Is Philosophy Viewed as Lesser in Scientific Forums?

[octelcogopod]

Is philosophy the "black sheep?"

In our quest to understand this reality, both subjective and objective, is philosophy generally considered as "lesser" than physics and other sciences?
Maybe it's just me, but was the decision to include a philosoph section on a physics forum of this quality kind of "unorthodox?"

Your opinions on this are very welcomed.

 

[Hurkyl]

Science (and mathematics too) is philosophy. Specifically, it is a subfield dedicated to a particular method of inquiry.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

However it has been argued on philosophical grounds that this is no longer true.

true story

 

[Evo]

The problem with "philosophy" on an internet forum is that it's going to draw all the flakes and weirdos and the result is a lot of mental diarrhea.

 

[SpaceTiger]

In our quest to understand this reality, both subjective and objective, is philosophy generally considered as "lesser" than physics and other sciences?

By scientists, it usually is, despite the fact that the origins of science were in philosophy. Many scientists consider philosophical discussions to be a waste of time, probably because truly objective agreement is impossible to reach. Personally, I think it's a good mental exercise, regardless of whether or not the conclusions can be objectively agreed upon. Further, I think study of philosophy can help with development of intuition (in any area) and creativity.

 

[arildno]

Well, it so happens that a "philosopher" with no knowledge of the sciences can produce nothing of value for science (psychology and suchlike excluded since it doesn't qualify as a science).

However, the converse is not at all true:
A practising scientist may have much to say of philosophical interest pertaining to his field of expertise even if the scientist is wholly unschooled in formal philosophy.

 

[DeadWolfe]

Near as I can tell, most scientists consider just about anything outside of science to be a waste of time.

 

[arildno]

Not at all.
My general impression is that most scientists consider just about anything said ABOUT SCIENCE by non-scientists to be a waste of time listening to, if one is interested in learning more science.

 

[Evo]

Near as I can tell, most scientists consider just about anything outside of science to be a waste of time.

I find most scientists have many interests outside of science, such as literature, art, & music, to name a few.

 

[Moonbear]

The problem with "philosophy" on an internet forum is that it's going to draw all the flakes and weirdos and the result is a lot of mental diarrhea.

Considering all the flakes and weirdos who think they can spout off about physics without having ever studied physics, it's probably no surprise we find plenty of them wandering around spouting off about philosophy with no idea of what sort of rigor is required for a proper philosophical argument.

 

[Moonbear]

I find most scientists have many interests outside of science, such as literature, art, & music, to name a few.

Very true. We have to feed the creative part of our brains as much as the analytical part.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

By scientists, it usually is, despite the fact that the origins of science were in philosophy. Many scientists consider philosophical discussions to be a waste of time, probably because truly objective agreement is impossible to reach. Personally, I think it's a good mental exercise, regardless of whether or not the conclusions can be objectively agreed upon. Further, I think study of philosophy can help with development of intuition (in any area) and creativity.

Considering that we don't have a unified theory, isn't it ultimately a faith statement that physics is not a philosophy? Granted, we can reproduce experiments and predict outcomes, but until complete, we are still taking it on faith that our models somehow represent the underlying reality of the physical world in such a way that physics [and math] is consistent. Is there a physics that applies to all domains - such as at both quantum and cosmological scales, for example? It is an assumption that such a physics does exist, so at the least, much of the physics of the 20th century is a faith statement.

If the idea that we predict correct answers is thought to be the distinction between science and philosophy, then I refer to the epicycles of Mars as an example that testable right answers may have nothing to do with reality; at least at the deepest levels. So it seems that we can argue that physics is the philosophy of modeling.

 

[SpaceTiger]

Considering that we don't have a unified theory, isn't it ultimately a faith statement that physics is not a philosophy?

I think there's a big difference between what scientists do and what modern-day philosophers do, but to answer your question, we would have to first agree on a definition of philosophy. I think most scientists are very pragmatic about their work -- they don't try to generalize its applicability beyond the range in which it has been demonstrated. I wouldn't call that faith.

I do, however, think that scientists regularly invoke philosophical arguments when evaluating theories. Occam's razor is one example, but even that can be loosely justified with statistical arguments.

If the idea that we predict correct answers is thought to be the distinction between science and philosophy, then I refer to the epicycles of Mars as an example that testable right answers may have nothing to do with reality; at least at the deepest levels. So it seems that we can argue that physics is the philosophy of modeling.

Epicycles didn't successfully predict -- that was exactly the problem. It was a very non-scientific approach, in fact, because it relied on preconceived notions (e.g. circular orbits) that weren't rigorously justified.

Whether or not our theories describe truth or "reality" is a philosophical question, but insomuch as the theories are just used to predict future outcomes, I would say my work has very little in common with what we normally consider philosophy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think there's a big difference between what scientists do and what modern-day philosophers do, but to answer your question, we would have to first agree on a definition of philosophy. I think most scientists are very pragmatic about their work -- they don't try to generalize its applicability beyond the range in which it has been demonstrated. I wouldn't call that faith.

Well, we could really dig and say that no number of confirmations of a theory deny the possibility that the next test will produce unexpected results. Strictly speaking, the very notion that identical tests will always yield identical results is an assumption. But I was thinking of the big picture in which we try to merge theories from cosmology, GR, QM, etc, in an effort to gain a complete understanding of the natural forces, matter, time, space, and so on. That this can be done is that faith statement referenced earlier. In fact it was only in the last ten years or so that I first heard the idea that a unified theory may not even be possible. No one had ever mentioned that possibility before.

It seems to me that much of science is geered towards this assumption of an underlying structure that makes a unified theory possible, and a good thing I think. Otherwise, for me at least, it becomes difficult to justify pure research. I think we all assume that we're going somewhere with this.

Epicycles didn't successfully predict -- that was exactly the problem. It was a very non-scientific approach, in fact, because it relied on preconceived notions (e.g. circular orbits) that weren't rigorously justified.

It was a best fit given the assumptions. Whether or not it was correct is a matter of error over time, as it still is. No? Wasn't it accepted as basically correct but needing fine tuning?

Whether or not our theories describe truth or "reality" is a philosophical question, but insomuch as the theories are just used to predict future outcomes, I would say my work has very little in common with what we normally consider philosophy.

Yes, I wasn't considering the popular notion of philosophy in any of this. I was thinking about the implications for physics should we find that a unfied theory is not possible - the limitations imposed on our view of physics until we know otherwise.

Is physics nothing but modeling? I call that engineering.

 

[hypnagogue]

Well, it so happens that a "philosopher" with no knowledge of the sciences can produce nothing of value for science (psychology and suchlike excluded since it doesn't qualify as a science).

Psychology doesn't qualify as a science?

However, the converse is not at all true:
A practising scientist may have much to say of philosophical interest pertaining to his field of expertise even if the scientist is wholly unschooled in formal philosophy.

On the other hand, it's not uncommon to find an otherwise competent scientist who is totally out of his depth when addressing philosophical matters.

I see philosophy as a necessary complement to science if one wishes to construct a coherent worldview for oneself. I think there will always be legitimate metaphysical and epistemological questions that cannot be settled conclusively by scientific inquiry.

 

[Smurf]

I find it unsettling that everyone so far, even those who explicitely say science is philosophy still dis-associate it by the way they construct their other sentences.

anyways,
one differences between the philosophy and science in specific regards to this forum that might be particularly important is:

In the sciences, the majority of discussion is people asking questions and people giving answers as par to the accepted system of biology, physics, ect. Very little discussion is arguing about wether (i never remember how to spell this kind of weather) or not something is actually true, and very little is discussing about original research. In contrast, in philosophy the vast majority is people arguing about various aspects of 'truth' and there are only a handful of threads where people ask "What did Nietzsche mean when he said so-and-so" or whatever.


oh, and the black sheep where I am is political science. No one outside of poli sci respects poli sci.

 

[Chi Meson]

The problem with "philosophy" on an internet forum is that it's going to draw all the flakes and weirdos and the result is a lot of mental diarrhea.

Oh, that is so true. And then, because people think that physics is an extension of philosophy, some get the notion that any idea they have after a sleepless night of too much coffee is just as good as 100 years of experimentation.

Side note: Physics used to be known as "Natural Philosophy" until it was seen to be very different from simply "thinking about objects."

Nowadays, a new word for philosophy is "metaphysics," suggesting the realm that is beyond (some would say "above") scientific methods.

 

[Moonbear]

In the sciences, the majority of discussion is people asking questions and people giving answers as par to the accepted system of biology, physics, ect. Very little discussion is arguing about wether (i never remember how to spell this kind of weather) or not something is actually true, and very little is discussing about original research.

Huh? That's very much what scientists do all the time. Where did you get the notion we don't?

 

[arildno]

Psychology doesn't qualify as a science?

No, it doesn't. Unverifiable fantasy theories abound, replacing each others as the fashions and decades go.
This is NOT how science develops.

On the other hand, it's not uncommon to find an otherwise competent scientist who is totally out of his depth when addressing philosophical matters

Well, I did put the caveat in "pertaining to his field of expertise", didn't I?

I see philosophy as a necessary complement to science if one wishes to construct a coherent worldview for oneself. I think there will always be legitimate metaphysical and epistemological questions that cannot be settled conclusively by scientific inquiry.

Sure enough. It doesn't, however, follow that the philosopher ought to be ignorant of science in order to produce good philosophy.
This, however, seems to have been raised as a virtue by French rubbish thinkers in particular (that would be the post-modernists/deconstructionists like Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida and a lot of others of the same ilk)

 

[vanesch]

I see philosophy as a necessary complement to science if one wishes to construct a coherent worldview for oneself. I think there will always be legitimate metaphysical and epistemological questions that cannot be settled conclusively by scientific inquiry.

I couldn't agree more. Scientific activity is often divided in two parts: a technical one, and a philosophical one. During scientific education, and during "work as a scientist" the accent is overwhelmingly placed on the "technical" part (calculations, laboratory procedures, insight in a formalism, development of intuition for failure-search in lab procedures, etc...).
As long as one stays within a clearly defined paradigm, in fact, all that is "needed" of a scientist are these technical skills. It's what makes that the experiment comes out all right, that the calculations are correct, that the right intuition is used for the allowable approximations and so on, in other words, that the working scientist does a good job, writes good publications, and obtains good results.

But it is interesting to see the battles about, say, the unification of gravity and quantum theory, to see the philosophical side emerge again, because this time, there IS no paradigm in which to work technically (well, in fact, there are fake paradigms, set by the heros of the moment).

I think it is a pity that philosophy has a "bad name" amongst the physicist community in general. Feynman (otherwise a great physicist) must be partly responsible for it. That's understandable: during Feynman's days, the best way to book success was to "shut up and calculate" within a certain paradigm. Deep philosophical ponderings got you nowhere, hard labor in the lab or with pencil and paper did marvels. One after the other, successes were booked.
But since about 20 years, that machine got slowly to a grinding halt.
Not in domains like condensed matter and so on, but on the most fundamental level, not much progress has been booked. And now, one sees furious battles over *philosophical* principles at the top of fundamental physical research, like: "is the anthropic principle a valid principle or not ?" "Is it meaningful to look after a theory of everything ?" ; "what does it mean to do theoretical research on topics that will probably remain outside of the realm of experiment for ever?"

 

[arildno]

But, vanesch:
Those who are to contribute in any significant way to the resolution of, or at least debate of, these important questions, have to have a solid SCIENTIFIC background.
If all you've read during your studies are French post-modernists, and you fancy yourself a philosopher, then you have ZERO of value to put into these discussions.

 

[vanesch]

But, vanesch:
Those who are to contribute in any significant way to the resolution of, or at least debate of, these important questions, have to have a solid SCIENTIFIC background.
If all you've read during your studies are French post-modernists, and you fancy yourself a philosopher, then you have ZERO of value to put into these discussions.

I surely agree with you. I'd even say that if all you've read are French post-modernists, there's not much one can do for you anymore, in any domain

I was only pointing out that it is sometimes a pity that otherwise good physicists (I don't know about other scientists) have often been educated in such a way as to have a low opinion of the philosophical part of their activity. And (unfortunately, I'd say) this has not much influence on their professional success.

 

[vanesch]

Huh? That's very much what scientists do all the time. Where did you get the notion we don't?

I guess what Smurf means is: you're looking for "truth" *within the paradigm of your research*, but rarely one steps back to think about what it would mean from another viewpoint - simply because that "other viewpoint" is not part of the current paradigm. Of course, it is a "dangerous" exercise not only because you might get heavy critique from your peers, but because you very quickly get totally lost (especially because you now have no paradigm left anymore on which to rely to guide your thinking). In other words, compared to a working paradigm, these ponderings usually lead to total rubbish (what we often call "crackpottery" :-) But learning to see the boundaries of your "working paradigm" is, by itself, a useful exercise.

One can recognize such a question that puts into question the "working paradigm" often by the heated debate amongst knowledgeable people it generates. Sometimes heated debates are over a falsifiable question, but then it is sufficient to do the experiment in order to find out who's the winner. But most heated debates are of a philosophical origin.

 

[Gokul43201]

The set of accurate descriptions of nature is a(n improper) superset of the set of "truths". (This much seems reasonable to me, and I doubt anyone would disagree.)

The scientific method aims to generate the former set. The philosophers may then hack it out among themselves which of the members of the set of accurates constitute "truths"! While the scientists keep themselves busy generating the first set, the philosophers keep themselves busy debating criteria for plucking "truths" out of this set. How they do this, I have no idea.

And then there are the other philosophers...

Smurf : The reason you don't see folks discussing very much of their research on PF, is that the scientists that are involved in this research are quite aware that there are on average, less than two people on the whole forum (including themselves) that will know enough about their area of research to be able to contribute something non-negligible in a thread.

"Philosophers" on the forum, however, run into no such difficulty. Most everyone seems to be a philosopher of high caliber!

 

[Moonbear]

No, it doesn't. Unverifiable fantasy theories abound, replacing each others as the fashions and decades go.
This is NOT how science develops.

It depends on the area of psychology one studies. There has been a strong shift over the past few decades of psychology research into a more biological emphasis. It's a field still in transition to more rigorous science, but it's definitely heading that way. It's not easy turning something fairly subjective such as people's thoughts, emotions, sensations, and perceptions, into something objectively quantifiable, but psychologists have been working hard to move in that direction.

 

[SpaceTiger]

Well, we could really dig and say that no number of confirmations of a theory deny the possibility that the next test will produce unexpected results. Strictly speaking, the very notion that identical tests will always yield identical results is an assumption.

I think this is one of those arguments that turns scientists off from philosophy. Is it possible that tomorrow the fundamental laws of nature will suddenly change? Sure. Maybe the equivalence principle will switch off or momentum won't be conserved. But given that centuries of experiments have confirmed the utility of the scientific method, it hardly seems worth talking about.

But I was thinking of the big picture in which we try to merge theories from cosmology, GR, QM, etc, in an effort to gain a complete understanding of the natural forces, matter, time, space, and so on. That this can be done is that faith statement referenced earlier.

I can't really speak for string theorists and QG theorists on this point, but they're only a very tiny fraction of the physics community, so any concept of faith that they might have about unifying the physical laws cannot necessarily be generalized to scientists or physicists in general. For most scientists, the issue of a unifying theory never comes up, nor does it need to. Some think it's possible, some don't, but none that I know of approach the issue in a way that even remotely resembles religious faith.

Science only becomes faith when one tries to generalize beyond its domain of applicability; for example, to believe that science is all there is.

It seems to me that much of science is geered towards this assumption of an underlying structure that makes a unified theory possible, and a good thing I think. Otherwise, for me at least, it becomes difficult to justify pure research. I think we all assume that we're going somewhere with this.

I'm fairly certain you're in the minority. Aside from acknowledging the obvious technological advances that have been made possible from scientific research (of all kinds, including theoretical), most people find science interesting even if it's not "fundamental" or "unifying".

It was a best fit given the assumptions. Whether or not it was correct is a matter of error over time, as it still is. No? Wasn't it accepted as basically correct but needing fine tuning?

It was a successful fit, not a successful prediction. If it were successfully predicting, they wouldn't have needed to keep adding epicycles. The key phrase in the above paragraph is "given the assumptions". The assumptions themselves were a demonstration of non-scientific reasoning because there was no scientific basis for them. They weren't limited by their knowledge of the universe, they were limited by their preconceived notions about it.

Is physics nothing but modeling? I call that engineering.

I generally think of engineering as being a form of applied science, but you can call it whatever you like. All physical theory that has been successfully tested so far has broken down at some point, so all our physical equations can be thought of as a fit or model to something more fundamental. Perhaps even the "unifying" theories you speak of will themselves be shown to be an approximation in the long run.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think this is one of those arguments that turns scientists off from philosophy. Is it possible that tomorrow the fundamental laws of nature will suddenly change? Sure. Maybe the equivalence principle will switch off or momentum won't be conserved. But given that centuries of experiments have confirmed the utility of the scientific method, it hardly seems worth talking about.

Or perhaps we will find that variations exist of which we're not yet aware -like discovering dark energy, for example. Perhaps we will drift though a region of space in which something important changes that we don't understand. But as I said, and whether scientists like to talk about it or not, it is an assumption that exists, but it wasn't my point.

Science only becomes faith when one tries to generalize beyond its domain of applicability; for example, to believe that science is all there is.

Einstein worked on the unified theory for the last half of his life. Was he operating outside of the domain of applicability of physics, or was he taking it on faith that such a theory is possible in the first place? And throughout the sixties and seventies the results strongly favored the standard model as the final theory, and this was clearly a frontline discussion. To say this has not been a focus of modern physics seems absurd to me.

I'm fairly certain you're in the minority. Aside from acknowledging the obvious technological advances that have been made possible from scientific research (of all kinds, including theoretical), most people find science interesting even if it's not "fundamental" or "unifying".

Well, I probably am highly biased on this point. The philosophical epilogue was always my favority part of any QM chapter. For me, the rest was merely supporting evidence.

It was a successful fit, not a successful prediction. If it were successfully predicting, they wouldn't have needed to keep adding epicycles. The key phrase in the above paragraph is "given the assumptions". The assumptions themselves were a demonstration of non-scientific reasoning because there was no scientific basis for them. They weren't limited by their knowledge of the universe, they were limited by their preconceived notions about it.

I have seen a physical working model that was made before Kepler and used to predict the position of Mars at any time, so someone was trying to model the motion of Mars based on observations. Isn't that what scientists do? But the original point is that right answers don't necessarily speak to underlying truths, so apparently we agree on the main point.

...so all our physical equations can be thought of as a fit or model to something more fundamental.

That is the assumption that I'm talking about. We don't know this to be true but we implicity assume that it is.

 

[octelcogopod]

All this aside for a second, in regards to what Evo said about mental dierrhea..

I don't think it's a good idea to discourage armchair philosophy and sloppy arguments just because they aren't very good.
Many people aren't as dumb as one may think.
I have many times since I began studying philosophy done many a great mistakes and missinterpretations, but no one is perfect.
But I feel I have grown, and some day I will have a more "perfect" understanding of philosophy as of today.

I understand that the quality of the philosophy forums is probably lesser than the other forums, but isn't it a good thing that anyone can do philosophy?
Even those that aren't interested in it, have at some point had an existential period, and this helps humanity in general think more and be more reflected, why suppress that or be hostile against it?
I mean sure, if it's a schizophrenic posting with his mind so deeply into his own self that he cannot possibly comprehend how wrong he is about what he's saying, then by all means close it, but when someone who is sincere and forms his posts in an intelligent manner, only he is completely "wrong" or missinformed, then rather teach him where he is mistaken rather than calling it "mental dierrhea."

 

[Smurf]

Huh? That's very much what scientists do all the time. Where did you get the notion we don't?

On PF? You do original research on PF?

 

[Hurkyl]

but when someone who is sincere and forms his posts in an intelligent manner, only he is completely "wrong" or missinformed, then rather teach him where he is mistaken rather than calling it "mental dierrhea."

Practicioners of "mental dierrhea" have no interest in being taught -- they are only interested in convincing everyone else that they are right.