Cavatine, I took a few months off from chess.com. I'm back now. As for Hofstadter, I usually really enjoy his books, but "I Am a Strange Loop" was a bit of a disappointment.
You might be interested in "The User Illusion," by Tor Norretranders. And I always recommend "Laws of the Game: How the Principles of Nature Govern Chance," by Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler. A bit dated, but really good.
Good, thank you Mindwalk!
In some areas of philosophy I think the basic idsue, that people seem to live in their own separate worlds, is resolved by using 5he concept of an agreement. People can be conscious of their relationships and state them iexplicitly, and that can work out better than letting them stay implicit. To interact intentionally is a sign of greater maturity.
It doesn't work if people are dishonest or if they act like bullies. So it requires a healthy community, where everyone is cared for.
If, when we say, "We live in different worlds," we intend only that each person has his own life-experiences, lives in his own little corner of physical reality, and develops his own perspectives on life--oh, OK. But I fear that such language becomes an excuse for denying that we live in the same physical reality--as though the world itself were different for different people.
Thomas Kuhn wrote a book entitled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" that was very influential. Kuhn wrote his book in a way that was easy to misread. Properly read, he made good points about how science is actually done by actual scientists. But because he wrote it in a misleading way, it was easy to read him as a postmodernist, denying that there was any such thing as scientific truth. His book would never have been such a hit--and he would never have become so famous--had he not written it misleadingly; nevertheless, he did write it misleadingly. (Later, after he had been quite understandably misread as a postmodernist objective truth-denier, he was once quoted as saying, "I am not a Kuhnian!")
Yeah, Kuhn definitely said some thing that left him asking for it, as far as being misunederstood and open to extremely liberal interpretations. On the other hand, one has to empathize, because it is tremendously difficult to trod in leaves no step has trodden black. In such cases, there rarely is the established terms and verbiage to adequately convey what it is that one wants to say.
I am impressed to have come across someone who has not read Kuhn as some sort of complete postmodernist, social constructivist, etc., as most non-specialists tend to. Especially, if one reads After Structure and earlier works, like his on the Copernican Revolution, it is clear that he was of no such mind. Heck, there's even been an article published, a little ways back, about how Kuhn killed logical positivism/logical empiricism. Even if debatable to some extent, the notion that Kuhn did serious damage to the anti-metaphysical, no-objective-truth perspective seems patently undebatable. After all, and somewhat ironically, after Carnap brought in Kuhn's magnum opus to Chicago to be published as the second volume of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, the encyclopedia published no further volumes. Many maintain that Kuhn's work flatly contradicted the objective of Carnap and Neurath's publication, though, from Carnap's invite to Kuhn, it seemed Carnap did not realize that. It's somewhat amusing that people think Kuhn had associations with the postmodernists, but don't recall that Kuhn probably delivered the coup de grace.
Thomas Kuhn wrote a book entitled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" that was very influential. Kuhn wrote his book in a way that was easy to misread. Properly read, he made good points about how science is actually done by actual scientists. But because he wrote it in a misleading way, it was easy to read him as a postmodernist, denying that there was any such thing as scientific truth. His book would never have been such a hit--and he would never have become so famous--had he not written it misleadingly; nevertheless, he did write it misleadingly. (Later, after he had been quite understandably misread as a postmodernist objective truth-denier, he was once quoted as saying, "I am not a Kuhnian!")
Yeah, Kuhn definitely said some thing that left him asking for it, as far as being misunederstood and open to extremely liberal interpretations. On the other hand, one has to empathize, because it is tremendously difficult to trod in leaves no step has trodden black. In such cases, there rarely is the established terms and verbiage to adequately convey what it is that one wants to say.
I am impressed to have come across someone who has not read Kuhn as some sort of complete postmodernist, social constructivist, etc., as most non-specialists tend to. Perhaps it's just that I've actually read the book. Especially, if one reads After Structure and earlier works, like his on the Copernican Revolution, it is clear that he was of no such mind. Heck, there's even been an article published, a little ways back, about how Kuhn killed logical positivism/logical empiricism. Even if debatable to some extent, the notion that Kuhn did serious damage to the anti-metaphysical, no-objective-truth perspective seems patently undebatable. Is there a typo in that sentence? After all, and somewhat ironically, after Carnap brought in Kuhn's magnum opus to Chicago to be published as the second volume of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, the encyclopedia published no further volumes. Many maintain that Kuhn's work flatly contradicted the objective of Carnap and Neurath's publication, though, from Carnap's invite to Kuhn, it seemed Carnap did not realize that. It's somewhat amusing that people Kuhn had associations with the postmodernists, but don't recall that Kuhn probably delivered the coup de grace. I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble understanding that sentence.
Perhaps it's just that I've actually read the book.
???
Plenty of intelligent people "actually read the book." There's plenty in the book, as well as in subsequent literature trying to clarify the book's content, that --in and of itself-- seems to suggest strongly that Kuhn was a postmodernist. I don't know what "actually read[ing] the book" is supposed to mean. Extensive discussion by other philosophers and historians about the meaning and sense of the word "paradigm," particularly in its dozen and a half contexts, makes any non-postmodernist interpretation problematic, if you are only reading Structure. It's actually all of the other things Kuhn said, particularly in other works, lectures, and interviews, not to mention what he said to colleagues (e.g., Lisa Lloyd), that brings clarity to his position --not merely having "actually read the book."
Hm. Well, I only read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, but I didn't read it as postmodernist. I guess I'd have to go look at it again to say why I didn't.
Yes, "paradigm" is made to do a lot of work, isn't it? <Laugh>
Perhaps because I read "Structure" in a philosophy class taught by a Professor of Logic who has a Ph.D. not only in philosophy, but an additional Ph.D. in physics, I never knew, until Mindwalk mentioned it, there there were people interpreting it as somehow "post-modern".
Maybe the class makes a difference, as Jimmykay implicitly suggests. I read it for a class in the philosophy of science.
It always seemed to be about *how science was done by human beings* and not about there being no objective reality or there being no objective truth.
Maybe the class makes a difference, as Jimmykay implicitly suggests. I read it for a class in the philosophy of science.
Me, too! "Philosophy of Science" was the exact name of the course in which I read it.
Wait, I lost track. Was my question too muddled? Was the topic already over? I think I must have blundered. MindWalk, you've wandered away somewhere else. Well, anyway, that is a great discussion. Philosophy books I have on my shelf (and don't understand well) are 'Society of Mind' by Marvin Minsky and 'I am a Strange Loop' by Ricchard Hof-stad-ter (the author of Godel, Escher, Bach etc). I get lost easily in abstractions, and crash if I try to go too fast through them :)