Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress • Hacker News Board

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#121

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

wl wrote: post #119

malmsteen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of science is that its supposed to be verifiable/ provable at least by someone. Its "trust" (in that "someone" or "group of people" who can prove it)... not "faith". Faith is when its literally unprovable by anyone but you still believe it. Its completely different.

It's unprovable that science is the best method to arrive at truth about the universe. Remember that science attempts to come up with the best explanation for the evidence we have, often using experimentation to resolve questions. The answers are always tentative—ready to be thrown out if better ones come along. Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith noneth…

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless.

Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#122

Post by blancheneige » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

acqq wrote: post #61

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

That the gods are man made is not a discovery of recent times but was known by the thinkers in antique and started to be obvious again some 500 years ago, as the whole continents were discovered that appeared nowhere in the holly texts. Soon enough, the heliocentrism was discovered and got the magnificent scientific explanation with Newton. And so on and on: today we know that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old,…

> most atheists tend to have faith in science without actually understanding science

quoting OP because you kind of just confirmed his point. no, we do not know that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old, that we’re all made of the stuff either made in the Big Bang or inside of the stars. these are theories, the most fundamental axioms of which still escape us, if they exist at all. their success should not be turned into the deceptive illusion of having reached true knowledge.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#123

Post by superqwert » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #66

malmsteen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of science is that its supposed to be verifiable/ provable at least by someone. Its "trust" (in that "someone" or "group of people" who can prove it)... not "faith". Faith is when its literally unprovable by anyone but you still believe it. Its completely different.

I've explained this to people a couple of times who make the "faith in science" argument. The difference is that you -can- verify it, not that you did verify it. Your terminology of trust vs. faith is great. I will incorporate it into my arguments in the future.

I think you may have a different understanding of "faith in science" than brobdingnagians. It could mean anything, such as:

1. A belief that the scientific method will definitely approach reality (a realist/pragmatist claim)

2. A belief that the current consensus is right - (but it could be disclaimed)

3. A belief that science will explain everything, so one could discard other studies, such as philosophy or theology.

Each of these positions can be disputed and may be wrong (especially since they were not acquired by the scientific method, but arrived at by philosophical thought), so to some extent you need some "faith" to accept these statements to be true.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#124

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:04 PM UTC

myWindoonn wrote: post #83

I can see why this guy is popular. I wonder whether he'd be so quick to dismiss Gödel and Quine if presented with an utterance like, "This sentence is true, but cannot be proven true by any human nor any human-crafted device." I'm quite confident that this sentence is true, but cannot put forth a proof which would convince anybody; at the same time, just like any other mathematical object, its proof is generated by t…

[deleted]

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#125

Post by FabHK » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

Wow, you are really equating

* subscribing to an aesthetic hunch about fundamental physics (which has no consequences on how to lead our lives at all!), with

* subscribing to an epistemology of revelation, and the ancient, unethical, incoherent scribblings of the Abrahamic religions (with big, bad consequences for our lives),

as both being instances of some harmless, justified (or justifiable) "faith"? That's very wrong.

His hunch about the underlying structure of physical law is not comparable to people clinging to religion in today's world, neither in justification nor in consequence.

Note BTW that he cites prevalence of atheism among philosophers as an instance of convergence towards truth (not as a reason for accepting atheism). Please don't foist simple logical fallacies on him.

> Of course, I've found that most atheists tend to have faith in science without actually understanding science

Funny, I've found most atheists to be better versed in both science and religion than most theists.

> I would always encourage atheists to investigating with an open mind, and to learn more about their system of beliefs, and more about logic.

Thanks. I'd expand your enjoinment to study one's system of belief and logic to include not only atheists, but everyone; surely the rank of atheists will then continue to swell.

As an aside, it would help if you could break down your writing in paragraphs.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#126

Post by FabHK » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

civility wrote: post #114

malmsteen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of science is that its supposed to be verifiable/ provable at least by someone. Its "trust" (in that "someone" or "group of people" who can prove it)... not "faith". Faith is when its literally unprovable by anyone but you still believe it. Its completely different.

That is not the scientific method at all. The point of science is to make a plausible conjecture and try to prove it false. When you honestly can't falsify your conjecture, then you put some faith in it as a good explanation. This is a logically sound way to try and understand the universe, but you never prove or verify anything - you just get plausible beliefs. Math has proofs, and trusting someone else is politics.

> The point of science is to make a plausible conjecture and try to prove it false.

FWIW, and I'm not an expert, but I'd say that the Popperian view you summarise reflects philosophy of science circa 1960's, and things have moved on since then.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#127

Post by brownbat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

brobdingnagians wrote: post #45

Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears to be a popularity contest (and ec…

> he cites a consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers... as a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God...

It seems incredibly unlikely someone would cite the popularity of agnosticism to establish the certainty of atheism, so I am fairly confident that was not the move he was making.

Looking back at the prompt:

> "Your colleague David Chalmers has fretted that “there has not been large collective convergence to the truth..."

Pretty sure he was just giving a counterexample: a convergence which he happens to believe to be true, along with compatabilism for free will. He's not making some appeal to popularity to resolve the issue.

After reading it I'm not even sure whether he considers himself an atheist or agnostic.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#128

Post by superqwert » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #121

wl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unprovable that science is the best method to arrive at truth about the universe. Remember that science attempts to come up with the best explanation for the evidence we have, often using experimentation to resolve questions. The answers are always tentative—ready to be thrown out if better ones come along. Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith noneth…

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless. Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

Google:

faith /feɪθ/Submit noun 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something. "this restores one's faith in politicians"

So you may reconsider whether you are using a different definition of "faith" to the one you were reading

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#129

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #121

wl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unprovable that science is the best method to arrive at truth about the universe. Remember that science attempts to come up with the best explanation for the evidence we have, often using experimentation to resolve questions. The answers are always tentative—ready to be thrown out if better ones come along. Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith noneth…

>Faith in science is not an unreasonable assumption—says me who holds that assumption—but it's faith nonetheless. Faith is when one acts on a belief without having any rational reason for it. My rational reason for believing in science is simply: it works!

[deleted]

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#130

Post by xamuel » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

alister wrote: post #21

Surprisingly, Ycombinator co-founder Paul Graham was a philosophy major for most of his college years. He has a lot to say about it in one of his essays: http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

From that article:

>Twenty-six years later, I still don't understand Berkeley. I have a nice edition of his collected works. Will I ever read it? Seems unlikely.

This is like buying a book about React, putting it on your shelf, not reading it, and then complaining that React is too difficult.

In my opinion, the lack of equations makes philosophy harder, because it's easier to delude yourself. You can read a chapter, parse all the individual words, completely miss the point, and say to yourself, "I read it, it was pointless".

The only productive way to approach philosophy is as a paper-writer. Don't just glaze your eyes over Berkeley, rather, read Berkeley with the determination to go and write an original research paper in response. Now, that paper might very well have a title like "Berkeley's Blunders", but you have to be able to articulate it.