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Speaking as a complete layman, Philosophy of Science rocks. Feynman was smoking crack. Philosophy of Science is an extremely important discipline. It will just
by DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Speaking as a complete layman, Philosophy of Science rocks. Feynman was smoking crack. Philosophy of Science is an extremely important discipline. It will just make your head explode. (Along with epistemology and couple others)
I started on my learning journey using The Great Courses series -- it's kind of like famous professors giving an abbreviated overview (20-40 hours) of their 101 courses. Deep enough that it's not some Discovery Channel show, light enough that you're not up until 2 a.m. every night for a month reading Hegel.
I think that the reason most scientists like Feynman don't get it is that they treat philosophy as a scientific discipline. It is not. Philosophy is the asking of questions. Every now and then you get into a fertile area where those questions can become their own science. This is why philosophy is called the "Mother of all sciences" Oddly enough, I think philosophers themselves have lost their way, but that's a story for another day.
My advice to those who are interested is to get an easy introduction, and don't take it too seriously. I love philosophy because it's like meeting the smartest people that ever lived in a bar and having them talk about really deep questions. But you'll have more fun talking to a lot of people than spending a deep dive with one guy. They tend to have a few good ideas and then spend the rest of their lives over-applying them.
Philosophy is also a great way to begin to talk about the important questions involving technology and people. Don't let anybody tell you any different. I've been very interested in the Philosophy of Language and how it relates to technology teams talking to users about solutions. Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner community today. Anybody writing apps controlling the speech of millions should have a grounding in political theory -- or risk turning the planet into a cesspool of conformity just so they can make a buck. Cool stuff.
- mirimir 11y ago> Feynman was smoking crack. He just had a warped sense of humor ;)
- kwhitefoot 11y agoAt least he had one; a lot of people writing about science and philosophy don't seem to even understand the concept.
- ajani 11y ago> Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner community today. Can you share a link to the essay?
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoIt's part of a script for a video training series I'm working on. I'll post a link when we release it.