I honestly believed.

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
I suspect a bit of word wrangling by folks who are so terribly very modern. Science and natural philosophy are one and the same in my book. I am somewhat bemused by the rather self-unserving definition of philosophy pinned to intangibles. Fwiw. cn
in my opinion, philosophy is not just the realm of the learned, those with university degrees, or those who are granted the adulation of the cognoscenti in their fabulously appointed lounges around vienna and prague.
before he was "Somebody" Plato was just a pedagogue trying to make a few bucks on the side doin a little stand up philosophy on the streets of athens. somebody heard one of his bootleg tapes where he was versing Hemogenes, and shit just took off yo.

next thing you know Plato was blowin up all over the hellenic world, and he was rockin columns and statuary and mosics left right and center. bam. he hit big, and stayed on top of tha game till he got popped by, im guessin Biggie.

philosophy is not a profession, and there are not Philosophers Unions holding it down for the philosophical workers in the philosophy factories. basically youre nobody,, workin at a dead end job you hate till somebody says "check this crazy shit out" and if your shit catches on, youre a superstar and your name is remembered for the ages, or you die in anonymity. nobody ever talks about "Journeyman Philosophers" or "Small Business Philosophers" or some "Junior Philosopher Trainee" who philosophised the next great revolution in philosophy on his third day on the job at Philosophy Mart.

Philosophers are like religious leaders, they either become demigods or they wind up cutting their balls off and riding coment hale-bopp in purple reeboks. theres just no middle ground.

all the sciences have room for journeymen, those who toil away in labs, or record data in the field while the superstars tot up the numbers and take the glory. philosophy is very different from the sciences in not just it's focus, and methods, but in it's execution.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
in my opinion, philosophy is not just the realm of the learned, those with university degrees, or those who are granted the adulation of the cognoscenti in their fabulously appointed lounges around Vienna and Prague.
before he was "Somebody" Plato was just a pedagogue trying to make a few bucks on the side doin a little stand up philosophy on the streets of athens. somebody heard one of his bootleg tapes where he was versing Hemogenes, and shit just took off yo.

next thing you know Plato was blowin up all over the hellenic world, and he was rockin columns and statuary and mosics left right and center. bam. he hit big, and stayed on top of tha game till he got popped by, im guessin Biggie.

philosophy is not a profession, and there are not Philosophers Unions holding it down for the philosophical workers in the philosophy factories. basically youre nobody,, workin at a dead end job you hate till somebody says "check this crazy shit out" and if your shit catches on, youre a superstar and your name is remembered for the ages, or you die in anonymity. nobody ever talks about "Journeyman Philosophers" or "Small Business Philosophers" or some "Junior Philosopher Trainee" who philosophised the next great revolution in philosophy on his third day on the job at Philosophy Mart.

Philosophers are like religious leaders, they either become demigods or they wind up cutting their balls off and riding coment hale-bopp in purple reeboks. theres just no middle ground.

all the sciences have room for journeymen, those who toil away in labs, or record data in the field while the superstars tot up the numbers and take the glory. philosophy is very different from the sciences in not just it's focus, and methods, but in it's execution.
I hope you recognize I never claimed the bolded. I don't wish to feel the itch of that straw man in my bedding tonight. cn
 

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
I'm not sure to what this is referring ... please elaborate. cn
What you call Scientism. It reminds me of when I point at something hoping to draw attention of my dog toward it and he is too busy looking at my finger to take note of what I am pointing at. Well my metaphor is certainly an exaggeration but it gives an idea what I think of rigid methodology.

*edit* yeah I was vague, too vague in the connection I made. You were describing disdain for the relegation of philosophy to intangibles and I was speaking of the converse. I was referring to what I consider to be synonomous with this way of thinking, that methodological naturalism is so rigidly bounded.

Some of the greatest scientific achievements in history would not have been possible with out imagination.
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
dude, metaphysics is one of the foundations of philosophy.

there are basically three parts of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and semantics.

what is there, how can we know, and how do we talk about it.

philosophy can be applied to anything, as in the philosophy of science or the philosophy of medicine or the philosophy of cannabis growing or the philosophy of golf.

that doesn't take away the science of science, or the science of medicine or the science of cannabis growing or the science of golf.

but i know you birchers have some kooky ideas of your own and don't mind parading them around. like, literally, in parades and shit.

they never would tell me about the fluoride conspiracy when i asked them though. they just got all uncomfortable and went back to polishing their signs about their religious liberty being under attack because birth control pills were being treated as the preventive medicine that they are.
so what youre saying is, metaphysics is NOT the realm of kooks, wackos and dudes who want to insist that they can detect ghosts with a kitchen thermometer taped to a voltmeter under an aluminium foil pyramid?

dude. you must be smoking some wild shit.

i havent heard anybody use metaphysics in the ancient aristotelian sense since the start of the new age revolution at the dawning of the age of aquarius. (1974).

i suppose your half right, metaphysiscs is no part of REAL philosophy now, since it has been hijacked by frootloops and nutbars with their super awesome ghostbusting kits and vampire detectors.

last time i heard "metaphysiscs" was when people started talking about "cartesian inquiry" instead.

hell even Hume declared metaphysics dead in the 1830's. Kant also parroted him, but left the door open a crack for his bullshit catholic dogma to squeeze in.

but since buck wants metaphysics back in the game i guess we gotta accept it.

ill get my mood ring and A-line flares with the pockets in the knees out of storage.

right on!
 

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
so what youre saying is, metaphysics is NOT the realm of kooks, wackos and dudes who want to insist that they can detect ghosts with a kitchen thermometer taped to a voltmeter under an aluminium foil pyramid?

dude. you must be smoking some wild shit.

i havent heard anybody use metaphysics in the ancient aristotelian sense since the start of the new age revolution at the dawning of the age of aquarius. (1974).

i suppose your half right, metaphysiscs is no part of REAL philosophy now, since it has been hijacked by frootloops and nutbars with their super awesome ghostbusting kits and vampire detectors.

last time i heard "metaphysiscs" was when people started talking about "cartesian inquiry" instead.

hell even Hume declared metaphysics dead in the 1830's. Kant also parroted him, but left the door open a crack for his bullshit catholic dogma to squeeze in.

but since buck wants metaphysics back in the game i guess we gotta accept it.

ill get my mood ring and A-line flares with the pockets in the knees out of storage.

right on!
everything you just described is still more believable than any theory the birchers dream up about fluoride or multiculturalism or governance, but it is not a description of what metaphysics is.

i'll go the easy route and consult wiki.

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world,[SUP][1][/SUP] although the term is not easily defined.[SUP][2][/SUP] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:

  1. What is there?
  2. What is it like? [SUP][3][/SUP]
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
What you call Scientism. It reminds me of when I point at something hoping to draw attention of my dog toward it and he is too busy looking at my finger to take note of what I am pointing at. Well my metaphor is certainly an exaggeration but it gives an idea what I think of rigid methodology.

*edit* yeah I was vague, too vague in the connection I made. You were describing disdain for the relegation of philosophy to intangibles and I was speaking of the converse. I was referring to what I consider to be synonymous with this way of thinking, that methodological naturalism is so rigidly bounded.

Some of the greatest scientific achievements in history would not have been possible with out imagination.
None of our scientific achievements would have been possible without imagination!
But I see the necessity of science hewing to methodological naturalism. The heart of science is imagination, but its seat of reason is test. This necessarily requires an unyielding ... philosophy ... of limiting oneself to the falsifiable, which is to say something that can be supported or controverted by a way of testing the concept.

DrKynes' protestations notwithstanding, I see value in metaphysics. Science must be both internally and externally consistent. Philosophy is only constrained to internal consistency. Metaphysics is at its very spine, since it occupies itself with the really big questions: who and what are we really? cn
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
I hope you recognize I never claimed the bolded. I don't wish to feel the itch of that straw man in my bedding tonight. cn
but he loves you! you cant just blueball him like that!

see the problem is, when philosophy becomes part of scientific inquiry again, it will be taken back by the elite, and once again it will be the province of out of touch douches who elaborate schemes involving proletarian uprisings and forced conversions to the religion (or atheism) of their preference, fanciful ruffle laden cravats and even more elaborate beards.

even science has become the rarefied province of the anointed few, and all questions regarding their infallibility are deemed apostasy or heresy. even when they get caught in a lie.

my point is, philosophy is art, not science, it always has been. for a long time now, anybody could philosophise, but if it becomes the sole property of those with degrees in philosophy, then this too will become just another feild where the appeal to authority is more important that logic reason, inquiry or just plain curiosity. it's bad enough the annointed have declared ayn rand invalid, based on their powerful sheepskin magic. before too long potheads may be arrested for wondering if like, maybe theres like, you know, and energy between all people, and like, good vibrations might travel through it if you think positive enough...

clunk click, 3-5 years for philosophising without a license.
 

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
my point is, philosophy is art, not science, it always has been.
philosophy involves logic, so it's not all art. everything still needs to compute logically.

the same processes that allow me to solve my sudokus with blazing speed also allow me to distill arguments for maximum trollportunity.
 

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
who and what are we really? cn
We are chained to the wall of a cave facing the shadows projected onto the blank wall from the fires behind us.

We need only step out of the cave to behold wonder, but we surely are capable, if only we could break the chains and be led out into the sun.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
We are chained to the wall of a cave facing the shadows projected onto the blank wall from the fires behind us.

We need only step out of the cave to behold wonder, but we surely are capable, if only we could break the chains and be led out into the sun.
But I want so much more than a Platonic relationship. :joint::bigjoint: cn
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
everything you just described is still more believable than any theory the birchers dream up about fluoride or multiculturalism or governance, but it is not a description of what metaphysics is.

i'll go the easy route and consult wiki.

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world,[SUP][1][/SUP] although the term is not easily defined.[SUP][2][/SUP] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:

  1. What is there?
  2. What is it like? [SUP][3][/SUP]
i knew you were a wikipederast...

seriously though, i was reading "About Philosophy" ~Robert Paul Wolff (9th edition, 2004) and he has a chapter on "metaphysics" in which he spends the entire chapter discussing what it's NOT.

it is not:
scientific inquiry
anything measurable
supernatural
solely what is found by our senses
any manner of categorizing things
mathematics
logical
illogical
empirical
faith based

basically he spends an entire chapter (about 80 pages) ruminatijng on the subject and leaves the reader with no conclusion save, metaphysics IS, and IS NOT everything and nothing.

basically he asserts that metaphysics is "hope and change" for the philosophy nerd. and then he drops it, and never mentions the word again, pretending it doesnt exist.
funny. almost like "metaphysics" is a tarbaby and nobody wants to get stuck to it.

except you buck. :blsmoke:
 

deprave

New Member
i knew you were a wikipederast...

seriously though, i was reading "About Philosophy" ~Robert Paul Wolff (9th edition, 2004) and he has a chapter on "metaphysics" in which he spends the entire chapter discussing what it's NOT.

it is not:
scientific inquiry
anything measurable
supernatural
solely what is found by our senses
any manner of categorizing things
mathematics
logical
illogical
empirical
faith based

basically he spends an entire chapter (about 80 pages) ruminatijng on the subject and leaves the reader with no conclusion save, metaphysics IS, and IS NOT everything and nothing.

basically he asserts that metaphysics is "hope and change" for the philosophy nerd. and then he drops it, and never mentions the word again, pretending it doesnt exist.
funny. almost like "metaphysics" is a tarbaby and nobody wants to get stuck to it.

except you buck. :blsmoke:
it is kind of super natural, I'd like to read his argument for why its not.
 

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
it is kind of super natural, I'd like to read his argument for why its not.
metaphysics is just the philosophical study of what is there (and what it is like). it is not scientific. it is philosophical.

you can slam your head on the kitchen table and you can't say for sure that you're slamming your head on the kitchen table. that's metaphysics. you can't say with absolute certainty that you're actually slamming your head on a kitchen table, there exists the possibility that a demon of the utmost cunning is feeding such sensations to you matrix style.

its use may be limited, but it's still useful.

hell, not even science can answer everything what is there and what it is like.

is light a wave or discrete packets? why do photons behave differently when we observe them?

[youtube]DfPeprQ7oGc[/youtube]

we still don't know what is there, and what it is like. we still have plenty of unanswered metaphysical questions.
 

deprave

New Member
metaphysics is just the philosophical study of what is there (and what it is like). it is not scientific. it is philosophical.

you can slam your head on the kitchen table and you can't say for sure that you're slamming your head on the kitchen table. that's metaphysics. you can't say with absolute certainty that you're actually slamming your head on a kitchen table, there exists the possibility that a demon of the utmost cunning is feeding such sensations to you matrix style.

its use may be limited, but it's still useful.

hell, not even science can answer everything what is there and what it is like.

is light a wave or discrete packets? why do photons behave differently when we observe them?

[youtube]DfPeprQ7oGc[/youtube]

we still don't know what is there, and what it is like. we still have plenty of unanswered metaphysical questions.
Good explanation, you have to admit it does lead to supernaturally theories lol
 

fb360

Active Member
[youtube]DfPeprQ7oGc[/youtube]
The end of the video contradicts itself so hard....

"We shot electrons through 2 slits and observed them acting like a wave, producing an interference pattern" "We then shot an electron through 2 slits while observing it, and it decided to only make 2 lines like a particle. The mere act of observing the electron caused it to behave differently"

No it didn't..... In order to be able to state that the first part (that it acted like an interference pattern) you had to OBSERVE that fact. But, wait a tick, when you OBSERVE the electrons, they act with no interference pattern, but rather as a particle! OMGOSHWASH! We have ourselves contradictory idiots trying to explain quantum physics and mechanics, what could possibly go wrong.

Here is what should have been said:
"The electron didn't realise it was being watched and "decide" to go through one slit. The act of observing simply means that the electron was interfered with by something. That is, in order to see something with have to shine light (or something else) at it. The interference pattern only emerges in a dark closed box. As soon as we introduce anything which can "observe" it, the wave from collapses. This is Heisenberg's uncertainty theory."
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Good explanation, you have to admit it does lead to supernaturally theories lol
Never theories, just hypotheses. The word theory has been appropriated by every nutbag with some sort of Deep Insight. To qualify as theory it requires an edifice of reproducible supporting evidence ... which a hypothesis involving the supernatural definitively doesn't have. cn
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
Never theories, just hypotheses. The word theory has been appropriated by every nutbag with some sort of Deep Insight. To qualify as theory it requires an edifice of reproducible supporting evidence ... which a hypothesis involving the supernatural definitively doesn't have. cn
well thats just like, your theory man.
 

mccumcumber

Well-Known Member
Double slit experiment! Brings me back to freshman year haha! Quantum Physics is a fucking beast man, general relativity is hard enough for me.
 
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