True, I agree that philosophers are uniquely equipped to see an “unanswerable” riddle as a whole, having learned the multitude of attempts to attack such a riddle from various directions throughout history. However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts. Pass along and not pretend to solve it, because most philosophers (with rare exceptions) are not area experts and so are not qualified to truly solve the “answerable questions”. The research area can be math, physics, chemistry, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology etc.
However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts.
Absolutely, we agree on that, though I think the philosophical work doesn’t end there, since area experts are generally ill equipped to evaluate their answer in terms of the original question.
No disagreement there, either. As long as after this evaluation the philosopher in question does not pretend that she helped the scientists to do their job better. If she simply applies the answer received to the original question and carves out another solvable piece of the puzzle to be farmed out to an expert, I have no problem with that.
True, I agree that philosophers are uniquely equipped to see an “unanswerable” riddle as a whole, having learned the multitude of attempts to attack such a riddle from various directions throughout history. However, I see as one of the more useful tasks a philosopher can do with her unique perspective is what Scott Aaronson suggests: “break off an answerable question”, figure out which branch of the natural science is best equipped to tackle it, and pass it along to the area experts. Pass along and not pretend to solve it, because most philosophers (with rare exceptions) are not area experts and so are not qualified to truly solve the “answerable questions”. The research area can be math, physics, chemistry, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology etc.
Absolutely, we agree on that, though I think the philosophical work doesn’t end there, since area experts are generally ill equipped to evaluate their answer in terms of the original question.
No disagreement there, either. As long as after this evaluation the philosopher in question does not pretend that she helped the scientists to do their job better. If she simply applies the answer received to the original question and carves out another solvable piece of the puzzle to be farmed out to an expert, I have no problem with that.