191–200 of 338 posts
"Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk." Oh, the staggering irony of responding to the charge that philosophers don't produce anything worthwhile with an ad hominem. Res ipsa loquitur.
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…
Python 3.7.0 (default, Jul 23 2018, 20:22:55)
>>> bool("This sentence is true, but cannot be proven true by any human nor any human-crafted device.")
TrueEarlier quoted context omitted.
Good response! To add to your points, GP also misses a really important distinction between science and religion and the way each system arrives at conclusions. Science is merely a set of tools and processes, nothing more. Seriously, NOTHING more. If, as GP says, you are taking it on faith that some "scientific conclusion" is true, you're merely deferring expertise on the matter. Much like when your tech support guy…
> Science is merely a set of tools and processes, nothing more. Seriously, NOTHING more. Nonsense - that ignores that fundamentally science is a human activity. Because it is a human activity it is open to the same biases, self-deceptions, fads, groupthink and political pressures as any other human activity. Apart from that, implicit in your defense of science and attack on religion is a belief that true knowledge ca…
"Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk." Oh, the staggering irony of responding to the charge that philosophers don't produce anything worthwhile with an ad hominem. Res ipsa loquitur.
See the excellent "Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy":
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good response! To add to your points, GP also misses a really important distinction between science and religion and the way each system arrives at conclusions. Science is merely a set of tools and processes, nothing more. Seriously, NOTHING more. If, as GP says, you are taking it on faith that some "scientific conclusion" is true, you're merely deferring expertise on the matter. Much like when your tech support guy…
> Science is merely a set of tools and processes, nothing more. Seriously, NOTHING more. Nonsense - that ignores that fundamentally science is a human activity. Because it is a human activity it is open to the same biases, self-deceptions, fads, groupthink and political pressures as any other human activity. Apart from that, implicit in your defense of science and attack on religion is a belief that true knowledge ca…
The scientific method IS the best tool our species has when it comes to determining truths about the laws of nature. In fact, it's practically the only tool we have. Almost every major advancement our species has made has been because someone had a theory, figured out a way to test it, and came to a conclusion with some degree of confidence that they were then able to act upon and share with others.
Since this is a thread about philosophy, "truth" (and how one determines it) is extremely relevant. Epistemology is a whole branch of philosophy. If you're truly skeptical, one could even argue that true knowledge cannot be attained at all, and all we can hope to do is arrive at conclusions with as high a degree of confidence as possible.
My point is that science offers a way to increase confidence in a conclusion, religion does not.
It's as simple as that.
"Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk." Oh, the staggering irony of responding to the charge that philosophers don't produce anything worthwhile with an ad hominem. Res ipsa loquitur.
Pointing out a single fallacy in the context of the whole argument seems pretty facile to me.
"Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk." Oh, the staggering irony of responding to the charge that philosophers don't produce anything worthwhile with an ad hominem. Res ipsa loquitur.
It wasn't ad hominem. He had addressed the argument, and refers to that, before adding that Popper was an egocentric jerk. That might be abusive, but it's not ad hominem (because it's in addition, not instead of, a rebuttal of the argument). See the excellent "Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy": https://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html
But if it wasn't an ad hominem, then it was a non-sequitur. Either way, it's not the most effective way to support the position the philosophy has made progress IMHO. Hence: irony.
I don't think philosophy is keeping up with the progress in AI, neuroscience and game theory. If it did, there would be less discussion about the 'Chinese room', qualia and 'hard problem' of consciousness. Instead, we'd head about embodiment, rewards, agents vs environments, learning, representation, exploration-exploitation tradeoff, and such. There are theories of language and meaning in philosophy, but in AI there…
I agree partially. It is true that philosophy cannot entirely keep up with scientific and technical developments, which is not surprising given the amount of resources that flow into philosophy compared to the money spent on STEM fields. That being said, philosophers hardly talk about the Chinese room and qualia these days. There is even a tiny move away from the hard problem of consciousness. See: https://philpapers…
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 “the…
Presumably he wouldn't cite the convergence towards atheism as an example of convergence to the truth if he'd consider it mistaken. So that assumption is safe, I'd think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Science" is just a collection of tools and processes. "Scientisits" use those processes to attempt to arrive at true conclusions. This can be very difficult. Over time, "science" (the nebulous institution) can build up enough accrued "truths" that it can make interesting conclusions with a decent degree of confidence. (Note: scientific studies that are reported by clickbait headlines are not what I'm talking about.)…
That's not the definition. There are many tools and processes that do not constitute science. If you want to define science as that which uncovers truth, then, for that to be true, you must be able to define truth without resorting to tautology (that is, there must be a way to verify 'truth'). Excluding a subset of what's false doesn't necessarily lead you to discovering or being able to accept (integrate) the truth.
That doesn't mean that red isn't a colour because there are colours that are not red.