Do clever people outsmart themselves?

[JoeMorgue]

I would be interested in hearing examples of base questions of reality answered by physics, or questions of ethics or morality answered by neuroscience.

I'd be interested in hearing questions answered by anything else.

 

[acbytesla]

I would be interested in hearing examples of base questions of reality answered by physics, or questions of ethics or morality answered by neuroscience.

I'd be interested in hearing questions answered by anything else.

I don't have a clue how science could do that. Ethics and morality are social constructs. Science merely informs those constructs.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ethics and morality are just applied psychology and sociology.

Now I'm not going too deep down this rabbit hole because it will lead to inane "Prove to me suffering is bad using only algebra" kind of strawmanning of science, but "what causes human suffering" is not some question that lies "outside the realm of science."

 

[acbytesla]

Ethics and morality are just applied psychology and sociology.

Now I'm not going too deep down this rabbit hole because it will lead to inane "Prove to me suffering is bad using only algebra" kind of strawmanning of science, but "what causes human suffering" is not some question that lies "outside the realm of science."

I know what you mean.

 

[Robin]

Ethics and morality are just applied psychology and sociology.

Now I'm not going too deep down this rabbit hole because it will lead to inane "Prove to me suffering is bad using only algebra" kind of strawmanning of science, but "what causes human suffering" is not some question that lies "outside the realm of science."

So you can think of plenty of examples but you are not going to tell me even one because you don't like the response you anticipate that it will get from me?

 

[acbytesla]

So you can think of plenty of examples but you are not going to tell me even one because you don't like the response you anticipate that it will get from me?

Here we go.

 

[Cheetah]

Ethics and morality are just applied psychology and sociology.

No, there will always be an insurmountable gap betwixt the two.
Science/psychology/sociology can only describe our chosen morality and at best explain why we chose it, based on feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment.
It can help you compare the outcomes of different moral choices, but it will never be able to make the choice. A human will still have to make the choice based on nothing more than feelings.

 

[Robin]

Here we go.

Let's recap.

He says: "Physics is answering more and more of the base questions of reality, neuroscience the same for questions of ethics and morality"

I reply: "I would be interested in hearing examples of base questions of reality answered by physics, or questions of ethics or morality answered by neuroscience."

There was something unreasonable in this?

If this is happening "more and more" it should be possible to give at least one example.

 

[Robin]

No, there will always be an insurmountable gap betwixt the two.
Science/psychology/sociology can only describe our chosen morality and at best explain why we chose it, based on feelings, based on instincts, shaped by evolution and the environment.
It can help you compare the outcomes of different moral choices, but it will never be able to make the choice. A human will still have to make the choice based on nothing more than feelings.

Yes, I think that science more or less deals itself out of moraity and ethics.

Philosophy is not much help either.

And yet we all can't avoid having to make moral and ethical decisions all the time.

How do we do it? Common sense I suppose.

 

[David Mo]

In the case of QM, sure, the exact nature of protons would be very relevant if we were discussing the large hadron collider and the search for the Higgs boson. But it's irrelevant when the discussion is whether magical thinking can make the tiger disappear.

Essentially, think of it in terms of elementary logic and syllogisms. Any premise that is connected to the conclusion is ok. Any premise that is not connected to the conclusion is, however, irrelevant.

Knowing what kind of reality a proton is should also be useful for discussing magic, since parnormalistic people frequently use misconceptions about modern theories of physics.

I do not recommend you to write only with syllogisms. It is difficult and not always clear. Try it and see. Using ordinary language with clarity and precision is sufficient.

 

[David Mo]

Really? Philosophy of Science? Go ahead think about it. No one is stopping you. You're just boring the rest of us. Does it get you anywhere? Me, I'd rather learn, than think about learning.

I'm sorry you're bored discussing what science is. I think it's an exciting subject.

 

[David Mo]

And this right here is the base difference, exact semantics and "well acskhually" technicalities aside, between fans of science/rationality and fans of philosophy.

You're not a fan of science. You are a hooligan. You love science, you think it can handle everything and it's better than everything, but you don't even want to hear about what science is.
Well, everyone has the religion that suits them.

 

[David Mo]

I don't want to dismiss philosophy as something worthless. But I do believe David overdoes it. Philosophizing science? Give me a break. He's overdoing a good thing. I appreciate the crops of philosophy, but I have no interest in wallowing in its fertilizer.

"Philosophizing science". What an absurdity! Nobody wants to "philosophize" anything. Simply wondering what science is. And that has been done by eminent scientists of whom you do not want to know anything. You say it's the philosophers' fault, as if it weren't the other way around. (That's the thesis of one of the most imbecile articles an intelligent person could have written in recent years. If you want, I'll tell you what it is. But of course, you don't want to talk about what science is, but about "the wonderful achievements of science that are going to solve the ills of humanity"... etc.) Philosophy has been lagging behind science since the 18th century, trying to interpret what science was doing. And the most important scientists of the century have contributed to this activity. Why?

Oh yeah. I'm boring you. Don't worry, it's a mutual feeling.

 

[Robin]

I am not sure if any learning would ever have gotten done if there weren't people that thought about learning.

What is the best way to get across such-and-such complex topic to a class? Who cares, I am just going to go in an wing it.

 

[David Mo]

Wittgenstein supposed that there was nothing left for philosophers to do but an analysis of language.
I believe this is because he thought they had been left behind by the advances of physics and only someone capable of understanding modern cosmology and the mathematics involved in it, could hope to have any idea of the true nature of things.

However, what Heisenberg, Bohr or Einstein said about the "true nature of things" did not differ much from what Russell, Wittgenstein or Ayer said. Maybe you don't have to know so much about mathematics, but rather have a good knowledge of science and its methods. And that is often found among the philosophers of science. I can give you names, if you like.

 

[David Mo]

I'd be interested in hearing questions answered by anything else.

You set the example. Don't sneak away.

 

[Robin]

What is boring is scientists holding forth on things like reductionism, emergence, free will and "something from nothing" without really defining their terms or not realising that anything useful they can say on the subject has already been said decades or even centuries ago and if they had only just deigned to talk it over with someone in the philosophy department they could have saved themselves valuable time.

I don't mind people not wanting to do philosophy, but if so they should stay away from those subjects and not try to reinvent philosophical wheels, especially those that philosophers themselves have long given up as a pointless exercise.

 

[Robin]

For example I have often heard scientists say that "how do you get something from nothing" is a question that philosopher all puzzle over.

I asked a philosopher and he said that in his 25 years of writing about and teaching philosophy the question had never come up.

"Sounds more like a question for science" is what he said.

 

[David Mo]

For example I have often heard scientists say that "how do you get something from nothing" is a question that philosopher all puzzle over.

I asked a philosopher and he said that in his 25 years of writing about and teaching philosophy the question had never come up.

"Sounds more like a question for science" is what he said.

I'm with you. Scientists' claims against philosophy are generally ignorant of what philosophy actually says. For example, Steven Weinberg's "Against Philosophy" never defines what "philosophy" is. Therefore, it can arbitrarily oppose timeless "science" to a broad spectrum that includes Plato, Wittgenstein, Aquinas, and Einstein. It borders on the ridiculous when it blames "positivism" - what positivism?-- because of the idea that only direct observational entities can be scientific. It would have done him good to read an old manual: "The Rise of Scientific Philosophy" by Hans Reichenbach, a reputed "positivist", I suppose. On page 272, --Spanish edition-- he explains how many nondirect observational entities are introduced into science by the rules of inference. The simplest thing in the world.

I have great respect for Weinberg's materialistic philosophy. When he avoids talking about things he doesn't know.

 

[HansMustermann]

What is boring is scientists holding forth on things like reductionism, emergence, free will and "something from nothing" without really defining their terms or not realising that anything useful they can say on the subject has already been said decades or even centuries ago and if they had only just deigned to talk it over with someone in the philosophy department they could have saved themselves valuable time.

I don't mind people not wanting to do philosophy, but if so they should stay away from those subjects and not try to reinvent philosophical wheels, especially those that philosophers themselves have long given up as a pointless exercise.

I'm not opposed to philosophy. If nothing else, using the grey cells may delay the onset of Alzheimer's.

BUT, no matter how you want to dress it, at this point it can't really offer any answers worth crap. Simply put because, "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Any answer it can offer is either based on evidence, in which case it becomes science, or it's based on postulates pulled out of the ass, which can be safely ignored.

There are literally no domains on which there is any evidence, which can't, or in fact isn't already, the domain of science. Even on the leftover domains like the philosophy of the mind or of language, philosophy is having its lunch money taken by actual neuroscience or linguistics.

Yeah, yeah, some things have been said thousands of years ago, but then on any given domain so have dozens of alternative idiocies. Science at least lets you know which of them is right.