OT: just saw Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Detroit Opera House

[jonheal]

In my opinion, physicists and in particular, astrophysicists, blow a certain amount of smoke out of their bungholes. Especially the ones on TV. Always making grand statements about the origin and eventuality of the Universe, but presenting them as if they are simple, obvious facts that any fool could see.
 
There is a very interesting documentary called "Particle Fever." It's about the construction of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and one of its primary initial purposes, which was to find the Higgs Boson. So there were basically two camps of physicists working on the Higgs detection experiments. One group had math which predicted numerous undiscovered exotic particles. Also this group's math did not predict a multiverse, and it predicted the Higgs Boson would have a particular low mass measurement. The other group was in the multiverse camp, and their math predicted a much higher Higgs mass. As an aside, one of the multiverse physicists practically admitted that the imputus for the multiverse in the first place was acute discomfort on the part of physicists with finding so many constants in the Universe that were too "coincidentally" at values that allowed mass and gravity — and life to develop. They looked "tuned," like you know ... maybe a ... God was there somewhere turning knobs. Eek! But the multiverse solves that problem by making our particular Universe just a lucky one out of an infinite number of other less hospitable universes.

But I digress.

So anyway, the experiments were run. The first set of experiments had so much energy, they blew a hole through the Collider. That took months to fix. Finally, they managed to run lower energy experiments, and to everyone's statistical satisfaction, the Higgs Boson was detected and its mass measured. And its mass was ... right in between the two predictions! Everyone's math was wrong!

[JNeffLind]

First it was BS and now it's Butthurt, you seem really emotionally attached to Dr. Tyson.
I'm sorry I offended you, but that's my opinion.  There are plenty more examples of the good Dr. talking down to other academics, and no I'm not going to hunt down links for you.

I was going to respond the first time by telling you to use google, but I thought I should be more polite so I provided you with a link.

At any rate I've said my bit.

Not really offended or emotionally attached. I just think he's a smart guy and was curious about your statement that he's a pompous ass. I just don't think he qualifies as a pompous ass for pointing out how meaningless (outside of their academically constructed hypotheticals) some philosophical discussions are. I liken this to someone getting offended when someone else says that R8 browser wedded to the sequencer is a problem and suddenly that person is painted as a hater who should leave Reason if they don't like it. There's a difference between pointing to flaws in something and completely discrediting it. Hardliners take any dissent and see it as a personal attack though, which is how I read that blog post. 

I'm just going to assume that if that blog post was the one example you came up with that there wasn't much more to it and personally I didn't take any issues with what he said. Happy music making. 

[JNeffLind]

 I DO have to take exception to this. My husband not only teaches logic and ethics, but BIO MEDICAL ethics, to real world people-- Nurses, specifically. He sits on Medical Ethics boards at several local hospitals and (utilizing his Philosophical training), helps them make decisions for un/under-represented patients in life and death and quality of life situations. Word. He can also make your head spin through a Phenomenonological exercise in the life world and how we experience the "real". Better than illegal substances. Not even kidding. I think you were in the wrong class. Maybe the wrong school. Also, the foundation of "meaning as meaning" and classical Philosophy pre-requisites are pretty imperative to the whole. "You can't get there from here" sort of thing. Well, that, and there are a hundred thousand factions of Philosophical disciplines, and most schools seem to be composed of Profs who lean one way or the other.

I'm personally fascinated by philosophy that is applicable to the real world. But when someone starts arguing that I don't know if there's a cat in a box because I can't see inside the box, I just get bored. Or that I don't know whether or not a table is really there or if I'm in the matrix and being fed the idea of a table through hijacked synapses, sigh...

Maybe the issue was that it seemed like most of the "big" questions had been explored already by past philosophers, leaving modern philosophers dissecting minutiae of perception. I suppose a new can of worms has been opened with current medical breakthroughs regarding cloning and certain moral issues regarding ecology of nuclear devices, but when I read the current papers being published, my resounding response was "Who cares? (besides philosophy students)" That was fifteen years ago, and the world has changed a lot in that time.

[Tre Trelos]

First it was BS and now it's Butthurt, you seem really emotionally attached to Dr. Tyson.
I'm sorry I offended you, but that's my opinion.  There are plenty more examples of the good Dr. talking down to other academics, and no I'm not going to hunt down links for you.

I was going to respond the first time by telling you to use google, but I thought I should be more polite so I provided you with a link.

At any rate I've said my bit.

Not really offended or emotionally attached. I just think he's a smart guy and was curious about your statement that he's a pompous ass. I just don't think he qualifies as a pompous ass for pointing out how meaningless (outside of their academically constructed hypotheticals) some philosophical discussions are. I liken this to someone getting offended when someone else says that R8 browser wedded to the sequencer is a problem and suddenly that person is painted as a hater who should leave Reason if they don't like it. There's a difference between pointing to flaws in something and completely discrediting it. Hardliners take any dissent and see it as a personal attack though, which is how I read that blog post. 

I'm just going to assume that if that blog post was the one example you came up with that there wasn't much more to it and personally I didn't take any issues with what he said. Happy music making. 

Cool story bro.

[JNeffLind]

Cool story bro.

Zoolander voice: "I'm not your bro."

Seriously though, it seems like you're kind of annoyed. Wasn't my intention. I'm here to learn and when I can, maybe teach. There aren't many high profile black intellectuals in America, especially in science. I was curious about what you had to say because it didn't jive with what I saw from him. That's where this ends for me. If I'm missing something, I read without prejudice and I'm always happy to be wrong. But I'm not going to pretend to be wrong when I don't think I am. The blog you posted to was a guy being butthurt because Tyson pointed to some flaws in what is called the study of "philosophy." It's not like threw out any callouts or petitioned for philosophy programs to be shut down. The horrible thing he said was:

 Yeah, if you are distracted by your questions so that you can’t move forward, you are not being a productive contributor to our understanding of the natural world. And so the scientist knows when the question “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a pointless delay in our progress.
[insert predictable joke by one interviewer, imitating the clapping of one hand]
dGT: How do you define clapping? All of a sudden it devolves into a discussion of the definition of words. And I’d rather keep the conversation about ideas. And when you do that don’t derail yourself on questions that you think are important because philosophy class tells you this. The scientist says look, I got all this world of unknown out there, I’m moving on, I’m leaving you behind. You can’t even cross the street because you are distracted by what you are sure are deep questions you’ve asked yourself. I don’t have the time for that. 

I don't see what is so objectionable about that, unless you want to argue that semantic discussions about how we describe existence are as import as actual practical matters of existence. I think Tyson is pointing to the same issue I have with lots of philosophy. It's mental masturbation. As I said before, it's fine if it's what you're into, but that doesn't mean it's doing anyone else any good or is applicable in any way to the guy driving a bus or mowing lawns or teaching kids or fighting wars. And clearly, he says "if you are distracted" not "all philosophers are distracted." He's criticizing a branch of philosophers for their overly specialized field of study that applies to nothing but their own intellectual games. I just don't see what the issue is. 

Also, I'm glad you liked my story. I'll be here all night.

[EnochLight]

I'm personally fascinated by philosophy that is applicable to the real world. But when someone starts arguing that I don't know if there's a cat in a box because I can't see inside the box, I just get bored.

That's not philosophy, though; Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment in quantum physics that asks "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?"

Sorry - just had to chime in on that one. I find quantum physics fascinating.

He's criticizing a branch of philosophers for their overly specialized field of study that applies to nothing but their own intellectual games. I just don't see what the issue is.

I agree with this

[JNeffLind]

That's not philosophy, though; Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment in quantum physics that asks "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?" Sorry - just had to chime in on that one. I find quantum physics fascinating.

Quantum Physics, good to know. You see, I just learned something. What a wonderful world. I also respect your right to enjoy such questions while maintaining my position of indifference to them and I trust you won't be offended by that position. Again, what a wonderful world!

[Tre Trelos]

Cool story bro.

Zoolander voice: "I'm not your bro."


Also, I'm glad you liked my story. I'll be here all night.

First thing you got right all night.

[avasopht]

A philosophy professor told me philosophy is useless and that although I have a good mind for it would be better served by studying psychology, which she also lectured in.

But it's interesting how people like and dislike people so intensely that they know so little about

[Gaja]

I find it fascinating...
I mean semantic games can be really fun and entertaining. They may not be a productive contributer to the understanding of the world as a whole, but it still might help you personally to evolve, gain new perspectives on things and help contribute -not to the understanding of nature as a whole (where he seems to imply that the only way to do so is by applying scientific methods)- but to the improvement of human interaction, which is sadly something not all branches of science are able to actively promote...
But it doesn't matter. Different perspectives have always existed and also amongst scientists, which is particularly exciting in quantum physics, where a four fold logic can be applied: something is always true, untrue, true and untrue, and neither true nor untrue.

[avasopht]

Philosophy can help you develop your critical thinking skills and many fields are in a way, productive and useful subsets of philosophy, hence the Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD).

[EnochLight]

Serious question: are there fields of employment for philosophy majors outside of teaching in an academic institution? I ask because for various fields of science, there appears to be real-world applications that offer many options for gainful employment and contributions to society.

I had a friend once who got his PhD in philosophy.... and he remained unemployed for several years until the university he got his degree at hired him to teach.

[EnochLight]

What a wonderful world. I also respect your right to enjoy such questions while maintaining my position of indifference to them and I trust you won't be offended by that position. Again, what a wonderful world!

I appreciate your perspective in this thread. I think indifference would be the best word to describe my position on Discover, but I digress.  :t2018:

[Gaja]

Serious question: are there fields of employment for philosophy majors outside of teaching in an academic institution? I ask because for various fields of science, there appears to be real-world applications that offer many options for gainful employment and contributions to society.

I had a friend once who got his PhD in philosophy.... and he remained unemployed for several years until the university he got his degree at hired him to teach.

That is mostly true I guess.
Teaching, writing books, mostly I guess. But also consulting would be possible.
Philosophy imo is more useful for explaining the inner world (meaning personal experiences etc. stuff that is difficult or impossible to scientifically study in all aspects), while natural sciences deal more with the outer world.
A well presented and timed philosophical perspective can change people and entire societies (of course many disciplines probably won't), which might be a step in the right direction.

[avasopht]

Serious question: are there fields of employment for philosophy majors outside of teaching in an academic institution? I ask because for various fields of science, there appears to be real-world applications that offer many options for gainful employment and contributions to society. I had a friend once who got his PhD in philosophy.... and he remained unemployed for several years until the university he got his degree at hired him to teach.

It's just about your ability to think critically.

The average wage for philosophy graduates is one of the highest, higher than Computer Science graduates in fact. That being said, it might be in academia, I never checked

[JNeffLind]

First thing you got right all night.

But you said you liked my story? Was that some sort of semantic trickery? You wouldn't be party to that would you? You're kind of hurting my feelings here buddy. Also... what exactly is a thing? How do we define it? Is it's thingness absolute or fleeting? And what is right? Is it ethical? Factual? Scientific? Theoretical? And night? Are you a prescriptivist or a descriptivist? Do you speak in a metaphoric or figurative sense? I have so many important questions. Please expand, and stop hurting my feelings. I don't want to cry any more. 

[JNeffLind]

Serious question: are there fields of employment for philosophy majors outside of teaching in an academic institution? I ask because for various fields of science, there appears to be real-world applications that offer many options for gainful employment and contributions to society. I had a friend once who got his PhD in philosophy.... and he remained unemployed for several years until the university he got his degree at hired him to teach.

I got my degree in English and while it's more directly applicable than Philosophy, it's no Engineering or Computer Science. I think many degrees are just an official document saying that you managed to spend four years not getting arrested and not being drunk/high so often that you couldn't get your work done. Kind of a certificate of reliability, however limited. I'm pretty cynical about the education system though. I know lots of idiots with degrees and plenty of smart people who never went to school.

[JNeffLind]

I appreciate your perspective in this thread. I think indifference would be the best word to describe my position on Discover, but I digress.  :t2018:

I suppose I should shift towards indifference when it comes to Discover. I just take issue with the way the T&C were put forward. Seems like props weren't being intellectually honest with their wording (oh my god, I'm straying into philosophical territory, save me!!!) I guess I'm a bit of a fanboy when it comes to Reason and don't like seeing "my company" do things I wouldn't do. Irrational, I know, but man is not a rational being. (Psychology anyone?)

[JNeffLind]

Philosophy imo is more useful for explaining the inner world (meaning personal experiences etc. stuff that is difficult or impossible to scientifically study in all aspects), while natural sciences deal more with the outer world. A well presented and timed philosophical perspective can change people and entire societies (of course many disciplines probably won't), which might be a step in the right direction.

I wonder, is there a field of "hard" philosophy, studying the way psychology, abnormal or otherwise, affects worldview, morality, etc. and tying that in to some of the more esoteric philosophical questions? I would imagine so. Seems like an interesting and fertile subject for research.

As Balzac said, I may not be deep, but I am wide.

[JNeffLind]

The average wage for philosophy graduates is one of the highest, higher than Computer Science graduates in fact. That being said, it might be in academia, I never checked

That's super surprising for me. Curious where you got that info. Please don't interpret this as a personal attack, but I wonder if this might be a matter of overly manipulated statistics. As they say, there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. 

I just ask because in my experience, all the philosophy students I know ended up as baristas. Even the rare student who got an academic job wasn't making much. 

Of course, anecdotal evidence can be misleading without sample size expanded past personal experience. (Psychology!!! [and statistics!!!])

[Gaja]

Philosophy imo is more useful for explaining the inner world (meaning personal experiences etc. stuff that is difficult or impossible to scientifically study in all aspects), while natural sciences deal more with the outer world. A well presented and timed philosophical perspective can change people and entire societies (of course many disciplines probably won't), which might be a step in the right direction.

I wonder, is there a field of "hard" philosophy, studying the way psychology, abnormal or otherwise, affects worldview, morality, etc. and tying that in to some of the more esoteric philosophical questions? I would imagine so. Seems like an interesting and fertile subject for research.

As Balzac said, I may not be deep, but I am wide.

Well kind of...
I have attended university, studying comparative science of culture and religion, which utilizes empirical methods to draw conclusions about reciproke influences between development in "religion" (the scientific definition we used is actually a bit different to the common interpretation of the term, in that in includes many cultural rituals and worldviews and philosophical approaches to all kinds of things - for example a Justin Bieber or Bayern München fanclub would be considered a religion as wel -l and in that it discriminates mysticism from religion) and culture (which I cannot properly explain, so I won't try to).
So there are people anthroplogists, ethnologists and whatever they're called, who actually go to different cultural settings and study behaviour, rituals, belief systems, beliefs, worldviews and philosophies. But it's not really philosophy, because you work with lots and lots of data, and not too much thougt play.

[JNeffLind]

 Well kind of... I have attended university, studying comparative science of culture and religion, which utilizes empirical methods to draw conclusions about reciproke influences between development in "religion" (the scientific definition we used is actually a bit different to the common interpretation of the term, in that in includes many cultural rituals and worldviews and philosophical approaches to all kinds of things - for example a Justin Bieber or Bayern München fanclub would be considered a religion as wel -l and in that it discriminates mysticism from religion) and culture (which I cannot properly explain, so I won't try to). So there are people anthroplogists, ethnologists and whatever they're called, who actually go to different cultural settings and study behaviour, rituals, belief systems, beliefs, worldviews and philosophies. But it's not really philosophy, because you work with lots and lots of data, and not too much thougt play.

Cool. Sounds kind of like "comparative sociology" if that is such a thing.

[Gaja]

 Well kind of... I have attended university, studying comparative science of culture and religion, which utilizes empirical methods to draw conclusions about reciproke influences between development in "religion" (the scientific definition we used is actually a bit different to the common interpretation of the term, in that in includes many cultural rituals and worldviews and philosophical approaches to all kinds of things - for example a Justin Bieber or Bayern München fanclub would be considered a religion as wel -l and in that it discriminates mysticism from religion) and culture (which I cannot properly explain, so I won't try to). So there are people anthroplogists, ethnologists and whatever they're called, who actually go to different cultural settings and study behaviour, rituals, belief systems, beliefs, worldviews and philosophies. But it's not really philosophy, because you work with lots and lots of data, and not too much thougt play.

Cool. Sounds kind of like "comparative sociology" if that is such a thing.

yeah maybe... But it's specifically targeting religions and culture.

[normen]

In my opinion, physicists and in particular, astrophysicists, blow a certain amount of smoke out of their bungholes. Especially the ones on TV. Always making grand statements about the origin and eventuality of the Universe, but presenting them as if they are simple, obvious facts that any fool could see.
 
There is a very interesting documentary called "Particle Fever." It's about the construction of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and one of its primary initial purposes, which was to find the Higgs Boson. So there were basically two camps of physicists working on the Higgs detection experiments. One group had math which predicted numerous undiscovered exotic particles. Also this group's math did not predict a multiverse, and it predicted the Higgs Boson would have a particular low mass measurement. The other group was in the multiverse camp, and their math predicted a much higher Higgs mass. As an aside, one of the multiverse physicists practically admitted that the imputus for the multiverse in the first place was acute discomfort on the part of physicists with finding so many constants in the Universe that were too "coincidentally" at values that allowed mass and gravity — and life to develop. They looked "tuned," like you know ... maybe a ... God was there somewhere turning knobs. Eek! But the multiverse solves that problem by making our particular Universe just a lucky one out of an infinite number of other less hospitable universes.

But I digress.

So anyway, the experiments were run. The first set of experiments had so much energy, they blew a hole through the Collider. That took months to fix. Finally, they managed to run lower energy experiments, and to everyone's statistical satisfaction, the Higgs Boson was detected and its mass measured. And its mass was ... right in between the two predictions! Everyone's math was wrong!

Though I am a strong proponent of science I have to agree somewhat, they should stick to what they can predict and the realm of what they're actually doing. Not that "evolution is a THEORY" is a particularly intelligent notion imo though, don't get me wrong

For example people like Lawrence Krauss try to use their science background to further their Atheist agenda.. Which in itself is a contradiction, science can not make statements about the realm of thought and religion or give anything meaning for that matter.

It seems to be a recurring theme that science (or rather scientists) keep trying to exercise the "ghost from the machine" and be able to explain it all away through materialistic explanations. The funny thing is that all they ever managed was to exercise the machine and leave the ghost intact

So yes, some scientists make these mistakes but the concept of science is untouchable if its understood and communicated properly. Its basically the only proper way we have to get a view of the actual universe around us without being confused and misled by our tiny brains.

Edit: And don't get me started on the "sciences" that are not science at all like anthropology, cultural sciences and all that crap. If you can't make predictions that you can test and falsify then its not science, period

[JNeffLind]

 Well kind of... I have attended university, studying comparative science of culture and religion, which utilizes empirical methods to draw conclusions about reciproke influences between development in "religion" (the scientific definition we used is actually a bit different to the common interpretation of the term, in that in includes many cultural rituals and worldviews and philosophical approaches to all kinds of things - for example a Justin Bieber or Bayern München fanclub would be considered a religion as wel -l and in that it discriminates mysticism from religion) and culture (which I cannot properly explain, so I won't try to). So there are people anthroplogists, ethnologists and whatever they're called, who actually go to different cultural settings and study behaviour, rituals, belief systems, beliefs, worldviews and philosophies. But it's not really philosophy, because you work with lots and lots of data, and not too much thougt play.

Cool. Sounds kind of like "comparative sociology" if that is such a thing.

yeah maybe... But it's specifically targeting religions and culture.

I thought religions and cultures were the purview of Sociology. Only ever took intro to sociology though and that was many years ago.