And to join the dots with the other thread, In my recent post "Hold Your Definition", reviewing Dennett's "Intuition Pumps" he also says
"One of my guilty pleasures is watching eminent scientists, who only a few years ago expressed withering contempt for philosophy, stumble embarrassingly in their own efforts to set the world straight [...] with a few briskly argued extrapolations from their own scientific research. Even better is when they request, and acknowledge, a little help from us philosophers." Hawking, Dawkins, Krauss, they're no philosophers, 'cept maybe the "arrogant Platonic kind" and that school should be dead. Ian On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 3:00 AM, Ant McWatt <[email protected]> wrote: > (In the context of Stephen Hawking quoting ZMM as an inspiration for his 1988 > popular science text "A Brief History of Time") Ant McWatt referenced the > following article, March 7th 2014: > > http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/08/science/la-sci-sn-stephen-hawking-new-book-20130908 > > > John Carl commented, March 8th 2014: > > Somebody copped you to the fact that Hawking is not my favorite guy - > something to do with this statement that philosophy is dead no doubt. Would > you be happy over the pronouncement of the decease of your true love? > > > Ant McWatt comments: > > John, > > When Stephen Hawking's comment that "philosophy is dead" is put in its wider > context, I couldn't agree more. Philip Goff, a young philosopher at my old > Department helpfully provides this context for us: > > "I don't imagine that Hawking is in a hurry to answer this philosophical > challenge. The opening page of his book proclaims that "philosophy is dead", > due to the fact that philosophers have failed to keep up with mathematical > developments in physics. This doesn't stop him, and his co-writer > Leonard Mlodinow, indulging in some very crude philosophical discussions of > free will and metaphysical realism in later chapters. Hawking is right to > say that most philosophers don't understand cutting-edge physics. But it cuts > both ways: most physicists don't understand cutting-edge philosophy." > > http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/30/stephen-hawking-disproved-gods-role-creation > > > Ant McWatt comments: > > For anyone who has read my Ph.D., they will realise by the time they reach > the addendum ("The MOQ & Time") that there is a considerable amount of > physics in the thesis - so much so, in fact, that I think it's really more a > philosophy major/physics minor Ph.D. than a pure philosophy one. > > Well, with that in mind, I'll tell anyone that it is interested that most, if > not all of the physics in the text, went over my examiners heads. I was > actually rather disappointed in their lack of interest in the latter as I > thought - just like Prof. Hawking - that these people (being "professional > philosophers") should really be "getting a handle" on what modern science > tells us about reality. Anyway, I certainly lost some respect for most > "professional philosophers" at this point. The phrase "professional > dilettante" sprang to mind... > > No matter, "that was zen and this is now". I haven't read enough of Stephen > Hawking's philosophical work to make an opinion about it but I'd rather start > from his intellectual position than the average philosophologist. > > > So Ant, what got you interested in physics? > > Well, good question. When I started my Ph.D. studies, I was sharing a > students' house in Liverpool with a French guy who was taking a pure > physics degree and he left his textbooks on quantum mechanics by Richard > Feynman lying around the house. What initially caught my eye about Feynman's > textbooks is that the introductions had the guy pictured playing bongos! > WTF!!! > > This famous image of Feynman is now featured on the front cover of some of > the newer editions of his lectures as can be seen via the following link: > > http://www.flipkart.com/feynman-lectures-physics-definitive-volume-3-2nd/p/itmdytsuajzf96vm > > The same physics student also got me into the music of the rather cool Serge > Gainsbourg and the rather lovely Jane Birkin but that's another story... > > Gitane anyone? > > > . > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
