Post by Yvette Garcia on Oct 1, 2015 0:14:08 GMT
Week 3 & 4: Essay Questions
1. Why is understanding physics and the general rules of the universe so important in doing philosophy?
To answer this question I am going to use a quote from the book Quantum Weirdness, “Deep understanding of the very limits of the scientific enterprise and how human investigations of objective phenomena are intimately limited by its own apparatus. This raises a philosophical conundrum which is age-old.” (p. 15). Many people think that physics and understanding the general rules of the universe are the only viable ways to answer many of the questions on this planet and in the universe, but to me having a deep knowledge in physics and truly understanding it will unlock the hidden potential this universe has to offer. Physics and philosophy are both intertwined in a way that they both need each other to work, philosophy requires one to have a background in the sciences and understanding how the universe works. For if you're trying to prove your theory that u make a mistake at one level in your argument it collapses because it is completely wrong. The quote I used above is a good example of why we can't always trust science to answer our questions, it is revolving around them, in this course it is that we are limited to our own apparatus. That is why we need philosophy more than ever for it does not put computation ahead of conceptual clarity and can lead to confusion.
In the very interesting video “Quantum Uncertainty: Einstein Doesn't Gamble”, it talks about how Einstein was fundamentally problematic and also shows that science can be wrong too.
2. What is eliminative materialism? Provide three examples of it.
Eliminative materialism is the process of using a systematic set of processes that doesn't circulate around the use of common sense, rather the fundamentals of subjects that we know like mathematics, science, sociology and psychology. In the video eliminative materialism part one it talks about how “If the phenomena could not be explained fully and comprehensible to mathematics then one turns to physics and if that doesn't work to chemistry than to biology then to psychology.” There are three examples that our professor gave us that we can use for eliminative materialism in the video “Eliminative Materialism” the first one is that instead of talking about the God of thunder Thor we talk about electromagnetic currents that were around us. The second example is instead of talking about spirits as the causes of diseases we talked about bacteria's and viruses as the real causes of diseases. The third example in the video, it talked about how we used to believe that there were tiny little ghosts pulling on our muscles then we later talked about how we have a central nervous system. We eliminated physiological beliefs in the past and now rely- on the hard sciences for our answers, which I believe is the right way to do things.
1. Why is understanding physics and the general rules of the universe so important in doing philosophy?
To answer this question I am going to use a quote from the book Quantum Weirdness, “Deep understanding of the very limits of the scientific enterprise and how human investigations of objective phenomena are intimately limited by its own apparatus. This raises a philosophical conundrum which is age-old.” (p. 15). Many people think that physics and understanding the general rules of the universe are the only viable ways to answer many of the questions on this planet and in the universe, but to me having a deep knowledge in physics and truly understanding it will unlock the hidden potential this universe has to offer. Physics and philosophy are both intertwined in a way that they both need each other to work, philosophy requires one to have a background in the sciences and understanding how the universe works. For if you're trying to prove your theory that u make a mistake at one level in your argument it collapses because it is completely wrong. The quote I used above is a good example of why we can't always trust science to answer our questions, it is revolving around them, in this course it is that we are limited to our own apparatus. That is why we need philosophy more than ever for it does not put computation ahead of conceptual clarity and can lead to confusion.
In the very interesting video “Quantum Uncertainty: Einstein Doesn't Gamble”, it talks about how Einstein was fundamentally problematic and also shows that science can be wrong too.
2. What is eliminative materialism? Provide three examples of it.
Eliminative materialism is the process of using a systematic set of processes that doesn't circulate around the use of common sense, rather the fundamentals of subjects that we know like mathematics, science, sociology and psychology. In the video eliminative materialism part one it talks about how “If the phenomena could not be explained fully and comprehensible to mathematics then one turns to physics and if that doesn't work to chemistry than to biology then to psychology.” There are three examples that our professor gave us that we can use for eliminative materialism in the video “Eliminative Materialism” the first one is that instead of talking about the God of thunder Thor we talk about electromagnetic currents that were around us. The second example is instead of talking about spirits as the causes of diseases we talked about bacteria's and viruses as the real causes of diseases. The third example in the video, it talked about how we used to believe that there were tiny little ghosts pulling on our muscles then we later talked about how we have a central nervous system. We eliminated physiological beliefs in the past and now rely- on the hard sciences for our answers, which I believe is the right way to do things.