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Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#2
> Philosophy, in its purest form, contains the study of what it is to live a good human life.

I don't think this a properly general definition of philosophy (although he says "contains",maybe he is not after generality). I would say philosophy is the science of definitions. This is why it is fundamental.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#3
post #2

> Philosophy, in its purest form, contains the study of what it is to live a good human life. I don't think this a properly general definition of philosophy (although he says "contains",maybe he is not after generality). I would say philosophy is the science of definitions. This is why it is fundamental.

I'd say "definitions in the concept space" out of which a specific "linguistic space" can emerge. Philosophy also studies the relationships between these concepts their articulations (topology), their moves (dynamics) and their consequences. At the very least.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#4
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 are actual high dimensional representations for text and images, with their affordances and limitations. It's like comparing a drawing of a car with an actual working car, with its good and bad parts. Philosophy seems not to be keeping up the progress in the last 5 years, and it has been one hell of 5 years with amazing discoveries.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#5
post #2

> Philosophy, in its purest form, contains the study of what it is to live a good human life. I don't think this a properly general definition of philosophy (although he says "contains",maybe he is not after generality). I would say philosophy is the science of definitions. This is why it is fundamental.

Bertrand Russell:

Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge—so I should contend— belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#6
post #2

> Philosophy, in its purest form, contains the study of what it is to live a good human life. I don't think this a properly general definition of philosophy (although he says "contains",maybe he is not after generality). I would say philosophy is the science of definitions. This is why it is fundamental.

That might have been true until the end of the 19th century. Everything afterwards contains a lot of different things. Sociology, psychology, economics, linguistics and what not.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#7
post #4

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.org/archive/CHATMO-32.pdf

Embodiment, to pick one of your examples is a huge topic in philosophy: https://philpapers.org/browse/embodiment-and-situated-cognit...

Also, there is me. I have a PhD in philosophy and work towards an MPhil in CS to cover the areas you mention. Some philosophers are on it, trying to keep up.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#8
post #4

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…

It does seem that when one characterizes philosophy as engineering without the details, it's likely to look inferior to engineering.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#9
post #4

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…

None of these topics fall under the domain of philosophy.

Re: Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress

#10
post #4

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…

IMO, progress in philosophy leads to science. First you think and imagine (philosophy) then you try and know and have made progress (science).

From the article: Yes (with qualification) and yes. Already in Republic (Plato again!) we have an argument—a clear and compelling rational argument—that even the highest political office should be open to women. The argument? List what it takes to be a good leader of the state, then note the conditions that distinguish the sexes. There just is zero overlap between the two lists.

IMO there is not much of interest in philosophy regarding AI (except for the thinking and imagination of AI engineers). AI is still just computations as far as we know.

From the article: Almost all believe in consciousness and most don’t have a clue how to explain it, which is wisdom.

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