/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18223931]

Let's settle this once and for all. Pic related. Sorry for the meme pic but it's kind of relevant.

(A) On one hand, we had STEMfags who focused greatly on philosophy, and praised the role it had in opening their minds and guiding them towards achieving great things. E.g. Einstein, Godel, Hilbert, Turing, Leibniz, Newton, etc.
(B) On the other hand, there were many great STEMfags that did not care about philosophy or even dismissed it completely. E.g. Feynman, Hawking, Witten, Tao, Neumann, Susskind, etc.

Why did these two groups achieve roughly and arguably the same level of greatness? If philosophy is the spawning grounds of any science or conscious thought, then how is it possible to discover and invent great things without being good at it?
Today, fewer and fewer universities teach philosophy when studying for a STEM degree. Few teach foundational mathematics or foundational computer science.

[Anonymous No.18223946]

>>18223931
>Why did these two groups achieve roughly and arguably the same level of greatness?
You aren't serious. Are you?

[Anonymous No.18223970]

>>18223931
Both philosophy and science are trash.
Only theology matters.
Notice how the left, the only smart ones, are pretty much moving towards mysticism?
It's either mysticism or nothing buddy. Now pray or meditate, whichever path you chose

[Anonymous No.18223995]

>>18223946
I am serious. I am honestly asking this question with the hope of clearing up personal confusion. If you've got a cool answer I'm ready to submit to your mighty intellect.

I shouldn't even have mentioned Turing in the first list, because he didn't really philosophize. But his response to Hilbert basically gave birth to CS and computers, so we can declare him an honorary philosopher.

And yeah, you don't think Feynman, Hawking, Witten, Tao, Neumann, etc. are at a similar level to the likes of Einstein, Godel, Hilbert, Turing, Leibniz, Newton, etc?

On the other hand, you have many philosophers of science who didn't do shit... You also have philosophers of math who didn't do shit. But you also have philosophers that DID shit, especially Einstein, which BTFO'd an entire scientific field and said he owes it all to philosophy.

[Anonymous No.18224000]

>>18223931
>Why did these two groups achieve roughly and arguably the same level of greatness?

They didn't. The group on the left pushed our understanding of the world further with genuine contributions to their field. The group on the right know how to appeal to idiots trying to be midwits, with little to no actual scientific work behind them. They are tv hosts and regular talk show guests, not scientists.

[Anonymous No.18224005]

>>18223970
>Only theology matters
Cringe

[Anonymous No.18224013]

>>18223995
>But you also have philosophers that DID shit, especially Einstein, which BTFO'd an entire scientific field and said he owes it all to philosophy.
So much ignorance in so few words.

[Anonymous No.18224022]

>>18224000
Fuck, I knew it was a mistake to include that pic. My post is roughly relevant to the pic. If we are to be fair to both groups, we shouldn't pick morons and pseuds like Scientific Black Man and compare them to Einstein, sure. Dawkins is pretty good at what he does in his field, but still not at the level of Einstein.

Neumann is at the level of Einstein, easily, and I'm not aware of him ever giving a shit about philosophy. Tao is exceptional for being one of the youngest mathematicians to win and compete at the IMO, also won the Fields medal, etc. You get my point. let's be fair to both sides.

[Anonymous No.18224027]

>>18224013
Have you got something else besides ad hominem? It's sad reading your post. Are you afraid of providing counter-arguments?

[Anonymous No.18224035]

>>18224005
prayer or meditation > writing philosophy > working in research lab to collect data > coding

chanting hymns or verses > reading philosophy > reading scientific journal articles > coding

making up cool mystical stories > thinking "philosophically" > caring about empirical scientific evidence > coding

We need to go back to medieval and theocratic ages, no doubt. Fuck your science and philosophy filth.

[Anonymous No.18224038]

>/lit/ - literature

[Anonymous No.18224090]

>>18224038
philosophy is both /lit/ and /sci/
so I posted in both boards

[Anonymous No.18224117]

>>18224022
To be fair I don't think most of these men (the left group) were philosophers either or read as much of it as some would suggest (maybe Heisenberg). They were scientists and the wast majority of their time and mental energy was spent on science.

As for why they said things like this, they were simply more willing to admit the limits of science and more importantly, grew up with a different scientific paradigm. When they were growing up and learning about physics, mathematics and chemistry, we understood far less of the world and were less sure that we will ever understand all of it. The scientists that stand on their shoulders grew up with the notion that science can eventually answer all of our questions. Add to that the ever declining popularity of philosophy among even the educated elites and you'll get close to an answer for why you see less of this kind of thinking.

In the end, philosophy is not really necessary for being a good physicist or mathematician unless you look at the really big "what is reality" level questions and simply not everyone is interested in that. You can have a long and successful career, find proof for gravitational waves or build a viable fusion reactor, all without ever looking into those questions.

[Anonymous No.18224137]

>>18223970
>>18224035
based

[Anonymous No.18224149]

>>18223931
>The plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real
I guess Nietzsche was right about calling scientists the true ascetic life deniers of our time.

[Anonymous No.18224150]

>>18224117
>To be fair I don't think most of these men (the left group) were philosophers either or read as much of it as some would suggest (maybe Heisenberg). They were scientists and the wast majority of their time and mental energy was spent on science.
Yes, you're right. I'd say Einstein was very interested in philosophy, too. I'll give you some proof:

To be fair I don't think most of these men (the left group) were philosophers either or read as much of it as some would suggest (maybe Heisenberg). They were scientists and the wast majority of their time and mental energy was spent on science.

[...]

To be fair I don't think most of these men (the left group) were philosophers either or read as much of it as some would suggest (maybe Heisenberg). They were scientists and the wast majority of their time and mental energy was spent on science.

Source: SEP

[Anonymous No.18224164]

>>18224117
>>18224117
>To be fair I don't think most of these men (the left group) were philosophers either or read as much of it as some would suggest (maybe Heisenberg). They were scientists and the wast majority of their time and mental energy was spent on science.
Yes, you're right. I'd say Einstein was very interested in philosophy, too. I'll give you some proof:

>I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. (Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61-574)


[...]

How, exactly, does the philosophical habit of mind provide the physicist with such “independence of judgment”? Einstein goes on to explain:

>Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought,” “a priori givens,” etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. (Einstein 1916, 102)

Source: SEP

Sorry for: >>18224150
I fucked up while copy pasting.

[Anonymous No.18224183]

>>18224027
Firstly, Einstein was not a philosopher. Secondly, you clearly do not understand what philosophy is and what it does. Otherwise you wouldn't create such a worthless thread. Go educate yourself on this topic. Read "What Does It All Mean?" by Thomas Nagel.

[Anonymous No.18224189]

>>18224117
> The scientists that stand on their shoulders grew up with the notion that science can eventually answer all of our questions. Add to that the ever declining popularity of philosophy among even the educated elites and you'll get close to an answer for why you see less of this kind of thinking.
And do you think this type of thinking is justified? I understand why everyone is thinking like this. But is it just our modern obsession with technology and science and their huge success? I wanted to say that we also advanced culturally and ethically, but I'm not sure about that. This is why I keep having this question. On the one hand, being pragmatic is safe and effective. On the other hand, not caring about the "why" questions of the world leads you to a blinkers on mentality in a world that is focused on technology, science, overworking, atheism and a lack of spiritual and mental health. So, I'm not sure if philosophy can be ignored everywhere you see it, as being something that can be easily dealt with, pragmatically.

[Anonymous No.18224205]

>>18224183
I read that book and many others. I think I have a decent basic understanding of what you're trying to point out. Einstein wasn't a career philosopher, but you're wrong for saying that he didn't care about philosophy or that he didn't have philosophical insights that influenced his thinking. In fact, there's an entry on the SEP for Einstein, which I just quoted in a different post, proving my point that Einstein was relevant in the philosophy of science. Alright?

And why would my thread be worthless, if you spent your time talking to me? Does that mean you're dumb enough to waste time on me?

>Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought,” “a priori givens,” etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. (Einstein 1916, 102)

See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/

[Anonymous No.18224208]

>>18223931
comparing the quack amerimutts with the pioneers on the left in picrel is a joke

[Anonymous No.18224211]

>>18223931
You can still make scientific discoveries without reading philosophy, but that science is standing on the shoulders of philosophical giants. The ancient Greek philosophers were, for the most part, hybrid scientist/philosophers. Modern science has its roots in philosophy. So to discount the birth of your field is rather arrogant.
We also seem to be entering into a kind of "human" dark age. Where the human takes the backseat to the clinical and robotic. The problem is; what is the point of life, these scientific discoveries, if we are no longer human and our only use for them is to further sterilize and automate our species? To what end is this progress for? This is where you need philosophy and why the death of philosophy is such a dangerous thing.
These scientists seem to be asking the whats and the hows exclusively. Completely discounting the why.

[Anonymous No.18224225]

>>18224164
Einstein was of a different breed, maybe it was thanks to his other interests. And maybe he is onto something and the science we do now doesn't produce the kind of results he did because of this ignorance. Most cutting edge science today is just working towards a better understanding of a specific phenomenon, better ways of measuring things or controlling poorly understood things. Few big theories that change everything or open new areas (I know there are some very interesting unproven theories, but progress is still slower now that it was then). This is more likely a result of diminishing returns though, no guarantee that the next group of scientists interested in philosophy will be this successful.

[Anonymous No.18224235]

>>18223931
I'm going to spend time, uselessly, debunking this image one more time, despite knowing you vermin will just repost it again and pretend this never happened. Let's start with the left side of the image:
1 - No matter what any scientist believes in his free time, he always sets those beliefs and feelings and etc aside to do pure science and measurements at the end of the day. What Schroedinger believed about the Baghavat Gita is absolutely irrelevant to whether his equation predicts or not the correct transitions for Helium atoms. Scientists can say dumb esoteric shit if they want, and it still doesn't mean esoteric shit is worth inherently more. Philosophy as a mental masturbatory act beyond the basis of science is still useless.
2 - The quote by Heisenberg is straight up false. Werner Heisenberg has never stated that.
3 - What Bohr is talking about in terms of subjectiveness is not what the vermin of humanities think. Talking about developments in quantum physics and general relativity in terms of reference systems and etc is not the same as the mental masturbatory acts esoterists and philosophists engage in claiming things about supernatural, superphysical, or worst of all, religious entities and forms.
4 - It is very easy to find influential, fundamental modern physicists that also won nobel prizes and absolutely shit on philosophy, but it just doesn't make for a good look, I guess. Just look up some quotes on philosophy by Feynman and add them to your next image.
5 - Einstein literally shit on Kant's "a priori" time, and proved philosophy literal wankery when veering away from science

Now onto the right side of the image:
1 - The opinions of pop scientists is irrelevant to science, even more than that of philosophers. Nobody outside the USA even knows who the fuck Bill Nye and Tyson are or why they are relevant. I'm not even joking.
2 - The fact that you think Dawkins is incommensurately stupid or cringy, and you feel like philosophy died in the old ages, is less about philosophy and more about your narrow mindedness. At any point in time the zeitgeist will shit on a given philosopher, and this doesn't mean much. What the average mouth breather thought of Schopenhauer in his time is irrelevant. Not saying Dawkins is schopenhauer, and I've never read him, but just the type of argument presented here is stupid.
3 - What Lawrence Krauss said is literally true. I've graduated in physics and I can tell you with absolute certainty no laboratory discusses or teaches philosophy of physics as a main part of modelling the world, so whatever the fuck is happening in the last 100 years in Philosophy of science is happening tangentially to science. I don't know what Krauss did or why he is famous, but what he says here, even if shitty and dumb sounding, is true in one way or another. If philosophy of science really is still relevant now, the same way the findings of physics in the last 100 years are, it's doing a really poor job of showing it.

[Anonymous No.18224255]

>>18224235
ALRIGHT FUCK IT SORRY FOR USING THAT MEME PIC just please answer the thread seriously. Thanks. I know the pic is a joke. It's a strawman. Who the fuck would compare Bill Nye to Einstein, seriously?

[Anonymous No.18224276]

>>18224189
No idea, maybe in the sense that if we are on the right path over time we'll manage to fill in all the blanks. Either way, science today doesn't care a whole lot about what it leaves in it's wake and it's achievements will be used unethically or at least with negative outcomes either way. This has always been the case though, it's enough to look at chemical weapons and the atomic bomb. Would it help if scientists tired harder to ensure the ethical use of their discoveries? Probably not. Just look at Leo Szilard's failed attempts at discouraging the testing and building of nuclear weapons. An eminent scientists who tried everything to keep his invention from causing more suffering and failed miserably.

[Anonymous No.18224286]

>>18224276
This is what I mean:

https://palladiummag.com/2021/03/16/leo-szilards-failed-quest-to-build-a-ruling-class/

There's some stuff about his other weird ideas, but I'm refering to his attempts to stop the bomb from being used. Scientists in the future will probably have the same level of success.

[Anonymous No.18224291]

Now, the third part of this image, perhaps the most important one, that was never really added to it. Some facts about philosophers:

- Aristotle was sure women had fewer teeth, among many other visibly verifiable lies ,but it never occurred to him to test this. Anyone who still believes in deductive methods like this is quite likely subhuman in cognition, and many people in this board choose to do this over following inductive science literally because of internet memes.
- Kant was sure time is a priori, and got absolutely destroyed by Einstein later on.
- Get literally any book by Lacan, Deleuze and Guatarri, Baudrillard, etc, and you can find a bunch of actual literal nonsense completely failing to reproduce any aspect of reality, but people found entire areas of knowledge around this shit, because philosophy is literal wankery.
- The Sokal Affair is the absolute ultimate proof that humanities are finished and unnecessary in the current era. A scientist is capable of making up literal shit with the right key words and get accepted by peers in humanities, without questioning.

What you hate is the "I love science crowd", the bazzinga crowd, the pop-sci people, the dishonest bought out studies, etc etc. Scientists hate those too. But science is still the best, and only, tool ever created by mankind to explain reality. You could argue branches of philosophy were instrumental for the conception of science as we understand it, but this does not include all branches (certainly not the wankery frequently discussed here) and this doesn't mean either that philosophy hasn't been completely out-phased by now.

[Anonymous No.18224296]

>>18224225
I agree. There's also the pressure of modern, competitive work/research/academic environments, leaving little to no time left for philosophical pursuits. And not giving a shit about philosophy does work, to a certain degree, like you've said. But there are still lots of problems today that keep encountering speed bumps or even require paradigm shifts.

The most obvious example would be AI, which is a field full of people that think the brain is just a bunch of linear algebra equations that can approximate functions, and we know this because of neuroscience and theorems A, B and C.
However, how are problems about subjective experience not relevant to AI, for example? Hell, even profoundly relevant. For example, I feel I am conscious, I know I can feel the redness of red, and I can talk about this, hence, my consciousness and subjective experience itself influences the way I act, but I don't think a robot version of me would experience the pixelness of pixels, for example. Sorry for the rough argument, but I think you get my point.

[Anonymous No.18224316]

>>18224291
Slightly better than OP's

[Anonymous No.18224329]

>>18224316
*OP

[Anonymous No.18224342]

>>18224225
>Most cutting edge science today is just working towards a better understanding of a specific phenomenon, better ways of measuring things or controlling poorly understood things
This.
Science (and the world at large) seems to be moving in the direction of a very clinical, purely left brained intellect approach where they're deathly afraid of testing new things or thinking outside the box for fear of being seen as 'stupid'.
It's the death of creativity and intuition.

[Anonymous No.18224357]

>>18223931
>Why did these two groups achieve roughly and arguably the same level of greatness?
They didn't. Being famous in pop-sci and science are different ball games.
>If philosophy is the spawning grounds of any science or conscious thought,
It isn't. At some point when you're making cheese from milk you stop calling it milk and start calling it cheese.
To claim that scientists are constantly engaging in philosophy when performing a measurement is like saying you're drinking a cup of milk when biting into a Gouda. It's just semantic juggling.
The types of inquiries and methods scientists are engaging on, including the very ones on that image, and the types of inquiries and methods philosophers are engaging on, in the last 100 years, are absolutely disconnected and different things.
>then how is it possible to discover and invent great things without being good at it?
Discovering things nowadays has to do with being good at math, electronics, programming, and other necessary tools to come up with and validate models.
The people you posted there were good mostly in the math department of things, and years later exceptional experimentalists thought of ways to validate these things with electronics and etc.
>Today, fewer and fewer universities teach philosophy when studying for a STEM degree.
Because when you're standing in front of a Helmholtz coil trying to model the magnetic field philosophizing about it won't do shit. They need, at the very minimum, to cram as much math, electronics and programming as they can to even give you a standing chance.
>Few teach foundational mathematics or foundational computer science.
If there are aspects of foundational mathematics and foundational computer science that are not taught in physics courses, it's because they are not considered strictly relevant for early career academics in those areas to make discoveries. They definitely learn set theory and logics and most of them learn analysis and other things so I'm not super sure what you mean.

[Anonymous No.18224361]

>>18224296
All this might be an issue in the future, I don't think we'll be able to answer this question until we have some hindsight.

Also keep in mind that science today is different than it was back in Einstein's day, it gets harder as we go along. At some point a smart man with some disposable income could discover something hugely important in his office during his free time if he experimented enough. Today any serious discovery takes decades, huge teams of scientists and loads of money. Einstein fell somewhere between these two, maybe these days the big paradigm shifting discoveries and theories are just not possible and the way forward is really diving deeper and deeper into small things.

As for AI, you are right, that's one of those fields where ethics is important, but it's also more present there. AI ethics is a hot field and people are actively working on its potential problems.

[Anonymous No.18224375]

>>18224035
>philosophical statement
>philosophical statement
>philosophical statement
>philosophical statement

[Anonymous No.18224380]

>>18224276
>No idea, maybe in the sense that if we are on the right path over time we'll manage to fill in all the blanks.
That makes sense. Reminds me of Neurath's boat. It's possibly the most rational way of thinking. I mean, after all, I can't be smarter than the entirety of society, so if society as a whole is focused on this "scientific path", it must be a safe path and we can fill in all the blanks along the way, individually?
It's similar to how most people know, at the intuitive level, that earning money is one of the simplest and most probable ways of achieving stability and happiness, so most of us focus on doing this, even if we are not sure about what we do. It still doesn't feel satisfying to me, though.
>Either way, science today doesn't care a whole lot about what it leaves in it's wake and it's achievements will be used unethically or at least with negative outcomes either way. This has always been the case though, it's enough to look at chemical weapons and the atomic bomb.
Yes, working on tools while ignoring to highlight the place and role those tools would have in a workshop can lead to disaster. But it's inevitable. Every civilization has discovered primitive tools like the hammer, for example, which is sometimes used to bash skulls.
>>18224286
Thanks for the link. I heard about the story but didn't read that much about it.

>Scientists in the future will probably have the same level of success.
I get your point and it's ironic you made it today, when I think it's Ted's birthday. But to me it still seems that the problem still exists. The more you point towards this forceful and successful momentum of the technological revolution, the more you highlight its downsides, e.g. depression, pollution, misinformation, social media, stress, etc. It doesn't seem like an effectual approach.

Or maybe it's still the best approach today, given the current social, cultural and economic situation? Fuck, I just don't understand. Maybe I'm a moron. I'll read that link you've posted about Szilard.

[Anonymous No.18224396]

>>18224375
This is irrelevant. Whatever parts of philosophy became science already did their job, and the rest is useless.

[Anonymous No.18224399]

>>18224361
>As for AI, you are right, that's one of those fields where ethics is important, but it's also more present there. AI ethics is a hot field and people are actively working on its potential problems.
I wasn't talking about the ethical aspects of it though, but that's a good point to mention. I was trying to say that subjective experience is something that isn't fully explained mathematically. I can't explain the redness of red, even with natural language, let alone with numbers, but I can sense it, I can point to it, and you can agree that you possess this feeling as well. So that's just one thing that's not modeled by math, but it's an important thing and there could be many more such examples we could point at.

[Anonymous No.18224411]

>>18224396
>philosophical statement

[Anonymous No.18224427]

>>18224375
>>18224411
>HA! Everything is a philosophical statement, checkmate retard!

[Anonymous No.18224439]

>>18224427
Ok, what kind of place you imagine yourself living in if you only had science?

[Anonymous No.18224444]

>>18223970
This is the final redpill, to end all redpills but /lit/ still is not ready for that

[Anonymous No.18224460]

>>18224439
A boring and soulless one
>>18224444
Checked

[Anonymous No.18224477]

>>18224460
What system of government would it employ?