The point about Einstein is that his was an empirical theory about motion, distance measurements, etc. An apriori theory of time and space is very different. It tries to describe the conditions in place that make such observations even possible. A bit like checking out what a telescope does prior to processing the data it gives us. Experience is not a mirror of nature, to borrow a phrase. How could it be this? Have you seen a brain? — Constance
I caught that "whatever that means." You need to get out more, I mean, read something else other than what Neil Tyson DeGrasse tells you to read. Me, I've taken lots of science, and I do understand it quite well. But I have also read lots of phenomenology. The latter is philosophy. An entirely different order of analysis. — Constance
You jest, no? Seriously, is this what you think? If a child is drowning and the event produces ripples in the water, then by an examination of the ripples, I know what the child's drowning is all about?? What do you think an MRI is? — Constance
But when I say one cannot observe empirically the act of believing or knowing I mean to say that even in one's interior observations, where the belief arises and one can step back and one can step back and acknowledge this in an act of reflection, the knowing the belief is there is still bound to the indeterminacy of belief itself. — Constance
The question goes to what the knowing of anything is. You would have to show how anything out there gets in here (pointing to my head). Do this, and I will convert instantly to your side of this matter. — Constance
Well, there is a lot of language in this, and it is all from science. You need, if you want to understand philosophy, to look elsewhere, other than a body of thinking that is self confirming. This would bring in questions. A physiologist reads about, witnesses the digestive system, say, microscopically as well, and with all the detail. Ask this scientist, how do you separate what you witness from the phenomena produced in your brain such that your thinking and intuitive impressions are not REALLY just about the hard wired problem solving mechanisms that deal with the affairs in general? How do you separate your knowing about what is before you from the conditions of knowing? — Constance
Philosophy observes the world of observations.Look at it like Dewey or Rorty do: There is a volcano. An event. And my perception of the volcano is an event. I am "here" and the volcano is "there". Do I know there is a volcano? Of course. What does it mean to know, that is this relation that exists between me and that over there? Now wait....that is a different kind of question entirely. I have to remove my geologist's smock. This is an epistemic relation, not a causal one.
You should be able to see that this is a problem. For philosophy, it was THE problem for more than a hundred years, until many just decided to forget it. It will NEVER be resolved is empirical science. You can think as you please, ignore it as you please, but every philosopher knows this. — Constance
How about the idea that metaphysics is the condition of possibility for understanding the theoretical framework within which proven facts make sense in the first place? — Joshs
The conclusion is that science has never ceased being ‘philosophical’ in the sense that theoretical frameworks represent a naive metaphysics. — Joshs
You are probably correct. Certainly science evolved in philosophical frameworks. But I think apart from logical structures science is no longer philosophical. Just the way I see it as a a non-philosopher. Once the technicalities of an idea require extensive specialized knowledge that idea becomes speculation by the scientists involved. I consider string theory to be speculative science as long as there is the faintest possibility it can be experimentally verified. If it were clearly shown to be non-verifiable, well, that's a different thing.
Now, there are concepts in science/mathematics that I do in fact believe are philosophical, metaphysical to be exact. Infinitesimals, conjectured by Leibniz and others, are objects of metaphysics. They can be considered foundational in analysis and support a mathematical structure that describes much of the physical world. But they cannot be proven to exist. — jgill
So can we agree that Science is Philosophy that doesn't deal with meaning and value because those doesn't have objective metrics? — Nickolasgaspar
What do you think philosophy is? — Nickolasgaspar
Science isn't interested in what Big Bang means for humans — Nickolasgaspar
But those figures you mentioned are good, I just really dislike postmodernism. That's where I draw the line. — Manuel
After 426 posts on this thread there doesn't seem to be a consensus. It's certainly not the philosophy of nature of past ages, having been eclipsed by modern science. — jgill
-again you fail to understand the difference in meaningfulness from efforts aiming to technical applications.In fact, astrophysicists study the results of the BB and what they find may very well have implications on future space travel for humans. But I hear what you are saying — jgill
I don't think so.is this helpful???? — Nickolasgaspar
If you are ignorant of the objective nature of the Scientific Method — Nickolasgaspar
There isn't such a thing as "A scientific Method". — Nickolasgaspar
What we're "doing" when we do science is treating the world as natural or physical -- i.e., objective -- as substantive, quantitative, material. It takes on a view of the world as an object, a machine, or as forces acting on matter. — Xtrix
We look for natural explanations to natural phenomena. All of what I said above is an ontological position. None of it is "arbitrary," nor did I say that.
— Xtrix
science doesn't assume the world is material, mechanical etc. — Nickolasgaspar
-You are confusing Methodological Naturalism with Ontological Naturalism. — Nickolasgaspar
[Science] deals with ontology within nature since we figured out this is the only ontology that makes senses and has epistemic value. — Nickolasgaspar
I think however there are some very useful pearls of insights in Descartes and Cudworth (who is unknown) that really set the stage for a kind of special "power" in our souls, in which with our "cognoscitive" powers we are able to take stimulations (not objects) and enliven them.
Once this is cleared up a bit, I think one could proceed down the lines of "reduction" or Tallis "episteogony" and much else that follows. But before checking consciousness, I think there are some obscure factors in play, which allow the mind to have the capacities it does. — Manuel
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