Comments

  • Anti-Realism
    Seems to me that much of this discussion is based on a misapprehension of what antirealism means. — Banno
    What I’m trying to say is that our perception doesn’t literally have to be “real” even though it’s based on a real outside world.
    Michael McMahon

    When someone takes you seriously enough to critique what you say you should not just flippantly repeat what you're trying to say. Assume that the critique is valid and see where you went wrong. Else forget philosophy and take up tennis or something.
  • Information
    The best introduction available online might be
    Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners

    From my own perspective, I am intrigued by the philosophical differences between the approaches of Saussure and Peirce. Is meaning a fleeting thought or an object to be examined? Is information more than the vehicle for meaning?
  • Information

    Hollywood movies are usually written to evoke emotional responses from viewers, the stronger the better. Visual effects such as scenery, action as part of a story, and the looks and personality of the actors imply some moral or existential message then follow from the sum total of the two hours of imaginary life experience gained. Or maybe is it just entertainment without meaning?

    A picture is worth a thousand words. When I attempt to describe a quite familiar picture or just any picture I happen to come across this old proverb proves to be convincing. Looking at it the other way isn't simple either. It might be quite a challenge to illustrate this paragraph so that any meaning can somehow be passed on to a non-English speaker.

    One issue is whether there is any meaning in the passage itself without the contributions of a writer and a reader. Is there a message at all if the reader is naive to the subject and the language employed? A writer might or might not have intended to convey a message to specific or all readers. Am I just spinning meaningless words?

    Information in the digital world is alluringly concrete, manageable, and purposeful, for computers that know how to write and read it, yet also for human purposes at a higher level of meaning. It would appear then that information and meaning are not simple, and I am correct in being confused. Clearly the keys I press somehow create meaning that reach your mind with the help of or perhaps in spite of the hidden electronic information that made it possible.
  • Coronavirus

    Moderna will soon begin testing its vaccine in 3,000 teens age 12-17. ...The study is set to finish in June 2022 ...it’s normal that studies are conducted first in adults, then older children and teens down to young kids....hopeful that by the school term of 2021 … we will certainly have a vaccine I think that we could administer to children over 12 ...Moderna is currently awaiting emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its mRNA vaccine that could be distributed shortly. ...Moderna said it expects to have 20 million doses available in the U.S. by the end of 2020 and between 100 million and 125 million doses available globally in the first quarter of 2021. -- Boston Herald

    I take it that Pfizer has claimed that they have already tested 12-17 year olds?

    I understand that medical-pharmaceutical research is complex and problematic. Therefore, it would stand to reason that it cannot be held to the same rigorous statistical standards as most other sciences where the variables can be minimized before data is collected for statistical analysis. Then all pharmaceuticals developed and released to the public carry relatively high risk to be counterbalanced against vastly greater gain.

    The real issue lies in the political pressure and interference coming from the President who treats watchdog agencies like the FDA as worthless bureaucrats. He may well be right about that, I don't know. But public confidence in the process of approvals is eroded if the FDA is threatened and berated.
  • Coronavirus
    So you assume it went through all the nursing homes? It's not like the pandemic has gone through the population, which is obvious when you look at the debate around herd immunity and the Swedish-model (or the first adopted UK-policy).ssu

    Those charts are US figures. The US is geographically more spread out, the population is more diverse, and the economic gap between the haves and the have nots is significantly wider. The first wave of the virus only effected the East and West coast which are the hubs of global aviation traffic.

    Although in China and Europe the pandemic was under way well ahead of the US, our Leader denied the 'Chinese Hoax' and local politicians, even the political opponents of our Leader, suppressed data collection and medical preparedness efforts. Testing for the virus was not generally available and the hospitals were ill prepared for the first influx of intensive medical emergencies.

    By the second wave, a different wider range of patients appeared to be effected. These were the poorer service workers who were forced by the necessities of keeping their families fed to work in supermarkets, small stores, and delivery of goods to those who have shifted to work from home, or can otherwise afford to stay at home in isolation.

    The third wave primarily effects, at least to date, the Trumpist Midland and Southern states who have rallied, partied, and mocked the leftist commie facemask-wearing fools.

    Just looking at the graphs, The death statistics are much more certain, more reliable, more real than what's reported by biased authorities which should only be used in an indictment. The hospital ICU stats are the ones that I would most like to see for further pandemic speculation.

    It should be remembered that there are possibly social or racial differences in addition to socio-economic status on the chronology of the pandemic. All those in isolation will eventually be immunized or become victims as well, but later when the hospitals have become more adept at avoiding deaths.

    Two more factors might be the availability of rapid and accurate testing and reporting with medical details, and, and that we might not be just talking about the virus but a family of very similar mutating cluster that should probably survive most of the current vaccines, depending on the vaccines method of attacking their target model.
  • Coronavirus
    We can assume that there has to be at least similar if not larger amount of infections at the spring as now.ssu

    Maybe not. The charts are too complicated to be simply summarized like that. The data included is hidden from view, and the statistics are not uniform from beginning to end but reflect different portions of the potential population. We see three waves.The initial wave culled the most vulnerable portion of the population both from the point of view of first quickly finding those who were open to getting infected and those with the highest mortality rate by age and sex. The nursing home patients.
  • Problems of modern Science
    why, in this wonderful scientific age, are we all so badly educatedunenlightened

    Science has become more and more compartmentalized and specialized to a degree that the language of science is not easily accessible or comprehensible to the otherwise generally well educated. Even scientists need to consult other specialists when they stray out of their own area of expertise. The tower of Babel is upon us.
  • Philosophy on philosophy
    I'm a metaphysical pluralist in the strongest sense. And I don't mean the usual metaontology confused synonymously with metaphysics, where the debate is often about the existence of things such as fictional beings or abstract entities or numbers.
  • Philosophy on philosophy
    Philosophy of philosophy is meta-philosophy which could branch out to the topics of meta-metaphysics meta-ontology meta-epistemology meta-ethics meta-aesthetics, where one or more of these might make sense to some philosophers but not to others.
  • Information, Life, Math and Strong Emergentism
    modern physics has rendered traditional materialism obsoleteMarchesk

    Physics, matter, physicalism, and materialism belong to entirely distinct logical universes that do not intersect. Obsolete is a value judgment coming from personal intuitions that in this case cannot possibly be applicable to independent world systems. None of them can ever be refuted or obsoleted either logically or empirically.
  • Information, Life, Math and Strong Emergentism
    Aristotle divided his encyclopedia into two volumes based on fundamental categories of human knowledge : discussion of objective substances (Matter, physical) and subjective non-substances (Form, mental). “Aristotle famously contends that every physical object is a compound of matter and form.” A technical term for this ancient doctrine is Hylomorphism (matter + design).Gnomon

    The student of Aristotle usually begins with the Categories; and the first thing that strikes him is the author’s unconsciousness of any distinction between grammar and metaphysics, between modes of signifying and modes of being. When he comes to the metaphysical books, he finds that this is not so much an oversight as an assumed axiom — C.S. Peirce
  • Nothing to do with Dennett's "Quining Qualia"
    Basic algebra tells you that X can take on any value including Y or Z. Point is that it seemed like something. I later call it "red" or "pain" or whatever.khaled

    You aren't entitled to just call something pain any more than calling something duh.
  • Nothing to do with Dennett's "Quining Qualia"
    the fundamental issue, the basic problem, whatever, is that all modern science - big statement! - relies on objectification. ... But mind is not an object.Wayfarer
    :100:
    Which is why social sciences are so difficult. There are very few convenient object names, like apple, to anchor isolated changing processes.
  • Nothing to do with Dennett's "Quining Qualia"
    I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousnessWayfarer
    And also the other way around. Kant have either one without the other.

    infants as young as 2 months show strong object recognition in this primary mid-level system, but not until 18-24 months do they have an equivalent grasp of object recognition in the higher system.
    So higher level it might first go... hidden state properties > some constrained model space > cultural/biological modelling process > object christening
    Isaac

    A 2-month old is a different animal from an 18-24 month old. Adding another circle to the model can't do justice to the phenomenon or to the statistics. For a moment, consider comparative psychology of infants, apes, cats. Apes and cats are comparatively smarter than infants at the earliest stages. If you can agree even to a degree then how could that be?
  • Truly new and original ideas?
    explore that which is alienPhilosophim
    And how do you go about exploring that which is alien?
  • Problems of modern Science
    Whenever a virus effects a population of deer for example, there is underlying causes that would for example affect the immune system of the subject or an overpopulation. Nature as a whole is very intelligent and has many ploys to restore itself to homeostasis or balance.Thinking
    I would agree that all of nature is more or less balanced for conditions to be dynamically stable under the circumstances within some limits. The deer population is balanced with the abundance of its food supply. Oak trees go through cycles of massive production of acorn and lean years. Many animals depend on that variance to maintain a sustainable population. People used to be part of that food chain but globalization and technology unbalanced our existence as a species. However, it doesn't take much for more powerful factors like climate change or a supervolcano to wipe out all that balanced stability.

    I hate to say it but it seems that we are more of a virus to this planet than COVID is a virus for us.Thinking
    Seems that way.
  • Fermi Paradox & The Dark Forest
    As big as space is, when you crunch the numbers, you find that self replicating probes, generation starships etc could litter the Galaxy in a fraction of the Galaxy's age.Mijin

    Actually it took about 3.8 billion years, which is about a third of the age of the universe, for intelligent life to appear here. But even then, a super-aggressive extraterrestrial culture could have sent out self-replicating probes all over the galaxy just to say hello. According to Fermi, we don't see them because that never happened. Either advanced civilizations never existed or we are close to the first.

    The cheapest way to find out whether there are ET's is to look for them and send signals to them by radio and other electromagnetic waves. EM waves travel at the speed of light and they are plentiful.

    The problem is time. When signals are sent out in all directions, the signals travel as a thin growing bubble. Only for the small fraction of time as the bubble passes a planet is the signal detectable. If we aim a laser at a likely planet only 2.3 light years away, the light will pass there in 2.3 million years. If they happen not to be looking they'll miss our signal. Worse still, when we aim, we'll have to aim at a planet that will be civilized 2.3 million years from now, then wait 4.6 million years for an answer.
  • Problems of modern Science
    modern scientific methodology can only really consider what is measurable, what is quantifiable, what ‘yields data’. That is why it puts aside any notion of purpose, intentionality and so on. Those are purely methodological steps which are mistakenly then interpreted as ‘statements about reality’Wayfarer

    Science doesn't put anything aside. Science, not some of the people who are doing it, does not have anything to say about reality as such because that is not defined scientifically to be surveyed or to be measurable. If purpose and intentionality could be studied then they would be. Purpose, intentionality, and reality are philosophical constructs in some philosophical languages.

    even if we use science and technology in positive way it would not be a perfect worldview that is beneficial to humans or the planet.Thinking

    Is molecular biology not beneficial in having created vaccines for COVID? What about our much beloved smartphones?
  • Fermi Paradox & The Dark Forest
    There's no contradiction in positing a galaxy/universe full of intelligent life and our never encountering it, nor them us - it's that big and empty out there.tim wood
    There is no contradiction here because the universe is likely full of simple bacterial life which comprises over 99% of life right here on Earth. Bacteria is where molecular biology meets life. Highly evolved intelligent life is likely to be so rare as to be unique for practical purposes. We will never encounter or be discovered by another civilization given the short life expectancy of any intelligence and the incomprehensible vastness of space and time.
  • Dark Matter, Unexplained
    it is believed that the visible universe, comprising baryonic matter - stuff made from atoms - comprises only about 4% of the totality, the remainder comprising dark matter and dark energyWayfarer

    ... and of that 4%, almost all physical matter is in the form of pure radiation and plasma (protons, electrons, helium), leaving only a trace amount for material substance in the form of gas, liquids, or solids. Which might make a difference for the strength of scientific realism that we hold. Should we care only about what is sensible on Earth, or also about a conservative comprehensible Newtonian scientific world, or do we leave our philosophy open to anything rapidly advancing theoretical physics agrees upon at any moment. How far out should we venture while following cutting edge physics?
  • Keith Frankish on the Hard Problem and the Illusion of Qualia
    No I use my nose.Janus
    But then you betray your cause.

    You 'used' your fingers means you do not believe that your fingers independently act of their own accord but are commanded by your mind. Or do you really believe your bodily organ brain commands you and your fingers? It's the other way around, you are the one and only unique 'I' that uses your body parts to carry out your intentions.

    Philosophy uses words some ordinary some technical to convey its message. Unfortunately all words are loaded to a lesser or greater extent which with skill can facilitate begging the question in an argument. The podcast is loaded with skunk words to stink out its supposed opponents.

    Edit: I reviewed the first 3 minutes of the Frankish podcast to show some detail.
    @ :28 the introduction says "this podcast has a subjective impact ... for you",
    and if there is to be anything to talk about this must be correct. It is the subjective character of experience that is to be explained or explained away.
    @ 3:11 Frankish affirms that "qualia the way experience feels to you -- mental things within you -- something private" is to be the issue, one way or another.

    To evaluate experience as a consequence of consciousness we must realize that experience can only be subjective and private to the first person 'I'. To propose tentative elements for that private subjective experience which may be discussed publicly by referring singular events to 'qualia' requires a third person public stance, something similar to what is done in the social sciences. To do so is hand-waving until it can be verified in public communication or practice.

    Suppose we're invited to a wine and cheese blind tasting where 5 bottles of wine are in identical decanters marked only by numbers and 5 more decanters have custom blends of the originals. But the fun only starts when we are asked to note in detail the experienced taste and bouquet of each of the 10. Can you smell and taste the distinctions, and can you describe those sensations so someone else can appreciate and valuate the 10 samples just by reading your notes?

    @ :46 According to Chalmers, "making sense of this is the hard problem of consciousness",
    But by @ 1:01 Frankish is already talking of "the illusion of qualia"
    'illusion' doesn't sound like a very objective introduction to me.
    @ 1:08 "explaining 'consciousness' is the hard problem", so by now consciousness is a fixed material or physical object with properties to be picked out of a basket of Wittgensteinian apples
    @ 1:24 Frankish has moved on to physical brain somehow causally 'producing' physical consciousness. Yikes !
    @ 2:00 "how does the brain produce these experiences" , so experience need also be discrete objects to be physically 'produced'

    The issue with Frankish is that to him the mind is nothing more than a brain in a beetle box. We can't see it, so we can't talk about it. True for Frankish, but maybe other people can open that box first before they talk about it.
  • Keith Frankish on the Hard Problem and the Illusion of Qualia
    If not the brain then what?Janus

    Did your fingers write that?
    The brain is the medium that carries information that it does not understand. Think of printed symbols in a book. Do the book and the ink produce anything?
  • Keith Frankish on the Hard Problem and the Illusion of Qualia
    My position is that this sort of discussion only serves to further demonstrate the philosophical bankruptcy of qualia.Banno

    Qualia are not physical and the term qualia does not refer to anything physical either. Physicalists presuppose that only physical things exist and reality is just that. Should you choose to suppose that the brain is an instance of the physical then you will have no use for the now empty word qualia which refers to mental representations.

    Are there mental events and mental representations that are in need of naming? Frankish agrees with you that there are not. What if you are both wrong? Shouldn't you allow those who work in psychology or phenomenology to coin concepts and words that are of use to them?
  • Keith Frankish on the Hard Problem and the Illusion of Qualia
    I could equally well say that what we believe to be the facts is based on our presuppositions. As to "how much we are willing to pool into a common discourse", if what you are saying is based on presuppositions I don't share, don't accept, then "common discourse" may thus be limited. In the worst case we will be talking past one another, like ships passing in the darkest night. So, "a whole new language game" would need to be based on a sufficient commonality of presuppositionJanus

    And, in science such common presuppositions can be called working hypotheses that need not be believed by any scientist involved. The argument is made, research is carried out, and everyone gets paid. The relevance of the research in terms of broader theories comes later by the way of review and assessment.

    Most biochemical reactions happen too fast to be accounted for without near instantaneous motion such as in entanglement.Enrique

    Everything is quantum mechanical at magnification levels great enough to reach that deep, but the evidence that those physical processes have any bearing whatsoever on greater issues that we like to discuss are very difficult if not impossible to verify. The gaps between physical levels in terms of speed and range are very wide, and it may not be possible to leap past intermediate levels.
  • The flaw in the Chinese Room

    OK, let me say it another way,

    The narrow conclusion of the argument is that programming a digital computer may make it appear to understand language but could not produce real understanding. Hence the “Turing Test” is inadequate.
    Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics.
    The broader conclusion of the argument is that the theory that human minds are computer-like computational or information processing systems is refuted. Instead minds must result from biological processes
    SEP article

    Consciousness can always be defined more or less stringently either to be included in or to be excluded from any finite set of experimental conditions. And if you define the Universe as a Turing machine, as you seem to do, then it has already computed everything there ever was.
  • The flaw in the Chinese Room
    conclusion that consciousness is bound to some kind of biological excretion is totally unwarrented.hypericin

    Searle's experimental conditions can always be tightened to meet specific objections. Also, words like consciousness, biological, and computer can be adjusted depending on the desired conclusion. Is a supercharged C3PO conscious even if it never sleeps?
  • The flaw in the Chinese Room
    For car drivers, it is the accelerator pedal that is the mechanical switch which connects to their entropic desires. The symbol that is "in mind".apokrisis

    Isn't that overly simplistic in that the point of intentional action just triggers a whole range of prearranged links in the machine and unknown and at times unknowable interfaces with the environment? Just to try a couple of unlikely but conceivable cases, how does the scenario work in space or in a lake?
  • Philosophers toolbox: How to improve thought?
    What happens when one kind of thought communicates with a different kind of thought? Is that, then, a different kind of thought again?Pantagruel

    Good point. Some thought would have to communicate between two entirely foreign processes that operate at distinct modes and speeds. Kind of like having both interpretive plus expressive phases going in both directions. I'm picturing an analogous problem of reading a book - how can those printed marks first represent and then be read as ideas?
  • Philosophers toolbox: How to improve thought?

    Thinking and focused rational thinking are not the same, they aren't even done by the same mental facilities. Thinking is an ongoing unstoppable act of all minds that we have in common with other animals. Focused thinking is the creative adaptive activity that goes on still at an unconscious level. Rational thought is only possible for mature humans and even there with imperfections. The latter two are the tools of the philosopher, artist, scientist. Which of these would you like to sharpen?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    In early Thanksgiving news the White House turkey forgave Trump
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    I'm not sold either! It's just something else to ponder. The challenge is how to keep up with revolutionary progress in the sciences with static models. How do we explain even simple demonstrations of magnetism?
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    your definition of metaphysics is individual, and its name stands for anything imaginary, conceptual, or fictionalgod must be atheist
    Nope, that would be fun but the metaphysics isn't all mine.
    I'm talking about a much more generalized version of Aristotle's systematic metaphysics which I did not invent. It's been around since antiquity but you really have to look to find it.

    Aristotle starts with a strict logical principle, non-contradiction (think of as Socratic elenchus). This is also the logical equivalent of the principle of identity, just meaning closed, bounded objects. Then, he axiomatically specifies the same for both objects and propositions. Thus he creates a logical, metaphysical world, or imaginary formal reality, if that sounds any better. From that he develops a simple and powerful and very general philosophy from which his standard (not mine) ontology, epistemology, and ethics roughly follow. That's the 5-second guide to philosophy in a nutshell.

    The historical development is straight-forward. Parmenides comes up first with this logic for his One object, Aristotle extends that to many objects. According to my probably wrong reading, Nelson Goodman and others extend this to a plurality of metaphysical worlds, a foam of Aristotelian philosophical worlds, which Goodman applies to the reality of all actual phenomena, especially in the arts.

    Naturally, since I am here, I will extend this just one more simple step to non-Aristotelian worlds as well. In this case, the logic is not specified up front by Parmenides, rather each application sets its own axiomatic logic.

    Where this comes into this thread is the philosophy of science where each sub-discipline has its own logic. Not just physics, but each science and its specialties.

    dynamics in the complex plane - force (vector) fields that predict the movements of particlesjgill
    :up: You're talking to a woke fan. I check the flow of high and low global winds and pollution each morning.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    theoretical physics emphasizes the links to observations and experimental physicsjgill
    Do you mean experimental physicists or perhaps engineers?
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    We see more and more that science, mainly physics, has strayed into the realm of philosophy and though experiments. ... Do you believe science has become no longer the study of the world as it is, but as it may be? or do you see science as simply the persuit of knowledge no matter the form?CallMeDirac
    To speculate what if comes naturally to people. Imagined scenarios just convincing enough to elicit reflection and to enable change of conception or belief by the listeners go back at least to the earliest myths of mankind. Thought experiments need not be rational, just being conceivable is enough. For example, think of Pegasus or Icarus flying in the sky. Or the Wright brothers. Philosophers adopted this and other techniques to convey difficult abstract notions and theoretical and scientists followed suit naturally.

    Think experiments create a mental model of what could be, and when you think about it not all that different from seeing it in person if that were actually possible. What science studies is always the form, a scientific generality, and not just this individual. The individual is treated as a representative sample of the form under study.

    cite in normal language what inconsistent worlds i contain within that I am committed to?god must be atheist
    I don't know if you play or watch sports or games. Each one of these has its own logic and language. I'm a prisoners of COVID but I'm allowed to watch movies on the internet, and yes, each movie is its own imagined world. I'm not the romantic hero making love nor the spy who is impervious to the perils of the world, but for a short time I live in their world, their world is somewhat real to me, I speak their language, and use their improbable logic. Does music have any meaning to you? If yes, what is it?

    multiverses in cosmology or the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics, then it's the other way around: mathematics is there from the startSophistiCat
    Sorry, those are mathematical inventions. But string theories are still incomplete, I believe, for lack of more advanced maths. Newton invented fluxions to formulate his mechanics.

    Identifying metaphysics with just any conceptualization is selling it a little cheap, don't you think?SophistiCat
    Well yes. It is usually cranked up to higher standards. But I'm not the inventor. Nelson Goodman did some brilliant and highly rigorous work along these lines. His work is sadly neglected.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    Some thoughts,
    There are theoretical physicists (hand waving) and mathematical physicists (mathematicians working in physics).jgill
    Even speculative physics of other possible physical worlds is intended to be fully mathematical as soon as the needed maths are invented. Without mathematics what physics is there?

    Galileo was very much influenced by the Platonic revivalWayfarer
    Exactly. Unfortunately, Galileo had to be more occupied with the speculative science of motion and change than with philosophy. Proposing a heretical philosophical alternative was clearly not his intention.

    no knowledge derived from induction - just another name for science - could refute deduced knowledgeTheMadFool
    I imagine that Kant would have agreed with that. But isn't open, inductive scientific knowledge very different in kind from deductive knowledge deduced from closed, purely logical systems?

    The underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy? Really? There is such a thing?SophistiCat
    Is it really possible to say anything whatsoever in any language that is not predicated on at least implied metaphysics?

    metaphysical realitygod must be atheist
    is an imagined but logically coherent
    hypothesized philosophical world for the purpose of generating deductive consequences. The problem with the rejection of metaphysical worlds is that they create the idea and language of structure, objects, relations, facts, events, space, time, and many more, so that nothing can be conceived or communicated without them. BTW, this isn't just true for Aristotle's First Philosophy but for other philosophies as well. So, in saying anything, you have already committed yourself to some metaphysical world, or more likely a number of inconsistent worlds of your own.
    I would guess that most of our discussions at TPF are disagreements about metaphysical beliefs.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    I have a feeling this will end badly.Banno

    Sorry, I just dropped the other shoe in answer to the OP. If physicists understood the underlying metaphysics of modern philosophy they would raise exactly this argument. Theoretical mathematical physics is Pythagorean-Platonic, and experimental and observational physics are technology driven and serendipitous, closer to Feyerabend than to anyone else, IMHO.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    metaphysics can't say anything, can't tell us anything we could actually make use of.Banno

    That's a circular argument. You start with completely reducing Aristotelian logical metaphysics to ontology of predicated things, then you claim that metaphysics is empty because it's missing. This is why post hoc metaphysics is nonsense. My argument is that Identity is not the only possible logic for philosophy, and that Identity based philosophy is way too limited to be of any use beyond metaphysics. Physics is a most obvious example, if you really think about it.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?

    I think you are taking the problematic nature of the philosophy of physics too lightly. One can discover a thousand competent books and professional quality articles about physics that can be quoted by title, but the contents are either failed attempts to corral the issues or historical rehearsals of failed attempts to understand what is involved.

    I am not sure if there are more than a few serious thinkers who deserve consideration, and they disagree what it is that they should be philosophizing about. Everything else is pulp.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?

    If your question is indeed sincere and you are not just tossing my challenge to physicists back in my face then I have to assume probably wrongly that you are missing some very basic issues of philosophy that I take wrongly for granted.

    The first is that philosophy is a logical enterprise, an application of some pure logic just as mathematics is. Like mathematics or other axiomatic systems, philosophy attempts to stay as simple as possible but not too simple and touches any other ground only as necessary to meet the demands of some arbitrary (strings, tiles, whatever) application domain. There are many possible mathematics and philosophies with the distinction being in their axiomatic choices. Thus, neither mathematics nor philosophy should be thought of or treated as monolithic.

    If any of this makes any sense, then that is the rationale for my answer to question 5. above. Theoretical physics is very different from observational physics. They are totally different games by philosophical standards. Knowing the formula for the flight of the bumblebee says nothing about why I was stung when I stuck my hand in there or how I should whack one.
  • Has science strayed too far into philosophy?
    As an aside just for comparison, it might be noted that mathematicians, while not particularly involved with philosophy since it seldom interacts with their mathematical efforts, are more aware of ancient beginnings and connections of mathematics.

    I propose some tentative suggestions for thinking about the issue
      1. Ought there be a philosophy of physics?
      2. Is there a reasonable philosophy already, beyond that childish spiral diagram of 'the scientific method'?
      3. Would a philosophy of physics be of any use and does that matter?
      4. Can such philosophy be formulated without concern with what physics is actually doing and how that is progressing?
      5. Shouldn't the philosophy of theoretical physics be different from that of the observational side?

    One serious concern is that science makes steady and at times sudden progress. Most philosophy is still keyed on obsolete static categorization or Newtonian physics. How can we track that movement with our theories?