No, really—consciousness is worth thinking about

I actually generally agree with your assessment here. Modern things that are generally labeled as 'philosophy' and only 'philosophy' are rather abstract and with very little clarity as to their usefulness. Most of the useful philosophical ideas were indeed established back before science was fully autonomous, but even as recently as the works of sir Karl Popper (1902-1994; the father of the idea that scientific theories must be 'falsifiable') have had a very noticeable influence in the sciences. What's important to note however, is that Popper's writings were much more practical and grounded down to the act and methods of science, than any of the writings of Plato ever were for example. And that's really the point I'm getting at; philosophy has shifted more from being a useful 'subject', to being a useful approach. The art of philosophical argumentation and elaboration of ideas is still very much relevant and useful as it ever was, it's just going to be finding it's niches in more and more applied areas, to the point where people will forget they're even discussing philosophy.

Any major breakthroughs in philosophy are almost certainly going to come from philosophically-minded specialists (e.g. scientists/engineers/politicians/linguists/mathematicians/etc) in the future. But just because it doesn't carry the big overarching label of "philosophy" doesn't mean that it is not. I mean, the definition of philosophy itself is so vague, that you could say that it is simply the byproduct of any exploration that uses philosophical tools (e.g. formal logic/logical fallacies), so it really doesn't go against what you're saying at all.

I agree that if all one's doing now is studying philosophy, and philosophy only, it's gonna be hard to contribute anything terribly useful to society (unless you can get a job as a historian). But the tools that philosophy gives us should never be discarded because they are ultimately the atomic building blocks that let us know whether we're on the right track or not, and thus, thinking philosophically is of critical importance. And that is where philosophy is now. It is not a field of it's own, it is scattered throughout several other fields, but the art is still very much in tact. It this bad misconception that gives philosophy these lazy/useless/idealist connotations. And that is unfortunate, because there is much people can learn from thinking philosophically, that they do not (unfortunately) seem to gain just from thinking 'scientifically'. I'm going to blame this on training/education rather than the designation of the field itself, since science should teach how to think critically, but the practice of this does not seem to extend beyond the student's specific/applied area from my experience. Philosophy helps here because the whole point of it is to train a person's entire outlook to process information critically, rather than only apply that approach to certain specific/narrow areas.

tl;dr: Philosophy is the mathematical language of reason, and good reasoning skills should be important for everybody. However, applied philosophy within specific domains (e.g. ethics/math/politics/etc) is likely to be the only way we will continue to make more philosophical advancements in the future. Arguing that we don't need philosophy anymore because now we have science, is like arguing that we don't need math anymore because now we have programming; both are important in their own specialized ways because of the approaches they allow.

I hope you found no offense in my earlier comment. Please understand that I am sorry.

I'm going to try to respond to your response, but know that other than having been diagnosed myself with slight Asperger's like tendencies, I really have no idea what it is like to be you. I really don't understand what it is like to be autistic, but neither do either of us. I still hope that you can better understand my position with this, if it matters.

> I think most people are insanely self obsessed. From this I can understand why empathy is seen as being absolutely necessary. Frankly, I think most people with autism spectrum disorders actually lack the self obsession that would normally be redirected onto others via empathy.

I believe you are right about most people having a love of self and/or selfish needs. In fact the feeling of love and the ability to do more than just try to simulate love involves what is called a "soul" in religion. That is not to say those more into the autism spectrum have less love. Those just that sometimes they know it is there, but they have to work much harder to be able not to ignore conscience since they do not have what others call empathy- because it is not chemical/"feeling". This conscience should not be defined by someone else or others (this is my ultimate point, btw), but it must belong to the person as a very quiet voice (not those in our heads- in fact you will almost never actually hear it as a voice or even a thought- it is what you just know is right when you eliminate the rational calculations/logic and all of the voices).

A completely rational human that tends to good but has no feeling or understanding of self will tend to utilitarianism, eventually. This is NOT conscience. Let's see why...

BTW- I know this is annoying, but as a quick detour, if unfamiliar with the fallacies of communism or socialism or pure capitalism for that matter, they may tend to one of those, but eventually they realize the goal they seek is utilitarianism- which is a goal only reachable by rules and management that cannot be carried out by those that can be corrupted. Ok, now back to utilitarianism...

The only thing capable of instituting pure utilitarianism that has the highest chance of working are altered, non egotistic, fully altruistic humans or non-humans.

We can't get there to start with, so in the short-term we as would-be utilitarians for the non-egotistic fully altrustic good of society institute an electronic/real democracy. Heck, I would.

But this just means the lobbyists have to lobby everyone. This is called marketing. It is already done. Problem solved for the elite that wish to rule rather than be overrun by the people.

So the people rebel again, replacing with a system that learns and manages humanity, if it does not intentionally or unintentionally destroy it in the process, of course.

So, then (long after we die when they institute it), we would have pure utilitarianism, which is a paradox- it is "perfection in survival and existence", but, in its pure form, it abhors the self (the "ego") to a fault, leading to some very nasty things that "must be done for the good of humanity". There is no conscience here, because any voice, quiet or not, belonging to an individual is wrong utilitarian "utopian" (really dystopian) world if it conflicts with the majority of others.

I very much appreciate the rest of what you said. I think your sense of self is stronger than you are giving yourself credit for, as you are certainly self-aware. Please don't take that as an afront to asperger's- I think it is a benefit to have self-understanding, no matter how your mind works.

Good luck in your future, and feel free to shoot any of this down if you must.

Thanks for the comment.

I tend toward utilitarianism myself but I agree with the inadequacy of any rigidly executed system. I'm aware of conclusions supported by utilitarianism that make me uncomfortable. I assume this feeling is an aspect of what you're calling soul. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll try to summarize the relevant portion of my world view: There are certain personality temperaments which lend themselves to the acquisition of power and ultimately to "actualizing" themselves and receiving social recognition. People tend to select subordinates they can see themselves in. This creates a feedback effect and over time we've seen certain temperaments receive the dominant share of social attention. This warps the perspective we all have on the behavior of others. Temperaments which have been adversely affected by this are experiencing the negative side of the feedback loop. Everyone is forced to repress their true selves a bit to meet this ideal. Some much more than others unfortunately. This explains so many of the "losers" we've disposed of in society (of which I am not, but only by the extreme fortune of being particularly intelligent). Advancements in science and social policy are bringing a number of marginalized temperaments into mainstream awareness. Women and the LGBT community apparently got first dibs. Aspergers will get more attention sooner or later (other than it's present infamy that is). Hopefully in the future people will stop hazing aspies into the compensatory narcissism you see in characters like Sheldon Cooper. It's not an essential component of aspergers. It's a reflection of modern social arrogance. It's just so hard to assert that everyone else is wrong... and so tragic when it's true.

Now, it is from this perspective that I very deeply agree with your statements toward the end of your response. The voice of the individual must be allowed to assert itself. For instance, I have a large family that enjoys loud family gatherings. It took a full on melt down when I was a child for them to understand that they were hurting me by being so loud. When I asked them nicely they just ignored me. When I kept nagging at them they thought I was just being bitter and trying to spoil their fun (On some level they knew they didn't treat me so well and then they'd throw stuff like this at me as some sort of victim shaming; It likely wasn't deliberate but it was still infuriating and hard to defend against at 8). In utilitarianism it may have made sense to displace their collective annoyance onto the upset child. We'd have to measure the utils (love that word) but it may have served the "greater good". Some part of me just knows this is wrong.

I'm almost positive I don't lack empathy. I can see where many aspies would fall prey to personality disorders at a greater rate than the general population and consequently lose empathy. Additionally most people just can't identify with me and that is fundamental to empathy. I'm left to do all the work since most people gain little from learning to accommodate 1-2% of the population. Society needs some outlet for progress. The "soul" (however we intellectualize it so we can communicate) deserves more respect than a purely intellectual system is capable of. If aspies seem overly inclined towards such a system it's only because they desperately fear the Lord of the Flies alternative.

I'd be happy to have any of this criticized. You seem like you've thought about things and I'd value your opinion.