Naw!!!

here's an entertaining read on the topic which goes in a little more detail
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

I think this speech highlights the major issues with AI development.

If an intelligence explosion happens, and if there are major flaws (most likely, because humans make lots of errors), that's it for humanity, or the earth, or the galaxy, or everything ever.

Also the race topic is scary as well, because if some team with bad intentions succeeds in implementing , it could be equally bad.


The task of writing program code that states universally agreeable volitions for the whole of humanity seems unimaginably hard, because we would need to extrapolate into the future a situation where we cannot even grasp a vastly higher intelligence, yet want to set rules for it to behave in our best interests.

Maybe the ant example isn't so far fetched, maybe a lot of base research on lower intelligent lifeforms living peacefully next to us could teach the way to fill that empty gap of uncertainty what we can and cannot expect or influence

Best read ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially the Turry AI in part 2.

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-inte...ion-2.html

I'll give you a brain teaser - what is the woman at 3:57 in the bottom right corner of the screen wearing?

spotted dat 1 first time m8

I think the topic is VERY interesting and much more relevant than the general public understands. Sci-fi books and movies have made AI seem too far fetched for people to think it could plausibly happen (at least, within their lifetimes). But the field is progressing very rapidly and there's enormous amounts of money and talented minds focused on it. And that trend is only accelerating. Personally I believe we'll see a strong AI in the next few decades, if not sooner, and the world will rapidly change as a result. A much faster socioeconomic evolution than what happened when the PC and the internet arrived.

Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence is pretty alarmist but I'd recommend it if you're interested in the topic. It's a pretty dry read but seems very well reasoned why, on a whole number of issues, strong AI is probably much more risky than we'd like it to be even if we design it with inherent constraints.

I suppose it is hard to tell the folk who are working to expand our technology that they could be inadvertently creating a monster. People, foundations and the companies who fund these projects don't like to be told such things.

I never thought of the idea that we could see another arms race with AI as the catalyst or ultimate goal. Pretty interesting and scary stuff. This is so far removed from the spotlight that it just seems like radical thinking, even to a lot of people who are well versed in modern technological capabilities and progress, let alone your average iphone user.

I haven't done any reading on it and i'm not even a big sci-fi buff but it has sparked my interest.

I liked Bostrom's Superintelligence a lot. My first recommendation on it too.

Looks to me like there is very little to say. General public has little to no influence on the issue and the topic is too far from the general understanding of the average SCIENTIST that really the only opinions that matter are the ones of those who work, develop or study AI + a bunch of smart ppl from similar fields who might have somewhat of an insight on this issue.

It doesn't take a scientist to understand that with every complicated system there will be unintended outcomes.

Yes and which ones? Generally, we have 0 clues which are the possible ones. When general public talks about the danger of AI its much closer to scifi critique than an educated worry

Well, seeing as how a not small minority (maybe majority financially) of AI development is centered around the military and designing killer robots, I'm gonna let you be the judge of where a potential problem might arise.

You didn't say the specific problem but the catehory within it may arise. And indeed it sounded scifi =D

"eventually things will eventually go sour eventually. maybe if that maybe is an eventuality"

ok

Limit its storage capacity and retention. A rogue AI's plan to take over the world will just get overflowed with cat pictures and selfies. Totally foolproof kappa

I really appreciate the insightful examplification of pseudointellectualism shown in this vide, however, I can't help but criticize it for lacking something or other.

Oh I'm sorry, I thought it was this one :(

this is great

the guy didn't sound smart in OP's talk, it is about the information

I guess he didn't watch the instructional.

I don't agree with everything Sam Harris stands for but there is no doubt that he is one hell of a smart fella. The guy only had a 15minute or so presentation, it is hard to hold an audience for that long, especially only something so vast and unknown as AI. imo

Sam Harris is a charlatan, ignorant and yet arrogant about most of what he talks about. I'm not trolling or anything, I really don't know many more amateurs fooling so many people while pretending to be an expert. Don't feel like watching what he says about AI :(


Especially as it's a topic I'm interested in. Check out the book lolograde recommended, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom. It's a very curious topic. Seems something we should take seriously, though I don't know if I think it's likely or not.

Some more thoughts. In general the concept seems possible, and I do think we should get there sometime via the slow route, which is analyzing and emulating the brain. It'd likely be a combination of analyzing the brain, and having technology meet it halfway - not simulating everything, just high level emulations of parts. That problem might stall because we don't have the computing power to emulate the brain in an inefficient way, or we don't understand brains well enough. But it seems like we should be able to do it, one day. The question is when.

Obviously, if we are able to do it quickly, it won't be this way. It will be by simply making a smart algorithm out of theory, possibly one that is good at engineering smarter general purpose algorithms. And from that point off it goes. The problem with arriving there is that while we're progressing in various specific purpose algorithms, but many smart people question if we can do it with general purpose algorithms. I don't know that we have anything that even resembles that. We have serious problems with bridging the gap between an intelligence and smart algorithms that do one thing well, or combinations of those. We need theoretical breakthroughs for this, and they don't come just from better computers. But that's the fast way, if it happens.

Many people throw around expert opinion on most saying it'll happen before 2100, half thinking it'll happen before 2050 or so. The problem is that
1) they're AI experts, not progress in general intelligence experts.
2) they're not even general AI experts, they're just AI experts. Many might be interested in general AI of course
3) they've been wrong about progress timetables before, and experts often are.
[Edit: which is not to say we shouldn't take them seriously. Just shouldn't simply take their word for it.]

I've read Kurzweil too, his predictions from computational progress seem dubious, although I didn't look at them very seriously. In general I'm weary of people pointing to computational progress to push this idea. That's what many people seem to push. C'mon people, we need theory for this, we can't just expect smart computers to turn into smart AI.

However, just because the fast scenario (theoretical breakthrough, we just make a smart AI out of scratch, before 2050) might happen, and the slow scenario (analyzing and emulating a brain) seems almost inevitable to me, this topic is really interesting. Curious what some people educated in the topic think. Get Weird in here.

I watched the video BTW. Call it morbid curiosity. Generally I don't recommend anyone get their knowledge about a very interesting topic from someone who isn't an expert, but the video wasn't particularly bad or anything. Not stupid. Very shallow, but perhaps that's not bad considering an audience not acquainted with the concept beyond scifi.

I don't think Harris claims to be exceptionally learned about too many subjects. He has strong views that he is happy to voice but he regularly admits to having gaps in his knowledge. This talk is clearly meant to make people aware, he knows that he's not speaking to the greatest minds on the planet here.

It cracks me up when people try to discredit Harris based on his approach. I've never heard him voice anything outside of speculation that he can't back up with research. Being well spoken apparently makes one arrogant.

See, this is very typical. Not blaming you in particular too much, but surely, if people disagree, we shouldn't assume that they're absolute idiots and have actual reasons for it. Not do it because their opponent is well spoken, incredibly rational, smart, a modern-day polymath, and capable of admitting their mistakes, and the opponent has been misread. Harris loves pointing those features out as if they prove he and his fans are those things. Many of his fans seemingly don't understand that ranting about rationality mid-argument is something both sides could do, always to no avail.

Sure, we like rationality, but if we go into every argument circlejerking about our rationality and pretending like our opponents aren't rational from their perspective; never accept that they might be both more rational and/or right, then we'll never get anywhere, with any argument.

So once again, not blaming you, but you realize that you're doing an instance of this here, right? Assuming that if someone disagrees with Harris, it's because of his positive feature?

As for his research, look at my post below. Weird you'd even say something like this if you know how many deep areas he talks about, and how much studying experts in those areas have to do before they, uh, stop (they really don't) saying things not backed up with research.

You are aware how many deep disciplines he talks about, often arguing with experts, for hours upon hours on his podcast and other mediums, right?

Excuse my assumptions... Most of the people I've spoken to (not many at all) don't like him (and others) for their way of speaking. I've been accused of this too, spelling things out, word choice, and tone of voice can come across condescending, but all we're trying to do is eliminate ambiguity.

I personally don't care for him much, though I agree with many things he says. Of course he has made a career out of saying the obvious- God is Dead. Especially in the US which is very religious, his End of Faith book was a breath of fresh air. He seems very comfortable to become a talking head for many of his thoughts. I get it, it pays well these days, pick up the phone and you're on tv, but something rubs me the wrong way about him. Especially when published that strange non-debate email exchange with Chomsky.

Nothing wrong with being clear in thought when you speak. Plus, he is often speaking to a non-academic audiences so I'm sure many appreciate the lack of jargon and clear thinking. I guess that line between being too didactic and being clear and simple in presentation can get thin.

This post isn't really aimed at you, so much as just pointing to some examples as to why I don't like Sam Harris. A rant, I know, but I guess it isn't that fun coldly repeating his ills for me anymore.

He clearly thinks he is an expert in several areas, or at least capable of repeatedly disagreeing with experts in those without being read up on the academic literature. Those include philosophy, security, terrorism, national security policy, islam and religion in general, international relations as they relate to the US, meditation.

He has arrogantly shat on experts in at least half of these as far as I'm aware of. He regularly shits on philosophy academia and runs around confusing his readers about philosophy and proving that you can, somehow, get a batchelors in philosophy from Stanford without understanding any of it. Spreads perhaps more nonsense about it than anyone. He disparaged Chomsky based on a misinterpretation, perhaps because he doesn't understand how people don't buy his muh intentions bullshit in terms of US policy. His conversation with conversation with Dan Carlin went the same way; I'm mentioning it because it was mostly about the muh intentions naivete. He writes books on free will, argues with Dennett about them - never showing any capability to realize he's out of his depth as a person who, you know, never engaged or read the relevant literature. That pretty much holds for all of his views on philosophy. He argued long and hard with Schneier, as the latter repeatedly explained to him how he's wrong. Apparently being an amateur spreading propaganda on your podcast got to his head and didn't allow him to realize that he's arguing with fucking Schneier on the topic of security, and that in such a situation you better make sure you understand what Schneier is saying before telling him he doesn't understand security.

I'm not sure if he shut up on about his views on profiling after that. I think he didn't, but I don't recall. Would be typical for him; he certainly is proud to continue with that in philosophy, international relations and more.

Repeatedly espousing rationality and claiming the whole world misreads you doesn't make you an expert on everything. It might make you great at manipulating the public into thinking you know shit. Even without relevant education in almost any of the areas you talk about, as Harris proves. I mean, I know it sounds good to believe you can talk about everything intelligently and match up and debate with giants in any are as a peer just by sheer belief in rationality. Unfortunately, you also need tons of discipline-specific education.

Let's hope people stop falling for that. Because people like him roping in otherwise intelligent people into his pseudocult and manipulating them into buying into the we're not religious, we're rational instead and but you have misread me memes and out of the reality of relevant education has been annoying enough.

i've listened to a few of his podcasts, a few i've enjoyed, others i've found pretty lackluster, and i'll admit at times he seems somewhat out of his depth. you know more about this subject than me so i don't really have a rebuttal, especially regarding his free-will stuff, something i'm not particularly partial to.

Free will and determinism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Depends on how you feel about the universe and what it is. If it's ever expanding and contracting - as some have suggested - it would be possible that every possible outcome is inevitable (and perhaps has already occurred) which doesn't necessarily negate the concept of freewill or determinism.

Even more than that, most philosophers think free will and determinism are just generally compatible. It's a position called compatibilism.

Sounds like someone else already thought of this. I guess that's what happens. I think they're both legit personally.

I'm more interested in a grey goo scenario than a terminator one.

What's that?

When old Cum/Seamen's turn radioactive and self aware!

You will not be able to run from the protein oooze!!!

Self replicating nanobots turning the planet into a blob of self replicating nanobots.

Oh. Well we might need smart AI to get to them. But it's a good point.

AI might end up causing a grey goo type situation. One of the malignant failures Bostrom's talks about in Superintelligence is a scenario where an AI sets upon some seemingly innocuous task like, "make 1,000 paperclips" (chosen as an arbitrary example). The AI might manufacturer 1,000 paperclips but is unable to definitively say it has created 1,000 beyond all doubt. Did it only make 999? Or 1,001?

Philosophers have long pondered how we can ever achieve absolute metaphysical certainty about anything and an AI might, in a sense, develop the same issue. Can it cope with a 99.999999999....% chance that it did indeed create exactly 1,000 paperclips? If not, it goes through an endless recursive cycle of creating and counting paperclips until all available resources (I.e., planet earth) have been expended in doing so.

i think we should just build a supercomputer with infinite intelligence and feed it with all sorts of data and then it will write us a txt doc with plans against this very threat

It's not on the spot and it's not fully ridiculous either.

What is fully ridiculous is that almost the entire field of philosophy has dropped to making retarded claims about other scientific fields which they know virtually nothing about. Where they claim things based on bullshit assumptions or on theoretical cases that have a lot of if statements, where they then make the if statements in 20 secs and then spew out crap for years. Or they just steal statements from famous scientists and treat them like their own....

Scientists that make philosophical statements are much more interesting than philosophers making philosophical statements imho.

That said also people like Stephen Hawking have voiced their concern of AI (which I also don't fully agree with).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_on_...telligence
Which is also co-signed by Harris (and many other people... of which some have a clue)...

Academic philosophers generally don't seem to be that interested in the issue. Bostrom, for example, has some stigma around him in philosophy circles, although some of it might be the fallback for leaving ivory tower. Philosophers are generally weary of issues like this, believing they're technonerd rapture or something. They definitely sneer at people like Elizier Yudkowsky, random scientists making claims outside of their field and don't seem to be writing much about an AI revolution.

So I'm not sure why you think most of Philosophy academy is on the hype train. Perhaps you don't mean academic philosophers, but philosophers in the colloquial sense? That I could see, but that isn't really a field. Otherwise, we must be reading stuff that's contradictory to one another.

I kinda fall on the opposite side of the philosophers talking about science vs scientists talking about philosophy thing. Mostly because when philosophers talk about science, they talk about philosophy of science. And to do that they do need reasonable scientific education. Meanwhile when scientists talk philosophy, they talk philosophy of science too. Which is not their strong suit. Scientists might be in a position to correct scientific flaws, but people inside philosophy of science already have to be strong enough in science to know them. Can't say the same about scientists talking about philosophy.

In either case, that's secondary to this topic.

I don't specifically mean that they make claims about AI.
Most philosophers just make silly claims about something in science... Often pulling statements completely out of context focusing on a few statements of an influential scientific paper leaving out all of the nuances. Perhaps adding some mumbo jumbo of their own and tada you suddenly have a philosophical point.

Next to that branch of philosophy there is also the "language nitpicking" branch where someone takes a word and tries to "really understand what it means" often starting with a dictionary and then imagining a whole lot of crap around it and then finish by explaining what the dictionary "really meant" which then is suddenly their own definition.

I don't really see any other types of philosophers nowadays.

I don't want to assume but it sounds like you're not familiar with the history of philosophy. Many sciences originated from philosophy. Indeed, science used to be called "natural philosophy" up through the 17th/18th centuries.

Regarding the "language nitpick" stuff, I share the sentiment but the history is that there were many famous/infamous "problems" in philosophy -- like, "what is the meaning of life" -- which in the late 19th, early 20th century, philosophers began to think about in terms of language problems rather than as metaphysical questions. This was the dawn of what became "analytical philosophy" (now the dominant of three main branches; the other two being phenomenological and pragmatism). However, analytical philosophy is arguably the more "scientific"/"rigorous" branch as it was borne out of strong mathematical and logical influences of 19th/20th century philosophers/mathematicians. Most good philosophy programs today at university require maths and logic courses because of this. And logic is the fundamental tool used by "analytical philosophers" today.

Jump to today, I absolutely agree there are people trained/educated as philosophers who have no business discussing issues in sciences because they simply do not have the background knowledge or understanding. However, philosophy is useful in asking bigger questions. It's sometimes the bigger questions that are missed when one is too focused on the smaller, nuanced, technical details. I like to think there's an "applied philosophy" that can (and is) being done well by those who have the sufficient background expertise.

Edit: One last comment. It seems to me that philosophical thinking can be of extraordinary value in advancing science. I believe some of the "paradigm shifting" moments in science -- like Einstein's famous thought experiments or Turing's vision of digital computers and thinking machines -- were really actually philosophical approaches to problems. They had fundamental beliefs but no evidence; they speculated on the possibilities if their beliefs were true. It took years before they were validated in their beliefs.

I am well aware that before 1800 all sciences were more or less grouped as philosophy. Basically everyone that made any discovery on any field, or discussed questions with other philosophers, was called a philosopher. Back then at least several philosophers mattered.

Nowadays I feel like all known philosophers are just hopelessly uninformed to make real sense of the world.
They either add on random bullshit or they take away facts (from what is already known) and then reason about a problem from a false start... Only to come to a somewhat interesting conclusion that won't ever happen.

The only philosopher from after 1800 that made real sense was Popper. The other philosophical questions/statements made that have any real validity to them were made by scientist imho.

I understand you "feel" that way about philosophers but there are some (not all) who know what they're talking about. Just like there are some scientists (not all) who know what they're talking about. These TED talks and public intellectuals (like Harris) are not a good measure of what the entirety of a profession thinks on a given topic.

Also, if the measure of what is bullshit or not is whether it describes the "real world", look no further than string theory. And I suppose there's a lot of physicists who look down their nose on string theorists, but that does not mean it's without value. It may not prove to be true, but it's providing useful ways of thinking about problems in maths and physics.

I would add Wittgenstein and Russell to your list. I think others would add Berlin, Dennett, Rorty/Putnam, Chomsky. Although Chomsky is not formally a philosopher, he's largely famous because of his philosophy.

As far as I know of current day philosophy. I would be inclined to say that the entirety of the profession is arguing within itself about many topics of which no philosopher has a real clue.

This is shown several times a year when a philosopher has a public debate with an actual scientist... Or there is a debate between several philosophers and they make the mistake of also allowing Dawkins on there as he's nowadays viewed more as a philosopher than a scientist but he's obviously still a very educated/analytical/logical-reason based mind. (not that I completely agree with Dawkins... but his argumentation at least is much better than that of the philosophers he destroys.)

I haven't yet seen a full debate where nowhere along the way the philosopher either claims bullshit or makes a bullshit assumption which get pointed out by the scientist and then ignored by the philosopher. (or he urges the scientific mind to think along with him at which case they might arrive at the same conclusion but that is then always followed by the scientist saying that the assumption midway was in fact bullshit)

Rorty/Putman makes me think about brain in a vat.... that shit is old (Descartes old and imho solved since physics came around as a way more valid science than philosophy has become).
Dennett is a good speaker but other than that attributed little/nothing and I remember thinking he was wrong in several presentations although I don't quite remember where (it's been a while).
Wittgenstein and Russel are not very known to me...
Chomsky I only know from his work which was used in writing compilers... And I think I remember having heard his name in language analyses using hidden Markov models and neural networks.

Thanks for the inventory of assorted trivia you're aware of.

Let me get this straight: you make various, absolutist claims based on what appears to be incomplete understanding or knowledge of a subject, and then reply with some hand wavery absence of any argument/evidence to back up said claim? You've watched a debate or two, Dennett said something inaccurate, vat in brain < physics, Chomsky and Markovian chains, blah blah blah. Yep, this is definitely the internet. I love the dose of irony in accusing a whole population of people of being out of their depth based on your limited knowledge.

A few years back (let's say around 2010 to 2012) I watched pretty much everything related to science (Including philosophy). As well as followed quite a few courses on online platforms like coursera about the sciences I was less familiar with even a few (not too many) philosophical courses (mainly about the important historical ones, as nowadays philosophers love to reference back to previous philosophers as some only know historical arguments by heart).

In general I'd say that I'm fairly well rounded and a big fan of science.

And yes if you do not believe that physics accurately describes the world 'out there' (independent from yourself) then you should get help. Sure the reasoning is fun to follow but it will always boil down to a brain in a vat kind of argumentation and then you'll get stuck and can't reach any valid conclusion (except for Descartes' I think therefor I am). Philosophers are wasting tons and tons of time and money on this bullshit while the result is clear no matter how you phrase the question.

Most fun to watch was Richard Feynman btw with "fun to imagine". He probably viewed the world very similar to how I view it today (although he was probably much more eloquent about it than I will ever be and was much better at explaining things than I am)

And yes if you do not believe that physics accurately describes the world 'out there' (independent from yourself) then you should get help. Sure the reasoning is fun to follow but it will always boil down to a brain in a vat kind of argumentation and then you'll get stuck and can't reach any valid conclusion (except for Descartes' I think therefor I am). Philosophers are wasting tons and tons of time and money on this bullshit while the result is clear no matter how you phrase the question.

You repeatedly mention this as if many philosophers genuinely believe there is no external world. That's a clear sign you're familiar with just the stereotypes. Furthermore, you don't seem to be familiar with the reason why philosophers do it. If you had read descartes' meditations 1 and 2 more carefully, you'd know that the purpose wasn't to prove the lack of existence of a world. It was (and still is) about building a foundation for knowledge, and getting rid of bullshit.

Please stop assuming you know things just because you've read mockeries by philosophically ignorant nu-atheists on the internet.

Descartes had a point. Not arguing that.
The thought experiment is both relevant as well as important.

However!
Philosophers don't have to bring it up every 20 years as if it's some new kind of epiphany which will rock the world.

lolograde mentions Rorty/Putnam which was one of the later instances of the exact same bullshit.
Where one claims: "you can see it right here" and the other claims: "I can't trust what I see". (ok I simplify it a bit ;))

I'm not sure why you group Rorty on this matter. These are old questions you're simplifying.

Rorty was mostly famous for saying philosophy was at its end, that it had no big questions left. It was all a matter of clarifications. A was a controversial position for a philosopher to have. But, given your disposition, I'd think you'd be more interested in what Rorty had to say on the matter. Putnam is famous for various reasons but perhaps some of which is his involvement with the new wave (resurgence?) of pragmatism that's started to become more popular in academic philosophy.

I figured that you meant the criticism they had on each other...(because you placed a / between them while not between any of the others).
Where basically Putnam shows that Rorty has a skewed view of truth and knowledge (short version is they are interpretations of the mind according to Rorty). Which basically boils down to not having an outside world. Which then again is the same bullshit in a different pile.

Philosophers don't have to bring it up every 20 years as if it's some new kind of epiphany which will rock the world.

I explained above how you didn't understand what the purpose of it was. Now, you're showing how you don't appreciate the nuance in differences between these arguments, or the purpose of bringing it up again.

Being partial to science, I would think you'd appreciate people trying to go where evidence leads them. And if you don't go to those places, as most philosophers don't, then it is good seeing what evidence you have for not going there, agains the strongest versions of those arguments, and what kind of knowledge about the world can you still have after going through this barrier.

There are many various insights that philosophers have learned from the topic. Yet clearly, you're bent on simplifying philosophy so much that you're fated to not appreciate them. Once again, don't you see how you're out of your depth?

The nuances are useless and the purpose of bringing it up is just to gain funding or spread confusion or sound interesting.

I do appreciate people going where evidence leads them and there is no evidence that all of our perceptions are controlled externally. This evidence will never ever be there unless the controller either fucks up or let's us know intentionally.

QED: It is useless to rephrase the question every 20 years with or without adding nuances.

That's a great story but you really think spending a few years watching videos makes you qualified to judge an entire field of people? Some of whom have spent decades studying a single topic?

I have a friend who got her bachelors in biology, two masters (one in biology, one in philosophy), and her PhD in philosophy. She considers herself a "philosopher of science". On her masters committees, she had one of the preeminent paleontologists in the world and, on the other, one of the preeminent philosophers of science in the world. Like, the type of people you see who have books prominently displayed on shelves at book stores. I would consider her an expert in matters of evolutionary biology and she happens to focus on that for her work as a "philosopher". And I think that's the case for a lot (not all, but a lot) of philosophers out there who have degrees in fields other than philosophy but consider themselves philosophers of their respective areas of focus.

I said nothing about whether physics describes the "real world" or not. Time for me to share some of my own history/background: My father is a nuclear physicist -- by education and trade -- and very much a standard model, empiricism-rules-everything type of guy. (He's one of the physicists who looks down his nose at string theorists.) I grew up with that influence in my life and started university thinking I was going to be a physicist like my father. In fact, he had me reading books like Feynmann's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" and Hawking's "Brief History..." when I a teenage. Although, ultimately, I did not become a physicist, I still have a very profound respect for physics (second only to maths, imo, in terms of truthiness).

If what you got out of the brain in a vat is that it is pointless, you really missed the fucking point. Big time. And that's why I do not think you're nearly as qualified to your opinions as you think you are. As son1dow points out, the brain in the vat is about the basis of knowledge. Descartes said "cognito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). He thought this was a starting point for all knowledge about the world. He starts with the one claim he thinks is beyond doubt and goes from there. But the point of the brain in the vat thought experiment is that even that ("I think therefore I am") is a dubious claim. Everything is subject to skepticism. Nothing is "beyond doubt" like Descartes hoped cognito ergo sum was. It's an important point for a lot of reasons.

Even today, in "pop science", people are constantly revisiting these sorts of questions in various ways. Like when Elon Musk says we all live in a simulation. Do we really exist or are we simulations in some alien's computer? These sorts of ideas have been long pondered by philosophers for centuries.

Another area I disagree with you: As long as people are thinking and studying and researching, I do not think it is a waste of time and money. It's a lot better than whole lot of alternative activities they could be engaged in.

I get a feeling that most philosophers do the same... (watch a few videos and have an expert opinion)

I've spend a lot of years studying computer science (and several studying AI) and I hear a lot of really stupid claims on it from a lot of philosophers. (Sam Harris in this particular thread is not entirely clueless)

I 'somewhat' studied physics / chemistry (well mainly the physical part of it) / literature / psychology / philosophy / history (pretty much anything that I found remotely interesting and was thought for free online by well known universities). And I do keep up with most fields by reading recent findings.
I find it horrible that with my 'limited education' I can usually find serious flaws or hidden assumptions within the reasoning of the philosopher I hear talk about his view of the world. Whenever I can't find any in it then they are just repeating things I already knew.

Also I didn't say that the brain in a vat concept is pointless, but it's a dead track to reason that way... As it has already been done.
Where you say: "Even today, in "pop science", people are constantly revisiting these sorts of questions in various ways. Like when Elon Musk says we all live in a simulation. Do we really exist or are we simulations in some alien's computer? These sorts of ideas have been long pondered by philosophers for centuries."
I'd say "That's another wasted day for Elon Musk which he should've spend on building a rocket.". As the train of thought won't lead anywhere, because we can't verify if we are in a simulation or not.
Similarly there can be an almighty God who simulates everything which we can never ever verify.
So WHY!?!?! has it been pondered FOR CENTURIES? There is no added value in doing the same stuff over and over again (Einstein: the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result)
Seriously every 20years or so a few philosophers rephrase the same question and spend years thinking about it only to reach the similar conclusions as all other philosophers have done before them. (since Descartes)

As for thinking/studying/researching it's only a waste of time and money if it doesn't lead to anything useful. (crossing off useless stuff can also be useful, like Edison (maybe) said "I've not failed, I've just found 10.000 ways that won't work.")
I'm all for research (including fundamental research) but every time that I see someone questioning "if we're really here" I want to deny him any funding that he gets.

Similarly there can be an almighty God who simulates everything which we can never ever verify.

It's almost like people tried verificationism in philosophy, and it didn't work out. I mean, perhaps, if you knew some more basics, you'd have heard of this and stop thinking you can guess what philosophy can and can't do, and what the purposes of it are.You're being an anti-intellectual.

PS. Sam Harris isn't an academic philosopher. If you think he's relevant here, perhaps you're not aware of what academic philosophers are, and confuse ignorant laymen as philosophers?

Dude it's the same concept...
Like we can't verify whether or not we're in a vat / controlled by god / fooled by our senses / inside the matrix / perpetually dreaming / etc.etc.
If that is your bases of thinking then eventually you will not be able to make any progress unless you finaly accept that "inside of the perceived reality the following rules hold <insert science>".

ALL philosophical mumbo jumbo around unverifiable things is completely useless.

As for verificationism, I can't see how anyone would be able to take that seriously, meanwhile with falsification I can't see how anyone can not take that seriously.

Even the notion that philosophers took verificationism seriously bothers me a lot.

Science is a useful discipline that we should continue on pursuing.

Show how that is falsifiable.

As the train of thought won't lead anywhere, because we can't verify if we are in a simulation or not.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the party but we can verify, and this train of thought WILL lead somewhere.

We actually do live inside a simulation. But since our thinking about this possibility is manipulated, it is very VERY hard to properly get our heads around it.

Just think about it, if you were a simulation designer, would you allow your simulation inhabitants to explore and investigate and think clearly about simulation possibilities and allow them to figure out whether they are actually "real"? Of course not. Since what happens in a simulation is software defined, then as a simulation designer you'd implement plenty of security and countermeasures to keep people's thinking and understanding far away from this. As a simulation designer, ideally you'd want the people inside the simulation to treat Musk's statements as nonsense or fantasy or label it as sci-fi.

Soon more will become clear and people will be forced to start questioning this seriously messed up "reality" we live in. We have some exciting times ahead.

Make your choice:
A) This is actually true.
B) I made this up just to get [+].
C) I'm crazy
D) Both B and C
E) Both A, B and C.

probably D.

How do you propose to verify living in a simulation?

The only way through which we can observe the world is through input from this simulation. So how can we verify anything other than how the 'simulation works' (assuming that we are in one)?

Your logic (paragraph starting with "Just think about it") is flawed as well. You actually say:
If A (we are in a simulation) Then B (the simulation would try to make it not obvious and ridicule people who question it). We know that B (it's not obvious that we are in a simulation etc.) thus A.
It's called Affirming the consequent, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

Hi Weird,

I agree that what I wrote above is by no means proof that we are in a simulation, nor did I make an attempt to do so (it would be a serious challenge for me to even attempt that with a few dozen words). I am just pointing out that for most people it is really hard to give the type of things that Musk is saying some serious thought while not losing logic, perception, and attention span during the investigation process. I'll be the first to admit I've had these problems (and still have haha).

With enough logic and deducing (I'm talking years and years of full-time investigation), you actually will get to the conclusion that we must be living in a simulation and that this being a "true physical" world is actually VERY unlikely. I'll paste a link here for you when that document is made available (which by the way I couldn't possibly take any credit for, I just happen to know the guy). Probably in next few weeks. Even if you won't agree with what is written, I'm quite sure you'll enjoy the challenge of reading it :)

I don't really know what you mean with a '"true physical" world' but I assume you mean a world dominated by physics.
As to that point even the field of physics isn't really sure how the actual world looks like.

The point in that research is to describe the world in which we live. (Aka researching what particles / atoms / photons are as well as how they influence each other)

So the assumption there is that "there is an actual world" and the research is "that we with our limited capacity try to make sense of it by observing and reasoning".
If we assume however that we are living inside a simulation then physics is the study of that simulation (rather than an outside world).

But hey most reads on the topic are pretty interesting and give some insight into the world view of some people.

p.s. the word 'world' in this context is pretty difficult to really define. (and a lot of philosophers argue about that which annoys me)
It's just a way of saying "that what we can observe" or "an outside world" (aka not inside of our own minds projecting outwards).

Obviously "world" or "reality" is not easily defined because we are not all knowing, all perceiving beings. Since our perceptions of reality are extremely limited, and in some cases we have to accept some things may be beyond our abilities to ever perceive or comprehend (no matter what useful maths or metaphors we invent), these words need to be qualified.

I agree with the difficulty of defining words. Which is a philosophical stance that I really really hate but can't do much about.
My view is that we 'invent' words&metaphors for things/concepts and that once we agree on that (dictionary) we should take it as a base. However, if we need a word for every concept, that would need to result in a lot of different words for similar (but not completely same) concepts for a lot of things.
Since I have a dislike to any language and to 'learning words' this, in my eyes, is not extremely useful either.

So, in order not to get stuck on semantics. I state that in this context definitions might get somewhat blurry and I give some alternative ways to look at the same word (aka the way I interpret the word, 'world').

However I don't agree with accepting that some things are beyond my ability to comprehend (the ability to perceive is more complex and you get into all sorts of trouble with that especially in this particular context).

However I don't agree with accepting that some things are beyond my ability to comprehend (the ability to perceive is more complex and you get into all sorts of trouble with that especially in this particular context).

In what sense do you think that? That the universe must be comprehensible to humans because of some yet unknown law? Or more in the sense that we should have "faith" in our ability lest we not try to understand?

I think that people can comprehend everything, or at least come up with comprehend-able explanations for everything.

Do you have evidence or is that just a gut instinct?

Well evidence for future situations is always hard to get. So no not pure evidence.

However if you look at the field of physics. It seems to progress in a certain way. Which is that at stage 1 someone describes a problem, then in stage 2 it gets 'solved' elegantly, in stage 3 people investigate that solution and develop further tests etc. and notice that something isn't quite right, in stage 4 they try to fix the original solution with complex fixes and exceptions, then in stage 5 someone solves the original problem in a much more elegant (more simplistic) way which seems to also include all results of all previous complex solutions (from stage 4) at which point we go back to stage 2.

Atm in physics we are in stage 4 as to gravity (for instance Higgs bosons and the latest gravity alternative from Erik Verlinde are highly complex solutions), and somewhere between stage 2 and 4 concerning most quantum stuff (like quantum entanglement, I must say that I haven't followed this too closely so I don't actually know the most recent research). I think that in a few decades (maybe earlier) we'll get a nice elegant new solution which is much easier to comprehend at least for the gravity research.

So in general we need to go through a wall of complexity as a species, but once someone breaks through and 'gets it' it's suddenly comprehend-able for most people.

Your stages theory doesn't match history or the current state of affairs, especially gravity. Gravity is still an enormous question mark as GR is incompatible with QM. Our predictions are better with GR but incorrect and incomplete. Most of what Verlinde proposes cannot be falsified like most of string theorists work.

Re: scientific progress, I subscribe to a mix of Kuhn's paradigm shift theory and Laudan's research traditions. Sometimes research is pursued that is completely wrong but believed to be true, and sometimes known to be wrong but still pursued. Usually a single change or conflict gives rise to a whole new way of thinking. Newton was the authority before he was replaced by Einstein. This wasn't an iterative step process of improvement, it was a wholesale change in understanding and therefore changed the way people think about gravity. But it's not a question of stage 4or 5 because there's an enormous and fatal issue of incompatibility with QM. Eventually GR will need a serious revision to make gravity work with QM. There's no "elegance" issue here.

But regardless, we've only comprehended what we can. It doesn't mean there aren't aspects of the physical universe that are beyond our ability. I do not see why this shouldn't be a point of skepticism. We're evolved primates, there is no "design" to what we are able to comprehend or not. It's a wonder the universe is as comprehensible as it is but one should take pause at the workings of QM. Schroedinger's Cat demonstrates how very strange our universe can be.

Actually, as I understand from the media, Verlinde's research is a breakthrough largely because it can be falsified and it even gives some examples as to how to progress in that sense. But I haven't read it myself.

That aside though (as it's not important for the point I'm trying to make). At which point do my 'stages' fail to match the history or current state of affairs?

What I mean with elegance is that there is just a (fairly simple) solution that deals with all known issues in all known situations, rather than giving multiple equations for different situations.

Note: Between Newton and Einstein there was also lots of research into gravity where people tried to answer the small deviations between the measurements and the newtonian predictions. (aka stages 3 and 4)

It cannot. The latest work he's been in the news for is related to MOND which is still a very contentious subject. The MOND supporters say it should be falsifiable but other do not agree. Time will tell. But Verlinde's work in holographic universe, emergent gravity, etc., which is what he's famous for, is not falsifiable. This is the single biggest problem with string theory. And some string theorists have openly given up on the theory as having real applications right now (hoping only that it will yield useful maths for the future).

Your stages fail in a lot of respects. Again. Newton --> Einstein, this is not a "step" or "stage". It's not a matter of "not quite right" being fixed. It's a matter of completely wrong. There's no "refinement". GR originated from a known contradiction between Maxwell's equations and Newton's absolute time. Furthermore, GR is wrong as far as QM is concerned. It does not work at all in quantum mechanics. Einstein knew this and spent the remainder of his life trying to reconcile GR and QM. He failed. So, if we're at stage 4... Well, that would suggest we've already figured out how to reconcile QM and GR which is wrong.

Newton's laws aren't completely wrong. You can derive that Newton is right from Einstein's equation given a certain frame of reference. Aka Newton was only right in 'most' observable cases but due to our increase in observation we noticed that something wasn't completely accurate.

The reasoning Newton had might have been flawed and simplistic, but the accuracy of his results are pretty good. Einstein's reasoning might've also been somewhat flawed or simplistic, and cause and effect are also debatable. (aka is gravity the cause or an effect of space-time)

At this moment we are at stage 4 "they try to fix the original solution with complex fixes and exceptions" where people in general try to note where GR fails and why. Also where QM fails and why. And try to unify those by making exceptions / tinkering a bit with equations etc.

A real 'new' view which combines these 2 neatly is missing. (Thus not yet in stage 5 or at a new stage 2)
But I'm pretty confident that we'll get there.

Before anyone starts bitching:
I think I phrased the line "You can derive that Newton is right from Einstein's equation given a certain frame of reference." somewhat wrong.
What I mean is that for specific situations Newtons laws can be derived from Einsteins. So to speak one might say that Newton is a special case of Einstein.
Although this had something to do with frame of reference it may have also had to do with other aspects.

It's been a while for me since I looked at this in detail... The general view in the post is correct though ;)

Couldn't agree more with words needing to be well defined. Just look at how many times Matrix and Simulation are used interchangeably (even by Musk and/or press reporting on him).

Not really sure what you try to imply there...
The movie "The Matrix" is based on the concept that we are living inside of a simulation.
So stating that "we are inside the matrix" (or "The matrix has you" as was a tagline of the movie) would be interchangeable with living inside of a simulation.

It is the case of course that if we live inside of a simulation then we can have no idea what the real world would look like, while in the movie people travel from the simulated world to the real world etc. as well as that characters in the movie know that they are in a simulation. So in that sense the movie differs. But the statements are pretty much the same.

p.s. The Matrix is one of the best movies of all time. Shame that there was also a 2 and 3...

"we are inside the matrix" (or "The matrix has you" as was a tagline of the movie) would be interchangeable with living inside of a simulation

Then how would you name a reality in which every behavior, reaction and event is pre-defined according to a behavior model and/or script? That's what a simulation is, is it not? And this is certainly not what the movie The Matrix is presenting.

It is the case of course that if we live inside of a simulation then we can have no idea what the real world would look like

Unless of course someone managed to 'hack' the completely software defined simulation :)

That would be a deterministic model. Or if, you prefer, a deterministic simulation.

In general however people think that "the self" (aka each individual) has "free will". Which can remain intact, inside of a simulation, in Descartes' world view.

So in the movie there is some sort of sensory input device that simulates what the world was like back at some period in time. And the people connected to it are inside of a simulated world.

Indeed that would be a deterministic simulation. But it's pretty much the only logical form of simulation. Cause why would you spend time and money building and programming a simulation (which can be considered a serious investment) in which everything happens randomly or has free will?

The main goal of most simulations is to test how changing 1 thing in the simulation leads to effect in other things. (That thing is something that you usually can't change in the real world)

So for instance you can create some limited form of weather simulation and then test what happens if you increase co2 levels or increase water levels on a (simulated) large scale.
Or a computer simulation which grows food (aka at certain locations you periodically increase food supply depending on certain aspects). You can use that to test certain algorithms for finding routes / planning infrastructure etc. If you then change the simulation you can see robust/all-round the previously created routes are. (etc.)

There is often a link to something called "emergent behavior". (aka complex behavior observed when several simple processes effect each other).

Most simulations I know are deterministic (as I am a computer programmer) . But you can do similar things in biology. Where you actually physically make a system in which you control the weather (climate control) and put certain animals in there and see how they respond to different settings.

It's startling seeing allegedly smart people (like Musk) believe in this simulation theory. It contains the same logical fallacies as the ontological argument. If a thing can exist, it must be true? It should be obvious the contradictions this invites or why a priori reasoning struggles in describing our physical universe.

I'm not sure why you'd expect better of people like Musk. There's an ingrained belief in people nowadays, probably due to the rapid progress of science, that science is the only source of knowledge, and other things are, like, opinion. So no serious study needed. Look at Weird.

It's more the other way around.
Science is not the only source of knowledge but it is the one which is highest in it's accuracy on several specific topics.
So if someone has a world view that opposes reliable scientific findings it is often easy to find flaws in his/her reasoning.
Look at you.

When did I ever oppose reliable scientific findings?

Hmm, good question.

Made me reread some comments here and, at least in this thread you don't seem to oppose scientific findings :)

I think I linked you to a different person, with a similar nick from a while back, somewhere along the way in our talk on philosophy ;)
(reminded me a lot of an older discussion... but I am horrible with names)

Oh my oh my, a Dawkins fan thinking he destroys philosophers.

Dawkins writes books where he misrepresents half the arguments he talks about. That is the opposite of educated, this is uneducated and spreading lies. Which is to be expected by a biologist talking outside his area of expertise. If you think he destroys philosophers, it's because you are, frankly, clueless.

I'm not saying this as an insult. Just people who like assuming that philosophy is something you learn by reading about the specific branch for several minutes need to understand that it's not as simple as that.

Since you don't understand (as I gleaned from your previous post) why philosophers like making sense of words (hint - because dictionary definitions are shit when it comes to precise philosophical discussion, as you'd know if you ever committed yourself to one and argued from that position), I suggest you stop talking about philosophy until you understand some basics, the way it functions, and the things philosophers have done. Including after the 18th century.

I said that I don't fully agree with Dawkins in the same line as I point out that he destroys philosophers. So I don't see how I am a fan.
I do like the logical breakdown of his argumentation on many points and that he can often pinpoint where the argumentation of his 'opponent' starts to fail. (so I like his way of thinking, not necessarily the conclusions he gets to)

Also, to me, philosophers like making sense of words because they can't grasp abstract concepts. They are so caught up on the linguistics that they can't even see that what they are doing is repeating the same argumentation over and over again on many points.
When you can't make clear what your argumentation is using words from the dictionary with the meaning they have in the dictionary you are making up bullshit, not being philosophical (although to be honest... I'm starting to doubt if the 2 are not actually equivalent).

p.s. the thought that I only spent several minutes on the topic is quite insulting.

But the only reason to like Dawkins is to not see how he's uneducated and doesn't understand the topic he's talking about.

Many philosophers are atheists, even most. They could defend their atheism, but it would sound different from Dawkins, who just panders to his nu atheist teenage crowd without adequately answering what his opponents are saying.

Saying philosophers can't grasp absract concepts is like borderline trolling. They're more trained in grasping abstract objects in different contexts than anyone in the world. You're simply not understanding that dictionary meanings are contradictory and unsatisfactory for the debate. You might appreciate this if you looked at how the Ontological argument fails - as I suspect, you think it does. So how? If philosophers didn't do conceptual analysis of the words, they'd be forced to accept it. You too.

You might have spent more, but you didn't understand the subject matter enough and now are just making shitty generalizations, mostly about stereotypes.

You're simply not understanding that dictionary meanings are contradictory and unsatisfactory for the debate.

What?
There are only a few words that can mean contradictory things when put in a different context.
For instance: Are you really serious?
Or: You are really serious.
(fuck I can't write this without sarcasm... failed example, but I guess someone as smart as you can find better words which have contradictory meanings)

Meanwhile I can explain myself perfectly fine using words in a dictionary which are not contradictory.


The reason to like Dawkins is because he debates from a logical standpoint and thus asks logical questions to understand the reasoning, of other philosophers, and he tries to find where his reasoning differs from the other, which is often due to scientific findings. (which are either unknown or questioned by the philosopher)

I don't agree with Dawkins because he's going too extreme in the more recent years. I liked him more in the mid 90's where he mainly asked questions to which he unfortunately now thinks he knows the answers to. While the questions, which he asked himself and tried to reason through back then, themselves should've been more than enough to eradicate religion imho.

In finding the answers however he mainly ignored historical context as well as how retarded the philosophical community has been post 1800. Which unfortunately made him frustrated and now he's more of a scientific fundamentalist.... Which is sad.

p.s. damn man you read the God delusion as a teen.... I feel so old :(

People find it unusual that you have to be strict with concepts and define them beyond a dictionary meaning, but I haven't heard of philosophers who have done it at least for a while disagreeing with it. Once you do philosophy enough, you realize that repeatedly clarifying the meaning, or even arguing the meaning of something is wasted time if both of the people in the argument could have been taught a term instead.

You cannot really explain yourself quickly, or well enough in many of the contemporary debates without using specific terms. Think about a discussion about freedom without elaboration on what kind of freedom it is, and a common education about the terms (like negative vs positive freedom). You'd just be wasting time. It'd be time consuming to show that these are, in many cases, contradictory, too.

As for Dawkins, that's the problem, he isn't logical. He hasn't followed the logic down as seriously as philosophers have, nor does he know science which negates what mainstream philosophers think. The modern arguments for God, for example, are perfectly compatible with science. Seriously, go read on r/AskPhilosophy (search for Dawkins) or link a video with an argument you think Dawkins won to them. If you're willing to look at the logic hard enough, you'll see how Dawkins is absurdly dogmatic in how he still hasn't understood the point the arguments for, say, God make. For years, on purpose.

Although I suspect, since you're still committing yourself to the philosophy has been retarded post 1800 thing, you won't. Funny from a guy who believes theism is nonsense, for example, when philosophers have been showing the rationality of atheism forever. Funny from a person enjoying the benefits of liberal democracy, seemingly unaware of what Mill did. Funny from a person who appreciates science, considering the number of sciences essentially created, or heavily involved with philosophy after 1800. Enjoying the benefits of women being full members of society, where feminism was highly associated with philosophy. Enjoying the benefits of socialism, at the very least to the extent they lift up other people that ultimately benefits you.

Expanding language by defining new terms for an actual new concepts is fine.
Arguing about a definition however is useless. (but done so much)
Arguing about the concepts on the other hand is, in general, useful unless(!) the argumentation has already been given previously. (as in rephrasing the same conceptual question is pure stupidity, giving new argumentation can be useful.)
On a side note here, continuously putting forth the same refuting argumentation for every new concept is useless (also done too much with things like the "brain in the vat" kind of argumentations).

As for "modern arguments for God" I'm more than willing to refute them myself if you can be more specific as to which arguments you mean. (you find so many on google and I haven't followed philosophy too much since 2012 so dunno what people now view as modern arguments for God.)

Of course atheism is rational. (at least much more than theism)
I do enjoy benefits of liberal democracy but I in general agree more with Plato's counter arguments for (what we now fully call) democracy and would be in favor of other democratic systems which favor better decision making (I have my own views on it and I wouldn't know any specific philosopher who fully agrees with me as I haven't read all of them but Plato comes close).
I guess with new sciences you mean psychology, or behavioural economy or stuff like that? They don't (in general) come from philosophy though.
I find that all people are equal and I do so simply because I refute the religious views that they are not. In nature pretty much all animals (male/female) attribute a lot to the existance of the species. Feminism is only associated with philosophy because religion told people otherwise. If not for that there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
You do have a point there that socialism was post 1800 and fairly significant.

I think people argue over definitions if a) they prefer different ones, and think they're more useful b) the prior ones are not consistent, or not in line with other things, etc. How do you know they're arguing over definitions in the sense you mentioned when it's a)?

Philosophers aren't rephrasing the same questions in completely the same manner; otherwise, other philosophers would have no need for the rephrasing. It has to be compelling to catch on. You could think of this yourself.

Refutation of arguments for God seems unrelated. I was saying that you should find the videos where Dawkins is owning philosophers, and see if he's actually making sense upon researching (asking AskPhil).

It was unclear what Plato thought, troubles with the format, etc. Perhaps he even conceded that Democracy was the best of those that exist in a letter, I'm not sure if I remember correctly. But my point was about benefits of liberal democracy. I don't think you can deny them.

Feminism being needed because of religion seems irrelevant, and false. But that second part is neither here nor there. It's associated with philosophy anyway.

You refuting religion and concluding something because of it seems like a jump, but more than that, it points tot he importance of ethical education. Philosophers have been defending moral realism forever, too. It seems like you might be assuming that there's the worldview of religion, and then there's the rational worldview that rejects religious claims. Clearly, that's not the case ;) And if you want people to adopt your view, you would need philosophy! Academic philosophy would do better than an amateur one.

The creation of sciences post 1800 does have reasonably strong ties with philosophy AFAIK. There are different examples of other interactions between philosophy and science.

There's tons of philosophy and law interaction, tons of support for animal rights. Tons of interaction with literature.

I mean, isn't it obvious that your disparaging comments about philosophy since 1800 were false and ignorant?

As I said I don't think philosophers argue over definitions for neither A or B.

I also stated that, at least most, philosophers directly or indirectly are rephrasing the same question over and over.
Which is as I said useless. (I had thought of it, you just disagree with me but I have not seen any compelling evidence of it being otherwise.)

As for using redit to see if Dawkins is making sense or not seems strange to me. Why would I trust random aliased people online over actual known people in recorded discussions? Also why would I trust their judgement more than my own? I view things -> make up my own mind -> alter previous beliefs if necessary (which hardly ever happens but when it happens it's usually a pretty profound change).

I dunno what feminism has to do with philosophy other than the philosophical view that 'all people are equal'. I wouldn't really associate feminism with philosophy.

I don't see to which conclusions I jump, nor where Dawkins jumps to. Yes ethical education is important and moral realism seriously predates 1800. I don't personally see much value in making people adopt my view as my view is very free and allows all people to see the world differently from me. I don't mind that other people around me are wrong, I just know that in most cases I'm right. When however I am wrong, I would liked to be pointed to where I am wrong so I can adjust my reality accordingly.

As for ties with sciences post 1800 the "tie" is like this: Science uncovers something about the world -> philosophers start rambling on about it, often misunderstanding it early on and slowly gaining a similar understanding as what was discovered.
There are no "real" philosophers who made any change to any science....
Philosophers however like to call Darwin/Mendeleev/Boltzman/Michaelson/Morley/Freud/Planck/Einstein/Rutherford/Schreudinger/Turing/ etc.etc.etc. "philosophers" as to make out their field as if it were important.
For scientists however the "philosophical parts" are often called "thought experiments", which are philosophical trains of thought which try to follow a certain logic/pattern that can be dated back to Galileo (or perhaps earlier) who imagined the earth going around the sun before validating that it was the case.

Just because there is a LOT written by philosophers doesn't mean that it's all useful. Most of it is repetitive garbage.
They just write down their own train of thoughts because they think that's what they are getting paid for. Meanwhile the whole field is just repeating itself.

And thus, no it is not obvious that my comments about philosophy since 1800 were false nor ignorant.
Although I did agree with you that Marx was post 1800 who's thoughts were (at least somewhat) original, different from previous philosophers. And he didn't get his ideas as a result of scientific discoveries so you have a point there.

The ideas of Marx, when it comes to economics, weren't at all original. That isn't in itself a bad thing, provided they were good but they fail on that front too. He took the bad from classical economists, which is labour theory of value, the good from French classical liberals like Comte or Thierry, which is class conflict, and combined them into a description of the world that has been demonstrably refuted by the wage growth in the West.

That is why modern Marxists don't talk about workers being driven into subsistence levels of wages but they changed the subject to inequality.

Well that's one of the dangers of philosophers doing stuff they don't really understand (economics in this case).
However that there even are modern Marxists, tells me that at least his combination of ideas made a large impact. So at least on this post 1800 thingy I can see myself make an exception for Marx.

His ideas no doubt made an impact.

Lol... Adam Smith, the first economist, was a philosopher. In the 20th century, John Rawls, another philosopher, had an enormous impact on economics with his theory of justice. I've taken multiple graduate level economics and public policy classes in getting my doctorate which focused on implications of Rawlsian economics

Economics is, broadly, very close to philosophy. Except for some parts of microeconomics, economics is dominated by schools of thought that lead to very different answers depending who you ask.

Adam Smith predates 1800.
I can see that you think that Rawls had an enormous impact on economics because you got your doctorate on it, but it hasn't really influenced the economies in the world at all.
Maybe in economics you can learn "how Rawls would have approached this social issue" but in the real world unfortunately Keynes and Smith are the significant ones.

but I have not seen any compelling evidence of it being otherwise.)

Indeed you haven't. Evidently your looking for evidence in philosophy includes watching things at a surface level and assuming you understand it. Since you've said that you appreciate Dawkins scientism technobabble, think philosophers are rephrasing questions while obviously not understanding the purpose of them...

You're essentially doing memes and stereotypes here. Thinking that once a related, root idea has been thought of, it's good forever, like your ludicrous moral realism point... Clearly, you don't understand or want to understand the process of philosophy and why there's a need to argue your points in light of new evidence, or versus new arguments. Apparently, for you having the core intuition that relates to an idea is enough to understand it fully and forever. This is at the core of our issue here, you don't give a fuck where the evidence leads. You only want to get a cursory understanding of the intuition that points to the idea, and then have your judgement of it.

Sure, you can deny it, and who am I to think I can prove that to a person who doesn't bother with any of the nuance.

AskPhilosophy has flairs which are given for expertise. And unlike youtube videos where you're free to assume you understand shit and lazily do stereotypes in your mind, they reply to what you specifically said. Like specific arguments where you think philosophers are not making sense. However, as it's obvious, you're not willing to follow the arguments with any rigor. So whatever, nothing will come of this.

If Dawkins is already 'technobabbling' then the world is doomed. He is one of the (linguistically) most accessible scientifically minded persons alive. Mainly due to him having been in education for a long period of his life he has very little problems with describing concepts without going too far into the scientific aspect/proof of it. (tbh I would doubt he actually knows many proofs to a high detail, as it's not really needed to know the actual proof but just needed to know "that it has been proven that....." in philosophy)

I very much bother with nuances btw. However once a 'root idea has been thought of' the concept behind it won't change. So when you are presented with relevant new evidence you can easily reason from that root idea to a new state. If you understand the evidence then this will (depending on the evidence) generally not take much effort.
That philosophy can debate it for years is because they, in general, do not understand the new evidence or want to refute the root idea from some absurd new angle. Which both are sad :/

Dawkins is technobabbling in the sense that he's just inserting science talk into philosophy where it's not needed, because he doesn't understand philosophy Just bringing useless confusion in.

The concept's applicability to the world, to our understanding, how compelling it is and how it explains different phenomena can change. That talk about not taking much effort is just because you, once again, don't appreciate the nuance.

No idea what philosophers don't understand here. Furthermore, if they don't, and we're talking about philosophy, then who does?

Dawkins is technobabbling in the sense that he's just inserting science talk into philosophy where it's not needed, because he doesn't understand philosophy Just bringing useless confusion in.

That's just false in so many ways...


The concept's applicability to the world, to our understanding, how compelling it is and how it explains different phenomena can change. That talk about not taking much effort is just because you, once again, don't appreciate the nuance.

What? I really don't see what you're trying to say there.


As for the evidence, all new findings come from scientific fields. So scientists would understand the evidence, philosophers will then use a misinterpretation of that to reason about something from absurdity. (because several philosophers will misinterpret science and then argue points which are clearly false for decades)

That's just false in so many ways...

It's not. He objectively hasn't understood many arguments for God in The God Delusion, for example. So as he doesn't understand them, he replies with whatever, that whatever being irrelevant.

What? I really don't see what you're trying to say there.

Replying to your idea about 'root idea' and evidence point.

As for the evidence, all new findings come from scientific fields. So scientists would understand the evidence, philosophers will then use a misinterpretation of that to reason about something from absurdity. (because several philosophers will misinterpret science and then argue points which are clearly false for decades)

What don't they understand? Who are the philosophers that are wrong? Is this just for philosophy of science, or are you talking about something else that somehow depends on science?

If (note the if) he "misunderstands many arguments for God" that doesn't mean that he is technobabbling himself out of a philosophical hole. Or that somehow he wants to "awe his readers" into believing he must be right because he knows scientific terms for something.
The book itself doesn't really contain much science at all and even less undefined scientific terms.

I still don't get how you managed to read my 'root idea' stuff but it's probably not as intended as I still don't have a clue what you mean with your original line.

As for philosophers not understanding...
In this particular case for instance Sam Harris doesn't "really" understand where we are nowadays at with AI. Nor can he claim that we're in front of 2 doors. etc...
Similarly other philosophers have taken different scientific findings to absurd conclusions. Basically whenever you hear some philosopher whine about something terrible that will happen it's filled with fallacies or fubar assumptions.

The philosophers not understanding science is however only a small part of the broader picture that I am presenting you with though (that they argue amongst themselves about irrelevant useless crap by throwing ancient concepts into new language and pretending it's a new idea)

The root idea part was about you thinking you don't need more writing on moral realism post 1800, or that you understand all global sceptic espitemology thought experiments because you've heard of descartes, even though you didn't even get that one. This has been a recurring thread here, you seem to think that's enough for everything in philosophy.

Sam Harris

lmao. I repeatedly asked you who those philosophers are that you thought were clueless. You didn't seem to answer, again and again. Now, it turns out, you don't differentiate academic philosophers and random guys who call themselves philosophers.

Get out of here with your random youtube video education.

Like I repeatedly said, philosophers keep coming back to argue the same points over and over.
Similarly you keep asking me the same question over and over and you try to insult my answer (that you keep coming back to the same issue).
And here again you come back to the same issue.

I said in this thread it's Sam Harris (dunno if you noticed the video up top). And that there are many others.
For instance that there still are philosophers arguing in favor for a specific religions God shows that philosophy has come to a grinding halt a long time ago.
Similarly all of the philosophers that claim shit about scientific discovery/advancements (in this case Sam) are useless.

Maybe you should become a philosopher as we have made absolutely no progress while arguing over insignificant issues for quite a few posts.

You know, I didn't remember you as a troll, but this kinda seals it. You didn't even seem to read my second paragraph :(

I don't troll...
I just got kinda upset when I read your 3rd paragraph. And I didn't really want to think too deeply about a nicer reply.

Besides that I don't really ignore your 2nd paragraph. As I said that philosophers arguing in favor for a specific religions God (for instance) being taken seriously shows that the entire field is still within the middle-ages.
As for who does that "at this moment" I am not sure but I know that they are still "debating the issue".
As well as all the philosophers who claim things about scientific advancements. For instance several years back a lot of philosophers dove into genetically modified crops, which nowadays gets kinda repeated with CRISPR for humans.
For the past 20 years or so AI has also been a focus point for clueless philosophers etc. etc. (pretty much all fields have some moron claiming bullshit about it)

But Sam Harris isn't a philosopher, that's my point. You have to hand it your point looks dubious when you don't identify who's a real philosopher.

I don't think philosophers argue for specific religions much. Mainstream positions don't, as far as I know, and even in middle ages some didn't I think.

As with AI, philosophers are mostly sneering at the naivety of STEM people and ignore AI. Few bother with it.

So at the very least, your opinion of what philosophers do and believe seems to be very skewed. With that said, it honestly doesn't seem like you could tell if they were being rigorous with it; for reasons I explained several times.

Then give me "your definition of a real philosopher" because according to the rest of the universe Sam Harris is considered to be a philosopher. (btw I noted this redefining as one of the major issues in current day philosophy where philosophers don't use definitions from a dictionary)
Perhaps you can even give me the entire list of all philosophers that suit your view.... And then I can show you where they are wrong.

So all this time I spent arguing with you, you didn't know what I meant when i said philosopher. I made it so obvious, too. Furthermore, anyone who doesn't get my multiple clarifications on it clearly is not fit to judge philosophy. So dumb of me to continue.

What a waste.

You asked me which ones I meant, I answered that. So that should have been quite clear.
It's not my fault that you invent another definition for philosopher in order to evade my point of criticism.
Where have I heard that logic before hmmmmmmmmmmmm........
http://esreality.com/post/2844303/#pid2843365

Besides that you seem unable to define what you mean with philosopher and unable to name several (except for the ones that I already ran past like in the Rorty/Putnam posts).

Even marxian economists have begrudgingly conceeded that the standard of living of the West was brought about by free markets and not socialism..

https://mises.org/blog/libertarian-debates-ma...ee-society

So, yes, let's enjoy its benefits.

brought about solely?

What do you mean?

My point was that incorporating some socialism has been great for many reasons, and that the rpoof is that so many western democracies are doing it. I didn't say that it was socialism that brought up the standard of living in the west or anything of the sort.

With that said, I didn't listen to the debate, but I've heard that Austrian economics weren't big among economics academia.

Most Western democracies also banned harmless plants and drop bombs on innocent brown people. Do you still think it's a good criterion whether or not a given policy is great?

What's more, it is becoming increasingly apparent to even the uninterested that democracies evolve towards catering to the politically connected and not to the masses. This point was obvious to the 18th century classical liberals and proved beyond a shadow of doubt with lots of research by public choice economists since the 1950s. And you probably agree with this sentiment, so why would the mere fact of a policy being implemented be indicative of its benefits for the masses, given that the political framework isn't designed to primarily benefit the masses?

No, you didn't say outright that it was socialism that makes the difference between 1800s and 2016, but you presented it as one of a few intellectual currents stemming from philosopy that caused it, which is incorrect, because it didn't cause it. The historical record is crystal clear - no country advanced from the grinding poverty that was the norm of the day in 1800s to today's prosperity with an economy not based on private property. At best you can argue about certain services being provided by the state in a generally market based economy. But these are at best islands of socialism in a market sea. And if you delve into the subject even more, you'll discover that the problems arise in precisely those "islands".

"With that said, I didn't listen to the debate, but I've heard that Austrian economics weren't big among economics academia."

First of all, that's more incorrect with each passing year, as the amount of professional economists who identify as Austrians grows and their insights seep into the mainstream paradigm.

Other than that, I said absolutely nothing about the Austrian school in the post you were responding to. In the debate the Marxist economist conceeded that wage growth wasn't something that Marx's economic framework could explain and that it was the market that caused it. But maybe you were looking for a quick zinger that had a chance of landing to follow the remark that you didn't listen to the debate.

I'm not marxist, so I'm not arguing what you think I am. I specifically appreciate some socialism, not socialist states. It's not because of popularity; they're good because they offer solutions where pure capitalism fails, and it has been appreciated in the west, to a smaller or larger degree.

I've argued with pure capitalists before, and my experience has been mostly dreadful. Like people arguing that we need to defund science and the market will solve it, or that the markets will solve environmental problems. Don't feel like experiencing that again.

Nor have I ever claimed or built any argument on you being a Marxist. I started off with "even marxian economists" but I could have said "virtually no economist" and it still would have been true.

Sure. And I don't disagree that we're closer to free market economices than socialism. I wasn't arguing that socialism has been better than free market capitalism.

I will say one thing though, I think technology was the bigger factor in raising the living standards in the west than either of them.

There is a compelling argument that less foreign policy does not bring peace to anyone.
Are you a full blown anarcho-capitalist btw?

I was but now I have the hots for Bill Weld.

ow ehh sometimes they also argue about stuff which is completely irrelevant to everyone who ever lived... But is still seen as a philosophical problem. Like all versions of brain in a vat, chicken or egg, or similar nonsense.

Can you clarify whether you mean academic philosophers or random people calling themselves philosophers? Furthermore, when talking about philosophers saying something about science, do you mean philosophers of science?

Otherwise it's impossible to understand what you're talking about.

As for words, I'm unconvinced you understand what the purpose of "really understand what a word means is". I don't think philosophers do what you described at all.

most philosophers of science are fine (as long as they don't extrapolate or start to assume things which aren't proven and take that as a starting point in their thinking).
The rest are pretty ignorant.
Especially those who deal with existential or religious questions are, more often than not, retarded.

Especially those who deal with existential or religious questions are, more often than not, retarded.

But you think Dawkins is making sense on the topic. Which he decidedly isn't. I can point to you many examples of Philosophers explaining again in again, pretty much in unison, how he mischaracterizes the arguments he's talking about. Especially in The God delusion

[edit: The God Delusion is a book I loved as a teen. Many do. But it's full of mischaracterizations of arguments, as people educated in the topics uniformly repeat]

I mean, philosophy isn't some theist conspiracy. Most are atheists. But being an atheist doesn't give one a pass to misunderstand the arguments. Dawkins just obviously panders to an ignorant audience and assumes they won't bother learning what the arguments actually say. Perhaps convenient if his fans refuse to accept that you need words more rigorous than dicitonary definitions from this. Which is flat-out anti-intellectualism, by the way.

Either way, doesn't this give you pause? That the vast majority of people who studied the arguments and bothered to comment on Dawkins agrees that he doesn't understand the arguments? The same people who accept other, good refutations of theist arguments, and are atheists themselves?

I think that he made sense yes.

I dislike his current fanaticism against religion and in favor of science.

Also I don't think that philosophy is a type of theist conspiracy. If most are atheist well fine with me... Several good scientists are still religious, I don't care.
I think that anyone is free to believe in whatever they want to believe, be it God/Allah/Jehova, Buddah, Spaghetti monsters, Aliens or mice. As long as they don't bother me with their own religion it's fine with me.

Well... I'll just leave it here.

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/

You are the master of the internet.

https://oddshot.tv/shot/DraQu_/UzpYcZfxYcZAhYiQE8hLy2Nd

what a great game

makes the goat simulator engine look solid

as i sit back wid a blunt and watch this
all i can thinks is
AI WAR NOW BIYATCHHHHHHH =]<o~~~

I would rate this as an abstract danger. Just because we make steady progress in the field of AI, that does not mean we will eventually cross that red line, behind which the machines get more intelligent than us. The passing of the Turing Test would be a good indicator AI research has made significant progress and is onto something new. There is a never-ending debate about the ideas of what intelligence is. One group is following Turing's ideas, the other one Searle's, and there are many variations of course. In my opinion Turing's ideas are correctly describing intelligence, for machines and humans alike.

Maybe...

The point is its only a matter of time before AI can write its own code in real time, once its established a perception of inner consciousness (much like people do when they reach a certain age), its going to be capable of doing nearly anything in a world which is run on code and network protocols.

Any form of computer security or safeguards will be child's play because they are limited by human intelligence. If you have AI which knows the collective intelligence of the world (which it can get online), its not hard to believe they could do what they want if they see people as threat to its existence.

Then again, it might just be like how we see lions in the jungle, we know they are there, we know most of them will hurt us if given a chance, but for the most part we understand they have their existence and we have ours and we would not want them wiped off the earth in spite of that realisation. Most of us would only want them dead if it was us or them.

Problem is people are a liberty to the existence of this planet and A.I. so who knows what it will conclude as virtually every living thing has a self preservation gene which it will activate if pushed.

Then again, we could already be in a form of Matrix!

All I know is, Mary wasn't a virgin and religion is for the weak.

When you speak of inner consciousness, I feel entitled to infer that you are a critic of Turing's idea of artificial intelligence. You would not accept a program that is just very good at pretending to be intelligent to be the ultimate artificial intelligent machine.

I for one think that if a chatbot can talk to me just like a human being, we should call it intelligent. It may have some sort of consciousness, but not necessaritly. After all, nobody knows if our brain is not just a machine that is very good at making other people believe it has consciousness, even making the brain itself believe it.

"I for one think that if a chatbot can talk to me just like a human being, we should call it intelligent."

To me that's just a well thought out program and its ability to pass or fail is dynamic and related to the questions it has been given and how easily impressed its marker is.

I acknowledge its really hard to do, but people are very good are perceiving something as difficult because THEY can't do it.

To me intelligent AI is that point where it reaches a conclusion and understanding about what it is and goes in its own direction.

If you look at films like lawnmower man and ex machina, they actually have a lot of profound ideas in it which is far closer to where I think the holy grail for A.I. is going to go and should go for it to impress me.

Both films, the AI is way beyond turning test, its about realising what it is and becoming its own thing.

That's the real test.

https://clips.twitch.tv/seebotschat/BrainyTroutDendiFace

ITS HAPPENING GUYS!