I can say that when I write or speak 'gronk' I mean or refer to horse. Of course that would be of no importance to public discourse, but it's not in any way confusing as far as I can tell. (Of course this purportedly private meaning would really be a public meaning insofar as it denotes horse; a denotation that would be impossible without the public language already being in place). — Janus

I agree that you could do that, and we do use 'mean' that way often enough. You make a good point at the end, which incidentally Wittgenstein also made.

What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word 'tooth-ache'."—Well, let's assume the child is a genius and itself invents a name for the sensation! —But then, of course, he couldn't make himself understood when he used the word.—So does he understand the name, without being able to explain its meaning to anyone?—But what does it mean to say that he has 'named his pain'?—How has he done this naming of pain?! And whatever he did, what was its purpose?—When one says "He gave a name to his sensation" one forgets that a great deal of stagesetting in the language is presupposed if the mere act of naming is to make sense. And when we speak of someone's having given a name to pain, what is presupposed is the existence of the grammar of the word "pain"; it shews the post where the new word is stationed.

How do you think it is problematic? — Janus

It's not a practical problem, but philosophically the concept-as-immaterial-referent doesn't seem very useful. By definition, we can't check such referents directly.

It may be an oversimplification, but I think a good path into Wittgenstein involves thinking of human communication as if it were just the communication of another, less complicated animal. Let's see how far we can get without immaterial referents that may be no more rational or useful than phlogiston.

What Wittgenstein shows is that words do not have such fixed meanings. We do not decide conclusively if two temporally separated instances are or are not the very same thing, we just decide to use words to treat them one way or the other, depending on what we need to do. — Banno

:up:

Behaviorism is built on certain hinges that we don't verify. — frank

Sure. I'd say that (roughy) we reason from uncontroversial statements toward more controversial statements.

"The rat pushed the lever." This is something that anyone in the room could agree or disagree with, or so we typically think. A philosopher could muck even this up, but we can't afford to humor the radical skeptic all the time. ("How do we know it's the same rat from instant to instant? Maybe a different but extremely similar rat is teleported into the place of the rat of the previous instant?")

Economy is central here. What can we afford to doubt? What's the cost of the claimed difference? And so on.

What I want you to do is turn the above around on the world you see around you. You have no warrant for saying you're not a brain in a vat. — frank

It would be a difference that makes no difference. The vat theory just slaps a different token on the whole of experience without changing its internal structure. It's all mind. It's all matter. It's all a dream. These are information-poor statements. When does a child learn that physical objects exist? When the goo is slapped out of his newborn lungs or when he reads a history of philosophy? Or?

In all the most significant ways, skepticism about mental states is the same as skepticism about external states. — frank

If external just means public, then I don't see why this would be true.

You're the one who introduced animal communications into the conversation, as if that were meaningful in respect of the nature of language and conceptual thought. — Wayfarer

I stand by that. It makes sense to look at simpler animals and their communication for the foundations of our own.

Now you're appealing to 'survival' as if that is a criteria of what is true. As if the only criteria you have for deciding 'what is true' is 'what contributes to survival'. — Wayfarer

The point is merely to stress that communication is situated in a world, and that it helps organisms survive in their difficult world by synchronizing their behavior. I don't think it's helpful to understand the meaning of "true" as "whatever helps one survive." (I don't have some final theory or definition of truth. I use the word as an animal might use its claw, in many different context-dependent ways.)

But this is simply taking evolutionary theory as a philosophy, which it isn't. — Wayfarer

Well it has been taken that way by some perhaps, but it's not what I'm about. Perhaps you are projecting one of your favorite foils inappropriately. To me it seems that you are reading gray as black. Yes, I think of humans as the most complicated of currently-known animals, with communication that's fundamentally about thriving in this world (which presupposes surviving in it.) The rest seems to be stuff you've added on (like the "true" is "whatever allows us to survive", etc.)

Correct me, but wouldn't Wittgenstein advise that we don't have a vantage point on ourselves necessary to diagnose behaviorism? — frank

I don't think I understand you here. In case it helps,

Why would anyone be a behaviorist?

The first reason is epistemic or evidential. Warrant or evidence for saying, at least in the third person case, that an animal or person is in a certain mental state, for example, possesses a certain belief, is grounded in behavior, understood as observable behavior. Moreover, the conceptual space or step between the claim that behavior warrants the attribution of belief and the claim that believing consists in behavior itself is a short and in some ways appealing step. If we look, for example, at how people are taught to use mental concepts and terms—terms like “believe”, “desire”, and so on—conditions of use appear inseparably connected with behavioral tendencies in certain circumstances. If mental state attribution bears a special connection with behavior, it is tempting to say that mentality just consists in behavioral tendencies.

That's one way to grok "meaning is use." This is not intended to exhaust the use of the phrase.

In dropping talk of meaning in favour of talk about use, we demote stating rules in favour of enacting them. — Banno

:up:

Perhaps it's human vanity that prevents us from simply looking at social animals and seeing how their signals allow them to coordinate their behavior and therefore get fed or avoid becoming food, which is to say survive.

We might also consider how we humans survive, just like the other animals, by coordinating our efforts via words and other "low cost" signifying actions to wring out a living from our environment. (By "low cost" I mean it doesn't take many calories to give the location of a resource or a threat. It makes sense that something "cheap" like tongue-shaping air or wiggling the fingers would serve such a purpose.)

Meaning is not use, strictly speaking, but use indicates meaning. If I were to use a word in an eccentric way to refer to something other than its conventional referent or referents, then my use would indicate the alternative meaning I have assigned to the word. — Janus

I get what you are saying, but I think it's problematic to call some personally assigned referent an "alternative meaning." This is because it's best to think about "meaning" being something like the system of behavior and worldly entities that includes spoken or written words. The "meaning" of a stop sign is (something like) the fact that people stop at it most of the time. If there is a private mental accompaniment to that stopping, so be it, but it's not important.

(I've been suggesting that talk of referents is, in general, more misleading than helpful. Better, in rational discussions, to say with what is public.)

The urge for endless knowledge searching reigns Supreme on our planet. — GraveItty

This sounds grand and dramatic, but it boils down to clever primates constantly trying to make their lives a little better.

About half of humans died as children not that long ago. It also hasn't been all that long since we became aware of germs, learned how to make vaccines. The average person now lives better than royals did for centuries (neglecting of course the human tendencies toward vainglory and envy.)

In short, it's good to remain humble, but it's absurd to pretend that we've learned nothing while using a near-instantaneous global information network. (We're like rich brats, taking our inherited wealth for granted. (This doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for an even better lifestyle, one that treats the less fortunate, other animals, and our spaceship itself with more respect.))

Or, am I wrong in trying to frame philosophy as an alternative to religion? — Jack Cummins

I don't think you are wrong. Something like humanism replaces religion for a certain kind of philosopher (Hume & Hobbes both come to mind.) I'm not saying that they'd call it that, or that 'humanism' is some magically perfect name. Love him or hate him, I think Pinker's Enlightenment Now is a good example of what I have in mind. (Pinker annoys me when he writes about Nietzsche, and I think Hobbes and Hume are better writers/thinkers. I mention Pinker because he's alive and famous now, addressing contemporary concerns in the timely data-driven manner.)

@Wayfarer

I'm happy to talk more if you decide to be serious again.

ave a taste and see where it takes you. — Tom Storm

:up:

The point is to realize how little we know and actually recognize this. Even in science, many questions answered tends to lead to ten more questions. — Manuel

:up:
We might add an appreciation of the little we know, which has seriously improved things for the species so far.

Excellent juxtaposition!

Could you explain why? — frank

Sure. I'm not trying to play the skeptic, nor am I trying to found some theory of knowledge. You might say I'm emphasizing the behaviorist streak in Wittgenstein.

According to methodological behaviorism, reference to mental states, such as an animal’s beliefs or desires, adds nothing to what psychology can and should understand about the sources of behavior. Mental states are private entities which, given the necessary publicity of science, do not form proper objects of empirical study.
...
Analytical or logical behaviorism is a theory within philosophy about the meaning or semantics of mental terms or concepts. It says that the very idea of a mental state or condition is the idea of a behavioral disposition or family of behavioral tendencies, evident in how a person behaves in one situation rather than another. When we attribute a belief, for example, to someone, we are not saying that he or she is in a particular internal state or condition. Instead, we are characterizing the person in terms of what he or she might do in particular situations or environmental interactions. Analytical behaviorism may be found in the work of Gilbert Ryle (1900–76) and the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–51) (if perhaps not without controversy in interpretation, in Wittgenstein’s case).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/

IMO, people do think in terms of internal states, though I think it's better to translate this into dispositions...if and when we care about being rational and scientific, etc.

I have the usual sense of having an idea "in mind" and, like others, I'll talk about having a "realization." "Mental" language will always be with us. It's useful. So it's not about denying the existence of "what it's like to grasp a concept" or "what it's like to see red." It's about seeing the epistemological uselessness of this mysterious and yet banal stuff.

You mention "signs connected to signs." It's true that the dictionary gives only signs as the meaning of other signs, and so on. But let's remember the vervet monkeys. They are bodies in a world together. Their cries are connected to eagles and other predators (as well as evasive responses.)

I think you have the wrong idea about where I'm coming from.

It is just this 'third realm' which, I think, Wittgenstein wants to reject, on account of it being 'immaterial' or 'occult'. — Wayfarer

In my view, that's a common misunderstanding of critical philosophers in general. It's not religion as such or the immaterial as such that's a problem. The 'third realm' is rejected (or rather circumvented) because it's useless...like phlogiston, like the ether. I mean 'useless' in terms of ('rationally') justifying claims.

Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? -- In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceased to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.)

However, that words lack an essence doesn't entail that the referents of words lack an essence. Come to think of it, Wittgenstein seems to be rather confused about what philosophy is - philosophy is, all things considered, about essences (the referents of words) and not, I repeat not, about words that were meant to stand for those essences (referents). — TheMadFool

For many philosophy has been about something like essences. It's been something like a pseudo-science of folk science of such essences. Call them forms or universals or concepts.
It's not that Wittgenstein was too dull to grasp this dominant conception of philosophy. Instead he was too bright to miss what was wrong with it. He challenges that view directly.

Frege ridiculed the formalist conception of mathematics by saying that the formalists confused the unimportant thing, the sign, with the important, the meaning. Surely, one wishes to say, mathematics does not treat of dashes on a bit of paper. Frege's ideas could be expressed thus: the propositions of mathematics, if they were just complexes of dashes, would be dead and utterly uninteresting, whereas they obviously have a kind of life. And the same, of course, could be said of any propositions: Without a sense, or without the thought, a proposition would be an utterly dead and trivial thing. And further it seems clear that no adding of inorganic signs can make the proposition live. And the conclusion which one draws from this is that what must be added to the dead signs in order to make a live proposition is something immaterial, with properties different from all mere signs.

But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we have to say that it is its use.
If the meaning of the sign (roughly, that which is of importance about the sign) is an image built up in our minds when we see or hear the sign, then first let us adopt the method we just described of replacing this mental image by some outward object seen, e.g. a painted or modelled image. Then why should the written sign plus this painted image be alive if the written sign alone was dead? -- In fact, as soon as you think of replacing the mental image by, say, a painted one, and as soon as the image thereby loses its occult character, it ceased to seem to impart any life to the sentence at all. (It was in fact just the occult character of the mental process which you needed for your purposes.)

The mistake we are liable to make could be expressed thus: We are looking for the use of a sign, but we look for it as though it were an object co-existing with the sign. (One of reasons for this mistake is again that we are looking for a "thing corresponding to a substantive.")

The sign (the sentence) gets its significance from the system of signs, from the language to which it belongs. Roughly: understanding a sentence means understanding a language.

As a part of the system of language, one may say, the sentence has life. But one is tempted to imagine that which gives the sentence life as something in an occult sphere, accompanying the sentence. But whatever accompanied it would for us just be another sign. — Wittgenstein (Blue Book)

Wittgenstein's "tribes" are isolated peoples. Unlike the boy who knows something is happening that he does not quite understand, no one in this imagined tribe feels pain. There would be no pain behavior and no word for something that does not exist — Fooloso4

Interesting point, but I suggest that we have no way of knowing that we mean the same thing by 'pain' if we insist on acting as if we can be rational about something that is private by 'definition.' If you think of pain as a mysterious private something, you open the door to p-zombies, solipsism, and so on.

To be clear, I have the usual intuitive sense that I know what it's like to 'feel pain.' My point is that this is way too fuzzy to serve as the foundation of a theory of knowledge.

It can't be useless. For example, if there were no inner experience of pain, then there would be no language of pain, no outward sign. — Sam26

Note, though, that you assume that there is a singular held-in-common experience of pain. But this is "inner experience," which can't be compared and is "grammatically" invisible to reason and science. It's as if (quietly) we are after all reasoning from the undeniable singularity of the public token (category of marks and noises that are all classified as 'pain') to some singular referent.

If it weren't so common, I think we'd see the absurdity of it.

Shall we then call it an unnecessary hypothesis that anyone else has personal experiences? -- ... is this a philosophical, a metaphysical belief? Does a realist pity me more than an idealist or a solipsist?

Also:

The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible—though unverifiable—that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another. What am I to say about the word "red"?—that it means something 'confronting us all' and that everyone should really have another word, besides this one, to mean his own sensation of red? Or is it like this: the word "red" means something known to everyone; and in addition, for each person, it means something known only to him? (Or perhaps rather: it refers to something known only to him.) Of course, saying that the word "red" "refers to" instead of "means" something private does not help us in the least to grasp its function; but it is the more psychologically apt expression for a particular experience in doing philosophy. It is as if when I uttered the word I cast a sidelong glance at the private sensation, as it were in order to say to myself: I know all right what I mean by it.

You might say that philosophy got in a strange rut, the idea of private experience, while rarely noticing the impossibility of being rational or critical or scientific about the idiosyncractic-by-definition.

Excellent post. Thanks for the reply.

Animals don't have language. They have calls. — Wayfarer

You realize that we are animals, right? We tend to flatter ourselves that our communication is quasi-divine. Why are humans so sure that they don't also have calls, albeit impressively complicated? I mean...why are humans so sure that they know what they are talking about any better than the screeching vervet monkey?

There's no disputing the additional complexity. But imagine, as Voltaire might, an extraterrestrial that is to us as we are to the vervet monkey. Let's call them Gluons. Perhaps the Gluons will say "earthlings don't have language, they have calls." And then the spectacular Freons show up, scoffing at the vanity of Gluons.

But the point is not really to insult either humans or animals. I'm saying that looking at animals giving conventional signals for practical purposes is a path to something like the essence of Wittgenstein. Start from separate bodies in a world trying to work together. Build on that.

Language, in my humble opinion, was designed to field signs (words) that were then linked to referents (the essences of the things-in-themselves). — TheMadFool

'Designed'? Who designed it? Did Esperanto finally catch on? Instead it's probably more like this.

Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals (sender or senders) to one or more other animals (receiver or receivers) that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers....When the information from the sender changes the behavior of a receiver, the information is referred to as a "signal". Signalling theory predicts that for a signal to be maintained in the population, both the sender and receiver should usually receive some benefit from the interaction. Signal production by senders and the perception and subsequent response of receivers are thought to coevolve.
....
The vervet monkey gives a distinct alarm call for each of its four different predators, and the reactions of other monkeys vary appropriately according to the call. For example, if an alarm call signals a python, the monkeys climb into the trees, whereas the "eagle" alarm causes monkeys to seek a hiding place on the ground.
[\quote]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_communication

If there's a point to your post, sorry I didn't get it. — TheMadFool

That much is clear. I'll try again.

I'm pointed out languages as complicated systems of conventions that animals use to coordinate their behavior. We can babble about essences all day long and get nowhere. Phlogiston. We can call one of the vervet monkey's "warning cries" the "eagle" alarm, and even say that she 'means' or 'refers' to the eagle she sees. But this hypothesized essence is secondary to the conventional reaction of the other monkeys to the cry. The 'meaning' is there in the world in the way that the community of vervet monkeys use it.

Consider that it doesn't matter what the individual monkeys intend in some private monkey thought-space when giving or responding to the cry (doesn't matter what beetle if any they have in their box.) What they do is all the "understanding" that matters.

The sensation of pain does have direct bearing on the meaning of the word pain. Suppose there is one of Wittgenstein's tribes, one whose members do not feel pain. The term 'pain' would be meaningless. It is only because we have had the sensation of pain that we understand what the word means. — Fooloso4

Really? I find that claim strange. Imagine a boy who knows very little about female anatomy. He does know that women get their monthlies, and he knows that this is used as an explanation of moods, or as a reason to need privacy in a hurry.

There is no way to know if our inner experiences are the same except through our common reactions to these experiences....We can't peer into the mind to observe these inner experiences, and looking at brain activity does little to help in the way of describing the experience. — Sam26

Indeed, and we've embraced a use of "inner experiences" that makes them useless apart from this uselessness. (Or an ordinary kind of thing was rarefied into a metaphysical cliché.)

I don't think that Wittgenstein dismisses the inner sensation, but some people do think this is the case. — Sam26

It seems to me that the inner sensation is useless. It doesn't matter if we all have different beetles in our boxes or if some of us have no beetles. I like the epistemological as opposed to the ontological approach. When do we tend to agree that someone is in pain? Imagine, if you must, some essence of pain that outsiders can never access. Fine. Useless, but fine. So how do we actually judge ? Any of us could brainstorm some indicators (he's limping and grimacing, he tells us his leg hurts, etc.)
'Beetles' are something like phlogiston or the ether.

It can create arguments without the intrusion of linguistic uncertainty to cloud meaning, or otherwise bollocks things up. — Michael Zwingli

:up:

It says almost nothing extremely well! (I mean it sticks to something like a quantitative/logical skeleton of reality, the tendons & ligaments of which are the usual ugly prose.)

Words are signs, they stand for things. What they stand for is up to us, whatever we fancy that is. That's Wittgenstein. — TheMadFool

Words don't necessarily stand for things. The 'nomenclature theory' is a target for Wittgenstein (and for Saussure, incidentally). 'Meaning' is conventional, but 'language is received like the law', not what we, this generation, might like it be. We find ourselves in a network of practices, including 'iterable' mouth farts, and worldly objects built by others and not just 'natural'objects. We were 'thrown' into this way of chewing the air in 'that' situation, while handling these or those tools. It's all extremely messy, but somehow we keep the machine oiled and spinning.

Wittgenstein, was he a charlatan? A pseudo-philosopher? — TheMadFool

He was legit. The TLP might look like the work of mystic crank, but the later stuff is so unpretentious and readable...which doesn't mean trivial to understand...so what's the issue? The fame?

It's amazing how quickly he understood the implications of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem's right after his seminar. — Shawn

Yeah, that's what I had in mind. I also am becoming more interested in economics and game theory...as something like the heart of reality...and that makes me relate to him (on the level of interest anyway.) I also like CS, and he was deep in that. A god among men, a superman, an anomaly.

Exactly! The video I posted early, physicist Michio Kaku argues that IQ is merely "bookkeeping" ability. He mentions other forms of intelligence (such as planning and scheming) — Wheatley

Just watched it. Nice vid!

Yeah, and some problems require other brain abilities (besides IQ): coordination, organization, time management, rational thinking, etc.. — Wheatley

Right. So the test, maybe good for some things, is maybe just overblown.

"Smith just cured cancer. Now let's see what he can do with an IQ test...."

Have you heard of John Von Neumann? — Shawn

I've heard that Von Neumann was to brilliant people as brilliant people are to normal people, and it's the brilliant people who said so (and who else would be in a position to do so?).

Probably Von Neumann would or did destroy an IQ test, but that's trivial compared to the work he did, which is what surely impressed those brilliant people who could half-understand him (or rather understand him by taking much longer than he did to arrive at the thought.)

I've always felt it's counterintuitive that one person in fifty would have a genius level IQ. — Janus

I know what you mean. 'Genius' makes me think especially of artistic genius (Van Gogh, etc.). It's hilariously banal to apply this old word to someone who merely aces an abstract pattern recognition test. Obviously it's cool to do well, but still....

I don't think it was meant for vanity. There's a history of people misusing the IQ test (racism, eugenics). The test was originally used to help school children. I like what Steven Hawking said “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” — Wheatley

I can imagine practical uses for the test, like steering children through some system.

But when adults give it too much thought, I imagine they've never done intellectual work with smart people. When you are kid and no one trusts you with anything real, they give you a pencil and a test. In the real world, there are actual, difficult problems to be solved...as well as financial rewards for solving them (or the adoration of the curer of cancer, etc.)

I have read that Einstein's IQ was "only" about 160, but I don't know if he was tested or if it is an estimate. — Janus

I did a quick calculation. An IQ of 160 indicates that one scored better than about 97.72% of fellow test takers. This means that that roughly 2.28% of test takers score better than a 160 IQ.

EDIT: I mistakenly used SD = 30 as opposed to SD=15 in the calculation above. An IQ of 160 is very much in the top percentile.

In my opinion, a percentile score would be more informative and less misleading. It's not hard to do the conversion (https://onlinestatbook.com/2/calculators/normal_dist.html), but why not just percentiles to begin with? Or would that be too demystifying?

Thanks!

Psychometricians generally regard IQ tests as having high statistical reliability.[14][82] Reliability represents the measurement consistency of a test.[83] A reliable test produces similar scores upon repetition.[83]

I'm not surprised by this at all. Note that this does not say that they are reliable indicators of other kinds of ability.

I will say this: intuitively, a person incapable of complex work in the real world is probably incapable of scoring well on an IQ test. It's also intuitively plausible that those who do well on an IQ test are more likely to be able to handle complex real-world tasks.

That said, is it not strange to fetishize tests that merely suggest the possibility of achievement as opposed to the achievement itself? Such tests seems like a cost-effective hack to me. It's cheaper to print 500 copies of a sequence of pattern games and crunch some stats than to give children opportunities to development and demonstrate their intelligence in more realistic ways.

.

I wonder why Kafka thought that. — Janus

He might have been tuned so that being alone was intense enough. Should be noted that he worked an office job and made the equivalent of something like 100K. So he was in the world.
Anyway, I understand that artists cherish time alone, which they might use to simply daydream.

You can actually practice IQ tests to get better at them. — Wheatley

Which, incidentally, doesn't increase my regard for IQ tests.

Wittgenstein seems to be making a point on language - that words don't possess an essence or, positively speaking, meaning is use, and we could be, given that is so, talking past each other but language and philosophy are entirely different subjects. — TheMadFool

I suggest thinking about our entire way of life. How do we feed ourselves? Raise children? Punish criminals? Get to work in the morning? Then think of talking as making conventional noises which help us coordinate practical action (including mating.) What's the meaning of a pheromone ? Of rattlesnake venom?

So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).

His imprecision is seen here as well:

As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).

Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?

We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding. — Fooloso4

:up:

Cool post.

Agree. Or consider the scientists who freed us from disease and gave us cell phones. I don't read any science if I can help it. — Tom Storm

That reminds me of Pinker again. In that spirit,

Until the middle of the 20th century, infant mortality was approximately 40–60% of the total mortality of the population. If we do not take into account child mortality in total mortality, then the average life expectancy in the 12–19 centuries was approximately 55 years. If a medieval person was able to survive childhood, then he had about a 50% chance of living up to 50–55 years. That is, in reality, people did not die when they lived to be 25–40 years old, but continued to live about twice as long.[5]

As a species, drenched in superstition and scientifically infantile, we could barely keep half of our infants alive through most of our history.

Philosophers obsess over physics but simple medical science is hugely important. Consider the discovery and understanding of germs...or the invention of vaccines.