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Old 5th March 2013, 03:57 PM   #2081
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
So you have never hung around with any blind people. I have,
Anecdotal evidence is a good place to start, but hardly what I'd call being scientific about it.
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Old 5th March 2013, 03:58 PM   #2082
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So your definition of a philosopher is ''a person who cannot understand that totally blind people who have been blind from birth do not know what colour is.'' Fair enough. We'll leave it at that.
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Old 5th March 2013, 04:01 PM   #2083
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Well, I was hoping someone would answer my honest questions, but if bickering is what y'all want, I'll gracefully bow out before it gets locked again.
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Old 5th March 2013, 04:27 PM   #2084
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Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
Well, I was hoping someone would answer my honest questions, but if bickering is what y'all want, I'll gracefully bow out before it gets locked again.
I guess bickering is more fun sometimes. But I quoted your post below and will pick out some questions to try and answer them.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
And philosophy, as used in this thread, should get credit for Engineering and Argriculture?
No. I think it's a false dichotomy to say either science or philosophy. There's much more going on that either discipline.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
By all means, point out the failures. Bring it on. It's the only way that science improves.
This referred to me trying to point out the "failures" of science in the context of the either/or mentioned above. What I meant was no ability to predict accurately in the realms I mentioned: economics, sociology and I forgot the third one. It was a cheap shot, I don't expect any of those realms to be scientized in my lifetime and in fact, they may be beyond prediction in a fundamental way.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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?
Not as far as I know. I think of economics as a separate discipline, although the nature of "value" and the "oughts" we find in philosophical musings (such as Rand and Objectivism) may have input.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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.
I can't answer this at all. I'm not very well schooled in economics. My guess is that ranking itself is a futile effort because it depends on subjective values that are not fixed in time. In my unschooled view, economics (at least macro) is more like weather reporting than cloud seeding. In other words, a phenomena to be reacted to instead of directly controlled.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
No, it isn't. It's to find a person guilty of a crime. "The truth" is an ideal that has long been abandoned in the courthouse. The search for "the truth" is still happening in laboratories across the world though.
(clipped a little here, having nothing useful to add)


Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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?
He may not have. What I mean is that a philosophy can be internally consistent and not based on, or at least not be checkable by, nature/reality. I wish I knew more about his argument, but I'd guess that if it fails on observables, that's a stronger case than a philosophical one.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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.
Could be.

Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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.
As it should, as long as Behe is making claims about nature or the world around us. If he's doing something like making God axiomatic and untestable, then those arguments wouldn't work and philosophy might be a better tool.
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Old 5th March 2013, 05:46 PM   #2085
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Not only is Philosophy a smooshy term, but Science, as used in this thread, apparently gets credit for everything from Engineering to Agriculture.
Experimenting with stuff and sticking with the things that work isn't the purview of philosophy. What else would you call the process that gave us agriculture ?
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Old 5th March 2013, 05:51 PM   #2086
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
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?
You know full well what was meant by "self-correcting". Also, Einstein wouldn't have done squat if not for Newton.

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2) It is inconsistent with my experiences of the world.
Since your experiences and mine are different, I submit that this is a ridiculous metric for determining what is right or wrong.

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when it makes claims about the world, those claims clash with experience.
In other words, proven wrong by science.
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Old 5th March 2013, 05:53 PM   #2087
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
''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 like this flavour of word salad.
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Old 5th March 2013, 07:37 PM   #2088
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
Experimenting with stuff and sticking with the things that work isn't the purview of philosophy. What else would you call the process that gave us agriculture ?
Insofar as the word "process" even applies, I think "experimenting with stuff and sticking with the things that work" is a pretty good explanation for how agriculture arose. I don't think it's a very good description of science though.

I classify science and technology as different enterprises. The objective of the former to discover and describe the world and deduce natural laws, the latter to apply what is already known to create or sustain a preferred environment or product.
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Old 5th March 2013, 10:17 PM   #2089
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Originally Posted by The Norseman View Post
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.
Science is descriptive and not normative (prescribing oughts). It doesn't have anything to say about what we should value as human beings and so science cannot for example say whether lying is right or wrong and in what circumstances. The descriptive enterprise of science can provide information on how people actually behave in given situations.

Now if you are looking for encompassing answers from examinations of moral philosophy (or epistemology for that matter) you are going to be disappointed. But I still find it important to understand the various dead ends and attempts at circumvention in the various approaches to a system of morals. For me there is value in a good understanding of the problems of my moral system(s). I would have thought this was pretty important stuff for an atheist who doesn't get an inscrutable set of values handed down from above.


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Wasn't 'natural philosopher' the then Politically Correct term that was given to scientists? Weren't they doing then what we would now call science?
Well that is a fairly recent term, being coined in 1833, and apparently satirical at first. It was used as a way of separating out what scientists were doing from a whole lot of other investigative projects. So what is this thing that we call science? Why do you chose the defining criteria that you do? Do those criteria allow in practices like astrology or creation science? Are they science or bad science? Why or why not? If you care to examine the question deeply you are going to have to do philosophy or make reference to philosophical concepts that you may have taken off the shelf without understandings of the discourse behind them - like Popperian falsification.

Now some of you may be thinking that here we are saying that everything is science. But the difference is in how far you are willing to go in exploring the question ranging from "I know science when I see it" to radical scepticism about the possibilities of having any knowledge. You may not want to go there yourself but such philosophical discourse has unearthed a lot of concepts that we take for granted today.

Quote:
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.
More lucid minds and writers than I have already done so but here are some that may have been mentioned and some that may be new: Falsification, logic, foundations of free market economy (philosophers didn't invent it, but try defending it or criticising it without conscious or otherwise references to the ideas of Adam Smith), conceptual foundations liberalism, the social contract, emergence, empiricism (again try firmly defending it without reference to philosophical concepts or shallow appeals to common sense), the various categories of logical fallacies that we see bandied about here, Occam's razor, the harm principal, atomism, ...

ETA: These are not facts from a philosophical perspective just concepts that are useful to varying degrees and with various problems and open questions.

Last edited by Sideroxylon; 5th March 2013 at 10:22 PM. Reason: clarity: missing word
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Old 5th March 2013, 11:00 PM   #2090
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Thank you, Sideroxylon and marplots for your answers. I have some superficial comments now, but in lieu of that, I want to take a bit of time to mull all of this over.

I think the responses have been quite meaningful to me and insightful.
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Old 6th March 2013, 12:35 AM   #2091
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
No. I think it's a false dichotomy to say either science or philosophy.
At the risk of sending this discussion even farther into a deathspiral of meaningless semantics, I'll address this.

Perhaps linguistically some nuance does exist between science as a concept and philosophy as a concept.

But it is overly obvious that what we are discussing is a very base difference in how we process information.

1. A methodology for processing information that uses external evidence.
2. A methodology for processing information that uses the mental process.

There is a very, very, very low limit to how much about this world you can know and learn simply by... thinking about it. Real, concrete knowledge and understanding requires you put your thoughts to some sort of external test.
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Old 6th March 2013, 12:56 AM   #2092
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The gateway drug into philosophy for some of you might be philosophy of science. The article that I have linked below highlights some of the ridiculous claims made by philosophers and interpretations of philosophical arguments and the way they led to these ideas hijacking some academic departments. It goes on to argue that such thinking has muddied the debate of the teaching of creationism in U.S. schools. But it also argues that we need a better grounding in philosophy in the general public (the field of logic in particular) as well as greater input into the philosophy of biology. The demarcation problem and legal rulings on attempts to push religion into schools is a problem that I think many sceptics will recognise the importance of.

http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/...hacher_paq.pdf

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Old 6th March 2013, 01:05 AM   #2093
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
At the risk of sending this discussion even farther into a deathspiral of meaningless semantics, I'll address this.

Perhaps linguistically some nuance does exist between science as a concept and philosophy as a concept.

But it is overly obvious that what we are discussing is a very base difference in how we process information.

1. A methodology for processing information that uses external evidence.
2. A methodology for processing information that uses the mental process.

There is a very, very, very low limit to how much about this world you can know and learn simply by... thinking about it. Real, concrete knowledge and understanding requires you put your thoughts to some sort of external test.
What you are doing here is describing two different approaches to knowledge which led to what have been categorised as the empiricist and rationalist schools. Your questions about their relative worth has been the domain of philosophy and there has been much said about them but to weigh them up is to do philosophy. It's not a question for science, is it.
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Old 6th March 2013, 01:17 AM   #2094
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
At the risk of sending this discussion even farther into a deathspiral of meaningless semantics, I'll address this.
Philosophy of language really is an interesting subject to explore.
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Old 6th March 2013, 01:20 AM   #2095
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
Philosophy of language really is an interesting subject to explore.
Perhaps, but I have a strong distaste for how often pseudo-intellectuals and navel gazers alike attempt to hijack discussions into meaningless quibbles over pointless differences in the language.
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Old 6th March 2013, 01:22 AM   #2096
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
It's not a question for science, is it.
Well since only science can answer questions by any reasonable definition of answer.

"Reword the question" is not the same thing as an answer.
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Old 6th March 2013, 01:59 AM   #2097
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
I like this flavour of word salad.
Perhaps one of our philosophy fans could make an attempt at an English translation?
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Old 6th March 2013, 03:03 AM   #2098
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
Perhaps, but I have a strong distaste for how often pseudo-intellectuals and navel gazers alike attempt to hijack discussions into meaningless quibbles over pointless differences in the language.
Well who wouldn't dislike pure posturing and pointless argument, but things may simply appear so because the listener lacks understanding of the terminology being used and the history of discourse implicitly referred to in many of these discussions. I am trying to be clear here so if you think I am guilty of such a thing then please point it out.
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Old 6th March 2013, 03:15 AM   #2099
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
Well since only science can answer questions by any reasonable definition of answer.

"Reword the question" is not the same thing as an answer.
Rewording the question, reformulating new questions and the creation of new concepts can open the path to scientific answers. These can lead to new ways of seeing existing data and new hypotheses to test.
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Old 6th March 2013, 03:29 AM   #2100
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Insofar as the word "process" even applies, I think "experimenting with stuff and sticking with the things that work" is a pretty good explanation for how agriculture arose. I don't think it's a very good description of science though.

I classify science and technology as different enterprises. The objective of the former to discover and describe the world and deduce natural laws, the latter to apply what is already known to create or sustain a preferred environment or product.
I'd say technology is the result of science.

Agriculture was, I believe, developped through trial-and-error experimentation. Of course, those early people didn't call it science but the point is that they were doing empirical testing and they kept the best techniques. That is exactly like science, so I don't think you should dismiss calling it science immediately. It certainly wasn't philosophy.
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Old 6th March 2013, 03:31 AM   #2101
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
Rewording the question, reformulating new questions and the creation of new concepts can open the path to scientific answers.
No one is disputing that, as far as I know. The point is that it doesn't GIVE you answers until you put your ideas to the test, at which point it ceases to be philosophy and becomes science.
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Old 6th March 2013, 03:51 AM   #2102
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
No one is disputing that, as far as I know. The point is that it doesn't GIVE you answers until you put your ideas to the test, at which point it ceases to be philosophy and becomes science.

If you are talking about ontological problems then sure excellent argument can be made for the claim that science is the best arbiter, while philosophy deserves credit for setting much necessary conceptual framework.

But what about the many questions that science cannot deal with? Can we just ignore them? Here let's focus on epistemic questions as they relate to examination of the scientific approach itself. What is you opinion of the demarcation problem? Is it important to set criteria for what we decide is science or not? Is it even possible to do such a thing? Along with questions about what makes science so successful and how we should measure such success, I see these questions as important and fascinating. It's all part of my drive to reaching my best possible understanding of the world I find myself in before I shuffle off it. This along with other legal and social consequences of establishing understanding for sciences standing, even if you only end up in a pragmatist stance of saying "science works suckers!" But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working. What do we mean by explanatory and predictive power? What makes for a good explanation?

Last edited by Sideroxylon; 6th March 2013 at 03:55 AM. Reason: missing word *cannot*
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:17 AM   #2103
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Perhaps one of our philosophy fans could make an attempt at an English translation?
Because it's you asking, dafydd. I'll have a crack this evening. I'm heading out just now but while you wait here's Philosophy Bro on the subject:

Possible NSFW warning - contains much swearing.
http://www.philosophybro.com/2011/02...free-will.html
"In fact, the problem of free will might just be the deepest *********** rabbit hole philosophers have yet dug" - I agree and a good part of my lack of interest in the perhaps unanswerable and inconsequential question.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:18 AM   #2104
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working.
You don't know what it means to go to work? My six year old grandson knows that, both his patents work.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:22 AM   #2105
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
You don't know what it means to go to work? My six year old grandson knows that, both his patents work.
Are you kidding me here, mate? Or was I really so unclear with what I said that you would conflate two meanings of the term work?
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:25 AM   #2106
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
Are you kidding me here, mate? Or was I really so unclear with what I said that you would conflate two meanings of the term work?
''But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working''.

Ok, working what? Your job, an electric train set, a crane?
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:29 AM   #2107
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
''But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working''.

Ok, working what? Your job, an electric train set, a crane?
Work: To have the desired effect or outcome; prove successful.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:31 AM   #2108
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Sorry, I had forgotten that philosophers do not work. If you stopped people on the street and asked them what work means then none of them would give the definition that you gave.




A job; employment: looking for work. A trade, profession, or other means of livelihood.

Something that one is doing, making, or performing, especially as an occupation or undertaking; a duty or task: begin the day's work.

An amount of such activity either done or required: a week's work... The part of a day devoted to an occupation or undertaking: met her after work.

One's place of employment: Should I call you at home or at work?

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Old 6th March 2013, 04:32 AM   #2109
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
A job; employment: looking for work.. A trade, profession, or other means of livelihood.

Something that one is doing, making, or performing, especially as an occupation or undertaking; a duty or task: begin the day's work.

An amount of such activity either done or required: a week's work... The part of a day devoted to an occupation or undertaking: met her after work.

One's place of employment: Should I call you at home or at work?
You are having a lend.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:36 AM   #2110
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
You don't know what it means to go to work? My six year old grandson knows that, both his patents work.
Crikey, that is precocious.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:40 AM   #2111
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Originally Posted by zooterkin View Post
Crikey, that is precocious.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:42 AM   #2112
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
But what about the many questions that science cannot deal with?
One example, please.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:45 AM   #2113
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Originally Posted by zooterkin View Post
Crikey, that is precocious.
Now we can add work to the list of words that philosophers have a problem with. I'm off, I have real things to do.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:46 AM   #2114
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
One example, please.
We never get theses examples, do we? Till later.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:46 AM   #2115
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Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
One example, please.
For examples please read the paragraph that that sentence opens.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:48 AM   #2116
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
You are having a lend.
As somebody ''what do we mean by working'' and you will not get the answer ''bringing something to a successful outcome''. You are the one who is having a laugh.
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Old 6th March 2013, 04:58 AM   #2117
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
As somebody ''what do we mean by working'' and you will not get the answer ''bringing something to a successful outcome''. You are the one who is having a laugh.
Is English your first language?

ETA: I'm done with you in this thread, mate.

Last edited by Sideroxylon; 6th March 2013 at 05:00 AM.
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Old 6th March 2013, 05:53 AM   #2118
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Originally Posted by JoeBentley View Post
At the risk of sending this discussion even farther into a deathspiral of meaningless semantics, I'll address this.

Perhaps linguistically some nuance does exist between science as a concept and philosophy as a concept.

But it is overly obvious that what we are discussing is a very base difference in how we process information.

1. A methodology for processing information that uses external evidence.
2. A methodology for processing information that uses the mental process.

There is a very, very, very low limit to how much about this world you can know and learn simply by... thinking about it. Real, concrete knowledge and understanding requires you put your thoughts to some sort of external test.
I like this formulation, but I want to point out how limited the access is that I have with the world. I have never looked through a telescope, nor have I played with radioactive materials. In light of this, on what grounds do I accept what I have been told about cosmology or nuclear reactions?

It would be nice if I could do the experiments myself, but I cannot. So, even in the realm of what I would call science, I am left answering the question, "Who do I trust?" That is, even in what we take (in it's pure form) as the gold standard of knowledge acquisition, I am relying on epistemological judgement and an internal vetting process. I do this so habitually it is largely invisible to me, and one thing I never do is apply an external test to see if the sun is really made of hydrogen and helium or at what concentration I can expect Uranium to fission and at what rate.

We may very well trust nature not to fool us, but what about those reporting on nature? Philosophy at least enters at this step when we ask why we are justified in believing our fellows.
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Old 6th March 2013, 06:05 AM   #2119
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sideroxylon
But what about the many questions that science cannot deal with?
Originally Posted by Belz... View Post
One example, please.
Just one?
"What are the consequences of Objectivism?"
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Old 6th March 2013, 06:19 AM   #2120
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Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
... even if you only end up in a pragmatist stance of saying "science works suckers!" But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working. What do we mean by explanatory and predictive power? What makes for a good explanation?
Quoted in context to demonstrate the willful ignorance of the next quote;

Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
You don't know what it means to go to work? My six year old grandson knows that, both his patents work.
Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
Are you kidding me here, mate? Or was I really so unclear with what I said that you would conflate two meanings of the term work?
Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
''But then I want to ask questions like what we mean by working''.

Ok, working what? Your job, an electric train set, a crane?
OK, Sideroxylon will play Dafydd's silly game;

Originally Posted by Sideroxylon View Post
Work: To have the desired effect or outcome; prove successful.
Oh, look, a clear definition, consistent with the use of the word "work" in the first quote!

Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Now we can add work to the list of words that philosophers have a problem with. I'm off, I have real things to do.
Dafydd's having none of this. Translation; "I'm not listening to you because I've come to the conclusion that philosophy is useless in spite of the fact that I am ignorant of both philosophy and formal logic (a very useful and important invention of philosophy)."
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