Gravitational Attraction
What would happen if two people out in space a few meters apart, abandoned by their spacecraft, decided to wait until gravity pulled them together? My initial thought was that …
Philosophy and Science - What's the Difference?
In a discussion on The Limits Of Science with Lawrence Krass, Dan Dennett, and Massimo Pigliucci, there is much haggling over the relationship between science and philosophy. Although I think they all "got it" in the end, it would have been much more direct if they adopted my definition of philosophy (and they didn't consult me?). If you go back and listen to the debate, keeping the definition below in mind, one can see where each of them is correct even when it seems as if they are contradicting themselves. The definition of philosophy is the following:
Philosophy
Philosophy is science without data.
What that definition does is it makes sense of Pigliucci's claim that "philosophy is about clarifying questions", but it also makes sense of Krauss' claim that "philosophy doesn't benefit working scientists" (in physics, he adds). The result of the definition is that now we can see a continuum between philosophy and science, dictated by the amount of data, or possibly the quality of the data. So when Dennett says that philosophy is important in neuroscience and cognitive science, what he's saying is that the level of data in those fields is at such an undeveloped level that philosophy is needed to help frame the questions. This is simply an admission that these fields are in their infancy.
I'm not entirely sure whether philosophers would particularly like this way of phrasing, but it does seem to make sense of a lot of the confusion which typically surrounds these discussions.
