I'm not sold either! It's just something else to ponder. The challenge is how to keep up with revolutionary progress in the sciences with static models. How do we explain even simple demonstrations of magnetism?

I read the posts here, sometimes by ppl who are regulars, having posted thousands of times, sometimes by ones who have remarked a few hundred, sometimes, rarely, by someone who has just begun digesting the quality of this venue, like myself, and all I see are abstruse incoherent references to either modern or ancient ideas and theories or both, sometimes actually citing Greek or Latin terms as though they had read the works in the original languages; how many of you have read Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius, or his Dialogues? how many the Gospels in the original Greek? It all comes off as a sort of facade, whoever can appear to be more sophisticated or knowledgeable than his adversary...
...I am compelled to agree with a certain late professor of political philosophy who proclaimed that, “we may be witnessing the end (of philosophy)”.

I sometimes wonder if philosophy can really contribute anything about the quantum world. All the talk of waves and excitations and duality hasn't brought clarity to that tiny kingdom. It may be that Max Tegmark's mathematical universe ideas actually exist and the understanding of quantum phenomena is nothing more than understanding the mathematics that yields predictable results. And that mathematical edifice is, at present, not adequately described by existing mathematical applications.

What was it Feynman said about it? That it was kind of dippy. One should not have to regularize or renormalize in such bizarre ways to get predictive results. Once the true mathematical structure is found, then it may be the only way to "understand" quantum science.

I'm not sold either! It's just something else to ponder. The challenge is how to keep up with revolutionary progress in the sciences with static models. How do we explain even simple demonstrations of magnetism? — magritte

One can't usefully make general statements about the state of philosophy, but it is not like the progress of science is universally ignored - certainly not by those who specialize in modern science, but more besides. Obviously, Darwinism and Einstein's relativity have had a pronounced effect on philosophy (for better or for worse).

Speaking of QM, I recently came across this entertaining survey from F.A. Muller: The Influence of Quantum Physics on Philosophy. He concludes thus:

Although quantum physics has influenced philosophy in the sense that it has grown a new flourishing and blossoming branch of the tree of philosophy, apart from some recent contact between philosophy of physics and metaphysics, quantum physics has had hardly any influence on philosophy at all, and at best some influence on metaphysics, mostly in recent times. With regard to prominent issues intensely thought about by philosophers, such as those on the Chalmers-Bourget list [referring to their 2014 survey "What do philosophers believe?" - SC], we dare conclude that it is difficult to see how quantum physics could bear on those issues. If it cannot, it ought not, for ought implies can. — F.A. Muller

I once had a discussion with a man who I finally forced to confess that he believed a human being was not, essentially, any better than a rock; so I asked him, “so you don’t mind if I kick you around in the argument a little?”,...and he was offended! — Todd Martin

I like that.

You might use the "@" button when naming someone; then they will receive a notification.

I am not guilty of the reductionism that you describe.

Obviously, Darwinism and Einstein's relativity have had a pronounced effect on philosophy (for better or for worse). — SophistiCat

Was it Kant earlier that went a bit astray when referring to Euclidian geometry and not knowing that later non-Euclidian geometry would be a hot topic in math? Philosophers can relate to science, but basing philosophy on science can be a tricky thing as our scientific understanding can change a lot. Still, why the connection?

The reason is very naive and simple:

People tend simply to think that physics, Quantum Mechanics, cosmology etc. are somehow close to the basic philosophical questions, hence we let physicists blabber about philosophical question, things that they actually have not studied or worked on. It's actually not their fault: it's the media who asks them. And they (the physicists) can see that people are interested in books about the great questions written by them, if they have been picked up by the media and are known to the public. No philosopher will have similar popularity describing his actual field of inquiry. Hence the result of these physicists pondering philosophical questions is typically quite poor: they give answers that actually some age of enlightenment philosopher basically said ages ago better with only being mixed with the field of study that the physics works on.

I think it all shows that philosophers are a bit lost and the post-modern bullshit won't help.

If you delve into the history of physics, you will see that physics and philosophy are related.

Philosophers can relate to science, but basing philosophy on science can be a tricky thing as our scientific understanding can change a lot. — ssu

Well, what would we base it on then? We obviously cannot assume that the current state of science is the last word and the whole truth about nature. But ignoring science would be an even bigger blunder. We just have to live with the fact that philosophy is no less contingent than science.

People tend simply to think that physics, Quantum Mechanics, cosmology etc. are somehow close to the basic philosophical questions, hence we let physicists blabber about philosophical question, things that they actually have not studied or worked on. — ssu

There is a reason why so-called fundamental physics is often thought to have an intimate connection with basic metaphysical questions (cf. physicalism, metaphysical and ontological grounding...) For example, while it is not a given that the ontology of fundamental physics has some sort of metaphysical priority, it is a popular enough notion.

But more to the point of your complaint, as I pointed out above, science cannot be too far removed from philosophical questions. When scientists attempt to make sense of nature and come up with theories about it, they are not doing anything different in principle than what philosophers do when they turn to the same subjects. It is only relatively recently that academic and technological specialization bracketed off certain methods of study and called them "science."

Still, if we view science as a branch or outgrowth of philosophy, then professional scientists, as a rule, have a much more narrow specialization than professional philosophers. This is why we find that scientifically literate philosophers are usually in a superior position when they philosophize about nature outside of the narrow scientific context, while, as a rule, professional scientists appear to be dilettantes in these matters. But that is when science is in a quasi-stable state, when no major paradigmatic changes are under way and well-informed philosophers can stay up-to-date with the state of science. Conversely, when you look at the history of thought, most important new developments in the thinking about nature were driven by developments in science.

Well, what would we base it on then? We obviously cannot assume that the current state of science is the last word and the whole truth about nature. — SophistiCat

For starters, remembering just what you said there: the current state of science isn't the last word or the truth about nature. Hence don't make your philosophy totally dependent of the current science of the present.

Hence if you are making a philosophical argument, far better to base it on previous philosophical inquiry on the question at hand. If the advances in science make that past views antiquated, that is then a different thing. But usually it isn't so: much that the philosopher of the Enlightenment said is current even today, even if the natural sciences of that time have evolved.

There is a reason why so-called fundamental physics is often thought to have an intimate connection with basic metaphysical questions (cf. physicalism, metaphysical and ontological grounding...) For example, while it is not a given that the ontology of fundamental physics has some sort of metaphysical priority, it is a popular enough notion. — SophistiCat

I would ask why would it be so. Because philosophy has debated already for long the problems of physicalism and materialism. And the pseudo-scientific world view was about a "Clock-work universe" and then this changed to "Multiverse" with Butterfly-effects, it really isn't pure philosophy. For me it's the questions we ask that define our answers, not an interesting scientific theory that gets people to mold their world-views to fit that theory.

Still, if we view science as a branch or outgrowth of philosophy, then professional scientists, as a rule, have a much more narrow specialization than professional philosophers. — SophistiCat

Well, if philosophy means love of wisdom, the link to science should be obvious. Just as PhD is is short for Doctor of Philosophy. Yet the problem is that when philosophers have a broader view, that makes it far more difficult to understand things you are handling.

Conversely, when you look at the history of thought, most important new developments in the thinking about nature were driven by developments in science. — SophistiCat

Yet Is philosophy just thinking about nature? Natural sciences answer more directly to what nature is, yet any question of "what should be" and you need philosophy.

Hence if you are making a philosophical argument, far better to base it on previous philosophical inquiry on the question at hand. — ssu

That's a terrible idea. I just can't think of a single advantage in rejecting the fruits of the most productive period in the history of scientific thought and empirical research in favor of recycling past ideas. Ideas, which themselves were, of course, to a great extent informed by observations and scientific ideas of their time and times past.

I would ask why would it be so. Because philosophy has debated already for long the problems of physicalism and materialism. And the pseudo-scientific world view was about a "Clock-work universe" and then this changed to "Multiverse" with Butterfly-effects, it really isn't pure philosophy. — ssu

I say good riddance to "pure philosophy" (if there ever was such a thing, which of course there wasn't - see above). Of course, my idea of a scientifically literate philosopher is not one whose ideas about science come from popular media publications and, God help us, Butterfly Effect. Fortunately, in actuality there is no lack of philosophers who are better informed about their subject matter (see, for example, some names from the three generations of philosophers of physics in the paper that I linked above, which include actual physics PhDs).

Yet Is philosophy just thinking about nature? Natural sciences answer more directly to what nature is, yet any question of "what should be" and you need philosophy. — ssu

No argument here - except, of course, where philosophers choose the naturalizing approach.

I just can't think of a single advantage in rejecting the fruits of the most productive period in the history of scientific thought and empirical research in favor of recycling past ideas. Ideas, which themselves were, of course, to a great extent informed by observations and scientific ideas of their time and times past. — SophistiCat

Well, you seem not to hold philosophy in high regard compared to natural sciences. But just like "pure math" isn't at all dismissed by natural science, I think especially analytical philosophy and formal logic has it's place also.

And I'm surely not dismissing science or taking the view that science wouldn't matter. What I just oppose is the simple reductionism of the view that If physics at the nuclear level uses QM, the QM should be used as an overall philosophy, because... at the nuclear level physics uses QM. Hope you get my point.

Well, you seem not to hold philosophy in high regard compared to natural sciences. — ssu

I am not denigrating philosophy. But since we have this specialization and division of labor, philosophers should be using scientific results and ideas where it is appropriate - for example, when discussing the metaphysics of space and time (e.g. The Ontology of Spacetime ed. D. Dieks.)

What I just oppose is the simple reductionism of the view that If physics at the nuclear level uses QM, the QM should be used as an overall philosophy — ssu

Well, that is one view, but it is not the only view, and it is not just taken for granted because science.

But since we have this specialization and division of labor, philosophers should be using scientific results and ideas where it is appropriate — SophistiCat

When it is appropriate. That's all I want to say.

It's not just physicists straying into philosophy. It's also religionists straying into biology, psychologists straying into legal analysis, and politicians straying into just about everything. You name it, and someone is straying into it.

I think it’s quite the opposite. After the discovery of quantum mechanics scientist started to distinguish better between philosophy and scientific method.

Science can not exist without philosophy
Without logic science is just data!
in Quantum physics energy equals matter, quantum entanglement and uncertainty theory rule.

I am not denigrating philosophy. But since we have this specialization and division of labor, philosophers should be using scientific results and ideas where it is appropriate - for example, when discussing the metaphysics of space and time (e.g. The Ontology of Spacetime ed. D. Dieks.) — SophistiCat

However, the inverse needs to be respected as well. When scientists are discussing the metaphysics of space and time, they ought to have respect for established ontological principles.

I didn't read the book referred, but judging from the table of contents, it looks like it completely ignores the principal ontological feature of time, and that is the important difference between future and past. When we respect the empirical fact that the past consists of events which have actually already occurred, and the future consists of the possibility for events, it becomes evident that we need a conception of space which is radically different from anything employed by physicists.

I guess for me it's not science, it's people, often not scientists, who stray into philosophy not fully understanding either the science they are weilding and the philosophy they think they are beheading. Some of them are scientists, but many of them, for example in online forums, are lay people in both fields. You'll get assertions like 'Now we know all metaphysics is just nonsense,' not realizing, for example, that physics deal with metaphysical issues, physicists even find it useful to speculate in metaphysics, and that physics gets a lot of milage working with models that have metaphysical axioms. And also found other axioms also generative. Another way to put this is that philosophy and science are overlapping fields/activities.

Sigh, from what I can gather, this post has strayed terribly from what I think it's original question or point was. Philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Science (like theoretical physics) was born of philosophy. Whereas philosophy is a system of logical thought processes, science is grounded in physical experiments that are reproduceable and verifiable. Furthermore, philosophy is used in science to continue to push the limits by asking ethical, logical, theoretical questions. It should be noted that this simplistic answer comes no where near covering how theoretical physics and philosophy bleed over and support each other, but, it should easily show that there is an inextricable link between these two fields.

Philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge and truth. Science (like theoretical physics) was born of philosophy. Whereas philosophy is a system of logical thought processes, science is grounded in physical experiments that are reproduceable and verifiable. — Neuron420

Thank you for bringing clarity into this headache of a debate ! I feel like the topic became : “should metaphysics be a part of physics ?” but I’ll go back to the main question.

From my experience with scientists and philosophers : Science has strayed close into philosophy, yet so far… Some physicists do make a lot of assumptions that are purely metaphysical. Some biologists talk about ethics and politics as if they were part of science. And some philosophers talk about philosophy as if it were science. But then they’re people, not the discipline itself.

When it comes to publishing papers, I have the feeling that the boundaries are much clearer. Each discipline has its own rules, so in that sense, they are easy to distinguish from each other. However, to me, science could use a bit more of philosophy of science (as in the study of its method), to set the boundaries straight, even in texts that are not papers. People would thus know exactly what kind of knowledge they can get out of science, and wouldn’t confuse it with another discipline anymore.

Science could also use a bit more focus on a global understanding, instead of leaving it to the realm of philosophy. It feels so frustrating to me, all the knowledge is there, but we don’t use it for that purpose. We only focus on getting more knowledge from experiments, instead of trying to put together, in a rational way, the knowledge that we already have. And I’m not talking about theoretical sciences, but about thinking of the best way to explain the world with the current scientific knowledge, trying to come out with the explanation that takes the most theories as possible into account, while staying within the limits of science. For example, scientists could try to explain very global concepts such as life, intelligence, welfare, and expose the limits of science in understanding (or measuring, defining) these concepts. But that was never part of a discipline. Some scientists do have opinions on these concepts but they’re not knowledge, it stays at a personal level. And when philosophers try to think on scientific knowledge, well, they often lack the scientific background to do it right.

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to create such a discipline ? Or does anyone know such a thing ?
(And it would exclude metaphysics as it would be based on experiments only).

Philosophy, although employing the odd inductive argument here and there, is a field whose mainstay is deductive logic and deductive logic is all about absolute truths - truths that can't be false. — TheMadFool

:rofl:

For example, scientists could try to explain very global concepts such as life, intelligence, welfare, and expose the limits of science in understanding (or measuring, defining) these concepts. But that was never part of a discipline. Some scientists do have opinions on these concepts but they’re not knowledge, it stays at a personal level. And when philosophers try to think on scientific knowledge, well, they often lack the scientific background to do it right.

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to create such a discipline ? Or does anyone know such a thing ? — Avema

I am not sure I understand what you have in mind. Can you elaborate a little further, give a more specific example?

I am not sure I understand what you have in mind. Can you elaborate a little further, give a more specific example? — SophistiCat

What I mean is that science sometimes goes off limits and gives fast conclusions like "we can measure welfare, time dilatation,..., without investigating further the meaning of these words. And if you don't do that, how can you know exactly what you're talking about ? It ends up being in the field of philosophy, because it can be subject to much more interpretations that science can deal with.

But if they would define it clearly, it could stay within the limits of science. They could say something like “if we define welfare this way, it involves these scientific concepts that can be measured through these other notions”, and then you clearly see all the uncertainties on the language itself, because what science is actually “sure” about is these notions that can be directly related to observations/measurements.

And it would be hard for philosophers to do that, because they don't know as much as scientists on these scientific concepts and measurements. And it is hard for scientists to do that because they're only used to defining notions that are quite directly related to experiments.

Do you know what I mean ?

What I mean is that science sometimes goes off limits and gives fast conclusions like "we can measure welfare, time dilatation,..., without investigating further the meaning of these words. And if you don't do that, how can you know exactly what you're talking about ? It ends up being in the field of philosophy, because it can be subject to much more interpretations that science can deal with.

But if they would define it clearly, it could stay within the limits of science. They could say something like “if we define welfare this way, it involves these scientific concepts that can be measured through these other notions”, and then you clearly see all the uncertainties on the language itself, because what science is actually “sure” about is these notions that can be directly related to observations/measurements. — Avema

This seems to be the opposite of consensus, and my experience, which is generally that science is rather concise in its language and demands specialist knowledge of its readership.

This seems to be the opposite of consensus — Kenosha Kid

Can you please point out what part of my text is the opposite of consensus ?

All the bit I quoted, which is the point of quoting bits.

I didn't read the book referred, but judging from the table of contents, it looks like it completely ignores the principal ontological feature of time, and that is the important difference between future and past. When we respect the empirical fact that the past consists of events which have actually already occurred, and the future consists of the possibility for events, it becomes evident that we need a conception of space which is radically different from anything employed by physicists. — Metaphysician Undercover

:up:

Absolute and Relational Theories of Space and Motion : Since antiquity, natural philosophers have struggled to comprehend the nature of three tightly interconnected concepts: space, time, and motion.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/
Note : maybe physicists are not any smarter than ancient Greek philosophers. :joke:

Right, I guess I shoud have been more specific : what in the quote is the opposite of consensus ?

Do you think what I said is wrong, like scientists don't say things like "we can measure welfare" ?

Or do you think that defining such concepts in a scientific way wouldn't lead to consensus ?

Do you know what I mean ? — Avema

Not really, you just restated what you already wrote earlier. Assuming you are speaking from experience, can you give a specific example where scientists fail to give an adequate definition and how that hurts their efforts?

And it is hard for scientists to do that because they're only used to defining notions that are quite directly related to experiments. — Avema

Well, yes, that's the point. Science is an empirical discipline, so it needs operational definitions.

Right, I guess I shoud have been more specific : what in the quote is the opposite of consensus ?

Do you think what I said is wrong, like scientists don't say things like "we can measure welfare" ?

Or do you think that defining such concepts in a scientific way wouldn't lead to consensus ? — Avema

Your post suggests that science is rather loosey-goosey in its use of language and its concepts, that it doesn't really know what it's talking about compared with philosophy. The truth is precisely the reverse. There is no room for ambiguity or misunderstanding in scientific publications because you have to place your work in an extremely large and rigid context. You cannot, for the sake of argument, define time dilation as something subtly different to how the community understand it (unless an existing shortcoming in that definition is the point of the paper): you manuscript would never get published if you tried.

Ultimately any scientific paper has to be written in such a way that someone else in your field can go away and reproduce your results. This places extremely tight limits on the language and concepts you employ. So when a scientific paper discusses time dilation, this is understood exactly by people who understand the language of science. That language -- mathematics -- is itself extremely concise, which is one of the barriers to understanding that lay people complain about: to understand the exact meaning of a paper's point on, say, time dilation, you need to understand e.g. tensor calculus.