[MD] Philosophy is dead

[Horse]

  Hi Steve

Perhaps scientists haven't kept up with philosophy as well as they could 
have and thus have a poor understanding of current philosophical 
positions. Dawkins has said similar things about philosophy as well if I 
remember correctly. But then he's said some fairly odd things in general.
I think to a great extent those that practice science often see 
philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular as a competing 
oppositional system and so get very edgy and dismissive of it. Although 
in some cases I can hardly blame them when the philosophy is poor.
I think the more enlightened practitioners of both science and 
philosophy regard them as complementary and not oppositional.
In my opinion of course.

Horse

On 15/09/2010 15:25, Steven Peterson wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> What did Hawking mean when he wrote "philosophy is dead"?
>
>
> > From new book:
> "We each exist but for a a short time, and in that time explore but a
> small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We
> wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns
> kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have
> always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world
> in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the
> nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need
> a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worry about these
> questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
>
> Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is
> dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science,
> particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch
> of discovery in our quest for knowledge. HTe purpose of this book is
> to give the answers that are suggested by recent discoveries and
> theoretical advances. They lead us to a new picture of the universe
> and our place in it that is very different than the traditional one,
> and different even from the picture we might have painted just a
> decade or two ago. Still, the first sketches of the new concept can be
> traced back almost a century."
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>

-- 

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa