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5920614 No.5920614 [Reply] [Original]

Let's touch on some deep philosophical questions /lit/.

Science. Is it really all that?

>> No.5920617

No, but I can't falsify that opinion.

>> No.5920618

>>5920614
Science is all that and more.

>> No.5920623

Science is, like, just one of many ways of looking at the world, man.

>> No.5920628

If existentialism is true, are Alzheimer's patients actually just time travellers?

>> No.5920641
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5920641

>>5920614
Science is an amazing tool to understand the universe. However, we've come to deify it, and attribute far more to science than it can support. It is important to utilise it for situations or problems which require, or can be solved with, empirical answers, but nothing more.

>> No.5920679

>>5920641
The problem is when people try to say something cannot be solved with empirical evidence when it probably can, or at least there's a possibility. It becomes a constant moving goalpost.

>> No.5920686

>>5920614
And a bag of chips.

>> No.5920688

>>5920614
shut the fuck up

>> No.5920703

>>5920641
This. Today's society loves to glorify science and engineering because it's brought them smartphones and 3D movies and cars and cities and such. However, it's also brought us the atomic bomb. I wonder if, should a time come that technology pushes the boundary of ethics enough that society decides that the bad outweighs the good, will a technophobic era come?

>> No.5920714

>>5920703
The same bomb which ended ww2 and saved many lives in the process?

>> No.5920719

>>5920714
>implying Hiroshima was necessary

>> No.5920727

>>5920703

Everybody just needs to read more Heidegger.

Also technology isn't inherently good or bad, it's the people that use it.

>> No.5920728

>>5920614
Science is positive and empirical, but rarely normative. For all the truths it provides, there are no recommendations for 'should' or 'should not'.

For that, we need something more.

>> No.5920729

>>5920714
>bomb which ended ww2
do they really teach it

>> No.5920734
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5920734

>>5920703
>Technology damned
>Everything runs on magic
>Japs are near eradicated

Shit's gonna be so cash.

>> No.5920736

>>5920703
it's not 60s anymore

>> No.5920737

>>5920703
Don't be such a Luddite. So long as there is wealth in the world, and a free market throwing it about, there will be technological advancement.

>> No.5920740

>>5920714
The same bomb that may or may not have saved many lives also ended many lives. The public consensus, however, is that the security they provide outweighs the horror of actually using them. That's why we still have them.

On the other hand, human cloning research could save many lives, but is deemed too unethical to pursue, so we don't. But, that's bioengneering, which is seen a lot less commonly. My point is: what will happen when more common technologies progress enough to push some ethical boundary?

>> No.5920744

>>5920719
I suppose you think the Japs would just have rolled over like dogs without a fight.

>> No.5920749

Yes. It is all that. Why do continentals hate it so? The ancient Greeks were scientists first and philosophers second, by the modern standard.

>> No.5920753

>>5920740
We simply redefine ethical boundaries. Bioengineering is becoming less taboo, it is only a matter of time.

>> No.5920757

Let's do some deep pseudo intellectual memes /lit/

Magnets. How do they work?

>> No.5920758

>>5920727
You're right, I've never read Heidegger. Hell, I'm just trying to get through Camus right now. But I'll get there eventually.

>>5920737
See >>5920740 on cloning
But I think you're right in a sense, technology is a very broad term, and some form of technology will always be advancing, however, what sort of technology that is may hange drastically, just like how we went from human cloning to stem cell research.

>> No.5920767

>>5920753
Redefining ethical boundaries based on technological advancements? That sounds like a one-way ticket to a dystopia.

>> No.5920770

>>5920767
Science demonstrates what is good for people. We don't need ancient ethical codes to tell us how we should act.

>> No.5920779

>>5920767
Who cares? Morality is for the weak.

>> No.5920780

>>5920758

Heidegger has a lot of stuff on Technology, most of it written post WWII after the whole Nazi thing happened.

Quick Summary for you:

>Heidegger draws attention to technology’s place in bringing about our decline by constricting our experience of things as they are. He argues that we now view nature, and increasingly human beings too, only technologically — that is, we see nature and people only as raw material for technical operations. Heidegger seeks to illuminate this phenomenon and to find a way of thinking by which we might be saved from its controlling power, to which, he believes, modern civilization both in the communist East and the democratic West has been shackled. We might escape this bondage, Heidegger argues, not by rejecting technology, but by perceiving its danger.

>> No.5920782

>>5920770
>Science
>Not amoral

Ruh roh Raggy.

>> No.5920787

>>5920770
>Your normative recommendations today brought to you by the strictly empirical.

>> No.5920789

>>5920780
Or they can play the Metal Gear series, same message.

>> No.5920792

>>5920780
Perceiving the danger, and then what?

>> No.5920795

>>5920789
>Every Japanese mindfuck game/anime is really just a mish-mash of Heidegger and Jung

>> No.5920797

>>5920789

Less eloquent. More fun though.

Fuck I wish I had a console to play MGS5

>> No.5920798

>>5920614
Science is fine and I would say actually contributes to the arts and philosophy. It has raised questions and created arts that literally would did not exist without science. However, one has to understand the it's limitations and the scientists of today and general populus don't.

You've got idiots like science black man, Sam Harris, and Dawkins trying to intrude into the territory of the arts that they do not have the level of understanding or skill to do it well.
They try to act like
>"Ayy look how big this really big thing is!"
is some kind of profound aesthetic statement and it just comes off as pathetic and hamhanded. The unambiguous in awe dick sucking when it comes to these things comes off as blatantly self-serving. Rather than pointing to what the actual artist or philosopher has to say, they want it all, because what other more critical eyes might say might not be so self-serving. What could be said and what could be made suffers from this power grab.

>> No.5920802

>>5920703
Wow. That's a really great addition to the conversation. And I think that raises another question.

How many Japanese lives equal one human life? If we can get that down we can compute how many humans Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton killed.

>> No.5920803

>>5920792

That'll unconceal itself bro.

>> No.5920810

>>5920770
Next time you see a kid, give him a gun and let him learn how to use it on his own.

Time may help us learn how to use technology responsibly, but not necessarily before it's too late. Just like pollution in the last several decades.

>>5920779
I guess I'm weak, then. I graduate with an engineering degree in spring, and I'm interviewing an aircraft company. I'm just really hoping that I can get through my career and make a significant difference without hurting anyone.

>>5920780
I think I like this guy. Having only taken a high school Theory of Knowledge class, should I read up on some earlier philosophy first, or can I just jump right in to some of his works?

>> No.5920816

>>5920802
>That's a really great addition to the conversation.
>Not sure if sarcasm

>How many Japanese lives equal one human life?
Ask politicians. Mostly depends on how much can be swept under the rug or justified with patriotism, probably.

>> No.5920833

>>5920802
>How many Japanese lives equal one human life?
During the war? All of them, according to practice.

Y'all focused on the nuclear bomb but forget that the US had already been burning their country to ash with continuous firebombing.

>If we can get that down we can compute how many humans Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton killed.
I too blame the inventors for the use of their inventions. Every gun fatality I blame on the Chinese for inventing gunpowder.

Including every shot fired at the Rape of Nanking.

>> No.5920834

>>5920789
>>5920797
Man, I never did play these, and I used to work at GameStop. I'll have to get around to it sometime.

>> No.5920835

>>5920749
They were philosophers first and scientists second.
Science was called "natural philosophy" and was often done to help legitimize philosophical theories.
Also, Plato and Aristotle are not famous for doing science. They are famous for being philosophers. These two people (Socrates as a philosopher comes to us through Plato) are far and away the big leagues of Greek philosophy.

I don't mean to knock on the pre-socratic philosophers or those who came after Plato and Aristotle, but those two are assuredly the most important.

Those before and after P&A, when doing scientific things, spent a lot of time arguing about the epistemology of science- there was no unified system of knowledge like we have today, so philosophizing was a required part of scientific inquiry. They had to legitimize that what they were doing could produce knowledge.

I don't necessarily think we need that anymore- the scientific method seems to be the best way to answer empirical questions- but as >>5920728 and Hume point out, scientific enquiry can't answer normative questions. I think a serious problem in today's world is that scientists no longer discuss epistemic issues like they did in the past while also receiving huge amounts of social capital for doing science.

This line of thought is not opposed to science in any manner. It's simply opposed to improper modes of inquiry, which is a serious part of scientific work itself- the methods for studying weather and quantum physics are markedly different, and people would think a meteorologist using isobaric pressure maps to make claims about problems with the standard model is not doing good science.

In the same way, using science to try and answer normative questions- ethical, social, political- and fundamental epistemic questions- how can we know this, to what extent can we trust sensory data, etc- is bad knowing. This is the position of the continentals, which is clear if you read the particularly good summary of "The Question Concerning Technology" posted here >>5920780

There are some other issues raised by Continentals regarding science, such as the impact of ideology on science as a way of knowing, but these issues fall into the broad spectrum I described earlier.

The real question isn't why Continentals hate science, it's why people think they do. As far as I can tell- studying here in Europe and reading Continentals- they "hate" people using knowledge and ways of knowing inappropriate to the contexts in which they're being used. A really basic brush with the fucking wikipedia article on Continentals can make this clear.

So another question rears its head? Why don't you read things before you talk about them? I think that's a much more salient issue for you, because you should at least have a basic grasp of what you're going to talk about before you do so.

I'm sadly assuming you're not here to be a troll, so 10/10 for making me post.

>> No.5920842

>>5920810

>or can I just jump right in to some of his works?

Depends which works you want to look at. I'd say its useful to at least have an understanding of certain thinkers, only summaries of their work though, you don't need to read their whole bibliography or any shit like that. Specifically have a decent grasp of the problems tackled by Kant, Descartes, Husserl, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Aristotle.

I'd say jump into Being and Time though, I think its fucking great if tedious at first in terms of how long it takes him to say shit. Hope you like Greek

>> No.5920848

>>5920810
Go read the essay I mentioned in >>5920835 or "Introduction to Metaphysics" if you want to read Heidegger. Being and Time- in English- requires a working knowledge of German and preferably one of Ancient Greek to really start wrapping your head around, and is one the books of continental philosophy famed for its impenetrableness. If you've just done a Theory of Knowledge class in high school you'll be lost as fuck in Being and Time, because that book is hard for post-docs who focus on Heidegger.

By the way, did you take ToK in the IB? That's the only context I've ever really seen epistemology being called "theory of knowledge" and was wondering if some other anon on /lit/ got through that hellish program of boring bullshit.

>> No.5920854

>>5920842
>Hope you like Greek
>TFW reading some Heidegger spiraled into my first using Google translate, then teaching myself some Greek alphabet, then looking up original texts of the Iliad so I can see the context "φύσις" was used in
>I regret none of it

I really ought to finish The Origin of the Work of Art someday.

>> No.5920860

>>5920842
Cool. I was gonna get get into Kierkegaard next, but I'll check out Being and Time instead. I'll also get around to the others you suggested. Eventually. Thanks!

>>5920835
I've got nothing to say, except, thanks for posting. I first came to this site to talk about cute anime girls, but I'm pleasantly surprised at being able to learn something here.

>> No.5920877

>>5920848

>requires a working knowledge of German and preferably one of Ancient Greek to really start wrapping your head around, and is one the books of continental philosophy famed for its impenetrableness. If you've just done a Theory of Knowledge class in high school you'll be lost as fuck in Being and Time, because that book is hard for post-docs who focus on Heidegger.

Bullshit. It's hard but if you're a post doc and having trouble you shouldn't be a post-doc.

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=8EFD947E023D85E285BA5D3CBA98D5A7

This edition has plenty of annotations to make it readable enough.

>> No.5920881

>>5920848
Ok, will do. Learning entirely new languages will probably have to wait for a while, but I usually just do a casual reading the first time through on these kinds of books, anyway.

And, yes, that was in IB. Four years later, I'm starting to think that those ToK and English classes might have actually been worth something...

>> No.5920882

>>5920842
If you think Heidegger is tedious for taking a long time to say things in B&T I really wonder how much you understand of it.

I bet it's not a lot

>>5920854 probably understands it really well, though, since looking through other books to understand how a word is being used in context is how they write and cite Ancient Greek dictionaries- certain ones cite literally every single use of a word or a derivative form in Homer so that reading the Iliad turns into rereading every part of it to make sure you really know how the word is getting used.

>> No.5920890

>>5920877
Nice. I should probably get an e-reader someday.

>> No.5920902

>>5920703
havnt we always had the anti technology people?

>> No.5920906

>>5920614
science is just falsifiable so yes its really all that
try to focus on unfalsifiable things and youll get deep philosophical questions

>> No.5920914

>>5920770
And where in science do you derive an ethical code? I'd love to know.

The closest way I know is to take a pre-existing value statement to derive others. Example: "Human happiness is good, let's build a society to maximize happiness." or "Human suffering is bad, let's build a society to minimize suffering." But of course, the question of how we arrive at that foundational value statement arises, and one cannot really derive *that* value statement with empiricism.

The ball is back in the court of the philosophers.

>> No.5920915

>>5920902
Yes, we always have, but today these people are definitely the minority, and so they have no effect on society as a whole. If it becomes popular to distrust technology, then... something would happen. Not sure what, exactly, but something.

>> No.5920930

>>5920914
I agree with you, but couldn't you argue that capitalism provides such a foundational value statement? Basically, "maximizing profit is good, so let's pursue technologies that will yield the highest profit". Obviously, this has more than a few problems.

Not really sure what I was getting at.

>> No.5920932

>>5920882

>If you think Heidegger is tedious for taking a long time to say things in B&T I really wonder how much you understand of it

Go wave your e-dick elsewhere. Just because it was necessary doesn't make it any less tedious to read through him setting up the grounds for his arguments.

Also Heidegger's etymological research of and subsequent application of Greek is largely disparaged in modern scholarship for being inaccurate. So an in-depth knowledge of Ancient Greek will most likely just mean you get pissed off.

>> No.5920943

>>5920798
Leave black science man and Dawkins alone. They're not even that bad, and are often made the scapegoats of scientism.

The true horror of scientism do not come from astronomy or biology which are fields with truly awesome revelations. But the horror is in thins like sociology or economics, fields which try to use science to justify social order.

Economics is obviously one of the worst offenders, the implicit assumptions in the field being used as the basis of modern morality.

>> No.5920957

>>5920798
>>5920943
I definitely have mixed feelings about the faces of popsci. They pander to whatever interests the common person, but what's wrong with that, as long as they're being factual to the best of modern scientific knowledge? Who knows how many kids are being inspired by the words of black science man just like I was inspired (sort of) by Bill Nye the Science Guy?

And yet... they kind of suck dick, you know?

>> No.5920960

>>5920877
To be clear, I'm just an undergrad, but I have heard this opinion here in Germany from tenured professors (doing a year abroad at Leipzig on a DAAD fellowship).

I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily, but general opinion of professors I've talked to is that things are easier to read in English but you can't understand them as well. This problem isn't so bad for someone like Marx in certain instances, who was- at times- just using Adam Smith's terms for things. Then you have authors like Hegel (at the start of a master course I'm taking on his reception in a social and philosophical context my prof told the class- in which I was the only non-native speaker- to read him in English for clarity and a working understanding and in German for an understanding that would be required for a course exclusively on Hegel instead of a course something oriented on what people did that could be described as Hegelian).

Then you have Heidegger, whose use of German and Ancient Greek grammar and etymology is daunting for non-specialized natives, from what I've heard at the philosophy department.

I'm all for high quality annotations to help explain things, but B&T is too dense for that to be a good way to read it- at least at first. All I'm saying is that starting somewhere else with Heidegger is both easier and then makes reading B&T easier.

I mean, the guy has a book that could have been "Introduction to How I Think" and I just think it's much better to start there than with B&T, and have some good reasoning for thinking that.

I'd rather >>5920881 1) not get scared off at first 2) better understand what is being read 3) read more stuff. I don't think that's crazy at all.

>> No.5920973

>>5920960
fuck left out a few words

should read "told us to read him"

>> No.5920982

>>5920881
My ToK courses weren't really worth anything to me, but I was on a very philosophy heavy LD circuit instead. And my English classes were pretty wonderful, but the year after me got to read Blood Meridian for their IEs and I was so pissed off I missed that.

>> No.5921001

>>5920679
Then we can reduce this down to people are shitty
>>5920703
this wasn't what I was talking about

>> No.5921007 [DELETED] 

Is the ultimate conclusion of critical thought always going to be a sad, meaningless existence?

>> No.5921008

>>5920960
I think this is my first time generating this much buzz in a thread.

I'll be checking out all three works mentioned, to start with, since Heidegger sounds like a pretty cool guy. Or, at least, someone an engineer should be passingly familiar with.

Thanks for all the helpful advice!

>> No.5921009

>>5920932
Yeah, but if you understand that scholarship you can know where he went wrong, which is still informative. I hadn't read this before posting >>5920960 but I think it still stands as a valid reply.

The last part is all I'm getting at. I just mean to say that B&T is dense and difficult and starting small- especially for someone who's biggest brush with philosophy has been ToK- will most likely help with understanding, and at worst just means someone read more books. I think we can both agree those are valuable things.

I don't want to wave my e-dick around, I just want to be helpful. There's no need to be aggressive.

>> No.5921018

>>5920930
Well, yes. But then, hasn't capitalism always been the foundation of scientism? This link is not tenuous. Look at the world fairs, or the future-topia of Disneyland, that is the purest distillation of modern ideology: the great technological leaps of our corporations will finally thrust us into a brilliant future. I recall a line from Vaneigem, it went something like (and I paraphrase) 'The carrot of the hereafter has been replaced by the carrot of the future, but in any case the present lies under someone else's boot.'

Economics is itself a humorous example of all of this, an attempt to make science out of implicit assumptions along the lines of "Maximized production is the key to a happy society". So we are obsessed with capitalism because it is the ideology of immense wealth and constant technological revolution, but it is not in itself the key. There is another quote, and this time I forget who said it, but it was along the lines of 'Capitalism brings us to the threshold of freedom and then locks the door.'

The point I am making is twofold 1. Our society does provide these implicit assumptions that you hint at, and in many ways this has *defined* the scientism of our era and even invented disciplines of justification (Economics) 2. These implicit assumptions do not fulfill their promises for "liberation" or "happiness".

This is why, among friends, I do not really discuss the obsession with empiricism as scientism so much as futurology. There are several good reasons to do this, which I will enumerate:

1. Science has value primarily for its material yield, often public derision is directed towards pure science without application.
2. Architecture and art, once dominated with religious impressions, is now dominated with images of the future (how many times are designs sold as "the car of the future", "the building of the future", the irony is every dated "retro" car or building was in fact built in an image of a future that never came)
3. Science is almost explicit in that all direction of its labors in the present justify a glorious future which is perpetually out of reach.
4. Religious devotion, which scientism is supposed to parallel, is in fact more parallel to technology. In the present and the past, both are used to justify current social orders for a delayed gratification (of dubious existence).
5. As in religious devotion, the modern peasant spends much of his free time engrossed in the mass media, a church of technological innovation.

Other parallels exist, but become almost exhausting.

>> No.5921034

>>5920982
Yeah, I don't remember anything from ToK except knowledge=justified true belief. I almost wish I had paid attention in that class. Almost.

English introduced me to Murakami, which I'm grateful for, but I won't forgive them for making me read the Awakening or Madame Bovary.

Never did debate, since I was more focused on math and science. Maybe I should have, who knows.

>> No.5921043

>>5921018
I bet a marxist said that unattributed quote

that's a very marxist thing to say

>> No.5921044

>>5920960

Well apparently Heidegger is thoroughly difficult when it comes to translation, however I don't think anyone with a sharp enough mind will face impassable difficulty beyond having to re-read some passages and taking notes. But that's just par for the course with a lot of dense philosophy books. Heidegger's much easier in terms of being coherent compared to Hegel, and much easier in terms of tedium compared to Husserl. My original Heidegger Prof (Andrew Bowie) also advocated Michael Inwood's short intro to heidegger as one of the most lucid texts in terms of getting to grips with Heidegger, I never used it myself but linking it can't hurt.

>http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=597a57411b7e5d5b9f857014b5e145db

Also according to my prof there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of interpreting Heidegger, so I'm just not one for getting too worried about getting the 'right' understanding. Also personally hyped for reading the black notebooks when I get the chance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Notebooks))

>> No.5921045

>>5921001
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author

But really, I reread your post and realized I misunderstood. My bad.

I should watch Eva one of these days.

>> No.5921046

>>5920943
>>5920957
They most definitely do suck dick. Both Dawkins and Da grass have made dismissive statements about philosophy that I would classify as categorically anti-intellectual because it doesn't fit their narrative. To them, they just see it something in the way of their cheap and self-serving ideology that they don't even have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge it as ideology. They are the modern popularizers of the "bow down and worship science" culture. They really are that bad, partially because they do have so much influence.

Personally, though, I would like to add psychology to that list. If you actually research the priori they base all of their diagnosis on, it was pretty bone chilling for me.

>> No.5921058

>>5920957
But most of the time they are fine. They do say some stupid shit, but they have plenty to reveal in their own fields, my view of them is far from contempt.

The scientist is a tool. If scientism (futurology) is the present dogma, the scientist is the theologian: thoughtful, often insightful, yet often in direct or tacit support for a damaging social order. People here love to wank it to medieval theologians, but the church was nothing short of a brutal reinforcement of an exploitative social order. So it is with scientism: the scientists are not any more evil than figures like St. Thomas Aquinas.

>> No.5921067

>>5921009

Sorry bro, just used to that sort of tone on /lit/, it's all in jest though, I assure you. I only took issue with the idea that finding the beginnings of B&T=not understanding the text

>>5921044

Heidegger interested guy, have a quick skim through the Inwood book I linked here either before or if you get scared by Being and Time

>> No.5921074

>>5921046
I have seen some videos of DeGrasse and Dawkins at their worst, I am not alien to their idiocy. But like I said, I do not hold them in total contempt. My view of them is more along the lines of this:
>>5921058
They legitimize an ideology which itself reinforces a terrible social order. But so have many valuable thinkers, and Dawkins and DeGrasse are perfectly enjoyable to listen to when speaking about their own passions.

>> No.5921081

>>5921067
We all good, I was just clarifying I'm not using that tone. I'm used to it too and I think it can really destroy a thread that could otherwise be extremely interesting.

>> No.5921084

>>5921074

>Dawkins and DeGrasse are perfectly enjoyable to listen to when speaking about their own passions.

*their own areas of expertise

>> No.5921089

>Science. Is it really all that?

It really is.

I think the sentiment MLK expressed on the quote is explained by the fact that our understanding of the natural world is no longer restricted by many institutions, and since they lead to technological progress, people can easily link mundane commodities to it and see the immediate benefits of scientific advancement.

It's not the same thing with any attempt of understanding human society and the human intellect, and consequently any attempt of fixing them in a foundamental level. Social sciences and economics are only capable of advancing when they find common ground with the ruling classes, and by result they became about creating the best technicians for the current system possible, instead of forming minds that can challenge it.

We've still very, very primitive on that regard. If you think about human potential, that can be sort of depressing. It's like thinking of all the space shit you'll never get to see.

>> No.5921094

>>5920703
lol you're fucking stupid m8

>> No.5921108

>>5921018
Had to read through this a couple times, but I think I agree with you. So, your saying that futurism is the new religion of the masses? Basically, instead of "do as you're told and you'll be rewarded by God" it's "do as you're told and you'll be rewarded by scientists"? If so, I can definitely see that. Taking this back to my original point, there will be some point in the future when the masses realize that the current system won't bring about the future they want, and will "revolt".

>> No.5921113

Is the ultimate conclusion of critical thought always going to be a sad, meaningless existence?

>> No.5921116

>>5921067
Will do. Looks like I have a lot of reading to do. Thanks!

>> No.5921123

>>5921113
It doesn't have to be.

but it always will be under capitalism

>> No.5921124

>>5921108
whatever you're imply, nobody is feeding this to people.

religion in the world is inherently shit on it's own, because it's shit. nobody "made" it that way, and people created a religion out of science that very few people in science want or care about, and they often think they're stupid

lawrence krauss, for instance, hates science fiction because he says real science is far more interesting. scientismists however hardly know any science at all

>> No.5921132

>>5921113
Yes, and recognizing how sad and meaningless the existence is gives you a fucking foundation and drive to change it

distracting the truth with religion or hope in science is for fools

>> No.5921139

>>5921113
Before the anti-natalists jump in here, I'm going to say no. Read enough books and philosophy and what you start to learn is the conclusion is determined by the narrative you write for yourself. Learning more allows you to write your story as you wish it to be. Obviously, this won't change the objective facts of your existence so there are limitations, but you gain the power to rewrite what your life is about,. where you find beauty, etc. This is not to say that you won't fall into such pitfalls, but if you have the strength, you can make your life meaningful by criteria that you decide and find within yourself.

>> No.5921141

>>5921046
>>5921058
I haven't looked into them too much, so I'm a little shocked that they would disparage philosophy like that. As respected people in their fields, they should know better. Even if we've split ways, science and philosophy belong together.

Psychology probably wouldn't be so bad if:
1. They bothered to learn some statistics
2. They weren't linked to the government, specifically, writing the DSM to meet the norms of law and society, and likewise, judging people in court according to the DSM. Anytime a science isn't allowed to develop based purely on the scientific method, it's not going to go well.

>> No.5921144

>>5921132
But if you critically came to the conclusion that it's sad and meaningless how can you change it? It's simply what it is

>> No.5921145
File: 331 KB, 511x625, 1408222912642.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5921145

>>5921089

You are seriously delusional if that's what you think MLK meant by that statement.

>> No.5921150

>>5921144
sad and meaningless doesn't mean nothing can be changed

i know it's all meaningless. we all do. shit, humans will be extinct someday

this doesn't matter. we can still do great things

>> No.5921216

>>5921145
I didn't mean that. I meant to say this is possibly one of the reasons that lead to the condition MLK described.

Our lack of understanding of human society leads to our inefficiency in reshaping it and King, as a religious man, is probably disappointed with the fact that we can't come up with a secular substitute for the unifying moral and ethical code that religion used to provide.

>> No.5921219

>>5921108
More "rewarded by engineers" but yes. The current social order justifies itself only insofar as it guarantees "progress" which is in itself a tool to usher in a utopia.

Again, we can return to the world-fairs and equivalently existing temples in Disneyland and Disneyworld. On display are all the newest and greatest technologies promising to usher in a future devoid of suffering. Science "jousnalism" is also rife with this shit, and one need only search on deviantart with keywords like future or scifi to see the millions of rosy-eyed art pieces dedicated to what the hereafter, *ahem* I mean future, will bring.

I wrote a post a while ago about the things you can notice in this artwork. One interesting, ubiquitous, element are skyscrapers connected via skyways. I think this common trait is a symbolic key to understanding the lie of futurism: in our dreams we imagine a futuristic city, interconnected, finally devoid of alienation; in reality we get the skyscrapers without the skyways, we get the city more plagued by alienation than ever before.

>> No.5921244

>>5920641

I agree. I'd say also that we've redefined science in such a way that is disingenuous. The term really just means a systematization of knowledge literally and thus in its original usage referred to a vast array of disciplines, but we've come to use it in the singular to refer specifically to a philosophical way of looking at things and loaded the term in such a way that anyone who questions not the empirical evidence science discovers, but the interpretative lens one looks at the evidence with (that is, in this case, the purely mechanical deterministic worldview or the Cartesian dualistic model of the universe), they are branded as anti-science and thus anti-progress and thus anti-civilization and thus anti-human advancement.

I'd also say a big problem we have is that science has moved away so much from religion (religion in the pure sense of 'adoration of the sacred and holy') that we have, in essence, gradually de-emphasized the role of character building in the molding of a scientific mind. Morals, manners and a system of ethics based on the view of man and nature as sacred things, not as just the sum of a mass of biological lego pieces, have become less relevant and as a result, since the 19th century, you've had more and more people obtain a kind of knowledge that was previously held back by sages and artisan guilds who felt there was a danger in letting just anyone in on the secrets of the sciences and various crafts.

Metallurgy is a good example. Before, you had to learn such a craft within the confines of a private master-disciple-guild relationship which taught not only the practical skills of crafting metal objects but also was geared towards crafting and molding the person along the way so they'd be protected from the potential corruption of metallurgy. Mass production and factories said to hell with that superstitious nonsense for the sake of pumping out as much of a product as there existed a demand for it. Some of the more negative results of this has been ecological destruction which we are only now trying to remedy and technology of war that has made battles far more devastating than they were in the past for less the financial cost. It kind of reminds me of the Book of Enoch, where it mentions the Watchers giving men all this great scientific knowledge from heaven as a reward for their worship and it leads to hell breaking loose on earth.

>> No.5921278

>>5921244
I mostly agree with you

>> No.5921284

>>5921219
Huh. I've never thought of that before. Constantly working in isolation (or whatever environment proves to be the most productive) for the sake of a better future, working to be fulfilling to society with the expectation that society will fulfill the individual.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Thanks for the fun, everyone!

>> No.5921314

>>5920749
Autism: the post
but seriously meymeys aside, gr8 b8

>> No.5921332

>>5921108
The thing is, our society is at once that and anti-science.

Science is only deified when put against two completely different processes. One is that of our imagination - and how we all hope science will live up to it and make us see wonders in our lifetime - and the other is the process of the market and capital, that which commodifies the technology resulted from scientific knowledge.

Our current pro-science mentality isn't interested with dealing with any of the "boring" scientific issues. It's interested in iPhones and the dreams of space travel that capitalists and Michio Kakus provide us with.

We only love science as far as it can give us with the same things society has been addicted to since ages ago: utopia and material possessions.

>> No.5921357

>>5921332
Hence futurism. It is not science, it is technology, which is the new religion.

>> No.5921634

Read Spinoza to consider how significant an understanding of the universe as it appears to us through a discovery of its fundamental nature can be.

Read Heidegger to understand the limitations of Science and the possible destructiveness of its current mode.

>> No.5921638

>>5921634
Spinoza only believes that as he holds that it is the only way to know god. It is not the value of discovery that he values for its own sake.

>> No.5922092

I'm a physicist and science is indeed not all that. Our science and technology are powerful, but we were not ready and we're going to pay. Physics and maths are enjoyable pursuits, though.

>> No.5922124

Science is all there is, which is a shame.

>> No.5922132

ITT: muh feelings people who are butthurt over the fact that they produce nothing of value

>> No.5922539

wow MLK was pretty fucking stupid if he said that, but what can you expect from a negroid?

>> No.5922550

Science is beyond anything else.

No I am not an atheist.

>> No.5922564

>>5920802
lel. gud1

>> No.5922569

>>5920641
>However, we've come to deify it, and attribute far more to science than it can support.

This is no true at all. You obviously haven't read any literature of actual scientists, and how they operate, and you equate hipster fedoratippers incessant scientism fantasy with the real thing.

Pop culture is a joke, and this charge of deification is ridiculous.

>> No.5922789

THIS THREAD IS NOT PHILOSOPHY

CAN WE JUST GET OVER THIS RETARDED SECTIONAL JEALOUSY OF SCIENCE ALREADY

THERE'S NO REASON FOR US TO OPPOSE IT

WE'RE NOT BEING OPPRESSED

LET'S GET PAST THIS TUMBLR-LEVEL BULLSHIT AND MOVE ON TO THE ACTUALLY INTERESTING PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS ALREADY

>> No.5922800

>>5922569
>This is no true at all.
>followed by examples of how it is true

It doesn't matter of scientists don't deify science, the claim was only that it was deified.

>> No.5922841

>>5920641
>>Science is an amazing tool to understand the universe. However, we've come to deify it, and attribute far more to science than it can support. It is important to utilise it for situations or problems which require, or can be solved with, empirical answers, but nothing more.
try to distinct between research and technology buddy

>> No.5922845

test

>> No.5922861

>>5920703
you mean the nuclear bomb which has prevented hundreds of wars and remained the most effective anti-imperialist deterrent in the history of mankind?

>> No.5922863

>>5922841
No, he's right, science is a moral paradigm now, much like how Christianity used to be a moral paradigm.

>> No.5923635

>>5922861
and that has the power to destroy human civilization completely? yes that one

also how does the bomb deter imperialism? the only countries with the bomb are countries that are too powerful to be colonized even without the bomb

>> No.5923749

>>5920703
>muh bomb
>ended shitty war
>gave us nuclear power