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God, can we fucking quit with this "philosophy is bullshit" stuff. Like there are literally Faculty in Philosophy all over the world trying to understand AI. Ph

God, can we fucking quit with this "philosophy is bullshit" stuff. Like there are literally Faculty in Philosophy all over the world trying to understand AI. Philosophy faculty do stuff, they try to understand things, most of the ideas we are talking about here came from philosophers.

encyclopedism 11mo ago
It seems to me that 'Philosophy is meaningless' has been ingrained into so many people it's almost propaganda-esque! To see this sentiment from supposed 'scientific' individuals is shocking. I wonder if they could define what science actually is.
- Nasrudith 11mo ago
  Blame philosophy as a field for actively kicking out anything which gains a practical application. If it is propaganda it is coming from inside the house of philosophy. I had a computer science professor who had degrees in philosophy because he was old enough that computer science didn't exist as a major at the time. The logical arguments of philosophy proved useful for understanding interactions of boolean mathematics. Yet that triumph of philosophy didn't further interest in the field or gain prestiege among philosophers. Just the opposite really. As far as I can tell it is for dumb reasons possibly related to Ancient Greeks and their obsession with 'purity of thought (read: not referencing reality) it is practically an axiom that if it is useful or grounded in objective reality it isn't treated as philosophy anymore. All likely stemming from motivated reasoning against checking their priors and from frankly many of the Ancient philosophers being influenced by a need to flatter their patrons who held the practical in disdain. As notoriously seen in Aristotlian physics with impetus physics where projectiles keep moving in the same direction until impetus is depleted and then fall. Speculation of the origon of the pathology aside, there seems to be this deep-seated antiempericalism in philosophy. Which means at best you get 'philosophy of science' which isn't proper philosophy because it pollutes itself by daring to use reality and experimentation as benchmarks for theories. When philosophy gains a practical usage it doesn't become something called 'practical philosophy' and the focus of more interest by philosophers, it gets shunned. Natural philosophy didn't remain philosophy - it became science. To be fair there is probably some interaction driving the divorce from the opposite direction, of the practical portions of philosophy being pilfered by those only looking for results as opposed to some sort of unquantifiable enlightenment. Science is of course a process of refinement of ideas against the reference point of reality. Anything mathematically consistent can be a model but experimentation is needed to see how well your model corresponds to reality.
  - nathan_compton 11mo ago
    How many philosophy papers or textbooks would you say you read in a typical year?
    - ajross 11mo ago
      I'm seeing this attitude everywhere in this subthread, and it's frankly pretty offensive. The burden of proof is on you, not us. If a philosophy paper or textbook has an important contribution to this discussion then cite it! Or better link it, or even make an attempt at explaining it. That's what the science people do. People who show up with questions get answers, or at least an attempt at an answer. No one tries to handwave away a discussion on power switching applications with "Well, see, this involves a MOSFET which isn't something we can actually explain but which you need to just believe in anyway because there are people who wrote textbooks about it". No, you link a StackExchange question or a electronics video on YouTube or whatnot. The fundamental disconnect here is that you guys are saying: "Qualia are critically important and AI doesn't have them", to which we're responding "Qualia seem like complete bullshit and don't seem to mean anything". This is the point where you SHOULD try to explain them, or link an explanation that has some kind of relevance. But instead you recursively cycle back to "No no, they're not bullshit, because Qualia are critically important per all of the philosophy papers and textbooks I'm not citing". It seems... unpersuasive.
      - soulofmischief 11mo ago
        Unfortunately, sometimes you have to educate yourself on a subject before making arrogant, accusational claims about it. You can't expect people to patiently hold your hand and drip feed you compact knowledge while you spit in their face. This is especially true of a field such as philosophy, where so much work is built upon earlier, historical work. You just have to do the work of reading the texts or at least reading about them, if you want to participate meaningfully and authoritatively in discussions. You're speaking authoritatively, but multiple people have tried to correct you and you ignore and challenge all of them, instead of just absorbing what they have to say. Several people have tried to help you understand, and you're complaining that they aren't doing that. Articles have been linked, and specific individuals have been cited. The burden is on you. You arrived and said an entire branch of philosophy was fraudulant, and you have failed to support your initial claim, instead resorting to outbursts. > Qualia are critically important and AI doesn't have them No one is saying that. It's a straw man on your behalf. > It seems... unpersuasive You seem unwilling to listen with an open mind.
tim333 11mo ago
Philosophy seems a term generally reserved for the stuff we don't understand yet and so is inherently kind of speculative. Once you have a definite answer it gets called science instead.
- nathan_compton 11mo ago
  Science is a sub-discipline of Philosophy. My degree in physics is called a "Doctorate of Philosophy."
- soulofmischief 11mo ago
  You're confusing philosophy with religion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy > Philosophy (from Ancient Greek philosophía lit. 'love of wisdom') is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, knowledge, mind, reason, language, and value. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. It is literally a self-reflective science. I recommend taking a basic philosophical course at a local community college, or reading some literature or even watching YouTube videos on the subject of philosophy. Or just skim the Wikipedia article if nothing else. It might completely transform how you perceive and act upon the world.
  - tim333 11mo ago
    An example near the start of that article is >Physics was originally part of philosophy, like Isaac Newton's observation of how gravity affects falling apples. like back then people would wonder how apples fall and it was labeled philosophy. Now we understand gravitation it's part of physics for the most part. People launching satellites seldom call a philosopher to calculate the orbit. It remains to be seen if qualia, which we don't understand very well and are so regarded as philosophical, make the transition to neuroscience.
    - soulofmischief 11mo ago
      The fact that we have sharpened our classification of sciences over time does not imply that philosophy is a study of the ill-defined. It implies the opposite: Philosophy is more precisely defined now than ever. If you read the rest of the article, you will see clear examples of what is considered a philosophical problem and what isn't.
ajross 11mo ago
> Like there are literally Faculty in Philosophy all over the world trying to understand AI. There surely are. The problem is that they are failing. While the practical nerds are coming up with some pretty good ideas. And this was what philosophy was supposed to be for! Like, they've been arguing on their pins for centuries about the essence of consciousness and the uniqueness of the human condition and whatnot. AND HERE WE ARE AT THE DAWN OF NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND THEY HAVE NOTHING USEFUL TO SAY. Basically at what point do we just pack it in and admit we all fucked up?

encyclopedism 11mo ago

It seems to me that 'Philosophy is meaningless' has been ingrained into so many people it's almost propaganda-esque! To see this sentiment from supposed 'scientific' individuals is shocking. I wonder if they could define what science actually is.

Nasrudith 11mo ago
Blame philosophy as a field for actively kicking out anything which gains a practical application. If it is propaganda it is coming from inside the house of philosophy. I had a computer science professor who had degrees in philosophy because he was old enough that computer science didn't exist as a major at the time. The logical arguments of philosophy proved useful for understanding interactions of boolean mathematics. Yet that triumph of philosophy didn't further interest in the field or gain prestiege among philosophers. Just the opposite really. As far as I can tell it is for dumb reasons possibly related to Ancient Greeks and their obsession with 'purity of thought (read: not referencing reality) it is practically an axiom that if it is useful or grounded in objective reality it isn't treated as philosophy anymore. All likely stemming from motivated reasoning against checking their priors and from frankly many of the Ancient philosophers being influenced by a need to flatter their patrons who held the practical in disdain. As notoriously seen in Aristotlian physics with impetus physics where projectiles keep moving in the same direction until impetus is depleted and then fall. Speculation of the origon of the pathology aside, there seems to be this deep-seated antiempericalism in philosophy. Which means at best you get 'philosophy of science' which isn't proper philosophy because it pollutes itself by daring to use reality and experimentation as benchmarks for theories. When philosophy gains a practical usage it doesn't become something called 'practical philosophy' and the focus of more interest by philosophers, it gets shunned. Natural philosophy didn't remain philosophy - it became science. To be fair there is probably some interaction driving the divorce from the opposite direction, of the practical portions of philosophy being pilfered by those only looking for results as opposed to some sort of unquantifiable enlightenment. Science is of course a process of refinement of ideas against the reference point of reality. Anything mathematically consistent can be a model but experimentation is needed to see how well your model corresponds to reality.
- nathan_compton 11mo ago
  How many philosophy papers or textbooks would you say you read in a typical year?
  - ajross 11mo ago
    I'm seeing this attitude everywhere in this subthread, and it's frankly pretty offensive. The burden of proof is on you, not us. If a philosophy paper or textbook has an important contribution to this discussion then cite it! Or better link it, or even make an attempt at explaining it. That's what the science people do. People who show up with questions get answers, or at least an attempt at an answer. No one tries to handwave away a discussion on power switching applications with "Well, see, this involves a MOSFET which isn't something we can actually explain but which you need to just believe in anyway because there are people who wrote textbooks about it". No, you link a StackExchange question or a electronics video on YouTube or whatnot. The fundamental disconnect here is that you guys are saying: "Qualia are critically important and AI doesn't have them", to which we're responding "Qualia seem like complete bullshit and don't seem to mean anything". This is the point where you SHOULD try to explain them, or link an explanation that has some kind of relevance. But instead you recursively cycle back to "No no, they're not bullshit, because Qualia are critically important per all of the philosophy papers and textbooks I'm not citing". It seems... unpersuasive.
    - soulofmischief 11mo ago
      Unfortunately, sometimes you have to educate yourself on a subject before making arrogant, accusational claims about it. You can't expect people to patiently hold your hand and drip feed you compact knowledge while you spit in their face. This is especially true of a field such as philosophy, where so much work is built upon earlier, historical work. You just have to do the work of reading the texts or at least reading about them, if you want to participate meaningfully and authoritatively in discussions. You're speaking authoritatively, but multiple people have tried to correct you and you ignore and challenge all of them, instead of just absorbing what they have to say. Several people have tried to help you understand, and you're complaining that they aren't doing that. Articles have been linked, and specific individuals have been cited. The burden is on you. You arrived and said an entire branch of philosophy was fraudulant, and you have failed to support your initial claim, instead resorting to outbursts. > Qualia are critically important and AI doesn't have them No one is saying that. It's a straw man on your behalf. > It seems... unpersuasive You seem unwilling to listen with an open mind.

tim333 11mo ago

Philosophy seems a term generally reserved for the stuff we don't understand yet and so is inherently kind of speculative. Once you have a definite answer it gets called science instead.

nathan_compton 11mo ago
Science is a sub-discipline of Philosophy. My degree in physics is called a "Doctorate of Philosophy."
soulofmischief 11mo ago
You're confusing philosophy with religion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy > Philosophy (from Ancient Greek philosophía lit. 'love of wisdom') is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, knowledge, mind, reason, language, and value. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its methods and assumptions. It is literally a self-reflective science. I recommend taking a basic philosophical course at a local community college, or reading some literature or even watching YouTube videos on the subject of philosophy. Or just skim the Wikipedia article if nothing else. It might completely transform how you perceive and act upon the world.
- tim333 11mo ago
  An example near the start of that article is >Physics was originally part of philosophy, like Isaac Newton's observation of how gravity affects falling apples. like back then people would wonder how apples fall and it was labeled philosophy. Now we understand gravitation it's part of physics for the most part. People launching satellites seldom call a philosopher to calculate the orbit. It remains to be seen if qualia, which we don't understand very well and are so regarded as philosophical, make the transition to neuroscience.
  - soulofmischief 11mo ago
    The fact that we have sharpened our classification of sciences over time does not imply that philosophy is a study of the ill-defined. It implies the opposite: Philosophy is more precisely defined now than ever. If you read the rest of the article, you will see clear examples of what is considered a philosophical problem and what isn't.

ajross 11mo ago

> Like there are literally Faculty in Philosophy all over the world trying to understand AI. There surely are. The problem is that they are failing. While the practical nerds are coming up with some pretty good ideas. And this was what philosophy was supposed to be for! Like, they've been arguing on their pins for centuries about the essence of consciousness and the uniqueness of the human condition and whatnot. AND HERE WE ARE AT THE DAWN OF NON-HUMAN INTELLIGENCE AND THEY HAVE NOTHING USEFUL TO SAY. Basically at what point do we just pack it in and admit we all fucked up?