5 ms·

For those who have a curiosity but lack the patience or inclination to read these books, "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" is a highly approach

by n0us 11y ago

For those who have a curiosity but lack the patience or inclination to read these books, "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" is a highly approachable introduction to this particular branch of philosophy. http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836 http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduc...

MichaelGG 11y ago
That's exactly what I did, and it left me feeling even more confused. As an example, the book, as I understood, proposes that "What is life?" is a serious philosophical question for biologists to deal with. That sounds an awful lot like arguing over definitions, which seems to be rarely useful.[1] Then there's the famous Feynman quote which seems to make it clear that he thought little of PhilSci. It'd be great to see a real example applied to software languages. A concrete "here's why it does X" kinda thing. I see there's several essays and a paper linked from Tomas's site so perhaps I'll find something useful there. I do understand that as a mere software writer, there may not be much for me. Meanwhile, the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? Perhaps, for example, using Bayesian probability to rate things, and using, I dunno, elegance, as positive evidence. But I'm way out of my depth here so perhaps someone can tell me if this is even remotely coherent. Consciousness seems to also involve a lot of philosophy, mainly because the understanding at this point is fairly limited and a lot of is just reasoning about things. (Versus being able to point out how a brain really works, how a consciousness works, etc. Some apparently think this is simply unknowable and magical.) 1: It's more common that fighting for definitions is useful for rhetorical purposes. E.g. copyright infringement being called stealing versus infringement or "piracy".
- n0us 11y ago
  One of my majors was Philosophy and I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of Feynman, Hawking, and other scientists towards philosophy. Their domain is science and I don't think that it is their place or right to judge the value of other disciplines as they apparently do not have a deep understanding of the subject. Questions like "what is life" have serious implications for biology and arguing over definitions is important because it ensures that when we say something like "a virus is not alive" we have a well grounded and justified basis on which to make that claim. If we didn't take the time to argue over definitions we would have scientists arguing past one another because of trivial misunderstandings about the meaning of words rather than arguing over some other actual significant point such as the conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. The role of Philosophy is often described as providing us a framework for reasoning. Philosophy typically intersects with science at the "edges" where we are making novel discoveries in both disciplines and don't really know what to make of them yet so we have to reason about the evidence and concepts to make sense of it all so we can proceed. You mention Physics, and the big debate in philosophy is whether the Standard Model describes reality as it is, or whether it simply a convenient tool where equation manages to encompass most of the empirical results we have so far. I'm not sure exactly where you are going with Bayesian methods but probability is definitely a focus of some philosophers and our department head wrote a somewhat influential paper about different concepts of probability. (a "taxonomy" of probability if you will but that might be a controversial way to put it in an academic setting just like the rest of this post) Edit: I might also add that this professor had a Phd in philosophy as well as theoretical physics, so really smart guy, and the TA had one in physics and was pursuing one in philosophy, so also a really smart guy. It's also important to note that philosophy of science by and large does not aim to judge the merits or validity of science/scientists/scientific theories. The point is more to understand "what is science" and provide a passive definition instead of a passive one if you will. Philosophy of Mind is a "hot" branch right now as well and it remains to be seen if any significant progress will be made in the next several decades. We still don't have a consistent way to discuss "consciousness" and if you read literature coming from people with a computer science background, then from a psychological background, then a neurological one, you will find that they describe it in very different (and likely incompatible) ways. I've forgotten the context specifically but there is a degree of controversy over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since the diagnosis rates vary wildly depending on geography even when patients display the same symptoms. The implication is that neither disease is "real" and is instead a result of the training of psychiatrists. Yet we still don't want to abandon the idea that these people are mentally ill so how do we provide a coherent definition of a mental illness. It seems to pertain to consciousness in some way and if so how? We can't answer this way with out a coherent and consistent way to discuss consciousness which we still don't have. I hope that gives you a bit of insight even if this comment comes across as disjointed and I have been willingly vague and partially inaccurate at points because you could spend a lifetime reading on some of these subjects but still not consume all of the relevant literature. This again probably reflects the difficulty that you had with that book. Philosophy of Science is already a somewhat specific branch that is difficult to approach without some background in philosophy already. In a way that book is an introduction to a specific branch of philosophy that assumes a large amount of background knowledge.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    If you did philosophy you know that arguing over word definitions is a complete and utter waste of time and effort. What is altruism? Go. Be bored. Makes a mockery of the entire philosophy of morality. While Philosophy is useful in teaching you to understand the crux of an argument and how to structure an argument, the discipline itself is of little merit and consequence in this day and age. We had this argument here recently, Phil of Sci is a post-facto justification of methodology successful scientists already employed. Having done it myself, it's not really a discipline, it's a side-note of historical interest. Saying that intelligent people like Feynman couldn't understand PhilSci without studying it is laughable. Especially because it's one of the simplest branches if you skip the tiresome arguments about word definitions in empiricism.
    - johann28 11y ago
      It's certainly true that definitions are often arbitrary and aren't the "meat of the issue". For example if a field is too obsessed with how it labels things, then it's usually a bad sign. When in university, some courses would focus very much on definitions and lists of things and what part of the field covers what things, I could tell there was some pretentious bullshit going on. Now mathematics seems like an exception to this, but actually they don't argue about definitions in this sense. If you define your terms slightly differently a mathematician may be annoyed but he will recognize if your overall work is valid. It's also true on an individual level. I noticed that people who like to argue whether they are programmers or software developers tend to be less concerned about actually getting something done, vs. people who'd say "call me whatever; you can come and watch what I do and decide what you call it". It comes across as overcompensation for having little to say otherwise. Good scientific papers also don't dwell too much on how to categorize and break up the related fields. But apparently there are people who enjoy defining terms precisely, like whether they do Data Mining, Data Science, Machine Learning or AI or Statistics or Probability. They are all fluid categories and have significant overlaps. There is just no reason to work towards sharp separation.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    It's important to choose a single coherent definition of "alive" so that we can accurately communicate with each other. But it's actually not a very important question whether a virus is alive. If I define "alive" as {X, Y, Z}, then I might make scientific claims like "alive -> Q". This is a shorthand for "{X, Y, Z} -> Q". If you define "alive" as {X, Y}, then according to your definition "alive -> Q" might be false. But as long as we can clearly disambiguate and substitute definition for term, there is no problem. I am claiming "{X,Y,Z} -> Q" while you are claiming "it is unproven that {X,Y} -> Q". See also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/
- pron 11y ago
  > the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? You are presuming a value function -- utility -- for the very subject that questions values, presumptions and what it even means to know. You have to take a step back :) As logic is the foundation of mathematics even though very little mathematicians directly care about those foundations -- and you certainly don't need to fully understand them in order to understand almost all math -- so too is philosophy the foundation of knowledge and value. You don't need to understand it in order to do science, but it is a foundation nonetheless. It is best, therefore, not to ask questions like "what is it good for/how is it useful" before venturing into philosophy, because philosophy grapples precisely with questions like "is utility good?" and "what is good anyway?" You study philosophy because you wish to ponder the foundations to everything. Either those questions will resolve themselves for you or they won't...
  - n0us 11y ago
    Mathematics cannot be reduced to logic, logic is not the foundation mathematics. An excellent summary can be found here. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ or just google Russell's paradox
    - pron 11y ago
      I didn't mean that math can be fully reduced to logic, but that logic is the field of study concerned with the foundations of mathematics (although, perhaps not exclusively). Interesting link, though. BTW, Russel's paradox has been resolved in pretty much all logic systems that are now used as the foundation of math.
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  How much did Feynman actually know of philosophy? My impression upon hearing him speak about it was: not very much. So I'm not sure how much weight we should give his opinion on something he knew little about.

by n0us 11y ago

MichaelGG 11y ago

That's exactly what I did, and it left me feeling even more confused. As an example, the book, as I understood, proposes that "What is life?" is a serious philosophical question for biologists to deal with. That sounds an awful lot like arguing over definitions, which seems to be rarely useful.[1] Then there's the famous Feynman quote which seems to make it clear that he thought little of PhilSci. It'd be great to see a real example applied to software languages. A concrete "here's why it does X" kinda thing. I see there's several essays and a paper linked from Tomas's site so perhaps I'll find something useful there. I do understand that as a mere software writer, there may not be much for me. Meanwhile, the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? Perhaps, for example, using Bayesian probability to rate things, and using, I dunno, elegance, as positive evidence. But I'm way out of my depth here so perhaps someone can tell me if this is even remotely coherent. Consciousness seems to also involve a lot of philosophy, mainly because the understanding at this point is fairly limited and a lot of is just reasoning about things. (Versus being able to point out how a brain really works, how a consciousness works, etc. Some apparently think this is simply unknowable and magical.) 1: It's more common that fighting for definitions is useful for rhetorical purposes. E.g. copyright infringement being called stealing versus infringement or "piracy".

n0us 11y ago
One of my majors was Philosophy and I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of Feynman, Hawking, and other scientists towards philosophy. Their domain is science and I don't think that it is their place or right to judge the value of other disciplines as they apparently do not have a deep understanding of the subject. Questions like "what is life" have serious implications for biology and arguing over definitions is important because it ensures that when we say something like "a virus is not alive" we have a well grounded and justified basis on which to make that claim. If we didn't take the time to argue over definitions we would have scientists arguing past one another because of trivial misunderstandings about the meaning of words rather than arguing over some other actual significant point such as the conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. The role of Philosophy is often described as providing us a framework for reasoning. Philosophy typically intersects with science at the "edges" where we are making novel discoveries in both disciplines and don't really know what to make of them yet so we have to reason about the evidence and concepts to make sense of it all so we can proceed. You mention Physics, and the big debate in philosophy is whether the Standard Model describes reality as it is, or whether it simply a convenient tool where equation manages to encompass most of the empirical results we have so far. I'm not sure exactly where you are going with Bayesian methods but probability is definitely a focus of some philosophers and our department head wrote a somewhat influential paper about different concepts of probability. (a "taxonomy" of probability if you will but that might be a controversial way to put it in an academic setting just like the rest of this post) Edit: I might also add that this professor had a Phd in philosophy as well as theoretical physics, so really smart guy, and the TA had one in physics and was pursuing one in philosophy, so also a really smart guy. It's also important to note that philosophy of science by and large does not aim to judge the merits or validity of science/scientists/scientific theories. The point is more to understand "what is science" and provide a passive definition instead of a passive one if you will. Philosophy of Mind is a "hot" branch right now as well and it remains to be seen if any significant progress will be made in the next several decades. We still don't have a consistent way to discuss "consciousness" and if you read literature coming from people with a computer science background, then from a psychological background, then a neurological one, you will find that they describe it in very different (and likely incompatible) ways. I've forgotten the context specifically but there is a degree of controversy over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since the diagnosis rates vary wildly depending on geography even when patients display the same symptoms. The implication is that neither disease is "real" and is instead a result of the training of psychiatrists. Yet we still don't want to abandon the idea that these people are mentally ill so how do we provide a coherent definition of a mental illness. It seems to pertain to consciousness in some way and if so how? We can't answer this way with out a coherent and consistent way to discuss consciousness which we still don't have. I hope that gives you a bit of insight even if this comment comes across as disjointed and I have been willingly vague and partially inaccurate at points because you could spend a lifetime reading on some of these subjects but still not consume all of the relevant literature. This again probably reflects the difficulty that you had with that book. Philosophy of Science is already a somewhat specific branch that is difficult to approach without some background in philosophy already. In a way that book is an introduction to a specific branch of philosophy that assumes a large amount of background knowledge.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  If you did philosophy you know that arguing over word definitions is a complete and utter waste of time and effort. What is altruism? Go. Be bored. Makes a mockery of the entire philosophy of morality. While Philosophy is useful in teaching you to understand the crux of an argument and how to structure an argument, the discipline itself is of little merit and consequence in this day and age. We had this argument here recently, Phil of Sci is a post-facto justification of methodology successful scientists already employed. Having done it myself, it's not really a discipline, it's a side-note of historical interest. Saying that intelligent people like Feynman couldn't understand PhilSci without studying it is laughable. Especially because it's one of the simplest branches if you skip the tiresome arguments about word definitions in empiricism.
  - johann28 11y ago
    It's certainly true that definitions are often arbitrary and aren't the "meat of the issue". For example if a field is too obsessed with how it labels things, then it's usually a bad sign. When in university, some courses would focus very much on definitions and lists of things and what part of the field covers what things, I could tell there was some pretentious bullshit going on. Now mathematics seems like an exception to this, but actually they don't argue about definitions in this sense. If you define your terms slightly differently a mathematician may be annoyed but he will recognize if your overall work is valid. It's also true on an individual level. I noticed that people who like to argue whether they are programmers or software developers tend to be less concerned about actually getting something done, vs. people who'd say "call me whatever; you can come and watch what I do and decide what you call it". It comes across as overcompensation for having little to say otherwise. Good scientific papers also don't dwell too much on how to categorize and break up the related fields. But apparently there are people who enjoy defining terms precisely, like whether they do Data Mining, Data Science, Machine Learning or AI or Statistics or Probability. They are all fluid categories and have significant overlaps. There is just no reason to work towards sharp separation.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  It's important to choose a single coherent definition of "alive" so that we can accurately communicate with each other. But it's actually not a very important question whether a virus is alive. If I define "alive" as {X, Y, Z}, then I might make scientific claims like "alive -> Q". This is a shorthand for "{X, Y, Z} -> Q". If you define "alive" as {X, Y}, then according to your definition "alive -> Q" might be false. But as long as we can clearly disambiguate and substitute definition for term, there is no problem. I am claiming "{X,Y,Z} -> Q" while you are claiming "it is unproven that {X,Y} -> Q". See also: http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/
pron 11y ago
> the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? You are presuming a value function -- utility -- for the very subject that questions values, presumptions and what it even means to know. You have to take a step back :) As logic is the foundation of mathematics even though very little mathematicians directly care about those foundations -- and you certainly don't need to fully understand them in order to understand almost all math -- so too is philosophy the foundation of knowledge and value. You don't need to understand it in order to do science, but it is a foundation nonetheless. It is best, therefore, not to ask questions like "what is it good for/how is it useful" before venturing into philosophy, because philosophy grapples precisely with questions like "is utility good?" and "what is good anyway?" You study philosophy because you wish to ponder the foundations to everything. Either those questions will resolve themselves for you or they won't...
- n0us 11y ago
  Mathematics cannot be reduced to logic, logic is not the foundation mathematics. An excellent summary can be found here. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ or just google Russell's paradox
  - pron 11y ago
    I didn't mean that math can be fully reduced to logic, but that logic is the field of study concerned with the foundations of mathematics (although, perhaps not exclusively). Interesting link, though. BTW, Russel's paradox has been resolved in pretty much all logic systems that are now used as the foundation of math.
pmoriarty 11y ago
How much did Feynman actually know of philosophy? My impression upon hearing him speak about it was: not very much. So I'm not sure how much weight we should give his opinion on something he knew little about.