Greetings, all -- And then there's this:
http://www.xkcd.com/435/ - Claiborne - -----Original Message----- From: Victoria Hughes <victo...@toryhughes.com> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Sent: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 11:46 pm Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Grand Design, Philosophy is Dead, and Hubris http://www.xefer.com/2011/05/wikipedia On Jul 7, 2011, at 8:03 PM, glen e. p. ropella wrote: > > Owen Densmore wrote at 07/07/2011 06:39 PM: >> Good lord, how? Is it as empirical? Does it create as provably >> valid >> models? Or is it simply as worthy an area of study as science? > > Well, as I said, philosophy is engaged with inference and science is > not. Hence, you must use philosophy in order to develop a scientific > theory. Vice versa, science is engaged with proving your theories > false. You can't pursue science without philosophy and you can't > pursue > philosophy without science. > >> I think the Par you are considering would not include your going to a >> philosopher for medical treatment, right? > > Yes, actually. Effective diagnosis requires philosophy. Similarly, > every plumber I've ever paid has a "philosophy of plumbing". Every > landscaper I've ever met has a philosophy of landscaping. Etc. So, > the > simple answer is, yes. Further, I would NOT go to a doctor who had no > philosophy (assuming such a beast exists). > > The unfortunate part of this is that too many people engage in > philosophy with no science to eliminate their wacko theories. > >> Er, how does Newton deal with negation? Isn't a clear set of >> equations >> saying what *will* happen? I mean of course one can say, It Is Not >> The >> Case That F=ma Is Not True, but really, just how can we think of >> science >> limited to negation? > > Science is rooted in testability and falsification. And even if > you're > not a fan of Popper, you should still be able to admit that no > untestable, unfalsifiable theory is scientific. So, science > _at_least_ > requires falsification. Many of Newton's theories were falsifiable, > but > not falsified. Of course, it's also true that many of Newton's > theories > were unfalsifiable and unfalsified. So, some of what Newton did was > scientific and some was not, just like the rest of us. > >> Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for all the rich topics of >> investigation we pursue, philosophy included. However, I don't see >> that >> they are on par in any way other than you can study it. > > You may well have different conceptions of what philosophy is ... and > what science is. That's fine. But _I_ think they are equally > valuable, > equally useful, and equally "real". In pretty much every > quantification > I can think of, they are on par ... oh, except that most people > don't do > science. Hence, we see a bit of a back-lash amongst the scientists > bemoaning that ... hence silly statements like "philosophy is dead". > > --> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
