Mentioning Phil phD's

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Have you ever heard of a library? It's a place where they keep books, and if you promise to bring them back, they'll let you take one home for a while. I'm guessing that Copeland's book, which is an introductory text for undergraduates, may be found there.

I said acquire instead of purchase because I know of such things, the largest library in Western Canada is on campus here.

It's just that I was hoping for something much quicker, I don't exactly have the time to read some text on the subject.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Plato was a very odd man. Apparantly nothing exists, and everything's the manifestation of a "perfect object," so studying the physical world is futile.

Or you could go the other way and look at early Wittgenstein who said that physical objects, bolstered by scientific discovery, are the only thing real, and metaphysics are all nonsense and meaningless.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Asher

That seems extraordinarily contrived, and as hard as I can I can't think of a use for that kind of distinction. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves"...


I understand the concept of it, I don't understand how it is useful.

These sentences are paradoxical because they incorporate an auto-reference. Any proposal containing an auto-reference may creates a paradox. There are situations where the ability to recognize quickly a paradox can be extremely useful.

[Japher]

quote:
Originally posted by Asher

Aren't they both artificial constructs we use, anyway?


See - now you are doing philosophy. That is a question that is up for debate.

If this was so you think we might be able to do better (or at least that's what the proponents of dialethic logic think).

Question: Who is better to answer/debate this question; a mathematician, a philosopher, or some with dealings in both?

I sure am glad Asher was around during my absence to try and keep everyone from falling of the deep end. I too feel that there must be some other use for philosophy, either than encouragin abstract thought, in order to be considered viable for public funding. Thinking outside of a box and rationaly is something that is nice to be able to do, and is taught at many levels in many fields, but you first need box to think outside of. It nice to see philosophers analyzing what others do, and sometimes it gives a fresh perspective on things. Yet, when that person, the one doing the things, goes back to do those things that the philosophers talked about, they are still going to be following the same laws that the did initially.

Basically, understanding a thought process does not lead to the ability to apply this thought process. The only things that are useful are those things which may be applied.

If philosophy is the creative side of things then great. Be creative and philosophize about things that may be relevant. I know this; I work on the leading edge of pharmaceutical manufacturing and development, we come up with new drugs and new dilevery methods everyday, and without a single person with a PhD in philosophy... Not even in advertizing. Why is this? Why, if philosophy is this all great field of study that has so many applications do we (a fortune 500 company) not have a single PhD in philosophy amongst our employees of well over 200,000?

Philosophy is not useless, unless it is used on its own.

[Asher]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
These sentences are paradoxical because they incorporate an auto-reference. Any proposal containing an auto-reference may creates a paradox. There are situations where the ability to recognize quickly a paradox can be extremely useful.

I recognized the paradox instantly, and I'm no philosopher.

[DAVOUT]

The trick is not to recognize the paradox, but to identify the cause; the auto-reference is a logical trap which is not often intuitively discovered. Except, of course, by brilliant non-philosophers !

[Asher]

I don't see what's complex about it.
Even in jr. high I was exposed to things like:

The line below this is true.
The line above this is false.

It seems pretty intuitive to me. The cause of the paradox, that is.

[DAVOUT]

Sure, but here nothing is true or false, all logical rules are applied, and the end is a paradox; in physics we would name it a singularity.

[KrazyHorse]

Logicians for the most part are employed in, you guessed it, philosophy departments.

The logicians I know all have Ph.Ds in math and teach in the math department...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
The trick is not to recognize the paradox, but to identify the cause; the auto-reference is a logical trap which is not often intuitively discovered. Except, of course, by brilliant non-philosophers !

I suggest you read some Godel.

You seem to be spouting some of Russell+Whitehead's debunked system...

[Urban Ranger]

This thread has certainly gone down the tubes.

[KrazyHorse]

in physics we would name it a singularity

We would?

What I name singularities are places where measurables approach infinity. But that's just me...

[Imran Siddiqui]

The logicians I know all have Ph.Ds in math and teach in the math department...

Well all the logicians I know work in the philosophy department, so nyeh .

[Asher]

My philosophy prof was a logician, technically employed under the department of philosophy.

He's finishing a PhD in compsci while he teaches, though, because he feels he made a grave mistake doing philosophy as a graduate field.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Frogger

in physics we would name it a singularity

We would?

What I name singularities are places where measurables approach infinity. But that's just me...

I may be wrong, but I thought that no measures at all can be made in a singularity; measurables approach infinity when closing the singularity.