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

 

[pood]

I think we can do without the AI overviews, but yes, there is a philosophy of religion, And not all that practice it are theists, though some are. The theist Alvin Plantinga prominently comes to mind.

 

[pood]

The Problem of Evil is a staple in philosophy of religion. If you want to see the methodological tools philosophy brings to bear on this subject, just read the index.

 

[pood]

Might as well post the link to Stanford’s excellent Scientific Method article, which introduced me to omics. It was last “substantially revised” in 2021 so I expect it will be updated to say more about AI use in science.

 

[pood]

How AI is shaping scientific discovery

 

[Elixir]

How AI is shaping scientific discovery

The implication that AI is going to enable a quantum jump in our means to control our bodies and our environment, seems a little misleading to me. It seems to forget that no matter how “amazing” we may find AI output to be, it is attained by brute force trial and error, enhanced beyond recognition by its speed. That some AI output seems almost mystical doesn’t negate that fact.

 

[pood]

How AI is shaping scientific discovery

The implication that AI is going to enable a quantum jump in our means to control our bodies and our environment, seems a little misleading to me. It seems to forget that no matter how “amazing” we may find AI output to be, it is attained by brute force trial and error, enhanced beyond recognition by its speed. That some AI output seems almost mystical doesn’t negate that fact.

Yes, but I think we should give credit where due. Those brute-force calculations are enabling new discoveries and inspiring new experiments, notwithstanding that ChatGPT couldn’t figure out how many “r’s” are in the word “strawberry.” And AI will get better.

 

[No Robots]

The problem is that science is following the wrong philosophers.

 

[bilby]

And AI will get better.

This seems extremely unlikely in the medium to long term.

In the short term it would be difficult for it not to; But as more and more training "data" is poisoned by AI generated nonsense, it will become worse and worse - the responses it gives will be more and more plausible sounding, while being less and less tied to reality.

It's going to generate vast quantities of "information" of the lowest quality, and as it seeks out training data, increasingly it will encounter the drivel generated by its predecessors, and this cycle of excremental* change will lead to it dissapearing up its own fundamental inability to think.







* Did he mean 'incremental'?
NO.

 

[pood]

And AI will get better.

This seems extremely unlikely in the medium to long term.

In the short term it would be difficult for it not to; But as more and more training "data" is poisoned by AI generated nonsense, it will become worse and worse - the responses it gives will be more and more plausible sounding, while being less and less tied to reality.

It's going to generate vast quantities of "information" of the lowest quality, and as it seeks out training data, increasingly it will encounter the drivel generated by its predecessors, and this cycle of excremental* change will lead to it dissapearing up its own fundamental inability to think.







* Did he mean 'incremental'?
NO.

Yeah, that is probably right.

 

[Swammerdami]

Einstein was not ever part of the Manhattan project. He signed the letter to FDR even though he was a pacifist because he feared Germany getting the bomb.

As usual Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a good source for information. The story of Einstein's letter to Roosevelt is rather complicated. For starters, the Letter is dated August 2, 1939 but IIUC wasn't delivered to Roosevelt until October 11. And, although Szilard was the driving force behind, and the principal author of this letter, Einstein was not a mere copyist who signed his name; he was an active participant in drafts and discussions.

Szilard sought out Einstein initially because he wanted to send a letter to Belgium warning them against supplying Congolese uranium to Germany; and Szilard knew Einstein was acquainted with Queen Elizabeth:
 Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of the Belgians

As queen dowager, she became a patron of the arts and was known for her friendship with such notable scientists as Albert Einstein. :Citation_needed.

At a mid-July (1939) meeting on Long Island, with Eugene Wigner chauffeuring since Szilard didn't drive, Szilard was surprised to learn that Einstein was still unaware of the chain reaction effect essential to fission bombs and reactors. Two weeks later, this time chauffeured by Edward Teller, Szilard met Einstein again to draft a letter to Roosevelt. The delay, July to October -- explained in Rhodes' book, -- suggests that sending Einstein's letters was not so simple as affixing a postage stamp!

Even in 1939 the "Hungarian conspirators," Szilard, Wigner and Teller, had hoped that atomic weapons would lead to the end of all war! A fourth Hungarian genius, John von Neumann, did do some consulting at Los Alamos. Wigner once compared the 20th centuries two greatest geniuses:

Einstein's mind was ... far slower than Jancsi von Neumann ... And he was hardly interested in the details of physics. In all spheres of life, Einstein's greatest pleasure was in finding, and later expressing, basic principles. But Einstein's mind was both more penetrating and more original than von Neumann's.... for all of Jancsi's brilliance, he never produced anything as original [as the Theories of Relativity]. No modern physicist has.

 

[steve_bank]

On a science show today a physicist said

‘… I feel sorry for philosophers, they can’t measure anything’

What does philosophy say about what human life depends on?


Science bakes bread, philosophy bakes Twinkies … tastes sweet but no nutritional value,


It appears that to some philosophy is as much an identity and ideology as theists. They will defend beliefs to the bitter end.

 

[steve_bank]

Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany in 1933 after the Nazi Party's rise to power, fearing for his safety due to the escalating anti-Semitic persecution and the Nazi regime's threats against him and other Jews. He renounced his German citizenship, temporarily sojourned in Belgium, England, and Switzerland, and then settled permanently in the United States, taking up a position at Princeton.

In August 1939, Einstein signed a letter, drafted by Leo Szilard and others, warning President Roosevelt of the potential for Nazi Germany to develop an atomic bomb and encouraging the U.S. to pursue nuclear research. This letter is credited with leading to the Manhattan Project, which eventually produced the atomic bombs.

despite his 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning of the potential for atomic weapons and convincing the US to start the project. While his theory of relativity (E=mc²) explains the energy released in nuclear reactions, he was not part of the secret program led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, and he did not participate in the construction of the atomic bomb

Despite his critical role in initiating the project, US officials denied Einstein a security clearance in 1940 due to his pacifist nature and perceived left-leaning political views, considering him a security threat.

Einstein Manifesto in 1955, urging governments to find peaceful solutions to disputes and warning that nuclear war threatened human existence. He also viewed his 1939 letter to FDR, which encouraged the U.S. to develop the atomic bomb, as his "one great mistake