John Ryan Re: Science And Philosophy

RiverJordan

Inactive
John,

In the thread that the atheist started ("I don't believe God exists"), before it was (rightfully) deleted I did see your post back to me about philosophy and empirical science. You raised a few interesting points that I think would be fun to discuss.

First, I think it's obvious that you and I are very different people. I got the impression from that post that you place great value on philosophy and less on western empirical science. I OTOH am the exact opposite. I have little to no use for most philosophy. I tend towards the more practical, pragmatic side of things. For me, while philosophical exercises and such can be intriguing and challenging at times, I rarely see any practical use for them. It's kinda like jokes about philosophy majors going to job interviews. The interviewee says "I majored in philosophy", the interviewer asks "What can you do", the interviewee answers "I can explore all the reasons why you and I may not actually exist", and the interviewer says "Then we're done, aren't we?".

Or one of my favorites...

The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.

The Second Law of Philosophy: They're both wrong.

Anyways....:p

One of the other points you raised was the argument that consciousness proves Neo-Darwinism wrong (or something like that). I said that doesn't make sense, and I think you said "Not if you understand Kant".

The reason I said it doesn't make sense is that Neo-Darwinism (the merger of population genetics and Darwinian selection) is observable reality. So I'm guessing that by citing Kant, you're arguing that "observable reality" is subject to our consciousness, correct? If so, IMO that brings us close to Solipsism, which to me is often the absurd conclusion of a lot of philosophy vs. pragmatism debates. It also means that it's not just Neo-Darwinism that's wrong, but everything else we think we know as well.
 
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