Philosophy Obsolete?

[HexHammer]

we don't waste time on giving praise and credit to great math geniuses, learning their names, and what they did in the life.

This is a good point. Sometimes philosophy can seem like idol worship in some respects. I will be the first to admit that I have always had a fascination with the idea of the "great" individual, an individual who radiates some kind of aura of "greatness" or "excellence" in everything they say or do. I've always wanted to emulate those examples as best I knew how (but haven't been very successful at it).

In some ways my admiration of "great" individuals in philosophy is maybe little different than a "common" person's worship of a "rock star", except that rock stars seem to be more prone to setting what some consider "bad" examples of behavior.

I see you don't have the guts to go all out, but that's human, I don't blame you.

[Arising_uk]

... Imo in order to get a degree in philosophy one has to be an unintelligent parrot, but good memory, one that totally lacks critical thinking, ...

Sure, but you'll be getting a bad degree passmark. What you say also applies to all science subjects, even more so in fact.

because if the philosopher had the ability to critically think, the nonsense and babble that one had to learn would make one insane. ...

Since you've never studied Philosophy I can only assume this is nonsense and babble.

Like 80% of all philosophy are outdated, old Greek guys that made superstitious remarks about life, only very few things has stood the test of time.

Their questions appear to have.

It's even more tragic when cozy chatters babble about how Nietze, Kant and other outdated "modern" philosophers has relevance.

Depends, as what you call relevance is mainly about how the world works empirically whereas there is still how to live in such a world.

Philosophy needs to be overhauled and made relevant again.

Philosophy is still relevant in the areas science is not concerned with and even then can be useful for those who have to make decisions that the scientists cannot or will not make. What on earth do you think could make Philosophy relevant again, that is, what do you want it to be relevant about?

[Obvious Leo]

What on earth do you think could make Philosophy relevant again, that is, what do you want it to be relevant about?

As a philosopher of physics I regard the divorce between physics and metaphysics as one of the greatest tragedies of the modern era. The proposition that we must live in a universe which makes no sense simply because we have effective theories which define it as such is one which should make any philosopher reach for his hemlock without delay.

[Arising_uk]

As a philosopher of physics I regard the divorce between physics and metaphysics as one of the greatest tragedies of the modern era. ...

How is it the 'modern' era? I thought this occurred when the natural philosophers epistemology won the day?

[Obvious Leo]

How is it the 'modern' era? I thought this occurred when the natural philosophers epistemology won the day?

Good point. When I refer to the "modern era" of physics I'm basically referring to its entire history since Newton, from which time it has traditionally been assumed that the mathematical representation of the observed state of a physical system is synonymous with reality. However this enthusiasm to conflate the map with the territory didn't reach its apotheosis until the early 20th century when the spacetime paradigm of Einstein and Minkowski was immediately adopted as canonical doctrine. Such was the predictive power of this new paradigm that it gave birth to the movement known as logical positivism, a chilling anti-philosophy which eliminates the role of human reason from the conduct of human affairs. Inasmuch as physics has such a thing as an underpinning ideology then logical positivism remains it until the present day. Even in a modern physics text we will routinely find a statement such as: "The universe can only be understood in the language of mathematics", to which Leo is compelled to reply "What a load of bollocks!"

[uwot]

Philosophy (as it pertains to science) is story telling. If done well, it's coherent and logically valid story telling, but it's still story telling. If, for instance, you drop weights off the side of the leaning tower of Pisa, you can measure the time it takes for them to fall, over and over, until you are confident you know what happens; then you have some scientific data. You can compare that with similar experiments and see if the numbers reveal a pattern that applies to all the experiments, if so you have a law (doesn't matter if it is later revealed to be limited). These things can be checked and verified, or falsified, by anyone; it's objective, it's science. You can then make up any story you like to account for the measurements and the maths, it can be entirely personal, you may even get a few people to agree with you, but it will not affect either the data or the maths. Philosophy may be obsolete, but even hard nosed physicists put things into a context/story. Philosophers know this, and while many scientists can take it on the chin, it drives others nuts.

[Obvious Leo]

Philosophy (as it pertains to science) is story telling. If done well, it's coherent and logically valid story telling, but it's still story telling. If, for instance, you drop weights off the side of the leaning tower of Pisa, you can measure the time it takes for them to fall, over and over, until you are confident you know what happens; then you have some scientific data. You can compare that with similar experiments and see if the numbers reveal a pattern that applies to all the experiments, if so you have a law (doesn't matter if it is later revealed to be limited). These things can be checked and verified, or falsified, by anyone; it's objective, it's science. You can then make up any story you like to account for the measurements and the maths, it can be entirely personal, you may even get a few people to agree with you, but it will not affect either the data or the maths. Philosophy may be obsolete, but even hard nosed physicists put things into a context/story. Philosophers know this, and while many scientists can take it on the chin, it drives others nuts.

Agreed completely. However very few physicists nowadays are awake to the personal narrative that is science and blindly mistake their subjective maps for an objective territory. This was not the case for two of the greatest pioneers of early 20th century physics who understood perfectly well the limitations of what they were doing.

"It is the theory which determines what the observer will observe"....Albert Einstein

"It is NOT the role of the physicist to explain the universe but merely to determine what he can meaningfully say about its behaviour"...Niels Bohr.

[Dubious]

Insofar as science is concerned, philosophy has nothing to say, provides zero input and only commentary after the fact. This is not the way it used to be but nothing is the way it used to be. Among the sciences wherever philosophy is inflected it distorts to become virtually useless. Philosophy now is like an over aged prima donna who has lost her voice...more academic than vital.

[uwot]

Insofar as science is concerned, philosophy has nothing to say, provides zero input and only commentary after the fact.

I think the point Obvious Leo was making is that at least Einstein and Bohr were aware of ontology. This doesn't always appear to be so, nowadays. Do String Theorists, for example, actually believe that fundamental particles are 'made of' vibrating one dimensional 'strings', or do they posit them as a mathematical tool, which they hope will provide observable results?
Either position is a philosophical belief, because there is no (currently conceivable) experiment that can prove either way.
The post observation interpretation, the story telling, makes no difference to the scientific 'fact', the phenomenon that is observable to anyone, and in that respect is 'useless', but it gives a context in which to direct research. Without such 'philosophy' all you have is a stream of 'meaningless' data.

[Obvious Leo]

Insofar as science is concerned, philosophy has nothing to say, provides zero input and only commentary after the fact. This is not the way it used to be but nothing is the way it used to be. Among the sciences wherever philosophy is inflected it distorts to become virtually useless. Philosophy now is like an over aged prima donna who has lost her voice...more academic than vital.

Sadly I agree with this and I regard it as the greatest tragedy to befall science since the publication of Newton's "Principia Mathematica", which heralded the death of human reason in the conduct of human affairs.

[Obvious Leo]

Do String Theorists, for example, actually believe that fundamental particles are 'made of' vibrating one dimensional 'strings', or do they posit them as a mathematical tool, which they hope will provide observable results?

The modern-day geeks have ontologised their tool-kit and regard their maps as synonymous with the territory. They wouldn't know what an ontology was if it jumped up and bit them on the arse.

[Dubious]

Do String Theorists, for example, actually believe that fundamental particles are 'made of' vibrating one dimensional 'strings', or do they posit them as a mathematical tool, which they hope will provide observable results?

It's given a probability status but at this time remains a mathematical tool as you say, one which seems viable within the context of other theories but still quite tentative.

Either position is a philosophical belief, because there is no (currently conceivable) experiment that can prove either way. The post observation interpretation, the story telling, makes no difference to the scientific 'fact', the phenomenon that is observable to anyone, and in that respect is 'useless', but it gives a context in which to direct research. Without such 'philosophy' all you have is a stream of 'meaningless' data.

Since philosophy did not create the theory it cannot be relegated to being a mere philosophical one just because proof is not available. There is a scientific reason for its existence which is not due to any philosophic speculation. The lack of any confirming experiment does not create a philosophical belief in its place. That's one good example of what I mean by distortion.

[Gary Childress]

Currently in the middle of reading, A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss. My question is whether science could survive without the aid and sympathy of philosophy departments fending off attacks from so called "skeptics" of science? I sort of wonder if Krauss has an accurate picture of most philosophy departments in the US which, if I'm not mistaken, are generally committed to the "analytical approach" to philosophy. When I went to school I didn't really get the picture that analytic philosophy is anything but an admirer of science and its achievements. So I guess I'm wondering if Krauss isn't mischaracterizing much of philosophy.

[Obvious Leo]

I should think that the title of Larry Krauss' book should tell us about as much as we need to know about his credentials as a commentator on matters of philosophy. However in general the title does make a bit a bit more sense than the content.

[HexHammer]

I should think that the title of Larry Krauss' book should tell us about as much as we need to know about his credentials as a commentator on matters of philosophy. However in general the title does make a bit a bit more sense than the content.

Pure nonsense, it should be obvious that titles doesn't prevent people from speaking nonsense. If you believe in titles, then you are unusually gullible.