Do clever people outsmart themselves?

[HansMustermann]

But to address that too, science, as in the application of the scientific method, doesn't only mean physicists in lab coats. If I hired someone to do the plumbing, yeah, there too I would expect that they learned it based on the real world and evidence, and tested it on the real world. If anyone tried to do plumbing based on just navel-gazing and imagining what proper plumbing might be, or quoting what some other smart men said without basing it on even seeing an actual pipe, guess what? I wouldn't trust them to do my plumbing.

So if that's supposed to be an analogy for there being a time and place for using a philosopher instead of a scientist, well, I'd say that's where it fails right there. Because if the result actually matters in the real world -- e.g., can actually flood my kitchen -- then I want a plumber whose opinions are in fact scientific by any other name. I.e., based on actual RL data.

Even if he can't actually calculate the pressure in the pipes, and the flow and whatnot, at least he has some tables and/or parts made by someone who did. That's in fact the ONLY way to be reasonably confident that they'll do a good job. If their own expertise is thinking about other vaguely connected domains that don't overlap with what can be measured and determined scientifically, then you don't, in fact, have any reason to trust anything they can say or do about your plumbing.

 

[HansMustermann]

You are projecting again.

Right. I bet your kindergarten teacher is very proud of your debating skills.

I am betting that you didn't even read the post Darat was responding to, because mine was a pretty close analogy.

You know that he actually quoted what he was answering to from your message, right? If the best defense is that you bet nobody actually read what you were saying, that's pretty lame.

 

[Robin]

No, I'd probably say, "At least it's a better job than the philosopher did last week."

Dave

That pretty much underlines my point.

Wouldn't it have been better for a plumber to do it?

 

[Robin]

You know that he actually quoted what he was answering to from your message, right? If the best defense is that you bet nobody actually read what you were saying, that's pretty lame.

But you weren't responding to his quote, you were responding to mine in which I only quoted his response.

I didn't say he didn't quote it, I am saying I bet you didn't read it. Or at least you are answering as though you didn't.

 

[HansMustermann]

Er which "actual objection"? I am very certain that asserting stuff without evidence is numbers 1 through 9 of the top ten "thou shalt not"s of any self respecting philosopher.

And I'm saying that any domains which are based on proper evidence and Occam's razor, are by definition already covered by science. In fact, that any philosopher ("self respecting" or otherwise) whose conclusions are worth of any consideration, is in fact a scientist by any other name.

I'm not sure what you think science is, but it's nothing more than a method for testing your suppositions against reality. It can cover physics, or plumbing, or, to reuse Vince Ebert's example, testing my supposition that there's still beer in the fridge.

 

[HansMustermann]

That pretty much underlines my point.

Wouldn't it have been better for a plumber to do it?

The thing about an argument from analogy is that it's only as good as the analogy. You have to actually show that there is a domain with similar practical implications, where you're similarly better off with a philosopher than a scientist. Given that the latter covers anything based on evidence and testing assumptions, that leaves you in fact with only woowoo as domains where a scientist would be unfit for the job.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Which philosopher explained how the universe arose, or let me not even make.either that hard, which one explained the initial inflation of the universe?

Uh, philosophy basically started with different ideas about how the universe originated. The "Pre-Socratics" is how the Greek ones are typically called. (They had lots of ideas, including one about things they named "atoms". I wonder if anything ever came of that one?)

It seems unfair to demand the work of historical people incorporate future advances, doubly unfair when the future advances were built on the work of the historical people. No, Heraclitus didn't know about gravity waves. That doesn't mean he was stupid and his work was worthless. People do the best they can with what they have, just like in any other field. I cannot understand the contempt purportedly pro-science people here display for philosophy. The scientific method itself, the very basis for science and means of all this vaunted knowledge, was developed by philosophers! Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. (He didn't discover snappy titles.) The ignorant only know of the "I think therefore I am" bit of that, what they miss is the point of it: by reducing what he can know without evidence to just that one thing, Descartes explained that all other knowledge can only be acquired by inquiry, with evidence. The man invented modern skepticism, a philosophy. I would have thought that would merit a teensy bit of respect here.

 

[HansMustermann]

But you weren't responding to his quote, you were responding to mine in which I only quoted his response.

I didn't say he didn't quote it, I am saying I bet you didn't read it. Or at least you are answering as though you didn't.

No. What you're actually saying is that you ASSUME that anyone who disagrees with you just didn't read your post. Which must be a comforting delusion, I suppose.

 

[Dave Rogers]

That pretty much underlines my point.

Wouldn't it have been better for a plumber to do it?

To digress slightly, I (a physicist) am perfectly capable of doing quite a lot of plumbing perfectly competently, because (a) I understand the basic physical principles involved very thoroughly, and (b) some of my experimental work as a physicist has involved quite a lot of plumbing that was required to be of very high quality. I suspect (a) is not true of many philosophers, and I'm pretty sure (b) is true of even fewer.

Dave

 

[HansMustermann]

Uh, philosophy basically started with different ideas about how the universe originated. The "Pre-Socratics" is how the Greek ones are typically called. (They had lots of ideas, including one about things they named "atoms". I wonder if anything ever came of that one?)

It seems unfair to demand the work of historical people incorporate future advances, doubly unfair when the future advances were built on the work of the historical people. No, Heraclitus didn't know about gravity waves. That doesn't mean he was stupid and his work was worthless. People do the best they can with what they have, just like in any other field. I cannot understand the contempt purportedly pro-science people here display for philosophy. The scientific method itself, the very basis for science and means of all this vaunted knowledge, was developed by philosophers! Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. (He didn't discover snappy titles.) The ignorant only know of the "I think therefore I am" bit of that, what they miss is the point of it: by reducing what he can know without evidence to just that one thing, Descartes explained that all other knowledge can only be acquired by inquiry, with evidence. The man invented modern skepticism, a philosophy. I would have thought that would merit a teensy bit of respect here.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all, when what was claimed was that on a swathe of domains, including explicitly "something from nothing", scientists are "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."

If one claims the above nonsense, then I think it's very apropriate to ask exactly which philosopher centuries ago explained the same things that modern science studies.

Sure, I'm more than willing to give them all the respect and whatnot, but it has to be pointed out that no, they were nowhere near the point where one can say they've already said everything of any use on the topic.

And I would add, without science, how would one even know WHICH of those philosophers to believe? E.g., if I'm to just believe the old philosophers instead of science on the domain of "something from nothing", does it mean that I can just believe Aristotle and Parmenides that the universe must have always existed, because "nothing comes from nothing"? Can I just believe Lucretius that therefore evolution is false, and every species always existed? (Cf, De Rerum Natura.) Or what?

Seems to me like science does have an important role there: if nothing else, to sort out which bits out of the piles of manure the ancients wrote on any given topic, are actually even vaguely resembling the real thing.

 

[David Mo]

Which philosopher explained how the universe arose, or let me not even make.either that hard, which one explained the initial inflation of the universe?

Do you suppose that if a kind of knowledge has not given an explanation of the origin of the universe is worthless? How strange.

By the way, who gave an explanation of the origin of the universe? It is that this "origin of the universe" is not clear to me what it means.

Why, when you speak of philosophy, do you not refer to this or that philosopher but to "the" philosophy? Why, when you mention philosophers, do you never refer to contemporary philosophers? Don't you think that philosophy has changed something since Thales of Miletus?

 

[Robin]

Maybe someone could just explain to me why the fact that science can tell us about the beginning of the universe makes it a good idea for scientists to try to rehash subjects that have already been covered in detail without having tried to inform themselves about what has previously been said on the subject.

(Edit and note I never said that scientists can't do philosophy. Or plumbing for that matter)

 

[Cheetah]

If we can model human behaviours (and we can more and more) then there is nothing in principle that means we can't tell Jane that she "should" do X in circumstances Y.

Can you explain this, to me it makes no sense at all.


Assume you model Jane's behaviour perfectly and you see that under circumstances Y she will do X.
You say "then there is nothing in principle that means we can't tell Jane that she "should" do X in circumstances Y"?


But what if she should not do X? What then? Then you can't say it.
And what does that have to do with moral choices?

 

[Darat]

There is nothing in principle that means that we can't throw a dice and tell Jane that she "should" do X in circumstance Y.

That's right and?

 

[Darat]

Can you give me an example of any of this happening?



Oh, I forgot, you are allowed to make claims and then cast your inability to back them up as some kind of intellectual superiority.

Which philosopher described the inflation of the universe before scientists?

 

[Darat]

Does that really seem to you like a reasonable response to what I said?

Absolutely, else I wouldn't have asked it twice.

 

[JoeMorgue]

And I'm saying that any domains which are based on proper evidence and Occam's razor, are by definition already covered by science. In fact, that any philosopher ("self respecting" or otherwise) whose conclusions are worth of any consideration, is in fact a scientist by any other name.

And this is the overall only point that matters.

Shove the "labels" to the side. It's patently obvious that 99% of the discussion is just labeling from people who don't like the word "science."

So put all that to the side. Forget the words and concepts science, philosophy, ethics, morality, etc.

You have a variable you need to figure out. If the answer you get to the variable is not arrived at by looking at the evidence then what exactly are you even doing? Randomly guessing?

Because that is the core of science. As XKCD put it (slightly paraphrased) "Ideas are testing by experiment. That is the core of science. Everything else is just bookkeeping and questions of level of rigor."

Again as Hans has already pointed out we're fighting the common image of science of nothing but labcoats and beakers but that's a very limited (if the word had already lost all meaning I'd call it a strawman) viewpoint.

When you want to cross the street you perform an experiment to see if the it safe to do so; you look both ways. You don't sit under a Bodhi tree for 30 years contemplating the nature of traffic.

Tasting the soup to see if you need to add salt, asking your wife what she wants for her birthday, seeing if applying Gold Pine Resin to your Drake Sword will help you defeat the Bell Gargoyles in Dark Souls... all science, or, if that word simply sets you off and you can't get over it, evidence based thinking.

That's why I'm firmly in the "only science gives us answers" camp. Because until it is answered using scientific principles, it's not an answer, it's a guess. And again to anyone this sentence triggers just substitute "Evidence based thinking" for science, because if you're arguing against that I have nowhere else to go with you.

I know humbly await the "Oh yeah! Well can your cold hard science tell you if a painting is beautiful!?" argument.

 

[abaddon]

That pretty much underlines my point.

Wouldn't it have been better for a plumber to do it?

No, obviously it would be far better to pay a philosopher to define the concept of "pipe", right?

 

[Darat]

Can you explain this, to me it makes no sense at all.


Assume you model Jane's behaviour perfectly and you see that under circumstances Y she will do X.
You say "then there is nothing in principle that means we can't tell Jane that she "should" do X in circumstances Y"?


But what if she should not do X? What then? Then you can't say it.
And what does that have to do with moral choices?

A moral choice is a human behaviour. All current evidence indicates that human behaviour arises from our brain interacting with the environment (to try and keep it simple).

If our model is accurate we can for example answer what Jane will do in certain circumstances I.e. her making a moral choice.

Let me try a different way of explaining what I mean.

Consider in the course of the day I sit down at a park bench and realise there is a paper bag containing £5000 next to me.

What I "should" do about the money is your "moral choice". Now I can wrestle with myself about whether to take the money to the police and hand it over or take the money for myself. And then I'll make my decision.

A sufficiently accurate model of my behaviour would let you know what I should do I.e. what I will do.

 

[TragicMonkey]

A moral choice is a human behaviour. All current evidence indicates that human behaviour arises from our brain interacting with the environment (to try and keep it simple).

If our model is accurate we can for example answer what Jane will do in certain circumstances I.e. her making a moral choice.

Let me try a different way of explaining what I mean.

Consider in the course of the day I sit down at a park bench and realise there is a paper bag containing £5000 next to me.

What I "should" do about the money is your "moral choice". Now I can wrestle with myself about whether to take the money to the police and hand it over or take the money for myself. And then I'll make my decision.

A sufficiently accurate model of my behaviour would let you know what I should do I.e. what I will do.

What a given person will do is not the same thing as what a given person should do. Is Bill Cosby going to drug her drink and rape that girl? Of course he is. Should he? Certainly not.