Where does philosophy meet science?

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EarthScienceguy
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Where does philosophy meet science?

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Post by EarthScienceguy »

1. What is the difference between science and philosophy?
2. At what point does science become philosophy?
3. Does this debate on Creation evolution cross into philosophy?
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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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EarthScienceguy wrote:1. What is the difference between science and philosophy?
Personally, I see philosophy as a person's chosen way of life or perhaps the analysis of how life operates from theoretical and analytical ideas (deriving wisdom). I see science as more a process by which to know and understand things with repeatability or expectation. So philosophy is a subject and science is a method.
EarthScienceguy wrote:2. At what point does science become philosophy?
With those definitions, we can utilize science to better derive philosophy, but philosophy doesn't thus become science any more than a test tube becomes a solution or math becomes space exploration.
EarthScienceguy wrote:3. Does this debate on Creation evolution cross into philosophy?
Philosophy as a way of life, sure. Philosophy as understanding life only insomuch as we understand that some people believe different things. The science leads to better answers and can perhaps give us insights into the human condition based upon our responses to those answers.

Not sure if any of that was really what you were looking for though :-).
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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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Post by 2ndRateMind »

EarthScienceguy wrote: 1. What is the difference between science and philosophy?


Philosophy is questions we not only do know the answers to, but do not even know how to go about obtaining those answers. (eg., What is the meaning of life?). Science is questions we do not know the answers to, but do know in principle how to obtain them. (eg., How much of the universe is dark matter? And by scientific method).
EarthScienceguy wrote:2. At what point does science become philosophy?
I think it's the other way around, or has been through history up to now. Philosophy becomes science once we have figured out the way to get to the answers we need to know. What was once 'natural philosophy' is now botany, chemistry, biology, bio-chemistry, evolutionary psychology, etc.
EarthScienceguy wrote:3. Does this debate on Creation evolution cross into philosophy?
Yes. Essentially, the creationists have one piece of evidence: the Book of Genesis. The scientists have a plethora of contradictory evidence, including but not limited to that derived from astronomy, geology, paleontology, and biology. However, deciding which of these two factions to lend most credence to is not fundamentally a scientific issue, or even a religious or theological one, but a philosophical problem.

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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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EarthScienceguy wrote: 1. What is the difference between science and philosophy?
I suggest that this question is misguided and should be stated as follows:

What is the difference between science and pure philosophy?

Pure philosophy was an attempt to try to figure out answers to questions using pure thought, and pure logic. The problem with this is that it allows the introduction of false premises. And once false premises are introduced, then conclusions based on those false premises are not valid, even though impeccable logic may have been used to arrive at those conclusions.

"Pure Philosophy" is dead, at least in terms of being a dependable method of arriving at truth. There are many examples of this which I won't bother going into in this post.
EarthScienceguy wrote: 2. At what point does science become philosophy?
As 2ndRateMind has already pointed out, science began as "Natural Philosophy". This was simply asking questions about nature and then proposing logical answers based on various premises. So in the very early going it wasn't really science at all, but instead it was just "Natural Philosophy", and during that time many false conclusions were obtained.

Science departed from "Pure Philosophy", when the earliest scientists began to demand that all premises logical reasoning must be backed up by observable evidence. This was the birth of "Science". You might call Science "Applied Philosophy" where premises and propositions need to be backed up by observable evidence.

So in this sense, we could say that Science is still a "Philosophy", but it now requires observational evidence which "Pure Philosophy" does not require. And so this is now the distinction between Science and Pure Philosophy.
EarthScienceguy wrote: 3. Does this debate on Creation evolution cross into philosophy?
Any speculation that a Creator had anything to do with evolution is indeed Pure Philosophy. In other words, it's not based on any observable evidence at all. It's purely a guess. This is why Pure Philosophy is dead. Guessing isn't likely to lead us to truth unless it just happens to be a very luck guess indeed.

Disclaimer: I will be the first to acknowledge (and even complain) that our scientific community does not do the best job at making crystal clear distinctions between Science and Pure Philosophy. Many of the current "theories" that scientists are currently studying, have not been confirmed by observational evidence.

I agree that it's ok for them to study these possibilities. But where they seem to be failing is in making it crystal clear what is "Known Science" (i.e. things that have been confirmed by observational evidence to be true), versus ideas that scientists are merely exploring but haven't yet verified to be true.

For example, even "String Theory" is really just a guess at this stage. In fact, I hold that they should be calling it "String Hypothesis". Scientists are, unfortunately, often giving speculative lectures on scientific "ideas" that haven't yet been shown to be true. And because of this they are actually loosing credibility for science overall.

Of course evolution is NOT among the areas where science is speculating. Evolution has been as well-confirmed via observational evidence as anything should ever be expected to be confirmed.

As has been suggested, Creationists must at least speak of "Creation Evolution" at this point. They can no longer deny evolution. All they can do at this point is try to argue that some imaginary "Creator" is somehow guiding it along.

The problem with this is that there simply is no need for any mysterious intelligent entity to be guiding evolution along. It's simply not required. The current Theory of Evolution (i.e. the explanation for how evolution works) already explains how evolution works via just the normal laws of physics. There is simply no need to postulate a "Creator" that guides it along.

And of course, the second problem is that there is absolutely no observational evidence for an intervening Creator/Guide.

So there isn't even any scientific reason to propose such an unnecessary premise.
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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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Post by mgb »

[Replying to post 1 by EarthScienceguy]
Philo-sophy means 'the love of truth'. Philo = love. Sophy = wisdom. In the time of Socrates, Plato etc philosophy was more aligned with wisdom, mysticism and religious matters. Since Descartes philosophy has become more and more centered on the intellect and on abstraction. In this respect it is tending towards the scientific method, which is not necessarily a good thing since philosophy aspires towards methphysics which is, by definition, beyond science.

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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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Post by Divine Insight »

mgb wrote: [Replying to post 1 by EarthScienceguy]
Philo-sophy means 'the love of truth'. Philo = love. Sophy = wisdom. In the time of Socrates, Plato etc philosophy was more aligned with wisdom, mysticism and religious matters. Since Descartes philosophy has become more and more centered on the intellect and on abstraction. In this respect it is tending towards the scientific method, which is not necessarily a good thing since philosophy aspires towards methphysics which is, by definition, beyond science.
The problem is that to say that anything is "beyond science" is to simply say that it is also beyond verification.

Any philosopher who is indeed a "lover of truth" should drop "pure philosophy" entirely and turn their full attention to science. Because science is the only method of inquiry we currently have that can guarantee the discovery of truth.

Speculations about imaginary realities that might have been created by magical Gods or aliens, or whatever, are precisely that. Pure speculation without any evidence to support them. Why would a lover of truth bother themselves with speculations that cannot be shown to be true?
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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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Divine Insight wrote:
Any philosopher who is indeed a "lover of truth" should drop "pure philosophy" entirely and turn their full attention to science. Because science is the only method of inquiry we currently have that can guarantee the discovery of truth.
Presuming that the scientific method can provide such a guarantee, which I doubt, there are many things that the scientific method can not address, i.e. value, morality and consciousness. In fact, more than one police officer has pointed out to me that science has limit value is establishing truth. In spite of what one sees on CSI, physical evidence is sparse and deteriorates rapidly. Most cases are solved based on the strength of an argument and circumstantial evidence, with any physical evidence used as partial support of that argument.

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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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Post by Divine Insight »

bluethread wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:
Any philosopher who is indeed a "lover of truth" should drop "pure philosophy" entirely and turn their full attention to science. Because science is the only method of inquiry we currently have that can guarantee the discovery of truth.
Presuming that the scientific method can provide such a guarantee, which I doubt, there are many things that the scientific method can not address, i.e. value, morality and consciousness. In fact, more than one police officer has pointed out to me that science has limit value is establishing truth. In spite of what one sees on CSI, physical evidence is sparse and deteriorates rapidly. Most cases are solved based on the strength of an argument and circumstantial evidence, with any physical evidence used as partial support of that argument.
The fallacy of your objection to science lies in your blind acceptance of the premise that things like value and morality are not subjective opinions but rather must be some sort of hardcore objective truths.

Moreover, how do you propose to obtain a final truth judgement on something like value and morality using pure philosophy alone?

There's a very good chance that I will value different things than you will value. That right there already makes value subjective. It's a matter of personal subjective opinion. Period.

Therefore turning to science or philosophy in search of the "absolute truth" of value is a misguided notion. The absolute truth of value is that value is a subjective opinion. Period. Different people will value different things.

Same goes for a concept like "morality". Take gender and sexual preference for example. Who are we to say that biological organs should rule morality? Moreover, if we made this the criteria, then science most certainly would provide the answer. Although, the choice to use physical biology to determine morality would have already been our arbitrary subjective choice.

Whether a human thinks that gender and sexual preferences are moral or amoral is clearly a huge debate that is currently ongoing. There doesn't appear to be any way via pure philosophy to resolve the debate. So why claim that philosophy can deal with these kinds of questions when it clearly cannot?

If I hold that sexual and gender preference is "amoral" (i.e. beyond the scope of any concept of right or wrong), how could you possibly use philosophy to rebuke my opinion?

Finally, when it comes to consciousness, why say that this is beyond the reach of science? We don't yet know the answer to this question. It may very well be within the scope of the physical sciences to eventually explain how this can occur. In fact, I personally believe that this will indeed be the case. It's simply far too early to say whether science will be able to explain consciousness.

Moreover, how has pure philosophy panned out in terms of explaining consciousness? It hasn't. In fact, most "philosophical" views of consciousness propose the existence of an invisible imaginary being that is already conscious, that has either given us consciousness, or has somehow magically created us to be conscious.

But this doesn't explain consciousness at all. To the contrary all it does is pass the buck for the explanation to an unproven invisible imaginary being for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

In other words, it's nothing more than a stab-in-the-dark-guess that has absolutely no evidence to back it up.
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Re: Where does philosophy meet science?

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EarthScienceguy wrote: 1. What is the difference between science and philosophy?
2. At what point does science become philosophy?
3. Does this debate on Creation evolution cross into philosophy?
Science is natural philosophy. Long before there were "scientists", there were natural philosophers.
Philosophy begat Science.
Science does not become philosophy, unless it returns to its roots.

Philosophy speculates. It may go further, but that is not required.
Science that speculates, and goes no further, has failed to perform as Science. It has stayed at its roots. It is philosophy.

By the Scientific Method of earlier years, ToE can not be tested, scientifically. It is speculation, with observation. Philosophy.
Changes to the SM, about 1970, allowed for sophisticated thought experiments. These thought experiments have validated ToE, and raised it to the level of Science.

Science says the probability of any event is some number greater than zero. The probability of "creationism" is some number greater than zero. That number is smaller than the probability of ToE, by scientific standards.

We can apply Science to creationism, but that is not in its nature, to be tested by Science.
ToE is similar, except it 'wants' to be tested. That is, supporters want it to be tested, and SM approved. And so, the rules of Science were changed. By 1960 standards, ToE is philosophy. By 2018 standards, it is Science.
All that was required to take ToE from Philosophy to Science, was to change the rules.

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Post #10

Post by mgb »

DivineInsight wrote:The problem is that to say that anything is "beyond science" is to simply say that it is also beyond verification.
The very best science and mathematics often comes via intuition. It is well known that beauty is a reliable guide for mathematical work.
Any philosopher who is indeed a "lover of truth" should drop "pure philosophy" entirely and turn their full attention to science. Because science is the only method of inquiry we currently have that can guarantee the discovery of truth.
The truths it discovers are material and primitive. Art, literature, music and religion are different ways to beauty and truth. We need them because science cannot go there.
Speculations about imaginary realities that might have been created by magical Gods or aliens, or whatever, are precisely that.
If you read the mystics you will see it is far from speculation. Knowledge of spiritual reality comes from consciousness and from God.

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