6 ms·

Philosophy can approach many questions that currently feel out of the realm of science

by uptheroots 3y ago

lisper 3y ago
Like what?
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  How do you believe the results you are getting? What makes such a belief justified? What is the nature of consciousness? What are things beautiful? What makes something ascetically pleasing. Why any of this exists at all? What is the purpose of this existence? Is something ethical? Science can provide answer about consequences of an action but cannot determine if said action is moral or ethical. … science is not a book of facts. It is merely a process for testing a hypothesis. It is not a replacement for philosophy, it is underpinned by philosophy.
  - lisper 3y ago
    Those are all very good questions, and I can't do them justice in an HN comment. But here's a first cut: > How do you believe the results you are getting? What makes such a belief justified? Read David Deutsch "The Fabric of Reality" chapter 7. > What is the nature of consciousness? Read Daniel Dennett, "Consciousness Explained". > What are things beautiful? What makes something ascetically pleasing. Read Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene" (and, if you want to get deep into these weeds, "The Extended Phenotype"). > Why any of this exists at all? What makes you think that any of this does exist at all? > What is the purpose of this existence? What makes you think that this existence has a purpose? > Is something ethical? Science can provide answer about consequences of an action but cannot determine if said action is moral or ethical. Read "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod. (The Selfish Gene addresses this as well.) > science is not a book of facts. That's true. > It is merely a process for testing a hypothesis. No, it's not "merely" that. It is a process for producing good explanations that account for observations. That turns out to be tremendously powerful. > It is not a replacement for philosophy, it is underpinned by philosophy. No, it isn't. The existence of philosophy (and philosophers!) can be explained by science.
    - zquzra 3y ago
      Daniel Dennett is a philosopher.
      - lisper 3y ago
        He's also a scientist.
        dventimi 3y ago
        What distinguishes a scientist from a philosopher?
        lisper 3y ago
        A scientist follows the scientific method, i.e. they advance testable hypotheses and compare their predictions with the data. A philosopher writes deep-sounding but ultimately meaningless drivel like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus
        dventimi 3y ago
        Which comically was criticized by its own author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations It's not lost on me that Tractatus was warmly received by philosophers, but Investigations got a frostier reception from the same group. I especially enjoyed Russell's snippy quote. Ol Ludwig struck a nerve, did he, Bert?
  - username332211 3y ago
    On your last question ethics in particular is rather interesting. I think it's the field where the decline of philosophy is most obvious. Ethics is supposed to answer real-life questions, like "How do I live a moral life?". Yet philosophical movements, that actually tired to answer such questions, like the stoics and the epicureans are long gone. When you read on the actual writings of contemporary philosophers you'd see impossible moral standards - "It takes 5 dollars to save a starving African child, a night out with friends is the equivalent to abandoning a bus of drowning children to their deaths"[1] It's impossible to live by such philosophy, except for those that think of themselves as some sort of creature of pure evil who cares nothing of right and wrong. Because philosophy is useless as a guidance to life, right and wrong are now decided by the encyclical, the fatwa and the resolutions at the party congress, depending on your religion. [1] https://daily-philosophy.com/peter-singers-drowning-child/ https://daily-philosophy.com/peter-singers-drowning-child/
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      Maybe living impassively at the top of a rich world hegemony while children are starving is wrong but we are too used to it to notice.
      - username332211 3y ago
        Ohh, it's not just the rich world that's guilty. Do you think there are no bars in Haiti? Do you think they don't waste stuff on "personal luxuries" in Bangladesh? Do you think they don't waste their time and resources on shopping malls in Ethiopia? They waste resources that could have gone to the malnourished children of their own country! Monsters, the lot of them, just as bad as the rich-worlders. Ethics demands we all live joyless lives of endless toil until every child is fed.
        whatshisface 3y ago
        Rich people living in third world countries would definitely be included in that especially because rather than some vague "foreign policy" being the causal link for culpability they can often be the corrupt individuals creating the problem themselves. Saying "people who live in penthouses next to Indian slums might be living their life wrong too" is not exactly an expression of disagreement.
  - dventimi 3y ago
    Few scientists try to answer these questions for me. I expect philosophers to have as much humility.
  - analog31 3y ago
    And what are the answers from philosophy? Last I looked, all that philosophy could offer to questions like that was an enumeration of multiple conflicting answers.
- crazydoggers 3y ago
  Love this vsauce video for some examples https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE?si=FmgmYH8BDWrkIcMJ https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE?si=FmgmYH8BDWrkIcMJ There’s still a lot of value in philosophy when we use it to think about how we structure and rationalize the world. Even if science gives us ever better models of the underlying reality of the universe, there’s still the understanding of how we conceptualize that reality and what it means to us. Specifically in ways that don’t require religion or supernatural beings, nor in purely psychological means of perception or physiology. I think of it as the study of the emergent properties of complex information processing. It can do things like help us talk about the minds of others, for example future AI, potential extraterrestrial intelligences, or even other terrestrial intelligences (dolphins, octopus, etc)
  - lisper 3y ago
    You might enjoy this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.h...
    - crazydoggers 3y ago
      Love it. I like that curve ball last paragraph.. unexpected yet follows perfectly.
ajuc 3y ago
And say nothing of value about them, but sound smart while they do it ;)
- whatshisface 3y ago
  Actual philosophers are not as bad at the false answers thing as some people who rise to public attention, instead they serve the useful purpose of making people realize their preconceived notions about their own thoughts and their relationship to reality are not as sound as they may have thought, by virtue of the many different ways others have self-consistently answered the same questions. I think you'll need some sense of metaphysics and epistemology and maybe even ethics to function, most people have one (they know what they think the word "reality," means, they can distinguish between thoughts and observations, they wouldn't kill unless they were seriously threatened) but when that is extended into a "let me tell you how the world works" thing it becomes philosophy done bad, which can only be resisted by knowing philosophy done right (the impassive if frustrating collection of a lot of possible solutions). It is a universal human trait to want to answer these questions, even the so-called "rationalists" have a web page with a list of doctrines. The only way to do it wrong is to come up with one answer and think that it is the answer because it's the only answer you know and that is what learning philosophy is for.
makeitdouble 3y ago
I think this is part of why there can be such a rejection when research and experiments come knocking at philosophy's door to refute past discussions.

Philosophy can approach many questions that currently feel out of the realm of science

lisper 3y ago

Like what?

spookthesunset 3y ago
How do you believe the results you are getting? What makes such a belief justified? What is the nature of consciousness? What are things beautiful? What makes something ascetically pleasing. Why any of this exists at all? What is the purpose of this existence? Is something ethical? Science can provide answer about consequences of an action but cannot determine if said action is moral or ethical. … science is not a book of facts. It is merely a process for testing a hypothesis. It is not a replacement for philosophy, it is underpinned by philosophy.
- lisper 3y ago
  Those are all very good questions, and I can't do them justice in an HN comment. But here's a first cut: > How do you believe the results you are getting? What makes such a belief justified? Read David Deutsch "The Fabric of Reality" chapter 7. > What is the nature of consciousness? Read Daniel Dennett, "Consciousness Explained". > What are things beautiful? What makes something ascetically pleasing. Read Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene" (and, if you want to get deep into these weeds, "The Extended Phenotype"). > Why any of this exists at all? What makes you think that any of this does exist at all? > What is the purpose of this existence? What makes you think that this existence has a purpose? > Is something ethical? Science can provide answer about consequences of an action but cannot determine if said action is moral or ethical. Read "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod. (The Selfish Gene addresses this as well.) > science is not a book of facts. That's true. > It is merely a process for testing a hypothesis. No, it's not "merely" that. It is a process for producing good explanations that account for observations. That turns out to be tremendously powerful. > It is not a replacement for philosophy, it is underpinned by philosophy. No, it isn't. The existence of philosophy (and philosophers!) can be explained by science.
  - zquzra 3y ago
    Daniel Dennett is a philosopher.
    - lisper 3y ago
      He's also a scientist.
      - dventimi 3y ago
        What distinguishes a scientist from a philosopher?
        lisper 3y ago
        A scientist follows the scientific method, i.e. they advance testable hypotheses and compare their predictions with the data. A philosopher writes deep-sounding but ultimately meaningless drivel like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus
        dventimi 3y ago
        Which comically was criticized by its own author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations It's not lost on me that Tractatus was warmly received by philosophers, but Investigations got a frostier reception from the same group. I especially enjoyed Russell's snippy quote. Ol Ludwig struck a nerve, did he, Bert?
- username332211 3y ago
  On your last question ethics in particular is rather interesting. I think it's the field where the decline of philosophy is most obvious. Ethics is supposed to answer real-life questions, like "How do I live a moral life?". Yet philosophical movements, that actually tired to answer such questions, like the stoics and the epicureans are long gone. When you read on the actual writings of contemporary philosophers you'd see impossible moral standards - "It takes 5 dollars to save a starving African child, a night out with friends is the equivalent to abandoning a bus of drowning children to their deaths"[1] It's impossible to live by such philosophy, except for those that think of themselves as some sort of creature of pure evil who cares nothing of right and wrong. Because philosophy is useless as a guidance to life, right and wrong are now decided by the encyclical, the fatwa and the resolutions at the party congress, depending on your religion. [1] https://daily-philosophy.com/peter-singers-drowning-child/ https://daily-philosophy.com/peter-singers-drowning-child/
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    Maybe living impassively at the top of a rich world hegemony while children are starving is wrong but we are too used to it to notice.
    - username332211 3y ago
      Ohh, it's not just the rich world that's guilty. Do you think there are no bars in Haiti? Do you think they don't waste stuff on "personal luxuries" in Bangladesh? Do you think they don't waste their time and resources on shopping malls in Ethiopia? They waste resources that could have gone to the malnourished children of their own country! Monsters, the lot of them, just as bad as the rich-worlders. Ethics demands we all live joyless lives of endless toil until every child is fed.
      - whatshisface 3y ago
        Rich people living in third world countries would definitely be included in that especially because rather than some vague "foreign policy" being the causal link for culpability they can often be the corrupt individuals creating the problem themselves. Saying "people who live in penthouses next to Indian slums might be living their life wrong too" is not exactly an expression of disagreement.
- dventimi 3y ago
  Few scientists try to answer these questions for me. I expect philosophers to have as much humility.
- analog31 3y ago
  And what are the answers from philosophy? Last I looked, all that philosophy could offer to questions like that was an enumeration of multiple conflicting answers.
crazydoggers 3y ago
Love this vsauce video for some examples https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE?si=FmgmYH8BDWrkIcMJ https://youtu.be/fXW-QjBsruE?si=FmgmYH8BDWrkIcMJ There’s still a lot of value in philosophy when we use it to think about how we structure and rationalize the world. Even if science gives us ever better models of the underlying reality of the universe, there’s still the understanding of how we conceptualize that reality and what it means to us. Specifically in ways that don’t require religion or supernatural beings, nor in purely psychological means of perception or physiology. I think of it as the study of the emergent properties of complex information processing. It can do things like help us talk about the minds of others, for example future AI, potential extraterrestrial intelligences, or even other terrestrial intelligences (dolphins, octopus, etc)
- lisper 3y ago
  You might enjoy this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2015/02/31-flavors-of-ontology.h...
  - crazydoggers 3y ago
    Love it. I like that curve ball last paragraph.. unexpected yet follows perfectly.

ajuc 3y ago

And say nothing of value about them, but sound smart while they do it ;)

whatshisface 3y ago
Actual philosophers are not as bad at the false answers thing as some people who rise to public attention, instead they serve the useful purpose of making people realize their preconceived notions about their own thoughts and their relationship to reality are not as sound as they may have thought, by virtue of the many different ways others have self-consistently answered the same questions. I think you'll need some sense of metaphysics and epistemology and maybe even ethics to function, most people have one (they know what they think the word "reality," means, they can distinguish between thoughts and observations, they wouldn't kill unless they were seriously threatened) but when that is extended into a "let me tell you how the world works" thing it becomes philosophy done bad, which can only be resisted by knowing philosophy done right (the impassive if frustrating collection of a lot of possible solutions). It is a universal human trait to want to answer these questions, even the so-called "rationalists" have a web page with a list of doctrines. The only way to do it wrong is to come up with one answer and think that it is the answer because it's the only answer you know and that is what learning philosophy is for.

makeitdouble 3y ago

I think this is part of why there can be such a rejection when research and experiments come knocking at philosophy's door to refute past discussions.