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Navel gazing, although of no direct benefit, is
nevertheless
physically awkward.
In order to navel-gaze effectively, it's necessary to (a) be
shirtless and (b) to crane forward. Both of these can
interfere with the daily process of living.
MaxCo has thought about this problem long and
hard
and,
after much introspection, has developed the Navel Cam.
The Navel Cam looks rather like a cufflink. To use it,
simply remove the appropriate button from your shirt,
and
make an additional buttonhole in its place. Then use the
Navel Cam to fasten the shirt.
The inner part of the Navel Cam contains a high
resolution,
short focal-length camera, and LEDs for illumination.
The
outer part houses the replaceable battery and wireless
transmitter.
Using our app, you can arrange for your navel to be
electronically gazed non-stop. The video streams to your
computer, where it can be viewed at your convenience.
We will also, shortly, be introducing our Premium
Service,
wherein professional navel gazers will view your videos
for
you, thus saving you the trouble.
***LATEST OFFER***
Is your navel, to be frank, dull? Has endless gazing
failed to produce a single insight? If so, you may suffer
from Dull Navel Syndrome.
Thanks to the MaxCo. Navel Cam App, for a somewhat
small monthly fee, you can receive directly streamed live
video of the navels of some of the world's greatest
thinkers.
The MaxCo. Navel Cam - let's get out there and
introspect!
(If anyone wants to make any puns based on the
similarity
of the words "navel" and "naval", please feel free not to.)
Navel gaze into your alma mater's navel gazing
http://www.cser.org
[rcarty, Nov 16 2013]
other peoples navels
The_20See-Thru_20Burkha
[Voice, Nov 16 2013]
The Sokal Affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
[hippo, Nov 18 2013]
[link]
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//Do whales have navels?// |
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They do. They are vast cartilaginous buttons about
a
metre in diameter. Yet, despite being amply
provisioned in the navel department, whales have so
far underaccomplished. |
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Now that the important matters are out of the way, the
meaning of this metaphor, and its relation to
contemplating existentialism. Obviously contemplating
existentiualism is a lot like the navel, because rhe navel
is like the tunnel of life from which we all were
synthesized materially. Contemplating this through
staring is an existential undertaking. However, I disagree
with the connotative aspect that, it is a futile
undertaking. I understand Cambridge has started a
department for studying Existential Risks. This is not the
same thing entirely, but it is on the level of
contemplating not our origins, but indeed how it is all
going to end, when it may indeed end, and how to stop
it. Without contemplating the void into which we all will
one day plummet, forestalling the inevitable will be as
impossible as indefinitely preventing it. Navel gazing,
indeed! |
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*existentialism in the sense of existence and not free
will and determinism. |
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//because rhe navel is like the tunnel of life from which we all were
synthesized materially. // |
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I think we've hit a problem already. |
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// I understand Cambridge has started a department for studying Existential
Risks.// |
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From their webpage: "The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
(CSER) — a joint initiative between a philosopher, a scientist, and a software
entrepreneur — was founded on the conviction that these issues require a
great deal more scientific investigation than they presently receive." |
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Well, given their conviction, I'm pretty sure I can see how they can save 33%
of their salary budget. |
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I'm sorry if I appear to be trivially and frivolously dismissing philosophy - that
is not my intention. I should make it clear that I actively believe it is a waste
of time which people should pursue as a hobby rather than being paid for. |
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Ridiculous. Everything from scientific methodology, to
conclusion is discursive, and subject to philosophical
analysis. Philosophy is literally the meaning of life and
everything, not just the contemplation of it. It is truth.
Anything you
do in science takes place inside philosophy. Draw the
venn
diagram, get the tattoo. |
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Believe me I'm in a Ministry of Education approved
university. |
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// Anything you do in science takes place inside
philosophy.// |
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Fraid not - you have an odd but perhaps common
misunderhension of what scientists actually do. The
stuff I'm doing at the moment in science is finding the
optimum set of conditions and choice of enzymes for a
reaction aimed at detecting single nucleotide molecules.
My colleagues are variously working on hydrophobic, non-
protein binding coatings for PDMS microfluidics; real-time
tracking of microdroplets; and on pinpointing the source
of contaminating nucleotides amongst our reagents.
Philosophy has not yet made an appearance. |
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More broadly, I can look back over thirty years spent
doing science (with greater or lesser success), and can
state categorically that I have not once had the remotest
inkling of a hint of a suspicion of needing any philosophy
at all. |
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It's also a long-held piece of tombollockry that "scientific
methodology" is philosophically founded. Of course, you
can _apply_ philosophical analysis to scientific
methodology, just as I can apply feathers to a piano. It
just doesn't help much, is all. |
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(The correct philosopher's response at this point will be
extend philosophy to include either mathematics or
cognition, thereby embracing all activities.) |
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Do you not use scientific method? I remember reading an
interesting philosophical paper on that by a Huxley. The
basis for the scientific method is a philosophical matter
about establishing truth. My worldview is (philosophy
(science)) or philosophy >science >navel gazing. |
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Or (philosophy (empiricism (objectivism (science)))) |
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Philosophers have long commented on, and even
formalized (incorrectly, as it happens) the so-
called scientific method. Practising scientists
generally couldn't give a toss, and I doubt if they
ever did. |
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There's a popular myth that the "scientific
method" was somehow invented by philosophers.
Alas, that is bollocks. The "scientific method" was
invented, slowly, by people such as ropemakers
who figured out that comparative testing was a
smart way to see which rope was stronger; by
metalworkers who eventually realised that it was a
good idea to compare different alloys in fair tests;
and by a million other unsung practical people. |
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Philosophers then waded in, a bit late in the day,
and described what they thought they understood
of this "scientific method". But their actual
contributions (beyond telling everyone else how
science ought to work) were, frankly, fuck all. |
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One of the smartest things that philosophy ever
did was to take all the early scientists and call
them philosophers. However, we scientists have a
cunning plan to turn the tables - we are
constantly inventing new omics, starting with
genomics and then proteomics, metabolomics,
neuromics and so on. In about five years, we'll
invent philosophomics, and then all your base are
belong to us. |
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So is the navel the tunnel of life through which we were all
synthesized materially, and is there any way to go back
through it? |
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Actually, or philosophically? |
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Actually - no and no. The navel is a scar, not a
tunnel. And almost every atom in your present body
has come from either MacDonalds or Waitrose,
depending on your income bracket (if you're a
professional philosopher, I'm guessing MacDonalds). |
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Philosophically - who knows? Who cares? |
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Well I don't really, I have a sociology degree, and taking my
sweet ass time to do a masters because I've got nowhere
to go with it. |
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You're doing philosophy but only one narrow specialization
see above Ph.d PHD |
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Doctor of philosophy in science of biology |
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Now, you see, that's what pisses people off about
philosophers. They do bugger all, and then they
just claim that anything anyone else does is
philosophy. Airline pilots, welders, burger-
flippers, chemists, mathematicians, doctors,
typesetters - they're all actually doing philosophy
even if they don't realise it, right? |
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I have to hand it to you lot, though, it's a damned
good ploy. The only risk is that people will realise
that, if everyone is a specialist in one area of
philosophy, then it's clearly not as difficult a
discipline as you would have us believe. |
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Of course, there is what I would call "hard core
philosophy", undertaken only by trained
philosophers. That involves spending a long time
thinking about bleeding obvious questions, and
then failing to answer them in various elaborate
ways. |
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And don't get me started on sociology. At least
you had the decency not to call it social science.
Still, you're probably young enough to learn
something useful. |
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Concerns about security- are you using navel identification software? Are you sharing bellies with the various government agencies? |
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//Are you sharing bellies with the various government agencies? |
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Aha, now we really know what the N in NSA stands for... |
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//Concerns about security// |
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We share your concerns - MaxCo. values your
privacy. |
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It has recently come to our attention that a group
of Cambridge philosophers have hacked into the
system, and are actually gazing into the navels of
a group of Oxford philosophers, rather than into
their own. |
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We have also found evidence that these
Cambridge navel-hackers may have developed
advanced concept recognition software, which
flags up all of the potentially interesting segments
of navel videos from the Oxford group. As a
result, each Cambridge philosopher is able to skim
data from not just one but several Oxford navels,
giving the Cambridge team a clear advantage in
insight acquisition. |
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Actually, I have a suspicion that all navels have
wrinkles and folds that positively identify the
individual in the same way as other eye, finger and
facial systems. |
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Before iris, retinal and fingerprint recognition
were widely implemented, there were a bunch of
other more bizarre biometric approaches. |
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One of these involved looking at the pattern of
hair follicles on a small area of the scalp (nice,
because it gives you a pattern of dots which can
be compared to a reference). Another looked at
finger- and toe-lengths. And one, pioneered by
Reading University, used navels; the rationale
(and I use the word loosely) was that the folds and
scars of the navel depend on both accidents of
birth and on the surgery of cutting and sealing the
umbilical cord, and were therefore likely to differ
between people. |
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//I actively believe it (.i. philosophy) is a waste of time which people should pursue as a hobby// |
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I disagree with this statement. |
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I presume you mean "I disagree with the foregoing
statement." To say "I disagree with this
statement" would put us in a bit of a bind, [poc]. |
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Note that I'm not disparaging philosophy as a
recreation. I am sure it's great fun and very
satisfying. Indeed, everyone (even I) sometimes
muses
over the meaning of life, free will and so forth. |
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I'm just arguing that it is not something
for which people should expect to be paid. And I
wish they'd stop blathering on about how they
invented the scientific method - that's just a case
of 'whys after the event'. |
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[Marked-for-tagline]"I disagree with this statement"
[marked-for-tagline] |
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I've used a few of my ideas to remind me of important
values I hold. For example "The Noise!". Is
antipragmatic, and "the energy!" Is antiadaptive. These
discourses are tied to mental health, and the problem in
the current age is that if you start marginalizing
cognitive behaviours they start becoming sorted into
mental illnesses by the those who relate to everything
on the level of meat, and not philosophers who relate to
everything on the level of Idea. The purposeful noise is
the ethos that categorizes everything "impractical as
crazy". Look in any good dictionary and you"kk find this
attitude represented. People literally make a noise
when someone says something impractical or
antipragmatic, which I call the purposeful noise. It's
related to the energy that pervades everything and
forces us to adapt. People who are acting
philosophically are transcending the material into the
real of idea, not situating themselves in objects outside
the mind , but doing somthing very Leary (as in Tim
Leary) and suubjecting their own brain waves to brain
waves or Idea with Idea, or thesis with antithesis, or
subject with predicaate, or context with subtext, they
are in the quantuum of material esssences, that are
represented by Idea. This is not to be discounted. It is
in *there* in the backgroud radiation of the universe that
all attainable knowledge resides, and only a
transcendental person who is analytical of the ethereal
can obtain it. |
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I don't really have a dog in this fight but... |
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// // Anything you do in science takes place inside philosophy.// |
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Fraid not - you have an odd but perhaps common misunderhension of what scientists actually do. The stuff I'm doing at the moment in science is finding the optimum set of conditions and choice of enzymes for a reaction aimed at detecting single nucleotide molecules. My colleagues are variously working on hydrophobic, non- protein binding coatings for PDMS microfluidics; real-time tracking of microdroplets; and on pinpointing the source of contaminating nucleotides amongst our reagents. Philosophy has not yet made an appearance. |
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More broadly, I can look back over thirty years spent doing science (with greater or lesser success), and can state categorically that I have not once had the remotest inkling of a hint of a suspicion of needing any philosophy at all. |
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It's also a long-held piece of tombollockry that "scientific methodology" is philosophically founded. Of course, you can _apply_ philosophical analysis to scientific methodology, just as I can apply feathers to a piano. It just doesn't help much, is all. // |
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I don't, to use your word, underhend [MB].
To wonder about the "why" of everything can only lead to the development of physical sciences due to the mind-set of feeling a need to explain things, while emersion in hard science which, by your definition; to be caught up in examination and categorization, can not lead to, and does not need philosophy. |
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Science did not come before wonder. Only one of these things can beget the other. |
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Where is the uselessness of philosophy? Without wondering about the "yet" unknowable, wouldn't hard science alone just stagnate in it's own data? |
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My subject, me, is named rcarty. I would never say "I am
a
philosopher", philosophy is really just recursive thinking,
thinking about thoughts etc. I don't like to hear people
making a claim of beeing a philosopher unless they have
espoused a known theory, that allows them to be sorted
amongst known philosophers and their ideas. |
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Philosophy is not about making uneducated guesses,
although guessing could be one method of reaching
conclusions. Philosophy is really that recursiveness I
mentioned thinking about thoughts. The name
philosophy means "liking reason", so it's all about
reasoning and reasoning some more. |
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Although I don't think MB means he doesn't like
reasoners, those guys who are always reasoning. He
doesn't like impractical ideas, but namely he wants to
read science ideas, or as I would rather say only one
specific area of philosophy. So by definition he is
perhaps not a philosopher because he doesn't love all
reason, but just science, which by my reasoning still
makes him a philosopher because that's philosophy too.
Therfore he isn't and is a philosopher at the same time,
that probably accounts for the difficult position he is
trying to argue. |
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As an example look at the navel gazing idea I posted that
he rebuked. An hourglass game called existential crisis.
This in his opinion is the philosophy he doesn't like. But
where is the "reason" in it. It is not "existentialism"
which is all about free will and determinism. It's about
contemplating the metaphor of life through an object.
This too is reasoning because it is analogical. Exploring
analogy is philosophical because it ironically puts
something into better perspective by making it
something else. Ultimately, analogy allows Idea to
become reified into something concrete that can be
examined, especially by others to appreciate. |
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So, when you are programming computers, are you doing
philosophy? I don't know a great deal about it, but I
would assume you are doing some reasoning. But
perhaps you are not, maybe you're doing something by
rote. Music too is by rote so is not philosophy. Although
a composer may be doing philosophy. Lots of things are
not philosophy, but any time you have to put your hand
to your chin to think out a problem you are doing it. But
perhaps if you don't like doing it you are not doing
philosophy. Obviously there are those who prefer to
think and there are those that rather do something
practical with thought, although some thought is
practical in itself. |
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I did not see your anno above mine [bigsleep], I was typing my own.
I do not understand what you mean by "programming philosophies".
Why can philosophy not span all subjects?
Is there not a 'why' to everything? |
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I only ask because my own thought processes tend more towards the 'why' than the 'how'. Thinking this way invariably leads to a need to discover the 'how' of things, yet definitively figuring out the 'how' first makes determining the 'why' afterward seem like an unwanted chore. |
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The study of philosophy is not useless... it just awaits the next paradigm shift where enough 'hows' get figured out to determine the next set of 'whys'. |
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//Where is the uselessness of philosophy? Without
wondering about the "yet" unknowable, wouldn't
hard science alone just stagnate in it's own
data?// |
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Now, you see, that's what I resent about
philosophy - it claims any aspect of thought that
it wants to. |
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Wondering about the unknowable is not
philosophy except by a stretch of definition. I am
not a philosopher (and don't tell me I am), yet I
have a huge drive to find things out - be they in
science or outside it. The reason that's not
philosophy is that I believe there's an objective
world out there to be understood, and that
pedanticising recursively over my own thoughts is
just pissing in the wind. The tree falls - does it
make a sound? Who cares - it does what it does,
move on. |
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Yet time and time again, philosophy claims every
aspect of human endeavour as its own. When
maths gets interesting, philosophers say "ah yes,
well, that's really philosophy". When logic gets
interesting "ah, that's philosophy too". When we
put a man on the moon, I expect there were
philosophers around saying "look where philosophy
has got us!". |
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So, philosophy is either useless ("when a tree falls
and there's nobody there to hear it...") or parasitic
("all your disciplines are belong to us"). |
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Yes, just because science (or some bits of it) used to be called 'natural philosophy' it doesn't necessarily mean that modern philosophers have anything interesting to say about science.
In my own field, computer science (another naming error - it's more of a craft than a science), clever people thinking about computer science concepts (such as Turing machines) have caused vaguely philosophical questions to be asked, but not the reverse.
[Philosophy/80's music joke: "When Milli Vanilli fall over in a forest, does someone else make a sound?"] |
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What about postmodernist critiques of science that
examine scientific mandates that are apparent in the
purposes and the conclusions they work towards? For
example in the ongoing conflict between indigenous
knowledges and the project of modernity. |
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You don't have to repond, but I like to look at science as
a part of philosophy and don't mean to be totalizing.
Although your rejection of philosophy may be to burn
the paper trail in order to limit unproductive but
meaningful critique. So yours in fact is purposeful noise
that tries to destroy the meaningful history through a
nihilism of the impractical. |
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//What about postmodernist critiques of science
that examine scientific mandates that are
apparent in the purposes and the conclusions they
work towards?// |
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Whot? Well, I've never encountered or felt the
need for whatever that is. It's more usually a case
of "This disease kills X people/this could be done
better/we need an X that does Y - now go to it." |
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Perhaps if you could give a concrete example of
how postmodernist critiques have actually had a
practical impact on, say, medicine or something
tangible like that? |
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(Postmodern critique of scince linked) |
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Well, it approaches an intangible because he has had an
effect of mitigation, but Foucault's critiques of Health
Science have likely had an immeasurable impact on the
tendency of healthcare to be overy disciplinary in
achieving maximum results ie better health in subjects.
This is in the social domain that I study, not very familair
with the hard sciences, but heath science including
pschyiatry extends into education institutions as well as
corrections. The impact is immeasurable. |
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Crititiques of positivism are part of the ongoing "project
of emancipation". |
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Critiques of the project of modernity, have empowered
indigenous peoples and communities building esteem
and legitimacy. |
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In the hard sciences rhyzomic ontology has informed
product engineering, and communications systems
developers in the information age. |
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In health science legitimizing of indigenous knowledges
have led to many natural remedies and plant based
pharmaceutical products. |
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//tendency of healthcare to be overy disciplinary
in achieving maximum results ie better health in
subjects.// |
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If you mean that healthcare is becoming too
specialized, then I would comment that (a) in
most cases, this is of necessity and, despite the
negatives, tends to give the best outcome in
terms of patients still being alive afterwards and
(b) the fact that healthcare needs to be joined up
is well-known to many medics, and I doubt if any
of them have ever read a philosophy text. |
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//rhyzomic ontology has informed product
engineering, and communications systems
developers in the information age. // I have no
idea what rhyzomic ontology is, unless it literally
refers to the growth of roots. As for
communications systems, my limited knowledge
suggests that complex network optimisation has
come out of some pretty fancy maths (with
borrowings from biological systems, for instance)
rather than philosophy. Of course, you can always
play your trump card and say "all your
mathematics are belong to philosophy", but that's
underhand. |
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//legitimizing of indigenous knowledges have led
to many natural remedies and plant based
pharmaceutical products// Undoubtledly. And,
as I work with some of the scientists who do just
that (evaluating traditional remedies to see if
there's anything useful in them), I can tell you
that none of them have read much philosophy.
Their attitude is generally "these people have a
traditional remedy for X; let's do some controlled
studies to see if it works and, if it does, let's see if
we can find the active compound and make it
more available". |
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Ok fine you're right , of course, philosophy developed into
its pinnacle apex empiricist, objectivist, reductionist
biological science that you study irrelevating itself to this
bastard child, science, that denies its own parentage. |
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Anyway, final comment here, I have some sort of new
useless thing to think of. |
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Wow, an entire discourse on philosophy and not
even one mention of 42. |
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This thread was meant as a honeypot, wasn't it? |
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Well I am still at a loss. |
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Was Einstein daydreaming about riding a beam of light not philosphicating before becoming a part of science?
Stephen Hawking stretching his mind to try to understand singularities and time itself wasn't philosophy? |
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If philosophy isn't wondering about as yet unanswerable questions and giving these thoughts definition... then what is it? |
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Ask a philosopher. They're sure to know. |
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// you would never a claim 'this is a huge advance in philosophy' as a result. // |
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Actually, that claim can easily be made; substantiating it may be a little more challenging. |
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//this bastard child, science, that denies its own
parentage.// |
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I dispute that. 500 years ago, people thought
"gee, how does light work" - that may have been
philosophy; it may have been science; it may have
been chicken soup. What of it? Science as such
did not exist - if you want to call all forms of
enquiry "philosophy" then that's fine. |
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When Einstein thought about what it would be
like to ride a beam of light, he _wasn't_
"philosophizing" insofar as the term means
anything. He wasn't wondering whether riding
beam of light was right or wrong, nor about
whether it meant anything to "ride" light, nor
whether it was a hermeneutic solipsistic approach
to the problem. |
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When Einstein thought about what it would be
like to ride a beam of light, he was (as far as we
can tell) thinking about the physical implications
thereof. That, in turn, led him to a whole bunch
of very non-philosophical equations, and
ultimately to the even less philosophical atom
bomb. |
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A "Philosopher" might well think about what it's
like to ride a beam of light. But he stops short of
doing anything worthwhile, and instead moves on
to consider how many angels can dance on the
head of a pin, in much the same tenor. |
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Science is the "bastard child" of philosophy in
much the same way that mechanical engineering
is the bastard child of poetry - i.e. not very much. |
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It may say something about philosophers and
scientists when you realize that philosophers are
always telling scientists how science depends on
philosophy. |
|
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The scientists generally don't go around claiming
that philosophy depends on science. (Except, of
course, when the philosopher has a bacterial
infection.) |
|
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Philosopher: "I have developed a world-changing hypothesis". |
|
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Biologist: "Really ? Would you like to try some of this foxglove tea ?" |
|
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Chemist: "Or maybe come and have a close look at this really interesting stoic exothermic reaction ?" |
|
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Physicist: "It's getting dark ... just go and push those two lumps of metal together, will you ? It makes a lovely blue light ..." |
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One or all of the three latter options really will change the universe for the philosopher, on varying timescales of effect, and not necessarily for the better. |
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This must be one of the longer semantic arguments on the halfbakery. Well played everyone! |
|
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<looks suspicious; reaches for club> that's not like
philosophy, is it? <\ls;rfc> |
|
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Interestingly, if you put two 21Quests in the room
together, they add up to the answer to life, the
universe, and everything. Unfortunately they kill
eachother before the output is known... |
|
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So, um... Isn't this just a button camera worn inside
the shirt instead of outside? |
|
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Uh, no - it's an entirely different thing. It comes
with a special customisable label. |
|
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//when reading 'philosophy' do you come across references to Einstein and Hawking as great philosophers of a time ?// |
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No I don't. I wonder what they would say on the subject though. I also can't help but wonder how any one of those ancient philosophers would fare in modern society, how quickly they would grasp the science. |
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//But he stops short of doing anything worthwhile, and instead moves on to consider how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, in much the same tenor.// |
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But that's an easy one...
...all of them of course.
Next! |
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Hey, has anyone ever done any innie vs. outie belly-button correlation to introvert/extrovert personality trait study? |
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge..." |
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//So, philosophy is either useless ("when a tree falls and there's nobody there to hear it...") or parasitic ("all your disciplines are belong to us").// |
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I suggest, [MaxwellBuchanan], that the "all your disciplines are belong to us" attitude is a fairly new one, which philosophers have only been flaunting since the baby-boomers took over the subject. |
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Setting that aside, I have found philosophy useful, provided that you accept that it doesn't offer any new facts - only ways of re-arranging facts you already had so that they make more sense to you. |
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When I watch intelligent non-philosophers dabbling with the meaning-of-life questions, it seems to me that they often waste a lot of time grappling with questions that have been thought about quite thoroughly already (take Scott Adams on Free Will, for example). Such people might derive some benefit, occasionally, from a professional philosopher. The difficulty lies in the high risk that any qualified philosopher you come across nowadays is merely an arrogant clown like Bernard-Henri Levi who will, given half a chance, pull the "all your disciplines are belong to us" thing on you. |
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//When I watch intelligent non-philosophers
dabbling with the meaning-of-life questions, it
seems to me that they often waste a lot of time
grappling with questions that have been thought
about quite thoroughly already// |
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That may be the case. But as far as I know,
speculation about the meaning of life over the
last 2000+ years has still failed to come up with an
answer, even with the assistance of philosophers. |
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Don't get me wrong - I approve of long-term
research projects. But this one doesn't really
seem to have gotten anywhere. |
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Yes I hardly think that the Free Will thing has been nailed by philosophers yet, has it? |
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Nailed? No, but extensively duct-taped. You don't want to waste good duct tape. |
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[MB], your complaint is a bit like a complaint that you have too many clubs in your golf bag, and why can't someone make a putter that's also a sand wedge? Did you really have only one question? |
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I have many questions. None of them, alas, seems
to have been answered by philosophy. But yes, a
sandwich would be nice, thanks. |
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