Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[The Mad Viking]

1950s

I get up in the morning and check the weather on the radio. I take a shower, get dressed and drive to work. On my way there I listen to the radio. When I get in I check my phone messages from my thesis advisor or other members of my research group. Then I check mail for any new research papers from that day. The existence of airmail has significantly increased the pace and the interconnected, international nature of scientific research. I then do some work. This tends to be semi-analytical in nature; I create a model, derive some of its behaviour using pen and paper, then create a numerical simulation to muscle out the actual numbers (which are crucial for application to the measurement of cosmological constants and thus can confirm or deny certain cosmological models). Throughout this, I am listening to music on my radio. At some point during the day I receive calls on my telephone from friends, relatives, or my fiancée. She works in a hospital in Montreal planning radiation treatments for cancer patients, calibrating medical equipment, doing research into new treatments, etc. At the end of the day I drive home. I'm out of groceries, so I go to the supermarket and pay for my purchases with a cash. I throw the groceries into the cupboard, and listen to Amos and Andy on the radio. I go upstairs and read some magazines for a couple of hours, then I go to sleep.

My life is virtually identical to how people will live in 2005.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Asher
Crash course in dictionary usage for our Philosopher friends:

Each line of this definition refers to a different conceptual usage of the word:

Educational usage


Lifestyle usage


Personality usage

The relevant usage is the first:

This sentence is taken from a professional publication - a dictionary. It is not casual english usage like the definition of "or" that you used which links synonyms.

The usage here is deliberate, simple, and obvious: it is to say a Philosopher is either a student of Philosophy (formally educated), or a specialist in Philosophy (not formally educated).

It's simple stuff to people with any sort of competence, but a huge challenge for Philosophers.

For crying out loud.

Is Carly a student of or a specialist in Philosophy?

No.

She is someone who, once upon a time, studied philosophy.

Maybe, just maybe, you could have called her a "philosopher" while she was in undergrad school, and not been too inaccurate. I prefer Aggies definition, but so what. However, after graduating she then studied law and followed with a Masters in Business Administration. And then followed with a corporate career and became a CEO.

This person cannot by any stretch of the imagination be accurately called a "philospher".

And it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that the reason for her failures were due to one of the joint majors of her undergrad degree.

And while I'm posting, I think you are up to 5 citations of a typing mistake as proof of Gepap not understanding computers.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Asher
Just how do you figure only Philosophy goes after the "problems"?

That is one of the more moronic statements in this thread, if only because it's so vacuous of meaning...

0 to insulting in under 3 seconds...

nice.

Not surprisingly, you don't understand the statement.

The world is obsessed with symptoms, and wastes grossly inordinate resources on futile attempts to quickly "solve" them.

But has neither the time, interest or capability in determining what the root causes are, and doing something about them.

Your whole argument about the lack of value of philosophers is based on your chosen value system, which appears to value money and time-efficiency as the highest good. This makes sense, as philosophers generally do not advance those values.

But how do computer scientists decide what to work on?

In other words, what values determine the allocation of the these resources?

For the most part, I would suggest, that would be ROI.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


What the hell are you talking about? God I hope that isn't your approach to medicine... let's stop educating doctors and solve PROBLEMS, not SYMPTOMS!

Interestingly, that is exactly my approach to medicine.

Unfortunately, corporate medicine has accurately determined that the profit is infinitely higher by treating symptoms.

Another example of the market failing to deliver in health care.

If you make everyone healthy, you will destroy your "business".

Lets sell them pills, instead.

[The Mad Viking]

I believe, as computer scientists Asher (and Kuci?) are very familiar with the scientific method.

Far moreso than me, I presume. When I studied design at University, it was interesting to see how strong the similarities were between the scientific method and the formal design process. Almost identical.

Both commence (or they did when I studied them) with the identification and defintion of the PROBLEM.

Virtually all failures result right there. Before you have even begun. The problem is mis-identified, improperly defined or misunderstood; or all too often, the problem selected is incongruous to the goals desired.

So I say again:

How do we decide what we allocate our resources to?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What the hell are you talking about? God I hope that isn't your approach to medicine... let's stop educating doctors and solve PROBLEMS, not SYMPTOMS!

You can't be serious, can you? You want your doctor to solve your symptoms at the expense of the underlying problem?!! I sure as Hell hope my doctor is trying to solve the problem and not just treating the symptoms! Once the symptoms are under wraps, I may still be sick!

[Kuciwalker]

Reread the sentence. I said by his logic we shouldn't have doctors at all.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Interestingly, that is exactly my approach to medicine.

Reread the sentence.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Reread the sentence. I said by his logic we shouldn't have doctors at all.

Um... doctors solve problems as well. I'm not sure where you are going with this at all.

[Kuciwalker]

No, only philosophers solve problems. Didn't you get the memo?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
No, only philosophers solve problems. Didn't you get the memo?

That isn't even close to what he said, and you know that.

[Kuciwalker]

I fail to see how doctors solve problems any more than engineers do.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


You can't be serious, can you? You want your doctor to solve your symptoms at the expense of the underlying problem?!! I sure as Hell hope my doctor is trying to solve the problem and not just treating the symptoms! Once the symptoms are under wraps, I may still be sick!

Well, probably most medicine is about treating symptoms, since causes are often unknown or inaccessible.

Of course, the line between symptoms and problems is often blury. A life-threatening fever may be a symptom of a viral infection, but you'd probably be more concerned about getting the fever down than getting rid of the virus (which is probably not doable anyway).

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

That isn't even close to what he said, and you know that.

Thanks Imran.

I didn't even imply that Philosophers solve problems. I did suggest that they are useful in understanding what a probem is; apparently from the discussion here, that is a critically underestimated talent.

Back to computers.

What we have established is that there are a lot of them now, in many places where you might not immediately expect, and they make things faster.

So far, so good?

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Isn't that true of everyone here?

To the extent I'm trying to do anything in this thread beyond amusing myself, it's trying to make some of you pseudos think a bit more. That's something that can only be done here.

As for philosophy at public universities, I'm pretty happy with the present situation, and since no major change is on the horizon, there's no reason for me to campaign about it.