Does anything exist?

[Chanakya]

Aaronson is a scientist, and I think you'd probably be pretty aligned with his philosophical viewpoints. But anyway, he points out that David Deutsch (a founder of the field) became interested in the idea of quantum computing not because of the potential problems that it could solve, but because he was thinking about the philosophy of the many worlds interpretation of QM and was looking for ways it could be distinguished from other interpretations. A philosophical thought experiment led to the entire field.

People like Einstein, Bohr, and Schodinger were steeped in philosophy and it impacted on their thoughts about the nature of world, and as such on their work.

Could the same things have been discovered if those people hadn't read widely or had thoughts about philosophy? Probably, but it may have taken longer. That's also a counter-factual that we don't have access to. In the world we live in, those physicists were influenced by the philosophy of their time.

But you are certainly right that it's not the exclusive domain of philosophy to think about the implications of various ideas. Scientists can (and do) do this without philosophy. Feynman is a good example of a physicist who on the one hand disdained philosophers and on the other hand did a lot of (pretty good) philosophizing. The question isn't whether or not scientists can identify the interesting questions to pursue without philosophers, the question is whether or not philosophers can do so as well, and whether their contributions add anything to the project. I think the history shows that they do.

That's interesting, certainly. And worth following up on.

But the question is, and I've asked this before, is philosophy an exceptionally fecund source of such ideas? After all, research ideas in science as well as technology are known to have been triggered by, for instance, Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke. It does not follow --- or at least, it does not necessarily follow --- that SF is therefore deserving of a whole separate department, with full-on research.

Like I'd said earlier on, knowledge today is a complex business, and to cocoon oneself exclusively within one's own particular specialization is hardly the optimum way to make headway. Any field of study can benefit from generalist and cross-disciplinary inputs, including inputs from out-and-out laymen (including SF writers, and, dare I say it, philosophers). Whether the inputs offered by philosophers, and by philosophy, are substantially and demonstrably more numerous and/or more insightful than other such random inputs, is the question that one would need to address, in order to really weigh in on whether philosophy is of use to science.

 

[LarryS]

That's interesting, certainly. And worth following up on.

But the question is, and I've asked this before, is philosophy an exceptionally fecund source of such ideas? After all, research ideas in science as well as technology are known to have been triggered by, for instance, Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke. It does not follow --- or at least, it does not necessarily follow --- that SF is therefore deserving of a whole separate department, with full-on research.

Like I'd said earlier on, knowledge today is a complex business, and to cocoon oneself exclusively within one's own particular specialization is hardly the optimum way to make headway. Any field of study can benefit from generalist and cross-disciplinary inputs, including inputs from out-and-out laymen (including SF writers, and, dare I say it, philosophers). Whether the inputs offered by philosophers, and by philosophy, are substantially and demonstrably more numerous and/or more insightful than other such random inputs, is the question that one would need to address, in order to really weigh in on whether philosophy is of use to science.

This issue is clouded because prominent scientists (ie Sean Carroll here https://philpapers.org/archive/CARCAT-31.pdf) can't stop themselves and wax on philosophically. Which is why I early on in this thread called for a strict deliniation between science and (philosophy and etc).
Science is formulating hypotheses/conjectures, deriving predictions, conducting observations/experiments . . . leaving any consequences, implications, meanings and any claims about the real world as outside of science.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Which is why I early on in this thread called for a strict deliniation between science and (philosophy and etc).

IMO that's a tough order.

I don't think we can find even a delineation between science and non-science that many will agree on.

 

[The Man]

OK, well I read what I think is the main paper that you cited (just read it quite briefly ... ie; I am not intending to sit down with a pen and notepad going over published papers in detail and checking all the other papers used and listed in the references), ie this one -

https://elifesciences.org/articles/46563


… and I had the following impressions -

1.. It is not talking about their own research. Instead they are merely commenting on what other researchers have published in recent years. As far as I can see they don't really seem to be adding to that, except possibly by gathering together the findings from various previous papers, and concluding that stem cells can show different characteristics depending on various factors such as the bodily environment in which they are active … as far as I can see, those sort of conclusions had previously been been published by other biologists (eg this philosophy paper lists references to those earlier papers).

2 the philosophy part of this paper seems to be the act of comparing what stem cells do with some completely different things such as the atomic weight of an atom, which was their example but where atomic weights have nothing at all to do with stem cells. There was a second example like that which I forget for the moment, but a third example which looks bizarre and seriously unscientific (as if it should never be included in a published science paper), where they actually gave an example of what was shown in a commercial cinema film The Matrix.

3 certain important statements are made without any reference to where that fact comes from, eg in the last sentence of their short paragraph entitled Stemness in Cancer. The editor should have required the authors to give a clear reference when things are stated as fact like that.

4 in the following section called “Stemness encompasses distinct properties, depending on the tissue and context”, they are merely posing four questions, and where they are again relying for that on previous published work, but where they again often omit a reference for the work that they are using as their example.

5 their main conclusion is given under the heading “How stemness categorization may drive therapeutic choices”, where they summarise it in 4 bulleted points, namely -

If stemness is a categorical property, only strategies that target cancer stem cells will be efficient.
If stemness is a dispositional property, approaches that focus on both cancer stem cells and their niches may be used.
If stemness is a relational property, only niche-targeting strategies will be potentially useful.
If stemness is a systemic property, none of the therapeutic strategies aiming at eradicating cancer stem cells or their niche will be efficient, as the system (the cancer cell population) may instruct any tumour cell to become a cancer stem cell, without requiring any specific niche.

They call that the result of their philosophy, ie their philosophising about stem cells, but that looks to me like a set of tentative or provisional conclusions that anyone in this field of science might have reached without any use of formal philosophy at all, and from what the authors had described earlier in the paper with the refs that they had given to earlier papers in medicinal biology, I strongly suspect that all 4 of those points had been raised before in papers such as the ones they referenced … it does not look to me as if those 4 points/ideas are either new or especially the result only of “philosophy” (unless all constructive thinking/analysis is being called “philosophy”).

In their concluding section they take those four bulleted questions raised above, and describe them as “our four stemness properties”! That last concluding section really just gives a summary of their general thoughts about the characteristics of stem cells, and what they think they can say about them with those four questions above. They actually say there that “While experimental biology will hardly answer these questions, ...”; but I have no idea why they are stating that as as “fact” … afaik experimental biology (or in fact science in general) is perfectly likely to provide answers to questions such as the four they identified in this paper (afaik, they are not new identifications … they are questions that I expect most biologists in this field are well aware of).

So, in summary – I don't really see the value of this paper. And that being the case, I don't know why the editors thought it was worth publishing.

A most excellent summary IanS, particularly for a brief reading. So, I’ll just touch on some of the points and questions you had.

Actually they are referencing some of their own work. In the actual text the 7th reference is ..

"Identité des cellules souches normales et cancéreuses"

"Identity of normal and cancerous stem cells"

https://www.medecinesciences.org/en...08/medsci20173310p899/medsci20173310p899.html

By the same authors. In the reference section it is like number twelve down.

It might be the very Stemness in Cancer reference you were asking about. Perhaps why they didn’t feel the need to reference it again there. Also perhaps why they asserted the “hardly”, if such questions are based on, primarily, the clarifications of their previous work. Not that it really matters much. As noted before it’s not so much about not being able to do it but who actually did it and how they did it.


As well you know the importance of a paper is determined by how often, where and by whom it gets cited. The metrics section past the end of the paper puts citations at nine, but doesn’t list anything. By going to that 7th reference in the text and forward, than back tracking to the “classification of stem cells” paper in PubMed.gov web page. It has a much better citation reference system.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30864951/

So from that page here are five of those nine papers that cite the “classification of stem cells” paper.

The link above has links to these papers.

Cited by 5 articles
• Cancer stem cell-immune cell crosstalk in tumour progression.
Bayik D, Lathia JD.Nat Rev Cancer. 2021 Jun 8. doi: 10.1038/s41568-021-00366-w. Online ahead of print.PMID: 34103704 Review.

• How Knowledge about Stem Cells Influences Attitudes towards Breastfeeding: Case Study of Polish Women.
Witkowska-Zimny M, Majczyna D.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 1;18(5):2382. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052382.PMID: 33804414 Free PMC article.

• Research Trends in the Efficacy of Stem Cell Therapy for Hepatic Diseases Based on MicroRNA Profiling.
Kweon M, Kim JY, Jun JH, Kim GJ.Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 29;22(1):239. doi: 10.3390/ijms22010239.PMID: 33383629 Free PMC article. Review.

• Developmental Stage-Specific Distribution of Macrophages in Mouse Mammary Gland.
Stewart TA, Hughes K, Hume DA, Davis FM.Front Cell Dev Biol. 2019 Oct 24;7:250. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2019.00250. eCollection 2019.PMID: 31709255 Free PMC article.

• Understanding regeneration at different scales.
MacCord K, Maienschein J.Elife. 2019 Mar 13;8:e46569. doi: 10.7554/eLife.46569.PMID: 30864946 Free PMC article.

Evidently people other than just the editors that published it or the authors found value in that paper. You will also note that these 5, at least, aren’t the authors themselves or philosophical papers. The first of those cited by papers was pay walled, the second the usage is rather cursory just noting such things are being discussed . In the third it is reference 26.

Uagse…(Under classification of stem cells)

Stem cells can renew themselves and differentiate into different cell types during development. They differ in their degree of plasticity or developmental versatility [26].

In the fourth paper its reference 32, usage

Alternatively, these findings may reflect a long-term plasticity in mammary epithelial cells (Lilja et al., 2018) and a shifting definition of “stemness” in some tissues away from a unidirectional, top-down model to a model where stemness is considered as a cell state that may be acquired or extinguished under specific microenvironmental conditions (Laplane and Solary, 2019). A closer examination of mammary cell behaviors—including lineage segregation—under conditions of Mϕ depletion may provide important insights into epithelial plasticity in this vital mammalian organ..

On the fifth paper it is the fifth reference as well as the fourth being another work of Laplane, usage…

Lately, the study of regeneration in individual organisms has focused on the idea that certain cells, such as stem cells, have unique regenerative capacities, which could have important applications in medicine. However, there is much that we do not fully understand about stem cells, including how their behavior depends on their environment, and how the effect of the environment varies when we look at different species. As such, stem cells are currently the focus of much basic and translational research, and are also of considerable interest to philosophers of science (Laplane, 2016; Laplane and Solary, 2019).

This is just one paper, rather basic when read, almost only 2 and a half years old and only by less than half of its cited by references. We already have it just generally cited, the plasticity of stems cells (by environment) it notes being directly referenced and asserted as an alternative to the current top down model.

So not ground breaking work, for sure, as you note, but contributory and apparently worth citing by the medical researchers themselves. Not to mention as they did as a potential change in the model. Again, as I said, before reading this stuff I wouldn't have even thought that was currently possible, let alone happening.

Again, the point being not that science must, has to, or needs to depend on philosophy but simply that philosophy currently and directly can and does contribute to science. Don't forget that philosophy of biology is just one subfield of philosophy of science which is itself a subfield of philosophy in general.

 

[The Man]

Indeed, I agree/admit that I often write quite long replies. But I do try to be clear about what I say. The intention with my long relpies is really a matter of respect to the person I am responding to, ie where I am trying to directly address the aspects raised in a clear & detailed unambiguous way (at least, that's the idea).

Me too, which often means bringing up counterpoints, so it can seem conflicting at times.

But actually, I was not complaining that your posts were too long winded. In fact I was not really complaining about the posts at all, except to say that personally I find that you sometimes have a bit too much packed into just a single short line, so that I personally find myself needing to spend longer than I'd like to read it more carefully/slowly than I'd ideally like (IOW – it's a bit too densely packed for me).

Sorry about that, must be a holdover from my days of writing test reports, technical specifications and proposals. The more you could get into a single line the less lines you had to write before you got to the parts most of the people read. The conclusion, the cost or benefit and the actual specifications. Heck, even in what I do today I have to get as much information in as few lines as possible, for the databases and crossovers.

"Unless I am a scientist" ... as many here know (from a few of my replies amongst the 5000 or so), I did spend 20 years in an area of solid-state/theoretical physics research ... ie lecturing that on postgraduate courses and continuing reserach of my own. It does not make me an expert on detailed aspects of most of the scienece that we discuss here (eg I was not investigating the Big Bang or anything to do with relativity). But of course it still helps to have that fairly long experience from the inside of areas of research like that.

Nice to know, as I’ve also related on these threads before, I was the senior laboratory technician in an engineering lab for 11 years. Not the cutting edge of research but we still had to test and research new designs, applications and even competitors devices. Also not purely research but testing and experimentation to see what worked and what didn’t. Then I moved into product design and engineering. About the same time that Finite Element Analysis became more commercially available and that really cut down product development time. As it happened, such direct mechanical engineering jobs dried up around here (5 or 6 years later). The companies I worked for were sold and moved both engineering and production. So for the past 17 years I’ve worked in a chip FAB maintaining the automated material handling systems. Naturally none of which makes me an expert either. Though some topics have touched on material science and mechanics of materials, so my experience was directly applicable there.

 

[Roboramma]

Yes, just like that bowl of pasta directly lead to a realisation about string theory.

If there were a history of bowls of pasta inspiring advances in science, I'd definitely be in favor of funding Italian restaurants on University campuses!

 

[Roboramma]

Quick derail, but how is it?

I just finished David Deutsch's second book and am looking for further reading.

It's excellent. His writing style is very entertaining, and also very clear about the ideas he's presenting. He has some fun puzzles at the end of chapters to see if you're really getting the ideas. Sometimes it's a little technical when he's giving mathematical proofs, but that's to be expected from a book that was originally a university course.

 

[theprestige]

And thus Bistromathics is discovered.

 

[Belz...]

If there were a history of bowls of pasta inspiring advances in science, I'd definitely be in favor of funding Italian restaurants on University campuses!

It doesn't matter. "Philosophy" at this point* is so ill-defined tht it's impossible to say anything useful about its relation with science. If "philosophy" just means "thinking", then not only are you correct, but it loses all actual meaning.

*: I say at this point but that always happens on page 1 of any discussion on philosophy.

 

[Roboramma]

It doesn't matter. "Philosophy" at this point* is so ill-defined tht it's impossible to say anything useful about its relation with science. If "philosophy" just means "thinking", then not only are you correct, but it loses all actual meaning.

*: I say at this point but that always happens on page 1 of any discussion on philosophy.

But philosophy doesn't just mean thinking. I'm talking about major scientific advances happening in part because those scientists were influenced by the work of major philosophers. If the work of those philosophers isn't part of philosophy, then I don't even know what we're talking about.

 

[IanS]

A most excellent summary IanS, particularly for a brief reading. So, I’ll just touch on some of the points and questions you had.

Actually they are referencing some of their own work. In the actual text the 7th reference is ..

"Identité des cellules souches normales et cancéreuses"

"Identity of normal and cancerous stem cells"

https://www.medecinesciences.org/en...08/medsci20173310p899/medsci20173310p899.html

By the same authors. In the reference section it is like number twelve down.

It might be the very Stemness in Cancer reference you were asking about. Perhaps why they didn’t feel the need to reference it again there. Also perhaps why they asserted the “hardly”, if such questions are based on, primarily, the clarifications of their previous work. Not that it really matters much. As noted before it’s not so much about not being able to do it but who actually did it and how they did it.


As well you know the importance of a paper is determined by how often, where and by whom it gets cited. The metrics section past the end of the paper puts citations at nine, but doesn’t list anything. By going to that 7th reference in the text and forward, than back tracking to the “classification of stem cells” paper in PubMed.gov web page. It has a much better citation reference system.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30864951/

So from that page here are five of those nine papers that cite the “classification of stem cells” paper.

The link above has links to these papers.

Cited by 5 articles
• Cancer stem cell-immune cell crosstalk in tumour progression.
Bayik D, Lathia JD.Nat Rev Cancer. 2021 Jun 8. doi: 10.1038/s41568-021-00366-w. Online ahead of print.PMID: 34103704 Review.

• How Knowledge about Stem Cells Influences Attitudes towards Breastfeeding: Case Study of Polish Women.
Witkowska-Zimny M, Majczyna D.Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 1;18(5):2382. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052382.PMID: 33804414 Free PMC article.

• Research Trends in the Efficacy of Stem Cell Therapy for Hepatic Diseases Based on MicroRNA Profiling.
Kweon M, Kim JY, Jun JH, Kim GJ.Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 29;22(1):239. doi: 10.3390/ijms22010239.PMID: 33383629 Free PMC article. Review.

• Developmental Stage-Specific Distribution of Macrophages in Mouse Mammary Gland.
Stewart TA, Hughes K, Hume DA, Davis FM.Front Cell Dev Biol. 2019 Oct 24;7:250. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2019.00250. eCollection 2019.PMID: 31709255 Free PMC article.

• Understanding regeneration at different scales.
MacCord K, Maienschein J.Elife. 2019 Mar 13;8:e46569. doi: 10.7554/eLife.46569.PMID: 30864946 Free PMC article.

Evidently people other than just the editors that published it or the authors found value in that paper. You will also note that these 5, at least, aren’t the authors themselves or philosophical papers. The first of those cited by papers was pay walled, the second the usage is rather cursory just noting such things are being discussed . In the third it is reference 26.

Uagse…(Under classification of stem cells)



In the fourth paper its reference 32, usage



On the fifth paper it is the fifth reference as well as the fourth being another work of Laplane, usage…



This is just one paper, rather basic when read, almost only 2 and a half years old and only by less than half of its cited by references. We already have it just generally cited, the plasticity of stems cells (by environment) it notes being directly referenced and asserted as an alternative to the current top down model.

So not ground breaking work, for sure, as you note, but contributory and apparently worth citing by the medical researchers themselves. Not to mention as they did as a potential change in the model. Again, as I said, before reading this stuff I wouldn't have even thought that was currently possible, let alone happening.

Again, the point being not that science must, has to, or needs to depend on philosophy but simply that philosophy currently and directly can and does contribute to science. Don't forget that philosophy of biology is just one subfield of philosophy of science which is itself a subfield of philosophy in general.

OK, thanks for checking all that stuff.

I'll be more brief this time -

- looking at the 5 papers cited, they all seem to be in medicine. That's fine, and of course medical studies are extremely important for all of us. But as I've said many times ;- in threads like this when I talk about "science", I am really talking specifically about core fundamental science (by which I mean all branches of physics and chemistry, most parts of biology and most of maths). In the paper that I discussed by Laplane & Solary, their title was “Philosophy of Biology: Towards a classification of stem cells” … but the paper, and those citations seem to be more specifically commenting on the medical aspects of what can be said about Stem Cells.

Again, that's all OK. And all sorts of academics can comment on what has been published in previous papers covering various areas of science or medicine. But I still don't see that philosophy has much to add that any of us could not similarly add, however, I was really talking about (and I thought the thread was talking about) whether or not philosophy had an important role in questioning or holding to account science in general, or more specifically questioning areas like quantum physics & the nature of particles, fields, and what we think of as the “reality” of the this universe.

But I did say many pages back that I am well aware that there are some philosophers who also have an extensive background in maths and science, and who have written extensively about some of the most puzzling aspects of quantum theory (things like entanglement and superposition). And I mentioned there the recent book by David Wallace (1) which looks very interesting … but as I sad then, I think philosophers like Wallace should probably be in the theoretical physics dept rather than a philosophy dept LoL . Anyway I've so far resisted buying his book, because I already have a small library of books on quantum field theory, most of which I have barely read (barely tried to read lol) … anyway you can see him talking about it here in the well known YouTube series called Closer To Truth -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK9JE1HjPi8


1. David Wallace, The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According To The Everett Interpretation, Oxford Univ. Press, 2014

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emergent-M...e+the+emergent+universe&qid=1626766423&sr=8-1

 

[Belz...]

But philosophy doesn't just mean thinking.

But that's only true some of the time. Depending on the mood, posters here will insist that whatever we're doing is phlosophy, leaving not much without.

I'm talking about major scientific advances happening in part because those scientists were influenced by the work of major philosophers.

Such as what, specifically? What specific philosophical utterance or realisation has led to a major scientific breakthrough?

 

[JoeMorgue]

But philosophy doesn't just mean thinking.

Yes it does. It also means deep thinking, thinking that's above other kinds of thinking, thinking about thinking, thinking about thinking about thinking, a special type of thinking that gets to self start its own processes where other kinds of thinking can't, curiosity, inspiration, intuition, and a brand new low calorie sweetener that doesn't let you down in the taste department like so many before.

Philosophy means nothing and everything which has always been mine and Belz point.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

It's excellent. His writing style is very entertaining, and also very clear about the ideas he's presenting. He has some fun puzzles at the end of chapters to see if you're really getting the ideas. Sometimes it's a little technical when he's giving mathematical proofs, but that's to be expected from a book that was originally a university course.

Thanks. Downloading to my kindle now...

 

[lomiller]

Playing with their food could give a scientist an idea that allows them to solve String Theory, but it doesn't mean that cuisine is an integral part of the scientific process.

Ironically, String Theory itself could probabaly be classed as metaphysics because there is no test that can disprove it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Ironically, String Theory itself could probabaly be classed as metaphysics because there is no test that can disprove it.

Okay this is another one of those "gotcha comparisons" that pop up routinely in this discussion.

The difference is, unlike philosophy, science is absolutely busting its balls right now trying to find a way to prove/disprove string theory (and dark matter and the exact nature of gravity and every other unanswered questions).

There's a difference between "We are still trying to determine an empirical way to test this, so we've put a concept in as placeholder in the time being just so all other work doesn't stall out completely because of this one undefined variable" and "I'm going to define questions so they are inherently unanswerable so I can think hard on them and look smart forever."

"Is there Dark Matter?" and "What happens if an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object" are nowhere near intellectually equal. One is unprovable at this moment with our current tools and describes an actual concept that is either factually correct or factually incorrect, the other is unfalsifiable and only exists as a surface linguistic paradox that doesn't actually describe anything.

 

[Belz...]

Ironically, String Theory itself could probabaly be classed as metaphysics because there is no test that can disprove it.

Let them complete the damned thing and we'll talk.

 

[lomiller]

The difference is, unlike philosophy, science is absolutely busting its balls right now trying to find a way to prove/disprove string theory (and dark matter and the exact nature of gravity and every other unanswered questions).

So far as we know String theory can be made to fit any observation so there are not observations that could prove it false. (Then same is not true for dark matter)

For gravity we have a mathematical model and a physical model. It's possible to disprove the physical model without breaking the mathematical model. This is what happened with Newtonian Gravity for non-relativistic cases. For all we know this could happen again with Relativity.

For quantum mechanics, however all we have is a mathematical model. We have no idea what the math is describing, all we know is that the calculations work. Interpreting the physical model is, once again more, akin to metaphysics than science.

 

[Belz...]

Okay this is another one of those "gotcha comparisons" that pop up routinely in this discussion.

The difference is, unlike philosophy, science is absolutely busting its balls right now trying to find a way to prove/disprove string theory (and dark matter and the exact nature of gravity and every other unanswered questions).

There's a difference between "We are still trying to determine an empirical way to test this, so we've put a concept in as placeholder in the time being just so all other work doesn't stall out completely because of this one undefined variable" and "I'm going to define questions so they are inherently unanswerable so I can think hard on them and look smart forever."

"Is there Dark Matter?" and "What happens if an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object" are nowhere near intellectually equal. One is unprovable at this moment with our current tools and describes an actual concept that is either factually correct or factually incorrect, the other is unfalsifiable and only exists as a surface linguistic paradox that doesn't actually describe anything.

Once again you've manage to communicate through frustration what I struggle to get across intellectually.

 

[Belz...]

So far as we know String theory can be made to fit any observation so there are not observations that could prove it false.

So far as you know.