whowhowho comments on Schools Proliferating Without Evidence - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 March 2009 06:43AM

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Comment author: whowhowho 25 March 2013 08:44:24PM -1 points [-]

Is any of that avoidable?

Comment author: shminux 25 March 2013 09:25:14PM 0 points [-]
Comment author: whowhowho 25 March 2013 09:33:55PM -1 points [-]

Please provide proof. Please don't point, yet again, to the highly debatable "solution" to FW.

Comment author: shminux 25 March 2013 11:58:21PM 0 points [-]

What kind of proof would you accept?

Comment deleted 26 March 2013 07:50:34PM *  [-]
Comment author: shminux 26 March 2013 09:22:44PM *  7 points [-]

In my limited experience, the "hard problems" in philosophy are the problems which are either poorly defined and so people keep arguing about definitions without admitting it, or poorly analyzed, so people keep mixing decision theory with cognitive science, for example. While the traditional philosophy is good at asking (meta-)questions and noticing broad similarities, it is nearly useless at solving them. When a philosopher tries to honestly analyze a deep question, it usually stops being philosophy and becomes logic, linguistics, decision theory, computer science, physics or something else that qualifies as science. Hence Pearl and Kahneman and Russell, some Wittgenstein, Popper...

Comment author: [deleted] 27 March 2013 11:10:33AM 0 points [-]

In my limited experience, the "hard problems" in philosophy are the problems which are either poorly defined and so people keep arguing about definitions without admitting it, or poorly analyzed, so people keep mixing decision theory with cognitive science, for example.

See also how many of the comments in this thread amounted to “if by sound you mean ‘acoustic wave’ it does, if you mean ‘auditory sensation’ it doesn't”.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 18 April 2015 10:03:39AM -2 points [-]

There's little evidence of anything else being better at solving them, so that is largely nirvana fallacy,

Comment author: dxu 18 April 2015 07:13:16PM 3 points [-]

Wait, what? There's little evidence of anything better than philosophy at solving problems? How about physics, cognitive science, computer science, mathematics, etc.?

Comment author: Epictetus 19 April 2015 02:40:14AM 2 points [-]

When a branch of philosophy becomes useful at solving problems, people give it a new name and no longer consider it part of philosophy.

Comment author: dxu 19 April 2015 08:14:19PM *  2 points [-]

Then what is philosophy supposed to be? Just a field for asking questions (but not answering them)?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 18 April 2015 07:20:50PM *  0 points [-]

Them="the hard problems in philosophy", not "problems"

How about physics, cognitive science, computer science, mathematics, etc.?

How about philosophy of physics, philosophy of mathematics? Why do they exist?

Comment author: dxu 19 April 2015 01:19:20AM *  2 points [-]

How about philosophy of physics, philosophy of mathematics?

Do these things solve problems in physics or in mathematics? If so, do they solve them better than the actual fields do? If not, what problems do they solve?