Hawking says there are no gods

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Phlegm said:
Of course philosophy is 'everything', at least it is the attempt to understand everything. I'm sure you know that science is 'natural philosophy', so there is nothing grand in this.
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Except that while science is based on philosophy, it no longer is philosophy, and where philosophy fails in trying to understand stuff is that it never actually puts the ideas to their full test. This is where science comes in, and renders philosophy irrelevant and redundant, where factual questions are concerned.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
How do we understand reality? - is always also - How ought we understand reality?
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Thanks, I think I see your perspective. And, I thoroughly disagree. How we understand reality has to do with how we are structured, and that occurs primarily through an unconscious process. How we ought to understand reality is a much later concern and is one that can alter how we understand reality at a primary level. But it is never how we understand reality at that primary level. It is always a subversion/conversion of that process. Necessarily.


- which leads to - How ought you and I treat our individual differences in understanding reality? - which leads to - Is there one and only one methodology for all of reality both without and including the human existence and experience? - which leads to - That depends in part on cognition, culture and how you understand reality or not, if there is one and only one methodology for all of reality?
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OK, but all of that is secondary to what happens in our original experience of reality.

In other words - There is a connection between what reality really is and how we treat each other.
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I will fully grant that there is a difference between the way we see reality through our filters (cultural and political) and how we treat each other. I draw the line at linking how we see each other through those filters and how our brains work to create our realities "originally". Those filters occur later in the process.

So there is more than how people view the universe, it is connected to how people view each other, because how you answer how you understand the universe is connected to how you understand humans.
  • Through science
  • Through philosophy
  • Through religion
  • Through what ever
  • And if you combine those or not



There is always more to it.

It is always about different versions of the understanding of science, philosophy and religion and how we ought to treat the differences.
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OK, I will admit that to a limited extent. I will not take it as far as how we acquire information from the environment. It is, however, clear that cultural/philosophical/political influences alter the ways different people view certain aspects of the world.
 
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Belz... said:
Except that while science is based on philosophy, it no longer is philosophy, and where philosophy fails in trying to understand stuff is that it never actually puts the ideas to their full test. This is where science comes in, and renders philosophy irrelevant and redundant, where factual questions are concerned.
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That depends on your definition of philosophy. From one vantage it is still philosophy.

But I accept your point.

ETA: I will add, there is a way of thinking about this -- that when particular philosophies become truly successful they become science. It's all still the same thing, but we call it something else.
 
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kellyb said:
Doctors don't expose people to the radiation of a CT looking for a tumor if there's no reason to.
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Right and that's what we're doing when it comes to the God question. Exposing a question that isn't there to answers that don't exist for no reason.
 
Phlegm said:
Anyone who really wants to argue -- philosophy says -- should not be listened to. OK, re-reading that, it is too ambiguous. What I meant is that anyone who wants to argue that Philosophy says is a real argument should not be taken seriously.
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Oh you're gonna learn. "But it's philosophy!" is about 99% of the arguments in this subforum and we have a strike team of 2-3 posters who do nothing but find new ways to word salad it. It's the opposite of fun.
 
Phlegm said:
ETA: I will add, there is a way of thinking about this -- that when particular philosophies become truly successful they become science. It's all still the same thing, but we call it something else.
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No, I don't agree. Science is all based on methodology and evidence. Sciences start as sciences now. Science itself started as a philosophy.
 
I'm sorta of with Belz on this one. It's the "You know what you call alternative medicine that actually works? Medicine." thing just broadened.

In fact that's my new rule of thumb. Philosophy is just "Alternative Science." And you know what we call Alternative Sciences that actually works? Science.

Chemistry replaced alchemy. Astronomy replaced astrology.

And science, real science not "Nothing but beakers and labcoats!" science, replaced philosophy as the term is usually used here.
 
Phlegm said:
That depends on your definition of philosophy. From one vantage it is still philosophy.

But I accept your point.

ETA: I will add, there is a way of thinking about this -- that when particular philosophies become truly successful they become science. It's all still the same thing, but we call it something else.
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Well, yes and no. Because how that plays on in the end depends on how you slice this: "Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not." Protagoras
Measure involves how you view:
  • Empirical
  • Rational
  • Moral
And how much you rely on meta-cognition: i.e. the ability to check your own thinking.
Now the combination of this can't become science in the strong sense, because it is never fully observer independent.
Take Sam Harris and harm. What is harm depends on how we agree on that as opposed to say e.g. gravity. Harm is not observer independent, gravity is. And it always end in the 4Fs in biology and that there is no united we in the human species.
If you say around long enough, you will notice this.
We are always in part debating what science actually is and we can't agree on that, we can't agree if there is knowledge outside of science, what philosophy is and if we can do it only based on a combination of science, reason and logic.
If you are familiar with philosophical notion, it is always:
Is it Science or science?
Is it Reason and Logic or reason and logic?
What about being Right, Faith and Emotions or beliefs in humans and respect of differences?

As for the subconscious, yes, it is there, but you can deal with it differently. It can mostly control you or it can become a part of you.

Just in this thread we have debated free will and if there are limits to knowledge and what unknowable and non-existence is.

So no, it is never just if science got it right as per methodological naturalism. It is also, is the more than science and is there a limit to science?
 
Belz... said:
No, I don't agree. Science is all based on methodology and evidence. Sciences start as sciences now. Science itself started as a philosophy.
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In the quest to create/understand strong AI, the cognitive neuroscientists are co-writing papers with "philosophy of mind" philosophy professors.

So, I dunno...
 
kellyb said:
In the quest to create/understand strong AI, the cognitive neuroscientists are co-writing papers with "philosophy of mind" philosophy professors.

So, I dunno...
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Okay... we can stop this. The term "Philosophy" is so broad, meaningless, and definitionless that sometimes it does get applied to legit things.

That's the point and the problem. When everything is "philosophy" we can't throw the term around to prove anything.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Oh you're gonna learn. "But it's philosophy!" is about 99% of the arguments in this subforum and we have a strike team of 2-3 posters who do nothing but find new ways to word salad it. It's the opposite of fun.
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It is evidence, reason, logic(proof) and morality. How you do that is something you do. But you are not the only one doing that.
But there is no unified theory of that!!! Neither in science, philosophy nor religion.

You start with science and excluded everything else apparently. I started with science and philosophy and learned to include morality.
We are both parts of reality and are a combination of what we share and where we are different.
 
Phlegm said:
ETA: I will add, there is a way of thinking about this -- that when particular philosophies become truly successful they become science. It's all still the same thing, but we call it something else.
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I'm reminded of Einstein's "Gedankenexperiments".

Those were much closer to philosophy than science, right?
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay... we can stop this. The term "Philosophy" is so broad, meaningless, and definitionless that sometimes it does get applied to legit things.

That's the point and the problem. When everything is "philosophy" we can't throw the term around to prove anything.
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Everything is not science(evidence).
Everything is not philosophy(abstract rationality).
Everything is not morality.
It is always a combination in the end in these debates.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay... we can stop this. The term "Philosophy" is so broad, meaningless, and definitionless that sometimes it does get applied to legit things.

That's the point and the problem. When everything is "philosophy" we can't throw the term around to prove anything.
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That was a total non sequitur, but whatever. :)
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Everything is not science(evidence).
Everything is not philosophy(abstract rationality).
Everything is not morality.
It is always a combination in the end in these debates.
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Only because you keep injecting them in these debates. There's seldom any need for the second, and it's case-by-case in all cases.
 
Belz... said:
Only because you keep injecting them in these debates. There's seldom any need for the second, and it's case-by-case in all cases.
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As per the OP: ""If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?""
That depends on how you combine science, philosophy and morality???

In the end it is politics and not science.
 
Belz... said:
I wager they put their ideas to the test, however, making it not philosophy.
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They have to do the philosophy first to figure out how to test it. But, yes.

I was really just chiming in on Phlegm's observation about:

when particular philosophies become truly successful they become science.
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I think that's largely correct.
 
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