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Philosophy vs. science

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glen ep ropella

Philosophy vs. science

I'm curious to know what the "philosophy is very different from science"
camp thinks of this paper:

http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf

It's not a rhetorical question. I don't understand that paper or the
physics or math being discussed ... at least not to my satisfaction.
But it would be interesting to use the contents of this paper to find
out _why_ you think philosophy is so different from so much of what we
(perhaps mistakenly) call "science".

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Philosophy vs. science

Without reading the paper, I can offer one way in which academic
physics is exactly like the description of academic philosophy offered
in earlier postings, namely that much research and scholarship are
tweaks on prior work.

Some years ago at a workshop we gave for physics faculty about our
intro physics curriculum, we explained that we were trying to make our
course more authentic to the activities of actual living contemporary
physicists, namely that they take some fundamental principles as
given, model complex situations on the basis of these principles by
making approximations, simplifying assumptions, idealizations, etc.,
and compare behavior of the models with observations. Seldom does any
physicist discover a new fundamental principle; most physicists apply
those principles that have proven durable.

A young physicist said, "Oh, thank you! I had been very confused about
the nature of the discipline! When I read my first physics journal
article, I was very puzzled to get to the end of the paper without
seeing any brand new physics. I thought that what physicists did was
discover new principles, not apply existing ones to new situations."

Bruce

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 5:02 PM, glen e. p. ropella
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> I'm curious to know what the "philosophy is very different from science"
> camp thinks of this paper:
>
> http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf
>
> It's not a rhetorical question. I don't understand that paper or the
> physics or math being discussed ... at least not to my satisfaction.
> But it would be interesting to use the contents of this paper to find
> out _why_ you think philosophy is so different from so much of what we
> (perhaps mistakenly) call "science".
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

Glen,

I guess I am in that camp, although I am not in the camp that thinks that
philosophy is mental self-abuse. Philosophy is different from science.

But before I say why -- again -- could you tell me how (if?) you think
mathematics is different from science.

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of glen e. p. ropella
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 7:03 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] Philosophy vs. science

I'm curious to know what the "philosophy is very different from science"
camp thinks of this paper:

http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf

It's not a rhetorical question. I don't understand that paper or the
physics or math being discussed ... at least not to my satisfaction.
But it would be interesting to use the contents of this paper to find out
_why_ you think philosophy is so different from so much of what we (perhaps
mistakenly) call "science".

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

glen ep ropella

Re: Philosophy vs. science

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 07/11/2011 05:58 PM:
> But before I say why -- again -- could you tell me how (if?) you think
> mathematics is different from science.

Don't bother saying it again. I read, understood, and agree with what
you've posted. Similarly, I've already posted what I think philosophy
is and how it's different from math. But perhaps you didn't see it due
to the mailing list problems. So, here it is again:

Philosophy is to math as it is to any other discipline. Introspective
mathematicians will sporadically engage in philosophy in order to sort
and arrange the fundamental concepts of their discipline ... just like a
chair maker will engage in philosophy to sort out the fundamental issues
of chair making.

Philosophy is _obvious_ when discussing he fundamentals of any
discipline. The paper I asked people like Owen and Doug to comment on:

http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf

seems to be doing that. It's clearly a philosophy paper trying to deal
with some fundamental physical principles. There are plenty of similar,
philosophical, papers dealing with the foundations of math. As with any
discipline, the closer to the center you get, the more philosophy you
see. It's true that some mathematicians, perhaps even most, spend their
whole lives wandering around the outer layers, never considering the
fundamentals. But many of us, from musician to ditch digger, agree with
Socrates/Plato that:

"Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us you will not
be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most
difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is
impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god,
you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the
other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss
virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me
conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not
worth living for man, you will believe me even less."

That's why I prefer plumbers who have a philosophy of plumbing over the
lazy yahoo who just wants to get paid and go home to watch American Idol
or play XBox. ;-)

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

glen ep ropella

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by Bruce Sherwood

Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about this too! ;-) I tend to think
that all progress, everywhere, in all cases, consists of tiny
transitions from prior state. Even the seemingly important or
paradigmatic shifts like Newton's or the fall of the Berlin Wall are
really the accumulation of many tiny tweaks. It's our thin corpus
collosi that delude us into thinking a single person or event is _the_
cause of some singular effect ... the assumption that causality is a
chain, rather than a mesh.

Bruce Sherwood wrote at 07/11/2011 05:09 PM:

> Without reading the paper, I can offer one way in which academic
> physics is exactly like the description of academic philosophy offered
> in earlier postings, namely that much research and scholarship are
> tweaks on prior work.
>
> Some years ago at a workshop we gave for physics faculty about our
> intro physics curriculum, we explained that we were trying to make our
> course more authentic to the activities of actual living contemporary
> physicists, namely that they take some fundamental principles as
> given, model complex situations on the basis of these principles by
> making approximations, simplifying assumptions, idealizations, etc.,
> and compare behavior of the models with observations. Seldom does any
> physicist discover a new fundamental principle; most physicists apply
> those principles that have proven durable.
>
> A young physicist said, "Oh, thank you! I had been very confused about
> the nature of the discipline! When I read my first physics journal
> article, I was very puzzled to get to the end of the paper without
> seeing any brand new physics. I thought that what physicists did was
> discover new principles, not apply existing ones to new situations."

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

Glen,

Sorry if I have been obtuse. It's partly because I can be obtuse and partly because my means of communication here at the farm are so primitive that errors are easy to make and easy to get out of control.

I had just about decided that I shouldn't participate much in FRIAM discussions over the summer, and then, suddenly, there was Owen, declaring that philosophy was dead because it was not empirical. It seemed that what he meant by philosophy was lofty conversations by people who knew nothing about what they were talking about. Well, of course, THAT sort of activity always HAS been dead. But you don't get to be a philosopher by donning a tunic and sandals and talking vaguely concerning matters about which you are ignorant. Really you don’t! And I don’t care if you are on TED, when you are doing it.

I fear that the passage you cite might give comfort for that view. Examining virtue sounds a lot like talking vaguely about something none of us knows anything about. But if one looks at how Plato/Socrates examines virtue it is by exploring the logical relation between statements, including statements of principle and statements of principle, and statements of principle and statements of fact. And -- as I have said ad nauseam -- this has the FEEL of mathematics to me. (cf Timothy Gowers).

Philosophers may get the reputation for talking about matters they know nothing of just because their expertise is in the relations amongst propositions, not in the content of the propositions, themselves. Thus, philosophers can contribute to discussions in which they are ignorant of the factual basis for the discussion: it does not follow however – and this is a typical philosophical observation – that all discussions of subjects by ignorant people constitute philosophy, even discussions about the nature of the good. As to your plumber, if he were reflecting on the nature of plumbing pipe nets, he would be being a mathematician, if he were reflecting on the idea of waste and what it implies, he would be being a philosopher, and if he were telling you how to get your waste into your septic tank, he would be being, well, a plumber.

I am forwarding this on to some philosophers I know so they can dopeslap me. I will pass along anything interesting they might say.

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 10:45 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Philosophy vs. science

Nicholas Thompson wrote at 07/11/2011 05:58 PM:

> But before I say why -- again -- could you tell me how (if?) you think

> mathematics is different from science.

Don't bother saying it again. I read, understood, and agree with what you've posted. Similarly, I've already posted what I think philosophy is and how it's different from math. But perhaps you didn't see it due to the mailing list problems. So, here it is again:

Philosophy is to math as it is to any other discipline. Introspective mathematicians will sporadically engage in philosophy in order to sort and arrange the fundamental concepts of their discipline ... just like a chair maker will engage in philosophy to sort out the fundamental issues of chair making.

Philosophy is _obvious_ when discussing he fundamentals of any discipline. The paper I asked people like Owen and Doug to comment on:

http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf

seems to be doing that. It's clearly a philosophy paper trying to deal with some fundamental physical principles. There are plenty of similar, philosophical, papers dealing with the foundations of math. As with any discipline, the closer to the center you get, the more philosophy you see. It's true that some mathematicians, perhaps even most, spend their whole lives wandering around the outer layers, never considering the fundamentals. But many of us, from musician to ditch digger, agree with Socrates/Plato that:

"Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us you will not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for man, you will believe me even less."

That's why I prefer plumbers who have a philosophy of plumbing over the lazy yahoo who just wants to get paid and go home to watch American Idol or play XBox. ;-)

glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College

lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Bruce Sherwood

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by glen ep ropella

I agree totally. Everything is incremental, including biological
evolution, invention, etc.

You may be familiar with Rev. Paley's watchmaker argument in the early
1800s, that if you find a gold watch it is dishonest to pretend it
didn't have a watchmaker, and belongs to no one. Paley argued that
since biological organisms are even more complex than a watch, surely
there must be a Designer. Richard Dawkins acknowledges that Paley's
argument had much force before Darwin showed how evolution could
produce complex organisms, and Dawkins' book "The Blind Watchmaker"
discusses the issues in interesting detail.

My wife Ruth Chabay recently made an intriguing observation: the watch
does NOT have a Designer! The watch is the result of a very long
evolution through a very large number of very small innovations,
starting at least with mechanical clocks in the 1300s or earlier (see
for example the Salisbury Cathedral clock in Wikipedia).

Bruce

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 9:04 AM, glen e. p. ropella
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about this too! ;-) I tend to think
> that all progress, everywhere, in all cases, consists of tiny
> transitions from prior state. Even the seemingly important or
> paradigmatic shifts like Newton's or the fall of the Berlin Wall are
> really the accumulation of many tiny tweaks. It's our thin corpus
> collosi that delude us into thinking a single person or event is _the_
> cause of some singular effect ... the assumption that causality is a
> chain, rather than a mesh.
>
> Bruce Sherwood wrote at 07/11/2011 05:09 PM:
>> Without reading the paper, I can offer one way in which academic
>> physics is exactly like the description of academic philosophy offered
>> in earlier postings, namely that much research and scholarship are
>> tweaks on prior work.
>>
>> Some years ago at a workshop we gave for physics faculty about our
>> intro physics curriculum, we explained that we were trying to make our
>> course more authentic to the activities of actual living contemporary
>> physicists, namely that they take some fundamental principles as
>> given, model complex situations on the basis of these principles by
>> making approximations, simplifying assumptions, idealizations, etc.,
>> and compare behavior of the models with observations. Seldom does any
>> physicist discover a new fundamental principle; most physicists apply
>> those principles that have proven durable.
>>
>> A young physicist said, "Oh, thank you! I had been very confused about
>> the nature of the discipline! When I read my first physics journal
>> article, I was very puzzled to get to the end of the paper without
>> seeing any brand new physics. I thought that what physicists did was
>> discover new principles, not apply existing ones to new situations."
>
>
> --
> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

Richard Harris-3

Re: Philosophy vs. science

I haven't followed the previous discussions regarding "philosophy vs. science" but I think the "philosophy of science" is vitally important, especially as it pertains to "what is knowledge?" and "what is science?" and especially when things that are science are under attack.

I realised this last year when my alma mater, which had been a typical, somewhat competitive, liberal arts college before, was under attack by biblical inerrantists and young earth creationists who had taken over the denomination with which it had traditionally been associated.

I just wish my eyes didn't glaze over and my mind go numb whenever I'm confronted with anything that smacks of philosophy.

On 12 Jul 2011, at 18:57, Bruce Sherwood wrote:

> I agree totally. Everything is incremental, including biological
> evolution, invention, etc.
>
> You may be familiar with Rev. Paley's watchmaker argument in the early
> 1800s, that if you find a gold watch it is dishonest to pretend it
> didn't have a watchmaker, and belongs to no one. Paley argued that
> since biological organisms are even more complex than a watch, surely
> there must be a Designer. Richard Dawkins acknowledges that Paley's
> argument had much force before Darwin showed how evolution could
> produce complex organisms, and Dawkins' book "The Blind Watchmaker"
> discusses the issues in interesting detail.
>
> My wife Ruth Chabay recently made an intriguing observation: the watch
> does NOT have a Designer! The watch is the result of a very long
> evolution through a very large number of very small innovations,
> starting at least with mechanical clocks in the 1300s or earlier (see
> for example the Salisbury Cathedral clock in Wikipedia).
>
> Bruce
>
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 9:04 AM, glen e. p. ropella
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about this too! ;-) I tend to think
>> that all progress, everywhere, in all cases, consists of tiny
>> transitions from prior state. Even the seemingly important or
>> paradigmatic shifts like Newton's or the fall of the Berlin Wall are
>> really the accumulation of many tiny tweaks. It's our thin corpus
>> collosi that delude us into thinking a single person or event is _the_
>> cause of some singular effect ... the assumption that causality is a
>> chain, rather than a mesh.
>>
>> Bruce Sherwood wrote at 07/11/2011 05:09 PM:
>>> Without reading the paper, I can offer one way in which academic
>>> physics is exactly like the description of academic philosophy offered
>>> in earlier postings, namely that much research and scholarship are
>>> tweaks on prior work.
>>>
>>> Some years ago at a workshop we gave for physics faculty about our
>>> intro physics curriculum, we explained that we were trying to make our
>>> course more authentic to the activities of actual living contemporary
>>> physicists, namely that they take some fundamental principles as
>>> given, model complex situations on the basis of these principles by
>>> making approximations, simplifying assumptions, idealizations, etc.,
>>> and compare behavior of the models with observations. Seldom does any
>>> physicist discover a new fundamental principle; most physicists apply
>>> those principles that have proven durable.
>>>
>>> A young physicist said, "Oh, thank you! I had been very confused about
>>> the nature of the discipline! When I read my first physics journal
>>> article, I was very puzzled to get to the end of the paper without
>>> seeing any brand new physics. I thought that what physicists did was
>>> discover new principles, not apply existing ones to new situations."
>>
>>
>> --
>> glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Douglas Roberts-2

Re: Philosophy vs. science

Count yourself as blessed, it's a great defensive mechanism. It works pretty well against just about any flavor of religious proselytizing too.

--Doug

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 3:07 PM, Richard Harris <[hidden email]> wrote:

I just wish my eyes didn't glaze over and my mind go numb whenever I'm confronted with anything that smacks of philosophy.

glen ep ropella

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by Richard Harris-3

Richard Harris wrote at 07/12/2011 02:07 PM:
> I just wish my eyes didn't glaze over and my mind go numb whenever
> I'm confronted with anything that smacks of philosophy.

That phrase is interesting: "smacks of philosophy". My point with the
relativity principle and electrodynamics article was, in part, to
separate something so full of philosophy that it "smacks" ... like
molasses ... from something so philosophically impoverished that it
actually prevents reflection.

It seems like philosophy has a bit of a goldilocks problem ... to much
and it "smacks" ... too little and it may as well be assembly code ...
or something like legislative statutes. Too far in either direction
numbs my mind. But there's a reasonably thick band in the middle that's
interesting.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Nick Thompson

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Sorry, Owen.

I read too much between the lines.

I of all people should NOT assume that a questioner must accept premises inferred from questions he might ask.

Thanks for the correction.

Nick

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 12:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Philosophy vs. science

Nick sez:

Glen,
Sorry if I have been obtuse. It's partly because I can be obtuse and partly because my means of communication here at the farm are so primitive that errors are easy to make and easy to get out of control.
I had just about decided that I shouldn't participate much in FRIAM discussions over the summer, and then, suddenly, there was Owen, declaring that philosophy was dead because it was not empirical.

Nick, you REALLY should re-read my original post:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Date: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Subject: The Grand Design, Philosophy is Dead, and Hubris
To: Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I just looked at the book review for Hawking and Mlodinow's book The Grand Design:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/45515

Although the book might be interesting, I was caught up by the statement Philosophy is Dead!

Quote: The Grand Design
begins with a series of questions: "How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves?", "How does the universe behave?", "What is the nature of reality?", "Where did all this come from?" and "Did the universe need a creator?". As the book's authors, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, point out, "almost all of us worry about [these questions] some of the time", and over the millennia, philosophers have worried about them a great deal. Yet after opening their book with an entertaining history of philosophers' takes on these fundamental questions, Hawking and Mlodinow go on to state provocatively that philosophy is dead: since philosophers have not kept up with the advances of modern science, it is now scientists who must address these large questions.

Odd.

Note two things:

- The subject ends in what word?

- The last word in the post was what?

It seemed that what he meant by philosophy was lofty conversations by people who knew nothing about what they were talking about. Well, of course, THAT sort of activity always HAS been dead. But you don't get to be a philosopher by donning a tunic and sandals and talking vaguely concerning matters about which you are ignorant. Really you don’t! And I don’t care if you are on TED, when you are doing it.

I haven't read the paper starting this thread .. it would take 3 days. But I have finished my CS591 final project and, wandering around thinking What Next, I got engaged with the Philosophy of Justice vide series and started watching it .. I'm about 1/3 through and find it fascinating.

If you look at my prior questions, they were basic questions on consequentialism .. how to create the metric, and how to deal with aggregation. Michael cleverly deals with them via a sort of socratic method and I realized my questions were simply beyond the scope of the class thus asked my Learned Colleagues, none of whom answered the question.

We should use the phone when your are Gone from Here and at least we'll avoid my obvious blunders which have lead you Astray.

-- Owen

Nick Thompson

Re: Philosophy vs. science

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Hi, Owen,

I read between the lines because I have heard you say things like that before. Now perhaps only to jerk my chain. But you have on more than one occasion in my presence aired the view that philosophy is unlike math or science because it has no final resting place, people can just keep arguing forever. I thought that this was an occasion where I might explain how that could be true, and yet irrelevant to the value of philosophy, in the same way that lack of empirical content is irrelevant to the value of mathematics. I actually thought you might like that point, but nobody seems to have caught it. Blah.

But the truth is you did NOT say what I accused you of saying. Do I need to make a more through apology, or are we square.

Hot. Mosquitoes.

Best,

Nick

Nick sez:

Glen,
Sorry if I have been obtuse. It's partly because I can be obtuse and partly because my means of communication here at the farm are so primitive that errors are easy to make and easy to get out of control.
I had just about decided that I shouldn't participate much in FRIAM discussions over the summer, and then, suddenly, there was Owen, declaring that philosophy was dead because it was not empirical.

Nick, you REALLY should re-read my original post:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Owen Densmore <[hidden email]>
Date: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 11:02 AM
Subject: The Grand Design, Philosophy is Dead, and Hubris
To: Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>

I just looked at the book review for Hawking and Mlodinow's book The Grand Design:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/45515

Although the book might be interesting, I was caught up by the statement Philosophy is Dead!

Quote: The Grand Design
begins with a series of questions: "How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves?", "How does the universe behave?", "What is the nature of reality?", "Where did all this come from?" and "Did the universe need a creator?". As the book's authors, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, point out, "almost all of us worry about [these questions] some of the time", and over the millennia, philosophers have worried about them a great deal. Yet after opening their book with an entertaining history of philosophers' takes on these fundamental questions, Hawking and Mlodinow go on to state provocatively that philosophy is dead: since philosophers have not kept up with the advances of modern science, it is now scientists who must address these large questions.

Odd.

Note two things:

- The subject ends in what word?

- The last word in the post was what?

It seemed that what he meant by philosophy was lofty conversations by people who knew nothing about what they were talking about. Well, of course, THAT sort of activity always HAS been dead. But you don't get to be a philosopher by donning a tunic and sandals and talking vaguely concerning matters about which you are ignorant. Really you don’t! And I don’t care if you are on TED, when you are doing it.

We should use the phone when your are Gone from Here and at least we'll avoid my obvious blunders which have lead you Astray.

-- Owen