Quote,Dr Mc Watt (decontexted);;
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."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adrie
Nice to hear that you are interested in these matters, Ant,because they are
of the utmost importance.
Hawking likes controverses,he likes to stir them up, feeding them,make them
to gain momentum,"gods redundancy";;;;etc.
Controverses sell books, they really do.His biggest complaint however is to
be taken really seriously,namely that'philosophy is dead', but now we
should attempt to
avoid the momentum of the controverses,and searching for the correct
nuances.It is true for this moment that philosophy,or
more specific, philosophers themselves and their products failed to become
an exact science,yes , still today philosophy is niching
itself alongside astrology,tarot and magical thinking to be accepted as a
form of reality.
The way things evolve, if one observes the whole , one can only conclude
that philosophy failed to provide important answers.
Philosophy did not fail, howevern to keep asking questions, just as science
does.The queste for reality is the same altogether.
But lets face it,science is nowhere without the tougts behind it, an
Hawking, raging against philosophy before 'a brief history;;;'happily fills
the book with mostly philosophical toughts, underscored with the
mathematical background in his pocket.
At least Pirsig, in 'Lila' to say the least, is attempting to make
philosophy a more exact science with his train,dynamic/static and Quality
as a proposal for locomotion of reality,much to shy really,he shelters the
locomotiv in a number of generalisations.
Bad idea of Robert to stop writing and publishing thereafter.It was more
than worth pursuing and persisting, and maybe one of the reasons
Mr Buchanan is always hammering on the exact formulation of the
locomotiv.He has a hart for philosophy that is kept away from the
occultism/theis some here seem to probe for.
quote again
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...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Adrie
Nice , Ant,well given the succes of books like brief history etc,and
philosophical science in general,there is room and space for
physiks to live aside philosophy and vice versa, without toughts behind the
mathematical framework, the queste for the holy grail of reality
would halt, it would become "null" or mu, pointless.
Hmm, having read your Phd, i found the considerable amount of..., is a bit
shy but the initial interest is there....
Is there any charm in quantum physiks or in physiks or in general
relativity without a science philosopher to translate it
back to understandable language? personally i don't think so.
oops my time is gone for today, have to work again.
greetzz,adrie
2014-03-19 4:00 GMT+01:00 Ant McWatt <[email protected]>:
> (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?
>
>
> .
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