Mentioning Phil phD's

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Agathon


Yeah, big sample.

I'm beginning to suspect that philosophers are lacking in humour. At least, that's what my sample of 1 is telling me.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Frogger
You could spend the next million years trying to "prove" that the scientific method leads us to "truth" or that current scientific thinking is closer to "reality" than older scientific thinking was, or that the Universe "obeys" physical "laws" in the way scientists assume it does, and you'd get nowhere. That's the problem with philosophy as applied to science.

"And you'd get nowhere" - another unargued assumption. This is the problem with science students, when you ask them simple questions they respond with dogmatic bull**** like that.

I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think scientific theories are realist or anti-realist in nature. I'm certainly not going to accept mere assertion one way or another.

[Agathon]

I still haven't seen anyone give a reason to reject my claim about philosophy and cognitive science and philosophy and AI. Or the historical value of studying philosophy, or it's value in creating new political ideologies, or it's use in ethical reasoning.

[KrazyHorse]

"And you'd get nowhere" - another unargued assumption. This is the problem with science students, when you ask them simple questions they respond with dogmatic bull**** like that.

I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think scientific theories are realist or anti-realist in nature. I'm certainly not going to accept mere assertion one way or another.

It's not dogmatic bull**** if I came up with it on my own. It's personal bull**** at that point.

Agathon, give me a definition of "reality", then explain to me how you will measure the deviance of a theory from reality.

Nobody's even gotten their act together enough to do that compellingly. Until then, all Popper (I think he's the famous realist, right?), his friends and his foes can do is spin crap until the issue is so confused that the weak-minded have a hard time following the arguments.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Then if you believe this I don't see how you have any rational grounds for any of your scientific beliefs - so next time we find you having a go at someone over theirs you will be damned a sophist or a hypocrite.

How does that work.
I don't pretend to be able to predict the future, so how am I a hypocrite in any way if I admit future predictions rely on faith? Isn't that a rather obvious thing, anyway?

After all no one thought that anyone would solve the problem of Fermat's last theorem, but it happened. Merely saying, "That can't be solved, so who cares." is a betrayal of the values that are fundamental to any academic discipline and represent the worst form of intellectual laziness or cowardice.

Do you realize you're rambling about something completely unrelated to this discussion?

What's really at issue here is that you don't understand what philosophers do - witness the growing number of howlers you have committed in this thread.

What's really at issue here is your complete inability to explain what philosophers do, particularly because they don't do much these days.

Everything you've quoted about what philosophers do counts as a "howler" (you totally abuse that term, by the way).

In fact, "that's just some bull**** that philosophers talk about", strikes me as one of the worst reasons ever offered in refutation by anyone. Most of your answers are mere variations on this tedious theme.

And all of your answers revolve around a theme where you spew bull**** with fancy words, asking questions and pretending to be profound.

Philosopher.

[KrazyHorse]

You folks haven't gotten any farther than Plato's ideal forms did. That might tell you something...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
C'mon, Asher, a cursory glance through the American Association for Artificial Intelligence popped up:

A guy who taught philosophy in the late 60s/early 70s and switched to CompSci and Psychology proves what, exactly?

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Frogger
his friends and his foes can do is spin crap until the issue is so confused that the weak-minded have a hard time following the arguments.

Hey, don't bring me back into this....



ACK!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Or this guy has nothing to do with computer science.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/aiphil/aiphil.html

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/

And here's an introductory lecture on why Ai needs philosophy and philosophy needs AI

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/misc/talks/ai-and-phil.pdf

Slide 7 is informative at a basic level.

Well I googled around for a bit to see how many good papers there were on the uselessness of the philosophy of science. Those I could find were either baby stuff or rants by religious cranks.

Interesting, so AI "needs" philosophers to determine how it views the world, a "world philosophy" of sorts.

That's a very narrow requirement for AI, and I'd venture that 99% of the AI out there today doesn't even have a "world view".

But hey, there's your proof for why we need to find a philosophy department: No one else can decide how a robot should view the world

(Of course my favorite part of that guy's webpage is where he mentions that the philosophical method is often not helpful)

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Frogger

"And you'd get nowhere" - another unargued assumption. This is the problem with science students, when you ask them simple questions they respond with dogmatic bull**** like that.

I'd like to know if there are good reasons to think scientific theories are realist or anti-realist in nature. I'm certainly not going to accept mere assertion one way or another.

It's not dogmatic bull**** if I came up with it on my own. It's personal bull**** at that point.

Agathon, give me a definition of "reality", then explain to me how you will measure the deviance of a theory from reality.

Nobody's even gotten their act together enough to do that compellingly. Until then, all Popper (I think he's the famous realist, right?), his friends and his foes can do is spin crap until the issue is so confused that the weak-minded have a hard time following the arguments.

Popper is history. I don't have much trouble following philosophical arguments, although I am happy to admit that phil science is not my area of expertise.

Anyway, standard definitions of realism. Usually either (a) the statements of scientific theory are about events or entities that are completely mind independent; or, (b) scientific statements are subject to the classical (bivalent) notion of truth rather than some form of warranted assertion.

As for someone who mentioned the theory of Forms - there are many mathematicians around who (to my horror) regard themselves as platonists.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

Interesting, so AI "needs" philosophers to determine how it views the world, a "world philosophy" of sorts.

That's a very narrow requirement for AI, and I'd venture that 99% of the AI out there today doesn't even have a "world view".

Those I found without much searching. The point of posting the articles was to dispute your claim that philosophy has nothing to do with AI. Despite what you say, there are plenty of people working in both fields, whatever the quality of their opinions.

I'd be willing to say that AI probably doesn't need philosophy to any great extent in the way that you think of it, but that doesn't mean that philosophers aren't interested in it, or that the results of AI research are not relevant to other fields.

[KrazyHorse]

(a) the statements of scientific theory are about events or entities that are completely mind independent; or, (b) scientific statements are subject to the classical (bivalent) notion of truth rather than some form of warranted assertion

In other words, does reality exist or not. If I see something how can I be sure it's really there?

Answer's simple: you can't. You can't transcend your senses, or be "sure" of anything. If you want to get somewhere, accept it and move on.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Those I found without much searching. The point of posting the articles was to dispute your claim that philosophy has nothing to do with AI. Despite what you say, there are plenty of people working in both fields, whatever the quality of their opinions.

I'd be willing to say that AI probably doesn't need philosophy to any great extent in the way that you think of it, but that doesn't mean that philosophers aren't interested in it, or that the results of AI research are not relevant to other fields.

It is the kind of link I was looking for though.

But of course it's possible to make philosophy have to do with everything. It's one of those fields with no real boundaries, which is why it's considered useless by many and incredibly useful by others.

It depends on how realistic you are.

[KrazyHorse]

Arguing about whether or not reality exists is like arguing about whether or not God exists, or similar nonsense.

Has anybody actually ever actually progressed in these studies or is it simply a matter of belief?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Frogger
You folks haven't gotten any farther than Plato's ideal forms did. That might tell you something...

You know, some knowledge of Hume and/or Kant would be sufficient to dispel this belief. And they were writing a long time ago.

Again - let me repeat - the notion that philosophical method can yield metaphysical truths is old hat to those like me, who were educated in the analytic tradition (what those French twits say is completely different and we are in no way responsible for their drivel). That is an old view, kept alive by historians of philosophy (like me) for historical interest and some perspective. 20th century analytical philosophy spent much of its time in conceptual analysis and investigations of language where the idea was to determine a "logical grammar" for the correct use of expressions so as to avoid postulating absurd metaphysical theses.

I tend to be in agreement with this line of thinking, but it doesn't mean that I think that theories of reference or meaning or any other kind of conceptual clarifications have no point - again witness the kerfuffle over "causality'.