Is Psychology science? Reflections and thoughts.

[Starglider]

Wrong. 90%+ of philosophy is worthless intellectual masturbation.

That's simply false. Philosophy established the intellectual groundwork for making science possible... The scientific method was directly the result of Renaissance humanist philosophers establishing a logical framework for the rational evaluation of empirical evidence.

Did you somehow fail to read:

Every time philosophy has ever managed to stumble over something useful, we promptly renamed it 'maths', 'physics', 'cosmology', 'logic' or 'cognitive science', to distinguish it from the useless word games.

Back before science as we know it existed, anyone who sat around thinking about how the world actually worked was a 'philosopher'. Mathematics split off very early; maths being a realm where there are hard rules to follow and proofs/disproofs can be objectively and comprehensively verified. 'Theology' split off sometime in the first millenium AD to cover people arguing about assorted silliness in Christian doctrine: later that got softened to the more inclusive 'metaphysics'. The people who actually cared about producing useful, accurate descriptions of the world qualified as 'natural philosophers' and as some exceptionally bright individuals started looking at the problem at the meta level we got the scientific method. At this point all these 'scientists' working on empirical predictive theories gradually stopped calling themselves 'philosophers' precisely because they wanted to distinguish their endeavour from the useless word games.

and it continues to serve as an important field for expanding the limitations of human understanding.

My recent experience with philosophy has mainly been a constant stream of philosophers turning up and trying to tell the field of AI what we're doing wrong, or why our whole endeavour is pointless. They are invariably revealed to be pompous fools with little or nothing to offer other than their own personal stew of invented empty words, broken thought experiments and bullshit non-predictive theories. Meanwhile I've done a ton of reading when searching for useful ideas to use in attempts on the AGI problem, and the vast majority of modern philosophy has turned out to be fake-rigorous flailing around trying to answer what are essentially badly posed questions. To be fair, a lot of this stems from the same fatal flaws in the base human reflective, social and general world models that give rise to religion and assorted other stupidity. But now that cognitive science is making serious progress and we can put enough pieces together to make a fully reductionist worldview justifiable (more than that: imperative) there's no need for this nonsense.

I should know, the field of general AI is plauged by it.

Take the endless pointless verbiage about 'qualia' and 'meaning' (Searle, I'm looking at you) as if these things were somehow real and tangible. It's élan vital all over again, but for thought instead of life processes. Round and round they go thrashing with these ill-posed questions, never proving or agreeing on anything, never producing anything useful for human cogsci or AI design.

The 10% of philosophy that is actually physically grounded and useful (say, most of Daniel Dennet's work, which handily demolishes a lot of dualist and tabula rasa bullshit) is for the most part mislabeled, and should be called 'theoretical cognitive science' instead.

[Darth Wong]

There are two kinds of philosophers (although I don't know how the subject changed from psychology to philosophy):

1) The kind that understands math and science to be the most useful and elegant forms of philosophy.

2) The kind that is actually hostile to math and science and regards them as harmful constraints on philosophical freedom.

It's the second kind that gives philosophy a bad name.

[TheLemur]

It's the second kind that gives philosophy a bad name.

The first kind are not making some sort of progress because they're doing philosophy; they're making progress because they're doing science or math. Philosophy itself is still quite useless; even if some people do useful things in addition to philosophy, that says little about philosophy itself. Unless you like to include science and math under philosophy, in which case we're playing useless word games which is the exact same thing people deride philosophers for.

[Darth Wong]

It's the second kind that gives philosophy a bad name.

The first kind are not making some sort of progress because they're doing philosophy; they're making progress because they're doing science or math. Philosophy itself is still quite useless; even if some people do useful things in addition to philosophy, that says little about philosophy itself. Unless you like to include science and math under philosophy, in which case we're playing useless word games which is the exact same thing people deride philosophers for.

Formal logic is probably the most useful aspect of philosophy, since math and science became independent fields a long time ago (or perhaps more to the point, are not taught in the philosophy departments of universities, hence they can't take credit for them).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

<snip>

You're essentially ignoring that the continued function of philosophy is to make general developments which contribute to those fields and are then spun off. For example, a lot of modern mathematics had philosophical groundwork laid for it long after philosophy had established mathematics as a general field. Philosophers still do the conceptual work, and then it is given over to the development of hard applications.

Philosophy is essentially a business for "idea men" who can give logical concepts to professionals so that they can develop them into functional science or scientific disciplines.

It is very much useful, and will be for all of time, more or less. The crap which is taught today is a separate issue, well-worthy of being addressed, but completely irrelevant to whether or not the field itself is relevant.

You're shortchanging the possibility for future developments, more or less.

People who design cars don't build them--they hand the plans over to the people who do build them. Philosophers and scientists function in the same way, and your failure to recognize that indicates a heavy arrogance which won't acknowledge the contributions of other disciplines.

[SirNitram]

The problem, Marina, is that philosophy shows no real indications of finding new territory. The last big movement in philosophy, Post-Modernism, is nothing more than an angrier, more confrontational version of Sophism, which can be called pre-Philosophy. We have come full circle from assuming there is no truth, logic, rhyme, or reason, right back to it, and I've yet to see much indicating we'll do better than Empiricism.

[Starglider]

You're essentially ignoring that the continued function of philosophy is to make general developments which contribute to those fields and are then spun off.

Philosophy stopped doing this as soon as the scientific method and the essentials of symbolic logic were hammered out. Aside from a few undercover cognitive scientists, this marks the last point at which people doing useful work had to share the label 'philosophy'. The theoretical underpinnings of both math and science have long since passed into the care of their own fields. I personally have spent a considerable amount of time working on formalising the scientific method in terms of Bayesian probability and expected utility, and getting an AI hybrid logic system to derive it from a minimal set of axioms.

For example, a lot of modern mathematics had philosophical groundwork laid for it long after philosophy had established mathematics as a general field.

I'm trying to think of examples, but things like real numbers, limits/calculus, transfinite numbers, symbolic self-reference, higher set and graph theory, category theory, paraconsistent logics and non-Euclidian geometry were essentially all cases of mathematicians saying 'now that we've established our axioms as X, Y and Z, what happens if we remove Z?'. Perhaps you'd like to give some examples?

Philosophers still do the conceptual work, and then it is given over to the development of hard applications.

I personally know several pure maths academics who'd flame-grill you for making such an arrogant and unsupported claim.

Philosophy is essentially a business for "idea men" who can give logical concepts to professionals so that they can develop them into functional science or scientific disciplines.

Right, all those superstring experts and number theorists go cap in hand to the philosophy department for inspiration. That's roughly as realistic as the engineers on Star Trek who need a bright idea from some non-technical layman before they can get to work on their technobabble.

You're shortchanging the possibility for future developments, more or less.

On the contrary, I am observing a steady trend for philosophy to get less and less useful, as well as ample evidence that most of the 'big questions' in philosophy are illusions that stem from prevasive human cognitive flaws. I look forward to the day that we rescue the last few tidbits of relevance from the rotting corpse of the philosophical tradition and then consign the rest to the blissful irrelevance.

People who design cars don't build them--they hand the plans over to the people who do build them.

People who design cars are in the business of using a large body of consistent, empirical knowledge to develop precision specifications. (Almost all) philosophy fails that comparison on all counts.

your failure to recognize that indicates a heavy arrogance which won't acknowledge the contributions of other disciplines.

I happily acknowledge the contribution of every other discipline (well, every other serious scientific and engineering discipline), both to my own endeavour and humanity as a whole. Modern academic philosophy is roughly as useful as modern academic literary analysis. The only reason I don't put philosophy in the same class as theology is that at least the former is not usually actively harmful, though there are exceptions (e.g. the morons trying to write off AI with their dualist nonsense).

[TheLemur]

Formal logic is probably the most useful aspect of philosophy, since math and science became independent fields a long time ago (or perhaps more to the point, are not taught in the philosophy departments of universities, hence they can't take credit for them).

Again, I have formal logic filed away under "math" rather than "philosophy", since I have primarily used it for mathematical proofs. I agree that it is immensely useful; however, philosophy doesn't seem to talk about it much anymore. We can all agree that ~(P -> Q) iff P ^ ~Q and so on.

You're essentially ignoring that the continued function of philosophy is to make general developments which contribute to those fields and are then spun off.

Name a single recent development.

For example, a lot of modern mathematics had philosophical groundwork laid for it long after philosophy had established mathematics as a general field.

Name a single recent example.

Philosophers still do the conceptual work, and then it is given over to the development of hard applications.

Again, please name an example.

Philosophy is essentially a business for "idea men" who can give logical concepts to professionals so that they can develop them into functional science or scientific disciplines.

Okay, to quote from Wikipedia's first sentence in the Philosophy article:

Philosophy is the discipline concerned with the questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).[1]

- Ethical theory has no means of arriving at new statements about ethics. For instance, it is blatantly obvious to us, and to anyone who wasn't conditioned to the system, that slavery is wrong. And yet ethics was discussed for over two thousand years without anyone deriving that conclusion from pre-existing principles. How can something be blatantly obvious and yet not be discovered for two millenia?
- Metaphysics seems to be mostly concerned with word games about what words such as "existence", "essential", "nature", "dual" and so forth mean. None of this helps anybody.
- Epistemology is primarily more word games, with different words like "truth", "knowledge" and "belief". We have known the basic knowledge gathering process for hundreds of years (have belief A, produce prediction B from A, run a test on B, discard A if B is wrong, keep A if B is right, repeat). We even have a mathematical equation, Bayes' Theorem, which can tell you exactly what the probability of belief A is given a whole bunch of tests on different predictions of A (Bayes' Theorem was also discovered over two hundred years ago). We have yet to improve upon any of this.
- Logic is very useful, but it also is very old, with most of the basic concepts being discovered thousands of years ago. The things that are new, such as symbolic logic, are creatures of math and are used primarily in mathematical proofs.

People who design cars don't build them--they hand the plans over to the people who do build them.

True. What have philosophers designed recently? Philosophy professors are not known for having large numbers of patents.

[Starglider]

Again, I have formal logic filed away under "math" rather than "philosophy", since I have primarily used it for mathematical proofs.

New symbolic logic systems, for various special purposes, have been invented at a steady clip over the last few decades. All the inventing (that I'm aware of, for systems that are actually useful for something) has been done by mathematicians, not philosophers.

Ethical theory has no means of arriving at new statements about ethics.

As opposed to expected utility (and generalised preference) theory, which can produce all kinds of useful proofs of which actions and states are more worthwhile, given a set of axioms. Unlike many philosophers, EU is explicitly immune to the 'objective morality' fallacy. Note that EU theory was mostly developed by economists and picked up by cognitive scientists - philosophers just provided peanut-gallery commentary.

For instance, it is blatantly obvious to us, and to anyone who wasn't conditioned to the system, that slavery is wrong.

Not to detract from your main point, but I'm dubious about this. Most primitive societies didn't have a problem with slavery - in fact it turns up in various guises throughout almost all of history. Abolitionists only started making serious progress in the 18th century.

We even have a mathematical equation, Bayes' Theorem, which can tell you exactly what the probability of belief A is given a whole bunch of tests on different predictions of A (Bayes' Theorem was also discovered over two hundred years ago). We have yet to improve upon any of this.

Probability theory has made tremendous progress recently. Do not claim otherwise or I will hit you over the head with my copy of 'Probability Theory: The Logic of Science' (yes, I worship at the feet of E.T. Jaynes). But of course all of those progress has been achieved by reformed statisticians, mathematicians and cognitive scientists. Most philosophers have actively resisted this encroachment of cold hard science and maths onto what were formerly their playing fields full of steaming bullshit.

[TheLemur]

Not to detract from your main point, but I'm dubious about this. Most primitive societies didn't have a problem with slavery - in fact it turns up in various guises throughout almost all of history. Abolitionists only started making serious progress in the 18th century.

This kind of thing happens all the time, regardless of whether something is ethical or not. For example, there was no serious German resistance to the Holocaust, even though even monkeys know mass murder is wrong. All that has to happen is for the system to be instituted by a small minority, who then insulate it from the public as much as possible. Apathy will take care of the rest. Most Southerners, for instance, had no experience with living conditions on the large plantations; something like 70% of them owned no slaves at all.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The problem, Marina, is that philosophy shows no real indications of finding new territory. The last big movement in philosophy, Post-Modernism, is nothing more than an angrier, more confrontational version of Sophism, which can be called pre-Philosophy. We have come full circle from assuming there is no truth, logic, rhyme, or reason, right back to it, and I've yet to see much indicating we'll do better than Empiricism.

I think what you're actually more likely to see is experienced and brilliant scientists, especially theoretical physicists, re-assuming the mantle of natural philosophy. Many of the current critiques physicists are levying at superstring theory is that is unfalsifiable - i.e., it is philosophically unsuited to be called science, and as such should be discarded. This as opposed to mechanistic objections or deviations from experimental data.

[Superman]

One thing people sometimes fail to consider about psychology is economics. Take someone who has a severe anxiety disorder, and has a phobia to something like heights. Practitioners of psychiatry or clinical psychology know that patients can often beat their phobias with a simple technique called Exposure Therapy. Some patients need only one session.

Let's say that this person has a great job opportunity, but would have to climb up a ladder sometimes while working. Now, if he wants to see a psychiatrist, the person would pay roughly 300 dollars per hour and maybe need a referral from a general practitioner. A psychologist, who could easily apply the same treatment, might do this for 100 dollars per hour. Sure the system which created this situation is mostly at fault, but which would you choose?

[SirNitram]

I think what you're actually more likely to see is experienced and brilliant scientists, especially theoretical physicists, re-assuming the mantle of natural philosophy. Many of the current critiques physicists are levying at superstring theory is that is unfalsifiable - i.e., it is philosophically unsuited to be called science, and as such should be discarded. This as opposed to mechanistic objections or deviations from experimental data.

This is quite possible, and would suggest that the 'full circle' I alluded to is in fact cyclic; that the entire progression of philosophy is essentially going to repeat itself. Once the idea that there is no truth was discarded, 'natural philosophy' arose shortly, in social timescales, after. With those timescales now compressed, the rise of natural philosophy is going to happen within a few decades, if it is a cycle.

[Darth Wong]

The problem, Marina, is that philosophy shows no real indications of finding new territory. The last big movement in philosophy, Post-Modernism, is nothing more than an angrier, more confrontational version of Sophism, which can be called pre-Philosophy. We have come full circle from assuming there is no truth, logic, rhyme, or reason, right back to it, and I've yet to see much indicating we'll do better than Empiricism.

I think what you're actually more likely to see is experienced and brilliant scientists, especially theoretical physicists, re-assuming the mantle of natural philosophy. Many of the current critiques physicists are levying at superstring theory is that is unfalsifiable - i.e., it is philosophically unsuited to be called science, and as such should be discarded. This as opposed to mechanistic objections or deviations from experimental data.

There's nothing new about unfalsifiability being cited as a reason not to accept a scientific theory; that's part of the scientific method.

[Surlethe]

<snip>

You're essentially ignoring that the continued function of philosophy is to make general developments which contribute to those fields and are then spun off. For example, a lot of modern mathematics had philosophical groundwork laid for it long after philosophy had established mathematics as a general field. Philosophers still do the conceptual work, and then it is given over to the development of hard applications.

I don't see how a philosopher could contribute to any of the far-flung mathematical fields, with perhaps the exception of the very foundational mathematics, the stuff that everyone takes for granted anyway. I mean, what ideas would a philosopher with no expertise in, say, Topology, be able to give to the field? Or do I misunderstand what you're saying?

EDIT: Whoops; questions end with question marks.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I think this argument is pointless sophistry. I'm arguing with someone who essentially admits that some of what I've said is going on, is indeed going on, but has to call it "Cognitive science" to make himself happy, apparently. Call it whatever you want, but it still meets the classic definition of philosophy.

I certainly agree that modern philosophy is degenerate in many ways, but Starglider is parroting a bunch of buzzwords like they're so important while actually there is no real fundamental disagreement happening. All that is going on here is that one person (Starglider) is insisting on calling something we both agree is important "cognitive science" instead of Philosophy, and then trying to insist I believe in something else which is wrong because I dislike his terminology as being unnecessary, excessively narrow, and ignoring the legacy of prior intellectual contributions.

[Darth Wong]

I think this argument is two people arguing at cross-purposes. It is quite possible for the study of philosophy to have historically made great contributions to western society, while presently generating very little (if any) value. Those two statements are not in conflict.

[Starglider]

Starglider is parroting a bunch of buzzwords

Which buzzwords are those, and who do you think I'm parroting them from? Meanwhile you're acting outraged that people could question the value of an activity largely on the basis that it's historically been a respected field, without providing a single example of something useful it has produced in the last century. Are you outraged that I consider the art of divination useless too, despite how respected it was in ancient Greece?

I'm arguing with someone who essentially admits that some of what I've said is going on, is indeed going on, but has to call it "Cognitive science" to make himself happy, apparently.

Philosophy and cognitive science are two quite very fields of study that for the most part don't get on very well, largely because most of us consider philosophers arrogant wastes of oxygen while a lot of philosophers (welded to the notion that what they do is somehow sacred and beyond quantification) consider us arrogant hubristic upstarts. But frankly, we're winning.

Yes there is some crossover, but if you think these are two terms for the same thing you are either delusional or hopelessly out of touch with the relevant parts of academia. The concepts, axioms, models, methodology, terminology, predictions, experiments and applications are all different. And by 'different' I mean that we have the last three and philosophers don't.

All that is going on here is that one person (Starglider) is insisting on calling something we both agree is important "cognitive science"

I'm still waiting for you to provide the examples to back up your arguments that both myself and TheLemur asked for.

It is quite possible for the study of philosophy to have historically made great contributions to western society, while presently generating very little (if any) value. Those two statements are not in conflict.

True. Retroactively renaming things that were called philosophy at the time, but would not be if they were done today, is probably an activity with more potential for confusion than enlightenment.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Philosophy and cognitive science are two quite very fields of study that for the most part don't get on very well, largely because most of us consider philosophers arrogant wastes of oxygen while a lot of philosophers (welded to the notion that what they do is somehow sacred and beyond quantification) consider us arrogant hubristic upstarts. But frankly, we're winning.

Yes there is some crossover, but if you think these are two terms for the same thing you are either delusional or hopelessly out of touch with the relevant parts of academia. The concepts, axioms, models, methodology, terminology, predictions, experiments and applications are all different. And by 'different' I mean that we have the last three and philosophers don't.

You're simply philosophers adhering to a particular school of philosophy. That school may be basically correct, while the others in modern academia are fallacious and worthless (which I more or less believe), but you are still basically under any english definition a person engaging in the philosophical science.

You may feel all offended by that, but the goals of cognitive science are identical, at the fundamental core of things, with the goals of philosophy.

[Darth Wong]

Indeed, the PhD physicist technically has a Doctorate of Philosophy. However, people who call themselves "philosophers" nowadays generally fall into the stereotype I mentioned earlier: essentially proponents of failed schools of philosophical thought which were left by the wayside by science a long time ago and who now spend their time railing against the victors.

[Tricit]

That's simply false. Philosophy established the intellectual groundwork for making science possible, and it continues to serve as an important field for expanding the limitations of human understanding. The scientific method was directly the result of Renaissance humanist philosophers establishing a logical framework for the rational evaluation of empirical evidence.

This is a lot like saying a single celled organism from a couple billion years ago would hold a lot of mysteries and folds for species existing now to take advantage of. Sure, if you (somehow) went back in time and brought them back to the future, it'd make for interesting history and proof of existing theory, but would it really produce any practical applications in any reasonable amount of time? Obviously, no one has ever brought back to the future single celled organisms, but I would bet it would be nothing more than fun to wreck havoc of fundamentalists.

Word games can be fun, but that is about the only thing I can see philosophy contributing right about now. Now one can become overly abstract and say that it still is philosophy, but then we could also stop calling home sapien sapiens, homo sapien sapiens, and say something like "Are we really humans? I think we're bacteria!" That defies classification. I think we need classification to organize things.

[TheLemur]

You're simply philosophers adhering to a particular school of philosophy. That school may be basically correct, while the others in modern academia are fallacious and worthless (which I more or less believe), but you are still basically under any english definition a person engaging in the philosophical science.

This is word games and we both know it. What people calling themselves scientists and people calling themselves philosophers is radically different; one is useful and the other is not.

You may feel all offended by that, but the goals of cognitive science are identical, at the fundamental core of things, with the goals of philosophy.

Which is, in turn, identical with the goals of most religion- truth, happiness, Good, and so forth. Does that mean we're all religious, even though many people here are atheists?

[Starglider]

Indeed, the PhD physicist technically has a Doctorate of Philosophy. However, people who call themselves "philosophers" nowadays generally fall into the stereotype I mentioned earlier: essentially proponents of failed schools of philosophical thought which were left by the wayside by science a long time ago and who now spend their time railing against the victors.

Congratulations, you made it to just between Richard Dawkins and Blaise Pascal. I edited slightly for brevity, feel free to revert it to the original if you prefer.

[Yokel on an Island]

Considering the amount of corner cases that seem to crop in psychology (and to a lesser extent, economics), would a psychology theory be considered more "accurate" if they phrased their prediction in statistical fashion (ie % with variance?) If so, would they be taken seriously by the general public?

[Shinova]

There's different "fields" in psychology, or at least that's what I understand from a psych class I took. Freudian is one, but it's obviously really crackpot. There's a more biological psychology, which sees and treats the human mind in biological terms, like brain structure, chemicals, etc. There's cognitive (?) psychology, but I forget which one that was.