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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Kuciwalker
And you could make a strong argument that this is due to environmental factors and was not dependent on the presense of a bunch of philosophers. |
I actually think that all primitive societies that decided to go innovative or stagnant have their intellectual class to thank for that. Intellectual class is not necessarily philosophers: actually, the norm is more that primitive intellectual class were priests or sorcerers.
Philosophers are already a division of labour: they think about concepts, and develop a vision for the future, but they don't necessarily are the ones who hold rituals, teach tradition, or advise kings.
Flah-forward to late European middle ages. It's a time where the Arabs have stopped being the scientific heart of the world, yet their environmental factors haven't changed. It's a time where the Chinese have explored the coast of Africa before the Portuguese. It's a time where the Koreans invented Printing before Gutenberg.
The reasons why the European societies have stopped stagnating, wile the other greats have begun to stagnate, is because the European intelligentsia had the idea of humanism on the one hand (thus theology wasn't the only worthwhile intellectual occupation anymore), and because they saw history not as a circle, but as a continuous line, in which things change*.
True, the great plague may be linked to the need to put brains to good use. But were it not for the very idea of progress, Europe would have become stagnant again after overcoming the crisis, just like the Chinese have become stagnant after their great explorations.
*Many societies saw time as the eternal circle of life and death, the eternal circle of seasons etc. When time is an eternal circle, things are bound not to change, and tradition becomes an absolute. This is why many societies have remained exactly the same since centuries, until an external event forced them to change their tradition.
Last edited by Spiffor on 22-04-2005 at 18:15
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Traianvs
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Belgium, land of plenty (corruption)
Jan 2000
time: 06:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
I'm not in over my head here, Agathon is the one saying CS requires no original thought, and other people are equating it to playing with gadgets.
CS does not depend on philosophy today. Philosophers butt their head in for some aspects of it, like AI, but they're not needed and usually not appreciated.
Philosophy was an essential tool a while ago, but more and more branches have become specialized and branched off to the point that we have useless ****ers of Philosophers obsessing over Plato for a living (cough cough), rather than doing anything of use.
Why is this thread even mentioning philosophy anyway? Would the insecure Philosophers please start a different thread to defend their usefulness so we can go back to discussing the ACM competition? |
That's just shocking Asher - a scientist declaring philosophy is absolutely useless!!!?? It's also a scientist's job to think about what he's creating or discovering and what the consequences may be in the future. I know a good number of great scientists also writing books on ethics or philosophy, usually about things concerning their expertise of course but still...
Besides there are enough scientists searching for completely useless applications too, or well useless matters so far. They're not exactly doing anything of use either.
Historians, archaeologists etc etc don't really do anything of use as well, so why don't we simply get rid of them huh Asher? You want to 'dumbify' society imo.
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Traianvs
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Belgium, land of plenty (corruption)
Jan 2000
time: 06:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
*Many societies saw time as the eternal circle of life and death, the eternal circle of seasons etc. When time is an eternal circle, things are bound not to change, and tradition becomes an absolute. This is why many societies have remained exactly the same since centuries, until an external event forced them to change their tradition. |
You'll be amazed how fast primitive societies can adapt to western ways of life. The thing is that they don't really need our modern habits. They are perfectly self-sufficient, have good social structures function harmoniously within their natural surroundings.
When a western group of people communicates with them, they'll be amazed at the technological gadgets of course, but they will not take over that style of life immediately. It is remarkable that they are not interested in metal axes or other tools that are better than their own, simply because they don't know what advantages they could offer them. On the contrary at first they are quite interested in trash and other worthless crap western people leave behind!
They are interested in it because it gives some sort of a status amon their peers. If they acquire such objects they are showing that they have contact with the strangers. However the more this goes on, the more people will be able to get their hands on these objects. After a while inflation and devaluation occurs and those objects are no longer interesting. Thus begins an evolution towards bigger, better, more valuable objects and finally some people will distinguish themselves from the others by taking over western ways of behaving.
Of course this doesn't happen in just a few years, but on the whole this evolution can go very quickly relatively spoken. Also this doesn't happen 100% of the cases, as there are some tribes that will hide and reject the westerns altogether etc etc.
This evolution is reminiscent to the opinion of many prehistorians that hunters/gatherers with a mesolithic way of living, when they encountered migrating farmers with a neolothic way of living, adapted to these newcomers in the same manner more or less. The new groups were technologically more advanced, had certain advantages over them etc. At first the hunters did not adopt the same ways, but over time they were tempted to take over the new ways thanks to the frequent contact with the newer groups, and also because they were probably outcompeted a bit probably.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:21
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The entire field of Ethics is one which is the domain of philosophers. And ethics limits the reach of science, specially biology and medical research.
For example, the coming restrictions on human cloning, or restrictions, for example, on the creation of say a human-chimp hybrid are the result of philosophical musings on the nature of mankind.
If CS ever gets close to real AI, Ethics will quick in to try to determine what the status of trully artificial intelligence would be, and those questions would be out of the league of the CScientists trying to make the computer.
The whole notions of the correctness of a progressive tax system as opposed to a regressive one, or a flat system-those are not just economic, but ethical and moral questions, hence the domain of philosophers (and theologians, the other ancient academic field).
In reality, my life every day is affected a hell of a lot more by ethical questions than by anything any computer scientist does. Hell, even I am old enough to remember living in a world prior to personal computing and so forth.
Technology makes life easier. That is different from making life better, or worse. The Ethical (philosophical and theological) foundations of our society affect me a hell of a lot more than the work of any computer scientist.
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22-04-2005 08:44
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