/sci/ - Science & Math

Point out to your friend that he is doing philosophy.

>>2656540

This.

he is right though philosophy gets you nowhere...

who knows if this is just a dream in a more complex reality?

>>2656567
>Solipsism gets you nowhere
ftfy

>>2656563
lol. would be funnier if i was a philosophy student, though.

But really, I know we're no longer in an age where philosophy can put a roof over your head, but that doesn't mean its no longer relevant, right?

>>2656533
It can't be proven, but it can offer us useful morals and ethics to improve our lives. I don't think Sam Harris is right in that science can provide a system of morals. Philosophy helps us improve the "ought," while science tells us the "is."

Why would logic or ethics get you no where?

He has a naive view of what philosophy is.

Any philosophyfags feel free to join in

Philosophy is the most objective field of study there is, because it takes the least for granted and tries to prove everything. It is the least subjective, the least biased, the most proven.

What is more questionable is whether it leads anywhere. Some say it begins in wonder and ends in confusion.

You can say philosophy is dead or irrelevant as much as you want, but we literally cannot help but philosophize. There are things that we know, and things that we don't know. Philosophy addresses that dissonance.

>>2656533
+1 internets for pic

>>2656661

Karl Popper? Is that you? Seriously OP, tell your friend to lrn2falsifiable.

>>2656661
I agree with you totally, man. I think what bothers my friend is that there are so many different philosophies to choose from...like, it hasn't converged at one point. He's looking for the "right" one, and since no "right" one has emerged....he calls bullshit.

for people that love real philosophy:

freedomainradio.com

Philosophy is the most important thing in the world, and as someone who loves the fuck out of philosophy, people are all talking shit. People talk about philosophy casually when it's a specialized discipline. How absurd would it be to hang out with some friends and then have them give you their 'opinion' about some esoteric surgical procedure? It would be ludicrous.

Epistemology is amazing and it keeps me awake at night.

>>2656661

It ends in confusion for some and madness for others. Look at Nietzsche, Cantor, Wittgenstein, etc...

Can someone explain Nietzsche, Bertrand and C. S. Lewis' quotes?

philosophy is pointless...the meaning of life doesn't exist. Nothing matters in the universe. There is no reason for anything.

>>2656755
this

philosophy is for faggots and losers

>>2656755
>>2656759
Yep, that's Nietzsche talking.

Philosophy is subjective and biased but that doesn't mean it's not grounded in reality. Philosophy is the best approximation of reality we can come up with. Sort of like relativity - it's a flawed model but still a useful one.

"Philosofag" here.
Philosophy as a field of study is an incredibly broad, and thus useless, term (hence the quotation marks on my salutation). That is because philosophy means pretty much anything that has to do with cognition (even science). You need to specify what you're actually talking about.
Philosophy as pure metaphysics is dead and it is useless and those who still practice it do so either knowing full well it's for personal pleasure and no more contributions can be made, or are fucking retards.
However, other ways to approach non-scientific philosophical thought are still very much relevant and useful. Axiology, phenomenology, aesthetics (in the broad sense that covers all perceptive activity), epistemology, etc.
What you're looking for is, mainly, those fields with a narrower object of study and those fields in which hard science cannot yet contribute much (those relating directly to our experiential relation to the world as opposed to the mechanicist relation). For example, let's take perception. A scientific approach would limit itself to the way our sensory apparati work and the brain activity they are the cause of, while a phenomenologist would go deeper into how sensory experience builds a world we can interpret and how, though our body, we relate to it. Purely relating to consciousness. Basically it deals with the subjective analysis, as in relating to the subject and not the object, in a relational system that needs both to be understood.

To continue...

>>2656748
Nietzsche is being a rebel and just screaming what does it mean to nothing.

Russell is questioning linguistics. He wants to know where does the word "it" come from and what does "it" mean exactly.

C.S. Lewis is a christfag, he is one step better than Lil Jon.

>>2656768
Once neuroscience manages to break the boundaries it currently has and manages to offer a sufficient explanation of subjective conscious processes, then such an approach as described above will be obsolete. The thing is, for any science to develop new ways to approach an object of study and for new scientific disciplines to be birthed, you first and foremost need to recognize a need for it and that in itself is a philosophical approach.
In short, philosophy has not direct application, and that's why some people tend to look down on it, but it is indirectly the cause of many advances science achieves. It doesn't help philosophy's reputation that most undergrads and aficionados are pedantic, delusional, know-it-all douchebags. Those who happen to understand the deep implications of the field, however, tend to grow the fuck up.

>>2656764

and Kierkegaard, Camus, Sartre, etc...

>>2656703

brofist.

philosophy is the father of all sciences. it's not just woolly bullshit sessions in your college dorm, it's an organized approach to thinking, and the intelligent discussion thereof.

I would wager that far more people can do multivariable calculus than can explain the categorical imperative.

>>2656770
But we have given 'it' a definition. We know what 'it' means through it's usage. What the fuck is he asking? How is it useful?

>>2656768
>>2656773


What? So postmodernism, phenomenology and social constructionism is the pinnacle of philosophy and no more advancements are to be made huh?

cool, story bro

>>2656802
That is not what I meant. It may just be that philosophical thought keeps advancing before it's surpassed. My point was that once we have actual quantifiable data for a particular object of study, then there's no longer a need to limit oneself to purely rational thought without the use of said data. And that is what constitutes a science.
To put it simply: once a science can explain a particular phenomenon more efficiently than pure abstract thought, then it's better to focus such thought on something else.

And all current fields have still much to go on, and many new fields await to be studied. The language used in that post was merely as a manner of example, since I ignore what new fields and new approaches will be made before described events happen.

>>2656755
spoiler alert: you just philosophized

>>2656773
That's very interesting. I'm wondering though, with fields such as phenomenology blazing the trail for future neuroscience, where does that put psychology?

Also, I agree with what you said concerning neuroscience. I was reading up on analytic philosophy, and how more or less modern philosophy isn't really looking for ANSWERS, per se, but it is trying to ask the right questions, frame the debate as clearly as possible, etc.

i think that when people hear philosophy, they think of continental philosophy. there are two schools: analytical and continental. continental is the bullshit about living a good life, the point of life, etc. analytical is rigorous and difficult. all respectable philosophers are analytical philosophers; for example: wittgenstein, russell, popper, godel, and basically all the cog sci/epistemology/logic people of today.

ethics is a bullshit field and should be something separate from philosophy. it completely lacks rigor and is essentially an exercise in futility.

all you haters obviously have never learned anything beyond an introductory course, or have a biased opinion because any exposure was through that vacuous "how do we know if the colors we see are the same colors others see?" garbage people talk about while they smoke weed.

>>2656856
Psychology contributes, of course.
I tend to have what some would call eclectic tendencies and believe if there is reason to be found in more than one type of study, or more than one theory, then steps need to be made to reconcile them.
If you want to understand the human mind, then neurology, psychology, philosophy, genetics and possibly many other fields are needed.

>mfw people still dont realize science is a kind of philosophy

Philosophy is asking questions, or exploring the facility of wonder. Science is asking questions as well, except it uses the scientific method to answer them, while other field of philosophy, such as metaphysics, cannot. Is it that difficult?

>>2656835

Hmm, well, I can agree on this.

A trend in philosophy that I have seen, is that philosophy has become less general, and more specialized.

Because the scientific fields of inquiry has become both more specialized and fragmented AND more interdependent and interwoven, philosophers tend to come from the sciences, more than from the philosophy departments.
As an example see, Kuhn and Popper. Both were scientists before they became philosophers.

In a sense you could see this as a return to the times of Descartes and Leibniz, who both contributed to science as well as philosophy.

>>2656906

>the scientific method

the scientific method is epistemology, you double nigger. it's the very essence of philosophy.

>>2656925
Epistemology deals with what knowledge actually is, while the scientific method is used to discover or legitimize knowledge acquired.

>>2656857

That's just because analytical philosophy is easier to deal with. The existential questions aren't so easily quantifiable and analyzable

>Ph.D = Doctor of Philosophy.
>MFW the ultimate academic recognition any scientist can acheive is philosophy
>Also MFW I am studying philosophy major hoping to get my Ph.D
>Still MFW I will be both the most fundamental field of science and a doctor of philosophy in philosophy making me doulbe Ph.D
>MFW I have no face since a face is just a biological construct with which we identify through the pain and suffereing of our lives
>MNFW a scientifists thinks I just forgot to add a picture
>MFW you just realised by not posting a picture I have represetend myself as being free from the construct of the system that pepetuates the selfhishness of the modern man.
>MFW no amount of science can attain that purity of though or evidence to support it like I just philosophised then

>>2656930

epistemology is about both.

>>2656930

It also deals with the acquisition of knowledge. Science is an empirical, a posteriori approach to that knowledge. It's directly related to epistemology.

>>2656955
Fucking meta-posting. A perfect example of philosophy at its finest. BROFIST!

>>2656955
Mind=blown

>>2656963
Ah, that makes sense. So by that definition, would yo consider science philosophy?

>>2656991
It's more like philosophy is science

>>2656941

no. youre wrong, actually.

axiomatically, continental philosophy is stupid.

very easy to work with now.

all joking aside, though, continental philosophy deals with the "big" questions. it also seems that "big" is synonymous with "unanswerable". if it is not quantifiable, it is not provable, and therefore a circle jerk. analytical philosophy is concerned with answering questions that are deemed answerable. continental is just about talking a metric fuckton about a question, and never arriving anywhere indubitably.

>>2656955
confirmed 14 year old fag

C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!

>>2657014
I'm in my third year at uni.

Don't get me wrong, I lvoe science, but philosopgy just goes beyond and answers quetions science cant.

>>2657012
But wouldn't that implying all philosophy is empirical and posteriori?

>>2656991

yeah, absolutely I would. I also made the post above:

>>2656786

>"philosophy is the father of all sciences."

Science and philosophy have been closely linked since Aristotle times, as has math.

>>2657065
Yes, I agree. Also most natural philosopher would be considered scientists, such as Democritus and Anaxagoras.

>>2657087

i wrote a really bad poem in high school that referenced Anaxagoras.

it was about a girl breaking my heart into a million pieces.

i'm not kidding.

>>2657097
Post it.

>>2657097
Could have used Empedocles' four elements, one for each chamber of the heart.

ITT: people who have never read a book that wasn't a math or science textbook

>>2657013

So everything that can't be rationally proven is unworthy of inquiry? Are you going to claim that the way our societies (on both sides of the pond) is not influenced by these philosophies? That values like democracy, human rights, equality, etc. comes from analytical philosophy?

>>2657113
I read The Hound of the Baskervilles once.

>>2657113
No, please. Get off your high horse and join the conversation any time.

>>2657137
No. It's nice and cool up here. There's a gentle breeze, though it interferes with reading. The pages keep getting blown around and it's really annoying

>>2657121

no, im saying that continental philosophy is not philosophy. like fucking camus. what the fuck is that shit. how is a story about some asshole pushing a rock up a hill similar to metamathematics or epistemology? continental philosophy is traditionally taught in comp lit classes for a reason. the same goes for ethics. basically im saying that one of these things is not like the others. i should not have to be forced to learn about some imbecile's ethical system when i actually want to learn about AI and logic.

>>2656857
Care to expand on why ethics are futile?

>>2657164
Well, I understand that you find it hard to think about things like Sisyphus, but just because you fail to understand the wonderful implications of existentialism, doesn't mean that it's useless or stupid.

Understanding these philosophies is important to understand how our world is put together, and they give yoou tools to answer the "big questions" on your own, come to your own conclusions.

>> 2657193

because no one will ever agree. its for the same reason i think continental philosophy is pointless.

ethics is subjective, and i am pretty sure only a complete nimrod would say otherwise. it therefore should be a part of psychology. each culture, gender, time period, and even individual, has a different acceptable set of ethics. things like logic, knowledge, etc, will not change. i am not saying it is COMPLETELY stupid; rather, it should be studied in psychology.

>>2657221
I was reading an (don't laugh) Aristotelian philosopher who said that which is moral is that which satisfies human needs. He went on to explain that certain objective needs are required by all human beings for physical, mental, or social well-being, and that leading a "moral" life is living a life that strives to meet those needs, and doesn't place obstacles in the way to prevent obtaining those goals.

>>2657221

so basically, because it's metaphysical, it should be considered part of psychology, an empirical science.

jesus christ...

>>2657248

ethics is subjective. each person has a different sense of right and wrong. psychology has shown that a child learns right and wrong while growing up. this right and wrong is gained a posteriori. i am saying that ethics should be studied as such. it should be studied on a person to person basis, because a universal, objective set of ethics is impossible. everyone is different from each other. we all have different needs. by helping one person, you are actually hurting another, whether you realize it or not. not every act is innocent, regardless of the intention. we should study WHY someone thinks a certain action is right or wrong, rather than "this is right and this is how i am going to prove it, even though it doesnt work in every case."

>>2657275
Ethics is not all environment. There is plenty of good studies that show all humans (except sociopaths) share a common innate Kantian morality. See "the trolley problem" and variants.

>>2657281
Pleeease show me some peer reviewed sources, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, any studies that rebuke it, if that's possible.

>>2657281

cool. so then why are sociopaths wrong in their beliefs? if we name the propagation of genes as the meaning of life, then sociopaths clearly have the most advantageous belief set.

and that lack of innate beliefs which "plague" sociopaths: gained through mother-child connection during infancy. ergo, posteriori

>>2657275

psychology don't study ethics. They study the development of ethics and ethics as motivation, things like that.
They don't concern them self with philosophical questions like what is it to be ethical, why should we be ethical, etc.

He practices westernized science doesn't he?

>>2657292
Not sure of citations offhand. Sorry. Might try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

or
>'Morality: From the Heavens or From Nature?' by Dr. Andy Thomson, AAI 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnXmDaI8IEo&feature=BF&list=SPD62809AD452EDB98&index=2

>>2657315
Thanks

>>2657359
Math is not science. Physics is not applied math. Never post that picture again.

>>2657362

uh, physics is applied math

>>2657362
Then what is physics? And what is applied math?

>>2657281
>all humans (except sociopaths) share a common innate Kantian morality
I hope you realize that your argument can basically be summed up as:
>Everyone is X except for people who aren't X.

It's remarkable how easily you can create the illusion of philosophical uniformity when you define anyone who holds conflicting beliefs as mentally ill.

>>2657281
>>2657369
What about the idea of morality being a part of evolution, hardwired in the brain as a way to perform cooperative tasks with members of the same species? Psychology is constantly finding new correlations between the mentally ill and abnormal physiological manifestations - could it be that they aren't "moral" in the typical sense because of brain damage?

>>2657365
>>2657366
Physics is science. It is evidence based. Math is not science. Math is not evidence based.

>>2657376

and therefore it belongs in psychology

>>2657388

yeah, actually. math is a priori, or non-empirical, or facts without needing physical evidence. science is a posteriori, or facts after the evidence.

>>2657376
I would propose that even if morality is dependent on genetics, it isn't something that can generally be defined as a biological process with proper and improper functions. There are plenty of traits which are not uniform across mankind, and one would not suggest that a person with green eyes is somehow "diseased" just because their eye color is a less common manifestation than brown.

Howard Bloom discusses this quite a bit in "The Lucifer Principal." If you can ignore the sensationalist title, it actually puts forth some rather interesting points. While a species may benefit evolutionarily from most of its members having a moral sensibility, there can actually be benefits from a smaller portion of individuals being amoral or "sociopathic," and this tendency can be passed on as legitimate genetic trait, not some sort of illness or mutation.

>>2657359
The mathematician should be carrying a tray of drinks or something. All sciences use math, but math is not a science.

Also, math people are fucking insufferable unless they're doing the math for something else, like CS or whatever.

>>2657408
Ohh, I'm a Math BS and CS BS. Does that mean I'm not insufferable? Woots.

>>2657418
More than likely, yes.

Let's be loose acquaintances!

>>2657407
That's fascinating. So the collective benefits from the small portion among them with these traits? I once heard a similar thing said about homosexuality, that a small portion of same-gender members having sex for social bond strengthening somehow positively affects the whole.

Inb4 I'm a fag. No...I'm heterosexual.

I've been reading a lot about the Actor Network Theory.

/lit/ never wants to bite whenever I bring it up. Anyone on /sci/ familiar with it?

captcha: dndame Kant'

>>2657388
Mathematics is a formal science, 'science' is not limited to the empirical sciences.

>>2657454
It's that IMDB, six degrees of separation thing right?

>>2657484
Yes. That would be the one.

>>2657362
>>2657365
>>2657366
>>2657388
>>2657398
Can I point out the picture doesn't actually say at ANY point that physics is applied maths. It just says maths is purer than physics, which is true in some way, (what "pure" actually means is up for debate)

All it says is that maths is "all the way over there"

>>2657513
people know each other, especially in the same industry, especially especially in an industry where knowing people is so paramount to your livelihood.

Also, they don't really "know" each other, they have at some point been associated with the same production as some other people, who have been associated in the same production as some other people... etc.

I'm sure one of the mathfags could find this facinating, but I can't seem to get terribly excited over this thing...

Sorry...

>>2656533
> I think /sci/ is the closes thing to a philosophy board 4chan has (what with logicfags popping up from time to time), so I might as well try here.
No. /b/ is for trolling/philosophy, /sci/ is for science/math.

>>2659104
Trolling aside, you should go to /lit/ for philosophy.

>>2659223
Alright, thanks for the future reference. Turned out to be an interesting thread, though.

>>2656788
I don't know if anyone cares about why there's a joke about Russell asking what "it" means, but if you do:

Russell was the first philosopher to base his theories on the logical analysis of language. He knew the new logic from Frege far before it was widely spread even through math. (Mathfags will know that his Principia was the height of the "logicist" movement.)

Among other applications, Russell explained through his theory of descriptions (c. 1905) how it is possible to (seemingly) refer to non-existent beings, such as by saying "you've never seen a unicorn" when the term "unicorn" doesn't refer to anything. This was important because at the time, ontological theories ascribed a sort of semi-existence to imaginary, fictional, or mythical entities. He was having none of that because he wanted science restricted to what really exists.

Russell used the language of first-order logic to analyze such statements as "you've never seen a unicorn" in such a way that they are true without requiring fictional reference. Thus: (for all x)(if you have seen x then x is not a unicorn).

to be continued...

>>2659258
...continuing
Now, in that analysis, the term x, which we recognize as a variable, appears prominently, although there is no obvious variable in the sentence "you've never seen a unicorn." So, Russell proposed, beneath the surface meaning of a sentence lies a deeper meaning, the real meaning, the logical meaning. And this meaning will normally involve variables. But variables, linguistically, are like pronouns, such as "it": they don't refer on their own, but only through an assignment (such as an interpretation, i.e. a model), or through quantification (to become components of such meaningful terms as "anything" and "everything").

Thus, Russell quite intelligently and fruitfully asked the question, "What does "it" mean?" There is much more to say about this, but note that if you confine your explanations to psychological or behavioral data, you're never going to get anywhere. This is a question of the logical analysis of language.

>>2659223
Philosophical writing is no more literary than scientific writing. Pick up the Journal of Philosophy if you think I'm wrong.

>>2656533
>My friend does not understand the importance of philosophy.

Yeah, don't have that person as a friend. Or at least, don't have this person as a friend who speaks in any way about any topic of relevance and merit.

>>2659279
Lol in his defense, he mostly starts talking about this stuff when he's drunk

>>2656857
If anyone cares (which I doubt): this is nonsense. This person knows very little about contemporary philosophy. To wit:

Living a good life and the point of life ARE topics in analytic philosophy. See http://philosophybites.com/the_meaning_of_life/

Much continental philosophy is rigorous and difficult, such as Merleu-Ponty and Foucault.

Ethics is a major field in analytic philosophy. See http://philpapers.org/rec/NAGTVF if you want to see rigor that is not an exercise in futility.

to be continued....

>>2659269
I'm not saying that philosophy is more related to literature than to science. I'm just saying that the /lit/-board is a better place to discuss philosophy than /sci/.

...continuing
>>2659304
... continuing:
The question "how do we know if the colors we see are the same colors others see?" has received serious philosophical treatment. See: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia-inverted/index.html..

It is the sad fate of philosophers to be criticized harshly by people who never take the time to learn if their criticisms have been answered. It is THESE people who commit the sin that they ascribe to philosophers, of bullshitting, or making things up, of being subjective, of pursuing pointless discussion. They prove themselves worthy of all the criticism that they hurl at philosophers.

>>2657275
this.

>>2659306
Those mouth-breathers can't argue for shit.