A physicist, especially one who is a genius, can manage to be an eccentric, offputting, raw truth blurter with poor hygiene, even — Bylaw

Further a physicist might be terrible at reading people's emotions. They might react with tremendous confusing when encountering subcultures other than their own and might have no interest in trying to understand them — Bylaw

They might be utterly incapable of speaking in different ways to children, poor people, working class people, rich people, people going through trauma and so on. Another way to more neutrally put all this is they could be socially rigid. You could say, such a physicist is socially honest. Or you could say they are a very poor communicator. — Bylaw

Whew. You have a thing about physicists. The ones I've known had none of these characteristics. :roll:

I think @Wayfarer started the my-hero-is-a-jerk trend (vide his thread on Descartes & Animal Cruelty) on this forum. Let's check who else of so-called Great Men were assholes. Newton, I was told, was very vindictive, Aristotle was pro-slavery, Heidegger was a Nazi, ... I'm disapppointed, very disappointed mon ami.

Before we get all worked up about the issue, I suggest we define difficulty in order to answer the question is politics harder than science?

Politics is easier than science. The reason: It's easier to lie and get away with it in politics.

Politics is easier than science. The reason: It's easier to lie and get away with it in politics. — jgill

:ok:

Before we get all worked up about the issue, I suggest we define difficulty in order to answer the question is politics harder than science? — Agent Smith

As I said: that's apples and bicycles. If I need a snack and my blood sugar is low sucking on the bicycle doesn't help me. If I need to commute to work and I have 15 minutes, sitting on the apple an peddling doesn't help me.

And then science vs politics is way too abstract to be meaninful. Is it harder to do what in each field, what jobs, what roles? Are we talking about 'harder for someone starting from scratch intending to be great in each field, which will be the harder task? What's hard for Einstein may be easy for Lincoln? What's easy for Lincoln may be hard for Einstein?

Depending on training, experience, temperment, natural gifts, atttitude, interests and more.

If something bores us, it is much harder for us. If you are interested in the elegance of equations you my plough ahead in research into light warves, where someone else with an interest in making practical changes in a legislative bill would find it so boring he or she falls asleep reading one paragraph of a peer's research on light.

I am not sure how to come up with an objective standard of hardness. I could make guesses about some fields, but these are so broad and one's skill set can always get better in both, I wouldn't know how to compare them.

I didn't bring up Einstein's possible interpersonal toxicity to bash Einstein. It was to point out just what I said about the difference between abstract empathy and the kinds of saavy and direct empathy or at least 'reading-other-people-using-mirror-neurons' skill politicians need.

And it was not a sign that I am worked up. It's part of my core apples vs. bicycles (what others might call apples vs. oranges) argument.

Just cause he was a genius in one field doesn't mean he'd be good in another field. For a wide range of reasons, some of which I have been describing.

And hey, could you respond to at least one of the points I made? Because what you did here was not doing that.

Whew. You have a thing about physicists. The ones I've known had none of these characteristics. :roll: — jgill

I don't have a thing about physicists. I was trying to show the different needs of two professions by showing what one could possibly get away with in one of them.

Did you understand my main points? Do you agree or disagree? Do you think politicians and physicists have the same skill sets and temperments and interests? Might one need different skill sets etc.? Can one be extremely competent in one field and not at all in the other? Might not temperment, natural gifts, interests and passions, different skill sets mean that one could be an incredible politician but a terrible physicist and vice versa?

started the my-hero-is-a-jerk trend (vide his thread on Descartes & Animal Cruelty) on this forum. — Agent Smith

As an aside, I found during the course of that thread that Descartes likely DID NOT commit the terrible acts of cruelty that had been ascribed to him on various Internet sites, but that these acts MIGHT have been carried out by students at a notorious French college purportedly influenced by Cartesian ideas about animals as automatons.

So, you're sayin', we use the same brain to do both politics and science, but they're apples and bicycles? An IQ and EQ test assesses cross-domain skills, oui? As far as I can tell, politicians almost always fail, but a horde of scientists have made it big. What does that tell you, mon ami? You're good at philosophy, but something tell me you'll excel in science but will be utterly disoriented as a president/(prime) minister.

As an aside, I found during the course of that thread that Descartes likely DID NOT commit the terrible acts of cruelty that had been ascribed to him on various Internet sites, but that these acts MIGHT have been carried out by students at a notorious French college purportedly influenced by Cartesian ideas about animals as automatons. — Wayfarer

Awesome! A person of his caliber could never have committed a mistake as silly as that! That's the detective in me speaking.

That's the detective in me speaking. — Agent Smith

You didn't mean 'defective'?

He’s not entirely off the hook, his attitude towards and treatment of animals was far from exemplary, but wanton torture, it wasn’t.

You didn't mean 'defective'? — Janus

:lol: Possible.

He’s not entirely off the hook, his attitude towards and treatment of animals was far from exemplary, but wanton torture, it wasn’t. — Wayfarer

Yep, let's not rule Descartes out yet. He's a suspect even if not the prime suspect.

Nevertheless, let's not fall into the woke hysteria of judging every historical character against the standards of modern liberalism.

Nevertheless, let's not fall into the woke hysteria of judging every historical character against the standards of modern liberalism. — Wayfarer

Let us not judge lest we ourselves be judged or let us judge kindly so we may ourselves be judged kindly.

So, you're sayin', we use the same brain to do both politics and science, but they're apples and bicycles? — Agent Smith

Well, we certainly use the same brain for whatever we engage in. Each of us, that is, have but one brain.

An IQ and EQ test assesses cross-domain skills, oui? — Agent Smith

I think that's a pretty incomplete test. Yes, it would tell us stuff about our ability to develop skills in a number of fields. I mentioned other qualities also. EQ measures certain things, but it does not measure our interests and passions, for example. Me personally, I wouldn't be interested in a lot of the activities politicians have to engage in, so it doesn't suit me. Which would make every step in skill acquisition harder for me. Some parts of physics, especially the approach Einstein took with his thought experiments, would be ok, but not the math. I was decent at math, but not very interested after a while. Neither field suits me. And oddly my skill set probably suits politics better. All of my work has involved flexible communication and reading people - though much less negotiation and the Machievellian end - but the parts of that job that I would hate go way past any distaste I have for any parts of physics. Just ot use myself as an example.

The evaluation 'harder' involves a lot of things not on such a test.

As far as I can tell, politicians almost always fail, but a horde of scientists have made it big. — Agent Smith

And you're point is? Does this mean that poltics is harder because more fail. Or politicians are dumber and scientists would succeed as politicians cause they did in science or.....?

What does that tell you, mon ami? — Agent Smith

I think it's more important for the discussion if you tell me what it tells you?

You're good at philosophy, but something tell me you'll excel in science but will be utterly disoriented as a president/(prime) minister. — Agent Smith

I wouldn't be disoriented. I would hate it and I would know why I hated it. And I doubt I would succeed in it. Neither science nor politics suit me as professions. But if I had to choose, I'd go for science, perhaps a marine biologist or, like the people who hang out in nature staring at baboons or elk. All day in a lab would break my soul. But I did quite well on the tests in high school and college that might mislead one into thinking I'd be good in a lab. I'm a science sprinter, but not a marathon runner in science. And you need to be a marathon runner in whatever field you choose.

Ok, ok!

I thought you'd never say Uncle.

I thought you'd never say Uncle — Bylaw

Apologies if my response touched a nerve. Unintended ... or was it? I dunno! Allah Rahim.

That was me being playful.

That was me being playful. — Bylaw

Very playful! :up:

So if I were to say " An "insoluble puzzle" is not really a puzzle" what could I mean to say beyond "Calling an "insoluble puzzle" a puzzle is not the most useful way to talk about it"? — Janus

Perhaps the bigger puzzle is how do we decide whether a puzzle, such as the puzzle of consciousness, is an impossible puzzle or not.

Perhaps the bigger puzzle is how do we decide whether a puzzle, such as the puzzle of consciousness, is an impossible puzzle or not. — RussellA

May be an even bigger puzzle is, the mother of all puzzles is, that it's turtles (puzzles) all the way down. Good morning Montana, it's 8:00 AM and sunny. Just the kinda weather to break bad news in. A team of puzzlers at MIT claims that There is no final puzzle we could solve to get a handle on reality.

For example I think until we understand consciousness we cannot possibly know the true nature of reality or whether the contents of consciousness are veridical.........I have had solipsistic intuitions/feelings in the past. I think we need to defeat solipsism or face a kind of personal isolation where we are able to be skeptical about everything but cogito ergo sum/ourselves. — Andrew4Handel

Solipsism, consciousness and the problem of cause and effect

I am conscious of the colour red, taste something sweet, feel something smooth, hear a slight crackle and smell something fruity. I know these sensations, and believe they have been caused by the apple in front of me.

Solipsism is the position that the consciousness of these sensations certainly exist in the mind and have been caused by the mind itself rather than anything external to the mind. My belief that solipsism is not true is the same reason that I believe consciousness can never be understood, and relates to the problem of cause and effect.

If solipsism were true, then I created everything that I know, such that I created the novels War and Peace, Don Quixote, all the compositions of Bach and Mozart, all the paintings by Derain and Van Gogh, all the scientific discoveries of Feynman and Einstein, etc. As I have difficulty winning at chess, I find it hard to believe that I have such godlike powers.

According to Newton's first law of motion, a stationary object cannot move unless it is acted upon an external force. The Principle of Sufficient Reason, a term coined by Leibniz, and central to Spinoza's philosophical system states that every fact has a reason for obtaining and there are no "brute facts". If something existed for no reason, then the fact it existed would be inexplicable. Aristotle claimed that a person when perceiving anything must also perceive their own existence, suggesting that consciousness entails self-consciousness. However, Schopenhauer wrote, in agreement with Kant, “that the subject should become an object for itself is the most monstrous contradiction ever thought of”. As an object cannot spontaneously cause itself to move in the absence of an external force, a conscious thought cannot spontaneous cause itself to come into existence in the absence of an external cause. Colin McGinn has said that consciousness is "a mystery that human intelligence will never unravel", in that no matter how much scientists study the brain, the mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself, a position called New Mysterianism.

If the concept of cause and effect is fundamental to our beliefs, it follows that not only that Solipsism is not true but we will never be able to understand consciousness.

There is no final puzzle we could solve to get a handle on reality. — Agent Smith

Sounds like Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

Sounds like Gödel's incompleteness theorem. — RussellA

Kurt Gödel, genius made him, genius killed him.

Kurt Gödel, genius made him, genius killed him. — Agent Smith

Gödel died from a fear of poisoning, and malnutrition killed him. Most geniuses are killed by old age.

Gödel died from a fear of poisoning, and malnutrition killed him. Most geniuses are killed by old age. — RussellA

That's a more accurate statement than mine! :up:

That's a more accurate statement than mine! — Agent Smith

Perhaps, but as Raymond Chandler said “A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”

Perhaps the bigger puzzle is how do we decide whether a puzzle, such as the puzzle of consciousness, is an impossible puzzle or not. — RussellA

Again I see this as coming down to definition, If you define consciousness as something like the felt sense of being or existence, something experienced subjectively, then a third person understanding of it would be impossible in principle.

How could you establish a causal relation between the physical body, understood causally, mechanically and the elusive, impossible to pin down nature of the experience of being conscious?

It would seem the best that could be hoped for would be determining the neural correlates of various states of consciousness as reported by subjects , but that doesn't answer the so-called hard problem.

Good question. I would say that there are a few big puzzles in philosophy that still need to be figured out.

1. Knowledge

And by knowledge I mean being able to properly measure deductive and inductive knowledge. We may naturally solve this as we further evolve AI, or it will figure it out for us.

2. Morality

I mean an objective morality that would apply regardless of being human or having a culture.

3. Art

Again, an objective understanding of art. What defines it?

To your points, I think consciousness and its related ideas are for neuroscience to solve. What consciousness is fairly clear at this point. We're simply the part of our brain that regulates certain other larger areas of our brain. We're the brain's CEO if you will. Of course, how do we know this? Once again, the problem of knowledge needs to be answered.

I believe the primary reason consciousness is debated in philosophy is because people are still looking for a soul. Its not really a philosophical discussion, but a faith based and emotional discussion. Once neuroscience ends that avenue, I'm sure people will look elsewhere.

Infinity is solved by solving knowledge. How do you know what infinity is? Is infinity an actual thing, or is it a conceptual framework of an algorithm?

Finally, rationality is once again, knowledge. As we can see, there is no greater need in philosophy then solving epistemology.