Why I hate philosophy

As always, a lucid explanation Pandaemoni. Thank you.

Quite frankly, I couldn't have been bothered to give this explanation given that, as far as I'm concerned, all of this should be understood.
More evidence to support the notion that our Western education systems are failing us....

 

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That makes sense according to what I said, senses came first, they built your conciousness. It's like saying you can imagin construction workers without a house.

That's a good comparison, I guess my strongest comment here is the fact that no technology has achieved the level of plasticity the human brain has. The day you can shoot a bullet through one of these machines you mentioned, and it redesigns itself to replace the broken pieces..that will be the day machines have a chance at creating a conciousness. I think the issue here might be with the vast superiority of the human brain against modern technology.

I don't think a baby would feed if its lips were numb since birth. What I mean is, it was the sense of touch that allowed this, which goes back to my original idea that senses are the heart of all thoughts and knowledge.

Maybe I'm missunderstanding you here, but what causal chains would run without experience and perspective? I mean, what would they run about or for..without previous experience.

edit: I'd like to delete the above sentence but instead I'll just admit it didn't make much sense and say this...

Senses can be imitated, but the potential to create conciousness and senses are two seperate functions of the brain, a function that modern technology is nowhere near imitating(in my opinion). Our senses are extensions to the organ that uses the information they provide to build a conciousness.

 

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Thanks for the response, I've come to realize that my most memorable experiences with philosophy have been with people that use the "how to win any argument 101"-style of philosophy that you would see in a bad debate. I think I've just been given a bad first impression.

 

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I feel your pain Innominate. Here's what I would argue: It's not philosophy's fault, it's only individual philosophers (and of course, even worse, non-philosophers who attempt it).

Let's compare philosophy (whatever that is!) to physics, as that is often held up as the paradigm case of the employment of scientific values. Here are two differences that are, I think, relevant to influencing your feelings on the subjects.

Physics, very generally, appeals to experiment and values replication. Seeing as how (supposedly) there are universal physical "laws" of some sort, one should be able to test something, measure it, and write down the results. Another physicist with access to similar equipment ought to be able to run an analogous test and verify the results. If this happens often enough (and we have a suitable interpretation [which I would argue is a philosophical entity within the process of physics]) we might end up calling it a "fact", and arguments against it may be hard to come by.

To make the analogy to philosophy is harder than many realize, though easier than they think. A philosophical "result" would be the conclusion of a sound argument. Though this is not often how philosophical discussion goes in practice, on a theoretical level we should be able to achieve a sort of "conditional agreement" of a similar universality to a physical "fact". To finish fleshing out the analogy to physics:

Physics: Lab. Philosophy: Head. Physics: Experiment. Philosophy: Argument. Physics: Result. Philosophy: Conclusion.

The conditional part? In physics, if you run "the same" experiment, you should get the same result. In philosophy, if you run "the same" argument, you should agree to the conclusion. Both of these should be cases of intersubjective agreement.

How a philosophical discussion could go in a manner that you might find less objectionable is that one party makes an argument, in the sense of spelling out premises (with clearly defined terms) a conclusion, and the inference rules by which they reach that conclusion; the other party should be able to say "Ah, I see what you mean, and IF I granted your premises and used your definitions and used the same rules of logic THEN I would agree, HOWEVER, I disagree with...blah blah blah."

This is one way philosophy could be practiced in a more "scientific" manner and actually make some progress.

Why does this not happen? Physics labs have alot of expensive equipment to which most people do not have access. However, it appears that someone found it a good idea to give almost everyone the basic tools to claim to be doing philosophy: language.

 

I think it has to do with logic and common sense, you need both to have a good philosophy about something, this person obviously has neither therefore their argument is invalid.
Its like saying ur mom telling you to get at job an you say "why?" Deep down you know the reason

 

Aren't they really intertwined? Creative mind and analytical mind?

 

Today? Yes, for sure.
I was referring specifically to a historical analysis. Of course, things do get muddled when we take into consideration definitions of the two relevant terms, but there's no doubt that philosophy (in its more analytic, therefore 'scientific' respects) predates science as a methodology. Indicative of this is the fact that, before it was taken as a discipline unto itself, what we now call 'Science' was known as 'Natural Philosophy'.

 

"Why I hate philosophy" - "You don't you just think you do, that's why its called phil."

 

If you hate philosophy then WHY are you posting in the philosophy section? If you don't like common sense go and play computer games, or something else less useful. In answer to your avatar (why?), well lets take a walk through life. Where will you be in one year, two years, four years, eight years, sixteen years, thirty-two years, sixty-four years, one-hundred and twenty-eight years, two-hundred and fifty-six years?

 

Did you read anything past the title?

 

I did not.

 

You would be a minimalist, then?

 

I suppose so.

 

glaucon! you are a dick! There's my philosophy. I surf the net looking for some interesting articles on philosophy and science, because being honest, I'm a little skeptic about philosophy as well. This dude Innominate post something that flags in google and the first post I see is yours!

You don't answer this dudes question nor attempt to offer any intelligent post, you actually bitch about his post but in turn yours is jst simply ranting bk. Regardless of web forum sort out your attitude, a lot of this thread seems to be users trying to get one up on each other, thankfully the end of this thread offers some insight.

 

The OP suggests that philosophy must have a spiritual basis. This is not an uncommon error.
Philosophy is little more than positing a position from which further thinking originates. Philosophy is the catalyst for thought; not truth.

Philosophy is a colander.

 

What can you tell to someone who says he hates wisdom or logic (logical reasoning, logical fallacy) ? :shrug: