US universities/colleges still suck

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
And you could make a strong argument that this is due to environmental factors and was not dependent on the presense of a bunch of philosophers.

I actually think that all primitive societies that decided to go innovative or stagnant have their intellectual class to thank for that. Intellectual class is not necessarily philosophers: actually, the norm is more that primitive intellectual class were priests or sorcerers.
Philosophers are already a division of labour: they think about concepts, and develop a vision for the future, but they don't necessarily are the ones who hold rituals, teach tradition, or advise kings.

Flah-forward to late European middle ages. It's a time where the Arabs have stopped being the scientific heart of the world, yet their environmental factors haven't changed. It's a time where the Chinese have explored the coast of Africa before the Portuguese. It's a time where the Koreans invented Printing before Gutenberg.
The reasons why the European societies have stopped stagnating, wile the other greats have begun to stagnate, is because the European intelligentsia had the idea of humanism on the one hand (thus theology wasn't the only worthwhile intellectual occupation anymore), and because they saw history not as a circle, but as a continuous line, in which things change*.
True, the great plague may be linked to the need to put brains to good use. But were it not for the very idea of progress, Europe would have become stagnant again after overcoming the crisis, just like the Chinese have become stagnant after their great explorations.


*Many societies saw time as the eternal circle of life and death, the eternal circle of seasons etc. When time is an eternal circle, things are bound not to change, and tradition becomes an absolute. This is why many societies have remained exactly the same since centuries, until an external event forced them to change their tradition.

[aneeshm]

Two questions still unanswered . It seems there really is no philosopher capable of answering them .

[Spiffor]

AFAIK, our only resident philsopher is offline now.

[Shi Huangdi]

"
The best students go to the best schools, where they have the best opportunity. "

Not neccesarily. In the USA, some of the brightest students end up going to state schools. They may not be able to get quite as much scholarships to afford a truly elite college. They also might not have applied themselves as much in high school so as to qualify for an elite college.

Further, when the ratings are remarkably consistent year to year with constant streams of new students competing,

That can also reflect how much emphasis there is on ACM competition. I know at Pitt there are some great minds in CS that don't care to take the extra time to participate in an ACM competition.

Moreover, with a competition like this you are only testing the brightest students. To understand how the quality of the instruction was, you would need to test all the students to see if they can instruct to all ability levels, or if it just the case that they have some very bright students with high native ability.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Asher
I'm not in over my head here, Agathon is the one saying CS requires no original thought, and other people are equating it to playing with gadgets.

CS does not depend on philosophy today. Philosophers butt their head in for some aspects of it, like AI, but they're not needed and usually not appreciated.

Philosophy was an essential tool a while ago, but more and more branches have become specialized and branched off to the point that we have useless ****ers of Philosophers obsessing over Plato for a living (cough cough), rather than doing anything of use.

Why is this thread even mentioning philosophy anyway? Would the insecure Philosophers please start a different thread to defend their usefulness so we can go back to discussing the ACM competition?

That's just shocking Asher - a scientist declaring philosophy is absolutely useless!!!?? It's also a scientist's job to think about what he's creating or discovering and what the consequences may be in the future. I know a good number of great scientists also writing books on ethics or philosophy, usually about things concerning their expertise of course but still...

Besides there are enough scientists searching for completely useless applications too, or well useless matters so far. They're not exactly doing anything of use either.
Historians, archaeologists etc etc don't really do anything of use as well, so why don't we simply get rid of them huh Asher? You want to 'dumbify' society imo.

[Kuciwalker]

Besides there are enough scientists searching for completely useless applications too

Only an idiot thinks science that does not have an obvious, immediate application is useless. Newton's theory's didn't have any particular immediate usefulness. Quantum physics was utterly pointless when it was conceived.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Spiffor

*Many societies saw time as the eternal circle of life and death, the eternal circle of seasons etc. When time is an eternal circle, things are bound not to change, and tradition becomes an absolute. This is why many societies have remained exactly the same since centuries, until an external event forced them to change their tradition.

You'll be amazed how fast primitive societies can adapt to western ways of life. The thing is that they don't really need our modern habits. They are perfectly self-sufficient, have good social structures function harmoniously within their natural surroundings.
When a western group of people communicates with them, they'll be amazed at the technological gadgets of course, but they will not take over that style of life immediately. It is remarkable that they are not interested in metal axes or other tools that are better than their own, simply because they don't know what advantages they could offer them. On the contrary at first they are quite interested in trash and other worthless crap western people leave behind!
They are interested in it because it gives some sort of a status amon their peers. If they acquire such objects they are showing that they have contact with the strangers. However the more this goes on, the more people will be able to get their hands on these objects. After a while inflation and devaluation occurs and those objects are no longer interesting. Thus begins an evolution towards bigger, better, more valuable objects and finally some people will distinguish themselves from the others by taking over western ways of behaving.

Of course this doesn't happen in just a few years, but on the whole this evolution can go very quickly relatively spoken. Also this doesn't happen 100% of the cases, as there are some tribes that will hide and reject the westerns altogether etc etc.

This evolution is reminiscent to the opinion of many prehistorians that hunters/gatherers with a mesolithic way of living, when they encountered migrating farmers with a neolothic way of living, adapted to these newcomers in the same manner more or less. The new groups were technologically more advanced, had certain advantages over them etc. At first the hunters did not adopt the same ways, but over time they were tempted to take over the new ways thanks to the frequent contact with the newer groups, and also because they were probably outcompeted a bit probably.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Besides there are enough scientists searching for completely useless applications too

Only an idiot thinks science that does not have an obvious, immediate application is useless. Newton's theory's didn't have any particular immediate usefulness. Quantum physics was utterly pointless when it was conceived.

And that proves my point exactly;
irony is a bit hard to spot I guess?

Asher's opinion that things not immediately useful to us now should not be researched is utterly ridiculous

[Asher]

That's not my opinion, but it is an excellent example of in the inability of Philosophy to teach its students to form proper arguments.

[Odin]

Originally posted by GePap
The notion that truth can be achieved through empirical observation and experimentation, the very point of science, is a philosophical notion. All science is a subset of philosophy. Hence why you get a Doctorate of Philosophy in any of the Sciences.

Natural Science is not a subset of philosophy, it is a disipline that emerged out of philosophy and went it's own way, same with Social Science, Political Science, etc The only territory the philosphers have pretty much left are Metaphysics, Ethics, and "Philosophy of [insert scientific disipline here]; and they are in the process of loosing ethics to behavioral science.

[Odin]

Oh, and I wouldn't mind if doctorate degrees in scientific fields be renamed "Doctor of Natural Science" instead of "Doctor of Philosophy."

[GePap]

The entire field of Ethics is one which is the domain of philosophers. And ethics limits the reach of science, specially biology and medical research.

For example, the coming restrictions on human cloning, or restrictions, for example, on the creation of say a human-chimp hybrid are the result of philosophical musings on the nature of mankind.

If CS ever gets close to real AI, Ethics will quick in to try to determine what the status of trully artificial intelligence would be, and those questions would be out of the league of the CScientists trying to make the computer.

The whole notions of the correctness of a progressive tax system as opposed to a regressive one, or a flat system-those are not just economic, but ethical and moral questions, hence the domain of philosophers (and theologians, the other ancient academic field).

In reality, my life every day is affected a hell of a lot more by ethical questions than by anything any computer scientist does. Hell, even I am old enough to remember living in a world prior to personal computing and so forth.

Technology makes life easier. That is different from making life better, or worse. The Ethical (philosophical and theological) foundations of our society affect me a hell of a lot more than the work of any computer scientist.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Odin


Natural Science is not a subset of philosophy, it is a disipline that emerged out of philosophy and went it's own way, same with Social Science, Political Science, etc The only territory the philosphers have pretty much left are Metaphysics, Ethics, and "Philosophy of [insert scientific disipline here]; and they are in the process of loosing ethics to behavioral science.

What you describe is changes in the terminology of the world philosophy.

As for philosophers loosing ethics to behavioral science, that is certainly far away, since behavioral science can hardly answer a question such as , when does one become human.

[Asher]

I still think it's a joke for "philosophers" to determine/dictate/"study" ethics.

[Agathon]

and they are in the process of loosing ethics to behavioral science.

Behavioural science does normative ethics? That's news to me.