Is physics philosophical? examining matter and proclaiming it to be the truth for all lives is absurd.. It says that physicality is all there is to life. It is part of investigating the world and life in general but not the whole story. It is like listing the senses that we have and denying the existence of telepathy. A skill which many have developed.. It's not rare, and is eminently possible.. Well how does science account for long range communication between sentient beings? It does not have the tools to measure it.. So does telepathy belong in the dustbin because science says that is so? Is physics to be the arbiter of human consciousness? People should stick to what they have studied and know about for certain before making proclamations or dismissing something as irrelevant something that they know very little or absolutely nothing about.. You cannot debate the existence of a neutrino, it is measurable, forecastable, and science has ways to detect them. Machines exist for that purpose. The human complex is a machine that was designed to detect other matters and when trained can do so.. And those matters when detected and experienced can profoundly affect a persons philosophical views and outlook upon life.. if...
Here is how I understood this essay: that to live a good (moral) life we need to know what's going on around us, we need to understand what is real and what is not real. And science is the best way to gather that understanding of what is going on. I agree with this. But I am left wondering about the contributions non-scientists make –– specifically, the contributions of artists, poets, and others bathed in "the humanities" into the nature of what is going on, what is happening, what is.
For example, here is a 1964 poem, "The Sky is Blue," by David Ignatow:
The Sky is Blue
Put things in their place,
my mother shouts. I am looking
out the window, my plastic soldier
at my feet.
The sky is blue
and empty. In it floats
the roof across the street.
What place, I ask her.
(from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934-1994)
I think David Ignatow is effectively capturing an early-life developmental state of being here, accurately rendering a fragment of "what is going on" in the life of a small boy. I am sure there are explanatory facts from, say, cognitive neuroscience, that would explain the mental processing at work in the boy's mind as he listens to his mother. But is this poem non-scientific? Is the boy's understanding non-factual? Is subjectivity non-scientific? Is the boy's thinking reducible to "intuitive" thinking? Is something else going on here?
I'm not saying I know the answer to these questions. Plus, it is entirely possible (speaking of subjectivity) that I misread the essay, that "my" reading of it strays far from some consensus-reality reading of it. That said, the binary categories of science/non-science seem limiting.
> In their cloistered and ancient buildings, academics are in the middle of a war.
I don’t think they are. They might be in a struggle for power, or involved in a serious argument, but academics tend to avoid war fighting, let alone be “in the middle” of one. Unscientific people, the ones you say aren’t well equipped to be ethical, are generally the ones who find themselves put in that particular position of directly taking and saving lives. I think the conflicts academics are currently involved in are more centered around ideas.
> And so, ethics is, in fact, an empirically informed way of doing philosophy in that if you don’t understand what a human being is or what human nature is or how we work, then on what basis are you going to do ethics?
I don’t know. Do you own a dog? I love dogs. Some of the finest most honorable beings I’ve ever known have been dogs. If I were standing with one of the world’s top scientists in one end of my home, and say we heard a burglar break in the other end, I think there’s a decent chance the scientist says “run!” and without a thought slips out a window. I know for certain my dog would run directly at the burglar and defend me and my home with his life. Of course this same kind of moral dedication can be seen in service dogs of all kinds, and can take the form of gentle compassion just as easily. And they are far less prone to abandon their moral duty under duress than most people, particularly academics.
The job of caregiver is one of the most common, and low paying, in the U.S. and is associated with minimal education. I’ve known many of them through their care of a loved one with severe dementia. Most of them demonstrate a far more moral approach to other people than myself or any scientist I’ve ever known. They have gained their moral insights through firsthand observation of suffering and it appears to have given them greater perspective in this regard than many people who study texts on the subject.
There is a certain amount of courage, kindness, resilience, selflessness and grit that moral action necessitates, and I have never noticed that scientists have more of these attributes than the unscientific and in fact, it’s my impression that simpler people often exceed academics in this respect.
Nice article, but I think a shade on the utilitarian side. That is, your discussion of the usefulness of science looks absolutely right - but it doesn't, as you acknowledge, really even touch the most important questions in life - why we are here, how we should live, etc.
I wondered, as I so often do nowadays, if you have read Iain McGilchrist's books such as "The Master and his Emissary". Because your article looks to me a bit left-brained. Unimpeachable on the "what" and the "how", but a bit stranded when it comes to the "why". For instance, mysticism is soppy, inefficient thinking. It's an attempt to stop thinking, open up to the world, and feel one's relationships to people, things, and the whole. Almost impossibgle to put into words, which is why it gets so little attention.
Is physics philosophical? examining matter and proclaiming it to be the truth for all lives is absurd.. It says that physicality is all there is to life. It is part of investigating the world and life in general but not the whole story. It is like listing the senses that we have and denying the existence of telepathy. A skill which many have developed.. It's not rare, and is eminently possible.. Well how does science account for long range communication between sentient beings? It does not have the tools to measure it.. So does telepathy belong in the dustbin because science says that is so? Is physics to be the arbiter of human consciousness? People should stick to what they have studied and know about for certain before making proclamations or dismissing something as irrelevant something that they know very little or absolutely nothing about.. You cannot debate the existence of a neutrino, it is measurable, forecastable, and science has ways to detect them. Machines exist for that purpose. The human complex is a machine that was designed to detect other matters and when trained can do so.. And those matters when detected and experienced can profoundly affect a persons philosophical views and outlook upon life.. if...
Here is how I understood this essay: that to live a good (moral) life we need to know what's going on around us, we need to understand what is real and what is not real. And science is the best way to gather that understanding of what is going on. I agree with this. But I am left wondering about the contributions non-scientists make –– specifically, the contributions of artists, poets, and others bathed in "the humanities" into the nature of what is going on, what is happening, what is.
For example, here is a 1964 poem, "The Sky is Blue," by David Ignatow:
The Sky is Blue
Put things in their place,
my mother shouts. I am looking
out the window, my plastic soldier
at my feet.
The sky is blue
and empty. In it floats
the roof across the street.
What place, I ask her.
(from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934-1994)
I think David Ignatow is effectively capturing an early-life developmental state of being here, accurately rendering a fragment of "what is going on" in the life of a small boy. I am sure there are explanatory facts from, say, cognitive neuroscience, that would explain the mental processing at work in the boy's mind as he listens to his mother. But is this poem non-scientific? Is the boy's understanding non-factual? Is subjectivity non-scientific? Is the boy's thinking reducible to "intuitive" thinking? Is something else going on here?
I'm not saying I know the answer to these questions. Plus, it is entirely possible (speaking of subjectivity) that I misread the essay, that "my" reading of it strays far from some consensus-reality reading of it. That said, the binary categories of science/non-science seem limiting.
Thanks for the piece.
> In their cloistered and ancient buildings, academics are in the middle of a war.
I don’t think they are. They might be in a struggle for power, or involved in a serious argument, but academics tend to avoid war fighting, let alone be “in the middle” of one. Unscientific people, the ones you say aren’t well equipped to be ethical, are generally the ones who find themselves put in that particular position of directly taking and saving lives. I think the conflicts academics are currently involved in are more centered around ideas.
> And so, ethics is, in fact, an empirically informed way of doing philosophy in that if you don’t understand what a human being is or what human nature is or how we work, then on what basis are you going to do ethics?
I don’t know. Do you own a dog? I love dogs. Some of the finest most honorable beings I’ve ever known have been dogs. If I were standing with one of the world’s top scientists in one end of my home, and say we heard a burglar break in the other end, I think there’s a decent chance the scientist says “run!” and without a thought slips out a window. I know for certain my dog would run directly at the burglar and defend me and my home with his life. Of course this same kind of moral dedication can be seen in service dogs of all kinds, and can take the form of gentle compassion just as easily. And they are far less prone to abandon their moral duty under duress than most people, particularly academics.
The job of caregiver is one of the most common, and low paying, in the U.S. and is associated with minimal education. I’ve known many of them through their care of a loved one with severe dementia. Most of them demonstrate a far more moral approach to other people than myself or any scientist I’ve ever known. They have gained their moral insights through firsthand observation of suffering and it appears to have given them greater perspective in this regard than many people who study texts on the subject.
There is a certain amount of courage, kindness, resilience, selflessness and grit that moral action necessitates, and I have never noticed that scientists have more of these attributes than the unscientific and in fact, it’s my impression that simpler people often exceed academics in this respect.
Good read
Nice article, but I think a shade on the utilitarian side. That is, your discussion of the usefulness of science looks absolutely right - but it doesn't, as you acknowledge, really even touch the most important questions in life - why we are here, how we should live, etc.
I wondered, as I so often do nowadays, if you have read Iain McGilchrist's books such as "The Master and his Emissary". Because your article looks to me a bit left-brained. Unimpeachable on the "what" and the "how", but a bit stranded when it comes to the "why". For instance, mysticism is soppy, inefficient thinking. It's an attempt to stop thinking, open up to the world, and feel one's relationships to people, things, and the whole. Almost impossibgle to put into words, which is why it gets so little attention.