Philosophy is Dead

@Fido,

That was a lot of words, and about three times as much punctuation as needed to simply say that you aren't interested in answering my question. I don't need to waste my time convincing you to engage intellectually.

I am very interested in you providing some moral commentary on the development of a cruise missile versus the development of Viagra. I also am interested in who can provide the most thoughtful moral input on the HPV vaccine: The scientists that create it, or religious moralists?

Answer, or don't, but I'm not interested in games.
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

failures art wrote:

That was a lot of words, and about three times as much punctuation as needed to simply say that you aren't interested in answering my question. I don't need to waste my time convincing you to engage intellectually.

I am very interested in you providing some moral commentary on the development of a cruise missile versus the development of Viagra. I also am interested in who can provide the most thoughtful moral input on the HPV vaccine: The scientists that create it, or religious moralists?

Answer, or don't, but I'm not interested in games.
R
T

The existence of any object is not in and of itself moral... It is the use which can only be judged by the actors, their motives and the circumstances... So ask me another stupid question... And that is the condensed version just as your mind is the condensed version of an ant's... In general, we have some idea of what behavior may be moral in advance, but only in retrospect can any action be judged moral... Get it???

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@The Outsider,

The Outsider wrote:

Philosophy is dead. So says Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their recent publication, The Grand Design. They state this deeply profound statement and then support it with... one sentence. "Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics."

I won't bother going any further right now as to why I think they're off their rockers.

The book does contain lots of profound and interesting scientific insights. But why the authors (both seemingly very intelligent men) think this constitutes a philosophy is beyond me.

So, forum, thoughts, comments, snide remarks?

The debate within this particular thread seems to serve Mr Hawking's point, a load of self-referential lessons on the history of philosophy rather than the search to progress human thought and understanding of our existence.

Perhaps Mr Hawking is attempting to provoke a response, like shining a light in philosophy's eye to see if it reacts. If it does not react to the provocation of his new book, then, yes, it must be dead.

I have yet to get my hands on a copy of the new book. Has anyone out there read it? Arguments for, or against this new publication? Or shall we continue to flog the dead horse some more?

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@Doorsopen,

Doorsopen wrote:

The Outsider wrote:

Philosophy is dead. So says Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their recent publication, The Grand Design. They state this deeply profound statement and then support it with... one sentence. "Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics."

I won't bother going any further right now as to why I think they're off their rockers.

The book does contain lots of profound and interesting scientific insights. But why the authors (both seemingly very intelligent men) think this constitutes a philosophy is beyond me.

So, forum, thoughts, comments, snide remarks?

The debate within this particular thread seems to serve Mr Hawking's point, a load of self-referential lessons on the history of philosophy rather than the search to progress human thought and understanding of our existence.

Perhaps Mr Hawking is attempting to provoke a response, like shining a light in philosophy's eye to see if it reacts. If it does not react to the provocation of his new book, then, yes, it must be dead.

I have yet to get my hands on a copy of the new book. Has anyone out there read it? Arguments for, or against this new publication? Or shall we continue to flog the dead horse some more?

One must find the baby insided philosophy if one would pinch it to see if it is alive... Existence is not done, and is only in danger because philosophy has failed us, but we can fix that little detail with out own effort...

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@Fido,

The "Salvation" through Philosophy, comes through process, and process imply´s doubt along the way...

To say that Philosophy is dead is actually a very Philosophical attitude...

Philosophy is one of those things that can make it on water land or thin Air...
Maybe that´s what Hawking´s is forgetting about...or as someone pointed out earlier, this is just a provocation to see what falls out of the Tree.
I would guess further and say that Hawking is actually crying for help...what a temper !

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There are attempts at creating a metaphysical "reality" based on modern science. Quantum consciousness for instance. One "problem" with such theories is that they tend to be uninteresting to the "modern critical thinker" because of how strongly they resemble religion. Particularly krishna consciousness.

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@Fido,

Philosophy has not failed us. If anything, we have failed philosophy - to seek truth. How many of us can actually reach objective truth?

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@Doorsopen,

how many ways can you describe a crooked stick ??

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@The Outsider,

I did not say the design is not at fault. He did not design it to fail. However, Nietzsche Ubermensch is based on a faulty Eugenics that left it open for Hitler to identify that the Ubermensch was anAryan and then allowed him to classify Jews, homosexuals, gypsies to be sub-humans. This in turn enabled him commit astrocities. The two philosophers with Ubermensch and "keep your mouth shut" philosophies enabled Nazism. I may have hurriedly put the example which may not be the best. But your defense of Nietzsche shows your inabilityto deduce that his faulty philosophy is the enabler to Nazism. You should read a book on Genetics to understand DNA which shows there is no such thing as race so Eugenics is a non-starter. But your lack of science doesn't allow you to see that.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Are you attempting to suggest that "krishna consciousness" is not a religious concept? Here . . . pull my other leg.

1 Reply

@Fido,

I do agree that both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein do have good materialbut I emphasized that Nietzsche is no god so everything he produces is not gold but that Ubermensch was a huge mistake that would cast a huge shadow over all his good works. Thjere is good science and ad science. Eugenics is bad science. Philoso[hy and science go hand in hand. Both are tough disciplines and need to interact and not be antagonistic. I see scientists not seeing the value of philosophy and philsophy students skipping science asa bad trend. Philosophy should make the basic sciences compulsory so the better students get in and not be in conflict with science students. The sciences are a part of phuilosphy. Those who have no sciences should find Literature more to their liking.

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@Setanta,

No, I am not trying to suggest that. I am saying that attempts have been made to understand consciousness in terms of quantum phyics. And some come very close to expressing the same ideas found in religion.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Philosophy has not failed us. If anything, we have failed philosophy - to seek truth. How many of us can actually reach objective truth?

Considering that there is no such thing as objective truth because it is an infinite, none of us can reach it...

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

"Philosophy" based on set theoretic logic is certainly dead. It died when wave-particle duality threw out the law of the excluded middle.

I suggest you are rather preoccupied with trying to apply certain pop-culture notions of particle physics to your belief system.

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@Chumly,

I agree with ya.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

Yay, philosophy is dead!!!

http://www.unattributable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/hill-fireworks.jpg

1 Reply

@Chumly,

Chumly wrote:

fresco wrote:
"Philosophy" based on set theoretic logic is certainly dead. It died when wave-particle duality threw out the law of the excluded middle.

I suggest you are rather preoccupied with trying to apply certain pop-culture notions of particle physics to your belief system.

His conclusions are correct but his reasoning may be wrong... His conclusion about set theoretical logic are obvious since for over two thousand years people have been trying without success to apply logic to human behavior with the purpose of teaching morals, but since moral behavior is not logical behavior it cannot be taught...

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

Mame wrote:

Yay, philosophy is dead!!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M&ob=av2e[/youtube]

If it starts stinkin; cut it down and bury it...

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@Razzleg,

Thanks Razzleg. I don't frequent the phil threads too much to post as much as read. I usually stay my tongue, but sometimes I just can't. It seems odd to me that philosophy, which as I view it, is an exercise in thought. Terrible then it seems to see so many people simply trotting around quoting old thinkers with authority and no imagination of their own. I'm no philosophical academic, I'm a scientist; an engineer. In that, I have found much to let my imagination play in those theaters.

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

...and for that I greet you and salute you !!!
Despite of some excessive "aggressiveness" on your posts (we all do it ) at least you think for yourself ! (instead of aggressiveness you might call it sensibility...)

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Philosophy is Dead

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