And if asked to defend the claim, they will respond with predictable memes, insults, and unsupportable claims of fact. Humans are illogical LLM's that have been trained on the culture they were raised in.
> The first sentence seems to be inline with human nature for boys and men.
I have conducted easily over 10,000 casual experiments in this domain, all humans suffer from this problem, the only question is which propositions they fail on - and, finding ones (a non-exhaustive set, of course) they will fail on is extremely easy.
What's particularly interesting is that even people who genuinely have a deep *academic* understanding of philosophy make (many/most of) the very same errors as those who do not (see: this article).
Perhaps someday someone will build something based on this knowledge.
You parenthetically note Karl Popper failed to explain what science is, etc. I’m intrigued: Popper (and Deutsch, who’s admittedly a scientist) come off to me as the most compelling philosophers so far in answering these epistemological questions. What would you recommend as the best criticism of his/their work?
A good place to start for a really brief intro is either Tim Lewens' treatment in "The meaning of science" or the chapters in the Peter Godfrey-Smith book I mention "Theory and Reality". I'll write something about this at some point.
Philosophy will never die! A perhaps slightly different than standard approach to the philosophy of science I have written about are the two essays Science and Explananation (https://tmfow.substack.com/p/science-and-explanation) and World Views (https://tmfow.substack.com/p/world-views), heavily influenced by my reading of Kuhn’s later work, Feyerabend and van Fraassen, among others.
That's an interesting use of the term 'eulogy'. The word comes from eu- -logy, 'good words'. A eulogy is a praise singing. Often, yes, you find eulogies at funerals, because of the de mortui nil nisi bonum principle, but they are certainly not confined to funerals!
Hawkins was doing the opposite of providing an eulogy, it was more a dyslogy, if there were such a term.
Quite possibly. I certainly wouldn't bet the house on it. (In general, I'm an "epistemological pluralist": although I generally work under the assumption that science is the best guide to reality, I'm glad that there are smart, thoughtful people who explore the world from different perspectives and starting points).
Science is the best guide only to the physical realm, the metaphysical realm remains up for grabs, even though science implies mastery of that, or that it doesn't exist, etc. They learned a lot from religion about planting beliefs in people's minds, and improved upon it!! But it will fall, eventually.
Groundbreaking post Prof. Williams. Thank you. This appears to be an introductory lecture or maybe “invitational lecture” for a philosophy of science class taught here on Substack. I would suggest that it is, if that is your plan. If so, count me in.
Is there any particular reason you didn’t use the word morals in this sentence? “What is the actual and appropriate role of values in science?” By values do you mean the same as morals?
Often the term "values" is used more broadly - to include morals but also to include other kinds of values (e..g, social, aesthetic, political, etc.) values as well. Here's a nice article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/
Ok, educate me. I'm admittedly not well read in the field of philosophy of science. I could have easily missed many writers on the topic that interests me. I may be making wild claims from a position of ignorance. So...
Who in the field of philosophy of science addresses the following?
QUESTION: Is our "more is better" relationship with knowledge simplistic, outdated, and increasingly dangerous?
QUESTION: Is the human species of limited ability, like every other species on the planet? If yes, what is the logical outcome of humans seeking as much knowledge and power as possible, as quickly as possible?
QUESTION: Can those who depend upon their careers in the knowledge industry, such as philosophers and scientists, be objective enough on the topic of knowledge development to be relied on for expert level commentary?
With many apologies to all, because my comments are not personal, but hopefully philosophical....
In my experience of attempting to write about such things all over the net for a number of years, both science and academic philosophy seem essentially dead. I've tried MANY times to engage any philosopher or scientist I could find in a discussion what seems a pivotal question....
QUESTION: Is our "more is better" relationship with knowledge simplistic, outdated, and increasingly dangerous?
Typically the topic is simply ignored. When the question is engaged, both scientists and philosophers are almost always only willing to engage by playing the role of teacher, even though typically they've written nothing on the subject. That is, their interest is in their career, their business, their position in society, their image of themselves, and not the actual topic.
The engagement strategy of such professionals is always to, first ignore, and then claim that whatever we in the public might be saying, they already know it, they're already doing it, it's already been covered, etc etc. And when you ask for their articles on the topic, they quietly vanish.
While philosophy will never be dead in the abstract, in real world actual practice, it does seem pretty close. That has been my experience at least. Evidence: I spent years on a group blog of academic philosophers, who I repeatedly tried to engage in a discussion of nuclear weapons, the single biggest threat to the civilization their profession depends upon. Out of thousands of articles on that site, the last time I looked only one was about nuclear weapons. And that one article was there only because the editor was hoping to shut me up with it.
Scientists seem hopelessly lost in their own self interest. Philosophers seem incapable of prioritizing topics in order of importance, with every topic seemingly considered of equal value to every other.
Apologies for this rant. To punish me for boring you, PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG.
I'm not close to being an expert on philosophy but I don't think it is dead. Philosophy offers much to help understand the social, not just physical world in which we live. That said, maybe he is correct that philosophy offers little in respect to pushing the boundary of total knowledge. That seems to be what he means by "dead."
“Critics of philosophy often claim that it’s pointless, masturbatory, and outdated.” Hahaha
And if asked to defend the claim, they will respond with predictable memes, insults, and unsupportable claims of fact. Humans are illogical LLM's that have been trained on the culture they were raised in.
The first sentence seems to be inline with human nature for boys and men. I’m reading Joyce Benenson’s book right now.
> The first sentence seems to be inline with human nature for boys and men.
I have conducted easily over 10,000 casual experiments in this domain, all humans suffer from this problem, the only question is which propositions they fail on - and, finding ones (a non-exhaustive set, of course) they will fail on is extremely easy.
What's particularly interesting is that even people who genuinely have a deep *academic* understanding of philosophy make (many/most of) the very same errors as those who do not (see: this article).
Perhaps someday someone will build something based on this knowledge.
Interesting. Build something like?
And did you mean to include a link or is that written as intended?
Something that can ~resolve this problem that has been plaguing humanity forever.
More than just a lack of self-control and other virtues?
As intended. ;)
Got it. I’m new to philosophy.
You parenthetically note Karl Popper failed to explain what science is, etc. I’m intrigued: Popper (and Deutsch, who’s admittedly a scientist) come off to me as the most compelling philosophers so far in answering these epistemological questions. What would you recommend as the best criticism of his/their work?
A good place to start for a really brief intro is either Tim Lewens' treatment in "The meaning of science" or the chapters in the Peter Godfrey-Smith book I mention "Theory and Reality". I'll write something about this at some point.
Philosophy will never die! A perhaps slightly different than standard approach to the philosophy of science I have written about are the two essays Science and Explananation (https://tmfow.substack.com/p/science-and-explanation) and World Views (https://tmfow.substack.com/p/world-views), heavily influenced by my reading of Kuhn’s later work, Feyerabend and van Fraassen, among others.
I have also written about why philosophy might be more important than ever here: Philosophy for our Future (https://tmfow.substack.com/p/philosophy-for-our-future)
Curious what your thoughts are on these perspectives!
Interesting - thanks for sharing. Will try to find some time to check them out.
That's an interesting use of the term 'eulogy'. The word comes from eu- -logy, 'good words'. A eulogy is a praise singing. Often, yes, you find eulogies at funerals, because of the de mortui nil nisi bonum principle, but they are certainly not confined to funerals!
Hawkins was doing the opposite of providing an eulogy, it was more a dyslogy, if there were such a term.
Thanks for this - I really should have known this 😅
I mention this post in the comments section of Virginia Postrel latest post.
https://vpostrel.substack.com/p/from-the-archives-another-view-of/comment/48533194?r=nb3bl&utm_medium=ios
Are there any flaws in that claim that science is the best way to learn about reality? 😉
Quite possibly. I certainly wouldn't bet the house on it. (In general, I'm an "epistemological pluralist": although I generally work under the assumption that science is the best guide to reality, I'm glad that there are smart, thoughtful people who explore the world from different perspectives and starting points).
Science is the best guide only to the physical realm, the metaphysical realm remains up for grabs, even though science implies mastery of that, or that it doesn't exist, etc. They learned a lot from religion about planting beliefs in people's minds, and improved upon it!! But it will fall, eventually.
Groundbreaking post Prof. Williams. Thank you. This appears to be an introductory lecture or maybe “invitational lecture” for a philosophy of science class taught here on Substack. I would suggest that it is, if that is your plan. If so, count me in.
Thanks Scott. Yes - I will be posting more essays about this topic in the future, as well as numerous related topics as well.
Feminist philosophy of science?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-science/
Is there any particular reason you didn’t use the word morals in this sentence? “What is the actual and appropriate role of values in science?” By values do you mean the same as morals?
Often the term "values" is used more broadly - to include morals but also to include other kinds of values (e..g, social, aesthetic, political, etc.) values as well. Here's a nice article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
Ok, educate me. I'm admittedly not well read in the field of philosophy of science. I could have easily missed many writers on the topic that interests me. I may be making wild claims from a position of ignorance. So...
Who in the field of philosophy of science addresses the following?
QUESTION: Is our "more is better" relationship with knowledge simplistic, outdated, and increasingly dangerous?
QUESTION: Is the human species of limited ability, like every other species on the planet? If yes, what is the logical outcome of humans seeking as much knowledge and power as possible, as quickly as possible?
QUESTION: Can those who depend upon their careers in the knowledge industry, such as philosophers and scientists, be objective enough on the topic of knowledge development to be relied on for expert level commentary?
And so on...
With many apologies to all, because my comments are not personal, but hopefully philosophical....
In my experience of attempting to write about such things all over the net for a number of years, both science and academic philosophy seem essentially dead. I've tried MANY times to engage any philosopher or scientist I could find in a discussion what seems a pivotal question....
QUESTION: Is our "more is better" relationship with knowledge simplistic, outdated, and increasingly dangerous?
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/our-relationship-with-knowledge
Typically the topic is simply ignored. When the question is engaged, both scientists and philosophers are almost always only willing to engage by playing the role of teacher, even though typically they've written nothing on the subject. That is, their interest is in their career, their business, their position in society, their image of themselves, and not the actual topic.
The engagement strategy of such professionals is always to, first ignore, and then claim that whatever we in the public might be saying, they already know it, they're already doing it, it's already been covered, etc etc. And when you ask for their articles on the topic, they quietly vanish.
While philosophy will never be dead in the abstract, in real world actual practice, it does seem pretty close. That has been my experience at least. Evidence: I spent years on a group blog of academic philosophers, who I repeatedly tried to engage in a discussion of nuclear weapons, the single biggest threat to the civilization their profession depends upon. Out of thousands of articles on that site, the last time I looked only one was about nuclear weapons. And that one article was there only because the editor was hoping to shut me up with it.
Scientists seem hopelessly lost in their own self interest. Philosophers seem incapable of prioritizing topics in order of importance, with every topic seemingly considered of equal value to every other.
Apologies for this rant. To punish me for boring you, PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG.
Thank you!
I'm not close to being an expert on philosophy but I don't think it is dead. Philosophy offers much to help understand the social, not just physical world in which we live. That said, maybe he is correct that philosophy offers little in respect to pushing the boundary of total knowledge. That seems to be what he means by "dead."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html