Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
Every AI scientist, category theorist or semioticist, and cognitive psychologist just tries to redo the work of Aristotle or Spinoza with different names and in a donwgraded way, to fit the fashion prejudices and the needs of this time, that includes extreme reductionist scientifists like you. 2013/9/11 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Einstein read Kant, and loved Spinoza, and admit his influence in his own research. He may have read and loved detective stories too. Einstein was interested in things other than science, like politics, and those thinkers may have helped him there, but not in his serious work. As for Spinoza, this is what Richard Feynman had to say: My son is taking a course in philosophy, and last night we were looking at something by Spinoza and there was the most childish reasoning! There were all these attributes, and Substances, and all this meaningless chewing around, and we started to laugh. Now how could we do that? Here's this great Dutch philosopher, and we're laughing at him. It's because there's no excuse for it! In the same period there was Newton, there was Harvey studying the circulation of the blood, there were people with methods of analysis by which progress was being made! You can take every one of Spinoza's propositions, and take the contrary propositions, and look at the world and you can't tell which is right. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Unexpected Hanging
Time for some philosophy then :) Here's a paradox that's making me lose sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox Probably many of you already know about it. What mostly bothers me is the epistemological crisis that this introduces. I cannot find a problem with the reasoning, but it's clearly false. So I know that I don't know why this reasoning is false. Now, how can I know if there are other types of reasoning that I don't even know that I don't know that they are correct? Cheers, Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
In a conference Dennet said that a country with religious soldiers would be defeated by a country ruled by engineers and economists . the audience were well trained and educated atheists, but they couldn´t avoid to laugh loudly at the end of the phrase. The problem with Dennet and in general with the analytical philosophers that are after to the discoveries of experimental science, is the renounce to hypothesize and even to despise whatever the experiemental science still don´t know. They have Cartesian Blindness. But scientists, at least the bright ones are not blind. They ask themselves new questions and assume hypothesis that others may discuss. THe scientist did not studied religion. Therefore Dennet despise religion. David Sloan Wilson is a evolutionary scientist that study religion from an evolutionary point of view.. What DSW discovered was against the prejudices of Dennet, However Dennet accepted the arguments of DSW (there are some videos out there), but that did not changed his prejudices. It is too old and has invested too much on that. Instead of extracting the consequences and going further, creating new hypothesis for the advance of knowledge. The classical philosopher is different. He confront the questions that arrive to his mind directly. And what the classical philosopher as itself is how to live, and this means to know himself and the other like him. That means to discover the human mind and the highest level. And because in order to live he act and think, he tries to know consciously what he do unconsciously when he do and feel things. That introspection method is valid and good because he find that what he discover has a lot of common things with what others say about their own introspections. The concepts , entities o and their relation are the same. there are differences in the rank of them and their names. This means that these concepts are universal. For all humans. For sure, the modern reductionst scientists will advance and study higher level phenomena, and one day will aknowledge the work of the classical philosophers. That is just happening now with the evolutionary scientists. 2013/9/12 Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com Every AI scientist, category theorist or semioticist, and cognitive psychologist just tries to redo the work of Aristotle or Spinoza with different names and in a donwgraded way, to fit the fashion prejudices and the needs of this time, that includes extreme reductionist scientifists like you. 2013/9/11 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Einstein read Kant, and loved Spinoza, and admit his influence in his own research. He may have read and loved detective stories too. Einstein was interested in things other than science, like politics, and those thinkers may have helped him there, but not in his serious work. As for Spinoza, this is what Richard Feynman had to say: My son is taking a course in philosophy, and last night we were looking at something by Spinoza and there was the most childish reasoning! There were all these attributes, and Substances, and all this meaningless chewing around, and we started to laugh. Now how could we do that? Here's this great Dutch philosopher, and we're laughing at him. It's because there's no excuse for it! In the same period there was Newton, there was Harvey studying the circulation of the blood, there were people with methods of analysis by which progress was being made! You can take every one of Spinoza's propositions, and take the contrary propositions, and look at the world and you can't tell which is right. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On 11 Sep 2013, at 20:37, meekerdb wrote: On 9/11/2013 4:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 10 Sep 2013, at 19:45, meekerdb wrote: On 9/10/2013 1:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Today we know that science proves nothing about reality, but it can refute theories, and it can provides evidences for theories, but not automatically the truth. Scientific theories are certainly not automatically the truth. But to say science proves *nothing* about reality is ridiculous. It might depend what we mean by reality. If reality is defined by a model of arithmetic, then we can agree that science can prove statements having the shape: if there is a reality, then there is an infinity of prime numbers, and that might be an example. But usually we prove propositions inside theories, That's your Platonist dogma. Not at all. It is a common definition of proving. It is always in a theory. Observation can only lead to conceiving, choosing or abandoning a theory. I know many people use proof in larger sense, but this very fact explains the mess here, around epistemology. You can only prove propositions inside theories by assuming some axioms from which to prove them. The scientific method is prove theories (in the original sense of test) by observation. That's how Galileo proved the moon was not a perfect celestial sphere: he observed craters on it. He just refuted the theory that the moon was a perfect sphere. and it is always a sort of bet that such theories really apply to reality. Sure, because the axioms and the rules of inference are never certain. But when you make an empirical observation you are interacting with reality if there's any reality at all. OK. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 6:30 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.comwrote: In a conference Dennet said that a country with religious soldiers would be defeated by a country ruled by engineers and economists. There is certainly some truth in that. Religion can make otherwise sane people suicidal and suicidal people make for excellent cannon fodder. You are unlikely to deliberately crash an airliner into a skyscraper unless you think you're going to get 77 virgins in the afterlife. David Sloan Wilson is a evolutionary scientist that study religion from an evolutionary point of view. It sounds to me that Dennet has also studied religion from an evolutionary point of view, the mindless suicidal soldier may be a reason that religion evolved. Dennet despise religion. Proving that not all philosophers are fools, just most of them. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On 11 Sep 2013, at 21:25, John Clark wrote: On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 5:41 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: My point was just that the verdict against Galileo was rational, or Popperian. I don't believe that Karl Popper was as deep a thinker as many on this list do, but I don't think he was as big a fool as THAT! It is question of historical facts. The Church asks Galileo to mention that his proposal was a theory. It is not important, because the motivation of the Church was not based on a respect of Reason. Just that Feyerabend was correct on this (at least). Aristotle was refuted, but this is usual in science. It does not make him bad, on the contrary. None of Aristotle's ideas about physics were even close to being correct and could have been easily refuted even in his own day, but instead it was held as the gospel truth for almost 2000 years. And probably Aristotle might have some responsibility for this. But being refuted is a glory, in science. It means that you have succeeded to be read (not always obvious), and have been enough precise to be wrong. As Bertrand Russell said: Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. Great genius makes big mistakes. You can't judge people by singling out their stupidities. Physics would have been better off if Aristotle had never been born. You don't know that. Perhaps, as Plato was more correct with respect to comp, but science might need to do detours. Also, in theology, you are the one still under the influence of Aristotle, which I think was due to a lack of understanding of Plato. By Aristotelian I just mean the theories which assume an ontological physical universe. I asked you this before but got no answer, if the physical universe does not exist how would things be different if it did? If the physical universe did not exist there would be no Moon, no Earth, no Sun, no atoms, no John Clark, and well things would be rather different. But I was talking about the Aristotelian Physical Universe. This one needs, by definition, to be assumed as a *primitive* entity. That one imposes physicalism. If that one would exist, and if there is no flaw in my proposal, then we cannot be digital machine, and most probably could not evolve through evolution, and things would also be different. I don't know, but my point here is that it is indirectly testable. By Platonist theories I mean the theories which do not assume a physical universe and which try to explain the appearance of it from something else. Then I am a Platonist and so is everybody who has half a brain because clearly the appearance of something is not the same as the thing itself. The sound of broken glass is not broken glass, the look of broken glass is not broken glass, the feel of broken glass is not broken glass. What IS broken glass? I don't have a complete answer but It must have stable properties of some sort or I wouldn't be able to identify it as a thing. I don't understand why physical universe isn't a good name for that collection of properties. The difference is the following. Some say there is a broken glass, but forbid you to ask why there is a broken glass?. That is what some materialist, and all physicalist are doing for the notion of physical universe. They say that we cannot find an explanation of the origin of the physical laws, and insult as irremediably idiot anyone trying to search on that problem. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Unexpected Hanging
On Thursday, September 12, 2013 11:56:12 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 12 Sep 2013, at 11:33, Telmo Menezes wrote: Time for some philosophy then :) Here's a paradox that's making me lose sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox Probably many of you already know about it. What mostly bothers me is the epistemological crisis that this introduces. I cannot find a problem with the reasoning, but it's clearly false. So I know that I don't know why this reasoning is false. Now, how can I know if there are other types of reasoning that I don't even know that I don't know that they are correct? Smullyan argues, in Forever Undecided, rather convincingly, that it is the Epimenides paradox in disguise, It's the symbol grounding problem too. From a purely quantitative perspective, a truth can only satisfy some condition. The expectation of truth being true is not a condition of arithmetic truth, it is a boundary condition that belongs to sense. Computers cannot lie intentionally, they can only report a local truth which is misinterpreted as being false in some sense that is not local to the computation. For the same reason, computers cannot intend to tell the truth either. As in the Chinese Room - the output of a program is not known by the program to be true, it simply is a report of the truth of some internal process. The interesting part is that besides being true locally, the computer's report is also true arithmetically, which is to say that it is true two ways (or senses): 1) the most specific/proprietary sense which is unique, private, instantaneous and local 2) the most universal/generic sense which is promiscuous, public, eternal, and omni-local The computer's report is, however not true in any sense in between, i.e. in any sense which relates specifically to real experienced events in space time. Real events in spacetime (which occur orthogonally through mass-energy, or rather mass-energy is the orthogonal cross section of events) are: 3) semi-unique, semi-private, semi-spatiotemporal, semi-local, semi-specific, semi-universal. Thanks, Craig and so it can be said to be solved in the same way (by Tarski theorem and Gödel's theorem), at least for self-referentially correct machine. I can follow Smullyan here, but I think also that this form of Epimenides, by the use of time, run probably deeper, and that it might lead to deeper explanations. In fact intensional fixed point à-la- Rosser are probably closer to it (we might come back on this, it is technical). Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Unexpected Hanging
On 12 Sep 2013, at 11:33, Telmo Menezes wrote: Time for some philosophy then :) Here's a paradox that's making me lose sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox Probably many of you already know about it. What mostly bothers me is the epistemological crisis that this introduces. I cannot find a problem with the reasoning, but it's clearly false. So I know that I don't know why this reasoning is false. Now, how can I know if there are other types of reasoning that I don't even know that I don't know that they are correct? Smullyan argues, in Forever Undecided, rather convincingly, that it is the Epimenides paradox in disguise, and so it can be said to be solved in the same way (by Tarski theorem and Gödel's theorem), at least for self-referentially correct machine. I can follow Smullyan here, but I think also that this form of Epimenides, by the use of time, run probably deeper, and that it might lead to deeper explanations. In fact intensional fixed point à-la- Rosser are probably closer to it (we might come back on this, it is technical). Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Feyerabend was correct on this (at least). I ask myself why in the 21'th century would any educated man agree with a certified jackass like Feyerabend who said the church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself and Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just? I can only think of 2 explanations for this very odd behavior: 1) The person does not really agree that the church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself or that Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just. Thus he was only trying to be provocative. 2) The person sincerely believes that the church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself and Its verdict against Galileo was rational. Thus he is just not very bright. I hope #1 is the explanation because as I have said, sincerity is a vastly overrated virtue but intelligence is not. None of Aristotle's ideas about physics were even close to being correct and could have been easily refuted even in his own day, but instead it was held as the gospel truth for almost 2000 years. And probably Aristotle might have some responsibility for this. But being refuted is a glory, in science. It means that you have succeeded to be read People read what pornographers have to say too. and have been enough precise to be wrong. OK good point, I'll give you that. in theology, To hell with theology! you are the one still under the influence of Aristotle, which I think was due to a lack of understanding of Plato. To hell with Aristotle and Plato! Plato was more correct with respect to comp To hell with comp! If the physical universe did not exist there would be no Moon, no Earth, no Sun, no atoms, no John Clark, and well things would be rather different. Well, things are not different so logically we can only conclude that the physical universe does exist. Now that we've got that settled let's move on to other more interesting things. That is what some materialist, and all physicalist are doing for the notion of physical universe. They say that we cannot find an explanation of the origin of the physical laws, Straw man, I don't know anybody who is saying that. Science, or at least theoretical physics, is all about explaining physical laws in terms of other more general laws. Either this process goes on forever like a infinitely nested Russian doll, or it does not go on forever and come to a end and some things are just fundamental and it is pointless when you reach that level to ask what is it made of?. One of those things must be true, I don't know which one and nobody else does either. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Unexpected Hanging
Which reasoning is clearly false? Here's what I'm thinking: 1) The conclusion I won't be surprised to be hanged Friday if I am not hanged by Thursday creates another proposition to be surprised about. By leaving the condition of 'surprise' open ended, it could include being surprised that the judge lied, or any number of other soft contingencies that could render an 'unexpected' outcome. The condition of expectation isn't an objective phenomenon, it is a subjective inference. Objectively, there is no surprise as objects don't anticipate anything. 2) If we want to close in tightly on the quantitative logic of whether deducibility can be deduced - given five coin flips and a certainty that one will be heads, each successive tails coin flip increases the odds that one the remaining flips will be heads. The fifth coin will either be 100% likely to be heads, or will prove that the certainty assumed was 100% wrong. I think the paradox hinges on 1) the false inference of objectivity in the use of the word surprise and 2) the false assertion of omniscience by the judge. It's like an Escher drawing. In real life, surprise cannot be predicted with certainty and the quality of unexpectedness it is not an objective thing, just as expectation is not an objective thing. Or not? Craig On Thursday, September 12, 2013 5:33:24 AM UTC-4, telmo_menezes wrote: Time for some philosophy then :) Here's a paradox that's making me lose sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox Probably many of you already know about it. What mostly bothers me is the epistemological crisis that this introduces. I cannot find a problem with the reasoning, but it's clearly false. So I know that I don't know why this reasoning is false. Now, how can I know if there are other types of reasoning that I don't even know that I don't know that they are correct? Cheers, Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:15 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Feynman was very bad in philosophy. Even in the philosophy of QM, he has avoided all questions, and only put in footnote some remarks showing that he did not believe in the wave collapse. He added often: don't try to understand what happens, Nature just acts like that ... That is bad philosophy Maybe, but he wasn't a professional philosopher, thank goodness. While others were contemplating their navels and doing nothing but saying the same thing over and over quantum mechanics is weird Feynman was trying to figure it out. and bad science. BULLSHIT! Feynman predicted in 1948 that the magnetic moment of an electron can't be exactly 1 in Dirac units as had been thought because it is effected by an infinite (and I do mean infinite and not just astronomical) number of virtual particles. He brilliantly figured out a way to calculate this effect and do so in a finite amount of time, he calculated it must be 1.00115965246, while the best experimental value found much later is 1.00115965221. That's like measuring the distance between Los Angeles and New York to the thickness of a human hair, and Feynman got it right just by using his mind. That's too good to be a coincidence, Feynman must have been onto something good. Let's see a good philosopher like your pal Feyerabend beat that! John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
2013/9/12 John Clark johnkcl...@gmail.com On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 6:30 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.comwrote: In a conference Dennet said that a country with religious soldiers would be defeated by a country ruled by engineers and economists. There is certainly some truth in that. Religion can make otherwise sane people suicidal and suicidal people make for excellent cannon fodder. You are unlikely to deliberately crash an airliner into a skyscraper unless you think you're going to get 77 virgins in the afterlife. I don't understand what you argue here, because it seems you argue the contrary of the quote... ie a country with religious soldiers would defeat a country ruled by engineers and economists instead of a country with religious soldiers would be defeated by a country ruled by engineers and economists... which truth are you referring to ? There is certainly some truth in that ? Quentin David Sloan Wilson is a evolutionary scientist that study religion from an evolutionary point of view. It sounds to me that Dennet has also studied religion from an evolutionary point of view, the mindless suicidal soldier may be a reason that religion evolved. Dennet despise religion. Proving that not all philosophers are fools, just most of them. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Unexpected Hanging
On 9/12/2013 2:33 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: Time for some philosophy then :) Here's a paradox that's making me lose sleep: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox Probably many of you already know about it. What mostly bothers me is the epistemological crisis that this introduces. I cannot find a problem with the reasoning, but it's clearly false. So I know that I don't know why this reasoning is false. Now, how can I know if there are other types of reasoning that I don't even know that I don't know that they are correct? The wiki article gives most resolutions of the antinomy. The logical contradiction is seen most clearly in case of the man who says to his wife, Here's your anniversary present. You'll be completely surprised by what it is when you open it. It's diamond earrings. So, does the wife reason that she'll be surprised, yet he's said it's diamond earrings; so it can't be diamond earrings because then she wouldn't be surprised. Then she opens the box and it's diamond earrings AND she's surprised. It just shows that if you reason from contradictory statements you can arrive at any conclusion. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On 9/12/2013 3:30 AM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: In a conference Dennet said that a country with religious soldiers would be defeated by a country ruled by engineers and economists . the audience were well trained and educated atheists, but they couldn´t avoid to laugh loudly at the end of the phrase. He said that by way of making a provocative introduction. If you watch the rest of his talk it's clear he doesn't believe it's necessarily so. The problem with Dennet and in general with the analytical philosophers that are after to the discoveries of experimental science, is the renounce to hypothesize and even to despise whatever the experiemental science still don´t know. They have Cartesian Blindness. But scientists, at least the bright ones are not blind. They ask themselves new questions and assume hypothesis that others may discuss. THe scientist did not studied religion. Therefore Dennet despise religion. David Sloan Wilson is a evolutionary scientist that study religion from an evolutionary point of view.. What DSW discovered was against the prejudices of Dennet, I've read both of them, and Scott Atran and Loyal Rue, and I don't see that Wilson or the others found anything contradicting Dennett. However Dennet accepted the arguments of DSW (there are some videos out there), but that did not changed his prejudices. It is too old and has invested too much on that. Instead of extracting the consequences and going further, creating new hypothesis for the advance of knowledge. Dennett also studies religion and even wrote a book recommending more study of religion,Breaking the Spell. He's currently conducting The Clergy Project. The classical philosopher is different. He confront the questions that arrive to his mind directly. And what the classical philosopher as itself is how to live, and this means to know himself and the other like him. That means to discover the human mind and the highest level. And because in order to live he act and think, he tries to know consciously what he do unconsciously when he do and feel things. That introspection method is valid and good because he find that what he discover has a lot of common things with what others say about their own introspections. The concepts , entities o and their relation are the same. there are differences in the rank of them and their names. This means that these concepts are universal. For all humans. That was certainly the method of philosophers like Hume and Nietzche - both of whom despised religion and specifically the Abrahamic religions. For sure, the modern reductionst scientists will advance and study higher level phenomena, and one day will aknowledge the work of the classical philosophers. That is just happening now with the evolutionary scientists. Holistic science has always been the refuge of charlatans and snake oil salesmen. If it were going to be useful anywhere you would expect it to be in the humanities, but you're a fool if you hire a holistic lawyer to defend you. Brent I have often thought that people who believe in alternative medicine should fly in airplanes designed by people who believe in alternative physics. --- Terence Geogahegan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On 9/12/2013 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The difference is the following. Some say there is a broken glass, but forbid you to ask why there is a broken glass?. That is what some materialist, and all physicalist are doing for the notion of physical universe. They say that we cannot find an explanation of the origin of the physical laws, and insult as irremediably idiot anyone trying to search on that problem. There seems to be a lot of attributing of opinions to others. My friend Vic Stenger, who's about as reductionist and physicalist as one can be, has written a book, The Comprehensible Cosmos about the origin of physical laws, which he says are just models we create. I don't know of any physicist who insists that we cannot find an explanation for physical laws - although very few of them think the probability of success makes the study a wise choice. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:18 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/12/2013 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The difference is the following. Some say there is a broken glass, but forbid you to ask why there is a broken glass?. That is what some materialist, and all physicalist are doing for the notion of physical universe. They say that we cannot find an explanation of the origin of the physical laws, and insult as irremediably idiot anyone trying to search on that problem. There seems to be a lot of attributing of opinions to others. My friend Vic Stenger, who's about as reductionist and physicalist as one can be, has written a book, The Comprehensible Cosmos about the origin of physical laws, which he says are just models we create. I don't know of any physicist who insists that we cannot find an explanation for physical laws - Ok but... although very few of them think the probability of success makes the study a wise choice. Doesn't this make the point? Their positions influence research/funding and low probability means practically stupid... also, how should anyone about probabilities with such a question? Not hubris? PGC Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: What gives philosophers a bad name?
On 9/12/2013 6:42 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:18 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 9/12/2013 8:08 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The difference is the following. Some say there is a broken glass, but forbid you to ask why there is a broken glass?. That is what some materialist, and all physicalist are doing for the notion of physical universe. They say that we cannot find an explanation of the origin of the physical laws, and insult as irremediably idiot anyone trying to search on that problem. There seems to be a lot of attributing of opinions to others. My friend Vic Stenger, who's about as reductionist and physicalist as one can be, has written a book, The Comprehensible Cosmos about the origin of physical laws, which he says are just models we create. I don't know of any physicist who insists that we cannot find an explanation for physical laws - Ok but... although very few of them think the probability of success makes the study a wise choice. Doesn't this make the point? Their positions influence research/funding and low probability means practically stupid... also, how should anyone about probabilities with such a question? Not hubris? PGC You're perfectly free to pursue the subject. Everybody has to decide for themselves how to spend their life. I don't think they owe you an explanation for their decision. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
