For those who took Philosophy in College...

[waloshin]

If you took Philosophy in college can you pleas help me understand how exams work. Now I realize that ever teacher will be different ,but how would they test you on your Philosophy knowledge?

We were learning about, "The Meaning of Life".

Example.

Children as Meaning


Many people would say that the meaning of life lies in their children and their children's children. But this answer has an odd consequence , as soon as you start to think about it. If the meaning of life lies not in their own lives ,but in someone else's life, what is it that makes their lives meaningful? Their Children. But what makes their children's lives meaningful in turn? Their children, and so on. In this way people have always tended to project abstractly into the future , to a place of total piece and happiness -what philosophers call a utopia And this is how they would like their children, or their children's children, or their children's children's children , to live. But how does this make their own lives meaningful? And what is the meaning of life for this distant relatives happily living in Utopia? The question remains for them. Successful couples often look back to their years of struggle together and agree that those were the best years of life. And is simple happiness itself so obviously the meaning of life?

** So what I am supposed to learn from that for an exam? I asked the professor through an email and they replied ,"Students only need to see how different images of what life means call forth different actions, ways of responding to circumstance and suggest different interpretations of where value lies in human life. It is not a matter of memorizing what the text says in these examples, so much as being able to discuss how different interpretations people place on the meaning of existence result in various different ethical outlooks."

[Copper Bezel]

I think the instructor's message is pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? This was just meant as an example of a particular worldview that illustrates how the meaning of life is a subjective thing.

Edit: Also, homework, so in before lock, and such, I suppose.

[WinterMadness]

exams in philosophy class for me were on the spot in class essays about concepts in regards to greek and enlightenment philosophers.

[XubuRoxMySox]

I'm in that class now, lol. Same kind of thing, our prof just wants us to "see" a different point of view. Because, he says, "too many in your generation simply can't see any point of view other than their own."

My last exam was about mortality - why our lives have much more meaning because they are finite rather than immortal. Some kids wrote, "Immortality would be too boring," others wrote, "As long as I could stay pretty and healthy it would be okay..." totally missing the point. And proving the professor's point as well. :redface:

[drawkcab]

So what I am supposed to learn from that for an exam?

If you're just worried about the bottom line, this ^^^ is the wrong question to ask to ask a philosophy professor.

Try to ask something more direct such as:


Regarding the thesis that natality informs the meaning of life, what sort of question are you likely to ask on the exam?

[wolfen69]

Philosophy is a joke. Everyone sees it differently. They may as well call philosophy "opinion".

[MG&TL]

I second wolfen there. Make what you make of life. Don't think too hard about it though, you've got living to be doing.

[Copper Bezel]

Well, that's not much help for passing an exam on the subject, now is it? = )

[ninjaaron]

Do not worry, I have arrived. My first degree is in theology, which is more or less a branch of philosophy (that's a debate in itself, but whatever).

Generally speaking, nobody really wants an undergrad's opinion about philosophy, unless it is rather brief. I don't know your professor, but most professors want to see that you know a variety of opinions and arguments on the subject. If they ask about a supject you haven't directly, you should relate it to approaches that have been taken to similar issues.

You should at least be familar with the veiws expressed in the text book. If you get hints as to the topic of the exam, you ought to head to the library and study it a bit.

If you know several different views, and pit them against eachother, your professer will be very happy.

If you can site names and sources in the exam, you will usually get a more points.

If a professor asks for your opinion, it's alright to give it. However, an exam is about testing knowledge. Anyone can have an opinion about a topic in the humanities, but you have to know and critically understand the wider discussion before you have have an opinion that is worth giving.

This requires reading.

[ninjaaron]

Philosophy is a joke. Everyone sees it differently. They may as well call philosophy "opinion".

While philosophy tends to be very subjective, it is also universal to human experience. The academic study of philosophy is as valid as the study of any other human activity.

[edit]
Furthermore, it is impossible to study anything else at an advanced level without understanding your own worldview. You need an epistomology before you can really understand anything else, including pure sciences. The top scientists in the world are also philosophers par excellence.

[3Miro]

While philosophy tends to be very subjective, it is also universal to human experience. The academic study of philosophy is as valid as the study of any other human activity.

Just wondering, what is your definition of philosophy? It seems you are talking about people's world view and while this is worth studying I wonder how it is different from sociology?



[edit]
Furthermore, it is impossible to study anything else at an advanced level without understanding your own worldview. You need an epistomology before you can really understand anything else, including pure sciences. The top scientists in the world are also philosophers par excellence.

By your own words, philosophy is subjective while science derives from the objective. Subjective has no place in science, pure or applied. I think science and philosophy split apart long time ago.

[drawkcab]

Philosophy is a joke. Everyone sees it differently. They may as well call philosophy "opinion".

Given that one of philosophy's primary subfields is epistemology--i.e. the study of the nature of knowledge including the distinction between knowledge and mere opinion--I would conclude that your post is, in fact, the joke.

[WinterMadness]

Philosophy is a joke. Everyone sees it differently. They may as well call philosophy "opinion".

Depends on the philosophy. Many philosophies are quite (or intend to be) objective. This includes empiricism, which is like the parent of science

Math also falls into philosophy, considering mathematics is a form of knowledge, and one of the main branches of philosophy is epistemology.

philosophy isnt there to make hipsters feel smart, philosophy is the basis of all science, math and computer science. Make NO mistake about it.

[drawkcab]

Just wondering, what is your definition of philosophy? It seems you are talking about people's world view and while this is worth studying I wonder how it is different from sociology?

What is philosophy?--is itself a philosophical question which consitutes a subfield of philosophy aptly named metaphilosophy.

As a contemporary academic discipline, however, philosophy encompasses six or so major subfields.

Logic is the study of the structure of reason and inquiry
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and its limitations
Metaphysics or ontology is the study of being
Ethics studies the nature of the good life
Politics studies the nature of the just state
Aesthetics studies the nature of the beautiful or sublime

Sociology is a human science aimed at studying factual questions regarding collective human conduct. Philosophy, meanwhile, outflanks sociology epistemologically and morally. For example, while sociology is reporting the results of its empirical studies, philosophy discusses the nature of knowledge itself perhaps questioning the objectivity of human science from an epistemological angle. From a logical angle, it might criticize the norms of inquiry that sociologists uncritically enact. More importantly, however, is the fact that while sociology tells that most members of a population do X, moral philosophy addresses the question ought human beings to do X in the first place?

In this way the sciences are merely resolving factual questions about human conduct according the best methods of inquiry available while philosophy is both critiquing those methods while also carrying out inquiry into the moral correctness of the conduct, i.e. into values rather than facts.





By your own words, philosophy is subjective while science derives from the objective. Subjective has no place in science, pure or applied. I think science and philosophy split apart long time ago.

Not true. Empirical science is just a branch of epistemology and was regarded as such until the contemporary university split the natural sciences from the philosophy--"the queen of all the sciences"--somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century.

Nor is philosophy concerned with being subjective, whatever that means. Try to construct a logical derivation using subjective methods and you will just be wrong. Laypersons tend to believe that philosophy is subjective because they do not possess the knowledge, skill and patience to understand how the concept of objectivity operates within a dialectical context. There are very few philosophers who espouse subjectivism or relativism because those positions are logically self defeating. It is far more apt to say that philosophers disagree with each other regarding what they think the central question ought to be and how it ought to be addressed. Thus the weightiest discussions center around metaphilosophical questions which are being discussed at a distance far removed from the layperson.

Nevertheless laypersons can derive a benefit from studying philosophy where the first lesson is why subjectivism and relativism are, in fact, self-defeating positions.

[ninjaaron]

Just wondering, what is your definition of philosophy? It seems you are talking about people's world view and while this is worth studying I wonder how it is different from sociology? Well, certain parts of the study of philosphy and anthropology definitely overlap. I'm not talking about philosophy itself, per se. The thread is talking about a colledge course in philosophy. While few would deny that there is a great level of creativity in the broader philosophical enterprise (not that it's a bad thing), the study of philosophy deals with the ideas of great minds of the past as they are expressed in texts. This is reasonably more objective (I don't actually believe there is such a thing, but a text is concrete, at least).

These ideas are often heavily digested at the gen-ed level, but I still think it has some benefit.



By your own words, philosophy is subjective while science derives from the objective. Subjective has no place in science, pure or applied. I think science and philosophy split apart long time ago.

That's the problem with you positivists. You've never given a second thought to the way you think. Philosophy is often quite subjective, but Science is not less so.

Science takes for granted that human observation provides accurate information about reality. This is rather ironic, given that the observations of science themselves often suggest the contrary. Scientifific method also takes for granted that the universe is a unified system, bound by certain rules that govern all things at all places and times. Again, the study of astro-physics and quantum mechanics suggest something else.

Finally (and this is the biggest problem, but it is more sociological than it is a problem with scientific method itself), the scientific enterprise has the gaul to think that the human mind is capable of understanding properly the very limited data that we can collect through scientific observation. It so happesn that the feilds where we can get new data the quickest, such as engineering and medicine, are the feilds where the facts change most often.

We can't even figure out if milk is good for you or bad for you. What the hell could we know about stars billions of miles away, or the start of life millions of years ago?

Emperisism has served us quite well, and I'm not suggesting that we abandon the scientific enterprise, for all it's faults and unfulfilled promises. It is an extremely useful tool, and probably even does more good than harm (though I suppose it's debatable). I am suggesting the science needs to get over itself and realize that it can't offer all of the answers.

Philosophy is subjective, but the scientific method is based, often without realizing it, on a certain set of subjective philosophical principles. They are helpful principles. This does not mean that they are true.

[3Miro]

Science takes for granted that human observation provides accurate information about reality. This is rather ironic, given that the observations of science themselves often suggest the contrary. Scientifific method also takes for granted that the universe is a unified system, bound by certain rules that govern all things at all places and times. Again, the study of astro-physics and quantum mechanics suggest something else.

Science produces testable results and while at no point of time is our understanding of reality complete, it is consistently getting better. If the fields of quantum mechanics and astro-physics are morphing quickly, this does not mean that we are not converging so something that is demonstrably accurate.



Finally (and this is the biggest problem, but it is more sociological than it is a problem with scientific method itself), the scientific enterprise has the gaul to think that the human mind is capable of understanding properly the very limited data that we can collect through scientific observation. It so happesn that the feilds where we can get new data the quickest, such as engineering and medicine, are the feilds where the facts change most often.

Facts do not change. When new facts and new data becomes available, we need to improve our interpretation of the facts as well as the models that we use. Rapid income of data usually means more rapid change and faster convergence.

Medicine is being held back mostly by the limitations of experiments. Human experiments can be done only with volunteers (and I for one am not volunteering) and even so, some results can take a lifetime to obtain.

On the other hand, your statement about engineering "facts" changing is simply false. The models used in engineering have not changes much in the past century, if you see change, it is only because our math became better (and computers gave us a huge boost on the math side).



We can't even figure out if milk is good for you or bad for you. What the hell could we know about stars billions of miles away, or the start of life millions of years ago?

There is a difference between what you have discovered and what you have not discovered yet. If you don't understand how we can discover the inner workings of stars (and we have a pretty good idea now), then you are simply scientifically illiterate.



Emperisism has served us quite well, and I'm not suggesting that we abandon the scientific enterprise, for all it's faults and unfulfilled promises. It is an extremely useful tool, and probably even does more good than harm (though I suppose it's debatable). I am suggesting the science needs to get over itself and realize that it can't offer all of the answers.

Philosophy is subjective, but the scientific method is based, often without realizing it, on a certain set of subjective philosophical principles. They are helpful principles. This does not mean that they are true.

Science makes no promises, if you see any, that's just marketing. Science may or may not be able to provide all the answers, this may be unfalsifiable claim one way or another, however, science is the only thing that provides answers that can be tested empirically. Mathematics on the other hand is the only thing that provides logical arguments of the highest level of rigor. Where is philosophy?

One can take drawkcab's view that philosophy is simply an umbrella for all knowledge and this was probably true in the past. In its current state, I don't see any practical use for academic philosophy other than light mental gymnastics and/or a form of art.

[WinterMadness]

So, you think philosophy is subjective based on your philosophical argument for sciences objectivity?

[drawkcab]

Mathematics on the other hand is the only thing that provides logical arguments of the highest level of rigor. Where is philosophy?

Mathematical logicians work with mathematicians on the foundations of mathematics, especially set theory.


One can take drawkcab's view that philosophy is simply an umbrella for all knowledge and this was probably true in the past. In its current state, I don't see any practical use for academic philosophy other than light mental gymnastics and/or a form of art.

Much of academic philosophy these days is mental gymnastics insofar as the profession has become lost in a set of poorly-formed, abstract problems. As such, philosophy often fails to address the crises of other fields and, indeed contemporary moral and political crises more generally.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of philosophers who continue to do relevant and exciting work. Unfortunately they tend to constitute the exception rather than the rule in a profession that judges competence in terms of responding to the canonical problems of professionalized academic production. If you're willing to dig a bit so as to separate the wheat from the chaff, you'll be rewarded.

[3Miro]

So, you think philosophy is subjective based on your philosophical argument for sciences objectivity?

What??? ninjaaron claims that philosophy is subjective, I just take his word for it. Whether or not philosophy is subjective, has nothing to do with the fact that science is objective. Science like the the Newton's laws of motion or the law of gravity or the things like kinetic and potential energy, those are not opinions. Those produce consistent and accurate testable predictions about observable reality. Science is objective and this is a statement of a fact, not a philosophical argument.

[Copper Bezel]

Ninjaaron doesn't define the universe, however. What you're talking about is epistemology and ontology, and therefore, like it or not, your argument is a philosophical one, by definition.

The physical universe can do as it will, but our knowledge of it is limited. The system by which we test the likelihood of our assumptions about it is a philosophy. Again, by definition.

[ninjaaron]

Science produces testable results and while at no point of time is our understanding of reality complete, it is consistently getting better. I am inclined to think you are right.


If the fields of quantum mechanics and astro-physics are morphing quickly, this does not mean that we are not converging so something that is demonstrably accurate. I am not suggesting that the findings of quantum mechanics and astro-physics are less than useful. I simply think that they seem to suggest, at times, that the Universe is a more open continuum than the scientific method requires, and the rules of the game are not so hard and fast. I am actually depending on the findings of quantum mechanics to make such a claim, not trying to discredit the findings.


Facts do not change. When new facts and new data becomes available, we need to improve our interpretation of the facts as well as the models that we use. Rapid income of data usually means more rapid change and faster convergence.Data doesn't change (unless it is destroyed). The fact is a human construct. The only 'real' facts are raw physical data. Their interpretations are, as a rule, theoretical. The problem is that these theories are often marketed as facts.


Medicine is being held back mostly by the limitations of experiments. Human experiments can be done only with volunteers (and I for one am not volunteering) and even so, some results can take a lifetime to obtain.Millions if not billions of People drink milk and coffee every day, and they do studies about it all the time. In fact, I think we're due for another groundbreaking study disproving the prior claims about milk (I forget if it's good for you or bad for you at the moment, so you'll have to pardon my ignorance)


On the other hand, your statement about engineering "facts" changing is simply false. The models used in engineering have not changes much in the past century, if you see change, it is only because our math became better (and computers gave us a huge boost on the math side).Well, that is true that basic engineering is pretty stable. It was probably a bad example. I was thinking more about nano electronics and things of that nature, but I suppose we will probably reach "convergence" about that pretty soon here.



There is a difference between what you have discovered and what you have not discovered yet. If you don't understand how we can discover the inner workings of stars (and we have a pretty good idea now), then you are simply scientifically illiterate.Well, it's pretty far outside of my domain, I'll admit, but what I do understand of our methods is what frightens me. As far as I understand it, we collect all of our data about stars by measuring radiation that has travelled through millions or billions of miles of unknown territory. Nobody has even collected any data beyond radiation from our own Sun. What we have now are the best guesses the human mind can offer based on what we know about radiation.

What this means is that there are a lot of significant data that will do not have, and probably never will. One new piece of data can change an entire discipline (It's happened in mine a few times). The current theories are good, as far as I can tell, though my brain works with the same set of limitations as those conducting the research, so I may not be the most impartial judge. The issue is that they are necessarily tentative until all of the data are collected and accounted for, and it never will be.

This goes double for "data about the past." There are no data about the past. Only the present has concrete existence. Data in the present can raise a lot of questions and provide clues as to how it came to be in it's present state, but the actual state in the past is forever lost, and it just so happens to be that there are always multiple ways to account for the present. Most of what I do is historiography (or linguistics), so I do know what I'm talking about on this particular issue quite well.


Anyway, you're skirting the issue. It's not a question of whether this or that finding or theory is accuracy. My point is that science is based on certain presuppositions about the "ground rules" for the universe, which are unprovable and open for question (even though they seem to work most of the time), and also based on much more questionable presuppositions about the human capacity for knowledge and understanding. The five senses are great, but they can't probe everything.



Science makes no promises, if you see any, that's just marketing. Science may or may not be able to provide all the answers, this may be unfalsifiable claim one way or another, however, science is the only thing that provides answers that can be tested empirically. Mathematics on the other hand is the only thing that provides logical arguments of the highest level of rigor. Where is philosophy? Philosophy provides all of the untestable presuppositions upon which science and mathematics are based, and there are many. The scientific endeavorer was launched on certain philosophical ideas that were new at one time, and now it has the nerve to get upset, or worse, simply ignore it, when philosophy calls those presuppositions into question.

And yes, it's the marketing to which I'm objecting. I'm a big supporter of the scientific enterprise. What I'm responding to is the arrogance many in the field (usually amateurs) assume when dealing with other disciplines, as if they are not worthy because they deal with aspects of existence that cannot directly be tested. Science can do the rigorous testing it does (and I'm happy it does it) because of a necessary layer of insulation provided by a certain subjective philosophical world-view. Science seems to be the best tool for probing sense data. It does not provide all of the tools for interpreting that data. It is only part of a tool-set for reconstructing the past or understanding processes, along with logic and epistemology, and it has almost nothing to say about meaning of any kind in isolation.


One can take drawkcab's view that philosophy is simply an umbrella for all knowledge and this was probably true in the past. In its current state, I don't see any practical use for academic philosophy other than light mental gymnastics and/or a form of art.

It depends, I guess. Most modern philosophy is not particularly exciting, though there is some good stuff in there. However, in higher mathematics for example, most of what is taught is philosophical, even thought it takes place in the mathematics department. Great scientists have always been the better for realizing that there is a questionable epistemological framework for what they are doing.

I'm not suggesting either that a degree in philosophy is the most useful thing out there, though I'm not against it. My point is that to rise to the top of any other academic discipline, including science, one has to study enough philosophy to understand and question their own presuppositions.

Most of what I do boils down to historiography and linguistics. I'm not a philosopher at heart, but the study of philosophical thought has given me a much greater appreciation of the origins and the rational behind the tools I use in my studies (some of which are scientific, such as archaeology and philology, while others are not). This appreciation helped me to apply those tools more judiciously and with more precision that I would otherwise be able (or it feels that way, at least). Philosophy isn't always interesting or exciting, but I consider it to be requisite knowledge for 'getting to the good stuff' in any other field.

This tends to be one of the things that sets graduate students apart from undergrads in all fields (except philosophy itself, where I often have difficulty distinguishing between graduates, undergrads, and professors, as they all tend to be equally annoying).

[3Miro]

ninjaaron: you are right that we cannot directly observe the past and we can only observe the present, however, the goal of science is to predict the future. A good scientific theory is supposed to predict the outcome of an experiment before we conduct it. The simplest example is that is I drop a baseball, it will fall with 9.8 m/s^2 and I can use simple mathematics to predict the position of the ball at any given point of time. While the model should be called a theory, the prediction and the reliability of the model are facts (i.e. the ball will in fact fall with 9.8 m/s^2).

If we carry this method to the past, we should still look at the future. Take the Iliad for example, most of it is probably fiction, but we can use the text to predict the location of the ruins of an ancient city. This is the reason why we claim that the Iliad was based on a true story.

Evolutionary biology works in a similar way, based upon the current set of fossils, there should be a fossil with a specific set of properties some time between years X and Y. Together with Geology, scientists find appropriate set of rocks along with the right fossil. While the exact picture is incomplete, our ability to predict the locations of those fossils is getting better and better.

What drives stars is gravity + nuclear reactions. We can measure both of those here on Earth and we can use our models of both to predict the radiation output of distant stars before we measure it. We don't just measure radiation and based upon that we decide what it inside the star, we build a model of the star and predict the amounts of radiation, the measurement comes later to validate the accuracy of the model. While out models and math aren't as good as 9.8 m/s^2, we are getting increasingly better.

For your example with the milk, the whole thing is a good example of how bad marketing is. I think it is naive to believe that we can use such simplistic labels as "good" or "bad" for any food. Pretty much everything that we eat and drink has both positive and negative effects. The most striking examples are things like antibiotics that are usually very harmful, but in few cases can be lifesaving. As you said, billions of people drink milk every day and billions don't. If there was a huge discrepancy between the benefits and the harm that come from the milk, the we would have already known about it (like we know smoking is mostly harmful). No study would ever show that milk shrinks your life expectancy by a decade and no study would ever show that milk gives eternal youth. The difference between the "good" and the "bad" is marginal and if we are to find it, we should conduct very careful experiments. Simply knowing that people drink milk isn't enough, unless we can carefully measure how much milk as well as other diet and lifestyle and so on. While this can be done, it is also very expensive and the only people whiling to invest in such research are the corporations that have financial interest in a specific outcome (as opposed to the accurate outcome). Marketing pollutes science and those should be kept separate, the best science is usually done in the Universities and national labs, not private companies (incidentally most medical research is private).

About philosophy, I will make a second post.

[3Miro]

In no way or whatsoever am I trying to marginalize philosophy as the mother of all science. In fact, if you go back in time, I don't think you will be able to distinguish between the two. My problem is with the current state of the philosophical discipline. According to your words (and I hope I am not misrepresenting your point), there is little difference between undergraduates, graduates and professors in philosophy. This means that in effect, the whole thing is at an undergraduate level.

There is no Ph.D. in say acting and maybe the whole modern philosophy is just like acting a form of art (art that I don't get). Also, art is fine (even if I don't get it). However, what I don't see, is modern philosophy questioning any "presuppositions" in any meaningful way.

[WinterMadness]

What??? ninjaaron claims that philosophy is subjective, I just take his word for it. Whether or not philosophy is subjective, has nothing to do with the fact that science is objective. Science like the the Newton's laws of motion or the law of gravity or the things like kinetic and potential energy, those are not opinions. Those produce consistent and accurate testable predictions about observable reality. Science is objective and this is a statement of a fact, not a philosophical argument.

Science is merely another philosophy. Whether or not reality exists is not truly known, so the laws you cite may or may not be illusions.

And my point was that you used argumentation (which is the basis of philosophy) to make a point about how science is objective, while saying that philosophy is subjective (at least thats what i think you said)

[3Miro]

Science is merely another philosophy. Whether or not reality exists is not truly known, so the laws you cite may or may not be illusions.

And my point was that you used argumentation (which is the basis of philosophy) to make a point about how science is objective, while saying that philosophy is subjective (at least thats what i think you said)

You sit in a heated/air-conditioned home, you write on a computer, something that people can read all over the world. What you write, is how science is just a philosophy and it may all be an illusion. I love the irony of this.

Depending on your definition, science may or may not be a philosophy. However, while science is useful, solipsism is the most useless philosophy out there.

[Copper Bezel]

In no way or whatsoever am I trying to marginalize philosophy as the mother of all science. In fact, if you go back in time, I don't think you will be able to distinguish between the two. My problem is with the current state of the philosophical discipline. According to your words (and I hope I am not misrepresenting your point), there is little difference between undergraduates, graduates and professors in philosophy. This means that in effect, the whole thing is at an undergraduate level.

There is no Ph.D. in say acting and maybe the whole modern philosophy is just like acting a form of art (art that I don't get). Also, art is fine (even if I don't get it). However, what I don't see, is modern philosophy questioning any "presuppositions" in any meaningful way.
I think a lot of it is history, honestly, rather than art. It does test assumptions about perception in the way that art does, and that does seem, as you say, to reach its full sophistication at the undergraduate level (or at least, that seemed to be my experience in the undergraduate philosophy courses I took.) Very few philosophical principles have direct application in real-life predictions.

However, again, we do have to be aware of the assumptions we make about reality that are not strictly provable - for instance, that our observations reflect an external reality at all (the problem of the brain in a box.) We also have basic principles of formal logic that are still considered a part of philosophy rather than a part of science or math. This is all almost indistinguishable from the basic assumption of science, as you say, that every "fact" we have is still only the best falsifiable theory we have. To me, it is useful to bear in mind that the laws of physics we know are descriptions, rather than revelation of actual underlying "principles of the universe" or something to that effect.

This is, I think, what Winter and ninjaaron are getting at about "illusions."

There's another use of the term that refers to something like "philosophy of life", and historically, that's often linked with individuals' ontologies and epistemologies - say, Kant's - but to me, that's another thing entirely (and may as well be lumped in with religious studies.)

Edit:


Depending on your definition, science may or may not be a philosophy. However, while science is useful, solipsism is the most useless philosophy out there.
Agreed.

[WinterMadness]

You sit in a heated/air-conditioned home, you write on a computer, something that people can read all over the world. What you write, is how science is just a philosophy and it may all be an illusion. I love the irony of this.

Depending on your definition, science may or may not be a philosophy. However, while science is useful, solipsism is the most useless philosophy out there.

theres no irony, the existence of reality has remained unproven, it doesnt say anything about my opinion on the subject.

what you typed in no way effected the original statement

[ninjaaron]

According to your words (and I hope I am not misrepresenting your point), there is little difference between undergraduates, graduates and professors in philosophy. This means that in effect, the whole thing is at an undergraduate level.That was kind of a joke, since I tend to get annoyed with philosophy majors pretty easily (and not because of philosophy). I more or less meant that undergrads in philosophy tend to know something about philosophy, whereas undergrads in other areas tend to know less.

But it is true that there is some stagnation in the discipline.


There is no Ph.D. in say acting and maybe the whole modern philosophy is just like acting a form of art (art that I don't get). Also, art is fine (even if I don't get it). However, what I don't see, is modern philosophy questioning any "presuppositions" in any meaningful way.

I am of the opinion that pragmatism, phenomenology, and deconstruction all have things to say which are relevant to the epistemological presuppositions of science. Pragmatism is probably the most useful (as the name suggests). Phenomonolgy is a little more honest, but still hopeful. Deconstruction, while essentially a literary theory, sort of calls in to question the whole possibility of human knowledge. I don't neccisarily agree with it, but anyone who "thinks about thinking," which any academic should, needs to deal with the criticisms it presents, because they have a lot of validity.

[3Miro]

theres no irony, the existence of reality has remained unproven, it doesnt say anything about my opinion on the subject.

what you typed in no way effected the original statement

If a scientific theory consistently helps me predict the outcome of an experiment, then it is useful regardless of whether the outcome is reality or an illusion. Questioning reality if a good mental exercise, however, dismissing science because reality hasn't been proven is just silly.

[Atamisk]

I am inclined to think you are right.



Socrates would have been proud.

Personally, I believe that Science and Philosophy are immutably married. Those that say facts are facts are reasonably correct. However, the theories drawn from facts are NOT constant, and are but a human construct, and are as much or more fluid than philosophical constructs. That isn't to say they are untrue, just that they will almost never be a so-called perfect truth. Just true enough to describe phenomena we know about.

[drawkcab]

I would second the endorsement of pragmatism.

Pragmatism recognizes the efficacy of abductive reasoning. Science is a good model for philosophy in the sense that we find a community of inquiry engaging in abductive reasoning. The efficacy of such communal abduction is evidenced by the fact that the scientific community eventually converges upon consensus or agreement, developing theories that are useful for practice. Philosophy is rightfully seen as childish in comparison because it, like religion, tends to produce divergent beliefs with no real sense of what would make one true and one false.

Philosophy as a profession has tried to maintain its independence by either holding on to a model of deductive reasoning or by violently reacting against this model. Thus many of the primary traditions in philosophy are stuck in what Rorty aptly calls "the linguistic turn." If philosophy remains committed to this paradigm it will continue to ignore the pressing concerns of the practical dimension of experience opting instead to win the argument in only an abstract sense--i.e. in a professional debate in a journal or at a conference. This sort of professional philosophy is no longer about becoming wise and living well, it is rather about furthering one's academic career.

The key insight of pragmatism involves extending the efficacious model of communal abduction to moral, political and aesthetic inquiry. In other words, we shouldn't be searching for a set of antecedently existing norms in these fields, we should be inventing and experimenting with moral, political and aesthetic theories and seeing which ones enable successful practice, which ones allow us to live better lives. The point of pragmatism is not to win the academic debate but to become wise and, ultimately, to live well through communal experimentation. This is why John Dewey and Charles Peirce were advocates of democracy, not thought of as a system of government, but thought of as a moral community of free and equal individuals interested in harmonzing individual and social life via practice.

Unfortunately the dean of humanities doesn't promote you for improving communal practices but for publishing articles. This is why so many philosophers have given up on wisdom and settled for the abstract games made possible by the linguistic turn. As Dewey pointed out, if the abstract issues in philosophy are poorly formed so that there can be no resolution it is so much the better for academics who are trying to get ahead and promote themselves. Why? Because they can publish endlessly insofar as the problem is formulated so as to admit no real answer.

[WinterMadness]

If a scientific theory consistently helps me predict the outcome of an experiment, then it is useful regardless of whether the outcome is reality or an illusion. Questioning reality if a good mental exercise, however, dismissing science because reality hasn't been proven is just silly.

so, in other words, youve come to an objective reason(this is philosophical) to accept science(a philosophy) based on utilitarian philosophy?

what were you saying about philosophy, again?

[3Miro]

so, in other words, youve come to an objective reason(this is philosophical) to accept science(a philosophy) based on utilitarian philosophy?

what were you saying about philosophy, again?

To repeat my earlier post:

Depending on your definition, science may or may not be a philosophy.

Whether you want to call it philosophy or not, it is completely irrelevant. The distinction that I am drawing is that modern academic philosophy is certainly disjointed from science. In modern academics, philosophy and science are completely different things. I also dare say that modern philosophy is somewhat useless (other than as a form of art).

[ninjaaron]

Whether you want to call it philosophy or not, it is completely irrelevant. The distinction that I am drawing is that modern academic philosophy is certainly disjointed from science. In modern academics, philosophy and science are completely different things. I also dare say that modern philosophy is somewhat useless (other than as a form of art).

not Pragmatism.

[el_koraco]

I also dare say that modern philosophy is somewhat useless (other than as a form of art).

Yeah, everybody sticking to their area of expertize thinks other areas are useless. I mean, if you knew something about modern philosophy, you wouldn't "dare" say something of the sort, but then again...

[Sylos]

Seems like there might be a little misunderstanding of the scientifc principles concerning experimental evidence (as in the concrete nature of demonstrable results). It should be bourne in mind that nothing is ever proven - we only show that the null doesnt hold. A theory persists util disproven. Thats all.

Seems to me that philosophy is as important to science as any other discipline with the possible exception of advance mathematics. Without the mental gymnastics of philosophy it is difficult to train the mind of a scientist to think with the required levels of abstraction and creativity to pursue knowledge to the ultimate level. Take string theory (or superstring theory) - the visualisation of dimensions above the 4 regular spacetime dimensions is a mind boggling concept. I mean seriously - which direction is the 5th in! and the 11th! You need to have some kind of philosophical influence regarding the nature of existence to the position of the self and the nature of experience to be able to take these kinds of concepts on board. The same applies for all concepts that are outside the realms of orindary human observation.

IMHO when you push the boundaries of science to the cutting edge you inevitably come up against a philosophical fork in the road where you either get on board with the theory or decry it.

Still..... if nobody reads this post... chances are I never wrote it ;)

[3Miro]

Seems like there might be a little misunderstanding of the scientifc principles concerning experimental evidence (as in the concrete nature of demonstrable results). It should be bourne in mind that nothing is ever proven - we only show that the null doesnt hold. A theory persists util disproven. Thats all.

True. But fully "proven" or not, a scientific theory is still useful. In fact, even disproven theories can be useful. Earth is not flat, yet pretty much every building we have ever build uses the assumption that the Earth is flat and gravity is constant. If something is useful and produces reliable results, it remains useful even if a better comes along.



Seems to me that philosophy is as important to science as any other discipline with the possible exception of advance mathematics. Without the mental gymnastics of philosophy it is difficult to train the mind of a scientist to think with the required levels of abstraction and creativity to pursue knowledge to the ultimate level. Take string theory (or superstring theory) - the visualisation of dimensions above the 4 regular spacetime dimensions is a mind boggling concept. I mean seriously - which direction is the 5th in! and the 11th! You need to have some kind of philosophical influence regarding the nature of existence to the position of the self and the nature of experience to be able to take these kinds of concepts on board. The same applies for all concepts that are outside the realms of orindary human observation.

Bad example. My math thesis required work not with 5 dimensions, but with infinite dimensions and I am not some kind of genius. In fact, infinite dimensional math has been around for over 100 years, it is just not something that you seen in regular courses, most people don't really work with it until graduate school. Infinite dimensions are nothing philosophical, just a little bit harder math (that is harder than a^2+b^2 = c^2).



IMHO when you push the boundaries of science to the cutting edge you inevitably come up against a philosophical fork in the road where you either get on board with the theory or decry it.

The cutting edge of science does have unresolved problems, however, science does not tolerate this. At every given point, science works towards resolving the issues turning the uncertain into trivial and unknown into the new cutting edge.



Still..... if nobody reads this post... chances are I never wrote it ;)

I read your post, but this doesn't mean that you wrote it or that you exist or that I exist.

[3Miro]

Yeah, everybody sticking to their area of expertize thinks other areas are useless. I mean, if you knew something about modern philosophy, you wouldn't "dare" say something of the sort, but then again...

I know nothing about medicine, yet I have appreciation for the fact that modern medicine has saved my life 6 times already (and I am not old by any measure).

I know nothing about car mechanics, yet I need the services of such mechanics.

I know nothing about law, yet I respect that field too.

I don't really thing art is useful and I certainly don't know much about art, but I think it is good thing to have. I can enjoy art and aesthetics.

If you say that modern philosophy is like art and aesthetics, then it is a good thing, although somewhat useless.

If you think that modern philosophy is practical and useful and that I am somehow simply oblivious to its benefits, then please enlighten me.

[ninjaaron]

.
Still..... if nobody reads this post... chances are I never wrote it ;)

And yet you'll never get your 10 minutes back.

I'm an expert in the field of unread posts.
:D










:cry:

[Pujims]

Still..... if nobody reads this post... chances are I never wrote it ;)


I read it, so it's there ):P

[el_koraco]

If you think that modern philosophy is practical and useful and that I am somehow simply oblivious to its benefits, then please enlighten me.

It's not "practical and useful" as eating food is, but there are a lot of areas where philosophical inclinations directly affect your every day life. Say, the question of how much you pay in taxes annually and what type of medical coverage your country has is one such example.

It seems you consider philosophy to be old men in togas debating whether the world is real or projected imagination, and there are a lot of pop-philosophers and semi-literate high-school philosophy teachers who convey those messages, as well as a host of docile members of the middle-class academia who dabble in completely useless topics. However, biggest part of modern-day philosophy is geared towards studying and theorizing about stuff like international relations, economical doctrines, societal structure and the role of the state and similar stuff, as well as the links between all of those. Those topics and theories generally influence the way of thinking of pretty much all the decision makers, be it statesmen, lawmakers, religious figures...

Sure, it doesn't bring food to the table, but proclaiming an entire area of human focus to be useless is a typical example of arrogance one tends to find among proponents of "hard science".

[ninjaaron]

Yeah, everybody sticking to their area of expertize thinks other areas are useless.

Nah, it's mostly just the natural science guys who haven't advanced enough in their discipline to appreaciate anything else. Except Psycology majors. But psycology is actually a humanity. Just don't tell them.

[el_koraco]

I'll take a psychiatrist (read: X*a*x - lol, the censorship) over Freud every day!

[del_diablo]

True. But fully "proven" or not, a scientific theory is still useful. In fact, even disproven theories can be useful. Earth is not flat, yet pretty much every building we have ever build uses the assumption that the Earth is flat and gravity is constant. If something is useful and produces reliable results, it remains useful even if a better comes along.

Why confuse generalisation with actual scientific theory?
Any ball is "flat" if you place a small enough object on it, and that applies to houses.
But lets say you are going to build a mega building covering europa to asia, coast to coast. Then, if the appropiate materials is used, one must remember that the earth is oval.
Or lets for the sake of a more practical example take the kinetic energy of a moving object: The newtonian definition of it is valid until you reach something like 0,1 c(speed of light), but when something becomes faster than that, it is no longer valid, and a new formula must be used.

Besides: "What works" is basically what SCIENCE is about, while Philosophy is all about "meta concept of how or when" which may or may not be attempted justified by jibberish.

[3Miro]

It's not "practical and useful" as eating food is, but there are a lot of areas where philosophical inclinations directly affect your every day life. Say, the question of how much you pay in taxes annually and what type of medical coverage your country has is one such example.


Economics is something practical and useful, however, questions about Economics and Medicine can and should be answered in a scientific way. We can scientifically come with numbers like: healthcare for all people payed by the government would cost X amount, while privatized healthcare would cost Y. You can also run a hybrid model with both government and private companies involved for an amount of Z (actually pretty much every industrialized country has a hybrid healthcare system). Then you obviously pick the one model that would provide healthcare for the lowest cost. This can then be used to determine how much people should pay in healthcare tax.

Nothing good comes out of dogma or ideology being interjected into government questions.

But maybe I am not understanding your point.

Can you give am example of how you can use modern philosophy to answer the question of how much taxes I should pay.

[ninjaaron]

Economics is something practical and useful, however, questions about Economics and Medicine can and should be answered in a scientific way. We can scientifically come with numbers like: healthcare for all people payed by the government would cost X amount, while privatized healthcare would cost Y. You can also run a hybrid model with both government and private companies involved for an amount of Z (actually pretty much every industrialized country has a hybrid healthcare system). Then you obviously pick the one model that would provide healthcare for the lowest cost. This can then be used to determine how much people should pay in healthcare tax.

Nothing good comes out of dogma or ideology being interjected into government questions.

But maybe I am not understanding your point.

Can you give am example of how you can use modern philosophy to answer the question of how much taxes I should pay.

The question of whether or not the government actually should pay for health care is partially an ethical question, and while science paritally informs ethics, it never has the final word about them.

It's very much a question of dogma and ideology. If the ethical consensus dictates that we ought to do so, then medical science ought to have something to say about it's implementation. The mathematical formulas are not "scientific," I don't believe. Mathematics is a branch of logic, and it is an instrument, rather a product of science. A "scientific" method of paying for healthcare would have to be based on the observation of data.

In any case, while economic models are very nice and often helpful, they are not always espeically reliable, the actual numbers used in the equations are often a as much a matter of art as science. We cannot predict how money moves the way we can predict the way objects will respond to the Earth's gravitation. The human element is too heavily involved, and economic models have to rely on the humanities as much as the sciences.

By the way, you're doing that thing I was talking about earlier. Your marketing science as the answer to problems that it does not have the tools to solve. While scientific data can an should inform governance, observation in itself is incable of making any decisions. Governing a nation requires the courage of willful subjectivity.

[3Miro]

The question of whether or not the government actually should pay for health care is partially an ethical question, and while science paritally informs ethics, it never has the final word about them.

The question is simply about efficiency. If I can pay X to the government and Y to the private company, for the same healthcare, then I would simply pay the lesser of the two. There are obviously more variables involved obviously, so the current model in most countries is a hybrid model that at least in theory should optimize the cost and benefits.

In practice, money and special interest influences the whole process and things are done in a less than an efficient way. However, I don't think this inefficiency is philosophy, I think the proper name is corruption.

[3Miro]

You edited your post, this is a reply to your second part:



In any case, while economic models are very nice and often helpful, they are not always espeically reliable, the actual numbers used in the equations are often a as much a matter of art as science. We cannot predict how money moves the way we can predict the way objects will respond to the Earth's gravitation. The human element is too heavily involved, and economic models have to rely on the humanities as much as the sciences.

I think you are underestimating science. Think about the people driving on the road, you cannot predict who when and where would get in an accident, there are way too many human factors involved (who got drunk, who was tired, who was on the phone, etc). However, you can get very reliable statistics on how many accidents you can expect on average. In order to predict things like Economics, we don't need to predict what every single person would do, we need only the general trends.

I don't see humanities as really different from science. Maybe complementary at best, if not just variations of the same thing.



By the way, you're doing that thing I was talking about earlier. Your marketing science as the answer to problems that it does not have the tools to solve.

I am not saying that science has the answer to every question or that it can answer every question. What I am saying is that science has the correct approach to answer the questions of Economics and healthcare in particular. Dogma or Ideology cannot answer those questions.



While scientific data can an should inform governance, observation in itself is incable of making any decisions.

A straw man fallacy? Tell me that's just a slip.

You know that science is so much more than mere observation. Science produces reliable models for predicting the outcome of events. This is exactly what the government needs.



Governing a nation requires the courage of willful subjectivity.

How do you use subjectivity to predict the effects of raising or lowering taxes and this make an optimal decision. Strong will is useful and necessary for a government (especially when a decision has to be implemented), however, strong will without clear and rational thought is just an erratic dictatorship.

[el_koraco]

however, questions about Economics and Medicine can and should be answered in a scientific way.

Sure, but they almost never are.


But maybe I am not understanding your point.

Can you give am example of how you can use modern philosophy to answer the question of how much taxes I should pay.

You did understand me wrong. it's not a question of how you can use philosophy, but how much of an influence philosophy has had on certain areas of existence. The European health care model was largely influenced by the socialist (or social-democratic) doctrine of the state knowing what's best for the individual. So poeple pay a large amount of taxes, which are funneled to the government, which distributes it to badly managed hospitals etc. In principle (and according to shallow stats), everybody's covered, no problems anywhere. The practice hasn't been so shiny.

In the US, the health care system has largely been influenced by the libertarian doctrine of individualism, whereby you pay a modest amount of taxes, the government messes with some areas of your life, and leaves the others alone. According to principles and shallow stats, the expanse and quality of health coverage has appeared to be lacking, while in practice the US has had the best healthcare model in the world. And it's been schlepping the European medicine for a good 50 years.

Now, the fundamental differences in the economic and state models between the Europe and the US have never been practical, but ideological. The American left (influenced not by reason, but by the cancerous teaching of a group of philosophers from the 20's called The Frankfurt School) has been attempting to bring the flawed economic model to the US for a while, and while they've suceeded to an extent, they've been stopped by a sizeable minority of libertarian thinkers.

That's just an example of a role that philosophy plays in your everyday life, you can find dozens of those. or if you want to get technical, you could read up on a myriad of problems relating to modern day life and what kind of a role the useless discipline plays there. Not that you have to, really.

[bobbob94]

Sure, but they almost never are.



The European health care model was largely influenced by the socialist (or social-democratic) doctrine of the state knowing what's best for the individual. So poeple pay a large amount of taxes, which are funneled to the government, which distributes it to badly managed hospitals etc. In principle (and according to shallow stats), everybody's covered, no problems anywhere. The practice hasn't been so shiny.





As a beneficiary and supporter of probably the most 'socialist' health care system in Europe (the UK) I'd have to disagree, but this discussion is heading towards the political and is likely to get closed down. so keeping to the philosophical I'd generally agree that value judgements influenced by philosphical thinking are very much present in decisions of public policy. This can never be "objective". Sure, we can do studies and look at evidence to decide which method of reducing smoking rates works best, but choosing the objective of reducing smoking rates in hte first place raises philosophical issues.

[Elfy]

Stop now with the politics please.

Philosphise elsewhere :)

[ninjaaron]

You know that science is so much more than mere observation. Science produces reliable models for predicting the outcome of events. This is exactly what the government needs.

I'm talking about science as the knowledge obtained by the application of the scientific method.

Naturally, this definition is extended quite a bit by people who make science their religion. It's my opinion that science is an excellent servant, but a poor master, so I don't feel the need to make additional extentions to the term.

While Science can help to predict certain things (many things), it has not even come close to predicting human behaviour outside of basic instincts and reflexes. Econimics cannot produce models that accurately predict outcomes at the level of percision normally required of scientific theories. It's not even close. We can (and should) observe historical economic trends to help us conjecture what may happen in the future, but it would be foolish to pretend that you can test economics in a controlled enviromnemt that would allow you to produce a "scientific theory of economics."

There is, of course, the definition of science that means any knowldedge gained by rigorous study, in which case art and religion are also forms of science. I'm fairly certain that this is not what you have in mind.

It might be helpful to the discussion if you would define exactly what you mean by 'science.'

[ninjaaron]

libertarian doctrine of individualism... cancerous teaching of a group of philosophers from the 20's called The Frankfurt School)... stopped by a sizeable minority of libertarian thinkers...

I knew there was something I liked about you besides your taste in window managers.

[el_koraco]

Are you a pseudo-anarcho-capitalist slash corporate democrat too?

[3Miro]

el_koraco: I grew up in Europe and for the past 11 years I have been living in the USA. Unless I have an emergency and I absolutely must see a doctor in the USA, I use my vacation time to travel to Europe, meet family and get healthcare (including surgery and dental work).

ninjaaron: the broader definition of what I consider science or scientific is knowledge obtained via rigorous study by the means of logic and reason. This actually covers a lot of things, but the most notable exceptions are Modern (emphasis on modern) Philosophy, Religion and Art.

By Religion I mean someone going to Church on Sunday and by Art I mean Justin Bieber. Some people define Math as Art and literary critique of religious texts (like one would have in theology) I still consider scientific.

[WinterMadness]

To repeat my earlier post:


Whether you want to call it philosophy or not, it is completely irrelevant. The distinction that I am drawing is that modern academic philosophy is certainly disjointed from science. In modern academics, philosophy and science are completely different things. I also dare say that modern philosophy is somewhat useless (other than as a form of art).
then youre still wrong, every philosophy is different, empiricism essentially is science, or at least, justifies it, and its taught in philosophy classes.

[WinterMadness]

el_koraco: I grew up in Europe and for the past 11 years I have been living in the USA. Unless I have an emergency and I absolutely must see a doctor in the USA, I use my vacation time to travel to Europe, meet family and get healthcare (including surgery and dental work).

ninjaaron: the broader definition of what I consider science or scientific is knowledge obtained via rigorous study by the means of logic and reason. This actually covers a lot of things, but the most notable exceptions are Modern (emphasis on modern) Philosophy, Religion and Art.

By Religion I mean someone going to Church on Sunday and by Art I mean Justin Bieber. Some people define Math as Art and literary critique of religious texts (like one would have in theology) I still consider scientific.
logic and reason are both philosophical concepts, and it never stopped being in its domain.

saying science split apart from philosophy (or logic/ reason for that matter) is like saying the study of living beings is no longer in the domain of biology

[3Miro]

logic and reason are both philosophical concepts, and it never stopped being in its domain.

saying science split apart from philosophy (or logic/ reason for that matter) is like saying the study of living beings is no longer in the domain of biology

Point 1: there is a difference between what you call philosophy and what I call modern philosophy (I guess academic is not the right word). Under your definition, you are correct. Under my definition, modern philosophy is generally disconnected from science.

Point 2: there is a difference between someone teaching centuries old concepts in a Calculus class and somebody coming up with new mathematics that did not exist before (or was unknown to us, whichever way you want to call it). In the same way, there is a difference between somebody teaching philosophy (which I support and I guess the proper name is academic philosophy) and somebody coming up with new (modern) philosophy.

[WinterMadness]

Point 1: there is a difference between what you call philosophy and what I call modern philosophy (I guess academic is not the right word). Under your definition, you are correct. Under my definition, modern philosophy is generally disconnected from science.

Point 2: there is a difference between someone teaching centuries old concepts in a Calculus class and somebody coming up with new mathematics that did not exist before (or was unknown to us, whichever way you want to call it). In the same way, there is a difference between somebody teaching philosophy (which I support and I guess the proper name is academic philosophy) and somebody coming up with new (modern) philosophy.

Yeah, theres a difference, much like theres a difference between each philosophical concept. However, adding new material does not negate the past.

So if I come up with a new branch of mathematics, addition or subtraction can now be outside the domain of math? If they cant be, then why would science be outside the domain of philosophy?

Calculus is quite different from arithmetic, Statistics differs from Calculus, Set Theory And Logic is different from the previous two, but they never push out the other concepts.

I mean, we have many different kinds of statistics, and they dont even negate each other.

[Sylos]

Bad example. My math thesis required work not with 5 dimensions, but with infinite dimensions and I am not some kind of genius. In fact, infinite dimensional math has been around for over 100 years, it is just not something that you seen in regular courses, most people don't really work with it until graduate school. Infinite dimensions are nothing philosophical, just a little bit harder math (that is harder than a^2+b^2 = c^2).




Not sure that higher dimensional mathematics can really be equated to a conception of how such things exist. Numbers are merely a convenient way of expressing concepts that cannot be easily depicted. The fact that one can perform the required calculations and balance the equations does not suggest that you understand how such things exist in relation to yourself and the rest of the universe.

You seem to be of the opinion that philosophy has no use in the modern world. From my my own perspective I have to disagree as my own amatuer voyage into the world of classical and contemporary philosophy has given me a wealth of perspective. The more I have read into philosophy the more I have found the questions posed have deepened my understanding of the nature of knowledge and existence. For me that has made understanding the world and events around me easier. If others find a similar effect than I would suggest that is useful. I would also suggest that you cant really look at scientific research as being directly useful anymore (not in the same sense as in days gone by). Most areas of cutting edge research are in such specialist areas it is then only by the findings being utilised in combination with other research that the ground breaking, life changing developments occur for the great unwashed.

[3Miro]

Not sure that higher dimensional mathematics can really be equated to a conception of how such things exist. Numbers are merely a convenient way of expressing concepts that cannot be easily depicted. The fact that one can perform the required calculations and balance the equations does not suggest that you understand how such things exist in relation to yourself and the rest of the universe.

It was applied math, directly derived from physics and engineering. We understand infinite dimensions just as well as 2 or 3. And if you say that we don't "understand how such things exist in relation to yourself and the rest of the universe", I would say that I am not interested in solipsism.



You seem to be of the opinion that modern philosophy has no use in the world.

There, I fixed your stawman.

[WinterMadness]

Also, in terms of philosophy's usefulness, id love to see someone make a halfway intelligent machine without an understanding of philosophy.

An intelligent machine, capable of passing a turing test would require an outlook, motivation and a way of understanding the world. So as it turns out, philosophy's usefulness (aside from logic, reason, math and science) cannot be stated enough if we expect to have strong AI

[3Miro]

Also, in terms of philosophy's usefulness, id love to see someone make a halfway intelligent machine without an understanding of philosophy.

An intelligent machine, capable of passing a turing test would require an outlook, motivation and a way of understanding the world. So as it turns out, philosophy's usefulness (aside from logic, reason, math and science) cannot be stated enough if we expect to have strong AI

When was the last time MODERN philosophy helped understand anything. The current state of the subject doesn't answer or help understand anything. This doesn't mean that philosophy in general is useless, this means that currently no philosopher is doing any useful philosophy.

As always, enlighten me to the contrary.

[WinterMadness]

When was the last time MODERN philosophy helped understand anything. The current state of the subject doesn't answer or help understand anything. This doesn't mean that philosophy in general is useless, this means that currently no philosopher is doing any useful philosophy.

As always, enlighten me to the contrary.

Define modern philosophy. Socialism is modern philosophy, Ayn Rands objectivism is modern philosophy, I mean, I could even define the enlightenment era as modern.

And, im almost certain that if I pointed out a modern philosophy that did help us understand something, you would immediately dismiss it. Considering Science is a philosophy, and its always growing, it seems that your entire argument is self defeating.

We arent doing anything we havent done with math before, we arent really paving new ways of understanding math (at least, not anymore than we are in philosophy), so should we say modern mathematics is separate from mathematics? Because whether or not you realize it, thats essentially what youre saying (this is because you said philosophy split from science and traditional philosophy, due to modern philosophy not being useful (how useful do you think Plato's Rationalism was, as well?), the same logic/reasons must apply to other fields in order for you to have an objective viewpoint)

Nevermind the fact that you are philosophizing about modern philosophies usefulness. You are making an arbitrary distinction to serve your ambiguous point

[3Miro]

Math solves practical problems that improve people's lives, and this is new problems with new methods and new applications, not just variations of the old.

Modern Philosophy (just like your last post), is nothing more than mental masturbation.

If you don't see the difference between the two, there is nothing I can do about it and continuing this conversation is nothing more than a waste of time.

[WinterMadness]

Math solves practical problems that improve people's lives, and this is new problems with new methods and new applications, not just variations of the old.

Modern Philosophy (just like your last post), is nothing more than mental masturbation.

If you don't see the difference between the two, there is nothing I can do about it and continuing this conversation is nothing more than a waste of time.


Thats categorically false, there is an entire branch of mathematics that is pure abstraction and has no practical use
" whereas pure mathematics expressed truths that were independent of the physical world."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_mathematics#Purism

So I guess that isnt really math?

Not to mention, you keep using philosophy (even modern philosophies!) to say that philosophy is worthless.

you dont even know what philosophy is, and you came into a thread acting like you were going to essentially tell other people who actually studied the field whats what. You avoided direct questions and refuse to acknowledge things that you cant defend.... If anyone should simply leave this conversation out of hopelessness its me, however, I like to think most people can actually understand something, and i'd like to think you arent an exception to this.

The bottom line is, you just have to admit to yourself that you dont know what philosophy is. Its really not that hard, after you do that, you can study it with honesty.

[3Miro]

Yes, this conversation is philosophical AND it is useless (unlike pure math).

See you in another, hopefully more useful thread.

[WinterMadness]

Ive already demonstrated that you clearly understand how philosophy is useful (you are a utilitarian, you make value judgements based upon how useful/beneficial etc something is, that is your philosophy) though I dont think you understand what you are saying most of the time.

In addition, ive demonstrated that philosophy is useful for further A.I development. But again, that was a point that you didnt feel the need to address, you just kept on truckin' with the same defeated rhetoric.

[drawkcab]

Yes, this conversation is philosophical AND it is useless (unlike pure math).

See you in another, hopefully more useful thread.

/exit Euthyphro

[Sylos]

It was applied math, directly derived from physics and engineering. We understand infinite dimensions just as well as 2 or 3. And if you say that we don't "understand how such things exist in relation to yourself and the rest of the universe", I would say that I am not interested in solipsism.



There, I fixed your stawman.

I know I've missed the boat here as this discussion appears to be pretty well over but I still feel the need to respond. The fact that you can work equations with numbers relating to infinite dimensions does not mean that you understand infinite dimensions as well as 2 or 3. In the vein of your own argument throughout the thread if we look at this through the eyes of 'usefulness' we see that there is no purpose to such understanding. You can understand the properties of infinite dimensions - but only so far as their numerical approximations allow you to. You can no more physically use these dimensions of which you are so familiar than I can take a paradox to the bank. Higher dimensional theory is very useful in attempting to explain the origins of the universe and the nature of matter - but only because it balances some otherwise troublesome equations. It is totally abstract and cannot be experimentally verified. By your own standards that appears to make it pointless (not by mine though).

An interesting debate anyhow. My personal view is that the pursuit of understanding of the nature of existence as an important part of human development. In my view, the human mind has evolved to process he types of information we experience and require to make decisions upon most commonly. This means things on scales of size we are used to and on short time scales of a life time or two. The pursuit of understanding through philosophy forces us to develop our minds to think beyond these basic processes and push. Maybe one day we will achieve the skills required to understand our origins an meaning - or perhaps we'll all disappear up our own backsides trying. Either way it should be a chuckle on route.

EDIT: I also dont see that argument as solipsism as I didnt imply that the other dimensions dont exist. Just that there is no good way of actually visualising how they exist and how you would stand in them (if you believe superstring theory then you couldnt stand in one anyway because they are smaller than the plank length - hence unverifiable. A cynic might call it a little too coincidental that a troublesome marrying of theories that has been elusive and barrier to physics for years can be solved by a mathematical backflip that represents something too small to see. I say go for it.)

[sisco311]

Question was asked and answered.

Thread closed.

waloshin, good luck with your exams!

[nothingspecial]

I know I've missed the boat here as this discussion appears to be pretty well over

Yes, it is.

Thanks to everybody for taking part, but it's starting to get a little personal and is veering off topic.