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[DukeofDuke]

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.

I think I will use a philosopher to "disprove" you here, to demonstrate how philosophy cannot reach the truth either since it cannot be validated and move forward and progress.

David Hume's new science of human nature explicitly states that knowledge can only be acquired through a process of verification, where the number of similar outcomes in the past determine what trust one should put in a similar outcome in the future. For Hume, there is no other way to ascertain truth, except through repetitive experience.

Truth can only be validated by a reliable process. At least, that's philosophy

 

[marmot]

It is true a lot of traditional philosophy is silly but its also silly to dismiss the whole endeavour, and I suspect a lot of the physics folks who do this are the kindof people who cannot write a paper to save their lives.

The only wortwhile aspect of philosophy is its ability to clarify arguments - because as Wittgenstein points out, it is impossible for it to bring knowledge - that is the task of science. However, this clarification is very important for someone who takes seriously his task of learning. I see so many science students thinking that the math they write in a piece of paper is equivalent to nature as if spacetime manifolds and electric field grads spanned acrossed the universe. A scientist might be able to predict succesifully certain phenomena, but the interpretation they do sometimes is problematic. For example, does it make sense to think of the photon as really a "particle" as in little hard balls, or it makes more sense to treat it as a mathematical tool that might or may not meaningfully exist? Does space and time really curve or is it just mathematics?

Does it make sense to speak of atoms? After all atoms are density functions in hilbert space. What older generations thought of atoms - little hard balls, looses any sense in current scientific discourse. etc

And arguing because they offer predictive power they are true is senseless. phlogiston theory and ptolemys epycicles had predictive power too. what if quantum mechanics are just the equivalent of ptolemaic epycicles?


Without discussing this sort of "clarification", we sooner or later find barriers. For example, the mechanical worldview of Newton made it hard for people to accept the probabilistic framework of quantum mechanics. Or for example, today, we have a whole lot of people scribbling numbers, like string theorists, but without any sort of empirical imput, etc.

 

[DukeofDuke]

I'm perfectly happy to lump the string theorists in with the philosophers

 

[AUMathTutor]

I disagree that philosophy cannot bring knowledge. It cannot lead to certain kinds of knowledge, perhaps, but that is certainly not all the knowledge there is.

Science and mathematics are not infinite in their capacity to answer all questions about human life. Where they leave off, philosophy picks up. When philosophy contradics science or mathematics on scientific or mathematical manners, then the philosophy should be given a thorough looking over. On the other hand, when science and mathematics contradict philosophy in philosophical matters, they deserve a thorough looking over as well. In fact, this is where paradoxes of mathematics and science come from; when they disagree with philosophical principles. Often, the philosophy must be revised because it turns out science and mathematics are correct; sometimes, the mathematics and science must be revised because the philosophy was on unshakeable ground.

Of the following branches of philosophy, which are worthless?
- Metaphysics
- Epistemology
- Ethics
- Politics
- Esthetics

How do science or mathematics address any of these?

 

[DukeofDuke]

Well, I'd say its the metaphysics that manages to make me cry the most. In that the class I was complaining about primarily focused on various philosophers "views" on metaphysics. Metaphysical views are a dime a dozen and there's no good way to sort them out, to render one false and the other true.

yay for epistemology and ethics.

Politics...you mean game theory?

Aesthetics, well the philosophy of beauty just isn't my cup of tea but it doesn't seem to make me mad. Neither does underwater basket weaving of course (another popular major for pre-law students I hear).I do agree though, that the "human" aspect (what we *should* do) is just as hard to describe with maths as the physical version (what there *is*) is to describe with philosophical persuasions.

 

[Dembadon]

Of the following branches of philosophy, which are worthless?
- Metaphysics
- Epistemology
- Ethics
- Politics
- Esthetics

How do science or mathematics address any of these?

While I do not personally feel that any of those areas of study are worthless, I would argue that the sciences contain areas of study which address those topics quite well. I would also argue that with the exception of metaphysics, all of the above topics have something to do with human behavior and how we resond to and/or make decisions about things in life. I believe that the biological sciences do an excellent job explaining why our bodies respond to things the way they do.

-Robert

 

[AUMathTutor]

Well, I agree that things like biology and pscyhology can address certain questions of human behavior, but I feel that the way in which it addresses these questions is fundamentally different to the way philosophy does. I feel that the two are concerned with primarily different, though related, areas.

Not to say that the two areas can't becombined in interdisciplinary studies, and not to say that the one can't and shouldn't influence the other, but it's my firm belief that the subjects are entities unto themselves, and when biologists start addressing philosophical questions, they become philosophers, regardless of the biological evidence they use.

I feel like there's a lot of mistrust of modern philosophy. A lot of this seems to stem from the fact that some kinds of philosophy aren't empirically verifiable. But this is silly to me; you'll throw out some kinds of philosophy because another kind (empiricism) seems to require more of them than they can offer? Empiricism is not the only way of getting truth. It's one way, and it has been successful, sure, but that doesn't mean all others should be abandoned.

I still say philosophy is a lot like mathematics. People come up with theories and techniques and terminologies that are useful for addressing certain kinds of problems. You start with postulates and use logic to expand the system. Different areas of mathematics are certainly allowed to disagree on certain questions, provided that their axioms differ and both are coherent. In philosophy, some people see this as the whole thing being arbitrary; in mathematics, the same people would see it as being a trivial objection.

For instance, answer the following question, and see whether or not your answer depends on the axioms you start with: find y if sqrt(y) = -1.

 

[Solombas]

Thanks for replies :) What marmot and mathtutor were saying were generally what I have been trying to say about philosophy and science throughout this whole discussion.

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.

That is the nature of the field, my friend. The beauty about philosophy is that it questions and criticises everything to the limits of human logic. And that includes science and the nature of logic itself which is the foundation of philosophy. The beauty of science, however, is that it verifies whether our theories reliably predict and explain the objective universe perceived by all of us.

Together they are the best methodologies we have so far, no matter how imperfect.

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.

Yes, that was what I mean. I apologise if I didn't make that clear. However, it is just my speculation. I haven't reviewed or conducted any survey to see whether this is true or not.

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.

Well, how knowledgeable a PhD philosopher in physics is a function of how successful she is with her research in physics and its philosophy, isn't it? But yes, PhD philosophers probably don't get much education it the methodology and maths behind physics. They are more concerned with the philosophical implications of a concept in physics GIVEN it is true. For example, given that the heat death theory of the universe is true, what does this imply about the meaning of life? Etc..

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.

Oh no, Bohr wasn't like Putnam he wasn't a professor in maths. But he was also a mathematician as well as a physicist but he was best known as a physicist especially for his work on atomic structure. He also wrote about the philosophical implications of his work. See for example his writings on atomic physics and human knowledge:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0918024528/?tag=pfamazon01-20

The point I was trying to make was that many successful scientists thought that both philosophy and science were important and clearly they applied both fields to their endeavors.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not sure about maths being the language of the universe. But one thing I can ask is this. How can maths explain, for example, the correlation between brain activations and mental experiences - the old mind-body problem? Even if you can reduce all the physiology and mathematical framework of consciousness to their most fundamental basis; how do you explain why these fundamental units of consciousness give rise to experience at all? How do you explain the leap between the maths of something to the experience of the actual thing itself?

Maybe maths can explain this maybe not. I don't expect an answer this is a notoriously difficult question.

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

Yes, but you see theories like this that are untestable that yield weak/no explanatory or predictive power also get discarded in philosophy even though we may still learn about them in philosophy textbooks. For example, most philosophers of mind today would find substance dualism (mind is nonphysical and brain is physical) a weak theory due to its many problems.

I think I will use a philosopher to "disprove" you here, to demonstrate how philosophy cannot reach the truth either since it cannot be validated and move forward and progress.

David Hume's new science of human nature explicitly states that knowledge can only be acquired through a process of verification, where the number of similar outcomes in the past determine what trust one should put in a similar outcome in the future. For Hume, there is no other way to ascertain truth, except through repetitive experience.

Truth can only be validated by a reliable process. At least, that's philosophy

What if the it turns out that there can be many different kinds of universe with different kinds of physical laws if the initial conditions of the universe were altered differently? The regularities you find in one universe would not apply to the other. What is true for one universe would no longer be true for another.

 

[DukeofDuke]

Hey, thanks for sticking with me for so long. Believe it or not, I'm enjoying this its a good challenge, good for the mind.

So the stuff about the integral...an integral is just the limit of a riemann sum. So, maybe its the whole concept of limits that you're questioning and I'm not. Because besides "the limit as divisions go to infinity" that definition of the integral is pretty well centered in the finite.

They are more concerned with the philosophical implications of a concept in physics GIVEN it is true. For example, given that the heat death theory of the universe is true, what does this imply about the meaning of life? Etc..

But while heat death is a more simple concept to draw conclusions from...I see a lot of "implications of quantum physics" books by pseudo-philosophers. That type of thing I can't agree with, because some concepts are too complex to draw conclusions from without really understanding them at a level abstract thinking doesn't reach. Our brains just can't grasp some things except in a roundabout (mathematical, not visual) way.

The point I was trying to make was that many successful scientists thought that both philosophy and science were important and clearly they applied both fields to their endeavors.

Pretty much all great men developed their own philosophies. That, however, is a testament to the nature of great men, not to the nature of philosophy or science. We should judge both fields without looking at the men that inhabit them, or at least that's my opinion.

I'm not sure about maths being the language of the universe. But one thing I can ask is this. How can maths explain, for example, the correlation between brain activations and mental experiences - the old mind-body problem? Even if you can reduce all the physiology and mathematical framework of consciousness to their most fundamental basis; how do you explain why these fundamental units of consciousness give rise to experience at all? How do you explain the leap between the maths of something to the experience of the actual thing itself?

Well you can't very well expect 300 years of calculus to explain all the mysteries of a 300 million year old species can you? But yes, the math describes the physics, and the physics summed gives the chemistry and the chemistry summed gives the biology and I believe its biology that can answer those questions. Of course, the techniques used in chem and bio are not derived from physics but from their own scientific observations, but their validity does eventually go back to physics. We might notice that drug A kills bacteria B, and market that as biology, but if you look far enough there are chemical processes at work based on physical processes at work based on mathematical models...

Yes, but you see theories like this that are untestable that yield weak/no explanatory or predictive power also get discarded in philosophy even though we may still learn about them in philosophy textbooks. For example, most philosophers of mind today would find substance dualism (mind is nonphysical and brain is physical) a weak theory due to its many problems.

But was it discarded for philosophical or biological reasons? Would philosophy ever have logically ruled it out, had not experiment and biology not done so?
If you say yes, then you'd probably also say that physics needs only the mathematical theorists, and not the experimentalists. But Feynman said "
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. " and his word is law. :!)
Does philosophy have any inbuilt "lie detector" to weed out the bad theories? Or if biology and psychology weren't around would we still be debating the question of dualism?
If physics weren't around would there still be 4 elements because it "made sense"?
[/QUOTE]

What if the it turns out that there can be many different kinds of universe with different kinds of physical laws if the initial conditions of the universe were altered differently? The regularities you find in one universe would not apply to the other. What is true for one universe would no longer be true for another.

I think Hume would still say whatever prior experience we have in that universe would determine what we know about that universe (and if you tampered with the notions of causality, I think Hume would be screwed).

 

[flyzeggs]

I've seen papers written by Philosophers in reputable Physics journals.

Why not try the Physics and Philosophy majors (offered by many schools in the UK and I think Brown in the US or the foundations of physics grad program at Columbia), they're quite good.

I think it's a bit unfortunate that many Physics majors underestimate the importance of philosophy in their field. Philosophy is a very interesting field, and many philosophy majors move on to work in the sciences. Like math, it really does help you think better.

 

[Entropee]

Write books! Either textbooks or popularizations - start early and be persistent.

thats a really good idea, if you write a good book you could end up making tons of money off it.