A place of philosophy among other disciplines.

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Originally posted by wuliheronIn summary, a philosopher, a physicist, and a mathematician ride a train and see a black sheep in a field. They each offer their perspective on the color of all sheep. Later, a physicist and mathematician come across a treasure chest and the philosopher provides a thought experiment on reaching it. The scientist tests the mathematician's theory and proves it to be true. The moral is to support scientists, trust mathematicians, and educate philosophers on the importance of evidence-based claims.
  • #1
Alexander
A philosopher, a physicist and a mathematician ride a train. They see a black sheep on a field in a train window.
-All speep are black - says a philosopher.
-There are sheep, and some of them are black - says a physicist.
-There is at least one sheep, and at least half of it is black - says a mathematician.
 
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  • #2
A scientist, mathematician, and philosopher were walking along a beach when they came across a treasure chest the waves had washed ashore. The philosopher said, if we take half a step and then half of that again all the way we will never reach the treasure chest. The scientist immediately began setting up experimental apparatus to determine if he was correct or not while the mathematician began furiously attempting to find a self-consistent nontrivial refutation to disprove the idea. The philosopher, of course, meanwhile walked over and looked inside the chest.
 
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  • #3
A physics professor came to his dean: "-We need another million dollars to upgrade our experimental set."

Dean moans: -"Why can't you guys be like math department folks - they only need pens, paper and waste baskets?"

"-Do you mean philosophy department? - says professor - They only need pens and paper..."
 
  • #4
Originally posted by Alexander
A physics professor came to his dean: "-We need another million dollars to upgrade our experimental set."

Dean moans: -"Why can't you guys be like math department folks - they only need pens, paper and waste baskets?"

"-Do you mean philosophy department? - says professor - They only need pens and paper..."

Einstein was one of those guys who proved imagination is more important than money or equipment. He beat out the greatest and best funded minds on the planet. Of course, he was also a great philosopher as well as a physicist. He didn't even need paper and pencil to exercise his thought experiments.
 
  • #5
Originally posted by Alexander
A philosopher, a physicist and a mathematician ride a train. They see a black sheep on a field in a train window.
-All speep are black - says a philosopher.
-There are sheep, and some of them are black - says a physicist.
-There is at least one sheep, and at least half of it is black - says a mathematician.


Another good one! Nice man. Nice.
 
  • #6
Wuliheron, this is typical misunderstanding of Einstein. What Einstein proposed has nothing to do with philosophy, but with mathematics, specifically with mathematical symmetries.

He proposed that:

a) nature could be invariant versus continuous shifts in velocity (any observed quantity f is same in any moving reference system: f(v) = f'(v'). This symmetry (=nothing in lab depends on lab's velocity) is the only postulate from which all Special Relativity mathematically follows as a corollary.

b) there is no difference between inertial mass m and gravitational mass m. General Relativity mathematically follows from this his assumption just as a corollary.
 
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  • #7
Originally posted by Alexander
Wuliheron, this is typical misunderstanding of Einstein. What Einstein proposed has nothing to do with philosophy, but with mathematics, specifically with mathematical symmetries.

He proposed that:

a) nature could be invariant versus continuous shifts in velocity (any observed quantity f is same in any moving reference system: f(v) = f'(v'). This symmetry (=nothing in lab depends on lab's velocity) is the only postulate from which all Special Relativity mathematically follows as a corollary.

b) there is no difference between inertial mass m and gravitational mass m. General Relativity mathematically follows from this his assumption just as a corollary.

Exactly, he insisted nature is invariant despite the contradictory evidence of Quantum Mechanics that anything and everything is possible given enough time. In other words, he was philosopher as much as he was a physicist. Just because neither science nor mathematics can provide a clear answer to something does not mean speculation is useless. What we don't know is often of more keen interest and use than what we do know.
 
  • #8
Originally posted by wuliheron
Einstein was one of those guys who proved imagination is more important than money or equipment. He beat out the greatest and best funded minds on the planet. Of course, he was also a great philosopher as well as a physicist. He didn't even need paper and pencil to exercise his thought experiments.

You know, how dare you call Einstein a philosopher. You should be ashamed at insulting him on a forum that exists muchly based on his help in humanity.

That's a real poor insult on your part. I don't think many will think highly of you for saying it.
 
  • #9
A scientist, mathematician, and philosopher were walking along a beach when they came across a treasure chest the waves had washed ashore. The philosopher said, if we take half a step and then half of that again all the way we will never reach the treasure chest. The mathematician said: yes, but this is true only if we suddenly change our motion by limiting our futher steps to be successively shorter and shorter. But if we DON'T change our state of motion, then we will reach the chest in short t=d/v seconds, where d is the distance to the chest and v is our speed. While mathematician was introducing a philosopher to basics of math, the scientist decided to perform experiment to test mathematician's theory that t=d/v. He continued to walk in a uniform manner - and indeed reached the chest in d/v seconds.

Moral: 1)support scientists - they find treasures of nature. 2) trust mathematicians because they tell truth. 3) educate philosophers (you'll save many trees from being used to print their unsubstantiated claims).
 
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  • #10
Originally posted by Alexander
[BMoral: 1)support scientists - they find treasures of nature. 2) trust mathematicians because they tell truth. 3) educate philosophers (you'll save many trees from being used to print their unsubstantiated claims). [/B]


YES! YES! YES!
 
  • #11
Originally posted by wuliheron
Einstein was one of those guys who proved imagination is more important than money or equipment.

Imagination is useless without knowledge.
 
  • #12
Originally posted by Alexander
Imagination is useless without knowledge.

So is intellectualism.

If one calls someone intellectual, it's surely an insult.

One can imagine anything that has nothing to do with reality. Thus we have religion, philosophy, politics, pseudo-science, superstition etc...

All things which serve no positive purpose in reality.

On can be intellectual, and postulate things long sinced disproven, and use incorrect assumptionary knowledge (which is NOT knowledge at all) to come up with useless concepts and claims.

Both of these, and there systems of religion, politics, philosophy, superstition, pseudo-science, serve no positive purpose, and are thus ANTI-HUMANITARIAN.
 
  • #13
Originally posted by Alexander
-All speep are black - says a philosopher.
Yeah, I heard this one. Sounds like the philosopher's an idiot.
 
  • #14
Logi: Actually intellectualism is more important than imagination. Say, in quantum field theory you can hear: "this is impossible because I can't imaginne it" or: "it seems that opposite should be true" to only discover that math was correct and imagination was not.

They have saying in quantum physics: "Shut up, and calculate."
 
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  • #15


Originally posted by drag
Yeah, I heard this one. Sounds like the philosopher's an idiot.

Point being (among other points) is that a philosopher is allowed to be an idiot.

An intelligent person and an idiot, both of whom use only the idea of philosophy, and no other of their knowledge, won't create any different assumptions.

Philosophy doesn't require knowledge, nor does it even use knowledge of it was even there.

It's just a "why, why, why"

You could ask why do anything. Why are black sheep blue? That's philosophy, and it defies all logic.

Science can't defy logic, because it's a daughter of logic.

Philosophy is then, even lower than a pseuo-science. It's like a pseudo-logic.

Yet even beyond that. It's non-existant in reality.
 
  • #16
Philosophy doesn't require knowledge, nor does it even use knowledge of it was even there.

Right. Unlike science, philosophy is the only field that strives to take nothing on faith.
 
  • #17
Originally posted by Hurkyl
Right. Unlike science, philosophy is the only field that strives to take nothing on faith.
 
  • #18
Originally posted by Hurkyl
Right. Unlike science, philosophy is the only field that strives to take nothing on faith.

Unlike science AND mathematics. Somebody has to help them out of the corners they paint themselves into.
 
  • #19
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
Point being (among other points) is that a philosopher is allowed to be an idiot.

An intelligent person and an idiot, both of whom use only the idea of philosophy, and no other of their knowledge, won't create any different assumptions.

Philosophy doesn't require knowledge, nor does it even use knowledge of it was even there.

It's just a "why, why, why"

You could ask why do anything. Why are black sheep blue? That's philosophy, and it defies all logic.

Science can't defy logic, because it's a daughter of logic.

Philosophy is then, even lower than a pseuo-science. It's like a pseudo-logic.

Yet even beyond that. It's non-existant in reality.
Can a building exist without the basis that connects it to the ground ? Can a cloud exist and have no bounderies ?
Can the likely basic assumptions infered from observation
and used by science lack any explanation themselves, thus
accepting their own inability of providing an explanation ? :wink:

Peace and long life.
 
  • #20
Originally posted by Hurkyl
Right. Unlike science, philosophy is the only
field that strives to take nothing on faith.
Bravo ! :smile:
 
  • #21
Originally posted by Hurkyl
Right. Unlike science, philosophy is the only field that strives to take nothing on faith.


So, let's see. Not only do you claim that definition of an axiom in the oxford is completely wrong.

But you claim that philosophy won't accept something that isn't absolutely true, while mathematics accepts false claims?

Then surely you must be a mathametician, because you accept the false claim of an axiom!

Ya make no sense man. Philosophy is nothing other than an attempt to think, when one is just rearranging predjudices...
 
  • #22
Would the proper word you're looking for be "speculation?" Which, of course is just another word for the "thinking process."
 
  • #23
Ad hominem arguments are the tools of scoundrels and blackguards!


Out of curiousity, are you objecting to "Philosophers strive to take nothing on faith" or are you objecting to "Scientists do not strive to take nothing on faith"?


So, let's see. Not only do you claim that definition of an axiom in the oxford is completely wrong.

(I assume you're referencing that other thread)

If you scrutinized your claim before you posted, you would have noticed that I was not objecting to the definition that an axiom is something assumed to be true; I was objecting to your assertion that an axiom is something that cannot be false.


But you claim that philosophy won't accept something that isn't absolutely true, while mathematics accepts false claims?

Eh? Where did I claim that?
 
  • #24
True - that a philosophy was a first primitive science, shortly after a speech developed to the point when the word "why" was introduced in it. As both experimental and theoretical (=mathematical) ways of answering were practically inexistent back then, the only way to answer why questions was to speculate. That is what a philoposphy was (and is) doing.

Since then many disciplines were born to more accurately answer numerous old and new "why" questions. Logic, math (=advanced logic), physics, astronomy, geology, biology, quantum mechanics, etc.

But a philosophy is still trying to answer questions using speculations only. Usually by generalising particular opinion to all universe ("all sheep are black") without bothering to find solid proof first (thus no waste baskets are needed in philosophy department).
 
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  • #25
Philosophy (in it's old world term) developed alongside religion.

Philosophy asked the question why.

No one had the ability to answer, and the answer was incorporated with religious mythology.

People wrote mythological stories which happened to deal with many unanswered questions. Eventually people didn't get real answers and they assumed answers in fictional religious mythology texts were real.

Science has since made philosophy and religion useless.

Science not only creates a foundation through logic as to how to ask "why" but it creates a self-scrutinizing logical foundation (the scientific method) for answersing a "why", to the satisfaction that others can scrutinize.

Philosophy and Religion, when imposed onto others is called politics.

Thus because philosophy and religion are dead (meaning useless) politics is merely an attempt to over power others.

Science lives because it is the truth, no matter what the truth is.
 
  • #26
Science lives because it is the truth, no matter what the truth is.

What if the "truth" is "Science is not the truth"?


Ok, now back to seriousness.

From the context of a scientific approach to knowledge, the reason philosophy still exists is because it challenges premises. Premises should be challenged at every tier of knowledge. There is no reason to believe there is a magic cutoff below which the current state of knowledge should be taken as perfect, complete, and infallible, and only knowledge above the cutoff is subject to inquiry.

I can't speak for philosophy, but I know advances are still being made in the very low levels of mathematics, including mathematical logic.



Besides, upon what can you base your judgement that the very foundations of your beliefs are correct?
 
  • #27
It is not a philosophy which questions premises and conclusions, it is a science. Scientists are constantly testing Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, Shroedinger, fundamental constants, fundamental symmetries, etc - in wider and wider areas and with finer and finer measurements.
 
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  • #28
Originally posted by Hurkyl
What if the "truth" is "Science is not the truth"?


Ok, now back to seriousness.

From the context of a scientific approach to knowledge, the reason philosophy still exists is because it challenges premises. Premises should be challenged at every tier of knowledge. There is no reason to believe there is a magic cutoff below which the current state of knowledge should be taken as perfect, complete, and infallible, and only knowledge above the cutoff is subject to inquiry.

I can't speak for philosophy, but I know advances are still being made in the very low levels of mathematics, including mathematical logic.



Besides, upon what can you base your judgement that the very foundations of your beliefs are correct?


Logic is math. The entirity of logic and be expressed mathematically. Except when one is talking about the "logic" in a proposed claim etc...

Philosophy is NOT a tier of knowledge

Philosophy does NOT question premises.

Philosophy says "why", and then another "why".

Philosophy doesn't bother to think about it, or be logically.

Philosophy has nothing to do with logic, they're 100% different.

The only comparison of them can be done when logic in a language is concerned. This is not deductive logic.

Inductive logic isn't REAL (mathematical) logic.
 
  • #29
Ok, let me make my statement in a more direct fashion.

The very idea that we should use mathematical logic should be questioned right along with every other idea.
 
  • #30
Originally posted by Hurkyl
Ok, let me make my statement in a more direct fashion.

The very idea that we should use mathematical logic should be questioned right along with every other idea.


Why? Why "should" it be questioned, and why "should" every other idea be questioned?

Explain why you believe (not think) that such things "should" be questioned?
 
  • #31
You believe that faith is not acceptable justification for anything, do you not?

Then the logical conclusion is that you should not accept logic on faith, correct?

I hope that's enough hinting to show you where your burden of proof lies.
 
  • #32
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
Philosophy doesn't bother to think about it, or be logically.

Philosophy has nothing to do with logic, they're 100% different.
And yet philosophy allows for the possibility of logic. And how you can you possibly define anything without the preponderance to question what it is in the first place?
 
  • #33
Originally posted by Hurkyl
You believe that faith is not acceptable justification for anything, do you not?

Then the logical conclusion is that you should not accept logic on faith, correct?

I hope that's enough hinting to show you where your burden of proof lies.


Logic should be accepted on faith?

Logic should be accepted because it's logical.
 
  • #34
Originally posted by LogicalAtheist
Logic should be accepted on faith?

Logic should be accepted because it's logical.

And because it is meaningful.
 
  • #35
Logic should be accepted because it's logical.

And being logical is a reason to accept it because...
 

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