Philosophy Of Science

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

At what point do you say that philosophy comes into the picture?

Observation does not appear to be a matter of philosophy.

Gathering information does not appear to be philosophy.

Experimentation and testing of information does look like philosophical inquiry.

Forming hypothesis or theory? It also looks doubtful because that is just a matter of tying the evidence together.

So at what point does science become a matter of philosophy?

You can't see the wood for the trees.

How do you determine that these are the steps you should follow?

How, for example, did you decide that "Experimentation and testing" was a better option than "Prayer and quiet contemplation"?

What made you think that "Gathering information" was preferable to "taking psychoactive drugs"?

The answer begins with a 'P'.

Psychology?

 

[No Robots]

Verification (eg. by predictibility) is what validates a theory. The theory is prior.

There is something that comes prior to theory.

Yes. It is thought.

 

[steve_bank]

My point.

One does not have to know anything about empiricism from philosophy to be empirical.

I was babysitting a rug rat for a couple and had her out in the yard. She crawled towrds a rock periodicity stopping to put her hand out feeling for the image until she got to it.

She was empirically testing and gauging reality. Always red it.

Philosophy does not invent, it speculates, comments, and categorizes on what is.

Which came first, empirical testing of reality and ideas or empiricism?

Romans were great engineers without our math and science. They developed empirical data on strewth of materials. They figured out beams were stronger than flat wood. They developed the arch.

You might say philosophy formalizes what people do.

 

[Politesse]

You might say philosophy formalizes what people do.

Yes.

Which begs the question of why any sensible person would disapprove of philosophy. You can't really want to underperform a two year old on rational inquiry?

 

[pood]

As @bilby noted, the intellectual infrastructure for the broad enterprise we call science was laid by philosophy.

Now you might say that science has become completely separate from philosophy, but that is not true. As the aforementioned Norman Swartz (and more notably Einstein) said, bare data is not enough. You have to THINK ABOUT that data, and CONCEPTUALIZE and CONTEXTUALIZE it. Doing that, and how to do it, is philosophy,

Uranus isn’t fitting Newton’s paradigm. Shall we really ditch such a successful theory?

No. We find Neptune.

Mercury isn’t fitting Newton’s paradigm. Shall we really ditch such a successful theory?

Yes, we don’t find Vulcan. We find gravitational lensing.

But we don’t WHOLLY ditch Newton. We realize it works to a limit. It’s still great for getting us to Mars.

And so on.

Duhem-Quine. If Newton had known about this PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT, he might have questioned his assumptions about absolute space separate from absolute time and his assumption about Euclidean geometry. Recall, Newton PHILOSOPHIZED about gravity in a letter, wondering what such a “force” could be. He already had the PHILOSOPHICAL intimation that maybe it was not strictly a force at all.

Philosophy and science are always having metaphorical and metaphysical intercourse. I suppose physical intercourse would be more fun.

And none of this has anything to do with religion.

 

[steve_bank]

Out of high school I went into the Navy and went to electronics schools.

Before I read or had classes in philosophy and science I learned to empirically trouble shoot electronic systems. It was a natural process. Trouble shooting is a skill learned by experience.

The practice of science is a skill learned by experience. It is not learned from a philosophy. When lerng a new skill you go through a 'learning curve'.

In engineering an empirical solution can mean ‘trial and error’.

The generalized Scientific Method is trial and error. Hypothesis, trial, accept, fail and reformulate, try again.

We all do it maturely. Modern formal science involves mathematical models.

You can’t fit reality into a philosophy, at best a philosophy of science is a subjective generalization of a process that originates in the way our brains work.

 

[pood]

Out of high school I went into the Navy and went to electronics schools.

Before I read or had classes in philosophy and science I learned to empirically trouble shoot electronic systems. It was a natural process. Trouble shooting is a skill learned by experience.

The practice of science is a skill learned by experience. It is not learned from a philosophy. When lerng a new skill you go through a 'learning curve'.

In engineering an empirical solution can mean ‘trial and error’.

The generalized Scientific Method is trial and error. Hypothesis, trial, accept, fail and reformulate, try again.

We all do it maturely. Modern formal science involves mathematical models.

You can’t fit reality into a philosophy, at best a philosophy of science is a subjective generalization of a process that originates in the way our brains work.

That’s nice, Steve.

Except life and science and PHILOSOPHY are not all about electrical engineering. Not even close.

Maybe you somehow missed that.

But you are welcome to your impoverished world view. I know at your age it’s hard to learn new stuff.

 

[DBT]

Verification (eg. by predictibility) is what validates a theory. The theory is prior.

There is something that comes prior to theory.

Yes. It is thought.

No, there is the physical world with its objects and events.

 

[No Robots]

Verification (eg. by predictibility) is what validates a theory. The theory is prior.

There is something that comes prior to theory.

Yes. It is thought.

No, there is the physical world with its objects and events.

As we perceive them in thought.

 

[DBT]

Verification (eg. by predictibility) is what validates a theory. The theory is prior.

There is something that comes prior to theory.

Yes. It is thought.

No, there is the physical world with its objects and events.

As we perceive them in thought.

No, as the brain acquires information and forms a mental representation of the external world....which happens prior to thought. A mental representation that is constantly being tested against an objective world that cares nothing about our thoughts, beliefs or interpretations.

Where if you get it wrong, you time on earth may be very short. Where the brain, in order to survive and interact with an objective world, must practice science rather than philosophy.

 

[steve_bank]

Verification (eg. by predictibility) is what validates a theory. The theory is prior.

There is something that comes prior to theory.

Yes. It is thought.

No, there is the physical world with its objects and events.

As we perceive them in thought.

No, as the brain acquires information and forms a mental representation of the external world....which happens prior to thought. A mental representation that is constantly being tested against an objective world that cares nothing about our thoughts, beliefs or interpretations.

Where if you get it wrong, you time on earth may be very short. Where the brain, in order to survive and interact with an objective world, must practice science rather than philosophy.

Nicely put.

 

[steve_bank]

Out of high school I went into the Navy and went to electronics schools.

Before I read or had classes in philosophy and science I learned to empirically trouble shoot electronic systems. It was a natural process. Trouble shooting is a skill learned by experience.

The practice of science is a skill learned by experience. It is not learned from a philosophy. When lerng a new skill you go through a 'learning curve'.

In engineering an empirical solution can mean ‘trial and error’.

The generalized Scientific Method is trial and error. Hypothesis, trial, accept, fail and reformulate, try again.

We all do it maturely. Modern formal science involves mathematical models.

You can’t fit reality into a philosophy, at best a philosophy of science is a subjective generalization of a process that originates in the way our brains work.

That’s nice, Steve.

Except life and science and PHILOSOPHY are not all about electrical engineering. Not even close.

Maybe you somehow missed that.

But you are welcome to your impoverished world view. I know at your age it’s hard to learn new stuff.

HeeHeeeHeee

Look arnd around you. It is all engineered. Paint on walls, computer, car[et, buildings, sewers, water system, cars. CAT scans, MRI, clothes, shoes, TV, radio.

Electricity.

We all do 'science' in one form or another. Observe reality, hypothesize, test. Humans didit from the start without any philosophy as we call it.

Science is not just theoretical cosmology and quantum mechanics.

Figuring out how to sense the daily position of the sun related to seasons knowing when to plant seed in the spring. Structures that will shine the sun on a spot at a specific time of the year.

Such ancient structures remain in the Americas and Europe without any connection between the continents.

Non human species observe and test hysteresis. Pattern recognition. Genetically built into the brain by evolution.

Your argument on sience is philosophy reduces to:

There are cases where people labeled philosopher have influenced science, therefore philosophy guides siecnce.

The argument ignores all the science throughout history that was not influenced by a 'philosopher' or philosophy which is a vague ill defined category.

Pole just did as anatiral humn cp[acity.

The categories of science and philosophy reduce to human thought. Intermbased on how the brin is wired.

All is thought which exist without philosophy. Symbolic language evolved.