality of uselessness to it, then there is nothing in the world that is not useless.
It's like if I have a tiny stone or a boulder. From the point of view of man, the boulder is quite large indeed, and the pebble is quite small. But from the point of view of a mosquito, the pebble is quite large. And from the point of view of an enormous elephant or a vulture way up high, the boulder is quite small.
Which point of view is right? Well obviously they're all right, in the same way that relativity is right in describing the movement of massive celestial bodies, at the big scale, and quantum mechanics is right in describing the universe at a subatomic level, at the small scale. Which theory of physics is correct? Obviously, they're both correct!
Think of a tribal chieftain in the dawn of mankind who fought hard to become the chief, killing his kinsmen and leaders of opposing tribes or whatever he had to do, and how valuable the position was to him at that time. Now it has no value, it is nothing! But at that time it was the most valuable thing in the world to him. Or think of how valuable the palace of King Tutankamun of Egypt was to him and to his kingdom. He has died and now it has no value, it is nothing! But at that time it was among the most valuable things in the world.
So, when you see that there is no line that can be drawn between valuable and valueless, worthy and not worthy, then you cease to worry about if something is going to be enjoyable or not enjoyable, economically valuable or economically not valuable, because obviously both are the case!
You mentioned that a pursuit could be "a waste of time", with the clear implication that wasting time is something to be avoided. What is time for but to be wasted? What is your life or my life or the lives of all creatures on this planet in a million years? I could die right now and in the grand scheme of things nothing would be different. Our lives are nothing, and it was all a "waste" in that sense.
But right now, obviously we are what all there is, you, me and the rest of humanity, and so we are important and valuable because we are the only thing that there is and everything we do therefore is valuable, valuable to us certainly, because we are what there is on the planet right now and we are alive and isn't it all so great! It So the entirety of each life is simultaneously a waste of time and the only thing that there is. What an extraordinary discovery! Therefore all argument about what is or is not valuable comes to an end, because everything is both valuable and not valuable, and further, everything is both of two opposites.
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I think you misunderstood me... I never said people should or need to like philosophy? I only ask that they respect it. For example, I do not particularly like or enjoy math, but I certainly respect it and those who study it. I'm not asking for anything but recognition as an equally useful human being which, I think, is a very fair request.
Why do you need respect from people like a starving man needs food? Is "equally useful human being" some concrete thing that you need to get, or is it just words on a page? The power you give to words is dangerous, you are like the 5 year old whose brother calls him a "sissy". To him, this is a most scornful epithet, and he thinks it is a very fair request for him to make, that brother should calling him a sissy. But who cares! It's just a word. Nothing happens.
As long as you are seeking and begging and searching for respect from everyone, including the ignorant and hateful and bigoted and stupid and those who don't respect what you respect, you will always have a problem because you can't make ignorant, hateful, bigoted, and stupid people go away. Quit seeking their respect, because you won't get it! The solution is instead to see that you don't need it, and after that the problem goes away.
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What do you get when you cross an Existentialist and a Zen Buddhist?
+ Show Spoiler +
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What do you get when you cross an Existentialist and a Zen Buddhist?
- Hide Spoiler - A PoorPotato!
Don't forget Zhuangzi!
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On August 02 2014 08:52 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 05:50 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 04:35 MoonfireSpam wrote:On August 02 2014 04:05 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 03:02 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 02:30 GeckoXp wrote:On August 02 2014 01:50 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote: However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. No. Not because of the claim you are trying to make (to give "theory" a more solid epistemological force). But a "fact" is a much dumber thing than a theory. A "fact" is something like "the sun keeps rising." A "theory" has to explain why. If you reduce "theory" to "fact" you make "theory" a much less powerful entity, which is not what you are trying to do here. Following your logic, there's nothing we can ever know. I guess it'd help you out a lot if you'd actually talk to someone with a better grasp of empirical procedures, rather than getting your knowledge from hilariously overcomplicated texts. No, I haven't said that, nor do I believe that. Try harder. That doesn't even respond to the thing I said that you're quoting. Nor does what you write respond to things others said prior to you. You don't have any clue whatsoever about what the difference between a fact, an observation and a theory is. Argueing with people not having an idea of what they're talking about makes no sense. I hope you at least feel smart. I think the points that was trying to be made (and very valid) are: An observation is only as good as your instrumentation / conditions. There may be factors messing with your observations you are unaware of. (as in the example of dropping a rock. It goes "down" but is also moving laterally at the speed of rotation of the Earth - but so are your instruments, so alll you measure is motion of the rock relative to the observer). A theory is the mechanics you think are behind said observation, however flawed observations can falsely validate theories. (you could use that observation of the rock dropping to "disprove" that the Earth spins). Because you obviously can't account for the unknown factors, it takes a lot (or should take a lot) for something to become "fact" i.e. a proven theory. This stuff more applies to things from the last 300 or so years. For example when they found trilobyte fossils at the top of mountains, the two theories were: Mass flooding (popular opinion), Plate tectonics (dismissed for ages). Through further examination and observation of rock types etc. the reverse became the case and the prevailing dogma was broken. I think the other point is that because you don't know the unknown, you will never know when you have a "complete" understanding however well a current theory is supported. That is one of the values of philosophy (but has now sortof become "scientific method"). No, he did not write this, and I assume he didn't mean this either. This is a stereotypical discussion in gaming boards, he desperately wants to be right, probably because he got mocked for his views by (natural) scientists somewhen in his life. I can totally relate to that, yet it doesn't help it. Someone already pointed it out, there are tight definitions of what a theory is, what is counted as observation, how any observation can be interpreted and so on and so forth. This is the basic stuff you get taught and learn from day 1. He completely throws around terms, which he doesn't understand, then proceeds to to mock people, who're not used to discussing topics like this in a foreign language. Obviously, we can not help but lose here. Not saying I have experience in this field either, or that I'd be good enough to really explain the difference between having assumptions and creating a theory, or stating a deterministic (natural) law. This is a long way and he portrays "science" as static, stubborn approach. Thing is, science itself is a very vague term. He quotes sources about Galilei, Kepler and others, yet I wouldn't classify them as scientists in a modern sense. Science, its methods and experiments changed and will change in the future. It's a self reflecting process. If it wasn't, the hysteria about not being able to rely on observations, rather than how they should be interpreted, would actually have a point. The way he presents his, whatever it is, let's call them theories, sound as if there's no way at all to approach any topic in any way. No assumption would be possible, there'd be no starting point, nor any reason in pursuing futher knowledge, because "we're too limited". There's the off change I did not understand his posts or the context; however, that'd be his problem, not mine. The second you are forced to derail by quoting ancient language, you lost. Can you point out which terms I don't understand and where I used foreign languages?
? My post wasn't about you. My post was about bookwyrm's useage of different terms, e.g. "facts" or theories. According to the few things I read by him, he mistook observation for facts and claimed that observations would be taken for facts, when nobody really uses the word fact to describe a single or multiple observations. Fact, just one of the examples of his quotes, would be something I use in every day language, but not whenever I try to research and make my point. I probably would not have posted, if he wouldn't use this against other posters, e.g. argueing whether or not "science" makes statements, but scientists. That's pure trolling and derailing.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 02 2014 07:58 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 06:56 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 06:18 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me. Sure, I'll agree to that. But will you agree that some things that were considered philosophical issues in the past are now part of some branch of science and do you agree that will continue to happen in the future? sure, that's obvious. however in most cases I would argue that the philosophical question has merely been pushed back and not eliminated. or has changed forms in some way. or has imploded upon itself opening up several more philosophical questions in its wake. but there's no way you're going to be able to proceed from an existential claim to a universal claim of this type (i.e. to proceed from "there is an instance in which P problems have become S problems" to "all P problems will eventually become S problems") - it's at best undecidable (but actually quite obviously false). Aren't you just calling my original point obvious? If you agreed with my previous post then you agree that science has in the past asked (and answered!) some of the philosophical questions and it will continue asking some of the philosophical questions and potentially answering them.
Sure, you can move the goalpost again and say that the philosophical question is still hiding somewhere in there (like asking endlessly a 'why' question), but we can just stop the discussion right here because you call philosophical questions those that don't have answers (those that do have been / will potentially be answered by science), I just call them a silly questions.
On August 02 2014 08:48 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 05:41 2Pacalypse- wrote: Didn't you learn in your first lesson in high school physics class that "theories can never be proven"? How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them? the statement "theories can never be proven" is not a theory but a logical necessity, if a theory is not falsifiable then it's not a scientific theory because you can't empirically test it and hence has no place in science. I think that statement has more to do with probabilities and less with logical necessities. But anyways, you didn't answer my question. Also, you've said that no respectable scientist would call a scientific theory a fact; I'd like to know why is that such a crime in everyday language that someone as esteemed as you would not respect someone's whole life work because of that.
On August 02 2014 10:49 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 04:42 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:22 koreasilver wrote: Honestly, at this point the problem with this thread isn't even really about the usefulness of philosophy or science or whathaveyou, but a far more simplistic and banal problem of people not even actually taking any of this actually seriously. If you're citing Dawkins, Harris, and Krauss you're basically showing the world that you don't study any of the relevant material seriously, especially the natural sciences, since you're throwing all your weight behind someone who hasn't done any work in his field for decades and is outdated in evolutionary biology, a charlatan who wrote an awful dissertation and is considered a joke in his field, and someone who talks endlessly on topics he has absolutely no training in and is a disgrace to his field. If the best you can do it constantly and endlessly refer only to these pop culture figures then I just can't take you seriously. It would be funny if it wasn't so exasperating that some of you, who like to have the pretense that you're "defending science and the scientific method" obviously are not scientists in any shape or form. This isn't really a problem of philosophy or science. It's a problem with education, ideological demagoguery, and an absurd lack of respect for real scholarship. I'm sorry we offended your highness up there on the throne surrounded by quotations of obscure philosophers. Us normal plebs, who are denied higher education in THE NATURAL SCIENCES, have to rely on pop culture figures to guide us. Nevermind the actual arguments being presented, unless you cite an authority on these issues, you're not taking it serious enough for me to even consider arguing with! There, I fixed it for you; better now? I wasn't even talking about philosophical scholarship in the post. And yes, I'm not going to take you seriously enough to even argue with. This is the same problem that plague(d) the economics threads and cause(d) endless headache for the actual economics students on this forum because of idiot gold-standard touting libertarians, who would ceaselessly link to youtube hacks and conspiratorial nonsense like the Zeitgeist series and other assorted Austrian crap, or leftists, for who the extent of their economic education was reading chapters of Naomi Klein. You didn't fix shit. You just found another way to feel superior to say "people I listen to are more important than people you listen to".
Would there be a difference if I didn't cite those pop culture figures as you call them, and instead quoted my friend Tom saying those exact same things? Would you again dismiss everything that was said because my friend Tom is not in your people I listen to book?
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@PoorPotato yeah but I felt the OP was really about value and so the rather flippant remark of him taking issue with people disliking it can be easily put into exactly that context: After all, it makes sense to reject something that has no value over something that does have value, but it makes no sense to reject something that does have value. The quotes that he uses in the first paragraph try to establish that philosophy has no value and so should be rejected. The OP finds fault with the rejection, but he cannot do that without questioning the underlying assumption that lead to this rejection. Your objection is fine though, since OP should have said "I take issue with them thinking x has no value and so rejecting it" rather than "I take issue with them rejecting it." This is because he goes on arguing that their rejection is unjustified rather than merely an expression of bad taste.
As for the part on value, you at first did seem to equate value with utility based on an etymological analysis of the word, but then have abandoned that in favour of arguing a kind of relativism that does not depend on any such equation. This is good, since the sole existence of certain etymological roots does not force us to change the meaning of the words as they are used today (think person vs persona, "decimate" etc). You could argue that we ought to do just that, namely understand modern words in terms of their etymological roots, but you would have to claim that those roots are somehow epistemically privileged, which I'm sure you recognize is a bit of a spurious endeavour, as most arguments for privilege tend to be. But since you abandon that, there's no problem with it and the rest of your argument is not based on any such thing.
You then argue that because some people value certain things and others do not, so therefore either everything has value "as such" as long as it was valued by someone or something at some point in time ("has the quality of valueableness") or nothing has value "as such" as long as it was not valued by someone or something at some point in time. Since this is absurd, you argue that it is better to think of a thing's value as determined by some person valuing it and reject the notion of value "as such" (just like whether a boulder is large depends on the person viewing it without there being largeness "as such"), since that would unfairly privilege one perspective over another.
I reject value "as such" for very similar reasons, even if I wouldn't make the reductio, since I don't think one can even argue that from "valuable for x" follows "valuable as such". But that doesn't commit me to the kind of relativism you argue for where "x is valuable (in some way)" and "x is not valuable (in the same way)" can both be true. This would only follow if we were to accept two additional premises, namely that (1) "x is valuable for y" leads to "x is valuable (in some way)" and (2) that "whether x is valuable (in some way) is determined by y valuing x" with a transitive relation between the two, so that the relativist (here: subjectivist) claim (3) would follow: "x is valuable for y if y values x". Since y valuing x establishes that x is being valued and so therefore valuable (in some way), but z not valuing x establishes that x is not being valued and so therefore not valuable (in the same way), so therefore "x is valuable (in some way) and "x is not valuable (in the same way)" would both be true, but only if we accept those two additional premises I mentioned.
The issue is that you implicitly accept the second premise, namely that there is no fact of the matter as to what is valuable, and instead take a person's evaluation of x as being the determinant of x's value. However, when I say "x has value (in some way, be it even 'valueable for me')", I could be wrong - the sole fact of me thinking x has value or treating it as if it had value does not make it so and vice versa, i.e. the sole fact that something has value does not mean that everyone is going to esteem it. After all, I could think that my post is of philosophical value even if in reality it sucks really hard, just as whether or not my poem is a good poem (has aesthetic value) does not depend on whether or not I think it is a good poem. Beethoven wrote music of great aesthetic value and if someone disagrees, then they have no idea what they are talking about. From the rejection of those statements follows your claim that something can only be said to have value if it was valued by someone, which you then use to draw the conclusion that there is nothing that has value independent of what we think. But that is exactly the thing you have to assume in order for that argument to work.
The same is true of the boulder analogy: Your analogy with largeness is good, but you'd have to establish that value and largeness have the same ontological status, but in order to do that you'd have to claim that there was no value "as such" and that all value is determined by the act of valuing, just as there is no largeness "as such" and that all largeness is determined by an act of comparison. So you would have to argue that there is nothing in value that would correspond to the actual height of the boulder instead of its largeness. If you make that claim, you then cannot use the boulder analogy to establish relativism since that would beg the question.
Since this post is already super long, I'm not going to get into my own arguments, but suffice to say that I do agree with you that there is no such thing as value "as such", but I think this is because there can be no value at all independent of prudential considerations (i.e. independent of what is good for us). This, however, does not commit me to relativism since I don't think "what is good for me" reduces to "what I think/desire/enjoy." It's something I poked OP about, who wants to argue exactly that, namely that philosophy does have value "as such" independent of prudential considerations. I'm looking forward to his follow up post because of that.
EDIT: Oops, didn't get to talk about wasting time. Maybe at some other time then.
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@PoorPotato
I don't argue that everyone MUST do this or that. I'm merely in the line of thinking that it's better:
1) When something is respected, it's easier, more enjoyable etc etc to pursue 2) Philosophy is valuable, we need as much of it (good philosophy and education in it, ofc) as we can. We also need less ignorance regarding philosophy, because it is running rampant 3) it is good if people respect philosophy, and it's bad if they don't
Ignoring this would be like ignoring our psychological nature, it's not about fame or anything else like that ( I'm not even a philosophy student myself, I barely have a dog in this game). The thing is, if people disrespect science, things will change. Progress will slow down, people will waste time & follow false idols. They'll get manipulated by the ignorant. Not respecting philosophy is the same, it's saying any reasoning is worthless, because any reasoning ultimately stems form philosophical roots. There's a great quote by Isaac Asimov:
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
You can go ahead and disrespect anything or live in a cave for all I care, but telling people than anything is as good as anything else is detrimental to all of us in the functioning society.
PS. I should add that I admire doing what you need without psychological support. It's just that you're applying the same standards to others, which obviously doesn't work because they're not amateur monks like you are.
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I don't argue that everyone MUST do this or that. I'm merely in the line of thinking that it's better:
1) When something is respected, it's easier, more enjoyable etc etc to pursue 2) Philosophy is valuable, we need as much of it (good philosophy and education in it, ofc) as we can. We also need less ignorance regarding philosophy, because it is running rampant 3) it is good if people respect philosophy, and it's bad if they don't
What do you mean by "better"? Better for what? Better for what you want the world to be like? You're looking at how you want the world to be and not how it actually is. Your intentions and analysis are no doubt noble and perhaps accurate, but the problem is this: when you say "the world should be this way but it isn't" you fail to see how things actually are, free of illusions and delusions and confusions, and then everything is a problem. Do you want to toil away and perhaps someday maybe solve a problem that you made up with words and logic and careful analysis, and which seems to have no end in sight, or do you want to simply not have the problem?
It's as if said to yourself, "We must arrange everything in this country so that it is all up" (or, in context, "Things always must be progressing, everyone and everything should be respected, society must be preserved and it must progress, this is good and that is bad and this good part must win! Or something terrible might happen!") I humbly submit to you sir, that this is as impossible of a problem as "We must have a piece of paper with a front and no back" or "Everything must always be increasing, and we must make it that way" or "I want a string with a right half and no left half, and if I don't get it, I'll be very upset indeed and rant about it on a forum somewhere!"
Can you see, sir, that progress and regression/stagnation give birth to each other? That you can't have one without the other? And in the same way, you can't ONLY have people that respect something, because if you did you wouldn't know that everyone was respecting it! This is because all knowledge is contrast, and so if you have nothing to contrast "respect" against (i.e. disrespect), then you can't possibly know what respect is! You need disrespecters to know that you are a respecter! You need those lowly ignorant heathens to know that you are a respectable, intelligent well-off man! Because if everyone was a respectable, intelligent, well-off man, then you would have nothing to contrast it against and so you wouldn't know that would anyone was respectable, intelligent, or well-off!
As long as you make up problems, there always will be problems. When you stop imaging them, they cease to be problems and you accept what actually is happening. This is what I mean when I say "Don't look at what should be, look at what is." You say "this is better than that, and we must do this or something terrible will happen! We really should do and really need to do this!" (also, saying that "this is better than that" is exactly the same as saying "we must do this, or we'll get the short end of the stick and won't that be horrible!") If you say that this is so, then it is so! But if you don't, then it isn't so! Please sir, can you see that?
There's no moralism in this; you can have all the problems you want and it won't bother anything one bit. But if you see that the source of all problems is in words and thoughts, then wouldn't you just stay away from them, as a child learns that the fire burns him, and so he stays away? Put your hand in the fire if you like, that's entirely your right, sir, but when your hand becomes very swollen and burned understand that you can take it out.
But some people love to have their hand in the fire. This addresses your point that I am urging everyone to give up their problems and restrictions that they put on themselves. This is not at all what I say! Get burned if you like, that's your game! And it can be a very fun game indeed ("Watch out, Louis! Don't get burned! You've gotta win and you can't lose, or else!")! But you don't have to play.
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+ Show Spoiler +@PoorPotato yeah but I felt the OP was really about value and so the rather flippant remark of him taking issue with people disliking it can be easily put into exactly that context: After all, it makes sense to reject something that has no value over something that does have value, but it makes no sense to reject something that does have value. The quotes that he uses in the first paragraph try to establish that philosophy has no value and so should be rejected. The OP finds fault with the rejection, but he cannot do that without questioning the underlying assumption that lead to this rejection. Your objection is fine though, since OP should have said "I take issue with them thinking x has no value and so rejecting it" rather than "I take issue with them rejecting it." This is because he goes on arguing that their rejection is unjustified rather than merely an expression of bad taste.
As for the part on value, you at first did seem to equate value with utility based on an etymological analysis of the word, but then have abandoned that in favour of arguing a kind of relativism that does not depend on any such equation. This is good, since the sole existence of certain etymological roots does not force us to change the meaning of the words as they are used today (think person vs persona, "decimate" etc). You could argue that we ought to do just that, namely understand modern words in terms of their etymological roots, but you would have to claim that those roots are somehow epistemically privileged, which I'm sure you recognize is a bit of a spurious endeavour, as most arguments for privilege tend to be. But since you abandon that, there's no problem with it and the rest of your argument is not based on any such thing.
You then argue that because some people value certain things and others do not, so therefore either everything has value "as such" as long as it was valued by someone or something at some point in time ("has the quality of valueableness") or nothing has value "as such" as long as it was not valued by someone or something at some point in time. Since this is absurd, you argue that it is better to think of a thing's value as determined by some person valuing it and reject the notion of value "as such" (just like whether a boulder is large depends on the person viewing it without there being largeness "as such"), since that would unfairly privilege one perspective over another.
I reject value "as such" for very similar reasons, even if I wouldn't make the reductio, since I don't think one can even argue that from "valuable for x" follows "valuable as such". But that doesn't commit me to the kind of relativism you argue for where "x is valuable (in some way)" and "x is not valuable (in the same way)" can both be true. This would only follow if we were to accept two additional premises, namely that (1) "x is valuable for y" leads to "x is valuable (in some way)" and (2) that "whether x is valuable (in some way) is determined by y valuing x" with a transitive relation between the two, so that the relativist (here: subjectivist) claim (3) would follow: "x is valuable for y if y values x". Since y valuing x establishes that x is being valued and so therefore valuable (in some way), but z not valuing x establishes that x is not being valued and so therefore not valuable (in the same way), so therefore "x is valuable (in some way) and "x is not valuable (in the same way)" would both be true, but only if we accept those two additional premises I mentioned.
The issue is that you implicitly accept the second premise, namely that there is no fact of the matter as to what is valuable, and instead take a person's evaluation of x as being the determinant of x's value. However, when I say "x has value (in some way, be it even 'valueable for me')", I could be wrong - the sole fact of me thinking x has value or treating it as if it had value does not make it so and vice versa, i.e. the sole fact that something has value does not mean that everyone is going to esteem it. After all, I could think that my post is of philosophical value even if in reality it sucks really hard, just as whether or not my poem is a good poem (has aesthetic value) does not depend on whether or not I think it is a good poem. Beethoven wrote music of great aesthetic value and if someone disagrees, then they have no idea what they are talking about. From the rejection of those statements follows your claim that something can only be said to have value if it was valued by someone, which you then use to draw the conclusion that there is nothing that has value independent of what we think. But that is exactly the thing you have to assume in order for that argument to work.
The same is true of the boulder analogy: Your analogy with largeness is good, but you'd have to establish that value and largeness have the same ontological status, but in order to do that you'd have to claim that there was no value "as such" and that all value is determined by the act of valuing, just as there is no largeness "as such" and that all largeness is determined by an act of comparison. So you would have to argue that there is nothing in value that would correspond to the actual height of the boulder instead of its largeness. If you make that claim, you then cannot use the boulder analogy to establish relativism since that would beg the question.
Since this post is already super long, I'm not going to get into my own arguments, but suffice to say that I do agree with you that there is no such thing as value "as such", but I think this is because there can be no value at all independent of prudential considerations (i.e. independent of what is good for us). This, however, does not commit me to relativism since I don't think "what is good for me" reduces to "what I think/desire/enjoy." It's something I poked OP about, who wants to argue exactly that, namely that philosophy does have value "as such" independent of prudential considerations. I'm looking forward to his follow up post because of that.
EDIT: Oops, didn't get to talk about wasting time. Maybe at some other time then.
If you please, sir, why do you make the distinction between "value as such" and "valuable for x"? They are the same! There can't just be a thing which has value without an environment, without things around it, and so the x is always present, and the object in question is never with out the "for x", and so this idea of "value as such" or "inherent value" is entirely conjured up as a thought experiment, it is imaginary. Perhaps this is what is meant by "arguing in a vacuum", or in a world without surroundings (Indeed, how do you know what a thing is? You only know it as distinct from other things, or from its environment!) Due to the imaginary nature of this thing without other things, different people hold different beliefs about it and make up different proofs for it, and that is why people are in constant logical disagreement and confusion and strife and argument over what it means exactly.
It's as if a guy called Steve said a unicorn is a brown creature with one spiral horn, and a guy called Kyle denounced this as utter hogwash and that actually it is white with one cone-shaped horn. Of course there is disagreement, the thing itself doesn't exist! And so in the same way, disputes over "value as such" and its nature are completely unavoidable.
From this we can see that if there is dispute over something, then neither side can be right, because if "right" really was right, it would be so unmistakably distinguishable from "wrong" that there could be no argument! And if "wrong' really was wrong, it would be so unmistakably distinguishable from "right" that there could be no argument! When you see a tree, you don't argue with your friend about if it's a tree or not, because obviously it is so, it's right there in front of you plain as day! The only thing that you do argue about is its classification, its use, its value, who should or should not respect it, and all the rest of the unending talk of logicians and thinkers.
You say that I or anyone can be "wrong" about if something is useful to me or not, and that I have to know what is good for me or what I enjoy or what I desire in order for something to be useful. Please, let's look at an example.
If I find a moldy old pinecone on the ground with ants crawling around in it and which smells vaguely of piss, and I thoroughly enjoy sticking it up my ass, isn't that useful to me? Obviously it is, and obviously I can't be "wrong" about it either. What is this standard to which you compare my evaluation? Is it your evaluation? Is it someone else's evaluation? How can we find out? Shall we ask another man who agrees with you? If he agrees with you, then how can we know his evaluation was fair? Shall we ask a man who agrees with me? If he agrees with me then how can we know that his evaluation was fair? Shall we ask a man who agrees with neither of us? If he agrees with neither of us, then how can we know that his evaluation was fair? Shall we ask a man who agrees with both of us? If he agrees with both of us, how can we know that his evaluation was fair?
At the end of this interminable argument and confusion and misunderstanding, we don't come any closer to any type of truth or idea of what right or wrong are. Indeed, where can you draw the line between right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable? And who is to decide this absolute truth? You? Me? A hampster? A cactus? From the point of view of "me", that which preserves me, my desires, and all the rest is "right" or "acceptable" and that which destroys me, my desires, and all the rest is "wrong" or "unacceptable". And again, if we say that something is acceptable if something has a certain quality of acceptableness to it, then there is nothing that is not acceptable! And again if we say that something is unacceptable if it has a certain quality of unacceptableness to it, then there is nothing that is not unacceptable!
Going back to the moldy pinecone analogy, must I think "oh yes I desire and enjoy this thing, it is good for me!" for the thing to be useful? Obviously not, I just use it and enjoy it and its usefulness! The trouble here is that you stipulate that I must first say "this is useful" for it to be useful to me. Does beaver have to say "This wood is useful to me, and so it is good for me to use it and I desire to use it and I enjoy using it!"? Or what about a starving dog when he finds freshly found meat? Must he say anything? Of course not, he just uses it! And in the same way if something is useful to me, I don't have to think about its usefulness, I just use it.
You say that I need to correct my boulder analogy with clarification regarding comparison the values of things. How can you understand the value of something without comparison, that is, without any terms with which to understand it?
The only way you know anything is in terms of something else. For example, you know that a road 200 miles long is a long way only because you can put it in terms something you do know, which is miles, and you only know miles in terms of something else, maybe an experience walking a mile or something like that, and only know the experience of walking a mile in terms of the breeze at your back, the soreness in your feet after walking such a distance, or whatever, and so on! There is again no knowledge "as such", it is entirely made up, like the tooth fairy and this is why there is so much argument about it!
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If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university. It is a highly debated topic with regard to moral realism, objective aesthetical value, knowledge contextualism/relativism/invariantism, etc. Take the philpapers survey for example:
39% believe there are platonic abstract objects 41% believe there are objective aesthetic values 31% believe in knowledge invariantism 56% accept or tend to moral realism ...
Also a standard problem for "The only way you know anything is in terms of something else" is qualia. If you are in pain, you know that you are in pain. There is nothing more needed than being in pain, to know that you experience pain. Pain is not understood in terms of something else. There are workarounds for this (functionalism could be used to do that, for example), but I did not came across one that I found convincing.
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From this we can see that if there is dispute over something, then neither side can be right, because if "right" really was right, it would be so unmistakably distinguishable from "wrong" that there could be no argument! And if "wrong' really was wrong, it would be so unmistakably distinguishable from "right" that there could be no argument! From the sole fact that people disagree about something doesn't mean that there can be no right or wrong answer about it. There is plenty of disagreement about plain matters of fact.
You say that I or anyone can be "wrong" about if something is useful to me or not, and that I have to know what is good for me or what I enjoy or what I desire in order for something to be useful. I have never said anything about usefulness, except that you can't reduce value to utility based on some etymological argument about the word "value". But let's just accept that for the sake of argument. You then say that you don't have to evaluate something as useful for it to be useful, which I of course agree with because anything else would be the kind of relativism you were arguing for in your previous post. It is therefore surprising to me that you say something like utility (and I guess value) does not depend on whether or not we think or treat it as useful, since that also undermines your claim that we cannot be wrong about something being useful/valuable.
And again, if we say that something is acceptable if something has a certain quality of acceptableness to it, then there is nothing that is not acceptable! And again if we say that something is unacceptable if it has a certain quality of unacceptableness to it, then there is nothing that is not unacceptable! I've already addressed that and I'm rather disappointed that you ignored it. I'm generally a bit disappointed by the quality of your reply, seeing as your first post made some good points, but here you actually write things like 'valuable for x = value as such' with 'value as such' being imaginary but 'valuable for x' being 'always present'.
You say that I need to correct my boulder analogy with clarification regarding comparison the values of things. How can you understand the value of something without comparison, that is, without any terms with which to understand it? The point was not to ask for a correction of your analogy "with clarification regarding comparison the values of things", but rather pointing out that it's begging the question. You assume value is like the largeness of the boulder rather than the height of the boulder and then draw the conclusion that there is no value "as such", which is the thing you already assumed as a premise by saying that it is like the largeness instead of the height.
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On August 02 2014 18:47 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 07:58 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 06:56 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 06:18 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me. Sure, I'll agree to that. But will you agree that some things that were considered philosophical issues in the past are now part of some branch of science and do you agree that will continue to happen in the future? sure, that's obvious. however in most cases I would argue that the philosophical question has merely been pushed back and not eliminated. or has changed forms in some way. or has imploded upon itself opening up several more philosophical questions in its wake. but there's no way you're going to be able to proceed from an existential claim to a universal claim of this type (i.e. to proceed from "there is an instance in which P problems have become S problems" to "all P problems will eventually become S problems") - it's at best undecidable (but actually quite obviously false). Aren't you just calling my original point obvious? If you agreed with my previous post then you agree that science has in the past asked (and answered!) some of the philosophical questions and it will continue asking some of the philosophical questions and potentially answering them.
No, we don't agree. see the last ten pages. we can go back to the bit where I ask you for an example of an experiment and you spend five posts trying to avoid it, if you like
you provided a list of philosophical questions yourself, none of which can be "asked" in a well formed manner by science. make an experiment that asks one of those questions, and I'll concede defeat. I thought I had you licked but you seem to have forgotten overnight that you lost.
you want to divide questions into a) scientific questions and b) silly questions. here's a question: Should I punch you in the face? It's not a particularly silly questions. Nor can you use science to answer it. You lose man, sorry.
edit: also I've already addressed the points. please go back and read my last post, specifically about "proceeding from an existential to a universal claim". That rebuts your most recent post in advance. Since only stubborn people who don't read are left arguing with me, I'm unsubscribing, I think i've made my point and the fun is running out.
On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote: If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university
no you wouldn't, we already had the 70s, saying those things is just a cliche
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PoorPotato, I rest my case where my claim is more than enough to convice any normal person as it should. Arguing about whether value exists with a monk-like person doesn't come into it, so whatever.
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On August 03 2014 01:31 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote: If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university no you wouldn't, we already had the 70s, saying those things is just a cliche
It is not about saying this things, it is about actually and convincingly showing that they are true. The debate is still really big in academic philosophy currently. It's just that noone has an overwhelmingly convincing argument for either side.
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On August 03 2014 01:39 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 01:31 bookwyrm wrote:On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote: If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university no you wouldn't, we already had the 70s, saying those things is just a cliche It is not about saying this things, it is about actually and convincingly showing that they are true. The debate is still really big in academic philosophy currently. It's just that noone has a overwhelmingly convincing argument for either side.
ah ok. I don't like academic philosophers I think they are pretty much useless. There's obviously no way to "prove" anything like that, if they are really engaged in that activity I think they are a waste of space.
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On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote:If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university. It is a highly debated topic with regard to moral realism, objective aesthetical value, knowledge contextualism/relativism/invariantism, etc. Take the philpapers survey for example: 39% believe there are platonic abstract objects 41% believe there are objective aesthetic values 31% believe in knowledge invariantism 56% accept or tend to moral realism ... Also a standard problem for "The only way you know anything is in terms of something else" is qualia. If you are in pain, you know that you are in pain. There is nothing more needed than being in pain, to know that you experience pain. Pain is not understood in terms of something else. There are workarounds for this (functionalism could be used to do that, for example), but I did not came across one that I found convincing.
You do only do know pain in terms of other things! You sense pain in your arm and say "my arm hurts." You only know that as distinct from "my arm doesn't hurt", because sometimes it hurts and other times it doesn't.
Do you mean that you can't put pain in words, into a string of symbols and characters, is that the concept of qualia? Well in that case, I can't put the color red in words, I can't put it into terms in that respect, but that doesn't certainly mean that I don't know what red is or that there is some absolute "red" out there, "as such", somewhere without any creature to sense it. In fact, I know red as distinct from green and blue and all the other colors! It's that one! Not this other one!
The word "qualia" itself means "what kind", and so the very term itself implies the very distinction and classification that is central to the topic at hand! It's this kind, not that kind! That is contrast, with each side put into terms of the other side. I know that this is a red apple because that is a green apple, and they look quite different. I know that this rock is hard because my dog is soft, and they look quite different. I know this is wine because that is vinegar, and they taste quite different. Light is only light in relation to the darkness under that desk over there, or whatever other darkness!
In fact, without eyes there wouldn't be any light, or indeed any darkness. It's exactly that age old question, "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it makes a sound?" Well, certainly pressure waves, which we call sound waves, ripple out from the place and travel through the air, but without ears there is no sound. Never was there ever the sensation of sound, or just sound, all by itself without a creature to hear it (or, put another way, to distinguish it from silence). And there isn't any sensation of silence all by itself either, or just silence, without a creature to distinguish it from sound because there must be ears for there to be silence.
Sound and light themselves are waves, they are "on-offs", "crest-waves", "up-downs", or whatever you want to call it. The very vibration, with one side in terms of the other side exactly like Booleans or binary in computer science, creates in the nervous system a sensation of this as distinct from that, as red as distinct from blue or whatever.
Most people feel a constant effect of air pressure squeezing down on them their whole lives, having never gone up to a high mountain or into some other low pressure environment, and so they never know what the other sensation is until they feel it. Once they have felt it, they know it as distinct from that other feeling with the heavy air weighing down on me. The same is true of the kinesthetic sense, your sense of balance and weight, you know the feeling of accelerating (down from gravity or forward from running or forward from a car or whatever) as distinct from the feeling of not accelerating, each one in terms of its opposite.
Until the other sensation is felt, it's impossible to know it's really there. Take for example a fish that spends its entire life underwater it doesn't know what it's like to be in air, or in water, until it is fished out onto a boat. Then it can distinguish between the two sides in terms of one another. Or examine the case of a man born deaf who, upon being assigned a hearing aid, hears sound for the first time. He doesn't know silence or sound, but once he has heard sound, he knows that silence is that other sensation; he knows them in terms of one another.
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On August 02 2014 18:47 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 08:48 zulu_nation8 wrote:On August 02 2014 05:41 2Pacalypse- wrote: Didn't you learn in your first lesson in high school physics class that "theories can never be proven"? How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them? the statement "theories can never be proven" is not a theory but a logical necessity, if a theory is not falsifiable then it's not a scientific theory because you can't empirically test it and hence has no place in science. I think that statement has more to do with probabilities and less with logical necessities. But anyways, you didn't answer my question. Also, you've said that no respectable scientist would call a scientific theory a fact; I'd like to know why is that such a crime in everyday language that someone as esteemed as you would not respect someone's whole life work because of that.
It's the problem of induction, has nothing to do with probability. If you hypothesize all swans are white and find a million white swans to support the claim, you still will only need one black swan to disprove the theory. It's implicitly assuming a causal connection between future and past observations. What is your question? How do we prove the statement "theories can never be proven?" I just said it's not a theory but a deductive conclusion, made from the definition of theories, which is that they must be falsifiable.
It's not good to call theories facts because you see, science relies on concepts that aim to be accurate and operational. An evolutionary biologists calling evolution a fact is not a very scientific move, it rather seems dogmatic and sensationalist. More importantly, why did you make the claim in the first place? That scientific theories may as well be called facts in everyday language? Are you trying to say that society has such a high regard for scientific knowledge? If so, by bringing up a vague, anecdotal example? When you link me that wikipedia page, do you believe in it because that dude has a wikipedia page? Or did you examine the concepts of theory, fact, and evolution, before choosing to side with Goulding?
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On August 03 2014 01:43 PoorPotato wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote:If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university. It is a highly debated topic with regard to moral realism, objective aesthetical value, knowledge contextualism/relativism/invariantism, etc. Take the philpapers survey for example: 39% believe there are platonic abstract objects 41% believe there are objective aesthetic values 31% believe in knowledge invariantism 56% accept or tend to moral realism ... Also a standard problem for "The only way you know anything is in terms of something else" is qualia. If you are in pain, you know that you are in pain. There is nothing more needed than being in pain, to know that you experience pain. Pain is not understood in terms of something else. There are workarounds for this (functionalism could be used to do that, for example), but I did not came across one that I found convincing. You do only do know pain in terms of other things! You sense pain in your arm and say "my arm hurts." You only know that as distinct from "my arm doesn't hurt", because sometimes it hurts and other times it doesn't. Do you mean that you can't put pain in words, into a string of symbols and characters, is that the concept of qualia? Well in that case, I can't put the color red in words, I can't put it into terms in that respect, but that doesn't certainly mean that I don't know what red is or that there is some absolute "red" out there, "as such", somewhere without any creature to sense it. In fact, I know red as distinct from green and blue and all the other colors! It's that one! Not this other one! The word "qualia" itself means "what kind", and so the very term itself implies the very distinction and classification that is central to the topic at hand! It's this kind, not that kind! That is contrast, with each side put into terms of the other side. I know that this is a red apple because that is a green apple, and they look quite different. I know that this rock is hard because my dog is soft, and they look quite different. I know this is wine because that is vinegar, and they taste quite different. Light is only light in relation to the darkness under that desk over there, or whatever other darkness! In fact, without eyes there wouldn't be any light, or indeed any darkness. It's exactly that age old question, "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it makes a sound?" Well, certainly pressure waves, which we call sound waves, ripple out from the place and travel through the air, but without ears there is no sound. Never was there ever the sensation of sound, or just sound, all by itself without a creature to hear it (or, put another way, to distinguish it from silence). And there isn't any sensation of silence all by itself either, or just silence, without a creature to distinguish it from sound because there must be ears for there to be silence. Sound and light themselves are waves, they are "on-offs", "crest-waves", "up-downs", or whatever you want to call it. The very vibration, with one side in terms of the other side exactly like Booleans or binary in computer science, creates in the nervous system a sensation of this as distinct from that, as red as distinct from blue or whatever. Most people feel a constant effect of air pressure squeezing down on them their whole lives, having never gone up to a high mountain or into some other low pressure environment, and so they never know what the other sensation is until they feel it. Once they have felt it, they know it as distinct from that other feeling with the heavy air weighing down on me. The same is true of the kinesthetic sense, your sense of balance and weight, you know the feeling of accelerating (down from gravity or forward from running or forward from a car or whatever) as distinct from the feeling of not accelerating, each one in terms of its opposite. Until the other sensation is felt, it's impossible to know it's really there. Take for example a fish that spends its entire life underwater it doesn't know what it's like to be in air, or in water, until it is fished out onto a boat. Then it can distinguish between the two sides in terms of one another. Or examine the case of a man born deaf who, upon being assigned a hearing aid, hears sound for the first time. He doesn't know silence or sound, but once he has heard sound, he knows that silence is that other sensation; he knows them in terms of one another.
If we talk about philosophy, I think it is ok to use philosophical terminology. Qualia is philosophical terminology. For an introduction: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/
The colour example with red being distinct from other colours is pretty much part of the idea of functionalism, which I cited as a possible answer that I deem unconvincing. There is also a little part considering functionalism and qualia in the stanford article.
On August 03 2014 01:39 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 01:39 Prog wrote:On August 03 2014 01:31 bookwyrm wrote:On August 03 2014 00:49 Prog wrote: If you can actually and convincingly show that there cannot be a thing like "value as such", or "knowledge as such" you probably get a position at an ivy league university no you wouldn't, we already had the 70s, saying those things is just a cliche It is not about saying this things, it is about actually and convincingly showing that they are true. The debate is still really big in academic philosophy currently. It's just that noone has a overwhelmingly convincing argument for either side. ah ok. I don't like academic philosophers I think they are pretty much useless. There's obviously no way to "prove" anything like that, if they are really engaged in that activity I think they are a waste of space.
My point was just to say: look, there is a huge debate about "value as such" and "value for x" so stating that there is only "value for x" like it would be a truism is a bit too bold. Be modest.
But my rhetoric might have made it less clear than I intended it to be.
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have they made any progress on it since nicomachean ethics?
It's dumb to think about proving or disproving axioms. What you do is postulate the axiom and see what results. You can't answer the question "is there Value As Such", you say "what are the consequences of assuming that there is, versus that there isn't, and which set of consequences do we prefer?" then you pick the axioms that have the consequences you want.
even if you show that adopting some axiom leads to a contradiction, that doesn't "disprove" it unless you have an additional axiom that your system shouldn't have any contradictions in it.
anyway I'm not trying to pick a fight with you I might have come in halfway through some other conversation and misunderstood
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I actually don't know. Ethics is not my field of interest. I guess they have elevated the discussion in terms of arguments and tools (logic is way more advanced now), and if you are ready to call that progress, then yes. However, certainly noone found any proof, but that would probably be too high of a standard. And even though the majority of philosophers accept or tend to accept moral realism (according to the philpapers survey), I think it is not enough to call it a qualified majority. I'm not even sure if that gives us any reason to believe the moral realist arguments are stronger currently.
Overall I think you can answer a question "is there value as such". However, the answer is not achieved in a direct way and neither it is an answer that is certainly true, or proofed. I believe that inference to the best explanation is a tool that can be applied to it and a possible answer has then a status of being our best bet, considering the current evidence. And postulating axioms and checking the results can be part of infering to the best explanation. We cannot expect prooflike answers in philosophy. But I do think we can pick one answer out of all currently available ones and say "that seems to be the best one and therefore is the most likely true, compared to the others". If we do philosophy this way, then every single option we discard because it does not qualify as a good explanation is progress. Very very small, but still.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 03 2014 01:31 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 18:47 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 07:58 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 06:56 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 06:18 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 05:32 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 05:05 zulu_nation8 wrote: but theories... are not facts, and no respectable scientist would think they are. Good thing we have our respectable TL poster to tell us what respectable scientists think. Here, just read this article and you can see there are different definitions for things like fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory etc. And this is exactly the semantics discussion that I did not want to get into. On August 02 2014 05:09 bookwyrm wrote:On August 02 2014 04:51 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 04:33 bookwyrm wrote:not examples. I'm looking for experimental design here. all you've done is profess faith that science will someday answer certain questions, what I want is a very specific example of how you might go about using the scientific method to investigate philosophical questions. I want you to be very specific, that's the point like, imagine you are writing a "materials and methods" section in a lab report On August 02 2014 04:28 2Pacalypse- wrote: if you make some presumptions like "living is preferred to dying", "comfort is preferred to suffering" etc, science has a great deal to say. lol. "if you assume away the question, the question goes away." what if I disagree with your presumptions? that's the whole point. Like, it's more complicated than to say "comfort is better than suffering" for all sorts of obvious reasons. I might think that suffering is good because it builds character (i.e. I might be Seneca). I could think that comfort is meaningless without suffering. I could think that mankind deserves suffering because we have sinned against God. That's the whole question I'm trying to point out to you edit: also, I'm not "moving the goalposts.' I've been trying to get you to do the exact same thing for a few pages now, which you're avoiding. I've been quite consistent in what I'm asking for. Are you fucking serious? completely I said it quite clearly: "I didn't say science can answer philosophical questions, just that it can ask them." Asking a question is very easy. I even gave you some examples of asking them.
so now you are a personification of Science? You just asked questions in English, not science. Show me how science can ask the questions. In order to do that, you have to give some sort of hint of what an experiment would look like (otherwise, it's not "science"). Experiments are how you ask questions in science. If you don't have an experiment, it's not "science asking questions" Fine, I guess I should've used "scientists" instead of "science". You win. I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. but you recognize that not all things that scientists do is science, right? like, when scientists take a shit, it's not science, it's pooping. when scientists do philosophy, that doesn't make it science. If you're going to agree about THIS, i'm not sure why you were arguing with me. Sure, I'll agree to that. But will you agree that some things that were considered philosophical issues in the past are now part of some branch of science and do you agree that will continue to happen in the future? sure, that's obvious. however in most cases I would argue that the philosophical question has merely been pushed back and not eliminated. or has changed forms in some way. or has imploded upon itself opening up several more philosophical questions in its wake. but there's no way you're going to be able to proceed from an existential claim to a universal claim of this type (i.e. to proceed from "there is an instance in which P problems have become S problems" to "all P problems will eventually become S problems") - it's at best undecidable (but actually quite obviously false). Aren't you just calling my original point obvious? If you agreed with my previous post then you agree that science has in the past asked (and answered!) some of the philosophical questions and it will continue asking some of the philosophical questions and potentially answering them. No, we don't agree. see the last ten pages. we can go back to the bit where I ask you for an example of an experiment and you spend five posts trying to avoid it, if you like you provided a list of philosophical questions yourself, none of which can be "asked" in a well formed manner by science. make an experiment that asks one of those questions, and I'll concede defeat. I thought I had you licked but you seem to have forgotten overnight that you lost. I conceded that I should've used the word 'scientists' instead of 'science' because that's what I actually meant in my original statement. But then you basically agreed to my original statement, even though I didn't mean to say that at first. You said it's obvious that some issues that were part of the philosophy in the past are now part of the science. So the questions like "what is nature of water?" and "what is life?" that could be considered philosophical questions in the past are now answered by science.
But of course, you can continue saying that that is not science asking the philosophical questions, because the true philosophical question have just been pushed back deeper into the matter. And I can say I don't care what you say.
On August 03 2014 01:31 bookwyrm wrote: you want to divide questions into a) scientific questions and b) silly questions. here's a question: Should I punch you in the face? It's not a particularly silly questions. Nor can you use science to answer it. You lose man, sorry. I bet you felt alpha as fuck writing that.
On August 03 2014 01:43 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 18:47 2Pacalypse- wrote:On August 02 2014 08:48 zulu_nation8 wrote:On August 02 2014 05:41 2Pacalypse- wrote: Didn't you learn in your first lesson in high school physics class that "theories can never be proven"? How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them? the statement "theories can never be proven" is not a theory but a logical necessity, if a theory is not falsifiable then it's not a scientific theory because you can't empirically test it and hence has no place in science. I think that statement has more to do with probabilities and less with logical necessities. But anyways, you didn't answer my question. Also, you've said that no respectable scientist would call a scientific theory a fact; I'd like to know why is that such a crime in everyday language that someone as esteemed as you would not respect someone's whole life work because of that. It's the problem of induction, has nothing to do with probability. If you hypothesize all swans are white and find a million white swans to support the claim, you still will only need one black swan to disprove the theory. It's implicitly assuming a causal connection between future and past observations. What is your question? How do we prove the statement "theories can never be proven?" I just said it's not a theory but a deductive conclusion, made from the definition of theories, which is that they must be falsifiable. It's not good to call theories facts because you see, science relies on concepts that aim to be accurate and operational. An evolutionary biologists calling evolution a fact is not a very scientific move, it rather seems dogmatic and sensationalist. More importantly, why did you make the claim in the first place? That scientific theories may as well be called facts in everyday language? Are you trying to say that society has such a high regard for scientific knowledge? If so, by bringing up a vague, anecdotal example? When you link me that wikipedia page, do you believe in it because that dude has a wikipedia page? Or did you examine the concepts of theory, fact, and evolution, before choosing to side with Goulding? My question was "How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them?" after you said "oh ok i was not aware there is a definition of fact that says it could be false. Sounds like a useful distinction." (which I assumed was sarcastic reply; my bad if it wasn't). Not sure why you replied to bunch of stuff that I didn't even say.
I only linked you to that wikipedia page because you seemed to be unaware of different concepts between fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory (to be honest, I was too; that's precisely why I didn't want to get into this semantic discussion in the first place).
Also, good to know that an evolutionary biologist calling evolution a fact is not scientific (even though no one claimed it is). I'm sure no one in the field will consider him a respectable scientist because of that.
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I still don't understand the question, "How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them?" What facts are you talking about?
You claimed scientific theories are "facts" according to the definition of an evolutionary biologist, in an attempt to argue what? A fact in every scientific and philosophical field means a true statement, meaning there cannot be any doubt to its truth. The biologist would like to believe that because there is so much evidence supporting evolution, that it "may as well" be called a fact, which is a useless and unscientific distinction. More so, he's proclaiming an entire theory, which by definition cannot be absolutely certain, as fact, rather than defining observations, which are usually what scientific "facts" refer to.
Why did you bring up this evolution instead of something like, the earth is round? What do you think is closer to "fact"?
I don't know why you're still so defensive, I pointed out the reasons over and over why scientists should not refer to a theory such as evolution as "fact." Yet again, you ignore everything I type and instead respond sarcastically while appealing to authority.
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On August 03 2014 02:39 2Pacalypse- wrote: I only linked you to that wikipedia page because you seemed to be unaware of different concepts between fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory (to be honest, I was too; that's precisely why I didn't want to get into this semantic discussion in the first place).
No, I am aware, you don't seem to be, you still keep linking that biologist's "definition," which is not operational, as a "concept." It's not a scientific concept, it's a biased and dogmatic claim.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 03 2014 02:56 zulu_nation8 wrote: I still don't understand the question, "How would you go about proving the fact then and why do you think the same rule doesn't apply to them?" What facts are you talking about?
You claimed scientific theories are "facts" according to the definition of an evolutionary biologist, in an attempt to argue what? A fact in every scientific and philosophical field means a true statement, meaning there cannot be any doubt to its truth. The biologist would like to believe that because there is so much evidence supporting evolution, that it "may as well" be called a fact, which is a useless and unscientific distinction. More so, he's proclaiming an entire theory, which by definition cannot be absolutely certain, as fact, rather than defining observations, which are usually what scientific "facts" refer to.
Why did you bring up this evolution instead of something like, the earth is round? What do you think is closer to "fact"?
I don't know why you're still so defensive, I pointed out the reasons over and over why scientists should not refer to a theory such as evolution as "fact." Yet again, you ignore everything I type and instead respond sarcastically while appealing to authority. How is the question hard to understand. You said (probably sarcastically) that you were not aware that a fact could be false. I asked how would you go about proving that fact is true then and how is that different from "proving" a scientific theory.
And lol, you ask me why I'm so defensive after you decided to chip in into the discussion with your patronizing attitude and then continued to make sweeping statements that are only based on your dislike of a particular person I cited.
It's ironic that you accuse me of ignoring everything you read, because no, I did not claim what a definition of fact is, certainly not by appealing to a 1 minute long video of an authority. All I tried to say (before you decided to chip in), is that it's ok to use word fact for scientific theory in everyday language and no one would call you up on it. They certainly wouldn't claim that scientist shouldn't be respected if he does it.
On August 03 2014 03:01 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 02:39 2Pacalypse- wrote: I only linked you to that wikipedia page because you seemed to be unaware of different concepts between fact, theory, scientific fact, scientific theory (to be honest, I was too; that's precisely why I didn't want to get into this semantic discussion in the first place). No, I am aware, you don't seem to be, you still keep linking that biologist's "definition," which is not operational, as a "concept." It's not a scientific concept, it's a biased and dogmatic claim. Did we watch a separate video? Did you see anywhere in that video Richard Dawkins defining what a fact is? All I've seen is him using it as you would use it in an everyday language and the cameraman did *not* stop the shooting and called him out on what he meant by that, nor was he ostracized in scientific community for it. Shocker, I know.
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Usually mathematical facts are true "a priori" meaning before experience, for example you don't need to actually find triangular objects to "prove" the fact that a triangle has three sides. It stands as fact without any reference to the outside world. Similarly a physical "fact" is something like the sun rises from the east, it's a fact by induction, meaning that just because no one has ever seen the sun rise from the west, does not mean it cannot, but because there is such a strong link between the object and its phenomenon that for all practical purposes, physicists will refer to it as fact, which are not as strong as mathematical facts because they are determined "a posterori" or after experience.
In either case there is no proof needed, and no proof possible because they are true by default, hence why they are called facts. Theorems and postulates need and can be proved. If something needs to be proven then by definition it cannot be fact, because it is not obviously true.
The argument for evolution as "fact," from the wiki page, says that the abundant evidence supporting evolution is strong enough for the theory to be claimed as fact, and I'm assuming bringing it into the same class of other scientific theories such as that the earth rotates around the sun, or F = MA. Again, this is a ridiculous claim. By your own experience and knowledge, do you believe that any biological theory, let alone evolution, can claim as much certainty as a Newtonion law? I do not, and I can't fathom how anyone can unless they are fanatics.
I did not watch the Dawkins video, please link it again. I was talking about the wiki page you linked, not the video.
Let me draw up you argument.
You claimed: scientific theories may as well be called facts in everyday language. Which theories? How? What is "everyday language?" Why should it matter when we are talking about technical knowledge? You never answer, I doubt the Dawkins video will explain, but I will watch it. You are once again, appealing to authority, "just because Dawkins said, it becomes a valid claim." I gave actual reasons for why it's a bad claim. All you have done so far is point to biologists who claim the same thing, as if that makes your argument valid. Please make actual points instead of appealing to others.
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There's a Dawkiin quote in the article. It basically says "people are stupid, so instead of explaining them properly, we should tell them something simple And justify it on the base of our authority." I am unimpressed by that attitude.
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Guys 2pacalypse is just a rolled up hedgehog in defensive position. He's unable to honestly read and comprehend anything that threatens his ego. He still doesn't seem to understand the very basic questions he's been asked repeatedly. No point.
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Yeah a bit back seat moderation, but how about not being total douchebags. Looking at you IgnE and Zulu. There's some interesting reading in here, I hate having you read you guys shit it up with condesending comments that literally serve no purpose beyond showing you are cunts.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 03 2014 03:37 zulu_nation8 wrote: Usually mathematical facts are true "a priori" meaning before experience, for example you don't need to actually find triangular objects to "prove" the fact that a triangle has three sides. It stands as fact without any reference to the outside world. Similarly a physical "fact" is something like the sun rises from the east, it's a fact by induction, meaning that just because no one has ever seen the sun rise from the west, does not mean it cannot, but because there is such a strong link between the object and its phenomenon that for all practical purposes, physicists will refer to it as fact, which are not as strong as mathematical facts because they are determined "a posterori" or after experience.
In either case there is no proof needed, and no proof possible because they are true by default, hence why they are called facts. Theorems and postulates need and can be proved. If something needs to be proven then by definition it cannot be fact, because it is not obvious that there is no doubt it can be true.
The argument for evolution as "fact," from the wiki page, says that the abundant evidence supporting evolution is strong enough for the theory to be claimed as fact, and I'm assuming bringing it into the same class of other scientific theories such as that the earth rotates around the sun, or F = MA. Again, this is a ridiculous claim. By your own experience and knowledge, do you believe that any biological theory, let alone evolution, can claim as much certainty as a Newtonion law? I do not, and I can't fathom how anyone does unless they are fanatics.
I did not watch the Dawkins video, please link it again. I was talking about the wiki page you linked, not the video.
Let me draw up you argument.
You claimed: scientific theories may as well be called facts in everyday language. Which theories? How? What is "everyday language?" Why should it matter when we are talking about technical knowledge? You never answer, I doubt the Dawkins video will explain, but I will watch it. You are once again, appealing to authority, "just because Dawkins said, it becomes a valid claim." I gave actual reasons for why it's a bad claim. All you have done so far is point to biologists who claim the same thing, as if that makes your argument valid. Please make actual points instead of appealing to others.
No, let's go back to what I originally said and what started all this:
On August 02 2014 01:47 2Pacalypse- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2014 00:37 Prog wrote: PS: I always thought the difference of theory and hypothesis in physics were based on whether there is a mathematical framework that has not been falsified. I think there are (at least partially) mathematical frameworks for string theory, so I called it theory. If you can show me (with sources) why that is false, please do so. [I edited this last part sligthly] There's no really a rigid definition of the word "theory" nor is it used consistently, because each field tends to treat it differently. However, the most useful way of thinking about scientific theory in its truest sense would be to use the word "fact" in ordinary language. Here's a good discussion on string theory specifically: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/10rir2/is_string_theory_an_actual_scientific_theory/ I stand by it. I meant it in the most innocent way possible. I definitely didn't mean to start a philosophical discussion about it, but alas, I should've known better by posting in this thread. I got jumped on it for some ridiculous reasons and then somewhere along the way you decided to stop by and chip in without even reading what I said originally. It's like you artificially try to make an argument out of something that was supposed to be obvious, just for the sake of arguing and so you could somehow "win" that argument and feel happy about yourself (hey, that sounds a lot like philosophy!).
The reason why I'm not giving actual answers or arguments, is because I find this discussion absurd at this point and in the end, this is a semantics issue (something that I stressed out at the fucking beginning). Your explanation of facts is well received. However, when you ask someone on the street what they think 'facts' are, I doubt they would gave you that same definition. So... when they tell you "oh, but gravity is just a theory"; then you tell them "but scientist use the word theory much more seriously than you; think of it like this, gravity is a fact". Would that be such a wrong thing to say in your everyday life to a person who doesn't know better? Or would you start lecturing everyone about differences between scientific theories and facts and a priori this a posterori that?
You can accuse me all you want of arguing from authority, but explain to me why when Dawkins called evolution a 'fact' in that video it was obvious to everyone what he meant by it? And when I do it, I get jumped on and dragged into the endless discussion about inductions and logical necessities...
Omg, I can't even believe I'm discussing this. It's like the ultimate mental masturbation.
On August 03 2014 03:41 corumjhaelen wrote: There's a Dawkiin quote in the article. It basically says "people are stupid, so instead of explaining them properly, we should tell them something simple And justify it on the base of our authority." I am unimpressed by that attitude. Can you provide source on that? I'm really interested in what was actually said.
On August 03 2014 05:13 IgnE wrote: Guys 2pacalypse is just a rolled up hedgehog in defensive position. He's unable to honestly read and comprehend anything that threatens his ego. He still doesn't seem to understand the very basic questions he's been asked repeatedly. No point. Thank you for that expert analysis on the situation. It's very useful.
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which of my comments serve no purpose? All my accusations are grounded and I have not insulted anyone.
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2Pacalypse please do not play the victim card. If by a "semantics" argument you mean this is an argument about the correct definition of concepts, then yes it is, and it's absolutely relevant for this discussion. You keep saying you are giving a layman's definition of theory, which I honestly don't know how to respond to. In this case the layman would be wrong, and that you are participating in this discussion assumes that you should have more than a layman's, or a scientifically uneducated understanding of the terms you are using. Gravity is both a natural phenomenon and a theory based on observation. It would be wrong in any argument to confuse the meaning of the terms you are using simply because you meant it in an innocent way.
What I am trying to highlight is that your confusing of the terms theory and fact indicates a deeper misunderstanding of scientific concepts that you should not simply write off.
Why does Dawkins call evolution a fact in the video? Because he is an evolution fanatic who has no regard for operational definition and the history of science. It may be obvious to YOU that evolution is a fact, but it is not obvious to me, and I am confident that it should NOT be obvious to anyone who respects science.
On August 03 2014 06:00 2Pacalypse- wrote: Would that be such a wrong thing to say in your everyday life to a person who doesn't know better? Or would you start lecturing everyone about differences between scientific theories and facts and a priori this a posterori that?
Are you criticizing that I gave an in-depth answer to your question? The ordinary person who does not have that knowledge usually do not hold strong opinions on matters they know they have no knowledge of.
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Croatia9365 Posts
What agenda?
Are you telling me there are not philosophically naive people out there? Hell, I am one of them as I obviously realized in this thread. In fact, I'm pretty sure majority of people don't know and don't care the differences between scientific theories and facts. So it seems perfectly reasonable when Dawkins (and others in that link, just so I'm not accused as some Dawkins worshipper) call evolution a fact so as not to confuse those people who don't know what scientists really mean by the word theory.
The example of evolution is the most prominent one because there's an active effort to distort it and create fake controversy around it. But the same thing could be said about any other well accepted scientific theory, eg. theory of heliocentricism.
Also as a side-note to your previous post where you interpret Dawkins' point as calling people stupid and not explaining them is very unjust, seeing as he spent half of his life as a science educator trying to explain evolution to people.
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On August 03 2014 06:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:Also as a side-note to your previous post where you interpret Dawkins' point as calling people stupid and not explaining them is very unjust, seeing as he spent half of his life as a science educator trying to explain evolution to people.
precisely BECAUSE dawkins is a pop cultural figure with a proselytizing mission about "explaining" evolution to people who have somehow, mysteriously (on his view), not yet entered the 20th century, he has an interest in glossing over the finer points and making the whole thing seem like a more imposing edifice than it really is. He's not interested in asking difficult questions about the very thing which he is trying so hard to promote. Just as TV preachers are not interested in talking about theological problems or points of difficulty in the doctrines which they expound - they want to present them as seamless wholes. Dawkins DOES think people are stupid - he says it explicitly. Since his entire thesis is that there is no rational reason to believe anything other than what he thinks, and that the people to which his polemic is addressed are hapless fools trapped in some "pre-rational" ideology...
You're going to have to give up on your attachment to Dawkins as a credible figure. Let's agree to all go read the Selfish Gene and the Extended Phenotype and pretend like he died in a plane crash after that.
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Not knowing the difference between theory and fact is being scientifically, not philosophically uneducated. I would think it would be much less confusing to teach what counts as theory and fact in science, rather than to make people believe evolution is fact. And I would think that calling evolution a fact is as misleading as whatever evidence evolution deniers bring up.
Evolution will never equal something like the theory of gravity in terms of certainty because biology relies on much more qualitative instead quantitative data compared to physics and chemistry.
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On August 03 2014 05:56 MoonfireSpam wrote: Yeah a bit back seat moderation, but how about not being total douchebags. Looking at you IgnE and Zulu. There's some interesting reading in here, I hate having you read you guys shit it up with condesending comments that literally serve no purpose beyond showing you are cunts.
You actually seem like the biggest douchebag here.
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On August 03 2014 07:57 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 05:56 MoonfireSpam wrote: Yeah a bit back seat moderation, but how about not being total douchebags. Looking at you IgnE and Zulu. There's some interesting reading in here, I hate having you read you guys shit it up with condesending comments that literally serve no purpose beyond showing you are cunts. You actually seem like the biggest douchebag here. I admit i haven't read this whole threat. but opening the conversation with a one-liner and a wikipedia link is really hard to best.
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On August 03 2014 06:39 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2014 06:31 2Pacalypse- wrote:Also as a side-note to your previous post where you interpret Dawkins' point as calling people stupid and not explaining them is very unjust, seeing as he spent half of his life as a science educator trying to explain evolution to people. precisely BECAUSE dawkins is a pop cultural figure with a proselytizing mission about "explaining" evolution to people who have somehow, mysteriously (on his view), not yet entered the 20th century, he has an interest in glossing over the finer points and making the whole thing seem like a more imposing edifice than it really is. He's not interested in asking difficult questions about the very thing which he is trying so hard to promote. Just as TV preachers are not interested in talking about theological problems or points of difficulty in the doctrines which they expound - they want to present them as seamless wholes. Dawkins DOES think people are stupid - he says it explicitly. Since his entire thesis is that there is no rational reason to believe anything other than what he thinks, and that the people to which his polemic is addressed are hapless fools trapped in some "pre-rational" ideology... You're going to have to give up on your attachment to Dawkins as a credible figure. Let's agree to all go read the Selfish Gene and the Extended Phenotype and pretend like he died in a plane crash after that.
That is complete nonsense.
Richard Dawkins fights against a lot of diffirent kinds of opponents from a lot of different angles.
He recognises that many people form their views as a result of a higher authority, or teacher. Often these are religious leaders who accuse science of being limited because it doesn't have all the answers, and anyway everything is just a "theory" scientists don't KNOW anything. Where as they, and their religion, DO have all the answers and they DO know everything for certain. He fights against these kinds of people by saying that scientists DO know things (as much as anyone can know anything). Human beings have a desire for certainty and authority figures in their lives. Dawkins is providing an equal amount of certainty about evolution, as his opponents are.
Other opponents of his are those that claim that all kinds of ideas are equally valid. For these people he argues the finer points of why he believes what he does, and tries to get he opponents to justify their beliefs to a similar degree (which of course they cannot, to to which most people claim they have a RIGHT to believe anything they want). Do people have a right to believe whatever they want? What about law makers, and police-officers and teachers, people have a direct influence on our lives? Humanists believe that what these people who have a direct influence on our lives believe is important for all of humanity, and this is why it is not OK for everyone to believe whatever they want.
There has arguably been no other theory which has been put under more scrutiny than Evolution. It is easily the greatest and most important theory in history. It explains where we came from, and why life exists as it does all around us. The evidence for evolution exists at all levels, from fossils to biochemistry. There is NO credible alternative theory. It must be (and is) taken as axiomatic that Evolution exists, and thus it is called "fact" by Dawkins.
Don't even try to undermine Dawkins as a scholar. He is widely accepted to be a brilliant scientist.
So what if Dawkins says you are stupid, does that hurt your feelings? Is this really why you hate him?
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Croatia9365 Posts
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tl;dr I didn't make a point about whether violent rape was worse than date rape, even though my text directly implies I did. Why should I have to excuse myself for implying something if I in my mind didn't imply it. I only did it to break horrible taboos.
I stand by my choice to educate you unreasonable and emotional people doing this. How can you not understand if I don't do these kinds of comparisons we'll never break the taboo.
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Croatia9365 Posts
tl;dr of your tl;dr - I don't like you so no matter what you say I will ever consider reasonable and instead I'll just paraphrase everything you say sarcastically so it fits in the one tweet-length.
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On August 03 2014 18:53 son1dow wrote: tl;dr I didn't make a point about whether violent rape was worse than date rape, even though my text directly implies I did. Why should I have to excuse myself for implying something if I in my mind didn't imply it. I only did it to break horrible taboos.
I stand by my choice to educate you unreasonable and emotional people doing this. How can you not understand if I don't do these kinds of comparisons we'll never break the taboo.
There is nothing wrong with what he wrote. His argument is to take the emotional out of emotionally charged debates so that the issues can be discussed logically rather than emotionally.
Often people see what they are looking for and hear what they want to hear. If you want to see Dawkins as a self-satisfied purveyor of half-truths then that is what you will see. If you do see this though you're not really doing so through being objective and rational, but by reacting emotionally. Which is kind of the point.
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You blamed me for not linking his defense, but you didn't read the accusations, what kind of useless sophistry is that. The first post on the reddit link describes well how he messed up.
Both of you are showing how you're doing the same thing as him - missing the point of the accusations and piling on how only irrationality leads us to not understand his great point.
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On August 03 2014 22:55 son1dow wrote: You blamed me for not linking his defense, but you didn't read the accusations, what kind of useless sophistry is that. The first post on the reddit link describes well how he messed up.
Both of you are showing how you're doing the same thing as him - missing the point of the accusations and piling on how only irrationality leads us to not understand his great point.
Can you just tell us the main accusations because i really don't want to respond to all of the 64 posts in the reddit thread here.
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Croatia9365 Posts
On August 03 2014 22:55 son1dow wrote: You blamed me for not linking his defense, but you didn't read the accusations, what kind of useless sophistry is that. The first post on the reddit link describes well how he messed up.
Both of you are showing how you're doing the same thing as him - missing the point of the accusations and piling on how only irrationality leads us to not understand his great point. I'm pretty sure most of the posts in that reddit link are based on his tweets alone, without reading his explanation. Which is something that is often done with his tweets; he's pretty eloquent, but not enough to convey all of his thoughts in 140 characters. That's why I blamed you for not linking his defense; it provides a pretty important explanation that he couldn't fit in 140 characters on which he was judged.
That first post on reddit exactly proves the point of his explanation... If he had used this example: “Slapping someone’s face is bad, breaking their nose is worse”, would he get the same amount of emotionally charged replies as he did with the rape example? And then read the title of his post "Are there emotional no-go areas where logic dare not show its face?". He's not giving a definitive answer to that question, but he's arguing that there shouldn't be.
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Re: First response in reddit thread.
The first paragraph says that Dawkins isn't qualified to have an opinion. Anybody is free to have an opinion and tell it to anyone who will listen.
The second says he is wrong in his opinion, and that no assessment can be had about the severity of rapes. This is missing the point. His point being that all matters, no matter how sensitive, should be able to be discussed by anyone in a hypothetical manner without emotion or fear of intimidation (which he has experienced first hand).
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Dawkins', though wrong in that bad comparison and ignorance in defending it, was indeed trying to say that we should have the ability to discuss things rationally, but he implied that we should do so with the purpose of learning something in discourse.
You just said that basically some public representative, or any person no matter how influential should be able to, for example, argue against any kind of existence of mental illness and say that they should just do vitamins and eat fruits without any relevant experience and don't receive backlash for it.
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On August 03 2014 23:35 deathly rat wrote: Re: First response in reddit thread.
The first paragraph says that Dawkins isn't qualified to have an opinion. Anybody is free to have an opinion and tell it to anyone who will listen.
The second says he is wrong in his opinion, and that no assessment can be had about the severity of rapes. This is missing the point. His point being that all matters, no matter how sensitive, should be able to be discussed by anyone in a hypothetical manner without emotion or fear of intimidation (which he has experienced first hand).
I think the point is that while it is not impossible to evaluate the moral harm or approbation of one rape in comparison to another, every rape is highly fact-specific (context dependent, consequences, intentions). Dawkins tweets are offensive because they imply some false category analysis. At best he's tweeting intentionally provocative inanities that illustrate his childish application of "reason" to yet another field in which he lacks expertise.
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a) they are both worse
b) why would you want to "take emotion out of" something which can't be understood without thinking about emotions? it's just dumb. anyone who thinks "for all x, if we want to think about x, it would be best for us to forget about emotions and use the Power of Logic" is a robot (and an idiot).
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Ah philosophy: I think, thus I am unemployable
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On August 04 2014 06:56 8882 wrote: Ah philosophy: I think, thus I am unemployable Hrm, don't a lot of philosophy majors end up in highly reputable law schools?
Better off than chemists, that's for damn sure.
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I think he certainly is being intentionally provocative, in order to raise awareness of the issues he campaigns for and stimulate discussions such as this one.
As for him "lacking expertise", is it not a classic fault in reasoning to attack the person rather than the ideas he is presenting? You could definitely argue the case for his philosophical expertise, but it's hardly the point is it.
It is obviously correct to take the emotion out of ethical debates. Does the victim of a crime have the right to sentence the perpetrator? Why not?
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On August 04 2014 03:40 bookwyrm wrote:
b) why would you want to "take emotion out of" something which can't be understood without thinking about emotions? it's just dumb. anyone who thinks "for all x, if we want to think about x, it would be best for us to forget about emotions and use the Power of Logic" is a robot (and an idiot).
There's evidence from neuroscience that emotion plays a huge role in moral reasoning (as well as many other complex decisions). I don't understand how an evolutionary biologist can ignore this kind of empirical evidence in his philosophical position.
Over-reliance on logic is actually my main beef with philosophy, Logic does one thing: it creates true statements from other true statements. It makes no promise about assumptions that are likely to be true, but might not be in some cases. You can absolutely start with an assumption that is true 99.999% of the time, assume it's "true" then through a series of logical steps to prove something that is never true. Unfortunately, absolutely true statements about anything interesting, be it physical reality or moral principles are hard to come by (some claim impossible).
It's worth remembering that if you assume P and not P to be true then you can prove absolutely any statement, true or false. By the same token if you assume P and Q, such that Q implies not P through some argument, then again you can prove anything you want. This makes purely logical arguments about reality incredibly fragile. There's a reason why metaphysics has so little interesting to say and why scientists rely on experiments so heavily. There's always a nagging suspicion that the assumptions were untrue (or only true in some circumstances and not in others).
Maybe moral outrage over hypothetical moral dilemmas are analogues to the people's reaction to Zeno's paradox. But at least "proving" something about reality that is clearly untrue is funny. "Proving" something about morality which is revolting isn't.
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On August 04 2014 08:28 hypercube wrote: Over-reliance on logic is actually my main beef with philosophy
I was just telling a philosophy student this last night :D
On August 04 2014 08:21 deathly rat wrote: It is obviously correct to take the emotion out of ethical debates.
obviously I don't think it's obvious, since I disagree. this is precisely the problem with dawkins and his ilk: they believe that all their positions are obvious, and that therefore anyone who disagrees with them does so because they are incapable of grasping the obvious.
I'm not sure how you would even go about starting to think about the example you provided without thinking about emotions.
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You can think about emotions, unemotionally.
When I find I spider in the bathroom I feel scared. However I don't feel scared when I'm thinking about how I feel. I'm thinking about an emotional response, unemotionally.
It is this sort of thing that drives Dawkins crazy. People unable to grasp the simple difference between thinking about emotions, and thinking without emotion.
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On August 04 2014 08:21 deathly rat wrote: I think he certainly is being intentionally provocative, in order to raise awareness of the issues he campaigns for and stimulate discussions such as this one.
As for him "lacking expertise", is it not a classic fault in reasoning to attack the person rather than the ideas he is presenting? You could definitely argue the case for his philosophical expertise, but it's hardly the point is it.
It is obviously correct to take the emotion out of ethical debates. Does the victim of a crime have the right to sentence the perpetrator? Why not?
I'm not attacking Dawkins the person. I pointed out that this is another example among a plurality of examples where Dawkins doesn't know what he's talking about, let alone makes a coherent argument. Why is it the person saying "respond to the argument, not the person" who is not responding to the arguments?
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On August 04 2014 09:58 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 08:21 deathly rat wrote: I think he certainly is being intentionally provocative, in order to raise awareness of the issues he campaigns for and stimulate discussions such as this one.
As for him "lacking expertise", is it not a classic fault in reasoning to attack the person rather than the ideas he is presenting? You could definitely argue the case for his philosophical expertise, but it's hardly the point is it.
It is obviously correct to take the emotion out of ethical debates. Does the victim of a crime have the right to sentence the perpetrator? Why not? I'm not attacking Dawkins the person. I pointed out that this is another example among a plurality of examples where Dawkins doesn't know what he's talking about, let alone makes a coherent argument. Why is it the person saying "respond to the argument, not the person" who is not responding to the arguments?
If you have read the article on his website that was previously linked, you can't possibly say it's not a "coherent argument".
Again, whether he is expert or not has no relevance to the quality of the arguments he is presenting.
What argument do you think I have not been responding to? It sounds to me like you're just saying "no, you, it's you. That thing you said, that's you..."
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On August 04 2014 09:46 deathly rat wrote: You can think about emotions, unemotionally.
Irrelevant (and also often untrue). The point is that emotion underlies certain kinds of reasoning, including moral reasoning. If you consciously try to ignore your emotional response to moral problems the quality of your reasoning will suffer.
Of course this doesn't matter for the kind of "moral dilemmas" that are often discussed. These are not actual scenarios but caricatures. Toy problems that lack sufficient detail to teach us much useful about the real world.
edit: So just as most of the world realized that philosophy might not be the best way to understand the nature of reality, maybe it's time to accept that the same is true for morality or how we should act towards one another.
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On August 04 2014 09:46 deathly rat wrote: You can think about emotions, unemotionally.
When I find I spider in the bathroom I feel scared. However I don't feel scared when I'm thinking about how I feel. I'm thinking about an emotional response, unemotionally.
It is this sort of thing that drives Dawkins crazy. People unable to grasp the simple difference between thinking about emotions, and thinking without emotion.
Can you? I'm not sure I agree. The sort of thing that drives me crazy is people who insist that things are more simple than they are, and that anyone who disagrees is simply unable to grasp the simplicity.
It's far from obvious to me that one could think in an adequate way about emotions without feeling emotions. I don't even know how to explain what an emotion is, logically... I think you have to feel them.
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On August 04 2014 10:33 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 09:46 deathly rat wrote: You can think about emotions, unemotionally.
When I find I spider in the bathroom I feel scared. However I don't feel scared when I'm thinking about how I feel. I'm thinking about an emotional response, unemotionally.
It is this sort of thing that drives Dawkins crazy. People unable to grasp the simple difference between thinking about emotions, and thinking without emotion. Can you? I'm not sure I agree. The sort of thing that drives me crazy is people who insist that things are more simple than they are, and that anyone who disagrees is simply unable to grasp the simplicity. It's far from obvious to me that one could think in an adequate way about emotions without feeling emotions. I don't even know how to explain what an emotion is, logically... I think you have to feel them.
So you reject people trying to think objectively and rationally about emotional and ethical issues?
Your contention is then that since it is impossible to remove emotion from our decisions they must be included. Thus the feelings of victims of crime must be considered when sentencing. 2 victims have the same crime perpetrated against them, but the punishments are different due to the feelings of the victims?
You must then believe that because some people might be offended by a discussion, that discussion can't be had. I don't like Richard Dawkins saying that one kind of rape is worse than another, so I'm going to personally attack him, threaten him, and try to derail any kind of purposeful discussion, because I don't like his opinion.
What kind of rational thinking or philosophy is it that doesn't try to be objective? (the definition of objectivity including thought without personal emotion).
If you're going to bring the discussion down to "everything is subjective", and "can you believe what you see?" then I concede the argument and you can disappear back into the philosophical quagmire where nothing is true and but everything is right.
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On August 04 2014 10:57 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 10:33 bookwyrm wrote:On August 04 2014 09:46 deathly rat wrote: You can think about emotions, unemotionally.
When I find I spider in the bathroom I feel scared. However I don't feel scared when I'm thinking about how I feel. I'm thinking about an emotional response, unemotionally.
It is this sort of thing that drives Dawkins crazy. People unable to grasp the simple difference between thinking about emotions, and thinking without emotion. Can you? I'm not sure I agree. The sort of thing that drives me crazy is people who insist that things are more simple than they are, and that anyone who disagrees is simply unable to grasp the simplicity. It's far from obvious to me that one could think in an adequate way about emotions without feeling emotions. I don't even know how to explain what an emotion is, logically... I think you have to feel them. So you reject people trying to think objectively and rationally about emotional and ethical issues?
I reject the claim that one can adequately treat those issues solely from an "objective and rational" standpoint. My claim is that it's insufficient, not that it's wrong.
I'm not going to get into the details of your example because I have no interest in arguing with young males on gaming message boards about rape.
What kind of rational thinking or philosophy is it that doesn't try to be objective? (the definition of objectivity including thought without personal emotion).
I don't know... a better kind? A more useful kind? A truer kind? A more honest kind?
If you're going to bring the discussion down to "everything is subjective", and "can you believe what you see?" then I concede the argument and you can disappear back into the philosophical quagmire where nothing is true and but everything is right.
no, I'm quite hostile to views of that type
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On August 04 2014 10:08 deathly rat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 09:58 IgnE wrote:On August 04 2014 08:21 deathly rat wrote: I think he certainly is being intentionally provocative, in order to raise awareness of the issues he campaigns for and stimulate discussions such as this one.
As for him "lacking expertise", is it not a classic fault in reasoning to attack the person rather than the ideas he is presenting? You could definitely argue the case for his philosophical expertise, but it's hardly the point is it.
It is obviously correct to take the emotion out of ethical debates. Does the victim of a crime have the right to sentence the perpetrator? Why not? I'm not attacking Dawkins the person. I pointed out that this is another example among a plurality of examples where Dawkins doesn't know what he's talking about, let alone makes a coherent argument. Why is it the person saying "respond to the argument, not the person" who is not responding to the arguments? If you have read the article on his website that was previously linked, you can't possibly say it's not a "coherent argument". Again, whether he is expert or not has no relevance to the quality of the arguments he is presenting. What argument do you think I have not been responding to? It sounds to me like you're just saying "no, you, it's you. That thing you said, that's you..."
I said:
I think the point is that while it is not impossible to evaluate the moral harm or approbation of one rape in comparison to another, every rape is highly fact-specific (context dependent, consequences, intentions). Dawkins tweets are offensive because they imply some false category analysis.
That argument has nothing to do with his lack of expertise. You just didn't read it apparently.
Dawkins's argument is not a coherent one:
“Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse. If you think that’s an endorsement of date rape, go away and learn how to think.”
‘“Being raped by a stranger is bad. Being raped by a formerly trusted friend is worse.” If you think that hypothetical quotation is an endorsement of rape by strangers, go away and learn how to think.’
Those two statements suggest that this top-down category analysis of rape sub-types is inherently inconsistent, because cross-rape moral tabulations are limited to case-by-case analysis and perhaps do not even subscribe to a quantitative accounting. He's just posting provocative, practically meaningless propositions and defends it by retreating to his blog and claiming that he's seeking to root out "taboo" and subjecting complex moral questions to infantile "rational" analysis.
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Didn't the reddit post I linked two pages ago explain this, and then you did too IgnE? I feel like deathly rat doesn't want to understand sadly. Because it's really not something so uncomprehensible you can fail to understand so many times.
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I don't know why, but for some reason his first tweets are saying that just because one thing worse than another, it doesn't mean that one is good and one is bad.
He used a provocative example, which I think detracted away from the original point he was trying to make. Since everyone is concerned with if one kind of rape can be fairly defined as worse than another. What Dawkins wants to say is they are both bad, even if you say one is worse than another.
People tell Dawkins he has no right to comment on such things, and anyway it is beyond the realms of decency to do so. So then he writes the article on his website defending his example, saying that people involved in philosophical discussions should be able to talk about whatever they want, and give extreme examples if they wish to.
I think the worst you can fairly accuse him of is choosing a bad example to illustrate his point.
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That article is hilariously bad. He thinks Dawkins is motivated by disgust of the effects of religion, when actually it is well known that he is motivated by the pursuit of truth and promoting a secular civilisation.
The rest of the argument is also drivel. There are perfectly good reasons why moral judgments should not be made on the basis of emotions, as I have already stated.
Then the article finishes by putting words into Dawkins' mouth to come to the conclusion that what he really wants is for everyone to be like him. Nonsense.
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On August 05 2014 00:33 deathly rat wrote:That article is hilariously bad. He thinks Dawkins is motivated by disgust of the effects of religion, when actually it is well known that he is motivated by the pursuit of truth and promoting a secular civilisation. The rest of the argument is also drivel. There are perfectly good reasons why moral judgments should not be made on the basis of emotions, as I have already stated. Then the article finishes by putting words into Dawkins' mouth to come to the conclusion that what he really wants is for everyone to be like him. Nonsense. It's though being a fanboy, you're lucky to be on a site where this is perfectly understandable. You havent shown anything btw.
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I was gone for the weekend. This is still going. You guys are legendary hahahaha
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The over-reliance on pure logic is a bigger problem with Anglo-analytics and math fetishists like Badiou and other structuralists though. That's when you get the weird ontologies that think everything can be understood with nothing but mathematical rigour, which doesn't end up making either much sense or being very useful in both the natural sciences and "humanistic" sciences. I would venture to say that a greater degree of Western philosophy has become skeptical of the over-reliance on pure logic over the past century, not just in Continental Europe but also among the Anglos (especially in the recent decades).
That being said, nowadays I think NA humanities and social science students would do better if their curriculum necessitated some logic classes.
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Haha, I don't think Badiou thinks that everything can be understood with nothing but mathematical rigor. He might have written some books about set theory, but his philosophy is irrationalist at its core (the subject is constituted by its fidelity to a truth-event, but the determination of what is or is not a truth-event is a leap of faith because it's formally undecidable).
On August 06 2014 04:26 koreasilver wrote: That being said, nowadays I think NA humanities and social science students would do better if their curriculum necessitated some logic classes.
I'll drink to that. Then I could talk about math without everyone going glassy-eyed and calling me a platonist
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United States15275 Posts
Are you people still arguing about this?
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On August 06 2014 04:33 CosmicSpiral wrote: Are you people still arguing about this?
I don't know. What do you think?
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On August 06 2014 04:31 bookwyrm wrote:Haha, I don't think Badiou thinks that everything can be understood with nothing but mathematical rigor. He might have written some books about set theory, but his philosophy is irrationalist at its core (the subject is constituted by its fidelity to a truth-event, but the determination of what is or is not a truth-event is a leap of faith because it's formally undecidable). Show nested quote +On August 06 2014 04:26 koreasilver wrote: That being said, nowadays I think NA humanities and social science students would do better if their curriculum necessitated some logic classes. I'll drink to that. Then I could talk about math without everyone going glassy-eyed and calling me a platonist Badiou's ontology is entirely grounded on his weird idiosyncratic interpretation of set theory. He doesn't think that everything can be understood by mathematical rigour, but to say that his philosophy is "irrationalist" at its core is strange given that his notion of truth and political event is not constituted by a "leap of faith". The man is an Althusserian structuralist, not an existentialist or a French postmodernist.
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But it's undecidable whether or not something is a truth-event. Because something else can take the appearance of a truth-event. For example Badiou thinks that St. Paul is a truth-event, he thinks that May '68 is a truth-event, he thinks that Marx is a truth-event, but he doesn't think that Nazism is a truth-event. How can you tell the difference between Nazism and the true Emancipatory struggle? It's formally undecidable. Nazism has the appearance of an Event even though it is not, it is a psuedo-Event. It's like Godel - every inconsistent system includes a proof of its own consistency. So deciding on what to call a truth-event is ultimately an irrational act that grounds the whole "structural" edifice that is constructed through the Fidelity to it.
I'm just starting on Being and Event but I've read a bit about him. Here's from the translator's preface:
"However, there is a problem which is often mentioned in the commentary on Badiou's work, a problem about belief, action, and ideas: inasmuch as a subject retroactively assigns sense to the event, and there are no objective criteria determining whether the procedure the subject is involved in is generic or not, there is no distinction between subjectivization in a truth procedure and ideological interpellation. In fact, Badiou has built in one safeguard to prevent the confusion of truth procedures and ideologies, and that is that the former is initiated by the occurrence of an event *at an evental site*. He recognizes that many practical procedures occur which invoke a certain fidelity - his example is Nazism - but he argues that they neither originate from an evental site, nor are they generic, being fully determined by existing knowledge. However, Badiou also says that there is no guarantee that a procedure is generic, and so we do not possess a sure-fire method of identifying evental sites. Consequently, the only answer to whether the evental site is at the origin of a procedure or not is local: that is, it depends on a concrete analysis of the locality of the procedure. The distinction between generic truth procedures and ideologies is thus a practical matter, to be dealt with by those locally engaged in the procedure. There is no global guarantee of the absence of ideology"
Badiou's philosophy is rationalist but at its core it is irrationalist. I think he is the complete opposite from the Anglo philosophers, who take as their starting point the program of Frege-Hilbert-Russell and then have to somehow absorb the scandal of Godel... Badiou on the other hand is constructing a rationalist, mathematical ontology but on the basis of the scandal itself - he takes Godel as his starting point, rather than having to integrate Godel into an existing set-theoretical philosophical programme.
I'm not defending the guy and I haven't read much of him yet, this is just my feeling about him at the moment. I think he's very interesting though. He's not an Althusserian - Althusser refused to cooperate with the students in 68 which was a huge event for Badiou, you have to keep in mind his Maoism
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How in the world is Badiou not an Althusserian simply because Althusser refused to cooperate with the students in 68? That doesn't say much about the actual substance of this conceptual work which Badiou is steeped in. In the history of the French academy Badiou was reknowned for being an ideological acolyte of Althusser in his early days, and contemporary French Maoism probably wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for Althusser's grounding work. The return of Marxist structuralism in popular culture lately is mostly at the hands of Badiou. Obviously Badiou isn't just parroting Althusser and doing nothing else, but to say that Badiou isn't Althusserian in the broadest way is pretty silly. Both Althusser and Maoism view that Marxism is a partisan political decision before it is a science, which Badiou adopts. The crucial difference that I know of from what I've read so far is that whereas for Althusser Marxism as such is the grounding and overarching science, Badiou seems to privilege math as an ontological and metaphysical ground for his Marxism.
As for your assumptions on Badiou's notion of the Truth-event, I think you're a bit off. Reading his recent writings over the year I didn't get the impression that you got at all. If anything Badiou is rather quite assured of the possibility of grasping what the Truth-event, which is why he's so quick to play the pretender philosopher king so much these days. If anything, doesn't the excerpt of the translator's preface you posted contradict what you wrote above it? You might not be able to apprehend whether or not a historic event is a Truth-event formally, but the "concrete analysis of the locality of the procedure" is not an "irrational" act. The marginalized revolutionary force, which Badiou understands as that which is literally outside of the ideological structure of society, for example, might not be able to be apprehended "formally" but the activity of this revolutionary force isn't seen as irrational. They have a certain sense to them even if it might be incomprehensible at the moment to an onlooker. Badiou is always making dialectical moves. He's a Marxist structuralist and I think that to import some pseudo-Kierkegaardian notions into Badiou would be a mistake. I would be pretty hard pressed to find any serious Badiou reader to call his thought irrationalist. I'm not a very serious Badiou reader - I don't like his philosophical work, his political theory, or even the person himself - but idk. I would like to be more charitable to him than to say that his entire work actually just buys into and crumbles under the whole "constructivist" discourse that he has so much disdain for (even if I might personally think so). I know this isn't what you're trying to do, but you're importing some foreign concepts and assumptions into Badiou here, I think.
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interesting. you clearly know more about it than I do so you're probably right. I guess I just think the 68 thing does make more of a difference in their philosophical content (for example, I don't think Althusser is the kind of guy who would go around thinking about "pure multiplicity"). I also see more of the kierkegaard thing in it. But I have read very little Badiou and Zizek imports foreign concepts into all of his readings so I'm sure that doesn't help. (In fact, what I'm saying is undoubtedly mostly Zizek's Badiou)
I'll admit that I don't really know what "structuralism" is any more, so I don't know how to talk about whether or not he is one.but it would seem to me that even if Althusser lays some "grounding work" there is still a generational gap between him the younger people who were the actual "maoists." And they seem to me different than Althusser, but I'm not nearly knowledgeable about that to argue about it. I always thought Althusser was an idiot and a terrible writer so I haven't read much of him.
At least I can say, from my naive viewpoint, they are enough different so that I hate Althusser but I think Badiou is interesting.
I feel like I could defend a couple of things I was saying but I haven't really read enough. I think about what you say as I read more.
Mostly I'm just interested in set theory and I'm interested to see what he does with it. I do think mathematics and ontology are closely related. Maybe not in the same way as Badiou. I think Manuel DeLanda is pretty close to thinking correctly about it.
edit: I thought I remembered Althusser saying basically that Marxism WAS a Science because it viewed things from the standpoint of Truth, i.e. the proletariat ("Marx discovered the Third Continent of Science etc etc") but it's not so much as it's a political decision before it's a science, but that it's a political decision and the adoption of the standpoint of Science all at once. Or something. Idk I just thought the entire thing was inane :D
edit: I think it might have something to do with the fact that there is a kind of retroactivity to the Event which makes it exist only after the Subject recognizes it, which is why sometimes there are "evental sites" but not "Events." So these evental sites exist as virtual potentialities but it's only this sort of irrational self-positing after the fact which makes them into Events. that's what strikes me as the irrationalist bit. but maybe that's not in fact what he says, I have no clue.
I mean, listen to this:
As far as I am concerned, I quite agree that philosophy depends on some non- philosophical fields. And I have called these fields the "conditions" of philosophy. I would simply like to say that I do not limit the conditions of philosophy to the progress of science. I propose a much larger set of conditions, under four possible types: science, but also, politics, art, an love. So my own work depends, for instance, on a new mathematical concept of the infinite, but also on new forms of revolutionary politics, on the great poems of Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Pessoa, Mandelstam or Wallace Stevens, on the prose of Samuel Beckett, on the new ways of love which have emerged in the context of psychoanalysis and the complete transformation of all questions concerning sexuation and gender.
he thinks that "art" and "love" are two of the conditions of philosophy. sounds kinda irrationalist to me. I'll pick a different word if you don't like that one.
edit: I have also read Badiou talk about how Love is the act of "raising the contingent to the status of a necessity" which also seems like an irrationalist thing to me
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