Philosophy Of Science

[pood]

Of course, St. Anselm “proved” the existence of God by logical argument alone — the Ontological Argument. Kurt Gödel offered a modalized version of the argument in the 20th century.

 

[steve_bank]

As to AI, any AI is a machine created by humans to do tasks. However well it mimics humans it s a machine no more alive than a sewing machine.

Kids are socilzng to AI as if it were a real peron, sometimes with bad conseqinces

Steve often sounds as if he is adhering to the (philosophical stance of) logical positivism, which eventually ran into heavy criticism. No way to avoid philosophy is science. Steve himself is practicing it in this thread.

Could be, I do not know. There is a philosophical category for all things and people.

Are we having fun yet?

Logical Positivism
a form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, which considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those which can be solved by logical analysis.

On the contrary all solvable problems are not solvable by logic(Aristotelian logic) alone. BTW, the theme of the dynamic between Spock and McCoy/Kirk. in Star Trek.

Logical positivism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As I said the beauty of engineering to me was something worked as predicted or did not.

There is no philosophy per se to it.

I would identify in general with Freethought, try to to avoid looking through an ideology and see a problem as it is without ideological bias. Of course not possible to do completely.

I did not read about Freethought and then adopt it, my thinking evolved over years of problem solving.

When faced with a problem I did not go looking for a philosophy.

 

[pood]

More from Feyerabend:

Now it is, of course, possible to simplify the medium in which a scientist
works by simpliiying its main actors. The history of science, after all,
does not just consist of facts and conclusions drawn from facts. It also
contains ideas, interpretations of facts, problems created by conflicting
interpretations, mistakes, and so on. On closer analysis we even find
that science knows no 'bare facts' at all but that the 'facts' that enter our
knowledge are already viewed in a certain way and are, therefore,
essentially ideational. This being the case, the history of science will be
as complex, chaotic, full of mistakes, and entertaining as the ideas it
contains, and these ideas in tum will be as complex, chaotic, full of
mistakes, and entertaining as are the minds of those who invented
them. Conversely, a little brainwashing will go a long way in making the
history of science duller, simpler, more uniform, more 'objective' and
more easily accessible to treatment by strict and unchangeable rules.


Scientific education as we know it today has precisely this aim. It ismplifies '
science' by simplifying its participants: first, a domain of research is defined.
The domain is separated from the rest of history
(physics, for example, is separated from metaphysics and from
theology) and given a 'logic' of its own. A thorough training in such a
'logic' then conditions those working in the domain; it makes their
actions more uniform and it freezes large parts of the historical process
as well. Stable 'facts' arise and persevere despite the vicissitudes of
history. An essential part of the training that makes such facts appear
consists in the attempt to inhibit intuitions that might lead to a
blurring of boundaries. A person's religion, for example, or his
metaphysics, or his sense of humour (his natural sense of humour and
not the inbred and always rather nasty kind of jocularity one finds in
specialized professions) must not have the slightest connection with
his scientific activity. His imagination is restrained, and even his
language ceases to be his own. This is again reflected in the nature of
scientific 'facts' which are experienced as being independent of
opinion, belief, and cultural background.

It is thus possible to create a tradition that is held together by strict
rules, and that is also successful to some extent. But is it desirable to
support such a tradition to the exclusion of everything else?

 

[pood]

As to AI, any AI is a machine created by humans to do tasks. However well it mimics humans it s a machine no more alive than a sewing machine.

Kids are socilzng to AI as if it were a real peron, sometimes with bad conseqinces

Steve often sounds as if he is adhering to the (philosophical stance of) logical positivism, which eventually ran into heavy criticism. No way to avoid philosophy is science. Steve himself is practicing it in this thread.

Could be, I do not know. There is a philosophical category for all things and people.

Are we having fun yet?

Logical Positivism
a form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, which considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those which can be solved by logical analysis.

Not sure where you got the above, but it’s not quite right.

On the contrary all solvable problems are not solvable by logic(Aristotelian logic) alone. BTW, the theme of the dynamic between Spock and McCoy/Kirk. in Star Trek.

Logical positivism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As I said the beauty of engineering to me was something worked as predicted or did not.

That’s great — for engineering. It doesn’t work that way in most aspects of life, including science.

An old saw says to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

There is no philosophy per se to it.

I would identify in general with Freethought, try to to avoid looking through an ideology and see a problem as it is without ideological bias. Of course not possible to do completely.

I did not read about Freethought and then adopt it, my thinking evolved over years of problem solving.

When faced with a problem I did not go looking for a philosophy.

If you’re talking about a well-defined engineering problem, then fine, but see above about the hammer and nail.

 

[DBT]

Never mind angels, theism itself - whole narratives woven around a set of apriori assumptions - appears to be an example of philosophical rationalism.

 

[DBT]

I don’t think much philosophy today is deviated to proving the existence of angels.

The example was related to philosophical methodology, not the object of inquiry, which may as well be the existence of gods, an afterlife, morality, politics, ideology.....and how that differs from science.

 

[Elixir]

Never mind angels, theism itself - whole narratives woven around a set of apriori assumptions - appears to be an example of philosophical rationalism.

That probably only applies if you are able to have your own religious lexicon, and sufficient subscribers to support it. Otherwise religions could be more accurately/commonly described as empiricism, where sensory input supersedes deduction. Preachers rile crowds with "Can you FEEEEEL the spirit!", rarely with "Can you DEDUUUUCE the spirit!". But if there remain deductive questions once they FEEEEL IT!, those can be addressed by the grace of the aforementioned custom lexicon, designed to do exactly that.

 

[DBT]

Does philosophy encompass theology? As with the 'philosophy of science," do we have the philosophy of theology?

"Theology is the study of religious doctrines, while philosophy uses reason to analyze and develop ideas, including those of religion. Philosophical theology integrates these fields by applying philosophical methods to theological concept." - AI overview