/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4372440]

Am I the only one here that really feels in-superior to mathematicians and people with a deep understanding of general physics and quantum mechanics?

I see philosophy is a big topic on this board and although I only have a entry level, university understanding of the topic (which I mastered alright I would say, completing the course with an A), I feel that it's kind of pointless compared to “real science”. Yes, it's interesting to explore the mind and human nature and all that, but for all its theories, models, explanations and pondering, what does it really add to society as a whole? I get that some of the big ones have been really important for human history, but usually their interests went beyond philosophy, or at least they built on, and structured their theories using other subjects such as mathematics.

But, today, what good is it really to sit and think about the meaning of everything, the meaning of life, our consciousness, what's morally right, consequences of actions etc? There are actual people out there trying to scientifically find some of these answers, people who have an understanding of the universe and everything that we could only dream about, so what is the point of us sitting here trying to answer the same questions with just vaguely thinking about everything? When it all comes down to the good old cliché that is truth, we are only animals, homo sapiens. We eat and sleep, we live, and we die. Our amazing intelligence is a gift and a curse, and sitting around thinking about life and everything all day does us no good. Philosophy really is just a pointless subject for those of us not smart enough to master the real truth.

(No we should not stop teaching it in school, history is important, philosophy's history is important, moral is important, ethics are important, but education yourself solely in the subject of philosophy hoping to become some kind of genius that can think your way to the divine truth about everything and nothing is really pointless.)

[Anonymous No.4372467]

>>4372440
Go read some History and Philosophy of Science, or Science and Technology Studies.

I suggest you start with Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend.

Pro-tip: "Science" ain't shit: its demonstrably fails its own standards.

[Anonymous No.4372487]

>>4372467
lel

[Anonymous No.4372492]

>>4372440
Mathematics is nothing more than applied logic and science is only an observational philosophy.

[Anonymous No.4372499]

>>4372440
>there are people trying to solve the meaning of life or what's morally right scientifically

See, OP, one of the benefits of philosophy is that it would help people realize that these aren't questions science is capable of answering.

[Anonymous No.4372524]

If philosophy didn't exist, we wouldn't have an understanding of right or wrong. There would be only fact, which applies only to events that have happened; not to what makes us human, in essence.

Would we lack emotion without morals, understandings of emotion or "feels"?

[RAF !M4yJjeiclA No.4372533]

>>4372492
>mfw plebs actually think this

You call cars, computers, pharmaceuticals, surgery, space travel, metallurgy and material development 'philosophy'?

This takes entitled to a whole new level, asshole

[Anonymous No.4372537]

>>4372499

- some of these answers- and what i meant, which i probably should have clarified more, is that a lot of the basic questions and topics in philosophy, can be better explained through science - such as: time, religion (way easier to prove that religion is bs through evolution etc ), the meaning of life (helps if you have a basic understanding of how the universe is built up, right....Plato?), death, just to mention some - rather than just through simple thought and reasoning, with no scientifically backing.

[Anonymous No.4372542]

>>4372440
>what does it really add to society as a whole?

How about a fair portion of our political theory and political systems

[Anonymous No.4372545]

>>4372533
Those are all the work of engineers, not scientists or mathematicians.

[Anonymous No.4372546]

>>4372542
"(No we should not stop teaching it in school, history is important, philosophy's history is important, moral is important, ethics are important,"

[Anonymous No.4372554]

>>4372533
Yes. None of those things happen, none of those sets of knowledge are developed, without philosophy underneath them.

[Anonymous No.4372558]

>>4372537
Guess what, broseph:

Science can't explain time (or anything metaphysical) because science is just the correlation of predicted observation.

Science can't give the meaning of life, whether or not we accept that a proper scientific worldview is necessary to start the trying understand the meaning of life. How is Plato's worldview incompatible with science anyway? Maybe you were thinking of Aristotle.

Science doesn't tell us anything new or special about death that humans haven't known for millennia.

Science can show certain forms of creationism to be false, but that's about it. that hardly amounts to a refutation of religion

[RAF !M4yJjeiclA No.4372563]

>>4372554
which is like saying that cake is flour.

[Anonymous No.4372566]

People are going to act they way the want to act regardless of what some old coon points out or doesn't point out. Philosophy is simply a way to amuse oneself whilst waiting to die.

[Anonymous No.4372571]

>>4372558
>the meaning of life

What the fuck does this even mean, I hope it's not a synonym for 'purpose' because that one is so painfully obvious..

[Anonymous No.4372572]

>>4372440
Oh, look. It's this thread again.

[Anonymous No.4372573]

>>4372440
i think you mean inferior, dickhead

[Anonymous No.4372581]

>>4372563
It's like saying you need a recipe to bake a cake.

[Anonymous No.4372582]

>>4372545
There is a great deal of science and mathematics that go into designing not just a car, but also the parts.

Discovering which materials will be compatible to make a six ton block of metal and various other assortments of materials move over 40 MPH is not the work of engineers.

That's science bitch

[Anonymous No.4372588]

>>4372582
Okay not six ton. I don't know why I said that

[Anonymous No.4372589]

>>4372571
>the purpose of life is painfully obvious

Uh-huh, sure.

[Anonymous No.4372596]

>>4372440
being a scientist must be miserable. I remember my mother putting me on medication in grade school. The meds fucking sapped me of emotional energy, and I was constantly in that "we are tiny and insignificant, small blue dot in the void etc etc" mindset. I began thinking that the universe was just a gigantic equation, and that the very despair I felt over the fact was but a chemical reaction in my brain. I began to analyze everything in the most coldly mathematical way I could, then I'd analyze my own analyzing, and pretty soon my mind was spiraling out into this endless circlejerk of banality. I wanted to fucking kill myself I felt so logical.
I'm sure this isn't how most scientists feel, but its still fucking dark to think about.

[Anonymous No.4372604]

>>4372589
The purpose of life for it to continue to survive. That's it.

[Anonymous No.4372611]

>>4372604
And why is that obvious?

[Anonymous No.4372612]

>>4372604
That isn't a purpose, it is an operation.

[Anonymous No.4372610]

>>4372440
>education yourself solely in the subject of philosophy hoping to become some kind of genius that can think your way to the divine truth about everything and nothing is really pointless
I don't think many philosophers would make anything like this claim. Maybe some particularly scurrilous continentals, but that's it. Most would be happy to make some small contribution to supplying or undermining existing assumptions about how science works, how we should define the ways we understand the world, etc.

[Anonymous No.4372614]

>>4372604
Why do millions of people feel that it's not just that?

[RAF !M4yJjeiclA No.4372616]

>>4372596
welcome to my head most Tuesday evenings.
Not that the other evenings aren't equally suicidal, I'm just in disbelief of how on earth I manage to survive Tuesdays.

Nihilism has ruined my personality. Escape while you can.

[Anonymous No.4372618]

>>4372612
>why does life exist

that is the purpose

>life exists because...

that is the question.

If anyone can answer that they are pretttyyy smart.

[Anonymous No.4372622]

>in-superior

[Anonymous No.4372625]

>>4372611
Everything surrounding life is designed for only that.

>>4372614
Because they need to feel special

[Anonymous No.4372629]

>>4372625
>Everything surrounding life is designed for only that.

Yes, clearly art is designed for only survival.

[Anonymous No.4372630]

It's so depressing to think that a lot of people has the same opinion as the OP.

[Anonymous No.4372636]

>>4372625
What you are doing right now is not designed for survival.

[Anonymous No.4372640]

>>4372625
>Because they need to feel special

*tips fedora*

[Anonymous No.4372641]

>>4372604
>implyinh you know shit about fuck
>implying our ultimate purpose isnt to fundamentally alter reality until it's as meaningful as we'd like it to be
I dont take hallucinogens, that thought just came to me one day. Are there any anons here that can tell me what philosophical school of thought I'm part of?

[Anonymous No.4372643]

>>4372636
Uh, being a social organism is hugely beneficial to survival.

[Anonymous No.4372648]

>>4372641
Sounds like Nietzsche or Deleuze is pretty close to your position.

[Anonymous No.4372651]

>>4372625
>They need to feel special
I bet you're a really interesting person with a unique personality, lots of friends, and plenty of hobbies.

[Anonymous No.4372653]

OP is a reasonably good troll - 7/10. Success motivated him to stay active in the thread. As usual, /lit/ completely fell for it.

[Anonymous No.4372657]

>>4372625
So what do you feel like; nothing?

[Anonymous No.4372658]

>>4372651
>I bet you're a really interesting person with a unique personality, lots of friends, and plenty of hobbies.

I bet you're a really interesting person with a unique personality, lots of friends, and plenty of hobbies.

[Anonymous No.4372661]

>>4372643
Wasting your time posting arguments to people you will never meet and whose identity you do not know is not hugely beneficial to survival. If anything, it is a waste of energy that could be put to actual survival use. It is an infection, eating away at your precious life force.

[Anonymous No.4372665]

>>4372651
>>4372658
I bet you're a really interesting fellows with unique personalities, lots of friends, and plenty of hobbies.

[Anonymous No.4372667]

>>4372658
2/10 made me reply.

[Anonymous No.4372666]

>>4372653
Many people actually believe everything OP said and they're surely not trolling.

[Anonymous No.4372669]

>>4372648
wasn't he a nihilist? I'm not comfortable associating myself with that.

[Anonymous No.4372674]

>>4372669
Nietzsche wasn't a nihilist.

[Anonymous No.4372676]

>>4372669
>wasn't he a nihilist?
Not at all. If anything he was the opposite.

[Anonymous No.4372673]

>>4372657
Care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.4372677]

>>4372667
>implying you didn't just call yourself a 2/10 troll because it was your shitty response

[Anonymous No.4372679]

>>4372669
Absolutely not. Nietzsche's entire body of work was a resistance to nihilism.

[Anonymous No.4372682]

>>4372440
>Philosophy really is just a pointless subject for those of us not smart enough to master the real truth.
>smart enough to master the real truth.
>master the real truth
>real truth

[Anonymous No.4372686]

>>4372661
Imagine that you encounter a signal. It is structured, and dense with information. It meets all the criteria of an intelligent transmission. Evolution and experience offer a variety of paths to follow, branch-points in the flowcharts that handle such input. Sometimes these signals come from conspecifics who have useful information to share, whose lives you'll defend according to the rules of kin selection. Sometimes they come from competitors or predators or other inimical entities that must be avoided or destroyed; in those cases, the information may prove of significant tactical value. Some signals may even arise from entities which, while not kin, can still serve as allies or symbionts in mutually beneficial pursuits. You can derive appropriate responses for any of these eventualities, and many others.

You decode the signals, and stumble:

I had a great time. I really enjoyed him. Even if he cost twice as much as any other hooker in the dome—

To fully appreciate Kesey's Quartet—

They hate us for our freedom—

Pay attention, now—

Understand.

There are no meaningful translations for these terms. They are needlessly recursive. They contain no usable intelligence, yet they are structured intelligently; there is no chance they could have arisen by chance.

The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus.

Viruses do not arise from kin, symbionts, or other allies.

The signal is an attack.

[Anonymous No.4372690]

http://skepdic.com/russell.html

read this

[Anonymous No.4372697]

>>4372686
4chan functions to consume the resources of an anon for zero payoff and reduced fitness.

[Anonymous No.4372696]

>>4372673
If everyone simply needs to feel special, then what are you? Are yo the person with the same idea's and face as the one next to you?

Of course humans need to feel special, because without that need, there would be no such thing as individualism, freedom, or anything associated with the term "different".

If I do not feel the need to be "special", then I am a copy of everyone else who lacks that feeling.

[Anonymous No.4372695]

>>4372690
This


>>4372533
>>4372563

Physics used to be called the natural philosophy. psychology was once philosophy

[Anonymous No.4372706]

>>4372686
mfw quoting blindsight

[Anonymous No.4372711]

>>4372679
well it looks like I'm going to be reading some philosophy then.
will this get me into socialism? I have no real investment in governmental/economic constructs, but my plan has always been to become a Libertarian or something along those lines, so I can be seen as 'cool' and 'different' when I enroll in some liberal arts school

[Anonymous No.4372740]

>>4372706
SARASTI (cont'd)
You and your race and mine were never on the best of terms. But I do only what you force me to. You rationalize Keeton. You defend. You reject unpalatable truths, and if you can't reject them outright you trivialize them. Incremental evidence is never enough for you. You hear rumours of holocaust; you dismiss them. You see evidence of genocide; you insist it can't be so bad. Temperatures rise, glaciers melt- SPECIES EXTINCT – and you blame sunspots and volcanoes. Everyone is like this, but you most of all. You and your Chinese Room, you're own private TURING MACHINE. You turn incomprehension into mathematics, you reject the truth without even hearing it first.

KEETON
(Stunned)
Are you saying--

SARASTI
I can't afford to let the truth trickle through. There's no time. I can't give you the chance to shore up your rationales and your defenses. They must fall completely. You must be inundated. Shattered. Genocide is impossible to deny when you're buried up to your neck in dismembered bodies. You don't see it coming, but before you know it, the bodies will start accumulating...

KEETON
You played me. All this time. I'd have seen right through it, if you hadn't made me so involved.

SARASTI
(disappointed)
You might even read it off me directly.

KEETON
That's why you-- I thought that was because we were meat?

SARASTI
That, too. Now, listen. I'm going to tell you a vampire folktale. This is probably the most important anecdote you've ever heard.
YOU, SIRI KEETON, who battled SCRAMBLERS in VACUUM.

SARASTI (cont'd)
Listen:
A laser is assigned to find the darkness. Since it lives in a room without doors, or windows, or any other source of light, it thinks this will be easy. But everywhere it turns it sees brightness. Every wall, every piece of furniture it points at is brightly lit. Eventually it concludes there is no darkness. That light is everywhere.
SARASTI (Cont'd)
Your species is like the Dodo before it's extinction.

[Anonymous No.4372742]

>>4372711
Nietzsche wasn't a socialist.

[Anonymous No.4372748]

>>4372711

[Anonymous No.4372754]

>>4372499
Tl;dr on OP's bullshit but that quote proves he's either an idiot or /sci/ trying to troll

[Anonymous No.4372759]

>>4372748
were on an anonymous imageboard, I have no reason to lie.
>>4372742
thanks

[Anonymous No.4372767]

>>4372759
>so I can be seen as 'cool' and 'different' when I enroll in some liberal arts school

Are you kidding me, son?

[Anonymous No.4372773]

>>4372440
/v/ here, OP is right. Philosophy is good for nothing but middle school curricula, it's not even worth getting a master's degree in the subject of Philosophy because everybody who lives in a country with internet access is smart enough to do philosophy on their own. Allow me to demonstrate:

>Why is it that people say they love the smell of maple syrup and yet those same people would not want to wear it as a deodorant?

[Anonymous No.4372778]

>>4372773

[Anonymous No.4372777]

>>4372773
Because it smells disgusting, but it's packed with sugar.

Try again

[Anonymous No.4372784]

>>4372767
gotta get that sweet liberal arts pussy
I was mostly joking, I just don't want to be a generic /lit/izen.

[Anonymous No.4372787]

>>4372784
c/lit/oris

[Anonymous No.4372869]

ITT: OP is the "science and mathematics has made philosophy obsolete since the 14th century" guy who as of now will try to troll /lit/ by attacking the uselessness of philosophy indirectly by coming up with a fake story, and not directly as he usually does.

Your statement that mathematicians and physicists are superior than philosophers couldn't be more further from the "truth". In fact, *actual* philosophers most often than not trash your beloved physicists into tiny little pieces, whereupon some physicist whose article or whatever just got trashed and who hitherto ignored anything that had to do with philosophy before starts to realize that there are far more smarter people than him. From that time on, the physicist keeps his distance. Mathematicians who read no Philosophy are of no use. They are good at what they do and that's that. It's when mathematicians start philosophizing and form a mathematician-philosopher or philosopher-mathematician hybrid they are compelling.

Trust me, Descartes isn't the beginning nor the endof Philosophy. You sound like one of those faggots who just read him and then form an inanely dismissive opinion about the discipline as a whole. Then again, you're just a troll.

[Anonymous No.4372904]

>>4372778
Someone saying something he doesn't mean that he INTENDS for you to understand that he doesn't sincerely believe = A joke/irony/etc.

Someone saying something he doesn't mean that he DOESN'T INTEND for you to understand that he doesn't sincerely believe = bait/trolling/etc.

[Anonymous No.4373022]

>>4372558
>Science can't explain time (or anything metaphysical)
are people really this stupid? Time isn't metaphysical you dumbfuck read up on relativity.
>Science can't tell us anything about death
no shit, but it is doing things to attempt to prevent it.
not hating on philosophy or anything but why do you faggots limit yourselves, read up on both.

[Anonymous No.4373037]

>>4373022

shut up

[Anonymous No.4373062]

>>4373022
>are people really this stupid? Time isn't metaphysical you dumbfuck read up on relativity.

Yes, because time isn't metaphysical all the philosophers of time who have doctorates in physics and who debate about which metaphysical theories of time are consistent with relativity are just a bunch of ignorant fucks who know nothing of the subject.

[Anonymous No.4373069]

>>4373022
>are people really this stupid? Time isn't metaphysical you HURR DURR I'M AN IDIOT


http://web.mit.edu/bskow/www/research/timeinrelativity.pdf

[Anonymous No.4373079]

>>4372773

http://www.parfum1.com/maple-syrup-perfume.asp?itm=DEMMAPLE

Atheists: 1
Cultural Marxists: 0

[Anonymous No.4373082]

>>4373062
links or names please? Never heard of a theory of a non-physical time that is consistent with relativity since it would defeat the whole premise, but if such theories do exist, I would love to read up on them.

[Anonymous No.4373124]

>>4372869
I didn't know it was possible use that many words and say absolutely nothing.

[Anonymous No.4373138]

>>4373022
You do realize that interpreting scientific observation and speculative mathematical models IS metaphysical?

[Anonymous No.4373142]

>>4373082
Two things:

First, time being the subject of metaphysical inquiry doesn't mean it's non-physical. Philosophers have been interested in the metaphysics of physical things since the beginning.

Second, here's a name to start you off:
http://philosophy.columbia.edu/directories/faculty/david-z-albert

[Anonymous No.4373155]

Metaphysics means complete physics. The objects of metaphysics are complete theories of everything or of particular phenomena (interpreting QM, black holes, many worlds, etc.). Why is it that we should refrain from metaphysics?

Hint: your answer to this question will be metaphysical.

[Anonymous No.4373174]

>>4373138
>>4373142
It appears I was using a rather dated definition of metaphysics, though my original point still stands; that science has begun to explain time. so saying that time is beyond scientific understanding is simply wrong, thank you for the recommendation I'll check it out.

[Anonymous No.4373204]

I prefer literature, philosophy and art because it gives value to survival, while Math and Science just make survival easier.

[Anonymous No.4374122]

>>4372492
This is wrong. Logic is applied math.

[Anonymous No.4375912]

>>4372604
Evolution is not teleological you dumbass. Natural selection is not a purpose...

If it was, then we all fail because every single part of our economy and lives should be dedicated to creating immortality and the ability to make it cheap and readily available.