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[DukeofDuke]

Hmm, well I don't really have a problem with bad philosophers, as I don't think I've ever studied them. Perhaps I should go back to the basics, since this discussion is wandering quite a bit from my original premise: that many of the "great" philosophers invented their own "great theory of how everything works" not through any verifiable process based on reality, but through mere opinion solidified into theory, and purified of internal consistencies. While they may be pretty, these grand systems of thought are often completely unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and arguments between them are often reduced to "it is evident you are wrong". These arguments, because of their unfalsifiable nature, are useless. One can, and they do, produce more and more of these systems.

You can call it art. But I am not impressed by it as a productive field of study. And I don't think I set out to prove anything, rather I wanted to bring a specific charge against the field of philosophy.

 

[DukeofDuke]

And to answer your other question, in my limited experience I've found philosophy of biology to be a fascinating intersection between science and the abstract. For some reason, our professor in that class also liked talking a lot about meta-ethics, and I have to say the class was really very interesting (it was from the biology department, but hosted within the philosophy building, the title was evolution, emotions, and ethics, great stuff).

 

[Dembadon]

IMHO, it's better to have an appreciation for the positive aspects of a field of study, rather than harping on the uselessness, triviality, or pettiness of a discipline other than your own. It comes off as... I'm not sure how exactly to put it, but I guess "ignorant" comes close.

Really? ;)

Quote from AuburnMathTutor:

"Except EE. EE is a joke of a major. They should have camps for those people, or something... you, where they can be kept so that the rest of society isn't subject to their damaging influence."

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/711930-should-i-choose-ee-cs-3.html

 

[DukeofDuke]

Really? ;)

Quote from AuburnMathTutor:

"Except EE. EE is a joke of a major. They should have camps for those people, or something... you, where they can be kept so that the rest of society isn't subject to their damaging influence."

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/711930-should-i-choose-ee-cs-3.html

Heh, I was wondering when I'd get some physicist muscle to back me here...
Because this is the internet and everything eventually devolves to flame wars, and it seemed for a moment as if the philosophers on this forum outnumbered the physicists

 

[Dembadon]

Heh, I was wondering when I'd get some physicist muscle to back me here...
Because this is the internet and everything eventually devolves to flame wars, and it seemed for a moment as if the philosophers on this forum outnumbered the physicists

Actually, I really hope he is not offended by my post. It was not my intent to start a war here, just poking fun, really. I am by no means judging him, as I myself am not innocent of such behavior. :)

Hopefully I have not derailed this thread. I have enjoyed the discussion.

 

[DukeofDuke]

No no no, no war. Its a process of degradation, not an on off switch. The poking fun part was already started anyways, by AU actually ;-)

 

[AUMathTutor]

LOL, wencke530, I guess you got me there. Crazy, you finding a quote by me on another forum.

In my defense, I hope you can tell I wasn't being serious. I wouldn't actually put EE majors in camps, for instance. Separate but equal, I say.

 

[DukeofDuke]

Separate but equal, I say.

I think I'm going to pwn you via Brown vs. Board of Education

 

[Dembadon]

LOL, wencke530, I guess you got me there. Crazy, you finding a quote by me on another forum.

In my defense, I hope you can tell I wasn't being serious. I wouldn't actually put EE majors in camps, for instance. Separate but equal, I say.

I admit the quote by itself sounds worse when read out of context; which is why I included the link. :)

My wife and I have had many conversations along these lines. I'll admit to being a bit biased for maths/physics, while she wouldn't deny being a bit more philosophical, when presented with certain topics. Although we don't always see eye to eye on things, we bring a nice balance to situations. Even though I am a physicist at heart, I will never deny the fact that positive contributions can be made by those who's area of study and/or passion differs from mine.

-Robert

 

[Solombas]

It seems like the main complaint here against philosophy is that it is an unproductive endeavour, so I will address to this.

First, the nature and nurture issue:

Yes, I always get a kick out of seeing modern philosophers STILL debating nature vs. nurture and you point out that statistically we are getting a beed on what contributes to what and that more and more our understanding of genetics is answering that question and it is in the science of genetics and psychology that we will find the answer. They will then say "shush, we're doing philosophy" and go back to debating tabula rasa, Locke, Hume and Descartes.

The nature and nurture debate is still a very much controversial question in not just philosophy but across the medical field and social sciences (I'm doing psychology with philosophy as cognate). Human development is not dictated by their genes but are a result of interaction between their genes and environment. It's a two-way system so we have every reason to STILL debate the nature and nurture issue. But yes, it is an empirical question, largely, but it doesn't mean that philosophy cannot mix with science to answer the nature and nurture debate. Especially in the medical, social and biological sciences philosophy becomes important for ethics because we can't do experiments to test ethics.

...You can call it art. But I am not impressed by it as a productive field of study. And I don't think I set out to prove anything, rather I wanted to bring a specific charge against the field of philosophy.

@DukeofDuke:

But empiricism is just another philosophy.

Yes, that is exactly right DukeofDuke. Science essentially is empirical philosophy. Science is driven by empirical findings and on the basis of these empirical findings you argue for a conclusion. This is no different than philosophical arguments except you don't need empirical findings to argue for a conclusion in Philosophy. But both are founded in logic.

Because all sciences are empirically driven, their methodology is what we call inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is simply this, using one famous example:

Scientists used to believe that all swans are white. They conclude this because they have found that:

Swan A is white,
Swan B is white,
Swan C is white,
Therefore, All swans are probably white.

But we now know this isn't true because we discovered black swans in Australia :)

This, essentially is how all the sciences work.

Philosophers, however, more commonly use another method called deductive reasoning, which is simply this, using the previous example:

All swans are white,
X is a swan,
Therefore, X is white.

This is essentially how most philosophy arguments work. Now can you imagine how both are founded in logic and how both can complement each other? Clearly, both deductive and inductive reasoning are used in science and philosophy so both disciplines are not all that incompatible. Philosophy can complement science and science philosophy. Thus, philosophy is not useless.

Not only this, the methodology and principles of science (e.g. determinism, parsimony, etc) is created from philosophy, that is, the philosophy of science. If you want to know more here is a great discussion by Hilary Putnam (who is also a Professor in Mathematics, btw):



So, this is already one evidence that philosophy has been a productive endeavour - it helped create science.

If you are still not convinced, here are some basic concepts developed from philosophy that have been very useful or are still highly unresolved by science or philosophy.1)The problem of infinity.
Anyone who has done philosophy in paradox, time, space/physics would know these famous questions. There are many so I will illustrate a few basic questions. Since most of you are physicists here see if you can answer these famous philosophical questions :)

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?

Take a motion of an object from A to B (e.g. our hand moving from place A to place B). Break this motion down into an infinite number of micro-distances. So, how can an infinite number of micro-distances apparently make up a finite distance that we can measure and see?
2)The naturalistic fallacy.

The NF has been an important concept in ethics. Basically the naturalistic fallacy states that an IS statement does not equate an OUGHT statement. For example, is it rational to fear death? Some people would want to argue that it is because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death (e.g. death smells bad to our senses so we avoid it). Philosophers would argue that, hey this is actually illogical because this commits the naturalistic fallacy. Just because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death DOESN'T mean we OUGHT to fear death. Just like growing wisdom teeth is biologically hard-wired (IS statement), doesn't mean that growing wisdom teeth should be encouraged (OUGHT statement) because it is often useless and painful to us. Philosophers would say that you must justify that our biology to fear death is good to justify we ought to fear death. But maybe we have to fight our biology like we have to fight our wisdom tooth sometimes.There are many difficult but great questions like these in philosophy and this is why I think philosophy is a productive endeavor because it is a great advisory tool for the sciences. So, no, it's not just a history lesson. Philosophy is useful because it provides guidance to science, science in return provides guidance to philosophy. This is why in the beginning of the post I said that we need both to understand the universe and why so many great scientists like Einstein, Newton, etc dabbled in philosophy.

 

[AUMathTutor]

Also, I would reiterate the fact that mathematics is not science, but most people accept it because it's logical and based on reasonable postulates. For instance, the following is an argument that wouldn't be accepted by mathematics, but would most likely be accepted by physics:

We have seen millions upon millions of triangles. Each of them seems to have interior angles such that they sum to 180 degrees. This has never been observed to be false, and therefore we can accept as law that all triangles have interior angles summing to 180 degrees.

Or, even better:

Whoever et al. showed in 2009 that the equation S = (n - 2) * 180 provides an excellent measure for the sum of interior angles in polygons. It has been validated for polygons up to n = 10,000,000,000 with excellent results. There is a movement in the scientific community to call this the law of polygons. More to follow.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

It seems like the main complaint here against philosophy is that it is an unproductive endeavour, so I will address to this.

First, the nature and nurture issue:



The nature and nurture debate is still a very much controversial question in not just philosophy but across the medical field and social sciences (I'm doing psychology with philosophy as cognate). Human development is not dictated by their genes but are a result of interaction between their genes and environment. It's a two-way system so we have every reason to STILL debate the nature and nurture issue. But yes, it is an empirical question, largely, but it doesn't mean that philosophy cannot mix with science to answer the nature and nurture debate. Especially in the medical, social and biological sciences philosophy becomes important for ethics because we can't do experiments to test ethics.







Yes, that is exactly right DukeofDuke. Science essentially is empirical philosophy. Science is driven by empirical findings and on the basis of these empirical findings you argue for a conclusion. This is no different than philosophical arguments except you don't need empirical findings to argue for a conclusion in Philosophy. But both are founded in logic.

Because all sciences are empirically driven, their methodology is what we call inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is simply this, using one famous example:

Scientists used to believe that all swans are white. They conclude this because they have found that:

Swan A is white,
Swan B is white,
Swan C is white,
Therefore, All swans are probably white.

But we now know this isn't true because we discovered black swans in Australia :)

This, essentially is how all the sciences work.

Philosophers, however, more commonly use another method called deductive reasoning, which is simply this, using the previous example:

All swans are white,
X is a swan,
Therefore, X is white.

This is essentially how most philosophy arguments work. Now can you imagine how both are founded in logic and how both can complement each other? Clearly, both deductive and inductive reasoning are used in science and philosophy so both disciplines are not all that incompatible. Philosophy can complement science and science philosophy. Thus, philosophy is not useless.

Not only this, the methodology and principles of science (e.g. determinism, parsimony, etc) is created from philosophy, that is, the philosophy of science. If you want to know more here is a great discussion by Hilary Putnam (who is also a Professor in Mathematics, btw):



So, this is already one evidence that philosophy has been a productive endeavour - it helped create science.

If you are still not convinced, here are some basic concepts developed from philosophy that have been very useful or are still highly unresolved by science or philosophy.


1)The problem of infinity.
Anyone who has done philosophy in paradox, time, space/physics would know these famous questions. There are many so I will illustrate a few basic questions. Since most of you are physicists here see if you can answer these famous philosophical questions :)

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?

Take a motion of an object from A to B (e.g. our hand moving from place A to place B). Break this motion down into an infinite number of micro-distances. So, how can an infinite number of micro-distances apparently make up a finite distance that we can measure and see?



2)The naturalistic fallacy.

The NF has been an important concept in ethics. Basically the naturalistic fallacy states that an IS statement does not equate an OUGHT statement. For example, is it rational to fear death? Some people would want to argue that it is because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death (e.g. death smells bad to our senses so we avoid it). Philosophers would argue that, hey this is actually illogical because this commits the naturalistic fallacy. Just because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death DOESN'T mean we OUGHT to fear death. Just like growing wisdom teeth is biologically hard-wired (IS statement), doesn't mean that growing wisdom teeth should be encouraged (OUGHT statement) because it is often useless and painful to us. Philosophers would say that you must justify that our biology to fear death is good to justify we ought to fear death. But maybe we have to fight our biology like we have to fight our wisdom tooth sometimes.


There are many difficult but great questions like these in philosophy and this is why I think philosophy is a productive endeavor because it is a great advisory tool for the sciences. So, no, it's not just a history lesson. Philosophy is useful because it provides guidance to science, science in return provides guidance to philosophy. This is why in the beginning of the post I said that we need both to understand the universe and why so many great scientists like Einstein, Newton, etc dabbled in philosophy.

I'm sorry, no offense to you, but this IS a whole lot of hot air. Science has shown that the nature vs. nurture is NOT a question of absolutes (100% nature vs. 100% nurture (tabula rasa)) and yet these kind of Locke/Hume/Descartes debates still rage in the philosophy community.

Secondly, every physicist and mathematician is aware (or atleast should be aware if they had a proper education) that science relies entirely on inductive reasoning where mathematics relies on deductive reasoning and does not accept inductive reasoning. However, that is all that can be said about it. There is no progress to be made by having "dedicated philosophers" look over the same point ad nauseum. And it's not like they even have hopes of somehow structuring science deductively. However, that doesn't stop one from occasionally suggesting that we should throw out all of science because it was not deductively reasoned (they will of course use modern technology like computers and the internet to broadcast this brilliant idea).

Thirdly, do you honestly think physicists haven't heard of the Zeno's paradox? You've essentially presented 3 variants of it. And this is another example of a millenia old problem which is considered solved by most through modern mathematics but there are still many philosophers who think it is unresolved (after all, they need to justify funding somehow) who then pratter on about it and the real kicker is that most of them have zero understanding of number theory or counting theory. They just toss vague word arguments back and forth without having a clue about the countability of the reals or dedekind cuts or any of the like.

And finally, I'm sure you've been told that philosophy is an "advisor" to science but you were grossly mis-informed (this is a fallacy akin to the "we learn history to better understand the future" schpeel that historians get/give). Yes, philosophy and science were once one but that was millenia ago and now-a-days when scientists look back at ideas like Aristotle's "Everything is made of earth, air, fire, water, love and strife" they see it as only having historical relevance. However, I would bet good money that if you toured your average philosophy department you'd find at least one philosopher that would be happy to espouse the great modern importance of this thought.

Physics has a long and noble history of ignoring philosophers. You tried to peg kant to Einstein but if you can show me a single example of Einstein's work that was inspired by Kant I'd concede the point. All Einstein's ever said was that he liked playing with philosophy when he was growing up, and who hasn't. I think you are under the impression that scientists don't know anything about philosophy. That is certainly not true. I for one have gone through everything from thales to nietzsche and very much enjoyed the ideas. However, it's a post-modern world and in my experience today's philosophers mostly just yap to each other (while ignored) about problems that have either been solved, have been shown to be unsolvable using their approach, or just completely irrelevant. And every "open" problem I've heard in philosophy that I actually thought was open would be best solved by either mathematicians or scientists. And no, mathematicians are not "philosophers". In the practical university department sense. People like Godel and Russell were mathematicians, they took lots and lots of math in their undergrads, people who get pure philosophy degrees are luck if they get a course on sentential logic.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Also, I would reiterate the fact that mathematics is not science, but most people accept it because it's logical and based on reasonable postulates. For instance, the following is an argument that wouldn't be accepted by mathematics, but would most likely be accepted by physics:

We have seen millions upon millions of triangles. Each of them seems to have interior angles such that they sum to 180 degrees. This has never been observed to be false, and therefore we can accept as law that all triangles have interior angles summing to 180 degrees.

Or, even better:

Whoever et al. showed in 2009 that the equation S = (n - 2) * 180 provides an excellent measure for the sum of interior angles in polygons. It has been validated for polygons up to n = 10,000,000,000 with excellent results. There is a movement in the scientific community to call this the law of polygons. More to follow.

Yes but all you're saying here is that there is a disjoint between science and math, which is true (see the Dirac-delta function). However, considering your average person who would get an average philosophy bachelours would have no understanding of either science of math it is hardly a point in favor of a philosophy degree.

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>
In fact, I don't even know what we're really arguing about anymore.
<snip>

Congratulations- you are a philosopher! <g>

 

[DukeofDuke]

It seems like the main complaint here against philosophy is that it is an unproductive endeavour, so I will address to this.

First, the nature and nurture issue:
The nature and nurture debate is still a very much controversial question in not just philosophy but across the medical field and social sciences (I'm doing psychology with philosophy as cognate). Human development is not dictated by their genes but are a result of interaction between their genes and environment. It's a two-way system so we have every reason to STILL debate the nature and nurture issue. But yes, it is an empirical question, largely, but it doesn't mean that philosophy cannot mix with science to answer the nature and nurture debate. Especially in the medical, social and biological sciences philosophy becomes important for ethics because we can't do experiments to test ethics.

Yes, that is exactly right DukeofDuke. Science essentially is empirical philosophy. Science is driven by empirical findings and on the basis of these empirical findings you argue for a conclusion. This is no different than philosophical arguments except you don't need empirical findings to argue for a conclusion in Philosophy. But both are founded in logic.

Because all sciences are empirically driven, their methodology is what we call inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is simply this, using one famous example:

Scientists used to believe that all swans are white. They conclude this because they have found that:

Swan A is white,
Swan B is white,
Swan C is white,
Therefore, All swans are probably white.

But we now know this isn't true because we discovered black swans in Australia :)

This, essentially is how all the sciences work.

Philosophers, however, more commonly use another method called deductive reasoning, which is simply this, using the previous example:

All swans are white,
X is a swan,
Therefore, X is white.

This is essentially how most philosophy arguments work. Now can you imagine how both are founded in logic and how both can complement each other? Clearly, both deductive and inductive reasoning are used in science and philosophy so both disciplines are not all that incompatible. Philosophy can complement science and science philosophy. Thus, philosophy is not useless.

Not only this, the methodology and principles of science (e.g. determinism, parsimony, etc) is created from philosophy, that is, the philosophy of science. If you want to know more here is a great discussion by Hilary Putnam (who is also a Professor in Mathematics, btw):



So, this is already one evidence that philosophy has been a productive endeavour - it helped create science.

If you are still not convinced, here are some basic concepts developed from philosophy that have been very useful or are still highly unresolved by science or philosophy.1)The problem of infinity.
Anyone who has done philosophy in paradox, time, space/physics would know these famous questions. There are many so I will illustrate a few basic questions. Since most of you are physicists here see if you can answer these famous philosophical questions :)

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?

Take a motion of an object from A to B (e.g. our hand moving from place A to place B). Break this motion down into an infinite number of micro-distances. So, how can an infinite number of micro-distances apparently make up a finite distance that we can measure and see?
2)The naturalistic fallacy.

The NF has been an important concept in ethics. Basically the naturalistic fallacy states that an IS statement does not equate an OUGHT statement. For example, is it rational to fear death? Some people would want to argue that it is because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death (e.g. death smells bad to our senses so we avoid it). Philosophers would argue that, hey this is actually illogical because this commits the naturalistic fallacy. Just because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death DOESN'T mean we OUGHT to fear death. Just like growing wisdom teeth is biologically hard-wired (IS statement), doesn't mean that growing wisdom teeth should be encouraged (OUGHT statement) because it is often useless and painful to us. Philosophers would say that you must justify that our biology to fear death is good to justify we ought to fear death. But maybe we have to fight our biology like we have to fight our wisdom tooth sometimes.There are many difficult but great questions like these in philosophy and this is why I think philosophy is a productive endeavor because it is a great advisory tool for the sciences. So, no, it's not just a history lesson. Philosophy is useful because it provides guidance to science, science in return provides guidance to philosophy. This is why in the beginning of the post I said that we need both to understand the universe and why so many great scientists like Einstein, Newton, etc dabbled in philosophy.

Well, yes, I do know the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, and no, not all philosophy is deductive. See Hume, who was by the way the only philosopher who I could stand.

My problem is not just that its unproductive. That unproductivity is a result of the absolute lack of answers philosophy provides- instead, it provides an endless number of alternatives. Every famous philosopher has his own "worldview" that's completely separate from all the others. They sit in their room and deduce the world works like this. However, its obviously not purely deductive, because they all come up with different answers! Some explain carefully that the world does not exist at all, we're basically in the matrix except in the spirit realm. Others explain that physics is utterly useless and its actually God physically moving everything, because of a trick of wordplay involving "first cause". Still others tell you you're incorrect not because of any fallacy in your logic but because you fail to clearly and distinctly perceive the existence of God...the fault lies not in my arguments, my friend, but in your impaired faculties!

You know, that paragraph about the NF, you sound exactly like my bio/philosophy prof I liked that class a lot, and we did talk about death. We concluded pretty early on though that humans are not rational, because, well, that's biologically obvious. Don't really need much philosophy for that...By the way, doing anything at all is illogical. There is absolutely no logical reason to type that reply. Why did you do it? EMOTIONS. Emotions provide the "why" to any situation, they are the driving force behind action, the way our genetics control our rational mind to perform the appropriate computations. And there's a helluva lot of study behind that.And its all very fascinating because it relies on BIOLOGY! NEUROBIOLOGY too! Here I like the "philosophy" mainly because it sets up the question that the biology we studied answers.

On your question of infinity: the Hindus believe time is a circle. So screw the western world.
Also, the nature of time cannot be understood without math.
Finally, your question about summing an infinite number of things into a finite sum...it really makes me wonder if you're a mathematician or physicist at all, or if you've come here from another forum! I think you learn about sequences and series in second year calculus...its because things converge essentially. Its not that hard a concept to grasp. Achilles and the Tortoise had a simpler time than the greeks could imagine. Convergent series' don't really boggle the mind anymore, Zeno got figured out about the time we made calculus. Pretty sure every mathematician worth his salt considers the question resolved.

 

[DukeofDuke]

Thirdly, do you honestly think physicists haven't heard of the Zeno's paradox? You've essentially presented 3 variants of it. And this is another example of a millenia old problem which is considered solved by most through modern mathematics but there are still many philosophers who think it is unresolved (after all, they need to justify funding somehow) who then pratter on about it and the real kicker is that most of them have zero understanding of number theory or counting theory. They just toss vague word arguments back and forth without having a clue about the countability of the reals or dedekind cuts or any of the like.

Sorry, I did not see you had already debunked this when I made my reply. So I guess we both saw the same thing at least.

 

[DukeofDuke]

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?

HAH! This reminded me of my other great distrust of philosophy! Its done in languages other than math!

What seems "logical" to the philosopher is actually not logical at all, because you can't just sit around and come up with right answers! Here's why, our notions of reason and logic are derived from some basic axioms that come about in an inductive, evolutionary fashion. That is, they exist because they work. if object A is here, then it cannot be there. There is no "reason" for this except it seems patently obvious...because in the size frame of the world we evolved in this is for all intents and purposes true. We don't see things being in two places at once, so it has become ingrained into our minds as an axiom.

There are things which we have no exposure to. For example, our exposure to the concepts of infinity is minimal. Our exposure to natural laws at different orders of magnitude of size are minimal, which is why not even the bigshot physicists really understand QM.

Our axioms don't work AT ALL when we go back to "the beginning of time" or "the planet of the electron". This is why sitting around thinking about it is almost completely useless, because the things that seem to us patently obvious, the axioms we use to build up, are actually not true at all, are only approximations that work with our biological machinery!

This is exactly why 100 different philosophers could give you 100 different accounts of existence, and there'd be absolutely no way to tell which one was right. Its why religion has such trouble getting over their first cause argument- they lack the imagination to see beyond their axioms.

The fact is, we've reached beyond the point where words are useful mediums for knowledge. Mathematics can explain how that photon seems to be in two places at once, even if we have a hard time understanding it. But I've never seen someone make word sense out of it.

 

[AUMathTutor]

Science and philosophy seek to answer two fundamentally different questions... I don't really see them as competing, but rather as complimentary.

Philosophy doesn't really have to be done for a reason. Why should it be done for a reason? Any answer you give to this question will rely on philosophical principles, unless you just start text-shouting at me.

Mathematics explains how the photon can be in two places at once, but why can it be in two places at once? You'd be surprised how rudimentary a knowledge of the mechanics of the thing one can have before, in my opinion anyway, being qualified to talk about the meaning. Of course, if one contradicts facts in their philosophy, one revises the philosophy.

Langauge is not as useless as you think. Mathematics is a simple language; perhaps not the simplest language that exists, but a simple language nonetheless. Langauge is, even by comparison, incredibly rich. Furthermore, more people speak natural languages than speak the language of mathematics proper. Mathematics has its place, but one cannot seriously argue that mathematics alone holds the only truths worthy of human consideration.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see why anyone would be against modern philosophy. It has diverged from science and mathematics to study those phenomena and treat those topics not akin to scientific experiment and mathematical analysis. This is only natural; why should they overlap significantly? If the topics philosophy is concerned with do not interest you, fine; but they interest many others, probably more so than science and mathematics taken together (a wild guess).

 

[DukeofDuke]

AU, I think you missed the point about "reason" argument.
I was responding to the other guy's mention of the ought-is divide and its relation to biology.

And obviously, I'm not arguing against language, which is what you seem to think I'm doing. I'm saying that you cannot understand fundamental truths about the universe without understanding the mathematics, or at least its a rare mind that can. Instead, we have a large number of quacks who hear three words of new age pseudoscientific bs and then go post about it...

And again, I'm not talking about the entire field of modern philosophy. I'm talking about a few specific roles that philosophy took on, where it really doesn't belong or isn't of any use. And in this respect, I agree, they shouldn't overlap. That's my whole point...

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Science and philosophy seek to answer two fundamentally different questions... I don't really see them as competing, but rather as complimentary.

Philosophy doesn't really have to be done for a reason. Why should it be done for a reason? Any answer you give to this question will rely on philosophical principles, unless you just start text-shouting at me.

Mathematics explains how the photon can be in two places at once, but why can it be in two places at once? You'd be surprised how rudimentary a knowledge of the mechanics of the thing one can have before, in my opinion anyway, being qualified to talk about the meaning. Of course, if one contradicts facts in their philosophy, one revises the philosophy.

Langauge is not as useless as you think. Mathematics is a simple language; perhaps not the simplest language that exists, but a simple language nonetheless. Langauge is, even by comparison, incredibly rich. Furthermore, more people speak natural languages than speak the language of mathematics proper. Mathematics has its place, but one cannot seriously argue that mathematics alone holds the only truths worthy of human consideration.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see why anyone would be against modern philosophy. It has diverged from science and mathematics to study those phenomena and treat those topics not akin to scientific experiment and mathematical analysis. This is only natural; why should they overlap significantly? If the topics philosophy is concerned with do not interest you, fine; but they interest many others, probably more so than science and mathematics taken together (a wild guess).

Because when philosophy is merged with our reality philosophers do a terrible job compared with mathematicians or scientists and when philosophy is divorced from reality then it is unverifiable and a pointless exercise. Once a philosophy is stated it is complete and there is no more work to be done. Yet somehow philosophers manage to pretend that they're doing something. You have an idea that is pragmatism or objectivism or solipsism and then you're done. That's all you could ever say about them. You could never say reality is this way or that way as a philosopher divorced from reality. So what the hell are you debating? Philosopher X thinks society is a natural construct, philosopher Y thinks it is unnaturally forced on brutes (all the while never even considering something like an anthropological or psychological approach) and they debate, and they debate, and they debate. Of course it's not possible for X to prove their assertion over Y since they are, as you say, divorced from reality. So what are they doing? They're making hot air.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

If you want to be an armchair philosopher that's fine by me. But PROFESSIONAL philosopher? Seriously, what could ever be expected to come from that. You lock three guys in a room and they come out and say "We have decided that the universe cannot possibly exist because of assertions A, B and C" or some such... Good job guys.

 

[DukeofDuke]

You lock three guys in a room and they come out and say "We have decided that the universe cannot possibly exist because of assertions A, B and C" or some such... Good job guys.

maybe we should all just agree to disagree, because I'm laughing too hard right now for all this serious stuff.

And by the way, the first guy would say its assertions A, B and C, the second would say its actually B, C, and A, and the third would deny the existence of said assertions.

 

[Solombas]

Yes, thank you for all the thoughtful replies maverick and duke but some of your statements are problematic. Let me explain why:

Thirdly, do you honestly think physicists haven't heard of the Zeno's paradox? You've essentially presented 3 variants of it. And this is another example of a millenia old problem which is considered solved by most through modern mathematics but there are still many philosophers who think it is unresolved (after all, they need to justify funding somehow) who then pratter on about it and the real kicker is that most of them have zero understanding of number theory or counting theory. They just toss vague word arguments back and forth without having a clue about the countability of the reals or dedekind cuts or any of the like.

1)Zeno's paradox is an empirical question. Resolving it in mathematics doesn't prove that the problems with time and space associated with infinity is resolved. Einstein didn't prove mass-energy equivalence simply with his equation E=MC^2. He proved it because the experiments that tested it were successful. So far there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Zeno's paradoxes are solved. Solving it requires evidence from empirical findings.

2)You are making fairly arrogant assumptions about what philosophers know and don't know here. If you had a look at that youtube video I posted earlier on about Philosophy of Science by Hilary Putnam you can see he is both a great philosopher and a great mathematician. How can you just assume that most philosophers who specialise in science and maths know nothing about maths? Have you studied philosophy of science intensively and know the philosophers in this area well? It is poor form especially for a scientist to make claims that are not backed up by evidence.

3)Words are not vague when you define them clearly just like you would define any number clearly. Take an apple, for example, we define it as one apple. If we take a bite of the apple is it still one apple? Maths is not a copy of reality and neither are words. Therefore, there is no justification to think that words cannot help solve Zeno's paradox.

Btw, I didn't say that I didn't think physicists don't know about Zeno's paradox. On the contrary, all the physicists I've met know about it when I ask them the question. It doesn't mean that I think that they have solved it. Further, I wanted to use less jargon to make it laymen-friendly.

And finally, I'm sure you've been told that philosophy is an "advisor" to science but you were grossly mis-informed (this is a fallacy akin to the "we learn history to better understand the future" schpeel that historians get/give). Yes, philosophy and science were once one but that was millenia ago and now-a-days when scientists look back at ideas like Aristotle's "Everything is made of earth, air, fire, water, love and strife" they see it as only having historical relevance. However, I would bet good money that if you toured your average philosophy department you'd find at least one philosopher that would be happy to espouse the great modern importance of this thought.

1)Again, you are making assumptions about what philosophers think here. I doubt that not even most laymen who finished high school would still believe that the world is made of Earth, Fire, Water and Air and certainly no philosopher of science, maths or physics. If they do then they are probably not philosophers of science and get away with it because in no way they would become advisors for science anyway.

2)Certain areas of study do witness a healthy interaction between philosophers and scientists. If you take a look at a lot of research endeavours these days in mind and consciousness you will see a multidisciplinary field involving psychology and philosophy. The neuroscience faculty in my uni, for example, require third years to take a topic in philosophy of mind.

3)Whether philosophy and science should serve as advisors to one another is humbly my own opinion. Certainly in many areas of both fields the practitioners rarely mix.

Physics has a long and noble history of ignoring philosophers. You tried to peg kant to Einstein but if you can show me a single example of Einstein's work that was inspired by Kant I'd concede the point. All Einstein's ever said was that he liked playing with philosophy when he was growing up, and who hasn't. I think you are under the impression that scientists don't know anything about philosophy. That is certainly not true. I for one have gone through everything from thales to nietzsche and very much enjoyed the ideas. However, it's a post-modern world and in my experience today's philosophers mostly just yap to each other (while ignored) about problems that have either been solved, have been shown to be unsolvable using their approach, or just completely irrelevant. And every "open" problem I've heard in philosophy that I actually thought was open would be best solved by either mathematicians or scientists. And no, mathematicians are not "philosophers". In the practical university department sense. People like Godel and Russell were mathematicians, they took lots and lots of math in their undergrads, people who get pure philosophy degrees are luck if they get a course on sentential logic.

Maybe it is true that most physicists ignored philosophy but why on Earth does that mean that physics cannot benefit from philosophy and v.v.?

1)The great Sir Isaac Newton, believe it or not, philosophised about the nature of space and time from scientific discoveries and came up with his notion of absolutism. Einstein was known for his interest in philosophising about the consequences of his theory of relativity to the external world. In fact, here are a few letters directly written by Einstein himself:

Quoted directly from Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/

"Late in 1944, Albert Einstein received a letter from Robert Thornton, a young African-American philosopher of science who had just finished his Ph.D. under Herbert Feigl at Minnesota and was beginning a new job teaching physics at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. He had written to solicit from Einstein a few supportive words on behalf of his efforts to introduce "as much of the philosophy of science as possible" into the modern physics course that he was to teach the following spring (Thornton to Einstein, 28 November 1944, EA 61-573).[1] Here is what Einstein offered in reply:

"I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today -- and even professional scientists -- seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is -- in my opinion -- the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth." (Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61-574)

That Einstein meant what he said about the relevance of philosophy to physics is evidenced by the fact that he had been saying more or less the same thing for decades. Thus, in a 1916 memorial note for Ernst Mach, a physicist and philosopher to whom Einstein owed a special debt, he wrote:

"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching, that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not merely their quick-wittedness, I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through their tenacity in defending their views, that the subject seemed important to them. Indeed, one should not be surprised at this." (Einstein 1916, 101)

You can see that Einstein thought philosophy was important. The evidence is in his own words. And we know how much his physics changed the world forever. It would be no surprise if his insights benefited from both philosophy and science.

My problem is not just that its unproductive. That unproductivity is a result of the absolute lack of answers philosophy provides- instead, it provides an endless number of alternatives. Every famous philosopher has his own "worldview" that's completely separate from all the others. They sit in their room and deduce the world works like this. However, its obviously not purely deductive, because they all come up with different answers! Some explain carefully that the world does not exist at all, we're basically in the matrix except in the spirit realm. Others explain that physics is utterly useless and its actually God physically moving everything, because of a trick of wordplay involving "first cause". Still others tell you you're incorrect not because of any fallacy in your logic but because you fail to clearly and distinctly perceive the existence of God...the fault lies not in my arguments, my friend, but in your impaired faculties!

1)There are plenty of debate and disagreement in the sciences too. Scientists have different views about the nature of the universe and human behaviour. Philosophers are probably more extreme in the discrepancy of their views of reality but it doesn't mean that there aren't any good philosophical theories. And certainly philosophical theories can become more successful when it is consistent with empirical findings. Einstein's theory of relativistic space and time, for example, is successful both scientifically and philosophically.

2)Just because there are many philosophers in the world giving different opinions about the reality does not mean that philosophy is unproductive. Just as there are a lot of discrepant views in science doesn't make science unproductive. For example, if you review the cognitive neuroscience/psychology/cognitive science literature on working memory you will see many, many theories. It is up to the critical consumer of research to judge for themselves which view is most likely to be valid in light of the scientific and philosophical evidence.

I think this also answers your nature/nurture criticism. Just because some philosophers like Locke believe in tabula rasa doesn't mean that philosophy is unproductive. There are a lot of philosophers who doesn't believe that human development is tabula rasa.

You know, that paragraph about the NF, you sound exactly like my bio/philosophy prof I liked that class a lot, and we did talk about death. We concluded pretty early on though that humans are not rational, because, well, that's biologically obvious. Don't really need much philosophy for that...By the way, doing anything at all is illogical. There is absolutely no logical reason to type that reply. Why did you do it? EMOTIONS. Emotions provide the "why" to any situation, they are the driving force behind action, the way our genetics control our rational mind to perform the appropriate computations. And there's a helluva lot of study behind that.And its all very fascinating because it relies on BIOLOGY! NEUROBIOLOGY too! Here I like the "philosophy" mainly because it sets up the question that the biology we studied answers.

1)In no way I was arguing whether humans are rational or irrational. I only said that it is illogical to fear death simply because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death due to the naturalistic fallacy. It is an example of a confusion between is/ought statements. Where did human rationality come into it?

2)Yes, emotions are part of what drives behaviour BUT it isn't the only factor. Cognition also drive behaviour. If I start telling things about physics that isn't true and you believe that this misinformation would do harm to unsuspecting high school students seeking advise for a career choice; what would would you do if you had the time; given that you believe what you say would make a difference? Debunk it!

HAH! This reminded me of my other great distrust of philosophy! Its done in languages other than math!

What seems "logical" to the philosopher is actually not logical at all, because you can't just sit around and come up with right answers! Here's why, our notions of reason and logic are derived from some basic axioms that come about in an inductive, evolutionary fashion. That is, they exist because they work. if object A is here, then it cannot be there. There is no "reason" for this except it seems patently obvious...because in the size frame of the world we evolved in this is for all intents and purposes true. We don't see things being in two places at once, so it has become ingrained into our minds as an axiom.

There are things which we have no exposure to. For example, our exposure to the concepts of infinity is minimal. Our exposure to natural laws at different orders of magnitude of size are minimal, which is why not even the bigshot physicists really understand QM.

Our axioms don't work AT ALL when we go back to "the beginning of time" or "the planet of the electron". This is why sitting around thinking about it is almost completely useless, because the things that seem to us patently obvious, the axioms we use to build up, are actually not true at all, are only approximations that work with our biological machinery!

This is exactly why 100 different philosophers could give you 100 different accounts of existence, and there'd be absolutely no way to tell which one was right.

The fact is, we've reached beyond the point where words are useful mediums for knowledge. Mathematics can explain how that photon seems to be in two places at once, even if we have a hard time understanding it. But I've never seen someone make word sense out of it.

1)And what do you think you are doing when you use mathematics to understand the universe? You are using the similar reasoning processes you use to analyse philosophical arguments. We cannot escape our biology - it will always filter our judgment. This is why we can never be certain that anything is true. No scientific theory, mathematical, philosophical or otherwise can prove anything definitely. There is always the uncertainty due to the contribution of the mind. Again, see Hilary Putnam's good discussion on the philosophy of science. Don't worry, he's a mathematician :)

2)Again, maths is NOT a copy of reality. It is as much a construct of the mind as words. They mean something only to the extent of the definitions we give them. What will E=MC^2 mean without words? E must mean energy, and we must define energy. We must also define c, and m. Without these definitions our maths is MEANINGLESS. So no, words are also important to understand the universe BECAUSE we can define them like numbers.

 

[DukeofDuke]

Ah, a common philosopher's tactic. Write SO DAMN MUCH you can't remember what the first half of it was about when you finish reading it

 

[Troponin]

Congratulations- you are a philosopher! <g>

lol!

 

[DukeofDuke]

ok let's take this one step at a time. If you don't mind, I'm only going to address the parts I felt were intended for me or I felt I knew enough to comment on.

1)Zeno's paradox is an empirical question. Resolving it in mathematics doesn't prove that the problems with time and space associated with infinity is resolved. Einstein didn't prove mass-energy equivalence simply with his equation E=MC^2. He proved it because the experiments that tested it were successful. So far there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Zeno's paradoxes are solved. Solving it requires evidence from empirical findings.

uhhh...well ok, here's your empirical evidence. I have a friend named Bob, maybe its not Achilles, but close enough eh? And I have this slower friend named Andrew, closer to the tortoise than Bob is to Achilles. Every time Bob gets to where Andrew used to be, Andrew moves away. Does Bob ever catch up?

2nd grade recess says...yes. Why? Because the time it takes for bob to catch up after each repetition gets slower and slower, and eventually it converges into a single number. Which is also exactly what the math does. Can we move on?

2)You are making fairly arrogant assumptions about what philosophers know and don't know here. If you had a look at that youtube video I posted earlier on about Philosophy of Science by Hilary Putnam you can see he is both a great philosopher and a great mathematician. How can you just assume that most philosophers who specialise in science and maths know nothing about maths? Have you studied philosophy of science intensively and know the philosophers in this area well? It is poor form especially for a scientist to make claims that are not backed up by evidence.

Trust me, a philosopher of science does not know more science than a scientist. An undergrad at my institution, a sophomore friend of mine, knows much more science than our professor, who liked philosophy of science and featured it in his lectures quite a bit.

3)Words are not vague when you define them clearly just like you would define any number clearly. Take an apple, for example, we define it as one apple. If we take a bite of the apple is it still one apple? Maths is not a copy of reality and neither are words. Therefore, there is no justification to think that words cannot help solve Zeno's paradox.

Ok, the universe does not speak English. It speaks math. No matter how much I read about Electricity and Magnetism, they didn't make a tenth of the amount of sense they made after we'd derived all of Maxwell's equations, even in the integral form. I can't take you seriously if you're going to tell me you can do science and understand the universe scientifically without math. In fact, I know you can't because you end up with dozens of different "views" of the world and have no way of proving them until physics comes along and kills them...which is exactly what happened in history. Case and point: Occasionalism.

1)The great Sir Isaac Newton, believe it or not, philosophised about the nature of space and time from scientific discoveries and came up with his notion of absolutism.

Isaac Newton was also an alchemist. I don't like it when people use the name brands of great scientists to back some views on other things, as if they can get the backing of science through the backing of scientists. That is not the case. Where Newton was right, he was brilliant, and where he was wrong, he was irrelevant. That's science for you

You can see that Einstein thought philosophy was important. The evidence is in his own words. And we know how much his physics changed the world forever. It would be no surprise if his insights benefited from both philosophy and science.

Again, that's great. But its just an opinion, even if its one of a great man. Its not Science, and science is what Einstein is great for in the first place.

1)There are plenty of debate and disagreement in the sciences too. Scientists have different views about the nature of the universe and human behaviour. Philosophers are probably more extreme in the discrepancy of their views of reality but it doesn't mean that there aren't any good philosophical theories. And certainly philosophical theories can become more successful when it is consistent with empirical findings. Einstein's theory of relativistic space and time, for example, is successful both scientifically and philosophically.

Yeah, but Science is a process which perfects itself over time. It grows upwards, you could say, in series. Whereas philosophy oftentimes grows in parallel, always coming up with alternatives but rarely eliminating them, because its hard to do so! Its the nature of the field.

1)In no way I was arguing whether humans are rational or irrational. I only said that it is illogical to fear death simply because we are biologically hard-wired to fear death due to the naturalistic fallacy. It is an example of a confusion between is/ought statements. Where did human rationality come into it?

Um. Humanity is not rational, aka logical. That is the statement I made. The statement you made was, a behavior of humanity is not rational, not logical. I think my statement agrees with, adds to, and explains your statement. I wasn't arguing on that one

2)Yes, emotions are part of what drives behaviour BUT it isn't the only factor. Cognition also drive behaviour. If I start telling things about physics that isn't true and you believe that this misinformation would do harm to unsuspecting high school students seeking advise for a career choice; what would would you do if you had the time; given that you believe what you say would make a difference? Debunk it!

I'm not going to argue here because its a completely different topic. But cognition is more of the steering wheel. Emotion is the engine.

1)And what do you think you are doing when you use mathematics to understand the universe? You are using the similar reasoning processes you use to analyse philosophical arguments. We cannot escape our biology - it will always filter our judgment. This is why we can never be certain that anything is true. No scientific theory, mathematical, philosophical or otherwise can prove anything definitely. There is always the uncertainty due to the contribution of the mind. Again, see Hilary Putnam's good discussion on the philosophy of science. Don't worry, he's a mathematician :)

No, you misunderstood my point. My point is that what is rational, reasonable, and sound is only so because we are exposed to it as a species. That is, in this macro universe, certain rules seem to be followed and that's ingrained into us as "axioms that make sense."

However, when we look at worlds outside of our paradigm, such as the very big or the very small or the very old or the very young, things don't "make sense" anymore. The mathematics is there, the mathematics can still describe it, but it doesn't make any intuitive logical sense. And since philosophers rely on intuitive, logical sense...you get my drift?

 

[kldickson]

The universe speaks math, physics, chemistry, and biology.

For goodness's sake, man, if you want to do something more productive than philosophizing and which will almost assuredly help you fill many of the questions you want to answer, become a member of the scientific community. We will welcome you here.

Deductive reasoning is for morons, anyway.

 

[kldickson]

Cripes. Most of the people giving advice on that CollegeConfidential site look like people who are on the lower rungs of the collegiate intelligence scale.

 

[Solombas]

I wouldn't have to respond as much if there weren't an equal amount of criticisms to respond to :)

uhhh...well ok, here's your empirical evidence. I have a friend named Bob, maybe its not Achilles, but close enough eh? And I have this slower friend named Andrew, closer to the tortoise than Bob is to Achilles. Every time Bob gets to where Andrew used to be, Andrew moves away. Does Bob ever catch up?

2nd grade recess says...yes. Why? Because the time it takes for bob to catch up after each repetition gets slower and slower, and eventually it converges into a single number. Which is also exactly what the math does. Can we move on?

Yes, in fact what you are arguing is the standard solution in maths to Zeno's paradoxes. It argues that a converging infinite series has a sum, given that an infinite series has a limiting value due to the different velocity of two objects (i.e. Bob & Andrew), which translates to, correct me if I am wrong:

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... = 1 (as its sum)

However, there are still some problems with this:

1) There is an assumption here. We are assuming that the limiting value of a converging infinite series is the SUM of the series. However, summing the series require us to make an infinite amount of additions; and this seems rather implausible.

Bob and Andrew are infinite in distance apart. Just because Bob is faster doesn't mean he will ever reach Andrew if you sum up all their velocities.

2)Even if a converging infinite series has a sum (so Bob does catch up with Andrew), to what extent this mathematical concept is true in the physical world? Adding velocities with maths in a cosmological scale in the Special Theory of Relativity may not conform to reality. We have no experimental data or empirical evidence to know the extent of this mathematical solution of Z's paradoxes to the phyiscal world.

Trust me, a philosopher of science does not know more science than a scientist. An undergrad at my institution, a sophomore friend of mine, knows much more science than our professor, who liked philosophy of science and featured it in his lectures quite a bit.

And Hilary Putnam knows less maths than an undergrad mathematician even though he is a Professor in Maths. Why do I find this hard to believe? Niels Bohr, btw, was also a mathematician. There were many scientists who became philosophers. One of my lecturers in philosophy of science was a physicist. Most philosophers of science often were scientists.

Ok, the universe does not speak English. It speaks math. No matter how much I read about Electricity and Magnetism, they didn't make a tenth of the amount of sense they made after we'd derived all of Maxwell's equations, even in the integral form. I can't take you seriously if you're going to tell me you can do science and understand the universe scientifically without math. In fact, I know you can't because you end up with dozens of different "views" of the world and have no way of proving them until physics comes along and kills them...which is exactly what happened in history. Case and point: Occasionalism.

I'm sorry, but I think you are confused here. I certainly did NOT say that we don't need maths to understand the universe. I am arguing that we need maths AND words to understand the universe.

1)Trying to understand the universe without maths doesn't necessarily lead to occasionalism. Just because someone is ignorant of maths doesn't mean they believe in God. A Wiccan with no knowledge of maths, for instance.

2)Reading about Maxwell's queation's with no conceptual knowledge of Electricity or Magnetism is useless. If you have no conceptual framework about the universe maths is MEANINGLESS (I cannot stress this anymore).

F=ma. So what if you can't define F, m and a? We NEED words to define theories.

3) Maths cannot explain everything easily. Try working out the mathematical solution to cure autism or the mathematical formula for the brain development of a person. The universe is too complicated to be modeled just in maths.

Yeah, but Science is a process which perfects itself over time. It grows upwards, you could say, in series. Whereas philosophy oftentimes grows in parallel, always coming up with alternatives but rarely eliminating them, because its hard to do so! Its the nature of the field.

It doesn't mean philosophy is unproductive. One just has to pick the right theories to complement his work, whatever that may be. Philosophy and science together can still benefit from each other. The conclusion is not adequately refuted.[/QUOTE]

No, you misunderstood my point. My point is that what is rational, reasonable, and sound is only so because we are exposed to it as a species. That is, in this macro universe, certain rules seem to be followed and that's ingrained into us as "axioms that make sense."

However, when we look at worlds outside of our paradigm, such as the very big or the very small or the very old or the very young, things don't "make sense" anymore. The mathematics is there, the mathematics can still describe it, but it doesn't make any intuitive logical sense. And since philosophers rely on intuitive, logical sense...you get my drift?

And mathematics isn't an axiom biased to our nature? I would argue that it is. We created maths. It is a conceptual tool in which we have created to try and describe the universe.

Words are equivalent to numbers. Numbers are just simpler in their definition. It is easier to define the concept of one than to define the concept of brain.

Btw, philosophers do use formal logic, the same kind of logic mathematicians use.

 

[Solombas]

Cripes. Most of the people giving advice on that CollegeConfidential site look like people who are on the lower rungs of the collegiate intelligence scale.

The universe speaks math, physics, chemistry, and biology.

For goodness's sake, man, if you want to do something more productive than philosophizing and which will almost assuredly help you fill many of the questions you want to answer, become a member of the scientific community. We will welcome you here.

Deductive reasoning is for morons, anyway.

Oh really? Why don't you PROVE that the universe speaks only in maths physics chemistry and biology? Where are your reasoning behind this? You can't just make a statement and say it is true. You have to justify it.

And I suppose human language is not part of the universe then? It must be just some disentangled blob that exists in a giant slug's backside? :)

If deductive reasoning is for morons, then you must mean maths is also for morons. Great, I suppose there is no hope for humankind.

Btw, I am also a scientist. Thanks for the offer though.

If you want to insult someone, please at least take the effort to get your facts right. Thank you very much.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Deductive reasoning is for morons, anyway.

Could you elaborate on that a bit?

 

[dx]

1)The problem of infinity.
Anyone who has done philosophy in paradox, time, space/physics would know these famous questions. There are many so I will illustrate a few basic questions. Since most of you are physicists here see if you can answer these famous philosophical questions :)

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

If everything can be reduced to an infinite amount of particles, then how does something infinite in size make up something with apparently finite size like us? If not, how can you justify that there is a fundamental particle? So far, we have only found more and more smaller particles why can't it go on infinitely?

Take a motion of an object from A to B (e.g. our hand moving from place A to place B). Break this motion down into an infinite number of micro-distances. So, how can an infinite number of micro-distances apparently make up a finite distance that we can measure and see?

If this is really a true representation of what present-day philosophers worry about (which I don't believe), then the situation is worse than I thought. None of these 'philosophical questions' make sense, and the very act of considering them shows a deep misunderstanding of science.

In science, we represent physical situations by models. Then we use the language of the model to discuss the physical situation. An error that was common in the earlier periods of human thought was to confuse the representation of a physical situation with the physical situation itself, due to the fact that some of these models like our model of space (Euclidean geometry) were too deeply embedded in our intuition. It was thought that Euclidean geometry was a priori true. We now realize that nothing about the universe can be deduced by pure logic; there are no a priori truths. The real place of logic in understanding the world is now clearly recognized: logic is used to deduce consequences from our models. For example, one can prove in Euclidean geometry using logic a statement like 'the sum of the internal angles of a triangle is equal to 180 degrees. This is a statement within the model, using only words and concepts defined within the model. This is a consequence deduced by logic within the representation, and at this stage says nothing about the actual world. It becomes science, a statement about the world, only when we say how actual experiments involving measurement of lengths (etc.) are to be interpreted in this model, i.e. we must map our experience/experiment into this model to define a physical theory (a process that is largely done automatically and intuitively in the case of Euclidean geometry).

Any statement about the physical world must be expressed in the language of some particular model. A statement like 'the past is infinite' is always a statement about the model. In this particular case, it is a statement about our model of space-time, i.e. the set of possible events. Our representation (or model) of spacetime is a differentiable manifold. I'm not saying this just to use big mathematical words, but to emphasize that the model is a pretty precisely defined structure. Now, what does it mean to say the past is infinite? It means that the differentiable manifold that represents spacetime has a certain topological property. What does it mean to say that the universe had a beginning? Again, it is a statement that the manifold has a certain property.

Let's consider one of your arguments:

If the past is infinite, then how is it that we even reach the present at all? If there is an infinite past, we would never reach a present state because we must make an infinite steps to reach anywhere. This, essentially, seems illogical. So, does this show the universe must have a beginning?

'We' are represented in the spacetime manifold by a structure called timelike worldline. That one can divide this world line into an infinite number of pieces has nothing to do with it's capability to 'reach' any point in spacetime; the model imposes no such restrictions. In fact, the question of whether the past is finite or infinite has nothing to do with this, since even a finite segment can be divided into an infinite number of pieces. Basically, this is a nonsense argument based on ill defined words and the vague mental images suggested by these ill defined words. No such argument can show that "the universe must have a beginning", because the latter is a well-defined and meaningful statement in our model of spacetime, with experimental consequences.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Just for some flavour I'm going to post a couple of tidbits from the "letters to prospective grad student" of philosophy professors at my uni:

"My particular areas of research interest are feminist bioethics, philosophy of law, philosophy of religion, and environmental ethics. At present I'm trying to understand the concept of dignity and how it relates to issues in both health care and law. In health care, the concept of dignity arises most obviously in discourses about death; but I am more interested in how it relates to genetic and other technological interventions in the area of reproduction. Recently I've argued that prenatal testing for disability sends a message that persons with disabilities are unwelcome and of lesser worth, and I made a similar argument a decade ago about prenatal testing for fetal sex. Complexities arise when we ask what it is to send a message, how we determine the content of a non-linguistic message, and whether or how a message can alter someone's status. "

"y interests lie in three main (non-exclusive) areas: philosophy of time and space, the history of philosophy (primarily 17th C.), and the history and philosophy of math (primarily issues concerning the infinite and the infinitely small). All three interests come together in my studies of Gottfried Leibniz, the great German polymath who was Newton's arch-rival as top-dog in the intellectual world at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Apart from his invention of the differential calculus (independently of Newton's analogous methods), Leibniz is chiefly known for his (much misunderstood) doctrine of monads. I am currently writing a book on his interpretation of time, space, motion, atoms, substance, the infinite and infinitesimals, hoping at the same time to give a historically accurate assessment, and also to show the relevance of Leibniz's views to contemporary problems in philosophy. I am also working with an international group of other scholars, both physicists and philosophers, on trying to get straight on issues concerning time that are holding back modern physics, in particular the quest for a theory of quantum gravity. Finally, I am exploring a new approach to the philosophy of the infinite. "
(P.S. on this one. The leibniz/Newtonian construction of calculus and musings of the infinite were replaces over 150 years ago during the push for rigour. So perfect example of someone studying outdated theories)

" have two broad research areas in philosophy; the focus of my expertise being in analytic metaphysics and mind. My philosophical worries concern the manifest image of action and experience, and whether it coheres ultimately with our possibly best explanations of that very image. Can we unify our self-conception as responsible rational animal agents, with the evident facts of material constitution and embodiment? Can we preserve our normative functional descriptions (the "design" stance) towards living systems? Are objects more than the sum of their parts? Are there emergent irreducible properties, such as consciousness? Much of my thinking and writing is directed towards the amorphous goal of not fearing determinism or materialism, while acknowledging the important revisions we may need to make in our self-understanding. "
(This guy just reminds me of the whole Alan Sokal affair. Which if you've never heard of you might want to look into Solombus)

 

[Solombas]

If this is really a true representation of what present-day philosophers worry about (which I don't believe), then the situation is worse than I thought. None of these 'philosophical questions' make sense, and the very act of considering them shows a deep misunderstanding of science.

No no, the questions I have presented are an oversimplification and represent a small aspect of the discussion in ontology. I wanted to keep things as basic as possible so most people can read it. Zeno's paradox is a very famous discussion amongst ontologists. If you open any up-to-date philosophy of space and time reader it would probably include Z's paradox, criticisms against Z's paradox and the standard mathematical solutions for it and criticisms against the math solutions. I have already illustrated one aspect of this in my latter posts (on converging infinite series).

In science, we represent physical situations by models. Then we use the language of the model to discuss the physical situation. An error that was common in the earlier periods of human thought was to confuse the representation of a physical situation with the physical situation itself, due to the fact that some of these models like our model of space (Euclidean geometry) were too deeply embedded in our intuition. It was thought that Euclidean geometry was a priori true. We now realize that nothing about the universe can be deduced by pure logic; there are no a priori truths. The real place of logic in understanding the world is now clearly recognized: logic is used to deduce consequences from our models. For example, one can prove in Euclidean geometry using logic a statement like 'the sum of the internal angles of a triangle is equal to 180 degrees. This is a statement within the model, using only words and concepts defined within the model. This is a consequence deduced by logic within the representation, and at this stage says nothing about the actual world. It becomes science, a statement about the world, only when we say how actual experiments involving measurement of lengths (etc.) are to be interpreted in this model, i.e. we must map our experience/experiment into this model to define a physical theory (a process that is largely done automatically and intuitively in the case of Euclidean geometry).

Yes, I agree with you that our language and reasoning is biased by our theories of the universe. Again I was trying to argue about this before that both mathematics and logical reasoning are not copies of reality and their validity is biased by the contribution of our minds. However, the principles of science is founded on a priori statements too. Science assumes a few things about the universe, for example, determinism (things are orderly as they have causes) and empiricism (we can objectively know things).


We can never perceive truth directly. Stimuli goes into our brain from child to adulthood and we process this and associate it with certain emotions and memories. The contribution of our mind, concept of self, culture (both time and place) all affect our perception of truth. Therefore, everything, and I mean this literally, everything *is* a theory because we don't perceive a copy of reality; we are actually perceiving the result of stimuli processed by our mind.

What science is really doing is measuring regularities in the universe. It is reliable and successful but both of this is not a function of validity. Truth cannot be validated by a reliable process. Finding about the universe with the scientific method is just like finding out about the best strategies to play a soccer game. You may figure out the most reliable and successful strategies for soccer but it doesn't mean that these strategies will still be valid when applied outside of soccer. It is the same with applying science to the universe. Can you see what I mean?

In saying all of this, I agree with you that science is necessary to find out truth given what we have except that I am arguing that the philosophy of science and science combined are better to achieve this than either alone. For some reason, some scientists in here think this is absurd.

Any statement about the physical world must be expressed in the language of some particular model. A statement like 'the past is infinite' is always a statement about the model. In this particular case, it is a statement about our model of space-time, i.e. the set of possible events. Our representation (or model) of spacetime is a differentiable manifold. I'm not saying this just to use big mathematical words, but to emphasize that the model is a pretty precisely defined structure. Now, what does it mean to say the past is infinite? It means that the differentiable manifold that represents spacetime has a certain topological property. What does it mean to say that the universe had a beginning? Again, it is a statement that the manifold has a certain property.

Let's consider one of your arguments:

'We' are represented in the spacetime manifold by a structure called timelike worldline. That one can divide this world line into an infinite number of pieces has nothing to do with it's capability to 'reach' any point in spacetime; the model imposes no such restrictions. In fact, the question of whether the past is finite or infinite has nothing to do with this, since even a finite segment can be divided into an infinite number of pieces. Basically, this is a nonsense argument based on ill defined words and the vague mental images suggested by these ill defined words. No such argument can show that "the universe must have a beginning", because the latter is a well-defined and meaningful statement in our model of spacetime, with experimental consequences.

I am not a physicists or a mathematician, but if I get it right I take it you are using the block universe model here. In the block universe context, the past, present and future exist simultaneously. I agree that Zeno's paradox is probably not much of a problem in a block universe. However, the block universe theory aka eternalism is still not a theory with overwhelming evidence, if I am correct. We do not know for sure whether time moves forward or goes everywhere simultaneously or only the present exists (presentism). In the case that time moves forward linearly then I am arguing Zeno's paradox is still problematic (see my latter criticisms for the standard mathemathetical solutions).

 

[DukeofDuke]

However, summing the series require us to make an infinite amount of additions; and this seems rather implausible.

I guess you're right, and there is no such thing as an integral.
Once again, philosophy disproves...just about everything invented in the 1800's and up.

Bob and Andrew are infinite in distance apart. Just because Bob is faster doesn't mean he will ever reach Andrew if you sum up all their velocities.

Actually I think you are right on this one. It depends on what kind of infinite distance separates them. That would determine if the series converges or not. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

And Hilary Putnam knows less maths than an undergrad mathematician even though he is a Professor in Maths. Why do I find this hard to believe? Niels Bohr, btw, was also a mathematician. There were many scientists who became philosophers. One of my lecturers in philosophy of science was a physicist. Most philosophers of science often were scientists.

I'm guessing Putnam was trained as a mathematician. I'm guessing you have the causality wrong in your last sentence, many scientists became philosophers of science, not the other way around. My point is that the typical philosophy PhD leaves one with a knowledge of physics perhaps equivalent to that of a bright sophomore undergrad, and probably less because people outside of physics inexplicably jump to Relativity and QM without taking 10 seconds to learn Mechanics and, much more critically, E&M. Considering relativity falls out of Maxwell's equations, this is clearly a mistake.

To understand the physics, you really do need to devote a LOT of time and thought too it, and get yourself a LOT of formal training. That's very hard for a professional in another field.

I don't really know what Bohr has to do with it. Are you implying Bohr was a philosopher, who was also well versed in mathematics? Like Putnam? Then I'm sorry, because I didn't even know he was anything more than an armchair philosopher. He's a physicist first and foremost, by a lot, so I don't really know why you mentioned his expertise in math. A lot of great physicists were also very good at math, they had to be.

I'm sorry, but I think you are confused here. I certainly did NOT say that we don't need maths to understand the universe. I am arguing that we need maths AND words to understand the universe.

Oh, I agree. Because we can't talk to each other without words. We can't communicate and build upon our discoveries. But to take it a step further, you have to have either the concepts or the math, and in my experience the concepts can only be understood by understanding the math.

1)Trying to understand the universe without maths doesn't necessarily lead to occasionalism. Just because someone is ignorant of maths doesn't mean they believe in God. A Wiccan with no knowledge of maths, for instance.

I was just using Occasionalism as an example of a stupid philosophy

2)Reading about Maxwell's queation's with no conceptual knowledge of Electricity or Magnetism is useless. If you have no conceptual framework about the universe maths is MEANINGLESS (I cannot stress this anymore).

Well, if you just look at the symbols, then its just as bad as words. My point is, the math is the only thing that can CONVEY the conceptual knowledge. English is not adequate. You can't "understand" it without the math, and once you go through the math properly, you understand it. The conceptual knowledge IS the math, and English has nothing to do with it. Its hard to explain. But the light goes off in my head once I understand the math, not before, and the math leads me to further revelations. The equations speak to you, essentially. The negative in Faraday's Law BECOMES Lenz's law, it tells you what and why its there and what it all means.

3) Maths cannot explain everything easily. Try working out the mathematical solution to cure autism or the mathematical formula for the brain development of a person. The universe is too complicated to be modeled just in maths.

Not quite sure what your point is. First of all, maths is the language of the universe, but its not the universe. That's why we need physics...and yes, you can do all those things with physics if you're willing to sit around and sum it up 10^alot of times. But that's hard, so we invent chemistry and biology and all that.

And mathematics isn't an axiom biased to our nature? I would argue that it is. We created maths. It is a conceptual tool in which we have created to try and describe the universe.

the funny thing about maths is that at first it makes sense but it always implies something deeper, and you just have to follow the thread. Combine it with the physics, and eventually you get to models with electron spins which you can't really imagine (I still can't anyways) or weird wavefunctions that imply things you thought were impossible. The mere fact that nobody has ever gotten even close to that kind of thing with just words, well, I think it speaks for itself.

Btw, philosophers do use formal logic, the same kind of logic mathematicians use.

Yeah but only after making up a lot of bs.
"I clearly and distinctly perceive God. Now suck it" ~Descartes