Unsolved Phillosophical Questions, Take One!

[Seil]

Okay. I need a clacker, a... whatchyamacallit. A *looksitup* marker (http://pandodaily.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/film-marker.jpg?w=300&h=199). You guys get on that.

ANYWAY!

I like this TV show called The Big Bang Theory (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkH_sgZsBI). Perhaps you've heard of it, it's pretty popular. My older brother says he thinks that it's written by the same people who beat up nerds in high school, but I think differently. That's a topic for another thread. What it has done is gotten me looking into all sorts of scientific theories and laws.

I got really interested in the philosophical problems, 'cause I feel way too dumb to involve myself in the unsolved physics problems. I looked it up, and there's this handy list!

List. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy)

There's a few that I'm particularly interested in, like the Molyneaux one, the problem of induction, and the idea of moral luck. So for now, let's tackle those, because my thread, my favorite unsolved philosophical problems. What is intelligence? (Problem of induction)

Intuitively, it seems to be the case that we know certain things with absolute, complete, utter, unshakable certainty. For example, if you travel to the Arctic and touch an iceberg, you know that it would feel cold. These things that we know from experience are known through induction. The problem of induction in short; (1) any inductive statement (like the sun will rise tomorrow) can only be deductively shown if one assumes that nature is uniform. (2) the only way to show that nature is uniform is by using induction. Thus induction cannot be justified deductively.

I like this, because it ties in with our 'Aliens' thread. How can we intuitively know something?

[Aerozord]

All information is assumed because at some point you must assume your own observations and memories are accurate. Its why I have a saying, always possible I am right, and always possible I am wrong.

That being said you can certainly deduce things. using that sun example. We can observe the Earth rotating and are given no reason to believe this will stop thus it is logical to conclude the sun shall rise. While initially alot of science was inductive reasoning we eventually reached the causes of these phenomenon and could safely deduce consequences.

[Seil]

But then again, there's a distinction atwixt learned knowledged and experienced knowledge. We know that the Earth revolves around the Sun. But people didn't know that, say, a thousand years ago. It was just the sun rising. People in "ye oldene dayse"... well, they could probably deduce without really calling it deduction, but, they were aware of the same thing - cold is cold because it is cold. They could determine that if a ship sailed about and hit, say, Greenland, that is was cold.

They didn't go there, they didn't hang around, but they know it's cold without ever being there. The knowledge that snow and ice is cold gives experiential learning an edge, but then again, deductive reasoning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im4TYITM0VE).

[Professor Smarmiarty]

These aren't unsolved philsopohical questions- there are immense traditions behind them.
Basically with intelligence you have the Kantian tradition of reified knowledge with the sublimed action, the Hegelian tradition of procedure being at the centre (with action as either a neutral or positive factor) and then you have the post-modern approach which stresses the ideal of language with knowing tied in tidy conceptual loops of language stressing.
This shit has been argued over pretty extensively for the last 200 years.

[synkr0nized]

My older brother says he thinks that it's written by the same people who beat up nerds in high school [...]

Ha, I think your brother and I might get along.

[Sithdarth]

(2) the only way to show that nature is uniform is by using induction.

Look up Noether's Theorem. Conservation laws imply uniformity. Because we can do the same experiment at different times and get the same result we know energy is conserved and the sun will not disappear. Similar things can be said for the Earth continuing to rotate and orbit the Sun. Same thing applies to that iceberg. We know water ice under ambient atmospheric conditions is cold and we know the inherent symmetries of the Universe we know it will be cold in the Arctic.

The problem with philosophers is they generally discuss things as if physics never advanced beyond the late dark ages.

[Solid Snake]

Ha, I think your brother and I might get along.


Seil's brother does sound like he has opinions I'd agree with.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Look up Noether's Theorem. Conservation laws imply uniformity. Because we can do the same experiment at different times and get the same result we know energy is conserved and the sun will not disappear. Similar things can be said for the Earth continuing to rotate and orbit the Sun. Same thing applies to that iceberg. We know water ice under ambient atmospheric conditions is cold and we know the inherent symmetries of the Universe we know it will be cold in the Arctic.

The problem with philosophers is they generally discuss things as if physics never advanced beyond the late dark ages.

And the problem with physicists is that they think philosophy stopped at Descartes.
Its always hilarious when people like Hawking try to claim philosophy is dead. Hawking would fail Phil 101: Introduction to Idealism.
Noether's theorum takes down Idealism as well as Rutherford's gold foil experiments take down an atomistic view of matter.

[Magus]

And the problem with physicists is that they think philosophy stopped at Descartes.

You have to admit that that if God controlled your physical body for you based on what you thought about doing with your mind/soul, you could get away with a lot more stuff. "Listen, I simply wanted my arm to move--God did the actual moving. God buried that knife in my wife's back and God buried her body in the rose garden. God coulda stopped that whole thing at any point along the way, all right?"

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Ah but using the Zizekian analysis of God's existence in the negative parallex of non-syncretic points outside of the real and imaginary orders post the Incarnation he is yoked to our own freedom rather than the other way around and thus in theory he can do us in for genocide when the rapture comes.

[Magus]

Ah but using the Zizekian analysis of God's existence in the negative parallex of non-syncretic points outside of the real and imaginary orders post the Incarnation he is yoked to our own freedom rather than the other way around and thus in theory he can do us in for genocide when the rapture comes.

Ah, indeed. Reminds me of the oldest philosophical question--which came first, Smarty:

The chicken? Or the egg?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It's the egg.
A tree falling in the forest also makes a sound.

[Sithdarth]

Noether's theorum takes down Idealism as well as Rutherford's gold foil experiments take down an atomistic view of matter.

1) In no way was I attempting to take down Idealism. The one and only point I was making is that you can deduce from the behavior of observable quantities the fact that induction holds for those observable quantities provided they behave in a certain way in relation to other observable quantities. To but it more simply the that which is observable can be used to deductively prove an inductive statement. Actually this gets me thinking that all (or a great many inductive statements) might actually be deductive statements we've just not discovered how to properly frame them.

2) Any scientist, without a massive ego, should be well aware that everything they do is at best a model of realty (whatever realty is or is not) and certainly nothing more than a mathematical idealization. Noether's theorem applying as it does to mathematical idealizations of physical processes is much more general than one at might first think. Certainly it has scope beyond Noether's first statement of it in that any system with continuous symmetries will have conservation laws associated with those symmetries. Of course it does take a little more than just Noether's theorem. One does also have to know that in any system of observable quantities, and the rules governing them, that is amenable to life conservation of energy must hold. Rather if conservation of energy does not hold the system would not be amenable to life. Really I shouldn't say life I should say reason. Any system in which conservation laws did not hold would not be amenable to reason and as such reason and thinking entities could not exist.

To reiterate this is all perfectly consistent with Idealism. I'm not attaching any objective reality to anything. I'm simply commenting on the restrictions imposed on any system that produces and supports thinking entities in general.

[Magus]

If it's bad, why does it feel so good? Is it only bad sometimes? Is it not actually bad but we've only been told it's bad? Is it actually good? Do good things sometimes feel bad? Are they only good sometimes? Are they actually bad?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

To reiterate this is all perfectly consistent with Idealism. I'm not attaching any objective reality to anything. I'm simply commenting on the restrictions imposed on any system that produces and supports thinking entities in general.

I was commenting on your dismissal of philosophy based upon arguments in this thread which were bad philosophy and have nothing in common with actual proper philosophy.
You were using these posts to dismiss philosophy, so I used old aged science to dismiss science. You directly attacked the idealistic positions (and philosophy in general) held by the posters in this thread by going "Lol philosophers are so ignorant" when actual philosophers whose work necessarily crosses with scientific endeavour (an actually suprisingly small amount of them as most of the traditions of philosophy comparmentalise the empirical/rational planes) do read the latest scientific research.

Like maybe I completely misread you but this:

The problem with philosophers is they generally discuss things as if physics never advanced beyond the late dark ages.
seems pretty blatant and commiting the exact same error that you accuse them of committing. And has nothing to do with your clarificatory post.

[Sithdarth]

when actual philosophers whose work necessarily crosses with scientific endeavour (an actually suprisingly small amount of them as most of the traditions of philosophy comparmentalise the empirical/rational planes) do read the latest scientific research.

This is going to seem a little rude but without the relevant degrees (which some might have but I highly doubt they spent the money on two degrees) there is essentially no chance of any proper understanding. Although to be fair even with the proper degrees (and even for the people that come up with the theories) there is surprisingly little chance of proper understanding. For example, I know a lot of things but I don't feel as if I understand much of it at least not enough to determine all of the implications.

seems pretty blatant and commiting the exact same error that you accuse them of committing. And has nothing to do with your clarificatory post.

That statement was at least 80% facetious. I thought the irony was clear but I'm notoriously bad at conveying humor and I also don't do it often so I could see how someone would take everything I said as literal.

The problem with the internet no one on it understands humor.

[Aerozord]

ultimately I have this personal philosophy when it comes to science. We have a grasp and understanding of the universe, we can initiate and guide some of its simpler processes and in time complex processes. However there is a degree of arrogance to think that with mere sensory data, single species perspective, and faulty memory storage that we could possibly truly understand the workings for reality itself.

Heck there are phenomenon that merely observing them prevents them from occurring normally.