What do you mean by philosophy?

[ajb]

So what you are saying is that once a question is clearly answered, it becomes science, and is no longer relevant to philosophy.

Not necessarily in principal, but it does seem that any meaningful answers are outside of philosophy.

 

The problem that I see with this is that it assumes that philosophical questioning is no longer necessary, and it assumes that scientific questioning will be complete. A lot of assumption here.

I do not mean to imply that philosophical questioning is not necessary, I just wonder to exactly how useful it can be. To my mind, if such questioning can lead to clear questions that can be answered then this is great. But again, it seems that to really be able to answer questions they need to mature into scientific ones. (At least in the context we are discussing here)

 

 

Well, I am not sure what you are looking for here, but we were talking about nature not being magic, so maybe an idea that I have been working on recently will answer the "why" question to your satisfaction.

Generally 'why' and 'how' get confused. I would say there is no 'why' as that suggests some 'higher purpose' of the Universe. Nature is just the way it is.

 

I read an article a few months back which stated that science had discovered that some grasses produce a chemical that makes them unpalatable to grazing species, and that the grass does this as a survival instinct to preserve itself. I have no doubt that the science is correct and the grass does produce this chemical, but I question the reason given -- the "why".

What you basically describe is the struggle between 'predator and prey' in this case an animal and a plant. This struggle and arms race is as old as life itself. Why is this so, I doubt anyone can really answer. The instinct to survive and propagate is the closest to a 'why'. But why should life want to survive?

 

 

Question: What is real? Answer: Anything that can cause an effect.

Good answer. So anything that can have a measurable effect in the Universe; is this not the core idea of physics?

 

But what if we looked at it the other way. We know that at its base, all is in motion, so what if that motion could stop? Would things still exist without that foundation of motion? My studies of consciousness imply that without motion, consciousness would stop existing. Does reality work the same way? Without motion, would reality cease to exist?

This is very much a philosophical question that we cannot answer. The best hints may come from thermodynamics and statistical physics. Entropy and the arrow of time may interest you.

 

 

"More than just the sum of the parts" sounds a lot like a magic show where there is a stage, lights, a magician, and a hat, then the rabbit shows up to be more than the sum of the parts. (chuckle chuckle)

You are showing your lack of physics knowledge here. There are lots of examples where systems behave very differently to what would be expected by studying the 'single pieces' that make up the system. A good example could be superconductivity; here a collection of fermions under the right condition can behave as if they were a collection of quasi-particles that have bosonic statistics. There are other amazing examples of quasi-particles in condensed matter physics such as those found in the fractional quantum hall effect; these are neither bosons or fermions! There are many other examples.

 

In order to find out "What else could it be?" you will have to go outside of the brain. It is much more likely that we are within consciousness, than it is that consciousness is within us. Or at best, it seems to be a split.

I don't follow you here. It maybe that the rest of our body is important in creating our minds, but the idea of this being some collective emergent phenomena still holds.

 

As far as religion goes, I can not accept their teachings because they are based in interpretations rather than evidence, but I am neither arrogant enough nor naive enough to believe that some of the greatest minds of the times over a period of tens of thousands of years, got it all wrong. Just dumb luck would have them right sometimes.

Well, if the mind cannot be understood in terms of physics, at least in principal, then you would have to invoke something else. Anyway, you have cleared this up and have stated clearly that you expect it is possible to have a good theory of the mind, just we are not close to having one yet.

 

 

 

I think that you are selling Philosophy Now short as there is nothing wrong with trying to interest the everyday guy in philosophy. You have also moved off point. The point was that too many articles are written by people, who are not philosophers, but are students of philosophy.

I may sell Philosophy Now short, remembering I am not familiar with that publication. The closest I an aware of is Astronomy Now, which is great and has lots of articles written by professional astronomers. However, the style and rigour is far from a peer-review journal in astronomy.

What I mean my philosophy is "love of wisdom".

That is the literal translation from Ancient Greek. It is not going to be enough for a definition of the subject. However, I expect a careful all encompassing definition does not exists anyway.

[Strange]

I do not mean to imply that philosophical questioning is not necessary, I just wonder to exactly how useful it can be. To my mind, if such questioning can lead to clear questions that can be answered then this is great. But again, it seems that to really be able to answer questions they need to mature into scientific ones. (At least in the context we are discussing here)

 

I think the main purpose of philosophy is to ask better questions. Science and maths (and maybe art) can provide answers.

 

 

What you basically describe is the struggle between 'predator and prey' in this case an animal and a plant. This struggle and arms race is as old as life itself. Why is this so, I doubt anyone can really answer. The instinct to survive and propagate is the closest to a 'why'. But why should life want to survive?

 

Life doesn't "want" to survive. The appearance of this apparent wish to survive is simply a result of evolution: those organisms that have better mechanisms to survive (a grass that can put off grazing cattle or cattle that can ignore the smell) will be more successful and that variant will increase in number.

 

This make it look as if they "want" to survive. But all they are doing is trying random things. Some succeed and some don't. We just see the successful results and can be led to read too much into it.

[swansont]

 

This make it look as if they "want" to survive. But all they are doing is trying random things. Some succeed and some don't. We just see the successful results and can be led to read too much into it.

 

Don't anthropomorphize nature. She hates that.

[ajb]

This make it look as if they "want" to survive.

Exactly. There is no answer to 'why' in any meaningful sense, life is just the way it is.

[Gees]

Ajb;

Please consider my following thoughts.

Not necessarily in principal, but it does seem that any meaningful answers are outside of philosophy.

 

This and your following quote may be some of the most patronizing statements that I have ever read. Your bias is showing.

I do not mean to imply that philosophical questioning is not necessary, I just wonder to exactly how useful it can be. To my mind, if such questioning can lead to clear questions that can be answered then this is great. But again, it seems that to really be able to answer questions they need to mature into scientific ones. (At least in the context we are discussing here)

So what you are saying is that philosophy is fine, but the new advanced philosophy -- science -- is what really addresses issues. Tell the truth. You think that philosophy is old-fashioned, don't you?

This reminds me of a teenager, who is trying to explain to his parents that their ideas are nice, but are not useful in the new advanced age. It may take 20 years before he learns that the more things change, the more they stay the same. (Old people will find this amusing.)

Generally 'why' and 'how' get confused. I would say there is no 'why' as that suggests some 'higher purpose' of the Universe. Nature is just the way it is.

Well, they don't confuse me. If we can learn "why" nature is the way *she is, then we may be able to learn "how" to correct problems -- or at least how to minimize making new problems. If we had known in the 1870's that ordering the extinction of the American Bison would indirectly contribute to the cause of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's, we would have reconsidered that action.

But how could we have known that the Bison was part of a cycle, and that the deep rooted grasses that the Bison grazed on was the main preservation of the grasslands in times of drought? And how could we have known that the grasses would die out, and that the plants we replaced it with could not support that ecosystem? Then the wolves, who fed on the Bison, became a pest specie and were almost exterminated. If we know the "why", then we can better direct the "how". As it stands now, almost 100 year later, that area of land is still not fully recovered to the level it was before our intervention -- and it may not recover for 100s of years.

If you think for a minute, you will realize that the words "why" and "higher purpose" have different meanings. You are confusing nature with religion, then putting the mess under philosophy.

What you basically describe is the struggle between 'predator and prey' in this case an animal and a plant. This struggle and arms race is as old as life itself. Why is this so, I doubt anyone can really answer. The instinct to survive and propagate is the closest to a 'why'. But why should life want to survive?

No. No. You are thinking like a scientist. You have to get that Darwin stuff out of your mind to understand me. Don't get me wrong, evolution is valid enough and many of Darwin's ideas are good, but they are only one perspective of nature, and only one part of the whole picture.

I am a holistic thinker, so my perspective is from the whole. I do not see "predator and prey" as being in a struggle, I see them as being part of each other, part of a whole. Although few people think of it in this way, we are seeing more and more evidence that this is the way nature works. To dispose of the prey is to dispose of the predator, and vice versa -- they complete each other. This is what environmentalists study, the whole, and how the parts affect each other and the whole.

Your mention of a "struggle" reminds me of the age-old Battle of the Sexes. There were people who honestly believed that if the other gender could be gone, life would be better. But the reality is that life would not exist for humans if we disposed of one of the genders. Now a days, we try to neutralize the genders by teaching women how to kick box, and teaching men how to find their sensitive side. It is my personal opinion that this is just a slower way to neutralize and dispose of the human race. The struggle is necessary to life, but not the point of life. (If anyone wishes to debate my ideas regarding the genders, please open another thread, as it would move off topic.)

To interpret this struggle for life in any other way than holistically would be idealism, as you would have to find that there is value in one or the other winning the struggle. Either the lion or the lamb is the "good guy", or one might be dumb enough to believe that they are actually going to lay down together. (chuckle) I do not do idealism. Or maybe your answers can be found in religion.

Regarding survival instincts, the only thing that I have learned about them and "why" is that it is the point of life to continue. If it comes between a specific specie surviving, or the ecosystem surviving, the ecosystem eventually wins. All life forms seem to know that life must continue. Maybe life understands that motion must continue for existence to continue.

Good answer. So anything that can have a measurable effect in the Universe; is this not the core idea of physics?

I have no idea. Don't know anything about physics. Are the "core" ideas of physics from metaphysics?

What I do know is that emotion has a very serious and measurable effect on life, but science does its best to ignore emotion.

This is very much a philosophical question that we cannot answer. The best hints may come from thermodynamics and statistical physics. Entropy and the arrow of time may interest you.

Well, I do not do much science, so I will leave that to someone else to figure out.

But since everything that exists seems to have a base of motion, the evidence would imply that things that do not have a base of motion do not exist. This is a pretty big hint and good enough for me unless you have a better idea.

You are showing your lack of physics knowledge here. There are lots of examples where systems behave very differently to what would be expected by studying the 'single pieces' that make up the system. A good example could be superconductivity; here a collection of fermions under the right condition can behave as if they were a collection of quasi-particles that have bosonic statistics. There are other amazing examples of quasi-particles in condensed matter physics such as those found in the fractional quantum hall effect; these are neither bosons or fermions! There are many other examples.

This doesn't help unless you can show me something that relates to mind or consciousness. Is this what the book, Quantum Enigma, is about? Because it says on the cover, Physics Encounters Consciousness. ( I haven't read it yet.)

Are these things you mentioned in the brain, or are they in reality? If they are in reality, then that is fine, but if they are specifically in the brain, that changes everything. Because it would support all of those theories of consciousness that state that reality and consciousness come from the brain/mind, or in other words, we dreamed, imagined, or manufactured reality in our minds. I have trouble believing that -- lots of trouble.

I don't follow you here. It maybe that the rest of our body is important in creating our minds, but the idea of this being some collective emergent phenomena still holds.

Yes and no, I think it depends on what you are talking about. Consciousness and mind are very difficult subjects that we know a great deal about, but understand not at all. This will be the third time that I tried to write a response, but I keep getting too complex and creating more questions than answers, so I will try to keep it very simple.

If you are talking about "mind", then I can agree that it seems that mind is caused through life forms, so it would be an emergent phenomena. But this would apply to all life forms -- bacteria, bugs, trees, animals -- so all life forms, and maybe all cells, would possess mind to some degree.

If you are talking about consciousness, then I can agree that it seems to be caused by the brain, but it would be the rational aspect of consciousness that I am referring to -- not all consciousness -- only the part that Freud named the Ego. I suspect that the brain's processing causes a kind of loop or reflection of the sub/unconscious, so that we have the unconscious and a conscious awareness of part of the unconscious. But again, this would apply to all brains that have the basic abilities of our brains.

I read an article about a group of 20 or 30 scientists, who agreed that all mammals, from mice to whales, and many birds have the same consciousness as we do. This finding was based on the structure of their brains. But mainstream science does not accept this.

If you are talking about the sub/unconscious consciousness, then I can still agree that some levels of it are emergent, as it seems that all life forms share a link with others of their specie, so this would still emerge from life forms. I can not be sure of the lower levels of the sub/unconscious because I do not know enough about them, but they do not seem to be linked to life forms.

If you are talking about some type of panpsychism, then I am not sure that I would call this emergent, and doubt there is any real awareness consciously or unconsciously. The only way that I can see the idea of panpsychism being consciousness, would be if the universe were alive, and I am not yet willing to go there.

What I can not agree to is the idea that consciousness emerges from the human brain because we are more specialer. Many people argue that this is true, but I find that they can not provide adequate evidence of our specialerness.

Well, if the mind cannot be understood in terms of physics, at least in principal, then you would have to invoke something else. Anyway, you have cleared this up and have stated clearly that you expect it is possible to have a good theory of the mind, just we are not close to having one yet.

The best sure evidence that we have regarding the brain and mind is that damage to the brain is damage to the mind -- damage to the brain can even split the mind. But emotion can also split the mind, move minds, and it can bond minds, temporarily and permanently. Emotion has some very profound influences on mind and possibly sets the parameters of mind, so until we take a serious look at emotion, I doubt we will be able to have a good theory of mind.

That is the literal translation from Ancient Greek. It is not going to be enough for a definition of the subject. However, I expect a careful all encompassing definition does not exists anyway.

So you are saying that my definition, "Philosophy is the study of what we can know and how we can know it -- or what is real and true" is not careful or not all encompassing? You did not dispute it when I wrote it.

Gee

* The "she" is in reference to nature and Swansont's post, which I found very funny.

[ajb]

So you are saying that my definition, "Philosophy is the study of what we can know and how we can know it -- or what is real and true" is not careful or not all encompassing? You did not dispute it when I wrote it.

I thought to some extent we were debating this definition, maybe not directly. How do we define "what we can know", what is "real" and what is "true" etc.

 

Anyway, I think every academic subject suffers from not being able to define itself in a complete way. This is because the subjects are evolving, tastes change and new ideas are presented. It would be of no help to try to set limits on a subject from the start with a very careful definition. So, basically I agree with your definition in that philosophy is the 'general study of knowledge'.

 

If you were to ask a mathematician or a physicist to define their subject carefully you will find they cannot offer a simple one line explanation that covers everything. They can however, like you have done for philosophy present a simple 'overview'.

 

I still challenge you to present a question from philosophy that has a clear answer. Maybe there is such a thing, I am willing to be corrected and am genuinely interested in such an example.

Is this what the book, Quantum Enigma, is about? Because it says on the cover, Physics Encounters Consciousness. ( I haven't read it yet.)

I have no idea, I do not know the book.

 

But the point is, if the mind is not physics then what is it?

 

Of course, we all accept that new unforeseen physics maybe at play, but we are not truly willing to accept 'magic' or 'god' as an explanation.

[StringJunky]

I think of philosophy is the reasoning behind using a particular methodology or approach to a subject or task. One is not looking for answers but the right questions for the job in hand. The thinking behind the thinking.

[ajb]

I think of philosophy is the reasoning behind using a particular methodology or approach to a subject or task. One is not looking for answers but the right questions for the job in hand. The thinking behind the thinking.

More-or-less that would be my understanding. At least in science 'philosophy' means 'guiding principals'. Usually this is some variant of the scientific method, further methodology and a list of questions.

 

That however, is probabily selling the subject a little short and I am sure philosophers of science will tell us something else (while still not answering any questions?)