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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2024
- Many scientists call philosophy pointless pondering. They may not know they're reading a very old script. Learn about the empiric & rationalist schools of medicine from ancient Greece, & how their ideologies play into thought in the modern world.
Links for the Curious
Bill Nye's kerfuffle-causing video response - bigthink.com/vi...
The SEP's summary of the modern version of the empiricist/rationalist divide - plato.stanford....
I wish your channel was more popular, just because you really deserve it.
Seeing those barely 9k subscribers makes me so sad.
You're intelligent, charismatic, good-looking, and a great educator, exposing us to insanely interesting and important topics, in a well-balanced, unbiased manner.
Yet you're not popular on TH-cam.
+Dawn Man, I need to print this out and stick it on my mirror for my daily affirmation. ^.^ Thank you so much!
I don't worry so much about the subscribers; the only "advertising" I really do is posting to Reddit every now and again. The upshot to this is that almost everyone who's subbed is someone who genuinely appreciates the content & is very supportive, present company included. (I don't know if my fragile ego could handle being exposed to the internet at large! ;) )
Thanks again, and I'm happy you enjoy the show. I'll try to keep up the quality content!
I completely understand, and I'm just thankful the channel exists in the first place.
Thanks so much for all the work you put in, and please keep it up!
+THUNK Hi. Just to chime in. I agree with Dawn. Great channel and thanks for doing the good work, man. :)
+THUNK Agree with Dawn, I love your channel. Every topic expands my understanding of different ideas I'd probably never come in touch with otherwise, and I thank you for it! :)
This channel is criminally undersubbed.
You need to be on talk shows and podcasts as a guest like 3 years ago.
You really should have your own
So glad I found your channel. You deserve way more subs!
We're only 90 Thunks in, yet 9000 subs big. It'll definitely get there!
Metaphysics is always lurking in the shadows, even in science.
+Alex Grigas ...
/slowly turns around
MONISM! WHERE DID Y-AAAAaaaaa
Richard Dawkins called the why questions "silly questions".
What's really funny and paradoxical is that the first thing that came to my mind after hearing that statement (besides being absolutely overwhelmed by its absurdity) is the question "why?"
It's inescapable, why do you think that the why questions are silly questions?
Excellent video, as always. My view on the subject is that philosophy is not generally dead, but rather, that it's not useful anymore in certain *specific* realms. Let me explain.
Often when meditating on ancient greek 'natural philosophy' I find that the ideas suggested may have been reasonable at the time, but they were simply rendered obsolete by modern science. Let's take Plato's theory of forms as an example. The theory (maybe I shouldn't call it a theory but meh) was proposed mainly to answer questions of universality - that, why so many things in the world are so similar? I believe the theory was simply rendered obsolete by modern science. For example, modern genetics explains why many living things have very similar properties, gravity explains why planets and stars are always spherical, etc. The theory of forms is simply occam's razored out, and similar things can be said for many of the ancient greek metaphysical ideas.
However, I find that science doesn't help in finding answers to many other questions. For example, questions relating to morality, and how should we live. Or how should we organize our governments & states. Or questions about the meaning of beauty and art. Or questions about the scientific method itself. And many, many others. There's a common theme to all these questions where science leads to a dead-end: They are all about concepts which only exist in our minds. Ideas of good and bad, of ethics and values, of purpose and of beauty, these are all concepts which (at least in my worldview) exist only within the "emotional world" of humans, and don't have any place whatsoever in the natural world. And so that my conclusion: science is the best way to answer questions about the natural world, while philosophy is the best way to answer questions about the internal world of humans' emotions and thoughts. And as you said, there's always a need for both.
I think that your view is interesting. There are many ways to think about philosophy and hence practicing it. IMHO philosophy can be very fruitful if it's understood as an activity continuous with science. Nature can be seen as a semantic artifact rather than an ontological domain. So, it could be the case that certain habits, morals and ethical principles (quite high level of abstraction here) stem out from prosocial behaviors observable in our close relatives in the animal kingdom. Therefore I suppose, but I'm not sure about it, that "nature" is continuous to ethics.
I've seen this (non) debate come up in my head; recently I've been spending too much time thinking, which is more important, your action's intent or their impact. When obviously, the answer is: BOTH!
This was an awesome video!
I really do enjoy hearing what you have to say each time you put up a video. Whether I agree with you or not, you usually do a great job of presenting the topic in a, mostly, unbiased way with a lot of good thinking points. This one is no exception. Keep up the good work! (sorry this comment doesn't have any discussion or assessment of the presented topic in it-I just wanted to say that)
"Both processes are necessary for thought."
Yup. Excellent video, more people need to understand this.
this channel still could become big, you have a million views total, good accomplishment. keep persisting, I am starting a philosophy channel philosophy tv. and I was looking at what else was out here. You are all my community. I believe philosophy is the best way to find our answers.
I don't know about answers, but it certainly makes me ask better questions! ;) Good luck with your channel!
thank you,
It's imposible to be a rationalist if you have no experience or knowledge before. I think if one want to be a great philosophers, he need to know all the empiricism fact that already known, then we think for the unsolved problem from the empiricism fact to guess what's the most make sense to our rational mind. After you think and got the answer that you think make sense to your logic, then you need to test it and predict it. The rationalism is the guidance for finding the fact. That's how mathematic works. But, of course we need to give a way to falsification and keep skeptical to the fact the had already known.
By the way, this is a great channel. I really happy I've found this. You got my subscribe! :D keep going! Philosophia.. The love of wisdom.
I am so happy to discover your channel. Please make more videos.
You make the point that doing both is the best way to do science. But that's what Bill Nye also meant. He said just useless no-point making up ideas is pointless. Which it is. He didn't say that you don't have to be creative to make up new studies.
Now I want to hear your take on the "can of worms" for this topic that is mathematics.
It's always nice to start a new day with a new Thunk video. I tend to think that people in general have this tendency to look at the world in simple dichotomys ( cats vs dogs, pro-choice vs pro-life etc.). In most cases it's actually hard for me to discuss something honestly with people beacue when i point out some difficulties in the given topic they immediately think that i am on the other side of the argument. Greetings from Poland !
+19kefir88 Cześć! I absolutely agree. There's a healthy amount of evidence that cognition evolved as an argumentative process, designed to split people into groups & galvanize those positions against each other so the majority of the population would arrive at a "correct" conclusion. I try to bear that in mind when discussing these sorts of false dichotomies - it's what brains are (possibly) built for!
th-cam.com/video/Cduyyif7BVY/w-d-xo.html
Amazing channel full body chills
Glad you enjoyed it!
I’d rather think about the video but I feel compelled to tell you that you did a good job on this video - thanks
Porque no los dos? ;)
@THUNK I really enjoyed watching Narcos but unfortunately I can’t speak Spanish yet :/
Yay! Mathematicians represent!
We're like the mongols of knowledge, the eternal exception: There's nothing to be gained from either research or experimentation without the other... unless you're a mathematician. There's not such thing as a perfect universal truth... unless you're a mathematician. And so and so forth.
*****
I don't see why that's so weird. After all, language is not an inherent part of the universe either. You're reading a series of squiggles which you interpret as a series of sound which through convention represent a series of meanings. Language is a convention we use to communicate. I don't see how math is different.
+somewony The weird part is that mathematicians write out some squiggles, and decades later, we find something unlike anything we've observed before in nature that behaves like those squiggles.
It's a little like me writing "All black centaurs hate licorice," and when we discover a species of centaurs somewhere in the Amazon, we find that the black ones have an aversion to Red Vines. That's *bizarre.*
THUNK
Yeah, but math is really about exploring all of the possibilities of the systems we have at our exposal. Math is like the library of babel. It's not surprising that your favourite book is in there. /everything/ is in there.
Likewise there's tonnes of mathematical systems someone once dreamt up that don't have any practical application. We just focus on those that do, hold them up and go "Isn't it amazing?"
+somewony I don't know about that. I can imagine a universe where mathematics is totally decoupled from the actual behavior of physical systems (like the Library of Babel is). If it were *every* potential possibility, it wouldn't be informative, just as the LoB isn't.
You're right that there's pure math that we haven't found applications for (and probably some of it has no application), but I'm not sure that gives me enough reason to dismiss the stuff that works as unremarkable.
THUNK
Yeah, but we don't (yet) have the equivalent of the entire library of babel. We're working our way through it. The things we have are the things most related to concepts found in the real world (from which all mathematics ultimately starts). That actually makes it more likely that we'll find an application for the math we have.
I am just an interested novice of philosophy. Would it help that philosophy arises because of verbal obfuscation of certain terms(Wittgenstein)?......To me, philosophy is a precursor to science. For example, Faraday was untrained in mathematics and came up with English description of Electromagnetism. Later, Maxwell mathematized Faraday's ideas.
Philosophers are fairly used to accusations of word-games/sophistry. ;) Part of the "problem" is the way that goalposts get shifted whenever theoreticians stumble onto something with practical benefits/effects - it's philosophy until someone takes it & (for example) builds a government, starts a branch of science, creates new kinds of artwork, etc., at which point the critics will again question the value of "philosophy" (a category which now excludes that practice).
This works great on the pullution problem. People want to see concrete proof that it is a problem when you can use simple reasoning to determine it is. Both sides are vital for full understaning though.
Still though, you never really specifically addressed why we need philosophy. Sure, there's the cat example, but that's oversimplified. Are there any specific examples of philosophy coming in very useful to us?
+Nexnaught Here's how I think about it: philosophy is the root of all 'knowledge seeking', and science is a subdivision of that. Just like biology or chemistry or physics are specific branches of science, science itself can be thought of as a (probably one of the most successful) branch of philosophy.
Here's an interesting game to try out: go on Wikipedia and hit any random article. Follow the first link on that article (ignore the language/pronunciation links, you want the first actual link in the article). Keep following the first link and pay attention to the topics you travel through. The topics will go from specific to more general and they will also start getting more abstract, and eventually you will end up on the page for philosophy.
For example here's a trace I just did: TH-cam -> video sharing -> royalty-free -> copyrighted -> exclusive rights -> anglo-saxon law -> anglo saxon -> great britain -> island -> sub-continental -> landmasses -> earth -> planet -> astronomical object -> physical entity -> exists -> ontology -> philosophy
+Nexnaught I actually did a whole episode on this a while back: th-cam.com/video/znlmOlu9mTk/w-d-xo.html
Feynman made the bomb out of patriotism, not because "he was too caught up crunching numbers".
He regretted it afterwards though.
Source:
Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, pages 99 and 135-136
+Jan M. I was referring to his depression after having achieved it, i.e. "Los Alamos from Below" p. 136. His sentiments were shared by many of the scientists on the Manhattan Project, who, after the rush of having successfully built a nuclear weapon, were shocked to see it being used. Alfred Nobel suffered similar disillusionment.
As a dude who builds stuff, I can attest that it's easy to lose scope & context if I'm too focused on results.
why can't everyone just be friends
All these Dicotomies reminds me of humes analytical-synthetic idea, and Quine's Scientism.
The fun thing is: that's true also for politics. Quite interesting.
I'm new to your channel and think your videos are wonderful (this video especially as someone who has sat in the pews of both faiths). However, I was a little troubled by the graphical implication at 6:55. While nuclear weapons are clearly an iconic example of a dual-use ethical dilemma, I found the implication you made a bit harsh (on Feynman) or unjustified without a footnote argument (though videos are not a good medium for such things, I admit). In any case, I'd be interested in your thoughts about dual-use dilemmas and especially modern ones. I currently do work in theoretical neuroscience and some worry that I'll help create Skynet.
Totally a fair critique, and I'm sorry if it is misleading. I was referring to Feynman's struggle with depression & existential malaise after Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
It seemed like you were saying Feynman was on the "empirical" or scientistic side. I'm not sure this is true. While Feynman did say some nonsensical/ignorant things about what he thought philosophy was, he was a *theoretical* physicist with a deep understanding of how the physical world works. I think he was almost more of a philosopher than a data-collecter (although he would probably not like being called one).
Not an issue whatsoever and thanks for clarifying your meaning. I think it's a good point to be aware of.
Regarding Austin's point, I think you are possibly correct about the role of scientific theorists being more logician philosophers (or something like that) than data-collectors. And perhaps it's the very essence of a bridging point between science and philosophy as general fields. However, in my experience and what I have heard from others who work in theoretical neuroscience, theorists get unfairly labelled on almost on all sides as irrelevant - from experimentalists the complaint is that our work isn't practical or realistic and from philosophers the complaint is that our work is too complicated and constrained by data, lacking simple principles and purely reasoned argument.
Well, everyone likes to think what they're doing is beneficial. And of course it is. Like he said in the video, it's important to find a good balance between abstractions and observations--and to not grow too fond of either.
These days I doubt scientists in their limited circles encounter any other kind of philosophers than analyticals and assume that this is all philosophy is and nothing else. This would be the equivalent, of meeting a theoretical astrophysicist and assuming this is what science is and nothing else. Of course a philosopher would never consider science to be merely theoretical astrophysics which makes science look rather petty.
I love seeing mention of the idea of symbols.
Philosophy includes philosophy of science, which is very relevant (scientific method, demarcation problem)
but Feynman WAS a theoretical physicist... I think he was not attacking theory when he sneered at philosophy, he was mocking continental philosophers with no mathematical background who waffled in too flowery a manner. Like half the stories in his jokebook/ autobiography ('surely you're joking mr feynman') are about bursting snobby people's pretensions - his dislike of philosophy was a class thing too.
We must not forget that a good deal of people died at the hands of doctors due to their stubborn belief in the Four Humor ideas concocted on a philosophical reason. You would think that many people would realize that bleeding people was not working but due in large to philosophical reasons this simple oberservation showed that Four Humors were just nonsense. It shows that philosophers should stick to what they do best which is sophistry and humans should take little account of the technically incompetent.
That's an odd way of thinking about "philosophy." I'd argue that a more apt example would be the millions of gay people literally tortured in gay aversion therapy, by doctors who failed (& still fail) to consider the anti-homosexual philosophy of their culture critically.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC344257/
Fair enough, my point was simply that as philosophy is really bad at describing the physical/organic world it should stick to it's proper sphere which is asking non questions about non entities. Let scientists work on and more importantly answer real deep questions such as where humans came from, how the brain thus the mind works, the structure of space/time, the origins of the universe, etc.
As a scientist/engineer, what I find frustrating is not philosophy as a field, which I love reading and studying, but some philosophers who insist that science as a way of discerning truth in the universe can't reasonably be relied upon because they don't think that the universe itself is provably real. That doesn't further the pursuit of truth, it simply asserts that knowledge itself is a dead end and implies that even seeking to understand is futile. This attitude is not helpful if what we want to do is cure diseases or watch cat videos.
To me the proper place of philosophy is not trying to tell scientists that carbon might not have 4 bonds and that the nummber 3 might not be prime, but instead answering questions that science and mathematics are ill equipped to answer and shouldn't really seek to: How do we lead a good and moral life? What is it even to be moral? What kind of society is the most just?
Basically you are saying Philosophy should be held only to analyze the Social Sciences and not the Natural Sciences. I disagree. You might be thinking of some Philosophers who are called "Scientific Instrumentalist", who really questions Scientific Theory as merely explanations or merely justifications or only models, as opposed to a "Scientific Realist", who believes that Scientific Justifications can be wrong but it is better to believe it is real because there is no better explanation of this phenomena. You should read Thomas Kuhn's Scientific Paradigm shift, and learn about the history of Chemistry, Physics, Biology , and so on. Philosophy has done many things to improve the Hard Science. The Scientific Method was created by Philosophers, Isaac Newton was called a Natural Philosopher, like most Proto-Scientist at the time. It is only the Idealists who believe that the Universe do not exist and is only a perception, the materialists however do believe that the universe is real, and that Atoms are real even though it was not proven, before the empirical experiments were even made , and before the electron microscope was invented. The whole goal of Philosophy is the Pursuit of Truth itself.
Great video!
That medicine staff looks odd, though... Isn't it just one snake, and no wings?
I think that one is for commerce...
Modern science already has both the rationalist and empiricist dynamics in itself. We use math to describe and predict events and use models to gain a physical understanding of what actually goes on. Philosophy is neither present nor useful in either of these. Philosophy is really the study of ill-defined terms, when philosophers argue, it is often because they are talking about different definitions of the same words. You can try to make the claim that philosophy is used in modern science but then you're doing the same thing, using the word philosophy to mean reasoning rather than the definition I'm obviously using which refers to the work of people such as Mill, Plato, etc.
As a math major, I wanna open that can of worms
Thank you for all of your work.
/guy from sweden
+Ronni Söderberg You're quite welcome, guy from Sweden!
Science physical. Philosophy metaphysical.
Science descriptive. Philosophy prescriptive. Methodical differences. Both are neccenecessary for truth. 😉
Agreed!
Love this channel
+Terry G Channel
Why did you place Feynman on the left and the atomic bomb on the right, just after talking about how the experimentalists are the empiricists, and the theoreticians are the rationalists. You then go on about 'physicists' (Feynman, who was a theoretician) being only concerned with data , and number crunching, and not being concerned with the implications (as a rationalist would be). It seems as though you have a contradiction here.
That's kind of what I was trying to illustrate; it's a spectrum!
You're right: Feynman was a theoretician, on the rationalist side of experimental physicists. However, he was definitely on the empiricist side of many philosophers, & would frequently poke fun at them (despite the fact that he could probably have used some philosophy when he was dealing with having helped invent the A-bomb).
(Also, FYI: a much older bust of Aristotle has been excavated & is on display in the Acropolis museum, maybe a copy of one sculpted from life! eatbickerlove.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/aristotle-can-you-believe-they-just-found-this.jpg )
"how we might think about it" : psychology. " what is might mean": psychology,physics, biology "how our limited perception might influence our other believes": psychology All these branched of science have answered these questions by doing experiments and research. If you really want answers do these questions. DO SCIENCE!
Ham was De-Nye-d :)
1) "Many scientists have taken it upon themselves to comment on philosophy". Well, that's because the philosophers constantly comment on science! Sometimes telling the scientists how to do their job in a rather condescending tone. So, "philosophy of science" is ok to you, but scientists commenting on philosophy is not? Sounds quite hypocritical to me.
2) "Philosophy is more about How we might think about it? What it might mean? How our limited perception of things might influence other beliefs?". Ah yes, the famous "philosophy has it's own unique questions". The science is already dealing with the first and the third question. Like, seriously? Have you ever heard about psychology? Neuroscience? The second question is extremely vague. It contains like a million questions, every of which is again, scientific.
3) "How human reason intefaces with the world? How we aquire knowledge and use it to think?" - Man, really. Neuroscience or something like that. Your "cat on the mat" "abstractions" and "logic" also go there.
Really funny how arrogantly philosophers tend to speak about philosophy answering question the "science cannot answer", but are unable to simply google stuff!
The difference between science and philosophy can be simply stated.
Science = Employment
Philosophy = Unemployment
:)
Science is pondered in the laboratory while philosophy is pondered on the can :)