Philosophy itself

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philosphy is a viable substitute for religion, to provide meaning for your life. Science alone cannot provide it. You must.

I can safely say I have no philosophy I'm just a shark. The only reason I go along with societies views of good and evil is because it's easier.

The only way I could accept any idea of morality is if it was religious and I took it on faith that god would punish me at the end if I didn't.

see..now i don't mean this in a nasty or attacking way but what you just described in yourself is a lack of a moral compass...the empathy that helps us define morality. most people actually lack this compass but due to religion telling them what they should do, they have a false belief that they have a moral compass when really they're just regurgitating what they've been told.

your a good example of why religion is somewhat needed....but as you said...societal law does the job because it's easier for you to not be hunted down for killing people or whatever (killing is just an example...not that you would actually kill someone).

I have a conscience but that really would just keep me from doing more harm then was necessary if it was anarchy. I have considered just accepting religion so I could have a moral compass but I don't think I could convince myself that I'm not an animal.

Philosophy as it is today is a label for theoratical topics that are not a part of the natural sciences, the social sciences, the applied sciences, or history

The difference between science and philosophy is that philosophy proposes theories that seem to be internally consistent and in conformity with a set of accepted beliefs but science tests the premises and rejects them if they are inconsistent with observed results. As Russell noted, Aristotle maintained that women had a different number of teeth than men but never took the trouble to check his wife's mouth to confirm his proposal.

Also given Odin's explanation, philosophy does not go over the same topics as science. Philosophy tends to take on topics that are beyond the scope of a scientific method today.

There is a tendency in philosophy to venture into areas that cannot be tested with perception. Therefore it frequency ends in empty speculation.

But the speculation cannot be dismissed either as we are not parsimonious beings ourselves.

This isn't true.

It has nothing to do with with arrogance, it has to do with the simple truth that science is based upon provable facts while philosophy is just concepts, thought experiments, or conjecture at best.

I'm not a big philosophy person myself, though I admit I find Platonism interesting.

Partially true. Science is an epistemological framework.


Science is based upon assumptions, these assumptions cause scientific actions to seek empirical data and extrapolate based upon it. Philosophy is those things, however, science is a philosophical theory. It progresses beyond the concepts, thought experiments and conjecture because the theory is already reasonably developed, however, science still gets critiqued by philosophy because scientific methods are still just part of a branch of philosophy.

Philosophy was what was left after the sciences, which were at one time considered branches of philosophy, broke away.

IMO the only good philosophy is philosophy inspired by problems raised by scientific discoveries (like the impact of quantum mechanics on Determinism) and/or technological advances (like if super-advanced AI is conscious). Philosophy disconnected with problems raised by new empirical knowledge is meaningless verbage.

And it is no wonder that some consider the reductionistic, rationalistic side of our modern society to also be nihilistic. In your opinion it almost seems as if human existence itself is a meaningless afterthought. The empirical knowledge itself only derives its value from subjective preferences, so who is to say what is meaningful and meaningless?

There is much dismissal of science in that it does not present clear implications of the value of humanity on the universe and is therefore characterized as meaningless. But we inhabit an insignificantly tiny portion of the universe and our impact, as heavy as it might be on our planet, is negligible on the huge universe. It is very unclear precisely what meaning means and what might give meaning to knowledge once the term is clearly understood. Philosophy gets much entangled with theology when it speaks about meaning and, as far as I can see, theology is almost wholly a compilation of anthropocentric nonsense.

It is impossible to gain knowledge of reality from pure reason, disconnected from empirical facts. "Meaningless" was probably not the best term I should of used, what I ment was that philosophy not connected to empirical facts is navel-gazing intellectualism, unconcerned with actual problems, and instead obsesses over pseudo-problems and/or category errors.