From: Steve Nichols (steve@multisell.com)
Date: Thu Dec 21 2000 - 18:06:19 MST
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 23:56:10 -0500
From: Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
Subject: Re: Philosophy: It doesn't suck so bad we can't ignore it
"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com>
>This reminds me of an Edelman story. Apparently the science department was
>in trouble because it had such a huge expense account. The math department
>bragged that it only needed chalk, paper, and a few waste paper baskets.
But
>the philosophy department did even better. They didn't even need waste
>baskets. Get it? The philosophers didn't throw out their wrong questions.
>Why did you use the math department as an example of empirical
>research? Math is based on logic, classification systems,
>consistency, nomenclature, conclusions, extrapolations, etc. Most
>math is derived philosophically and logically. It is only proved
>later by science empirically.
Didn't Russell and Whitehead show that 'logic' supplied the
rules underlying both mathematics and language in Principia
Mathematica ... maths is purely logically, and cannot be
"proven by science empirically."
>Einstein's E=MC^2 was a philosophical
>argument until science proved it later.
This a claim from Physics, not algebra ... or academic
philosophy come to that.
>Imaginary numbers were a
>philosophical "what-if" argument that extended the rules, until
>physics and electricity confirmed them later. Negative numbers and
>the concept of "zero" were abstractions demanded by philosophical
>logic and debate.
I disagree .... they became agreed conventions because of
their UTILITY in practice .. solving problems.
>They were not discovered or empirically proven.
No, see above, mathematics IS a subset of logic.
>It seems to me that all theory is philosophy, and the scientific
>method converts theory (possible fantasy) into fact (provable
>reality).
You are stretching the term "philosophy" to a ludicrous extent.
I can have a theory in chess, like Nimzowitch's hypermodern
theory of overprotection, but this is NOT philosophy, it is chess.
A question for you defenders of academic philosopher: name
just one (real world, useful) problem solved by philosophy in
the past 100 years? Or name a single theory universally agreed
by academic philosophers?
And just a quickie on "transhuman" philosophy ... please can
we drop the P word and just have particular topics ... unless
we are going to have a fully Posthuman school of philosophy
that reduces and supersedes the failed human-legacy schools.
I am yet to be convinced that transhuman thought is any more
than a waiting room for the posthuman world. The convergence
"singularity" might never happen, so why not get on with establishing
posthuman society now? Human, conventionalist philosophers have
failed to engage with the public ... I can think of none who is a
house-hold name or who has any particular wisdom to convey to
the common masses ... academic philosophy is turgid and
unimportant. Or am I missing something?
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