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5th March 2013, 03:57 PM | #2081 |
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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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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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5th March 2013, 04:27 PM | #2084 |
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I guess bickering is more fun sometimes. But I quoted your post below and will pick out some questions to try and answer them.
No. I think it's a false dichotomy to say either science or philosophy. There's much more going on that either discipline. 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. 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. 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. (clipped a little here, having nothing useful to add) 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. Could be. 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. |
5th March 2013, 05:46 PM | #2085 |
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5th March 2013, 05:51 PM | #2086 |
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You know full well what was meant by "self-correcting". Also, Einstein wouldn't have done squat if not for Newton.
Quote:
Quote:
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5th March 2013, 05:53 PM | #2087 |
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5th March 2013, 07:37 PM | #2088 |
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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. |
5th March 2013, 10:17 PM | #2089 |
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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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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.
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ETA: These are not facts from a philosophical perspective just concepts that are useful to varying degrees and with various problems and open questions. |
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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6th March 2013, 12:35 AM | #2091 |
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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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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 |
6th March 2013, 01:05 AM | #2093 |
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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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6th March 2013, 01:17 AM | #2094 |
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6th March 2013, 01:20 AM | #2095 |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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6th March 2013, 01:22 AM | #2096 |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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6th March 2013, 01:59 AM | #2097 |
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6th March 2013, 03:03 AM | #2098 |
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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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6th March 2013, 03:15 AM | #2099 |
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6th March 2013, 03:29 AM | #2100 |
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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. |
6th March 2013, 03:31 AM | #2101 |
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6th March 2013, 03:51 AM | #2102 |
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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? |
6th March 2013, 04:17 AM | #2103 |
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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. |
6th March 2013, 04:18 AM | #2104 |
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6th March 2013, 04:22 AM | #2105 |
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6th March 2013, 04:25 AM | #2106 |
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6th March 2013, 04:29 AM | #2107 |
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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? |
6th March 2013, 04:32 AM | #2109 |
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6th March 2013, 04:36 AM | #2110 |
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6th March 2013, 04:40 AM | #2111 |
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6th March 2013, 04:42 AM | #2112 |
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6th March 2013, 04:45 AM | #2113 |
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6th March 2013, 04:46 AM | #2114 |
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6th March 2013, 04:46 AM | #2115 |
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6th March 2013, 04:48 AM | #2116 |
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6th March 2013, 04:58 AM | #2117 |
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6th March 2013, 05:53 AM | #2118 |
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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. |
6th March 2013, 06:05 AM | #2119 |
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6th March 2013, 06:19 AM | #2120 |
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Quoted in context to demonstrate the willful ignorance of the next quote;
OK, Sideroxylon will play Dafydd's silly game; Oh, look, a clear definition, consistent with the use of the word "work" in the first quote! 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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