[MD] Transhumanism

[Krimel]

Krimel said:
Not to belabor the point but the role of natural philosophers 
for the past 2500 has been to carve out philosophical 
questions and provide ways of answering them. As a result 
they are no longer considered philosophical questions 
anymore. Philosophical speculation about mathematics fell 
to the Greeks. Philosophical speculation about physics fell 
to the Italians and English.

Matt:
Right, the "every discipline broke off from the tree of 
philosophy" view.

[Krimel]
Except that I don't think broke off or new tree from old tree is quite
right. It is branches growing on the same tree. When zoologist discover a
platypus it doesn't get a new tree it sprouts as a new branch. Or when
chemists decide to only concern themselves with atoms and molecules they
aren't uprooting from physics, they are just a new branch looking for a
different patch of sunlight.

Matt:
Sure, but taking the tree/new-tree approach to what 
philosophy's relationship is to other stuff, what kind of 
relevance is this "something" that is said?  For instance, 
I'm sure we can draw various kinds of lines between gluons 
and the worldview that allowed gluons to happen (like the 
inferential connections I drew in my post to Ian about the 
publicity of moral reasoning), but that relevancy seems 
pretty remote from the gluons themselves.  Because in this 
case, "gluons" is really just a variable-X, a placeholder for 
"insert scientific thingy here."

[Krimel]
I don't have very high or very specific expectations apparently. What I am
looking for from philosophy is the smallest set of concepts that can help me
make sense of the greatest amount of incoming data. Or maybe a better way of
saying that is I want heuristics that have broad applicability. I am a
generalist at heart, a jack of all trades and I look for ideas that let me
shift modes with minimal grinding of gears.  

[Matt]
If you first distinguish philosophy from other disciplines, then you 
cannot have an easy view of interdisciplinary impact (or
"cross-pollinization").

[Krimel]
But that is not the kind of distinction I see happening. I think physicist
are still natural philosophers perusing philosophical problems that lend
themselves to the techniques of physics. Philosophers in philosophy
departments and such, are the folks left pursuing problems with no agreed
upon methodology or at least not agreement on how to arrive at answers.
Despite what I said earlier philosophy itself started as a branch of
mathematics for example. Plato was simply applying mathematical techniques
of proof and reason to other areas. Hume, Kant and pretty much everyone
immediately after Newton were adapting philosophy to the newly invented
methodology of classical physics. Cultural and moral relativism are
philosophical responses to Einstein and Darwin. Postmodernism is response to
Einstein and QM.

[Matt]
But what do think about this way of describing it: all other 
disciplines can offer the distinctive problems of philosophy 
are new kinds of metaphors.  

[Krimel]
Yeah, see above. That's what I think was happening. But again I don't
necessarily see any necessary discontinuity involved just branching and
pruning.

[Matt]
A philosopher doesn't _need_ 
to take into account new metaphors--that would be like 
saying you have to take something seriously just because 
it was new.  However, since philosophical articulation is 
based on the metaphors you start off from (like the mind 
as a mirror or Man Falling From Heaven), new metaphors 
will transform your philosophy.  And, crossing back into 
philosophy from the newer discipline with new metaphors 
might, indeed, produce new disciplines.  Philosophy is about 
mediating between the future and the past, on this view, 
but what we can't have is just an entire abandonment of 
old metaphors without good reason.

[Krimel]
And people have often found ways to dredge up old discarded ideas and
breathe new life into them. I remember being in elementary school at the
dawn of the "atomic age." We were taught that Democritus "discovered" atoms.
Well yeah, but...  

[Matt]
So with your illustration of the impact on Pirsig's cultural 
lens metaphor of new stuff, I--as a philosopher personally 
reflecting on his metaphors--can't really see it as a major 
alteration because the basic metaphor has stayed the 
same.  What it does is update it to not be so static, but 
if you've already lodged complaints against the entire 
ocular metaphor itself, then it isn't clear what more is 
gained by going back to it.  It's like being asked to go back 
to a geocentric view because you found a way of adding a 
hundred new epicycles so that your geocentrism matches 
better with the new heliocentrism.  A heliocentrist will reply, 
"Well, that's nice, but the structural integrity of view is still 
the same and I still don't want to use it."  

[Krimel]
I am not sure that I ever intentionally suggested a problem with ocular
metaphors although I am told the French have. Be that as it may, my project
has always been to connect as much stuff together as possible. You know
there are two kinds of people lumpers and splitters. I'm a lumper. But if
one has a special interest in splitting nothing I say is going to be
interesting to them. Back to heuristics; if you are mathematician or a
physicists or perhaps and analytical philosopher heuristics may seem like
finger painting. Or perhaps if you are near sighted reading glasses won't
help much.

[Matt]
Dewey didn't need computers to suggest we could be less 
static by getting rid of the spectator view of knowledge, 
though I'm not going to complain too much when people 
catch up in their own way.  I don't think work being done 
on information theory and whatnot, particularly about 
feedback loops and self-reference (like Hofstadter, 
strange-loop junk) is SOMic, I just think that Dewey and 
pragmatism are waiting at the other end of it.  And the 
example of Dewey is a good example of why I'm suggesting 
there isn't (nor should their be) direct impact between 
up-to-date science and up-to-date philosophy.  Both got 
their own thing going, though curiosity about what other 
people are doing and cross-pollinization is sometimes an 
instrument of advance (just as it sometimes is in personal 
relations).

[Krimel]
I trust you on Dewey but I do think science does tend to heavily impact
philosophy not only by adding rich new metaphors as you point out but by
sharpening old ones. Regrinding the lens a bit if you will. Furthermore
science can also rightfully demand abandoning or pruning of philosophical
notions altogether. Galileo's attacks on Aristotle for example or Darwin's
impact on large chunks of theology or more currently the impact of
determinism without predictability on talk of free will and fate. 

To use your (Rorty's?) conversation and vocabulary metaphor surely there are
often reasons to hold separate caucuses for purposes of precision within the
various branches of knowledge but this does not mean there aren't good
reasons to maintain and improve vocabularies that promote cross talk. When
we find the kind of crosstalk that can provide connections from roots to
stems that is what I would call metaphysics.

[Matt]
The general know-how of knowing when to 
take something seriously is an evolving currency, but 
knowing that there is a know-how there to be flexed is 
perhaps something we need better work at articulating.

[Krimel]
Yeah, but easier said than done. I have more than passing interest in
philosophy but certainly not the passion for detail that you do. Likewise my
interest in physics, theology, history, economics, rhetoric, anthropology,
mathematics and computer science. If I have a "specialty" it is psychology
at least until Fall term starts. But I have never been interested in sinking
deep roots. I have pursued breathed over depth at every opportunity. That I
suppose puts me "inside" lots of front doors but not inside many parlors and
I hardly ever get invited into the bedroom. But like to think I has a pretty
good idea of what sort of neighborhood I am in most of the time.

[Matt]
Not being interested myself, I can only hope that other 
people _are_ so culture won't miss out on something.  I hope 
people are paying attention to both science and mysticism, 
so that somebody, when I look up from Howards End, can tell 
me some tidbits of what other people are doing.  But I guess 
if you perceive a person as an enemy beforehand, you won't 
like anything they say.  That's why I don't (try not to) view 
most people as enemies.  I have political enemies and 
philosophical enemies (and soon literary ones), but they are 
actually quite small in scope, and they are only enemies in 
their disciplinary capacities, and knowing the scope helps 
you not take offense when someone tells you about a 
conference.  But if you view the seeds of all evil (rather 
than a certain, limited scope of evil) as rooted in worldview, 
then you naturally perceive almost everyone else as an 
enemy, and so open for ridicule (as silly as it will make you seem).

[Krimel]
We don't talk often because I think our interests are so divergent. I am
often disappointed with the venom in my own writing style but seem unable to
detach from it. It doesn't help when people who don't seem to me possessed
of either depth or breadth make dogmatic assertions or hold ignorance up as
a virtue. I welcome thoughtful criticism but having said that I have to
admit to having my own defensive streak that is miles wide. 

I recently tried to engage some of my high school classmates in a political
discussion. After a bit of heat at the onset I tried to step back and direct
the conversation to the differences between not what but how liberals think.
You know compare worldviews. As it turned out one guy stated flatly that we
should nuke Arab countries until one of them hands over a silver platter
with Bin Laden's head on it, that we should abandon all rules of engagement
in war, that the second amendment guarantees to right of citizens to possess
any weapons that the military can possess, that the Army was illegal under
the constitution, politicians should not be involved in telling generals how
to conduct military operations, that nowhere in the constitution is there a
provision for taxing citizens and spending tax dollar on foreign aid and
that the United State should not be bound by international law. Mary asked a
couple of days who the stupid people are, I know longer think they are all
that hard to find.

These people make Platt look reasonable and all of the arguments here seem
like the meeting minutes of a mutual admiration society.