26-02-2003 19:09									#241
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quote: Originally posted by The Vagabond Sorry to spam your intelligent discussion, guys. Asher, just have a look at the titles of the papers here: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/papers/ Don't you think that all these subjects are worth pursuing?

Perhaps, if they reach a point.

I glanced through this paper

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/...apers/gauge.pdf

and it reads like a textbook overview of standard Hamiltonian mechanics, some E-M stuff and a few tensor operations.

Does the author reach a point, or does he simply engage in telling the reader what is already known?

	26-02-2003 19:09									#242
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Got through the first 30 pages before I gave up, BTW.

I get enough of that **** every day...

	26-02-2003 20:03									#243
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Just wanted to respond to this:

quote: Well, as I wrote before: I know of no scientist who read philosophy on the side.

I do too

-Frooger (currently halfway through The Republic)

	26-02-2003 20:10									#244
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quote: Originally posted by Frogger Just wanted to respond to this: -Frooger (currently halfway through The Republic)

You must be at the bit about knowledge and opinion then. Good luck with that one.

	26-02-2003 20:23									#245
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quote: Originally posted by Asher And this is a classic example of uselessness in Philosophy: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/.../Dialethism.pdf

Oh man. You have completely misunderstood the point here. Say I'm a mathematician or a formal logician and I'm committed to the notion of sets (which can be sets of anything). So what am I supposed to make of

"The set of all sets that are not members of themselves".

Is this a member of itself or not?

Or sentences like this one (called "sentence 1")

1) Sentence 1 is false.

This is the liar paradox (my sig). It seems to show us that logic is "broken" for want of a better word, because if it is true it is false and vice versa.

Dialethism is supposed to be a way of getting around this (although I don't have much time for it).

	26-02-2003 20:27									#246
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quote: Originally posted by The Vagabond Asher, you are too fast and impatient. You just have a glance at a paper and make hasty judgements. It should be read slowly and thoughtfully.

I don't understand the subject material, reading it wouldn't help me. I asked someone whose field is physics for an opinion on it, instead...

	26-02-2003 20:28									#247
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Explain, please... How does it benefit from philosophical outlook? If you REALLY want to help me figure out how useful philosophy is, can someone point me to a Philosophy-CS related connection? Like Agathon was talking about Turing machines and AI... I'm willing to admit philosophy is useful once someone shows me. And I think the only way for me to know that is to find a connection to my field of study. So please...anyone feel free...

Go read Copeland's book. It's not my area of specialisation so you would be better off reading an introductory text like that.

BTW our room mate is a CS graduate who is now doing a PhD in phil.

	26-02-2003 20:30									#248
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quote: Originally posted by Frogger quote: professional philosophers If philosophers are so great at reasoning they should consider switching fields and becoming logicians, who actually end up proving things instead of sputtering back and forth...

Logicians for the most part are employed in, you guessed it, philosophy departments.

	26-02-2003 20:31									#249
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Oh man. You have completely misunderstood the point here. Say I'm a mathematician or a formal logician and I'm committed to the notion of sets (which can be sets of anything). So what am I supposed to make of "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves". Is this a member of itself or not?

That seems extraordinarily contrived, and as hard as I can I can't think of a use for that kind of distinction. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves"...

quote: Or sentences like this one (called "sentence 1") 1) Sentence 1 is false. This is the liar paradox (my sig). It seems to show us that logic is "broken" for want of a better word, because if it is true it is false and vice versa.

I understand the concept of it, I don't understand how it is useful.

	26-02-2003 20:32									#250
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Go read Copeland's book. It's not my area of specialisation so you would be better off reading an introductory text like that.

I was hoping for something online, I don't think it's very likely I'm going to acquire some book on it, I don't find it that interesting.

	26-02-2003 20:35									#251
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quote: Originally posted by Asher That seems extraordinarily contrived, and as hard as I can I can't think of a use for that kind of distinction. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves"... I understand the concept of it, I don't understand how it is useful.

Well some people think it would be nice if mathematics and logic and rationality weren't contradictory at heart.

	26-02-2003 20:36									#252
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Well some people think it would be nice if mathematics and logic and rationality weren't contradictory at heart.

Aren't they both artificial constructs we use, anyway?

	26-02-2003 20:36									#253
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quote: Frooger (currently halfway through The Republic)

The Republic? A rather disturbing vision of society isn't it?

Plato was a very odd man. Apparantly nothing exists, and everything's the manifestation of a "perfect object," so studying the physical world is futile.

	26-02-2003 20:37									#254
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quote: Originally posted by Asher I was hoping for something online, I don't think it's very likely I'm going to acquire some book on it, I don't find it that interesting.

Have you ever heard of a library? It's a place where they keep books, and if you promise to bring them back, they'll let you take one home for a while. I'm guessing that Copeland's book, which is an introductory text for undergraduates, may be found there.

The women that work their are also reputed to be sexual demons.

	26-02-2003 20:39									#255
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Aren't they both artificial constructs we use, anyway?

See - now you are doing philosophy. That is a question that is up for debate.

If this was so you think we might be able to do better (or at least that's what the proponents of dialethic logic think).

	26-02-2003 20:39									#256
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Have you ever heard of a library? It's a place where they keep books, and if you promise to bring them back, they'll let you take one home for a while. I'm guessing that Copeland's book, which is an introductory text for undergraduates, may be found there.

I said acquire instead of purchase because I know of such things, the largest library in Western Canada is on campus here.

It's just that I was hoping for something much quicker, I don't exactly have the time to read some text on the subject.

	26-02-2003 20:53									#257
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quote: Plato was a very odd man. Apparantly nothing exists, and everything's the manifestation of a "perfect object," so studying the physical world is futile.

Or you could go the other way and look at early Wittgenstein who said that physical objects, bolstered by scientific discovery, are the only thing real, and metaphysics are all nonsense and meaningless.

	26-02-2003 22:01									#258
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quote: Originally posted by Asher That seems extraordinarily contrived, and as hard as I can I can't think of a use for that kind of distinction. "The set of all sets that are not members of themselves"... I understand the concept of it, I don't understand how it is useful.

These sentences are paradoxical because they incorporate an auto-reference. Any proposal containing an auto-reference may creates a paradox. There are situations where the ability to recognize quickly a paradox can be extremely useful.

	26-02-2003 22:22									#259
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quote: quote: Originally posted by Asher Aren't they both artificial constructs we use, anyway? See - now you are doing philosophy. That is a question that is up for debate. If this was so you think we might be able to do better (or at least that's what the proponents of dialethic logic think).

Question: Who is better to answer/debate this question; a mathematician, a philosopher, or some with dealings in both?

I sure am glad Asher was around during my absence to try and keep everyone from falling of the deep end. I too feel that there must be some other use for philosophy, either than encouragin abstract thought, in order to be considered viable for public funding. Thinking outside of a box and rationaly is something that is nice to be able to do, and is taught at many levels in many fields, but you first need box to think outside of. It nice to see philosophers analyzing what others do, and sometimes it gives a fresh perspective on things. Yet, when that person, the one doing the things, goes back to do those things that the philosophers talked about, they are still going to be following the same laws that the did initially.

Basically, understanding a thought process does not lead to the ability to apply this thought process. The only things that are useful are those things which may be applied.

If philosophy is the creative side of things then great. Be creative and philosophize about things that may be relevant. I know this; I work on the leading edge of pharmaceutical manufacturing and development, we come up with new drugs and new dilevery methods everyday, and without a single person with a PhD in philosophy... Not even in advertizing. Why is this? Why, if philosophy is this all great field of study that has so many applications do we (a fortune 500 company) not have a single PhD in philosophy amongst our employees of well over 200,000?

Philosophy is not useless, unless it is used on its own.

	26-02-2003 23:40									#260
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quote: Originally posted by DAVOUT These sentences are paradoxical because they incorporate an auto-reference. Any proposal containing an auto-reference may creates a paradox. There are situations where the ability to recognize quickly a paradox can be extremely useful.

I recognized the paradox instantly, and I'm no philosopher.

	26-02-2003 23:50									#261
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The trick is not to recognize the paradox, but to identify the cause; the auto-reference is a logical trap which is not often intuitively discovered. Except, of course, by brilliant non-philosophers !

	26-02-2003 23:52									#262
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I don't see what's complex about it.
Even in jr. high I was exposed to things like:

The line below this is true.
The line above this is false.

It seems pretty intuitive to me. The cause of the paradox, that is.

	27-02-2003 00:04									#263
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Sure, but here nothing is true or false, all logical rules are applied, and the end is a paradox; in physics we would name it a singularity.

	27-02-2003 10:22									#264
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quote: Logicians for the most part are employed in, you guessed it, philosophy departments.

The logicians I know all have Ph.Ds in math and teach in the math department...

	27-02-2003 10:25									#265
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quote: Originally posted by DAVOUT The trick is not to recognize the paradox, but to identify the cause; the auto-reference is a logical trap which is not often intuitively discovered. Except, of course, by brilliant non-philosophers !

I suggest you read some Godel.

You seem to be spouting some of Russell+Whitehead's debunked system...

	27-02-2003 10:25									#266
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This thread has certainly gone down the tubes.

	27-02-2003 10:26									#267
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quote: in physics we would name it a singularity

We would?

What I name singularities are places where measurables approach infinity. But that's just me...

	27-02-2003 10:55									#268
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quote: The logicians I know all have Ph.Ds in math and teach in the math department...

Well all the logicians I know work in the philosophy department, so nyeh .

	27-02-2003 11:00									#269
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My philosophy prof was a logician, technically employed under the department of philosophy.

He's finishing a PhD in compsci while he teaches, though, because he feels he made a grave mistake doing philosophy as a graduate field.

	27-02-2003 12:12									#270
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quote: Originally posted by Frogger quote: in physics we would name it a singularity We would? What I name singularities are places where measurables approach infinity. But that's just me...

I may be wrong, but I thought that no measures at all can be made in a singularity; measurables approach infinity when closing the singularity.