philosophy.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 15 Feb 2009 13:58

As a dscipline philosophy has provided a whole bunch of useful interpretive tools - for example, "discourse" is a concept that philosophy has provided with a specific definition, which can then be used interpretively in fields such as English Literature, giving rise to the practice - discursive analysis, which has produced a massive number of scholarly articles and interpretations of texts. This is just one of many such examples.
The semantic "discoveries", for want of a better word, provided by philosophy can be invaluable not only for people looking for terminology they can use to interpret the world, and communicate those interpretations, but also for people looking for concepts that describe things they see around them - by things I mean customs, social practicies, attitudes and belief systems. You [Jeremy] refer to solipsism in one of your earlier posts in this thread - is that not a concept initially outlined by philosophers and historians? I'm pretty sure a scientist didn't come up with it. So if you're asking for some indication of precisely what, if anything, philosophy has contributed to knowledge, I think these sorts of contributions would be a good place to start.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 15 Feb 2009 14:08

Sorry for the double post - but another question - do you think Camus would have written "The Outsider" without having studied philosophy? What about "Ulysses", would that have been written? Milton had also studied philosophy extensively, do you think "Paradise Lost" would have been possible without such study? If you are suggesting that people stop studying philosophy because there are no solutions to practical problem in it, are you not throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak? Philosophy clearly has much more to offer than "solutions to problems" in the terms you imply in the posts above Jeremy. If the original poster doesn't expect to find the solutions that science offers why should he or anyone else dismiss it given the other significnat contributions it makes to individual's communicative and interpretive capacities.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 15 Feb 2009 17:18

Colin wrote:
Is learning such skills necessarily part of philosophy though?
Yes, absolutely. Of course philosophy doesn't have a monopoly on thinking, but when the subject matter is "thinking", then you are studying philosophy.

Sorry my sentence may have been misleading. My intention was to ask if you could learn those skills through studying subjects other than philosophy - and it was really a rhetorical question, as you need those skills, and learn them, in maths, science, computing etc. Indeed I would say there is far more critical thinking in science than in philosophy. In science when somebody makes a claim the first response should be "what evidence is there for me to believe that?" However in philosophy it often appears that merely saying "Schopenhauer says this" is enough and that the question of "can you prove I'm wrong" is often stated as if it's meaningful (perhaps a better question would often be, "if I am wrong, is it possible to prove that" - but of course if there is no positive evidence for a claim it's obviously foolish to believe that it's true).

Indeed Clive Hamilton (who I guess could be called a philosopher) accidentally makes this point in a brilliant manner in "The Freedom Paradox." - After covering the basis of the book - which is to argue that our freedoms in Western society actually enslave us and that we should use our freedom to choose not to do/buy things, he then moves into a long philosophical argument relating to the work of a number of philosophers (mainly Kant, Plato and Schopenhauer). However he preferences this section of the book with the statement that (paraphrasing); "Scientific readers may want to skip this section." Why is that? Because it's full of claims about humanity and the world that cannot be supported by evidence.

Sure, point taken. But remember that we aren't trying to decide whether we'd all be philosophers in utopia - we're trying to decide if it's a worthwhile endeavour here and now. How it stacks up on the big ol list of 'things we do' is, I believe, relevant.

But is it the most worthwhile endeavour? How does it stack up compared with more practical occupations? Indeed would you agree the assertion of that last sentence - that some occupations are more practical than being a philosopher?

To accept that you're wrong and move on happily and productively is among the most difficult, rare, and important skills someone can possess. Comprehensive, historical study of philosophy will have someone jump all over the map in terms of what he's certain of, and goes a long way to develop that skill. Maybe better than anything else?

Sure, but I don't think philosophy really makes people accept that their wrong, while being wrong is a critical part of science, and acceptance of being wrong is a part of the power of scientific progress. If we look at the work of most philosophers - what have they been wrong about? What was Sartre wrong about? What was Descartes wrong about? Right and wrong generally don't tend to be things you can apply to philosophy because they make untestable and unfalsifiable claims about the world. Of course there are actually plenty of examples where they stray into the world of science and are wrong, and perhaps very few examples where they are right, but none of those claims (right or wrong) are significant aspects to their philosophy (except perhaps dualism, although I note that there are still many philosophers who argue that it's not completely wrong, in contradiction to the scientific evidence).

I think we're better served by adults who spent age 15-25 idolizing people like Nietzsche, Russell, or whoever else than by adults who spent the same years idolizing the Insane Clown Posse, any particular political party, or current pop thinkers like Opera, Dawkins, or that New Earth guy with the impossible name. Keeping current is so polarizing, and opinions really aren't for kids - but idealisms are.

I think you need to read a lot more Dawkins. You should be aware that so far he has written 7 books (The Devil's Chaplain is a collection of essays), of which 6 are specifically about biology. I also don't think that you label opposition to ideology as "idealism." Science is, of course, not about idolising people at all. That said, if people did idolise Dawkins and become obsessed with biology, evolution and the majesty of science and nature than I think that would be a great thing. Obviously this isn't especially relevant to the debate or your point, but as a side issue I feel like many people have completely unfairly judged Dawkins based on the media attacks on him in the aftermath of The God Delusion (I'm yet to see a single article that attempts to rebuff the main point of that book by the way, except with the exception of a Scott Atran and Jon Haidt - who are not journalists, but scientists).

Despite what the media claims, there are no scientists who think that Darwin was infallible, or that any other scientist was - and indeed the errors that people like Darwin, Galileo, Newton, Einstein etc. have made are numerous and well documented within science.

It seems to me that philosophy is much more open to argumentum ad verecundiam. In any event I think you're making a poor strawman argument. I don't think anybody is arguing that it would be better to be obsessed with the Insane Clown Posse than Nietzsche. Indeed I'm not aware that I ever said that people shouldn't study philosophy at all - rather I'm arguing that it has achieved very little. Like looking back at Australia under John Howard, I think we can legitimately ask; "what do we have today that we can clearly attribute to philosophy?"

I wish I'd spent more of my youth trying to get into the heads of undeniably brilliant people, and trying to effectively communicate what's in my own head.

I agree. I wish I spent more of my youth trying to get into the heads of scientists and less reading philosophers.

dyalander wrote:The semantic "discoveries", for want of a better word, provided by philosophy can be invaluable not only for people looking for terminology they can use to interpret the world, and communicate those interpretations, but also for people looking for concepts that describe things they see around them - by things I mean customs, social practicies, attitudes and belief systems. You [Jeremy] refer to solipsism in one of your earlier posts in this thread - is that not a concept initially outlined by philosophers and historians? I'm pretty sure a scientist didn't come up with it. So if you're asking for some indication of precisely what, if anything, philosophy has contributed to knowledge, I think these sorts of contributions would be a good place to start.

But my mention of solipsism was merely to demean it as illogical and irrational. That's a poor example for your argument because if solipsism didn't exist, I don't think the world would be a worse place at all. Coming up with words and ways of discussing meaningless things is hardly a significant achievement. Indeed it draws the parallels between philosophy and theology fairly well.

Sorry for the double post - but another question - do you think Camus would have written "The Outsider" without having studied philosophy? What about "Ulysses", would that have been written? Milton had also studied philosophy extensively, do you think "Paradise Lost" would have been possible without such study?

This is the same argument religious people make. It is undeniable that religion is responsible for great works of art - some of the most impressive in the world. But of course how can we do more than speculate about how different the art world would be without the influence of religion? Those works you mention and many others probably wouldn't be possible without the influence of philosophy, but what great works would we have instead? I could use your logic to suggest that without science you would never have had the opportunity to read them anyway - although I'm happy to admit the fallacious nature of making this claim (which isn't to say it's wrong, just that we don't know how different the world would be if things were different).

If you are suggesting that people stop studying philosophy because there are no solutions to practical problem in it, are you not throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak? Philosophy clearly has much more to offer than "solutions to problems" in the terms you imply in the posts above Jeremy. If the original poster doesn't expect to find the solutions that science offers why should he or anyone else dismiss it given the other significnat contributions it makes to individual's communicative and interpretive capacities.

I don't think I've specifically said that people should stop studying philosophy. Indeed I think a broad understanding of philosophy and it's influences on science and politics in particular is probably important - but I would teach that in history rather than a specific philosophy class. This really depends on how you define philosophy. What I've said, or at least tried to say, which is more in line with the original post, is that philosophy is a useless method of getting answers. The benefits that have been raised are hard to test and speculative benefits. On the other hand the benefits of other fields of study are much easier to see.

To clarify, I would never support a cut to funding for philosophy faculties or removing it from curriculums. I would strongly argue that the danger of reducing freedom of the pursuit of knowledge is far more significant than my opinion on whether philosophy is actually anything more significant than mental masturbation. However I'd merely urge people to study fields I personally view as more practical and useful and pay more attention to the findings of these fields than the opinions of philosophers. I think it's far more important that people have that choice than the cost (not just material) of studying philosophy.

I don't think philosophy contributes to people's communicative and interpretive abilities. I should clarify that. It probably does more than not studying anything, but I think it promotes verboseness and pontification. I think science promotes clarity and direct communication. Of course perhaps I am judging philosophy unfairly based on a few specific philosophers (especially the pomos), but it seems very frequently I read philosophical work that contains sentences and ideas that seem grossly complicated for the simplicity of the point they are trying to get across. Science can be very technical, but if you look up all the words and write out a technical scientific sentence in a way that you can understand it is almost invariably larger than the initial sentence. If you do the same thing with philosophy you tend (or at least it seems to me) to end up with a much smaller sentence than the original.

Colin · Post by **Colin** » 15 Feb 2009 22:53

Ok, lets try this. Do any of these count as achievements of philosophy?

Atheism, democracy, mathematics, Abolitionism, I <3 Huckabee's

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 15 Feb 2009 23:21

Atheism - no. Discovered by so many different groups of people, some of which were not philosophers or had any relationship to philosophers.
Democracy - maybe.
Mathematics - no. Discovered and used by many people and cultures, some of which were not philosophers or had any relationship with philosophers.
Abolitionism - no. Supported by many people and happened in many places without philosophers or relationships with philosophers.
I <3 Huckabee's - I don't know what this is.

But of course the other issue is that these things all came about before science. You could argue that science is a product of philosophy as well (although that's certainly debatable). The point is that today we have much better methods of answering questions than we did in the past. You can also attribute much of the infrastructure in Russia to Stalin, Gulags and slave labour. You can attribute some of the wealth of the US to slave labour. Does this justify or support these things - of course not. It merely shows that our moral opinions have changed over time, and our methods of thought process have also changed.

Perhaps those things can be attributed to philosophy, but with all except possibly democracy and the last one, it is science that has made them the strengths that they are today.

On the other hand, one can easily found counter arguments to all but the last in philosophy. It's only through science that we can truly make an informed decision on each (except perhaps the last one and democracy).

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 Feb 2009 23:30

I don't understand what your point is Jamie. People find all kinds of things amusing. In the 17th Century an amusing form of public entertainment in some European countries was to deep fry live cats and apparently it caused great mirth to watch them squirm around when they were dropped into boiling oil.

Yeah, great argument Jeremy. Clearly a positive input to the discussion.

My point is that someone started a topic asking who else was interested in philosophy. The question wasn't 'who here studies philosophy at university'. I know that you have trouble understanding anything that's not scientific, but how about respect the fact that other people enjoy philosophy as a pastime.

Also, if you incessantly argue against something, I think it's fair enough to assume you think no one should study it. Despite numerous benefits being brought up. Maybe you should just pipe down and leave the topic to it's original intention. If you want to debate the merit of philosophy in higher education then start another topic.

I don't think I've specifically said that people should stop studying philosophy.

It was severely implied, and it took you way too long to actually state that's not what you had been saying.

Basically you should just accept that everyone is not identical to you, and we don't all get a hard on any time someone mentions science. And yes, I've heard you argue a million times how amazing science is, and you're right, but you'll get a lot further if you finally accept that everyone is not the same as you. People's minds are switched on for all different reasons and it's probably about time you started respecting that. Our brains are capable of being exercised in more fields than science.

I for one think studying Philosophy in school/personal time could only have a positive impact. So often you make arguments based on how it would work in utopia, well the real world isn't like that.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Feb 2009 00:05

It's a shame how some people seem capable of a civilised discussion while others have to turn it into a complaint about people having opinions that they don't want to hear, or appear to take things personally.

I interpret the original poster as asking what people "THOUGHT" about philosophy. I've expressed that, and I'd suggest that the only meaningful discussion in this topic has been the debate between Dyalan, Colin and myself. If you want to discuss what you like about philosophy, feel free to do that. If you want to chance the actual direction of the discussion - change it. Don't just complain that I'm not talking about what you want to talk about.

Forums are the ultimate democracy. If people aren't interested they won't comment, and it's really up to each person to try to make the discussion be about what they want it to be about - don't ask other people to do that for you.

I'm not going to be involved in "meta discussions" any further than this post.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 16 Feb 2009 00:19

Jeremy wrote:Forums are the ultimate democracy. If people aren't interested they won't comment, and it's really up to each person to try to make the discussion be about what they want it to be about - don't ask other people to do that for you.

Fair enough. The rest stands.

I wasn't taking anything personally and it's not the I cant stand to hear your opinions. I'm no philosopher. I just think you should respect where other people are coming from, in this instance, they gain benefit from philosophy.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 16 Feb 2009 00:21

Sorry for double post.

I interpreted the original post to mean different things people had thought in a philosophical way. I felt it was a bit rude to charge in telling them it was all pointless. Obviously you're free to put your opinion in, but I felt the topic was completely hijacked, hence my opinion.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 16 Feb 2009 14:33

I don't think philosophy contributes to people's communicative and interpretive abilities. I should clarify that. It probably does more than not studying anything, but I think it promotes verboseness and pontification.

My experience teaching leads me to believe otherwise. It depends a lot on what theories you are using, but there are a number of interpretive techniques based on philosophical theories which are, in my experience, extremely helpful to those students who are able to understand and apply them - I already mentioned discursive analysis as one such example.

Coming up with words and ways of discussing meaningless things is hardly a significant achievement.

True, but coming up with words and ways of discussing things that clearly influence social interactions, belief structures, language itself, is a significant achievement. So elements of Foucault, Barthes, Derrida, De Man, for example, may be useful, even if large portions are not, and even if their communicative strategies are perhaps not as effective as a scientists.

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 16 Feb 2009 15:29

Colin wrote:There are too many adults who fail to apply elementary reasoning skills to their own lives, and a greater emphasis on philosophy in public education could go a long way to a better formed public opinion. There's no reason that primary school kids shouldn't be fooling with truth tables, learning how to negate statements, etc.

Yes! Propositional and predicate logic on their own, justify the study of philosophy and IMO should be studied by every philosophy student before examining other areas of philosophy (because you really need formal logic skills before you do the other shit). Tragically the vast majority of people interested in philosophy are artsy-punces who fail hard at doing anything constructive. I believe that has negatively influenced the way philosophy is taught at many unis.

frank sinatra wrote:Don't we desire unanswerable questions?

What I'm trying to say is, we are human beings, and we are complicated and emotional and difficult. We're of course described by empirical methods, we are part of the natural world, but that doesn't fully satisfy us (at least, not all of us). I'm going to go ahead and pull a quote from Notes From Underground

In other words, paraphrasing another section that I can't find right now: if you tell a person that they are just a set of characteristics, drawn up on a chart, that they are essentially the equation 2x2, they will defy you. They will show you how 2x2=5, and 6, and 9.

What I'm saying is, human nature is more than a reconciliation of various facts. We have to make room for non-empirical, non-practical approaches to understanding ourselves. We will lose part of ourselves by attempting to understand ourselves only through empirical results.

frank sinatra wrote:I guess I should've known better than to encourage you to think outside of the constraints you've chosen to place on yourself.

Firstly, I know I don't desire unanswerable questions. I know I desire extremely difficult to answer questions but I don't believe any question is unanswerable (and supposing some are, its not the unanswerability that I would desire).

Regarding the 'thinking outside of constraints' point. This pisses me off well good, regardless of who its directed at. I get these comments a lot, and its always the people with a similar view who throw them at me.

I think the only people who are constraining their thoughts are the people who claim that some questions are unanswerable; who think human beings are too deep and complicated to be described mathematically; and who think that we have to make room for non-practical, non-empirical approaches to understanding ourselves?

how can something impractical help us understand ourselves? that's a bit of a contradiction. Philosophy certainly isn't aimed at being impractical and I don't believe that it is impractical. But if it was, then why the fuck would anybody study or think about it?

The 2x2 = 5,6 and 9 equation is a horrible analogy for an equally horrible argument. How do you know that people would defy someone who described them mathematically? Is this just some random intuition that you (and many others) feel? Noone has tried to mathematically describe people yet and it probs won't be happening for a while (and it won't be people manually writing down equations either). But if you went and told Aristotle that we'd be building big metal things that fly in the air he'd probably tell you to fuck off as well.

How will we 'lose part of ourselves' by trying to understand ourselves through empirical results? I kind of understand what you're saying here but can you give a bit of insight into this argument?

jeremy wrote: This is called solipsism. It's based on faulty logic of thinking that the world world is maths. If you can't prove that something is true, such as other people's existence, in no way is that evidence that other people don't exist. Instead you should always accept the null hypothesis - that is that the world is exactly as it appears, unless you have a reason to believe otherwise. There's lots of evidence that the world exists outside of ourselves and no evidence that it doesn't, so the only rational position to take is that the world exists outside of ourselves. Of course we may need to change that position if new evidence comes up, as we should re-evaluate all our positions in the face of new evidence.

I don't think there is any evidence that the world exists outside ourselves. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that anything other than my consciousness exists, however convincing it may seem. Any 'evidence' is just a product of my conciousness so how can it reliably say that my consciousness isn't all there is?

That said I think its fairly pointless not to just assume other people exist, because you'd act in the same way. I don't know whether or not I believe what I see exists or not because I really don't have any evidence to support either argument, but it doesn't matter. I'd still act exactly the same if I knew for certain that all that existed was my consiousness or the contrary.

*: I should reiterate that it is only many

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Feb 2009 15:44

Blue_turnip wrote: I don't think there is any evidence that the world exists outside ourselves. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that anything other than my consciousness exists, however convincing it may seem. Any 'evidence' is just a product of my conciousness so how can it reliably say that my consciousness isn't all there is?

That said I think its fairly pointless not to just assume other people exist, because you'd act in the same way. I don't know whether or not I believe what I see exists or not because I really don't have any evidence to support either argument, but it doesn't matter. I'd still act exactly the same if I knew for certain that all that existed was my consiousness or the contrary.

The world behaves exactly like it would if it existed outside of your consciousness. However if it does exist just in your consciousness, there is absolutely no evidence in the way the world behaves to suggest this is true. You have no extra control over the world than you would if it existed outside of your consciousness.

Let's not forget, of course, that we can study and understand the senses of all people other than ourselves, and even ourselves to some extent, and see that we're essentially built the same, and explain a large part of our consciousness and how our senses work. Indeed neurology and psychology have absolutely demolished dualism in the last few decades (not that philosophers and theologians seem to have got the message yet). Our theory that the world exists outside of your consciousness is not only strongly backed up by the behaviour of the world, it explains how it works and makes predictions that are easily tested and confirmed, while your theory makes no testable predictions, has no evidence to support it, and if it really were false, has no way of being proven that way. It's the kind of theory that scientists label (in the most demeaning manner possible) "not even wrong."

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Feb 2009 16:14

Re; Dyalan;

You are probably correct - I don't really know anything about how those philosophers have contributed to interpreting literature. I do wonder if you would still call that philosophy though, or literature criticism?

I guess though that I may have been a little broad with my brush strokes. Philosophy is a very wide subject and I was really thinking about specific fields of philosophy while talking very generally - so my bad.

I'm also not sure your examples contributed that much of use to literature. My French philosophy is a little rusty, but aren't all of those people who advocated deconstructulism? I'm not sure that's contributed much meaningful to anything...

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 16 Feb 2009 16:16

Jeremy wrote:The world behaves exactly like it would if it existed outside of your consciousness. However if it does exist just in your consciousness, there is absolutely no evidence in the way the world behaves to suggest this is true. You have no extra control over the world than you would if it existed outside of your consciousness.

When I have dreams I don't usually have extra control over the world even though I'm sure you agree it exists entirely within my consciousness.

jeremy wrote: Let's not forget, of course, that we can study and understand the senses of all people other than ourselves, and even ourselves to some extent, and see that we're essentially built the same, and explain a large part of our consciousness and how our senses work.

When I say there is the possibility that it is only my consciousness that exists I don't go with the assumption that my brain and body exists the way my consciousness shows them to exist. I couldn't know how my consciousness is fuelled, but it could be powerful enough to create an image of myself that is really similar to that of other people.

jeremy wrote:Our theory that the world exists outside of your consciousness is not only strongly backed up by the behaviour of the world, it explains how it works and makes predictions that are easily tested and confirmed, while your theory makes no testable predictions, has no evidence to support it, and if it really were false, has no way of being proven that way. It's the kind of theory that scientists label (in the most demeaning manner possible) "not even wrong."

Yeah there isn't any evidence to support what I'm suggesting or really disprove it. However I don't there is any evidence to suggest that the world exists outside of my consciousness. I don't feel the theory that the world exists outside of my consciousness is strongly backed up by the behaviour of the world. So what if predictions can be made that can be tested and confirmed? That just suggests that if my consciousness is the only thing that exists then its really effective at making a convincing model world.

I know its frustrating and stupid because you can't really argue against or for it. But you can't really do that with the theory that everything actually exists outside of my consciousness either.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Feb 2009 16:31

Blue_turnip wrote:
When I have dreams I don't usually have extra control over the world even though I'm sure you agree it exists entirely within my consciousness.

But I'm sure you are able to tell the difference between your dreams and reality. And of course let's not forget that with training people can completely control their dreams...

When I say there is the possibility that it is only my consciousness that exists I don't go with the assumption that my brain and body exists the way my consciousness shows them to exist. I couldn't know how my consciousness is fuelled, but it could be powerful enough to create an image of myself that is really similar to that of other people.

But what reason is there to dismiss that assumption?

Yeah there isn't any evidence to support what I'm suggesting or really disprove it. However I don't there is any evidence to suggest that the world exists outside of my consciousness. I don't feel the theory that the world exists outside of my consciousness is strongly backed up by the behaviour of the world. So what if predictions can be made that can be tested and confirmed? That just suggests that if my consciousness is the only thing that exists then its really effective at making a convincing model world.

I know its frustrating and stupid because you can't really argue against or for it. But you can't really do that with the theory that everything actually exists outside of my consciousness either.

You can argue against it. You can argue against it with the same logic that people use to argue against God. If there is no evidence to believe something is true, it makes no sense to believe that it is true, or even that it might be true. Perhaps you can construct some kind of hypothetical where it might make sense to believe something without any evidence, but it's certainly not the case for unfalsifiable beliefs. If somebody puts forward a theory that cannot possibly be proved wrong and has no evidence to support it being true, we should dismiss it. I can construct a million such theories, that I'm sure you would not even contemplate the truth of.

"God exists, and just spoke to me, and said that if you don't send me $100 right now then when you die you will go to Hell - but if you do you'll go to heaven."

Can you prove that statement wrong? Of course you can't. How sure are you that it's wrong? Remember we're talking about eternity suffering here. It would only make sense not to send me the money if you were absolutely sure that it's not true - $100 is so insignificant compared with eternity remember.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're not going to send me the money. If you're happy to dismiss the theory I've just proposed - on what grounds logically have you dismissed it, and why doesn't this logic apply to solipsism?

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 16 Feb 2009 17:21

jeremy wrote:But I'm sure you are able to tell the difference between your dreams and reality. And of course let's not forget that with training people can completely control their dreams...

Yeah, after I wake up. Regarding the training thing, I think thats a bit irrelevant. I mentioned dreams just to illustrate that just because something exists only within my consciousness doesn't mean I can control it.

jeremy wrote:But what reason is there to dismiss that assumption?

There isn't anything to dismiss that assumption. But if it is true that everything I know exists only within my consciousness then what reason would I have to go with the assumption and believe that my body is as it is in my consciousness? I feel it would be far more likely that I'd be of a different form to have the power to generate a model of such complexity.

jeremy wrote:You can argue against it. You can argue against it with the same logic that people use to argue against God. If there is no evidence to believe something is true, it makes no sense to believe that it is true, or even that it might be true. Perhaps you can construct some kind of hypothetical where it might make sense to believe something without any evidence, but it's certainly not the case for unfalsifiable beliefs. If somebody puts forward a theory that cannot possibly be proved wrong and has no evidence to support it being true, we should dismiss it. I can construct a million such theories, that I'm sure you would not even contemplate the truth of.

"God exists, and just spoke to me, and said that if you don't send me $100 right now then when you die you will go to Hell - but if you do you'll go to heaven."

Can you prove that statement wrong? Of course you can't. How sure are you that it's wrong? Remember we're talking about eternity suffering here. It would only make sense not to send me the money if you were absolutely sure that it's not true - $100 is so insignificant compared with eternity remember.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you're not going to send me the money. If you're happy to dismiss the theory I've just proposed - on what grounds logically have you dismissed it, and why doesn't this logic apply to solipsism?

I think the fundamental difference is that I know my consciousness exists. Its more a matter of proving that the stuff in my consciousness actually exists outside of my consciousness. This cannot be done.

This is vastly different to the god argument. In the god argument there is no evidence to suggest god exists. The null hypothesis is to assume god doesn't exist. However, here the null hypothesis is that everything exists within my consciousness (because that is the only thing we are certain of). The logic you're using to try refute this theory is the same logic that can be used to refute the idea that all this stuff exists outside of my consciousness as well as inside. There's no evidence to suggest that anything exists outside of my consciousness as well as inside, so it makes no sense to believe its true.

What makes me feel that my theory is viable is not because it cannot be disproved, but because the alternative theory that everything does exist outside of my consciousness cannot be proved.

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 16 Feb 2009 21:14

You are probably correct - I don't really know anything about how those philosophers have contributed to interpreting literature. I do wonder if you would still call that philosophy though, or literature criticism?

I'm also not sure your examples contributed that much of use to literature. My French philosophy is a little rusty, but aren't all of those people who advocated deconstructulism? I'm not sure that's contributed much meaningful to anything...

The application of thier ideas to literature is literary criticism, but the phenomena they identify and the process that led to that identification is philosophy. The same way that literary critics can use neuroscience in their criticism and their use of it is literary criticism, but the neuroscience itself is and remains science.

They are critics who are associated, in some cases incorrectly with deconstruction - and while I and many others disagree with much of their theories that doesn't change the fact that there are useful contributions to knowledge within their work - just as Darwin was wrong about some stuff but right about other stuff - though I'd certainly concede that Darwin's ratio of right to wrong is way better than any of the philosophers I can think of. In fact, I think that's the real problem, there's a lot of crap in the field, making it difficult to negotiate, and therefore not the most efficient way to gain knowledge - I believe that may have been your initial point - and I'd agree - I just think you need to articualte that idea carefully, because to disregard philosophy as having made no contribution to knowledge and to have no place in an individual's search for knowledge would be to overstate the case.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 17 Feb 2009 14:30

I don't think it's really that accurate to compare them to Darwin. The things Darwin was wrong about, he was only wrong about because he didn't have the technology we have today, his assertions based on the evidence he did have were largely the same ones that we would make today if that were all the information we had. Although scientists like to point out that Darwin was wrong about lots of things due to the bad strawman from creationists that he's some how viewed as a prophet (which I've always thought as a rather self demeaning argument), it's more a case that he simply didn't see the big picture and just gave shallow explanations. It's like saying the answer to a maths problem is "about 100" when the action answer is 104.23435 - you're still right, just we can be a lot more accurate today.

You are right, I did overstate the case. You have to these days to get a response from people

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 17 Feb 2009 16:22

That's true, Darwin's mistakes are less a matter of having chosen poor methods, and more a result of only having access to limited resources.

I've certainly found it to be one of the more interesting discussions on the boards in recent months.

And self-props for spelling articulate incorrectly in a sentence saying that things need to be articulated carefully