Scientists vs. Philosophers

[Lab-Test Monkey]

but time itself, isn't 'real', just something we also impose on the world to get a better understanding of it. This is not my view in particular but Kant's, but i agree, just can't remember half of it now so will have to reread it later.

This is interesting because often on psychedelics time can seem slow or fast, either one is having too much fun or perhaps it increases perception of the fact that time is fluid and changeable.

Arguing over semantics, language, philosophers who died hundreds of years ago, it's just chasing your own tail.

It's the nature of the universe (Ouroboros), plus an understanding of the past helps us learn from their mistakes/motivations and to plan for the future better.

 

[panic in paradise]

I guess it depends on what you believe philosophy is. Modern philosophy gives what I believe real philosophy to be a bad name; it has degenerated into word games and academic debates that lead nowhere. That isn't what I personally believe philosophy should be about. Arguing over semantics, language, philosophers who died hundreds of years ago, it's just chasing your own tail. No wonder why people think philosophy is a bit weak.. it has been taken out of the domain of common man and placed into an academic environment where only those with higher IQ can debate the language and meanings. Once philosophy reaches that stage it is no longer philosophy but an elitist circle jerk.

Philosophy is more important than science because only through it can one get to the Truth. Science can only deal with relative truth. That's not to give science a bad rap, it is a very useful tool. But as psyduck said "science without philosophy is blind". You only need to look at the past 100 years of history to see the kind of madness that results when science runs way ahead of where we are spiritually as a society.

in my personal pros and cons list, science is highly favored, but then considering what has been the most destructive human devises', religion and science take the cake. science, though, can and has placed us in inescapable scenarios such as those inclusive to pharmacology and pollution.

one example is how authors of the DSM psychiatric diagnostic manual, have recently admitted to making up diagnosis, there is no reason for that to of happened other then to support the pharmacology market.

 

[rangrz]

Motion is only metaphysical if you try to shoehorn it in that. Motion is easily dealt with empirically and can be well described by partial differential equations or geometry.

Time is not unlike motion, and similarly can be handled empirically, and well described by Riemannian geometry and tensor calculus.

Causality is not a "thing" it's a mathematical/phenomenalogical abstraction. But that doesn't make it metaphysical anymore than money or school grades are metaphysical.

Your perception of time, on psychedelics or otherwise doesn't affect time anymore than being color blind changes the frequency of light.

 

[Lab-Test Monkey]

perhaps it increases perception of the fact that time is fluid and changeable.

Time is not unlike motion, and similarly can be handled , empirically

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[Psyduck]

Motion is only metaphysical if you try to shoehorn it in that. Motion is easily dealt with empirically and can be well described by partial differential equations or geometry.

Of course, it can be dealt with by PDEs. I am not discarding that approach. My point being that philosophical reflection can be supplementary to scientific reasoning. Metaphysics isn't an escape to a fantasy-world (as one mostly presumes) or is only dealing with ethics/God/free-will. It can and must understand the basic presuppositions of science -- something it cannot do itself -- as well as the basic structure of beings (ontology). It will have absolutely NO impact on scientific results, but it does adress the foundations of them, something a PDE cannot.

p.s. Motion makes very little sense anyway... already in the easy case of mechanical motion where an object is BEING-in-place-A and moves to place-B (=NOT-BEING-in-place-A). So, if it is truely ONE-and-the-SAME object... how can it at the same time BE and not-BE.

The question of Being, the meaning of Being (!= the question of the meaning of a human life) is quite foreign to science and is typically philosophical (i.e. ontological). What is Being? Every-thing "is." But what is "isness." How can things be?

Causality is not a "thing" it's a mathematical/phenomenalogical abstraction. But that doesn't make it metaphysical anymore than money or school grades are metaphysical.

I know. I was applying the Socratic method... So, what makes the abstraction of causality "appliceable" to the phenomenal world? Why is it not an empty concept like "the concept of God," "the concept of a first cause," or "the concept of a unicorn" (if you prefer) which our mind can freely construct but doesn't necessarily need to have any basis in that thing called reality. This is basicly Kants transcendental deduction; cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/#TraDed

I remember in class my prof showing us that we see everything in frames, like a video is 24 frames per second and that we figure out time from this but time itself, isn't 'real', just something we also impose on the world to get a better understanding of it. This is not my view in particular but Kant's, but i agree, just can't remember half of it now so will have to reread it later.

Well, it's not so much "impose on reality." It's the way our intuitions (sensations, if that term is more easy) are ordered. The event of a swan flying up is composed of "different events" (viz. it being on the ground, half-way, and in the sky,...). These different sensations not randomly connected but they have a certain order. Moreover, these sensations (stage-1,stage-2,...stage-n) have no principle to order themselves or connect themselves. Time, or better: temporality, for Kant is the way we structure/arrange our sensation (before, after, etc.).

 

[akautonomics]

I consider the field of mathematics to be more in the realm of philosophy than science. It's useful in science, but it's definitely more subjective than objective... Ok that might sound wack at first, but here is why; mathematics describes concepts or ideas which have no basis in the physical world. These concepts exist only within our minds, and we use mathematical symbols to represent them. For example, the notion of "spin" in particle physics. It's a purely mathematical construct (with no analogy to the macroscopic world) that describes a physical system. Another example, imaginary numbers. The number i is defined as the square root of negative one. There isn't any empirical evidence or observable anything about i. (Or any number, really).
Another thing we can consider is the concept of positive and negative. We can use these concepts to interact with the physical world, but ultimately, they exist only within the mind of the observer and are communicated with symbols.

Rangrz comments, then it's reducible to the physical system of a brain state.

I agree, to some extent however, the complexity of brain states leads to what we call consciousness/subjective experience, and I think philosophy is (currently, who knows what advances neuroscience will make) the best system of investigating consciousness and subjective experiences. (Psychology is a close second.)

 

[RobotRipping]

Well, it's not so much "impose on reality." It's the way our intuitions (sensations, if that term is more easy) are ordered. The event of a swan flying up is composed of "different events" (viz. it being on the ground, half-way, and in the sky,...). These different sensations not randomly connected but they have a certain order. Moreover, these sensations (stage-1,stage-2,...stage-n) have no principle to order themselves or connect themselves. Time, or better: temporality, for Kant is the way we structure/arrange our sensation (before, after, etc.).

yeah you have that right. The sight of a swan however is a series of images interpreted by our brain which are connected temporally because we can interpret the similarities between each image. I think that is the principle by which the mind constructs these things, or at least that's how i interpreted Kant. I'm quite possibly off on this as it's been a while.

 

[rangrz]

I consider the field of mathematics to be more in the realm of philosophy than science. It's useful in science, but it's definitely more subjective than objective...

Mathematics is not philosophy OR science. It's mathematics, a distinct field capable of standing on its own. That said, certain mathematical concepts can be argued to "belong" to other subjects. Like Partial differential equations (Particularly things like Fourier Analysis and Harmonic oscillators) Operator algebra on vector spaces, dynamical systems, perturbation theory and gauge field theories are more a part of physics than mathematics in the pure sense. Lambda calculus and recursive functions are essentially a computer science thing. In no way are these things purely in the mind. They either represent and model a tangible physical system, or are used to control the state of a physical system. (i.e. shuffling electric charges around inside your computer)

Deductive logic as per mathematics is certainly an aspect of philosophy, and mathematics owes much of early basis to philosophy, but the two are distinct. I also fail to see how deductive logic has any connection to the i.e. the patent nonsense in postmodernist philosophy, or to aesthetics.

Psychology is a much better system for understanding how human thoughts, emotions, and otherwise the human mental system works. Indeed, psychology is one of the sciences MOST reliant on experimental evidence and empirical evidence. Very little in the way of a priori, strictly deductive ideas about psychology have been correct. (Whereas a reasonable number of them in fields like chemistry, physics, astronomy have been)

 

[P A]

yes it is,

That remains to be seen.

- Parmenides vs. Heraclitus

Strictly physical (or pre-physical, if you please). These guys just didn't have all the right tools to perform their cognitive tasks in any other way. Nowadays, we do.

- Zeno's paradox

Logical/mathematical. See above. [Convergence of geometric series, anyone?]

- Plato vs. Aristotle

What did Plato have to say on the subject again? I'm guessing it had to do with his bizarre and empirically unfalsifiable 'forms,' yes? Aristotle seemed to be on the right track, though (and a thousand or so years ahead of schedule).

- Occassionalism vs. Cartesianism

Patent nonsense. Attempts to understand motion and (certain instances of) causality in a more formal way have resulted in classical physics. There's really no need to bring supernatural deities into it, not that they would solve anything anyway. However, I guess this entirely depends upon what one intends to gain from doing philosophy: Do you seek understanding, or further befuddlement? I find that there is a substantial minority of people that honestly and unabashedly prefer the latter.

Ok. I tried it. I see 1) a bat, 2) a watermelon, 3) a broken watermelon, 4) a sarcastic smile on my face... but, still, I nowhere saw "causality." Where in Space-time (x,y,z,t) can we find "causality" assuming all there is are just physical objects, i.e. a purely material world embodied in space-time.

This reminds of those 'barefoot behaviorists' that deny experiencing a rich internal life. Upon the destruction of the watermelon, you received a predictable object lesson in causality just as anyone else could or would in such an instance. Indeed, such a fundamental cognitive faculty is probably an essential precondition for living in a world like this one, and for perceiving it in a coherent, structured manner. If nothing else, your ability to type at a keyboard (assuming you're not a robot) is proof enough for me that you're perfectly aware of the intuitive principles of causation that drive our everyday, commonsensical understanding of the world. You may not be fully capable of articulating just what these principles are with any degree of formal precision, but this failure of the imagination doesn't necessitate elevating the scope of the issue to the dubious domain of the 'metaphysical.' rangrz isn't counting on ever finding out what motion 'really is' because when you get down to it, trying to find out what any abstract concept 'really is' is likely to end in the same ceaseless (and often baseless) lines of hazy speculation and insipid word games. There is a pernicious essentialism that underlies these kinds of discussions, and I'm not sure how best to address it. I guess I'll leave it to Hume:

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

 

[Illyria99]

Science is merely philosophy that has been proven.

 

[rangrz]

Science is merely philosophy that has been proven.

Lol, no. Much science is, or has been, unproven at some point. Was the quark model of hadrons philosophy until deep inelastic scattering experiments provided solid empirical evidence for it? It was always science. How about General relativity until confirmed by measurement of the orbit of Mercury?

 

[akautonomics]

nah, before it was proven it was fo sho philosophy. theoretical physics = philosophy

 

[rangrz]

nah, before it was proven it was fo sho philosophy. theoretical physics = philosophy

So, then General Relativity and The Standard Model are STILL philosophy? There are implications and questions in both with have not been observed or explained. (Frame dragging and Gravity Waves in General Relativity, the question of neutrino mass/neutrino flavor changing/other stuff about the weak nuclear force in The Standard Model, among other things.)

Of course, Science never PROVES anything. It's inductive, and always considers itself to be wrong/only an approximation, but strives to be less and less wrong and to approximate to a higher precision. But the fact it tries to become less wrong already precludes itself from considering itself to be "proven". You should know this akautonomics, you're an (aspiring) scientist, or at least where a few hours ago in class.

 

[casualuser]

Of course, Science never PROVES anything. /QUOTE] Exactly! Everything is philosophy at the core, divisions within it only appear to be separate because we provide a more specific label for easier understanding.

 

[rangrz]

Not quite, science keeps approaching closer to a proof of things, and in practice, many things can be considered proven (Cell theory? Germ Theory? Classical mechanics with caveats that explicitly state it's limits? The bulk of quantum mechanics? Like that the Schrodinger Equation PERFECTLY predicts the specta of Hydrogen is a brute fact that can be taken as proven, despite that the Schrodinger Equation can't/has not been/can be shown not to work for other things.) Plus science's methods of empiricism and reductionism distinguish it from philosophy imo.

 

[slimvictor]

Philosophy without science is empty. Science without philosophy is blind.

Maybe so.

But to me, scientists are simply philosophers who believe in the philosophy of science.
Just like this, from 2 posts up:

Everything is philosophy at the core, divisions within it only appear to be separate because we provide a more specific label for easier understanding.

 

[RobotRipping]

sounds like an argument over semantics. philosophers don't do science, they do philosophy, scientists do science, mathematicians do math, they are all distinct and yet overlap in some areas. who cares. Half of these posts are just pseudo-philosophical bullshit that you hear from people when they are completely stupid and really stoned.

Science really is philosophy man... no it's not actually.

 

[casualuser]

Not quite, science keeps approaching closer to a proof of things, and in practice, many things can be considered proven (Cell theory? Germ Theory? Classical mechanics with caveats that explicitly state it's limits? The bulk of quantum mechanics? Like that the Schrodinger Equation PERFECTLY predicts the specta of Hydrogen is a brute fact that can be taken as proven, despite that the Schrodinger Equation can't/has not been/can be shown not to work for other things.) Plus science's methods of empiricism and reductionism distinguish it from philosophy imo.

I will concede, that for the most part within the constructs of our accepted reality science is more easily distinguished from philosophy because its theories can be generally be accepted as "proven." However the first and main assumption made in any scientific theory, that what we perceive as reality is actually real, is where philosophy persists within science. Additionally, I'd argue any good philosophical theory must be formed using rational thought and empiricism(not necessarily exact measurable quantities and mathematical formulas but more like scales of relativity and a cause/effect chain of progression) as well as being open to revision.

As a side note, I think the ideas brought up in this article vaguely relate to our discussion or at the very least provide an interesting point of view to consider... http://news.discovery.com/space/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-2-121216.htm

 

[rangrz]

A good argument against the computer simulation idea is that perturbative phenomena like many body problems in classical mechanics and self interaction in quantum mechanics can not be solved by algorithm, but obviously, reality can solve them.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I conceive of philosophy and science, as I do of pretty much all fields of human endeavor, in terms of what their aim is, and in turn, what doing each of them involves. And from that perspective, it's hard to confuse one for the other. Science aims to predict what has not [yet] been observed based on what has been observed. Scientists do this by having a lot of people observe and document similar phenomena many many times (empirical testing). Philosophy aims to cultivate wisdom. Philosophers do this by asking, and attempting to answer, questions about the human experience that elude straightforward answers that nearly everyone would agree upon. When questions lead to more questions than answers, the philosophical debater eventually realizes that it's entirely up to him/her to choose what proposed answers sound convincing.

Granted science and philosophy have some common ground, and many people do both. What has been seen empirically in experiments provides fine fodder for debates about questions fundamental to the human condition. But they're distinct. In the end scientists aim to build and arrange things, and know that what they build and arrange will do what they want it to do before it's even built. The medium they work in is matter. Philosophers aim to get sharper at asking and answering questions. The medium they work in is words.