When does philosophy become drivel and why?

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Ethics is further, and also philosophy of mind, the concept of memes has fostered some intriguing attempts at explaining the mind.

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In what way is ethics "further"?

In what way is philosophy of mind "further"?

What do you mean by 'explaining the mind'?

Philosophers *are* still arguing for many of Plato's the same positions today as Plato did, so it is difficult to see how we have gone "further".

It is difficult see how you can get further than Plato. Socrates takes up the position that he doesn't know anything, which is a basically sceptical position that reduces anyone's position about anything to rubble. You can't get further than that. You might take a pragmatic breather, but you can't go further.

In what way have memes fostered some intriguing attempts at explaining the mind?

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

In what way is ethics "further"?

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Kant had some interesting insights, I think they're outdated now, but they definitely are worth reading and paved the way for what came later. The same I think about Plato by the way. Utilitarianism is new and useful. The most important insight I think is Peter Singer's argument against speciesism, which directly refutes Kant as well as Plato.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

In what way is philosophy of mind "further"?

What do you mean by 'explaining the mind'?

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Darwin, Libet's experiments on unconscious readiness potential, other findings in neuroscience and as I said the concept of memes. At the bottom of this progress, there's of course science, and it should be like this. Yet philosophy is needed to interpret the results, i.e. the implications on 'free will' (all varieties of definitions there are) in a deterministic or non-deterministic (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) universe, or the role and importance of consciousness in evolution, or the role of evolution itself when it comes to human beings. I think Dennett and others have contributed a lot of valuable insights to this field.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Philosophers *are* still arguing for many of Plato's the same positions today as Plato did, so it is difficult to see how we have gone "further".

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Not all of them are, i.e. most people have accepted that 'ideas' don't exist and that is no such thing as 'souls'. On ethics or politics, his views were much better, yet still I think few are arguing for Plato without at least some modifications.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

It is difficult see how you can get further than Plato. Socrates takes up the position that he doesn't know anything, which is a basically sceptical position that reduces anyone's position about anything to rubble. You can't get further than that. You might take a pragmatic breather, but you can't go further.

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Plato's arguments (with Socrates as main character) are rather bad. They raise important questions, yet the points made often use poor logic and questionable analogies. 'I don't know anything' is not skepticism, it's agnosticism.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

In what way have memes fostered some intriguing attempts at explaining the mind?

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Consciousness is not something wired into the brain, it comes with memes. It is a fabric of memes and meta memes interacting with each other and competing for 'power'. This was originally a philosophical prediction. We can now scientifically test this by i.e. giving people new words to learn on a list, then let them talk about an unrelated subject. If the new words come up more often than people talking about the same subjects who already know the words, this is evidence for memes competing in the brain.

"Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that unconscious time of nothingness...Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with another.'
- Helen Keller

Consciousness is the product of 'natural selection' among memes. Religion is like a virus of the mind, for memes like 'faith' poison critical thinking and let in all kind of nonsense. In fact, it can even lead to suicidal behavior (suicide bombers in Islam or martyrs in Christianity) and can thus be compared to flukes that invade ant brains and make them climb on grass halms so they get eaten by cows, in whose stomach the fluke can mate and spread his genes.

Now if that isn't intriguing I don't know what is, and a lot of it seems to indicate that it's actually true.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

And now they know more than Plato.

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This is well covered by mal4 shortly, and my point is the same - given the enormous scientific advances since Plato, I'd expect them to be a lot further along than Plato.

They're not.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

By 'expert and informed' I assume you mean science. Can we hear an example of scientific ethical positions?(!)

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Scientists, not science. Science doesn't have a position on anything past base one = reality exists. The informed and professional opinions I mean are those of medical and other scientists from within the discipline.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Only the rulers need to be perfectly rational.

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Speaking of first base, I think you're starting from second.

Is a "perfectly rational" being possible? Spock?

Being 100% rational isn't human.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Ethics is further, and also philosophy of mind, the concept of memes has fostered some intriguing attempts at explaining the mind. You'd probably call this science, and indeed, the closer philosophy is to science the better.

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No, no and yes!

:D

I will expand:

1 - along with mal4 again, can you just cover off on "further". Further than what?

2 - I am in no way convinced "memetics" is a valid science, and I also have severe doubts that it tells us anything we don't already know. I am in two minds about Dawkins and I'm not sure the entire business of memetics isn't just another of his sloppy faux pas.

3 - The closer philosophy is to science? Yes, a thousand times yes!

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Here we have an agreement (well if you stopped bending the definition of philosophy to suit you).

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I don't think I'm bending it at all, and I've consistently separated Philosophy as a discipline from philosophy being a simile for consideration, which is just sloppy usage.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Philosophy is the love for knowledge, so 'informed opinion' is exactly what a philosopher should go for.

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This is where it goes off the rails, and I go back to dirty circle of academic philosophers. If you love knowledge, the smart place to start is with physical disciplines.

This is why, if you want to discuss individual philosophies of some of the great scientific minds, I joyfully read Russell, Dawkins, Dennet, et al.

On the other hand, whenever I have a discussion on philosophy - go back and count 'em - I always see the same tired, cliched even, list of bearded German and Greek philosophers, (and Sartre + others) almost none of whom would be able to tell the time without a clock.

Honestly, go back and check out the names; same ones, every time. And virtually none of them who were alive when even when humans learnt to fly!

If logical positivism ruled, I'd lose most of my objections, but it doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

And the word expert only means that someone knows the details of his field and is able to explain them.

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I was more thinking of people who had worked in the field at a senior level, not just knowledgeable on the subject.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

I agree in that we shouldn't just let any kind of philosophers tackle the issue, yet nevertheless it remains a philosophical issue and there are philosophical approaches to ethics that seem very promising indeed.

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This is just using "philosophy" as a simile for "critical thinking".

The word philosophy is tarred with far too many brushes of failures in the past to be of value.

Just bury it and stick to critical analysis.

:D

I think we could put the answer to the OP here:

Philosophy becomes drivel when it becomes a discipline of its own.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

It is difficult see how you can get further than Plato. Socrates takes up the position that he doesn't know anything, which is a basically sceptical position that reduces anyone's position about anything to rubble. You can't get further than that. You might take a pragmatic breather, but you can't go further.

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I still think Socrates, "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" as his peak.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Not all of them are, i.e. most people have accepted that 'ideas' don't exist and that is no such thing as 'souls'.

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Crikey, what planet are you from?

If there's one where a majority of people don't believe in "souls" can you give me a lift back when you go? This one has ~70% belief in souls/afterlife/something else meaning the same.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

'I don't know anything' is not skepticism, it's agnosticism.

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Quite right! Fence sitting fools.

Hate them

Death to agnostics!

(Scepticism is doubting everything, not knowing nothing, but in the end, there is little between those two positions.)

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Consciousness is not something wired into the brain, it comes with memes.

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Whoa!

What's consciousness wired to then? With or without memes, and regardless of whether there are such poorly-named qualia, it must be wired to something.

Unless it's supernatural in origin, of course.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

It is a fabric of memes and meta memes interacting with each other and competing for 'power'. This was originally a philosophical prediction. We can now scientifically test this by i.e. giving people new words to learn on a list, then let them talk about an unrelated subject. If the new words come up more often than people talking about the same subjects who already know the words, this is evidence for memes competing in the brain.

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Better check your hosses, pardner, looks like you've got a runaway thar!

I'm struggling with all these memes and their bigger cousins flying around the place, but you seem to gotten waaaay ahead of the game here. If memes do exist and aren't being just used as an interchange with "thoughts", I repeat that they must have a physical connection with our brains.

Lastly, your example of new words doesn't confirm a hypothesis about competing memes at all - it just shows that new information is closer to hand than old. That's how the brain works; we don't spend all day thinking about what we did at age 11, we think about what happened today and yesterday.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

"Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that unconscious time of nothingness...Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with another.'
- Helen Keller

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Perfect example.

Until she learned something, she didn't even know she was something. A purely self-referential life exists, but cannot have any ideas without them being placed there first.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Consciousness is the product of 'natural selection' among memes.

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I tend to think it's a product of our DNA.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Speaking of first base, I think you're starting from second.

Is a "perfectly rational" being possible? Spock?

Being 100% rational isn't human.

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Of course, the objective would be to get as close to it as possible. The best education we can offer, limiting 'temptation' such as power or status and control through the other philosopher kings in rational discussion would ensure a result which is hopefully acceptable.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

2 - I am in no way convinced "memetics" is a valid science, and I also have severe doubts that it tells us anything we don't already know. I am in two minds about Dawkins and I'm not sure the entire business of memetics isn't just another of his sloppy faux pas.

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Dawkins brought it up only as a good analogy, he himself was surprised how far philosophers like Blackmore or Dennet have taken the concept. It's not yet 'true science', and this is kind of my point, I predict it will be, and then we have evidence for philosophy being useful because it actually offers testable predictions.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

I don't think I'm bending it at all, and I've consistently separated Philosophy as a discipline from philosophy being a simile for consideration, which is just sloppy usage.

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So you would say 'Practical Ethics' is a book of 'critical thinking'? It certainly isn't science. Where are you making the distinction? You seem to just define capital P philosophy as all nonsense (and I'm sure there's a lot of it) and all the good stuff as 'merely critical thinking and science'. I think we owe it to minds like Democritus to preserve the word philosophy for what you define as 'critical thinking' - applied to issues about science, life, the universe and everything.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

This is where it goes off the rails, and I go back to dirty circle of academic philosophers. If you love knowledge, the smart place to start is with physical disciplines.

This is why, if you want to discuss individual philosophies of some of the great scientific minds, I joyfully read Russell, Dawkins, Dennet, et al.

On the other hand, whenever I have a discussion on philosophy - go back and count 'em - I always see the same tired, cliched even, list of bearded German and Greek philosophers, (and Sartre + others) almost none of whom would be able to tell the time without a clock.

Honestly, go back and check out the names; same ones, every time. And virtually none of them who were alive when even when humans learnt to fly!

If logical positivism ruled, I'd lose most of my objections, but it doesn't.

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I definitely see the problem. I'm reminded of hours of tiredly looking out the window while classmates of my philosophy class were i.e. arguing about what one of them meant with an interpretation of one (rather meaningless) sentence of Sartre (or others).

In your last sentence here, do you mean if it (logical positivism) ruled within philosophy? That would indeed solve the problem, why the hell doesn't it?

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

This is just using "philosophy" as a simile for "critical thinking".

The word philosophy is tarred with far too many brushes of failures in the past to be of value.

Just bury it and stick to critical analysis.

:D

I think we could put the answer to the OP here:

Philosophy becomes drivel when it becomes a discipline of its own.

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I disagree, the aim of philosophy is noble, and if you count the invention of the scientific method, philosophy has achieved it to a great extent. Even if we NOW count science as a seperate field, I think philosophy deserves it's status as something useful. I just wish there were more informed people who speak out against nonsense philosophy (and religion anyway).

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Crikey, what planet are you from?

If there's one where a majority of people don't believe in "souls" can you give me a lift back when you go? This one has ~70% belief in souls/afterlife/something else meaning the same.

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You're right, I of course meant 'scientists and philosophers' instead of just 'people'.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Whoa!

What's consciousness wired to then? With or without memes, and regardless of whether there are such poorly-named qualia, it must be wired to something.

Unless it's supernatural in origin, of course.

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I don't think you understood what I mean by 'memes'. And for the record, I don't believe there are qualia. Memes are not metaphysical ideas, Dennett and others have predicted that they are 'patterns of neuron firing activity', and when they're not 'active', they're patterns of 'weightedness levels' between neurons and neural networks. I haven't read much on neuroscience so my terminology might be weird, all I'm saying is that they're physically present. Not as specific physical entities, but as patterns of information.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Better check your hosses, pardner, looks like you've got a runaway thar!

I'm struggling with all these memes and their bigger cousins flying around the place, but you seem to gotten waaaay ahead of the game here. If memes do exist and aren't being just used as an interchange with "thoughts", I repeat that they must have a physical connection with our brains.

Lastly, your example of new words doesn't confirm a hypothesis about competing memes at all - it just shows that new information is closer to hand than old. That's how the brain works; we don't spend all day thinking about what we did at age 11, we think about what happened today and yesterday.

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As I mentioned above, memes are thought to be physically connected to the brain, I'd never advocate dualism. And what you mention in your last paragraph might well be because consciousness functions as the product of competition amongst memes. At the moment, it is only a hypothesis, yet I am quite confident it will turn out to be true, for it has some strong explanatory power. Think back to the example about religion I gave. It explains why religions are 'designed' to be effective at 'convincing' (or 'infecting') people.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Perfect example.

Until she learned something, she didn't even know she was something. A purely self-referential life exists, but cannot have any ideas without them being placed there first.

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This again seems to strengthen the memetic perspective.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

I tend to think it [consciousness] is a product of our DNA.

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No, that's the revolutionary point. It is culture. Of course you may have some form of 'cow consciousness' without culture, yet no plans for the future, no memories, no 'why' questions. Of course you also need genes for even having a brain. Maybe memes gave opportunity for the Baldwin effect to accelerate brain evolution (okay now I'm really speculating).

Either way, I think it's a promising hypothesis. Like the multiverse. Even if there was literally no scientific evidence for it (I think there is some deep in the math of string theory, but that is hearsay since I don't understand that at all), I am confident that there are many universes. Why? Simply because it is improbable that life just happens to be possible in our universes, and a multiverse combined with the antrophic principle would explain this.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

So you would say 'Practical Ethics' is a book of 'critical thinking'? It certainly isn't science. Where are you making the distinction? You seem to just define capital P philosophy as all nonsense (and I'm sure there's a lot of it) and all the good stuff as 'merely critical thinking and science'. I think we owe it to minds like Democritus to preserve the word philosophy for what you define as 'critical thinking' - applied to issues about science, life, the universe and everything.

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Philosophy is a style of thinking and while it's close to critical thinking, I don't think they're the same. A critical thinker knows where logic's limitations are, but I'm not sure philosophers make the distinction. In fact, I'm sure the vast majority of them don't.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

In your last sentence here, do you mean if it (logical positivism) ruled within philosophy? That would indeed solve the problem, why the hell doesn't it?

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Too much invested in it to limit it to a single doctrine.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

I don't think you understood what I mean by 'memes'.

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Pretty sure I do - it's the meaning given to it by Dawkins & Dennett, and that's what I'm using.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

And for the record, I don't believe there are qualia.

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That's approriate!

:D

Well, my understanding of the term comes from a couple of immensely qualified psychologists who use it to describe the actual thought, so they're definitively physical and measurable. It seems that Dennet and a few of his pals want it to mean something slightly different, but I'll stick to the way I know it. Feel free to substitute "thought experience" or any other word that fits.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Memes are not metaphysical ideas, Dennett and others have predicted that they are 'patterns of neuron firing activity', and when they're not 'active', they're patterns of 'weightedness levels' between neurons and neural networks. I haven't read much on neuroscience so my terminology might be weird, all I'm saying is that they're physically present. Not as specific physical entities, but as patterns of information.

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Yep, I know all that, but it contradicts this bit from earlier, which my quote referred to:

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Consciousness is not something wired into the brain, it comes with memes.

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If the memes are physical in nature, they are connected to the brain, so is the end result, consciousness. I just think they introduce an extra, and unnecessary, step.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

No, that's the revolutionary point. It is culture.

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Chicken/egg.

Without the evolved brain, we can't have the culture. The brain had to come first.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

Either way, I think it's a promising hypothesis. Like the multiverse. Even if there was literally no scientific evidence for it (I think there is some deep in the math of string theory, but that is hearsay since I don't understand that at all), I am confident that there are many universes. Why? Simply because it is improbable that life just happens to be possible in our universes, and a multiverse combined with the antrophic principle would explain this.

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See what happens when you start discussing philosophy?

:D

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

I'd expect them to be a lot further along than Plato.

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You can hardly go 'a lot further' past general truths, of which the ancients established many. But by questioning around them truths you can learn a lot. The more you learn the more sense you can make out of what the ancients said. Plato is still under discussion, as food for thought, as opposed to something to pass. Same for science, which originates in philosophy, necessarily.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

The informed and professional opinions I mean are those of medical and other scientists from within the discipline.

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It is precisely the philosopher who makes use of all sorts of opinions to establish comprehensive positions, without getting too confused to so.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

A critical thinker knows where logic's limitations are, but I'm not sure philosophers make the distinction. In fact, I'm sure the vast majority of them don't.

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The vast majority of philosophers ask what logic is, while the vast majority of scientists do not. Just like the former asks what reality and existence are, while the latter takes them for granted, according to you.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

If the memes are physical in nature, they are connected to the brain, so is the end result, consciousness. I just think they introduce an extra, and unnecessary, step.

Chicken/egg.

Without the evolved brain, we can't have the culture. The brain had to come first.

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Of course you need the evolved brain first (at least to a large extent evolved), but does that itself already grant consciousness? I highly doubt it. The reason why I find meme theory so convincing is that is holds a lot of explanatory power since it's similar to natural selection. What else could do the job? You can't have a homunculus can you..

Another thing to ponder, the piraha have no words for past or future. They live in the NOW only, and as hard as you try, you cannot get them to understand basic math. I'd predict that if you take a piraha child and raise it in say Portuguese language, it will have no difficulties with math or future.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

The vast majority of philosophers ask what logic is, while the vast majority of scientists do not. Just like the former asks what reality and existence are, while the latter takes them for granted, according to you.

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I object to "takes them for granted".

"Accept the accumulation of empirical evidence gained over centuries", would be more realistic.

Understandings of what logic and reality involve are different. The understandings bear on issues like what is the relation between logic and imagination and is reality constructed by us? The issues matter a lot more than most scientific projects. And they matter to all scientific projects. Many successful scientists and mathematicians go to philosophy for direction and inspiration. Some even go to poetry.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

Understandings of what logic and reality involve are different. The understandings bear on issues like what is the relation between logic and imagination and is reality constructed by us? The issues matter a lot more than most scientific projects. And they matter to all scientific projects. Many successful scientists and mathematicians go to philosophy for direction and inspiration. Some even go to poetry.

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"I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research." - Albert Einstein

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For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world

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Well said.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

Understandings of what logic and reality involve are different.

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Obviously. I'm not sure why you mention it, because it would be comparing apples with ballpoint pens.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

The understandings bear on issues like what is the relation between logic and imagination and is reality constructed by us? The issues matter a lot more than most scientific projects. And they matter to all scientific projects.

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See above - they are related like apples & ballpoint pens. Imagination & reality are related to each other, but logic isn't even first cousin to either. Obviously, imagination matters, or there would be nothing new, but as human children show, that's not something that gets developed by philosophy/ies - it arrives all on its own.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

Many successful scientists and mathematicians go to philosophy for direction and inspiration. Some even go to poetry.

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Really? That's news to me. A few, but not many, I'd have thought. From what I've read and seen, the vast majority of great scientists were inspired and directed by other scientists. I'm sure some were inspired by philosophy and poetry, just as some were inspired by art and religion.

Were all the average ones inspired by philosophy?

:D

Quantum physics needs philosophy to make sense of its mind-bending discoveries. Einstein, Bohr and Kuhn are among your examples. While social sciences, at theoretical level, are simply indistinguishable from epistemology and philosophy of mind. Need examples be given? Oh, I have left out medicine. Check out Antonio Damasio.

All things at theoretical level approach philosophy, necessarily.

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Imagination & reality are related to each other, but logic isn't even first cousin to either. Obviously, imagination matters, or there would be nothing new, but as human children show, that's not something that gets developed by philosophy/ies - it arrives all on its own

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Logic has a closer relation to reality. Imagination is not developed by philosophy, but can be. It is not obvious that imagination matters, especially given that we have reason and logic. Philosophy gives clear answers. The mind can benefit much from them.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

Quantum physics needs philosophy to make sense of its mind-bending discoveries. Einstein, Bohr and Kuhn are among your examples.

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Feynman said that, "if anyone says they understand quantum physics they are lying." When I did QM I was told to not try to understand it, just use the equations to get results! I wasn't happy with that, but after going away and reading some "philosophy" I was...

All things at a theoretical level approach mystery, necessarily, often having gone through a lot of unnecessary philosophical musings. (Some necessary, I'll give you!)

Einstein, Bohr, and Kuhn had nothing sensible to say about the philosophical foundation of QM, nothing that takes us any further than the anti-philosopher Feynman.

Damasio has come no nearer the solution of the mind body problem than anyone else - it's still a downright mystery - some philosophers (McGinn & the Mysterians) have had the courage to point this out, so there is some place for philosophy here, but only to show that there is a seemingly unsolvable mystery.

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Originally Posted by whathappened

Philosophy gives clear answers. The mind can benefit much from them.

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No it doesn't. At its Socratic best it shows that we know nothing about fundamental matters - like "the ultimate structure of reality" or "the mind body problem". It gives no clear answers, it just shows that there are still many questions that we can probably never answer.

Einstein and the like had nothing sensible to say about it, and Feynman is the smart one... but did Feynman achieve anything them Einsteins did?

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Damasio has come no nearer the solution of the mind body problem than anyone else.

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The point is not what Damasio said about philosophy, but what the abstrations of philosophy helped Damasio to achieve in his PARTICULAR field of ideas (work).

Mind-body problem has been given clear answers by several famours philosophers and this is only in the West. The important thing is that much have been learnt by thinking this problem over, by whomever thinks it over (are you possibly exeptional?). These abstract learnings helped ALL scientists in their particular fields of work. Einstein is a believer of God for the purpose that his God is a philosophical God from whom he can get answers in face of his particularly difficult field of ideas.