Philosophy is redundant

[eFestivals]

- The above is a load of ranting nonsense based upon incorrect assumptions and says nothing of any substance.

some apt words to apply to yourself.

After all, until you're able to be in the same ball-park as the idea being discussed, it's all going completely over your head.

And you're not in the same ball park. You're not on the same street, in the same town, or even in the same country. You wish to only consider the idea within your own dogma, and by doing so close your mind to anything else.

And guess what? Your very actions here is what PROVES what both Hawkings and I have concluded as correct.

[eFestivals]

what one person says doesn't prove anything

True, but he's certainly getting to show what some of us have concluded.

[worm]

How the f**k do you know?

[worm]

A brief overview for Neil of what philosophy, science and thinking are and how they apply to the contemporary world, plus where the contentions of Hawkings fit in:

Truth is the product of reason. It is the value we give to the conclusion of a reasoned analysis. If we experienced something, then there'd be no need to give it a value as it wouldn't require reasoning. So reason is a specific type of thought that can be separated from other types of thinking. It allows us to arrive at a conclusion, which we then verify in a number of ways.

Reason, as accords to the West, was realised by the Greeks in their mythologies and tragedies which formed their philosophies. This later culminated in the Enlightenment, when Europe returned to Platonic (reason based) philosophy. Modern science was born at this time as an assessment of whether a conclusion was true in relation to an object or subject. All assessments of truth were therefore based upon reason.

Now what has happened and what Hawkings is saying is that statements of truth do not require reason anymore because they are based upon structures of knowledge. But this is exactly the same as what modern philosophies are saying. But where science is saying that assessments of truth depend upon structures of knowledge, so modern philosophy is pointing out that truth is based entirely upon that structure of knowledge.

Philosophy is therefore interested in the structures of knowledge that create truth, while science is interested in building upon the aforementioned structures.

ahhh, the philosophy of telepathy I presume?

Edited September 29, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

Because I know what Hawkings is saying and I know that you're saying something completely different.

ahhh, the philosophy of telepathy I presume?

You know, where you get to hear what you haven't heard, and get to understand what you've said is unintelligible.

That's pretty clever. I guess you are the genius you believe yourself to be.

And with that, I'm out of here. There's no sensible conversation to be had with mystics.

[worm]

ahhh, the philosophy of telepathy I presume?

Edited September 30, 2010 by worm

[Ed209]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/30/stephen-hawking-disproved-gods-role-creation

interesting article to add to the debate

[eFestivals]

You don't need telepathy to understand what someone is saying.

I've read his textual dialogues and I've read yours and they aren't remotely similar.

And yet you've said that you don't understand what I'm saying. And your posts back against what I'm saying make it 100% clear that you don't get in the slightest what I'm saying.

I'm more than happy to admit that what I've put across here hasn't be anywhere near as clear as it might be, so your lack of understanding might well be my fault. But that doesn't alter the fact that you've not remotely grasped it.

As for what Hawkings said just a week or three back (and not said prior to that), care to show me where he's published the same ideas? After all, if you've "read his textual dialogues" then you'll be able to show me where you read them, won't you?

Or is that - as usual - you're just talking out of your arse?

Show me where you've read what Hawkings has said on this. Go on.

[eFestivals]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/30/stephen-hawking-disproved-gods-role-creation

interesting article to add to the debate

I think it merely gets to prove Hawkings' take as right.

Hawkings could do the eternal naval-gazing that that article suggests and prove the relevance of philosophy but give him no conclusions and so nowhere to take his intellectual investigations into the universe.

Or...

Hawkings can ignore all of that shite. He clearly has some unproven and unprovable conclusions he's reached, and by going with his conclusions as being correct he's able to take his thinking forwards, which allows him to unearth further things which are confirmed (as much as it's possible to confirm them) as correct by going at the same idea from different angles. And which gets to show that a philosophical take is a complete waste of time, redundant.

The writer of that piece has missed the whole point of what Hawkings is saying no less than Worm has.

Edited September 30, 2010 by eFestivals

[Ed209]

However the one advantage he has over both you and Worm is that he's actually read Hawking's book

[eFestivals]

However the one advantage he has over both you and Worm is that he's actually read Hawking's book

True. But then dismisses it all along with Hawkings achievements in favour of doing all the same naval gazing again. And again. And again. And again. Etc.

Doing that takes us nowhere, which is precisely why such philosophical naval gazing is redundant.

[feral chile]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/30/stephen-hawking-disproved-gods-role-creation

interesting article to add to the debate

Edited September 30, 2010 by feral chile

[worm]

And yet you've said that you don't understand what I'm saying.

[worm]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/30/stephen-hawking-disproved-gods-role-creation

interesting article to add to the debate

[worm]

However the one advantage he has over both you and Worm is that he's actually read Hawking's book

Edited October 1, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

No, I've pointed out your incorrect assumptions.

No, you've pointed out what you *think* are my incorrect assumptions, and by doing so you've shown beyond all doubt that you've failed to grasp what is being said.

No, it shows that you don't get what I'm saying.

You've said that philosophy is redundant and that scientific explanation is better suited to answer the question of why. Then please tell me how you do this without reasoned thought as all you've done to date is use reason.

There's that whooshing sound again.

The idea being put forwards saying that "philosophy is redundant" is absolutely f**k all to do with whether someone is using reasoning or not, and everything to do with where such reasoning takes a person.

In 15 pages, you've still failed to grasp this very basic point.

So for the sake of clarity, do you still believe that philosophy is redundant in the modern world? If so, the above applies and you'll have to provide evidence. If not, then feel free to philosophise to your heart's content.

Yes.

Do I - or anyone else - give any weight or credence to the philosophical idea that a released rock might not fall to the ground?

No, I don't, nor do you, and nor does anyone else. Until such time as it happens it is not within the possibilities that we consider for what happens when a rock is released.

And so such philosophical reasonings are proven by real lives - including your own - as redundant.

There is your indisputable evidence.

(it might be the case [tho I doubt it] that you, unusually, do consider a rock not falling as one of the possibilities. But if you do for that particular instance, I can give a million other examples which show you don't credit such philosophical ideas as credible or worthwhile - and so redundant. Do you consider that the ground might open up under your feet with every new step, for example.)

[eFestivals]

He simply used a piece of rhetoric, which riled up those with prejudices and ignorances towards philosophy, such as Neil - big deal!

Hawkings has expressed the clear, indisputable human truth.

We do not as humans give credence to the idea of equality of possibilities that philosophy presents.

That applies to you no less than it applies to anyone else. YOU are a part of the proof of the redundancy of philosophy no less than I am.

[Ed209]

''The opening page of his book proclaims that "philosophy is dead", due to the fact that philosophers have failed to keep up with mathematical developments in physics. This doesn't stop him, and his co-writer Leonard Mlodinow, indulging in some very crude philosophical discussions of free will and metaphysical realism in later chapters.''

- Exactamundo!

[worm]

Relevant enough for you to use a quote from him to make a point

[worm]

Do I - or anyone else - give any weight or credence to the philosophical idea that a released rock might not fall to the ground?

[worm]

Hawkings has expressed the clear, indisputable human truth.

We do not as humans give credence to the idea of equality of possibilities that philosophy presents.

Edited October 1, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

I certainly hope so, given that it will not fall if you drop it in space.

You assume this based upon philosophical reasoning. You are reasoning, which is what philosophy is. You are clearly using philosophical thought. Ergo, it is not redundant.

The rock doesn't have a philosophy as it can't think.

What complete garbage.

The hypothesis that it will fall to the ground is proven by empirical verification, which proves the assertion that it will fall to the ground. Science verifies the assertion that the rock will fall, experience told you that it would and reason tells you why that may be.

Evidence that philosophy is not redundant in science, aye.

And why are you focusing on the physical world? The modern world is far more than just physics. A business man has a philosophy. A sportsman has a philosophy. A politician has a philosophy. A rock doesn't.

whoooooosh! (again).

[eFestivals]

He's said that philosophy is dead by using philosophy. Do you see the problem yet?

It's only a problem to those with a fixed mind, who believes that any concept has to be taken in total always. As humans we rarely do that, so the problem here is you and not what Hawkings is suggesting.

He's not talking of joe bloggs idly musing about life as redundant. He's not talking of the philosophy he used to form his idea as redundant.

He's talking of the likes of you as redundant, who are unable to tell him something he doesn't already know and are able to add not one iota extra to what he is doing, yet claim a power for philosophy in all that he achieves, while throwing baseless doubt onto it at the same time.

[worm]

He's talking of the likes of you as redundant, who are unable to tell him something he doesn't already know and are able to add not one iota extra to what he is doing, yet claim a power for philosophy in all that he achieves, while throwing baseless doubt onto it at the same time.

Edited October 2, 2010 by worm

[eFestivals]

You keep going on about this rock of yours as if gravity is some sort of universal constant!

Because you and I aren't spacemen, it is.

And that's exactly the point. We only need to consider it in those terms, and that is in reality what we all do.

Alongside that, we've grasped the point that gravity is only constant while there's gravity at that constant level, and that if the circumstances change then everything else could be changed. Being told these things might have been an amazing revelation for humanity at some point, but it no longer is - it's a standard part of the human knowledgebase. Being told to think that way is not longer necessary, it's redundant.

Likewise, philosophy reminds Hawkings that he's still unable to disprove creation-by-god, yet by the standard way we humans think (except for religion for some) it's not even on the list of possibilities, just as you turning into a frog tomorrow isn't. It's as useful to what Hawkings does as you seriously fearing that you might be a frog tomorrow would be useful to your life.

You wouldn't credit the idea that you might be a frog tomorrow as anything but a redundant idea. Why would Hawkings credit the suggestion of philosophy that there might be a god as anything less stupid?

Edited October 2, 2010 by eFestivals