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3rd March 2013, 01:42 PM | #2041 |
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If science is just one particular philosophy, as I've often heard it argued, then philosophy must comprise more than just science. Since science is more or less defined as the set of arguments which considers reality solely through evidence, itself derived solely from facts, other philosophies must necessarily be concerning themselves with something other than reality, evidence or facts.
A good example of these in conflict can be found in Johannes Kepler, who spent a fair portion of his life becoming increasingly frustrated that the facts he observed in oblong planetary motion did not support his idea of reality in which God would clearly have made all orbits as perfect circles. |
3rd March 2013, 02:17 PM | #2042 |
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"Honest inquiry" requires standards that philosophy simply does not met.
It accepts no evidence, has no methodology or standards for how it processes information, is not falsifiable or even testable, and what it laughably puts forth as answers do not in any way actually improve or expand our understanding of the universe. By no reasonable definition is actually a process for obtaining knowledge or information of any kind. Divorced from all standards all philosophy can ever be is a rousing game of who has the bigger imagination, which can be a rollicking good time for sure, I wouldn't mind this sorta silly pseudo-fortune cookie mental masturbating if it was just done for a laugh or as a sorta mental stretching exercise, but isn't useful in the lest as an end method for determining any facts or evidence of any actual use. You know that old one liner about how alternative medicine doesn't work by definition because when it does it is just called medicine? Well when philosophy actually starts to provide useful answers, it's called science. Science is philosophy that's grown up and matured. Science is philosophy that's accepted goals other then simply pleasing itself. Science is philosophy that's accepted standards. Science is philosophy that's more concerned with actual results then it's own self important cleverness. Science is philosophy that is more concerned with how accurate it is then in affecting some tired cliched "Wise Old Sage on the Mountain" performance piece. Modern neuroscience is already starting to answer many of those meaningless age old questions about sense of self and persistence of reality that philosophy has claimed as its domain far longer then it should have. The egg came first, if a tree falls in the forest it still produces sound waves, we can hook you up to an EKG and tell you if you're a butterfly dreaming you're a man or a man dreaming you're a butterfly. Generations ago two people sat shivering in the cold, dark night. One of them rubbed two sticks together to make the first fire and the second one asked himself "How can I be sure the cold is real and I'm not just imagining it?" And here's the funny thing... I bet the second still huddled close to the fire to get warmer. And here's the funny thing... here we are thousands of years later and science has taken us to the moon, split the atom, cracked the human genome, cloned higher mammals, cured deadly diseases, created a vast internetworked computer system that allows people on opposite sides of the globe to communicate, photographed a live giant squid, landed a nuclear power SUV on Mars, and that's just in the last hundred years or so. I stand in awe, utter amazement of what I stand to see in the my lifetime, both the things that our current track are likely to take us to like further space exploration and colonization, artificial intelligence including up to maybe the Singularity, the so called Theory of Everything, but more so of the things that I can't even imagine. Now, to preemptively counter what I'm sure will be one of the first canned push button responses I'll get, is the idea that the drive to do these things, the curiosity, the passion, the wonder that makes all of what science does so amazing, somehow comes or can only be explained by philosophy, usually worded in that pathetic little piece of trite Hallmark nonsense of something being "Outside the realm of science." This is utter malarkey. You don't need mystical woo to hold a sense of wonder at the world. Human curiosity and drive are easily explain both by and within the framework of science. We're human specifically because millions of years ago some proto-human ape man was curious enough pick up a rock and use it as a tool or form simple animal grunts into the first language, and wrap themselves in a hide instead of dying in the cold. Every single way in which our lives have advanced and approved has been because of science. And as near as I can tell philosophy is still out shivering in the cold and the dark, trying to figure out if it is real or not. I simply cannot see the value in this. Navel gazers are constantly pontificating on all the "Truths" that philosophy has given us, but always seem unable to actually provide much in the way of actual examples of this. Much like religion, mysticism, pseudoscience and other forms of Woo it seems that philosophy has made the fundamental mistake of for some baffling reason assuming that questions that haven't been answered yet will not be answered via the fundamental process that has answered every question that has ever been answered. If they are base, metaphysical questions to the very nature of our existence that exist separately from ponderous silly word games science will be the ones to answer it, not meaningless mental gymnastics. I've spent my entire adult life listening to scores of pompous, self important wannabe Obi-Wans ponderously reword the same dozen trite, meaningless, and rather silly questions over and over as they get answered because they has some base need to ask questions that can't be answered in order to make themselves seem clever. Well clever is fine and dandy, but it doesn't really have much practical application. Intelligence on the other hand... |
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3rd March 2013, 02:48 PM | #2043 |
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3rd March 2013, 06:45 PM | #2044 |
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Not only is Philosophy a smooshy term, but Science, as used in this thread, apparently gets credit for everything from Engineering to Agriculture. I assume it wouldn't be as attractive to point out the failures in the scientific method in economics, social sciences and human rights.
One enlightening place to look is how science is used in the courtroom, a venue where we try to determine the truth of matters. In some cases, forensic evidence is weighed very highly, in other cases it has led to some real miscarriages of justice. The troubling part is when the public grants more to the discipline than is warranted, thinking DNA tells you who the bad guy is, or when they believe a "scientific opinion" is other than an opinion, or confuse "scientific certainty" with certainty. In my view, there is more danger to be had in over, rather than under, trusting science. I believe the laity needs to be a bit more skeptical, lest science be mistakenly clothed in the robes of priestly authority. |
4th March 2013, 11:54 AM | #2045 |
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4th March 2013, 11:59 AM | #2046 |
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And philosophy, as used in this thread, should get credit for Engineering and Argriculture?
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How has philosophy, as used in this thread, led to the improvement in economics? Philosophically speaking, greed is harmful. Are there less greedy people around and those greedy people who are still around, they are less greedy, yes? And this has happened through deep philosophical insight and dissemination of the economical philosophy, right? Speaking of economics, all I can see around me is basically two or maybe three major schools of economics which are based on completely dissimilar assumptions and dare I say, philosophies. They sit and wrangle day after day while the issues of the nation continue to worsen. They all claim to be representative of the "real world" and accurately reflect the "real world". They can't all be right, so let's get down to brass tacks: how does one find out which is "better" for a nation? Then, having found this, how do we all implement it and get at least some majority consensus on this most correct version? How will philosophy help in this regard? I'm being honest in my questions, so anyone may choose to respond with as much acerbity as wished.
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Besides, a defense attorney does not ask herself, "what is the truth" but "how can I introduce the element of reasonable doubt to this jury without crossing a sometimes arbitrary line"?
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I'm curious to know: in many of the arguments I read about on JREF -- let's use the theory of evolution versus Behe -- how come more philosophers don't state how Behe is wrong because he made an error in his philosophy? I think that the philosophy is where Behe and his ilk really want the arugment to be, because then they are all just arguing stuff that has no evidence one way or the other. Maybe they do and I just don't see it. I don't see it because it's the people posting stuff like, "Behe is wrong here and here and here... and this explains why in layman's terms, and this and this and this explains why in more technical language if you're curious". The latter seems to hold more weight for me. |
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4th March 2013, 12:29 PM | #2047 |
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Ah yes the "But science is wrong sometimes too!" cry.
Meaningless. Science has built into its base methodology, hell practically as its core defining characteristic, self correction. You know what corrects philosophy? Science. You know what corrects science? More science. And would simply adore to know how agriculture and engineering aren't science. I'm always amazed at people that think science is just beakers and labcoats. |
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4th March 2013, 02:03 PM | #2048 |
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4th March 2013, 02:11 PM | #2049 |
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I am simultaneously criticized for falsely accusing science of being something "only those in lab coats do" and then of "scientists as being priests."
In other words, science is both purer in some cases (the philosophical, addressing reality sense) and impure enough to encompass human activities like farming and architecture. My stance is not to point out the imperfections of science in contrast with a holier endeavor, but to say that both enterprises, science and philosophy are human activities with human goals and participants. Neither is the be-all and end-all of how to live in world. It seems a false binary to frame the argument this way. What I was specifically pointing out is that no matter what you say science is, how it is used matters rather more. |
4th March 2013, 02:26 PM | #2050 |
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There is an inherent problem with the "self correction" method and I think this is a mischaracterization of science. It presupposes that all knowledge is accessible from previous, sometimes mistaken, knowledge. In other words, the statement focuses on moving closer to truth by modifying what has come before when a mistake is noticed.
I think this misses some of the big leaps in science. For example, would you say that Einstein merely "corrected" Newton, or looked at the world in an entirely different way? Just beakers and labcoats? Not so. Like Soylent Green, it's people. But the "people" part takes precedence over the discipline part. To say a farmer is a scientist because science has an input into his decision process is to give science too much credit. Do we say that she thinks farming worthwhile because, after a strict scientific analysis, she determined her father instilled a love of the land in her? Will we say that an engineer is scientifically illiterate because his choices are driven, not just by materials costs, but by aesthetic beauty? And even in prosaic decisions, is our engineer doing "science" or simply following recipes about loads and tension and so on? I perhaps grant more to the discovery process and the nobility of science because I don't think of it as mere copying of previous work or iterative application of the laws of physics. It is one thing to build theories about the world, it is another to apply those theories to accomplish some goal. I would no more call engineering science than call humanitarian acts philosophy. One can accept the philosophical premise of "the greatest good for the greatest number" and apply it without "doing philosophy." |
4th March 2013, 02:47 PM | #2051 |
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Or even in broader terms I challenge any of the philosophy boosters to answer, directly and without silly word games, the following questions.
1. Please give an example of a philosophy you feel to be wrong. 2. Please describe by what metrics or standards you came to this conclusion. 3. How exactly when faced with two directly opposing philosophies, one is to determine which one is correct? |
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4th March 2013, 09:43 PM | #2052 |
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Philosophy compromises more than science not in approach or method but in the fields that it accepts as valid/amenable to study. For example, while both examine aspects of ontology, science does not/cannot delve into normative morals, many aspects of the workings of language or the underpinnings of the scientific method and practice. These fields of inquiry are not amenable to science because they cannot as yet be tested or in some cases perhaps may never be.
Philosophy is very much interested in the apparent facts about the world. This is evident in reading the natural philosophers whose speculations about the world around them led to modern science. You will also find science grounding thinkers like Bacon (died trying to do science as the story goes), Descartes, Locke and Kant. In good contemporary philosophical discourse you will see many well researched and cautious references our best understandings of reality as given to us by science. |
4th March 2013, 10:07 PM | #2053 |
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Since you haven't bothered to address what I said about philosophy providing us with concepts I am not going to attempt doing battle with this in depth. It answers for a large part of your "what use is philosophy?" questions. And I have just argued against what seems to me the absurd idea that philosophy "accepts no evidence" in my post immediately previous to this one. And it's hilarious that you put forward philosopher Karl Popper's falsification concept as your own epistemic criteria for excluding philosophy as a valid form of inquiry. That's an example of philosophical concepts at work for you right there. Much of the concepts in our reasoning tool kit have come from philosophy and have become so ubiquitous that we take them for granted as common sense facts about the world.
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5th March 2013, 05:57 AM | #2054 |
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1) Aristotelian elementalism
2) It is inconsistent with my experiences of the world. 3) Two ways: a) it is inconsistent with its own premises or incoherent b) when it makes claims about the world, those claims clash with experience. Note a particular nuance here. A philosophy doesn't have to be about anything in the world. In this way, it is like mathematics. One can create mathematics that are consistent but not applicable to anything we know about or think exists. This is different than empiricism, which demands statements about the world around us and has nature as a "checking" mechanism. I could very well "do" philosophy about the purity of unicorns, or the nature of God, so long as I kept to my axioms and didn't require either exist. Perhaps, at the root of it, it is this latter freedom that irks some of a practical bent. How, they wonder, can anything be useful or worthwhile if it doesn't intersect with their own experiences? Death by abstraction. To those I can only offer the experience of doing philosophy itself. |
5th March 2013, 05:59 AM | #2055 |
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Here is a current thread with an argument and refutation on philosophical grounds: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=254511
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5th March 2013, 06:23 AM | #2056 |
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I'll address what philosphy says the nano-second it address anything of value in a way which can actually be addressed.
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Since philosophy is not testable or falsifiable in any sense, it cannot provide meaningful answers to any question. Period.
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5th March 2013, 06:43 AM | #2057 |
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Yeah philosophy's "I can make up anything I want and can't be proven wrong method" is so much better.
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Science is an all encompassing concept. There is nothing "outside the realm" of science or any concept or activity that cannot be explained within a scientific mindset. We don't call these things science for the same reason we don't call everything that produces motion a machine or literally every substance a chemical because the concept is too broad to be used that way. Aesthetics, love, the arts can all be seen in the framework of a scientific concept. I believe there is a strong, widespread misunderstanding of exactly what science is. For some reason there is still this strongly ingrained idea that to experience any beauty or wonder or joy or color or passion you have to either reject science completely or add something on top of science that sciences lacks. I find this mindset, to be diplomatic, problematic at best and dangerous at worst. It seems that at the end of the day philosophy continues to exist as a concept due to some historic ingrained dislike or distrust of science as a base concept to the level that people simply don't like to apply that term to certain things that are important to them. For some reason for a lot of people calling something a science cheapens it, makes it seem cold and heartless and dead and sterile. It is not this way for me. I love my wife. I also understand that this love is a biochemical reaction in my brain, a chemical stew of nerve growth factor, testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin all stewing about in my anterior cingulate cortex and my media insula, not from getting shot by a magical arrow by a little flying cherub. I think sunsets are beautiful. I also understand that a sunset is a giant ball of hydrogen gas moving out of my line of sight due to the rotation and curvature of the Earth and it's orbit around the sun, not from Apollo driving a magic chariot across the sky. And herein is one of the core root differences between us. When something is explained to me, it doesn't mean less to me. I'll take the wonder of knowing over the wonder of not knowing any day. I hear-by publicly and passionately reject any interest in or respect for any concept that becomes less interesting the more you know about it. If something is only useful or interesting when it's expressed in vague allegorical fortune cookie zen koans, if it becomes dull and pointless when expressed with clarity and simplicity, if it falls apart when reworded more directly... it is simply not a useful concept. |
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5th March 2013, 09:59 AM | #2058 | ||
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5th March 2013, 10:05 AM | #2059 |
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5th March 2013, 10:49 AM | #2060 |
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Why do you think that science cannot delve into normative morals? When philosophy delves into normative morals, how then can we know which is more correct? If you say, "that which most closely matches with what we see" then I would have said you did this through the scientific method.
So again, I say that I lean towards the idea that philosophy is useless. Without rancor or snideness on your part, I ask that you try and teach me because I am still open to changing my mind.
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Dude! Don't leave me hangin'! Could you please tell me some of these taken for granted facts that have come from philosophy? Again, I do have a bias in favor of science, but am willing to change my mind. |
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5th March 2013, 10:57 AM | #2061 |
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5th March 2013, 11:00 AM | #2062 |
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I normally try to not include more than one poster in only a single response, but in this case it hightlights my thoughts as follows.
Afer reading these two posts especially, I am left thinking that there certainly can be more than these two camps: the camp of philosophy and the camp of science. A third camp for me would be the camp of neither. Don't get me wrong; I still believe -- as JoeBentley has stated above -- that these experiences are amenable to the scientific method. But when I enjoy the (stereotyped) sunset, I find that I need neither science nor philosophy to enjoy it. It just is. I don't need to categorize this enjoyment, especially in that moment. In fact, I think that, in the instances of joy, both philosophy and science tend to cause disruption. Now, I'm half expecting someone to come along and say that I am now, in this post, "doing philosophy." |
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5th March 2013, 11:03 AM | #2063 |
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5th March 2013, 11:05 AM | #2064 |
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5th March 2013, 12:15 PM | #2065 |
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Oh, I agree completely. I think that even 'enjoyment' itself is, in fact, quantifiable if not at least amenable to scientific inquiry. It can certainly be amenable to philosophical inquiry as well. However, I think that more "correct" answers will be produced through scientific inquiry rather than philosophical inquiry.
To be clear, I am still open to changing my mind. Perhaps some of the pro-philosophers can see this statement as an honest, earnest though gentle, challenge. |
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5th March 2013, 12:23 PM | #2066 |
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5th March 2013, 01:32 PM | #2067 |
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I've tried to answer this question but have been unable to do so to the satisfaction of the askers. This time, I thought it might be better to give a link to a website that purports to answer philosophical questions from the public.
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Whether any of this strikes you as "wonderful" or "amazing," I can't predict. |
5th March 2013, 01:41 PM | #2068 |
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You seem to value Popperian falsification. You are likely to enjoy what he had to say about the deficiency of confirmation. I enjoyed this podcast recently on the man and his ideas.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...popper/4471272 So why is falsifiability an important marker of epistemic value? You can make reference to philosopher Karl Popper if you like. I am trying to be clever with this question but you seem to have missed the irony of dismissing philosophy based on a criteria invented by a philosopher. As for a philosophical idea demonstrated as being wrong by other philosophers, the cosmological argument for the existence of God, Pascal's wager, mind-body dualism? There are also plenty of ontological claims with their origins in philosophy that science has knocked dead - Aristotelian physics, the classical elements. But I don't think that philosophy is really about finding answers at all but rather providing better questions and new concepts. It has given science various frameworks in which to explore ideas. Now that role does seem to be rather limited these days but I reckon it has plenty of potential in developing understandings of the mind and consciousness. I just love reading and listening to philosophy. I am fascinated by the history of ideas and what has gone on to reach the point at which we are today. And I love the part of the tale where science kicks into gear as well. It has been an amazing ride to get to where we are today and philosophy has been a major player in that story with many great characters and ideas. Another idea that I feel I share with most of the people on this forum is a love of truth. We share the idea that the modern scientific method is the best way of reaching that truth but I want to try to explore deeper questions about this knowledge. I want to do it to satisfy personal curiosity but also to answer more sophisticated challenges against science by believers of woo. The demarcation question is a fascinating one. How do we determine what is good science and what is not? As I remember pointed out earlier in the thread, this is a question that needed to be answered in the Dover Trial. What is the nature of our knowledge of the world, including that won by the scientific method? Are they just good models? To what degree do they describe the external world? These questions are sounding a bit lame to myself as I try to see them from your position but they do make a lot of sense when you apply them to what was going on with past scientific paradigms/facts about the world like geocentricism and the stages of heliocentricism. It's interesting to think about how people those times saw ideas about the world around them and question our own position about our own best understandings. Well that's my little ramble over for this evening. It's nice to have this thread off moderation and I will try to be back to go into bat for philosophy. There is certainly a lot of valid criticism of the way it has been done but I don't fully get the hate. |
5th March 2013, 01:59 PM | #2069 |
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5th March 2013, 02:08 PM | #2070 |
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5th March 2013, 02:08 PM | #2071 |
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I think hate might be too strong a word, with dislike or irritating being closer. My sense is it's a reaction to a perception of philosophers using confusion and "anything goes" while simultaneously adopting an attitude of superiority by way of eclecticism. Paired with an either-or, science vs. philosophy framework, we get the sense of "camps" or "teams."
Defined this way, and as a supporter of philosophy, it follows that I am rejecting science and being intellectually arrogant. Of course, things look a bit different from where I sit, where my defense of philosophy is a reaction to the dismissal, and not a wholehearted support or even ranking of one discipline over another, nor any more hubristic than the other "team." The resolution seems to me to consist of the obvious: If you ask a question in scientific terms then only a scientific answer will do. If those are the only questions of merit, the result is a limiting by definition and there's no escape. The same pattern applies if we take "value" to mean the result of just those questions. It should surprise no one that empiricism can be viewed as a self contained system. The pro-philosophy arguments are then an attempt to show that empirical methods are insufficient, that something more is needed. But as soon as this point is stressed, the response is, "Well, that's not testable by empirical methods and must be ruled out of court." To make my case, I have to step outside of the system which self-validates that system. That's the rhetorical trick, and it's a good one. Goedel would approve. |
5th March 2013, 02:17 PM | #2072 |
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5th March 2013, 02:26 PM | #2073 |
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From the link:
Can space be cognized by only verbal means or does it require experience to be understood? Let me show you what I am getting at. You could never imagine what the color red is from a description of it and I think most people see that as an intrinsic limitation on language. No matter how sophisticated the person listening/describing or how sophisticated the language used you would never know what red is without an experience of it. Is space equally ineffable when it comes to descriptions of it? Response from Jasper Reid on February 14, 2013 Imagine there's a pure, disembodied intellect, and you somehow have the ability to communicate with it. It's a very clever intellect, so it's perfectly receptive to abstract, a priori mathematics: but it has never had any experience of spatial things, and it wants you to explain space to it. How might you go about this? Any explanation that starts with "Imagine there's a pure, disembodied intellect" isn't going to explain much. |
5th March 2013, 02:52 PM | #2074 |
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Amusing. Thanks for the link. I liked this one
''Is Kant's project of reconciling freedom with an apparently deterministic nature still relevant given how Quantum mechanics does not (as I understand it) see nature as a deterministic totality?'' ''In my opinion, it's no harder to reconcile freedom (free choice, responsible action) with determinism than to reconcile it with indeterminism. On the contrary, it may be easier; see, for example, this SEP entry. According to compatibilists, we can act freely even if determinism should turn out to be true and hence even if the indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics should turn out to be false. But no one thinks that the truth of indeterminism (whether quantum indeterminism or some other kind) by itself would suffice to give us freedom. The debate is about whether indeterminism is necessary for freedom. In my view, incompatibilists bear the burden of showing that it is and have failed to discharge that burden.'' I'm an incompatible deterministic non-determinist |
5th March 2013, 02:58 PM | #2075 |
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Imagine there is a slightly tainted, half-bodied intellect. A funny link. Saying that you cannot explain the colour red to a blind man or a disembodied intellect comes straight out of the Sybil Fawlty School Of The Bleeding Obvious, and I don't need a philosopher to explain it to me.
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5th March 2013, 03:29 PM | #2076 |
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By obvious, do you mean empirically testable and falsifiable? Let us see the power of raw science in action!
Or perhaps the question is unanswerable by science, since the predicate is fantastical. In that case, the question can be ruled out of court as meaningless (or at least ungrounded in reality) and the taint attaches to anyone who would ask such a question? |
5th March 2013, 03:37 PM | #2077 |
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You find it hard to understand that you cannot explain the colour red to a person who has been blind from birth? How would you go about testing that, if you think it needs testing? What is there to explain? Let's try. The person cannot see and does not know what colour is. That may not be philosophical enough for you but it will do for me. I did not ask a question.
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5th March 2013, 03:49 PM | #2078 |
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5th March 2013, 03:52 PM | #2079 |
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So our hypothesis is that someone blind from birth cannot understand color? Will that do? And we'll start, probably with a random sampling of those blind from birth and assign them into perhaps three groups, a placebo, a no interaction and then, what? Some third group where we try different ways of explaining color?
Will we ever answer the question satisfactorily? I suppose a positive result would answer it, but what about a series of negative results? Is it even possible to know whether we can't do it or whether we just haven't hit on the right method? This is all very complicated and confusing. Perhaps this is a case where philosophy is a better tool than science. Or, we can just dodge the question, another good method although probably not scientific per se. |
5th March 2013, 03:55 PM | #2080 |
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