The Grand Design (2010)

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

This doesn't hold. Chemistry branched off of alchemy, this doesn't make alchemy real or more fundamental than chemistry.

>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.

The scientific method cannot draw conclusions. In practice it's mostly used to establish correlations only. When used in attempt to directly prove something it can only do so to a statistical degree and can never in actuality arrive at a "conclusion" that one can arrive at with logic.

I'm just saying that the description I wrote above has nothing to do with the ethics of the death penalty which philosophy places as more "fundamental." I mean if you're saying philosophy is the study of anything and everything then yes it is more fundamental, but as blurry as they are, the boundaries of what philosophy encompasses are way more limited than "everything." I am saying that the boundaries are also arbitrary and biased and therefore not more fundamental than science.

>The points you made about morality are points that other philosophers have already made. You are not avoiding philosophy by declaring morality to be arbitrary and defending your assertion, you are in fact doing the opposite and contributing to the philosophical discourse on the nature of morality. You can arbitrarily move the boundaries of the definition of a word to encompass whatever you want. That is what philosophy is. If I want to talk about something meta well being meta is part of philosophy because I defined it that way.

How about I redefine irrationality to include logic? Then when someone says I'm being irrational I just tell them they that irrationality is part of logic and that I'm actually being logical.

Philosophers always get into these meta paradoxes. These aren't profound concepts it's just language semantics involving the arbitrary definition of a word. If you define philosophy to be a many arbitrary academic fields including logical paradoxes and logical arguments then trying to logically argue your way out it of course it creates a sort of paradox. But the paradox only exists because of the arbitrary definition and that is exactly my argument.

Philosophy is an arbitrary definition. A hodgepodge of ideas many which have no relation to one another but it happens to include logic and self referential paradoxes that can be used to entrap anyone who attempts to argue against it. Word play has no meaning in the face of actual concepts, if philosophy is a word play then what's the point? It's basically the study of every single thing on the face of the earth.

I'm not arguing against it.

I'm saying morals are a macro feature arising from a series of accidental mutations as opposed to a macro feature arising as a side effect similar to your snoring example.

The complexity of the moral module is too complex to be a single accidental mutation... it must be naturally selected out of a multitude of mutations building on each other to produce such a feature. This is very unlike snoring which is caused by mechanisms that are far more simplistic.

>I'd like to see a source for that. Really sounds like another strawman to me.

"It is more fundamental than science." - entropicdrifter

>Rational philosophy is a bare minimum prerequisite to consistent scientific inquiry.

Labeling something as rational philosophy doesn't give philosophy purview over all of rationality. This whole logic and science came from philosophy thing doesn't mean anything given the fact that chemistry came from the BS field of alchemy so there's no point talking about whether or not science or logic came from philosophy.

Philosophy is an old field of thought and it's outdated. Similar to how alchemy is outdated and basically useless.

>Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.

You quoted wikipedia. Which is a generally trusted source I cited the entire field as flawed which means I'm saying that wikipedia is accurately describing the definition of a field that is flawed.

SO it doesn't matter if you cite wikipedia. I'm not arguing against the definition of philosophy I'm arguing how philosophy is a flawed field that has zero equal standing to science.

The quote above is exactly my point. What does "values" have to do with existence. "Values" and "language" are human inventions similar to how literature and poetry are human inventions. Existence is not a human invention, in fact "humans" themselves are an outcome of existence.

The hierarchy of study is off, they mix things like "human values" "religion" and ethics with more fundamental things like logic.

Than analogy of alchemy and chemistry is still apt. In the past alchemist use to study, earth fire and water as fundamental elements. While earth, fire and water are worthy subjects of study but the categorization is flawed. Fire, water and earth are not fundamental. The hierarchy is off just like how philosophy is off.

Existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language are not fundamental atoms to be studied as a group. It as mixed a bag as to study as Poetry and Math. Sure you can study math and poetry under one field, and you can probably discover some really amazing math under this field but it still doesn't give any credence to lumping poetry and math together under one school of thought.

Wood is a whole category of biological material made up of cells from certain plant life, fire is a chemical reaction of carbon with oxygen and water is a molecule of two hydrogen and one oxygen. These three elements have nothing to do with each other and are categorized incorrectly under alchemy just like how language and values and existence and reason and mind are categorized incorrectly in philosophy. What I value has literally nothing to do with existence, yet philosophy places these side by side. Modern science has made is clear that as far as we're aware the human experience is not central to the universe.... the human experience is a side effect of the universe and is one experience out of what could be multitudes of experiences in and outside of the animal kingdom yet philosophy places "values" and "existence" side by side. That is the flaw. There is no strawman. The strawman is basically a figure built by your own mind in hopes that I will attack it.

Not hard to believe how such a field as "philosophy" came about given that it existed since and before the days of "alchemy" which explains why the field is so flawed in categorizing everything. Back then people didn't know any better, but like religion some misguided beliefs continue on... religion and philosophy are two things from the past that are basically obsolete.

Inevitably every philosopher I've ever debated with turns around to me to tell me that some of the ideas I talk about are already ideas thought about by philosophers and that my entire argument is ironic. Please this is what happens when you define philosophy to encompasses logic and paradoxical logic. Yeah if you define philosophy to encompass so much than inevitably even criticism against philosophy will likely touch philosophy..... just like how if I criticise alchemy by bringing up earth water and fire.... oooh I'm criticising alchemy by bringing up alchemy itself.... oooh the irony. Stop.

It appears you don’t even know what philosophy is. If you think it’s all word play, you must either be unwilling or unable to understand the concepts behind the words.