On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:29 PM, Judah McAuley wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:02 PM, denstar wrote: >> "The realm of philosophers"? Maybe some people thought that way, and >> The Church /was/ Powerful, but the *real* stuff that is the realm of >> philosophers has been the same realm for like, thousands and thousands >> of years. >> >> Science is a sub-deal of philosophy. It's a tool, not an Answer. >> >> What can science tell us of what it means to be an individual? About >> "goodness" and "badness"? >> >> Science can give us data-- but by definition, it /needs something >> else/. Context. Meaning. >> >> Interpretation. > > You may have missed the bit where I referred not only to Science but > to Natural Philosophy and it's forerunners. I think that the term > Natural Philosophy is a better one than Science and I wish that > Naturalist had not been confined to the realm of dottering old British > dudes. Science is not a subset of Philosophy any more than it is a > subset of Mathematics. Or that Philosophy is a subset of Mathematics. > They are all languages in which we try to explain ideas and, > optimally, truths.
Hrm. When I say "philosophy", I'm thinking the useful kind, not the theoretical kind. Somehow it's gotten relegated to this "oh, they're just thought experiments" corner, when it's super-useful, and indeed, the root of Math and Science. I would say [structured?] thinking is a prerequisite to Math, Science, and lots of other stuff. I bet the philosophy of science was around before science itself was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science#Empirical_Verification Lots of good stuff there, this quote supports the POV I'm proffering: There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995. Just below that is some interesting stuff about self-referential systems and strange loops. Both are lovely concepts. Little more on that below. .. > degree in applied mathematics where things get a bit more hairy. Large > categories of equations for which we have no way of solving, physical > models which are able to be bounded but not precise, non-linear > systems which are chaotic but describable. Ah, Chaos, my old friend. Another awesome concept. What got me "into" math was "The Eternal Golden Braid" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach I *loved* that book. If an instructor had presented crap the way Hofstadter did, maybe I'd have liked math earlier. It was thick, and some parts I had to read a couple of times to really enjoy fully, but, swell, just swell concepts and whatnot. > Scientists and Natural Philosophers have gotten their feet muddy where > academic philosophers feared to tread. You say that the Church *used* > to be powerful, but there was uproar around the attempts to do the > first open heart surgery or bypass surgery in the 40s and 50s, let > alone the first artificial heart. We were told, time and again, that > those are the mysteries of nature, belonging to the domain of a > mysterious God, which we, as mortals, are unworthy to meddle in. Academic philosophers? Eh. Sounds relegational. ;) Anyways, the Church's nay-saying *pales* in comparison to what the scientific community does. Gödel was not looked at favorably when he first presented his stuff. Hell, it went against what was basically math's Grand Unification Theory. Lots of people had invested a lot of thought and time into that unification. They were not pleased. Einstein suffered similarly. Et cetera and yadda. It wasn't the Church those dudes were battling so much as other scientists. Personally, I think the latter is worse, far worse. > You think it has stopped? Ask the people doing work on growing new > organs, of creating new life from nucleic acids, of people doing stem > cell research. The preface to "Jurassic Park" (the book) had some freaking scary-ass-shit in it, and that was the /true/ (let's not get started on the definition of "True") crazy genetic experimentation that was going down, like, what, 15 years ago or so now? Morals and ethics are freaking key, not because of religion, but because they are good tools for preventing self-destruction. You, I'm sure, know about the dangers of the Quest for Knowledge. That the Church is usually at the forefront doesn't discount the validity of the concerns. > Science isn't an ivory tower gig. It is dirty, complicated and > intimately bound up in the struggle of humanity and our desire to > overcome. Science is about telling stories. The dude I worked in a lab > under had a way of talking about how you write papers. He told me, > "You plan your experiments the best you can. Then you collect data. > Then you find the best story you can tell with it and write that paper > and submit it. Then you find the next best story you can tell and > submit that. But each of them has to tell a story. Have a question, > have a plot, have an answer and more questions." Yes, I love this. I was going to type earlier that science was sorta like history. Sure, history helps you predict things, but it also sorta doesn't. Science doesn't generally like "sorta". It's hard to quantify, maybe. > Can science tell you what it means to be an individual? Hell yes. > Science is stories. Part of that story is data, yes. That, in the > realm of performance, is the setup. Ah, but then you have the > Conclusions. And that is the reveal. Yes, and either MJ or Maureen already pointed out something nifty about conclusions (how they're sorta like ass-holes, as the saying goes). Remember when Sam said something about Rush doing the conclusion part? Yeah, it is where the rubber hits the road tho, I reckon. > That is one of the beautiful things about modern science. If you agree > on the data, then you are left to fight over the conclusion. Data > isn't the point of science, it is the beginning. It helps people focus > in on where the real interesting bits lay. If you didn't have the > data, the great intellects can, and will, roam far afield with nothing > to constrain them. Which can be amusing. But not necessarily > productive. If you've got data, however, then you focus down in on the > question at hand, you can all work on bringing a story to a > conclusion. Nothing to constrain them? I think you've got a bias against philosophers. At least academic ones =) The whole deal of philosophy is about constraint, and experimentation. Sure, most of it happens in the head (at least at first), but again, I believe the head is where science and whatnot stems from. Or maybe it's the heart. Hrm. Where is the soul located again? I forget. But hey, I can see my mortal coil! (No, not the Star Trek: Voyager episode) > And that, in a nutshell, is why science works. Science works because we make science work. -- I want you to be everything that's you, deep at the center of your being. Co ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:308546 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
