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Deutsch is a physicist. Unless you can provide evidence of prominent philosophers applauding his contribution, it seems a bit glib to say he solved the problem

by theoh 9y ago

Deutsch is a physicist. Unless you can provide evidence of prominent philosophers applauding his contribution, it seems a bit glib to say he solved the problem posed by Goodman. It's their conversation, they get to decide what's admissable or satisfying as an answer.

philsnow 9y ago
> Deutsch is a physicist. so was Einstein. physics, philosophy, math, and a lot of other fields reward being able to find simplicity / symmetries. it's probably best to not discount people or their theories just because of a label attached to them.
- theoh 9y ago
  Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a philosophical discussion, but it's unlikely to be well received. The HN crowd probably has no difficulty seeing how this would be the case with e.g. (a recent example discussed here) "trisectors". Well, philosophy has its cranky outsiders too, up to and including Hawking (arrogantly?) declaring philosophy obsolete.
lisper 9y ago
LOL. Physics and philosophy used to be synonyms. The reason we distinguish them today is that in 1687 Isaac Newton got the bright idea that truth could be distinguished from falsehood by looking at how the world actually behaves. Those who subscribed to that idea are today called "physicists" and those who chose to reject it and continue to engage in intellectual circle-jerks untethered from reality are called "philosophers." There's a reason that "experimental philosopher" is an oxymoron. The whole idea of a "prominent philosopher" having anything meaningful to say about the world is laughable, not because philosophers can't come up with good ideas, but because "prominence" in the philosophy world is not gained by coming up with good ideas, but rather by coming up with ridiculous ideas like grue and bleen which seem deep if you ignore reality, but crumble immediately if you don't.
mannykannot 9y ago
On the date he wrote the paper, he was a philosopher ;-) If a philosopher has a substantive objection to Deutsch's analysis, I will take it seriously - just as seriously as if it were made by a physicist.

by theoh 9y ago

philsnow 9y ago

> Deutsch is a physicist. so was Einstein. physics, philosophy, math, and a lot of other fields reward being able to find simplicity / symmetries. it's probably best to not discount people or their theories just because of a label attached to them.

theoh 9y ago
Actually, I was trying to get at the fact that disciplines do operate like conversations: you can make an unsolicited contribution from outside to a philosophical discussion, but it's unlikely to be well received. The HN crowd probably has no difficulty seeing how this would be the case with e.g. (a recent example discussed here) "trisectors". Well, philosophy has its cranky outsiders too, up to and including Hawking (arrogantly?) declaring philosophy obsolete.

lisper 9y ago

LOL. Physics and philosophy used to be synonyms. The reason we distinguish them today is that in 1687 Isaac Newton got the bright idea that truth could be distinguished from falsehood by looking at how the world actually behaves. Those who subscribed to that idea are today called "physicists" and those who chose to reject it and continue to engage in intellectual circle-jerks untethered from reality are called "philosophers." There's a reason that "experimental philosopher" is an oxymoron. The whole idea of a "prominent philosopher" having anything meaningful to say about the world is laughable, not because philosophers can't come up with good ideas, but because "prominence" in the philosophy world is not gained by coming up with good ideas, but rather by coming up with ridiculous ideas like grue and bleen which seem deep if you ignore reality, but crumble immediately if you don't.

mannykannot 9y ago

On the date he wrote the paper, he was a philosopher ;-) If a philosopher has a substantive objection to Deutsch's analysis, I will take it seriously - just as seriously as if it were made by a physicist.