What I’m saying with the ‘people are made of atoms’ bit is that it looks like a slight majority of philosophers may now think that is at least a component of a person that is not made of atoms—usually consciousness.
As for intuitions trumping science, that was unclear. What I mean is that, in my view, philosophers still often take their intuitions to be more powerful evidence than the trends of science (e.g. reductionism) - and again I can point to this example.
I’m sure this post must have been highly annoying to a pro such as yourself, and I appreciate the cordial tone of your reply.
As for intuitions trumping science, that was unclear. What I mean is that, in my view, philosophers still often take their intuitions to be more powerful evidence than the trends of science (e.g. reductionism) - and again I can point to this example.
Ah, you mean capital-S ‘Science’, as opposed to just the empirical data. One might have a view compatible with all the scientific data without buying in to the ideological picture that we can’t use non-empirical methods (viz. philosophy) when investigating non-empirical questions.
Like, whether phenomenal properties just are certain physical/functional properties, or whether the two are merely nomologically co-extensive (going together in all worlds with the same natural laws as our own). This is obviously neither mathematical nor empirical. Similarly with normative questions: what’s a reasonable credence to have given such-and-such evidence, etc.
As for intuitions trumping science, that was unclear. What I mean is that, in my view, >philosophers still often take their intuitions to be more powerful evidence than the >trends of science (e.g. reductionism) - and again I can point to this example.
The comments on your linked article really do a good job of demonstrating the enormous gulf between many philosophical thinkers and the LW community. I especially enjoyed the comments about how physicalism always triumphs because it expands to include new strange idea. So, the dualists understand that their beliefs are not based on evidence, and in fact they sneer at evidence as if its a form of cheating.
Sorry but I do not think this patient can be saved.
It seems to me that philosophy is most important for refining mere intuitions and bumbling around until we find a rigorous way of posing the questions that are associated with those intuitions. Once you have a well posed question, any old scientist can answer it.
But, philosophy is necessary to turn the undifferentiated mass of unprocessed data and potential ideas into something that is succeptible to being examined.
Rationality is all fine and good, but reason applies known facts and axioms with accepted logical relationships to reach conclusions.
The importance of hypothesis generation is much underappreciated by scientists, but critical to the enterprise, and to generate a hypothesis, one needs intuition as much as reason.
Genius, meanwhile, comes from being able to intuitively generate a hypothesis the nobody else would, breaking the mold of others intuitions, and building new conceptual structures from which to generate novel intuitive hypothesises and eventually to formulate the conceptual structure well enough that it can be turned over to the rationalists.
Richard Chappell,
Of course, you know how intuitions are generally used in mainstream philosophy, and why I think most such arguments are undermined by facts about where our intuitions come from, which undermine the epistemic usefulness of those intuitions. (So does the cross-checking problem.)
I’ll break the last part into two bits:
What I’m saying with the ‘people are made of atoms’ bit is that it looks like a slight majority of philosophers may now think that is at least a component of a person that is not made of atoms—usually consciousness.
As for intuitions trumping science, that was unclear. What I mean is that, in my view, philosophers still often take their intuitions to be more powerful evidence than the trends of science (e.g. reductionism) - and again I can point to this example.
I’m sure this post must have been highly annoying to a pro such as yourself, and I appreciate the cordial tone of your reply.
Ah, you mean capital-S ‘Science’, as opposed to just the empirical data. One might have a view compatible with all the scientific data without buying in to the ideological picture that we can’t use non-empirical methods (viz. philosophy) when investigating non-empirical questions.
Non-empirical questions like… what? Mathematical questions?
Like, whether phenomenal properties just are certain physical/functional properties, or whether the two are merely nomologically co-extensive (going together in all worlds with the same natural laws as our own). This is obviously neither mathematical nor empirical. Similarly with normative questions: what’s a reasonable credence to have given such-and-such evidence, etc.
See: Overcoming Scientism
The comments on your linked article really do a good job of demonstrating the enormous gulf between many philosophical thinkers and the LW community. I especially enjoyed the comments about how physicalism always triumphs because it expands to include new strange idea. So, the dualists understand that their beliefs are not based on evidence, and in fact they sneer at evidence as if its a form of cheating.
Sorry but I do not think this patient can be saved.
Which comments do you agree or disagree with?
What is the patient? LW? Many-philosophers? The idea of LW-contributing-to-philosophy (or conversely)?
It seems to me that philosophy is most important for refining mere intuitions and bumbling around until we find a rigorous way of posing the questions that are associated with those intuitions. Once you have a well posed question, any old scientist can answer it.
But, philosophy is necessary to turn the undifferentiated mass of unprocessed data and potential ideas into something that is succeptible to being examined.
Rationality is all fine and good, but reason applies known facts and axioms with accepted logical relationships to reach conclusions.
The importance of hypothesis generation is much underappreciated by scientists, but critical to the enterprise, and to generate a hypothesis, one needs intuition as much as reason.
Genius, meanwhile, comes from being able to intuitively generate a hypothesis the nobody else would, breaking the mold of others intuitions, and building new conceptual structures from which to generate novel intuitive hypothesises and eventually to formulate the conceptual structure well enough that it can be turned over to the rationalists.