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The Grand Design (2010)

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Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#31

Post by entropicdrifter »

nendroid wrote: post #29
farias0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but you'll have to explain how universality makes an area of knowledge more important, useful, serious or any other similar adjective. The human experience not only exists, but it's by definition central to us, so how is this not extremely important? And your argument about science being different from religion therefore grouping both under philosophy is wrong simply ignores what "philosophy" is supposed to mea…

>Sorry but you'll have to explain how universality makes an area of knowledge more important, useful, serious or any other similar adjective. The human experience not only exists, but it's by definition central to us, so how is this not extremely important? Because to be unbiased is to separate yourself from the human experience. What makes your experience more central than the experience of a dolphin? Does a dolphin…

>So in a sense if you want to find out the reason for existence, you likely need to get more fundamental than science and logic and because philosophy involves things like ethics or religion it is, imo, not the true path to answering these fundamental questions.

Some philosophies and branches of philosophy involve ethics or religion.

Some don't really touch on them at all.

The scientific method could be described as a philosophy about the best way to approach the accrual of knowledge, armed only with the assumption that reality outside one's mind is real and that we can observe it in a reproducible way.

Likewise, you could describe mathematics as another branch of philosophy, since it is literally logic represented in a more abstract form.

Just as an aside, it's pretty ironic for you to say, "don't use the prescriptive branches of philosophy, just the descriptive ones like logic and the scientific method" because that is itself an example of prescriptive philosophy, borne of the logical conclusions of a subjective opinion rather than objective fact

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#32

Post by nendroid »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #15
nendroid wrote: post #2

>Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. I largely agree with this perspective on philosophy. Philosophy poses as a sort of higher level view of reality than physics or science. Rather than thinking of philosophy as a higher level view I think of it as a biased point of view. Things like the philoso…

I think the fundamental error you're making here is thinking of philosophy as a monolithic metastructure of human thought rather than thousands of discrete silos of academic study representing millions of perspectives over the course of human history. I would argue that one of the reasons we have so many societies that are so heavily dependent on scientific understanding yet also so perilously ignorant of science is…

Yeah, I agree. I'm more arguing for the fact that philosophy is not more fundamental than science.

Think of it in the sense of in the big quest to answer the big fundamental question of existence we likely won't find it through philosophy because of a category error. Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers.

This doesn't mean we should just throw the whole thing in the trash or that nothing good ever came out of it. I'm not saying that.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#33

Post by dumb455 »

This entire thread is misguided. Science and certain sub disciplines (e.g. logic) of philosophy are relatable and quite entwined. But lets say philosophy is really just an aspect of critical thinking which is missing in many parts of human experience (e.g. current politics). Regarding science it seems the opposite of the authors unintelligent claim is more the case, that science has moved further away from philosophy. Limitations of science are at core a place where critical thinking and reason take place. Think of Kant, Hume, and other science oriented philosphers. Empiricism and epsitemic functions of science are literally couched in philosphy. No, Heidegger and Foucault are not very relevant to science. Yet where real world results entrance the scientist and non scientist alike, all too often any philosophical implications are left unattended. Truth is a concern of both science and philosophy but it isnt always a relevant approach. Ethics and morality are very important in scientific discovery. Theological speculation is a side note to both, and no we arent living in a simulation so stop being idiots.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#34

Post by entropicdrifter »

nendroid wrote: post #32
entropicdrifter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental error you're making here is thinking of philosophy as a monolithic metastructure of human thought rather than thousands of discrete silos of academic study representing millions of perspectives over the course of human history. I would argue that one of the reasons we have so many societies that are so heavily dependent on scientific understanding yet also so perilously ignorant of science is…

Yeah, I agree. I'm more arguing for the fact that philosophy is not more fundamental than science. Think of it in the sense of in the big quest to answer the big fundamental question of existence we likely won't find it through philosophy because of a category error. Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers. This doesn't mean we should just throw the whol…

>Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers.

See, this is what I was talking about before, you're speaking of 'philosophy' as though it's one big thing and there's a unified perspective there.

I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue that ethics are as fundamentally true as logic any more than they would argue that a scientific theory is more proven than a mathematical proof.

You just attacked a strawman, is my point. That was my point before, too. Philosophy is the exploration of perspectives, it isn't a single thing. It's an action. Just like science.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#35

Post by mannykannot »

Bodell wrote: post #26
mannykannot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is certainly true that science is founded on philosophy and is arguably a branch of it, but the implicit question in the controversial passage from the review is whether modern philosophy's methods are adequate. In that regard, as pointed out by Eliezer Yudkowsky [1], two millenia of philosophic inquiry was blindsided by the more radical epistemic and metaphysical implications of 20th. century physics. Personally,…

I'd have to give it serious thought, but if I were to agree, I'd also have to add that: The last two millennia of physics were also blindsided by it's own implications of it's discoveries in the 20th century. Philosophy of mind I think is only a good example of all the things we still do not understand about neurology and cognitive science. I am not personally disheartened by it, as I typically get excited about unan…

> The last two millennia of physics were also blindsided by it's own implications of it's discoveries in the 20th century.

Putting aside whether we have had two millennia of physics as a distinct discipline, the point here is that progress on these issues was made by the methods of physics, rather than those of philosophic epistemology and metaphysics.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#36

Post by farias0 »

nendroid wrote: post #29
farias0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but you'll have to explain how universality makes an area of knowledge more important, useful, serious or any other similar adjective. The human experience not only exists, but it's by definition central to us, so how is this not extremely important? And your argument about science being different from religion therefore grouping both under philosophy is wrong simply ignores what "philosophy" is supposed to mea…

>Sorry but you'll have to explain how universality makes an area of knowledge more important, useful, serious or any other similar adjective. The human experience not only exists, but it's by definition central to us, so how is this not extremely important? Because to be unbiased is to separate yourself from the human experience. What makes your experience more central than the experience of a dolphin? Does a dolphin…

Sorry, I'll drop the philosophy discussion because I don't find it interesting (don't mean this as an attack to you in any way though)

On the first discussion: I think it's interesting that you keep using "unbiased" when you maybe should be using "objective". I'll take a shot and say that you want to reinforce the negative connotation the word "bias" carries so you can further demerit the humanities. And this is really ironic because this only reveals your own biases.

See, it doesn't matter that you don't like how imprecise we humans are. We are all we directly experience during our lives. Everything you see and feel comes tinged with human subjectiveness. There is us and there is the rest. Hell, if I think, therefore I am, the first, and so far the only thing I can say for sure that exists is me. So we are arguably the single most important thing we should study.

Now, if you are able to create mathematical and computational models that describe we humans, then great, humanities became as pointless as Plato's theory of atoms. I mean, social sciences often use math tools. But we're doing the best we can with what we have, and it's not because it's easier to predict a chemical reaction than a social trend that one becomes more important.

Again, your argument on objectivity holds no water. The importance of a field isn't related to how easy it is to find absolute answers.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#37

Post by nendroid »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #34
nendroid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree. I'm more arguing for the fact that philosophy is not more fundamental than science. Think of it in the sense of in the big quest to answer the big fundamental question of existence we likely won't find it through philosophy because of a category error. Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers. This doesn't mean we should just throw the whol…

>Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers. See, this is what I was talking about before, you're speaking of 'philosophy' as though it's one big thing and there's a unified perspective there. I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue that ethics are as fundamentally true as logic any more than they would argue that a scientific theory is mo…

Many people hold it as something more fundamental than science, which is ultimately what I'm "attacking"

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#38

Post by jchook »

animationwill wrote: post #5

>Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. I'm sorry, what kind of non sensical bias is that? That's like saying that science doesn't care about truth, or is more important than truth. After all, "Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest." [1] [1] https://plato…

Doesn't the whole article basically suggest that modern science isn't really concerned with truth as much as useful models?

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#39

Post by entropicdrifter »

nendroid wrote: post #37
entropicdrifter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Religion and ethics is not more fundamental than logic yet philosophy places them side by side as peers. See, this is what I was talking about before, you're speaking of 'philosophy' as though it's one big thing and there's a unified perspective there. I don't think that anyone in their right mind would argue that ethics are as fundamentally true as logic any more than they would argue that a scientific theory is mo…

Many people hold it as something more fundamental than science, which is ultimately what I'm "attacking"

It is more fundamental than science.

Trivially, you can show this by pointing to the fact that science branched off of "it".

But more relevantly, if you can't clearly organize your thoughts into a coherent perspective or think critically and draw logical conclusions, you can't follow the scientific method in the first place. Nobody can.

Re: The Grand Design (2010)

#40

Post by nendroid »

farias0 wrote: post #36
nendroid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sorry but you'll have to explain how universality makes an area of knowledge more important, useful, serious or any other similar adjective. The human experience not only exists, but it's by definition central to us, so how is this not extremely important? Because to be unbiased is to separate yourself from the human experience. What makes your experience more central than the experience of a dolphin? Does a dolphin…

Sorry, I'll drop the philosophy discussion because I don't find it interesting (don't mean this as an attack to you in any way though) On the first discussion: I think it's interesting that you keep using "unbiased" when you maybe should be using "objective". I'll take a shot and say that you want to reinforce the negative connotation the word "bias" carries so you can further demerit the humanities. And this is real…

It has nothing to do with imprecision. Nor does it have anything to do with objectivity.

I'm more talking about the neutrality and "centrality" of the choices of study.

Something like ethics and religion are more a biased choice that say something like logic from my perspective. What if we encountered an alien race or intelligent beings with no form of religion or ethics? Dolphins or chimpanzees perhaps? It's certainly possible but I would argue it's hard to imagine finding an intelligent race of beings not governed by the rules of logic. That's why I consider logic an unbiased choice and religion and ethics a biased and arbitrary choice. Our bias tends towards the the human experience as opposed to a truly more neutral perspective.

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