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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 'scien

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.

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.