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Post by robert on Aug 10, 2015 18:10:04 GMT
Does anyone agree with this? Disagree?
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Sept 25, 2015 15:43:06 GMT
I think it depends on your definition of "philosophy". If you define it as any mental activity seeking to discover "truth" in the general sense of the word, then science would be a subset, since it concerns itself specifically with "reality", i.e. that which can be measured and tested.
If on the other hand you see it as a discipline that asks questions that cannot yet be answered, or may be unanswerable by science, then it may be regarded as a complementary intellectual field, or perhaps as a "shadow" to science, seeking answers where the light of science cannot reach yet.
I cannot think of any definition that would make it a subset of science though.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Sept 25, 2015 15:48:20 GMT
Ah, I just checked the diagram again. I don't see how philosophy could be a subset of Hard Sciences. Doesn't it draw ideas and results from both Hard and Soft Sciences?
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Post by tangent on Sept 25, 2015 22:07:31 GMT
I think I agree. Maths is a hard science and it conjures up constructs such as infinity that do not occur in the real world and which raise philosophical questions about the real world, such as the number of universes in a multiverse. But that doesn't mean philosophy is a branch of mathematics.
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Post by Moose on Sept 27, 2015 22:07:27 GMT
And it all goes right over my head. I'd love to understand maths as it actually seems to be to mathematicians .. something other than boring crap that means nothing to me in a text book.
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Post by tangent on Sept 28, 2015 4:18:28 GMT
Oh crumbs, GCSE maths is so boring.
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Post by robert on Sept 28, 2015 23:31:22 GMT
Math goes over my head as well....at least it can get complicated. Though I do enjoy reading German Idealists...so figure that one out.
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Post by Alvamiga on Oct 3, 2015 5:06:31 GMT
I got to A level maths and it starts to sound like philosophy eventually. Lots of interesting ideas, but decreasingly of practical use.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Oct 3, 2015 8:27:15 GMT
I got to A level maths and it starts to sound like philosophy eventually. Lots of interesting ideas, but decreasingly of practical use. A lot of high-level maths eventually finds applications in physics. Take non-Euclidean geometries for example.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Oct 3, 2015 15:19:52 GMT
And it all goes right over my head. I'd love to understand maths as it actually seems to be to mathematicians .. something other than boring crap that means nothing to me in a text book. I still firmly believe that math can be accessible to anyone in principle, unless they have a brain impairment of some sort. You just need to be walked through the concepts step by step, and only make the next step once you completely grasped the previous one. Math is like a high building. You normally can't reach the higher floors without going through the lower ones first. Some people can take the elevator, while others have to take the painful climb by stairs, and most of them give up midway, often at the very beginning. I think with the right methods and pace, it should be an enjoyable experience for anyone.
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Post by Alvamiga on Oct 4, 2015 20:26:23 GMT
I think that's true of a lot of subjects. Computing is a prime example of something that people could learn a lot about, but the majority decide that it's "too complicated" and refuse to learn even the basics. They can get by, but only a small amount of learning would repay them hundreds of times over!
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