Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The revenge of the philosophy majors

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 292 posts

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#271

Post by dwaltrip »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #267
dwaltrip wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy treatises don’t trigger compiler errors. More seriously, the main issue with most philosophical investigations is a question of grounding. When you start stacking abstract concepts on top of each other, things can get dicey very quickly. Moreso if you are smart.

> Philosophy treatises don’t trigger compiler errors Compiler errors make programming easier, not harder. They are firm, clear rules about how something needs to be in order to work Philosophy has no such constraints or automated checks, it's harder

We are in agreement!

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#272

Post by lsiq »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #208
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

There is substance in philosophy, don't get me wrong, but just not that much of it, theres only a handful of real theorems with proofs (like the deduction theorem etc., which is basically some syntactic sugar correctness proof, if I may put it barbarically). A physicist will have studied atomic and molecular physics courses, and some intro to chemistry course, and there will be some overlap with thermodynamics. But n…

"Theres only a handful of real theorems with proofs"

Philosophy is not mathematics. Philosophy asks you the question of what is a theorem in the context of philosophical thought, why should the fractal of reality be reduced to a reductionist theorem in the first place, and what consists as sufficient proof for said theorems.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#273

Post by layer8 »

pirates wrote: post #270
layer8 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m concerned, using the Shift key would already help.

why does this matter to people so much? i’ve been typing without much regard to capitalization case since AIM 25 years ago. this is an internet forum, it’s really not that important. if you aren’t going to engage with the substance you’re just taking swipes for no good reason.

It decreases legibility by breaking the norms of written communication. That makes it distracting and annoying to read, and makes me want to not engage with it. It’s like talking to someone face-to-face who smells because they chose to not bathe for a week. They might have something worthwhile to say, but it’s difficult to ignore the form being a strong turn-off.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#274

Post by john_strinlai »

pirates wrote: post #270
layer8 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m concerned, using the Shift key would already help.

why does this matter to people so much? i’ve been typing without much regard to capitalization case since AIM 25 years ago. this is an internet forum, it’s really not that important. if you aren’t going to engage with the substance you’re just taking swipes for no good reason.

its obvious they are just taking swipes, because the reply is completely nonsensical to the rest of the comment chain.

i suppose its a good example of another non-interesting comment that gets upvoted, though.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#275

Post by john_strinlai »

layer8 wrote: post #273
pirates wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does this matter to people so much? i’ve been typing without much regard to capitalization case since AIM 25 years ago. this is an internet forum, it’s really not that important. if you aren’t going to engage with the substance you’re just taking swipes for no good reason.

It decreases legibility by breaking the norms of written communication. That makes it distracting and annoying to read, and makes me want to not engage with it. It’s like talking to someone face-to-face who smells because they chose to not bathe for a week. They might have something worthwhile to say, but it’s difficult to ignore the form being a strong turn-off.

>and makes me want to not engage with it

if that is the case, don't engage. seems simple enough to me.

you went out of your way to read that many layers deep into a flagged comment chain, just to make a completely unrelated comment to try and dunk on me. it makes no sense.

the only reason i can think of is wanting to score some cheap karma, as the tides were already against me after i made the egregious faux pas of saying someone was being rude.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#276

Post by gopher_space »

doodlesarefun wrote: post #247
gopher_space wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty scale starts with o chem and then goes through all of the arts before it hits another STEM discipline.

Sorry, please elaborate.

Imagine being asked to publish 'beautiful' code for an audience comfortable with doing so themselves. On top of all the theory and practice needed to produce a complete system you're expected to develop a point of view your peers want to engage with.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#277

Post by baajoddd »

port11 wrote: post #153
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

I had a mandatory philosophy course as part of high-school, and as lucky to pick a practical-yet-philosophical degree. You can easily pick up other skills, but it’s lovely to learn philosophy early on. I spent my 20s trying to become a Stoic and/or finding ways to practice a secular form o Taoism. I’m very, very grateful for these pursuits.

if you don’t mind my asking, what was your degree?

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#278

Post by butlike »

calf wrote: post #264
Hugsbox wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man I love this brand of unintentional comedy

Your comment is clever but plainly unkind. If you truly care about philosophy you would say something more constructive. It is in no comparison to my explicit criticisms, whatever you may disagree with about them. My general opinion is the same: saying "philosophy > math", and variations thereof, is generally an uneducated, absurd, stupid, unwise comment. I won't mince words with that. Nor am I being paid to write a…

The whole thing's absurd. Wigawallooo

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#279

Post by gopher_space »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #261
NonHyloMorph wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your argument exactly? You establish, that it is virtuous to not fall for the hybris that claiming knowledge beyond the scope of your domain is. (i.e. the virtuous physisit who does not mistake his encounter with some institutional courses in chemistry for a foundation to transgress against "the chemist" by pretending to grasp chemistry like the latter does) Now what is it exactly that you want to put forward…

"There is substance in philosophy, don't get me wrong, but just not that much of it"

Start thinking about where your numbers come from. Do some qualitative to quantitative conversions for a system with a feedback loop.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#280

Post by qjack »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #208
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

There is substance in philosophy, don't get me wrong, but just not that much of it, theres only a handful of real theorems with proofs (like the deduction theorem etc., which is basically some syntactic sugar correctness proof, if I may put it barbarically). A physicist will have studied atomic and molecular physics courses, and some intro to chemistry course, and there will be some overlap with thermodynamics. But n…

On the contrary, formal logic probably played a much smaller role than the rest of their philosophy degree in their success. Most programmers deal equally with philosophical problems as they do technical problems: what components should exist, what the boundary between those components should be, how those edges should be described. These are not "engineering" problems, nor are they the type of philosophical problems that more formalized philosophy (which your reply seems to overweight) are good at solving.
Post reply on HN