Comment by VarFarYonder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VarFarYonder | Hacker News Reader

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> Are you saying that you believe Richard Feynman didn’t have a working grasp of the issues at hand? Or are you saying that “philosophers of science” don’t know anything about the science they philosophize about?

I'm saying that understanding things like what the scientific method can and can't do is useful to a scientist because, if they don't understand the distinction, they might try to use the scientific method to prove something it cannot.

> As for science, it’s a method, and it can be applied to anything. What it says may often be, “don’t know” which imo is better than 100 pages saying “don’t know, but I’ll give it a go anyway, because no one can prove me wrong yet.”

While you might try to apply the scientific method to anything, that doesn't mean it is useful for everything. For example, if something isn't replicable, then the scientific method cannot help you. You cannot scientifically prove what effect the Battle of Hastings had on Britain.

I can’t prove that, but could a sufficiently powerful AI prove it? Probably. The open questions for philosophy are a function of our present limitations, and as those limitations are overcome, the space for philosophy shrinks. I don’t think it says much that’s good about a field of study for which the major criteria is untestability and immunity from definitive critique.

I don't think that's a very accurate view of the field. If modern analytical philosophy values anything, it's logic (especially the formal variety), and I can think of at least a few dominant views in the last few decades that were felled by someone pointing out a bug in the underlying logic.

I don't think the philosophical questions are functions of our present limitations either. Imagine knowing everything about all people, and complete God-like power. Do you maximize utility? Do you equalize utility? Do you maximin? Do you ignore utility entirely, and move on some other criteria? You might have all the "is", but the "ought" is still an important question (and, importantly, not a relative one! Despite not being empirical) [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

> The open questions for philosophy are a function of our present limitations, and as those limitations are overcome, the space for philosophy shrinks. I don’t think it says much that’s good about a field of study for which the major criteria is untestability and immunity from definitive critique.

I'd agree that there are sections of the philsophic community that rely on that immunity. But other parts of the philosophy community perform an important role of teaching the philosophic foundations on which things like the scientific method are built. This is an important fight on which the effective practice of science itself depends.

Corporations and governments increasingly try to manipulate the scientific community for their own ends, giving rise to scientism. Consider stories like this: http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4737

Furthermore, philosophy teaches people how to think critically and how to express themselves accurately and unambiguously, to challenge the prevailing beliefs around them. I think philosophy is far from a pointless old field that needs to shut up shop. In fact, I think societies would benefit if more people studied philosophy and at a younger age.

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