EPTIf you say Logic and Set Theory belongs to philosophy, then fine.
Ask a Conservative Anything: Part 1, Rage Welcome - Page 15
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
If you say Logic and Set Theory belongs to philosophy, then fine. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:02 DoubleReed wrote: This is confusing. I'm not insulting humanities, am I? You can't study history or society or whatever without understanding things like biology/chemistry, because that's how humans work. I don't really understand your point. Mathematics CAN be used to study history or make a more just society. We use statistics all the time to figure out the issues in society. Mathematics can be applied at all levels, and is usually used to actually provide context and meaning to the other stuff. I'm not saying mathematics is exclusively useful (which seems to be what your question is getting at), I'm saying it is useful at all levels all the time. Perhaps we are talking past each other. The guy before you was making precisely this claim. In general, though, it gets less useful as you travel up the hierarchy of emergence, so things at the very top, like culture, can't be very usefully studied with mathematics. edit: for illustration, just consider the difference between the way math is used in physics and how it is used in a "higher" field, like sociology. Things get more fuzzy as you go up, and you have to use more language and less math. | ||
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Hnnngg
United States1101 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:18 sam!zdat wrote: Perhaps we are talking past each other. The guy before you was making precisely this claim. In general, though, it gets less useful as you travel up the hierarchy of emergence, so things at the very top, like culture, can't be very usefully studied with mathematics. edit: for illustration, just consider the difference between the way math is used in physics and how it is used in a "higher" field, like sociology. Things get more fuzzy as you go up, and you have to use more language and less math. So what you're saying is that a sociologist would be better than a lawyer. Right, I can agree with that. I only said a hard science would be preferable but any other "science" would be better than lawyer. Or even worse, military personnel. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
It is probably not possible to accomplish in a western-style mass-mediatized "democracy" with a moribund educational system, however. edit: Lawyers are useful, though, like financiers, their importance in society is significantly out of proportion with their usefulness to the commonweal. | ||
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Hnnngg
United States1101 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:28 sam!zdat wrote: Presumably, you would want to have specialists from all fields working together and listening to each other, as crazy a thought as that is. It is probably not possible to accomplish in a western-style mass-mediatized "democracy" with a moribund educational system, however. I actually could have just linked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy and then we could banter about the idea of meritocracy instead what you guys were doing  .Basically I guess my reformed question for Saint (where he may be, whoever he may be) would be the Republican/Conservative viewpoint, that he can present, on technocracy. I asked my Democrat friend, basically said 1. Didn't care, 2. Didn't think it would matter. EDIT: Yeah I said Lawyers are useful, mostly because they are. They also should be a part of the political process, where appropriate instead of just being saturated throughout the entire American political process. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:33 Hnnngg wrote: and then we could banter about the idea of meritocracy instead what you guys were doing .But this goes back to the same question. How do your technocrats know what kind of a society would be worth making? You are going to need some philosophers. edit: another way to think about it: science cannot tell us what "usefulness" means in the first place. That is a philosophical, not empirical, question. | ||
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Hnnngg
United States1101 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:36 sam!zdat wrote: But this goes back to the same question. How do your technocrats know what kind of a society would be worth making? You are going to need some philosophers. edit: another way to think about it: science cannot tell us what "usefulness" means in the first place. That is a philosophical, not empirical, question. Yeah, I don't think lawyers would be able to figure that out either. Not positing an exact better idea, more of a question on how a populist party like Republicans would take some weird science and logic conglomerate government. Half-way implying that the Republican/Conservative party would be against it. Not that Democrats/"Liberals" would be any more or less against it. I'd guess less, but mostly because I'm an optimist. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
On June 07 2012 11:36 sam!zdat wrote: But this goes back to the same question. How do your technocrats know what kind of a society would be worth making? You are going to need some philosophers. edit: another way to think about it: science cannot tell us what "usefulness" means in the first place. That is a philosophical, not empirical, question. How is utility not a empirical question? What a random assertion. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
Once you've decided what usefulness is, you can discover empirically how best to achieve that goal, but empirical methods can't tell you what's useful in the first place. How would you do that? edit: A society has to decide what its goals are, and that's not an empirical question. edit again: Science gives you technology, but it doesn't tell you how to use that technology. | ||
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