Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[Flip McWho]

Yeah; Bite when ya Bored.

[BeBMan]

Well, my comment wasn't directed at your post Just about the attempts to define the "value" according to personal preferences which was done earlier in this thread

[Flip McWho]

Still my philosophy holds

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Are you seriously claiming that not a single example can be found of anybody explaining anything that ever happened prior to the Greeks except as the action of the gods or of men?

The difference is the Greeks established a method of supporting such statements, based on observation, extrapolation, deduction and reason- rather than simply accepting that God X froze the lake or sea because he or she was having a conniption fit over not being given enough human or animal sacrifices.


It's remarkably instructive to read accounts of mediaeval Christian scientists/mathematicians who can't understand basic scientific or mathematical propositions, even finding out how to calculate the interior angles of triangles.

Thankfully the Islamic world helped maintain the Greek tradition of experimentation and observation, rather than simply relying on the wisdom of past masters and turning scientific matters into subjects of religious dogma.

If you're interested, Krazyhorse, there's an excellent book on the history and development of science by
A. C. Crombie-

Augustine to Galileo: The History of Science, A.D. 400- 1650. Publisher: William Heinemann.

which if I recall reproduces the discussion between the two mediaeval scientists unsure about angles and how to calculate them.

There's another general introduction to the history of science (whose authors I can't recall offhand) which reproduces the work of a mediaeval French scientist who by experiment 'disproved' one of Aristotle's assumptions about the physical world, but because Church dogma meant that Aristotle was virtually infallible, even though the man knew he had proved Aristotle was wrong, he could not believe in the truth of his own results.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
So far that's 2 philosophers attempting to insult me in this thread by reference to the fact that I drink.

I ask whether your total lack of netiquette is due to you being drunk, and you conclude I'm a philosopher? I'm afraid you're an idiot.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Flip McWho
Another thing. If you're measuring based on value to society (outside of pay rates, and pay rates is a pretty ****ty way of measuring value to society really) then a ****load of people have no value to society at all. Only the "greats" (inventors, philosophers (like Plato/Aristotle etc) are off use. This includes the vast majority of technicians and computer people as well as vast majorities of every other field as well, including philosophers, who have no use to society.

Society wouldn't work without those technicians and computer people.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Society wouldn't work without those technicians and computer people.

Only certain societies wouldn't 'work'.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, for one, you wouldn't have posted that.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Well, for one, you wouldn't have posted that.

And ?


Inventions become the mothers of necessity- however did people manage without the internet, or computers, or the transistor, or nasal hair clippers, or keyrings that identify where they are with sound, or Pokemon cards...

And yet somehow, societies and civilizations prospered for hundreds of years without any of them.

And vast numbers of people around the world still manage to get by without having broadband connection, or even a battery operated radio.


I suspect you could even manage with just one lavatory in your parents' house.

[Last Conformist]

It's great comfort that the Yanomamö would do fine as the West collapsed in chaos and starvation after all the techies disappeared ...

[BeBMan]

I tell you, the only people that have real value for society are those who brew beer

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by BeBro
I tell you, the only people that have real value for society are those who brew beer

Blessed are the cheese makers, too.

http://www.montypythonpages.com/index1.htm

[BeBMan]

Yeah

I think this thread should be turned into a general "What have the *insert profession of your choice here* ever done for us/society" debate

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher
The funniest thing about taking a couple Philosophy of Logic courses was the compsci kids pwning the emo-glasses-wearing-Philosophy-majors.

Wow, people pwning others in their field of specialty.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris

Wow, people pwning others in their field of specialty.

You should see the fun I have trying to get the science people to understand that not every ethical problem can be solved by appealing to scientific fact, or that the Ontological Argument is not refuted by appealing to the Big Bang theory.

It sometimes takes ages to pound such simple ideas into their skulls.