[quote]eengrms76 wrote:
For me, being a true scientist[/quote]
I thought you were an engineer?
[quote]nephorm wrote:
eengrms76 wrote:
For me, being a true scientist
I thought you were an engineer?[/quote]
A true scientist would be one who accepts the scientific method of inquiry as a method of finding truth, especially related to the physical world. Neph could probably address this better than I can, but isn’t that method an outgrowth of epistemology?
So, for eengrms76, I’m wondering why you accept that method as the best or proper method for studying the physical world? Here’s a tip: your answer will almost certainly take a detour into philosophy.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
eengrms76 wrote:
For me, being a true scientist
I thought you were an engineer?[/quote]
I am. You may have a different definition of “true scientist” than I do, but I believe a scientist is one who looks at facts and figures and is less concerned with the other “fluff”. My definition was relating humanities study to scientific study and that’s it, trying not to delve too much into different aspects of science (you can only say so much on a message board without going into multiple pages).
[quote]Skuebb wrote:
So, for eengrms76, I’m wondering why you accept that method as the best or proper method for studying the physical world? Here’s a tip: your answer will almost certainly take a detour into philosophy.[/quote]
Why would I not? What has been discovered that would lead me to any other conclusion? If you say “philosophy” then great, but I’ve never studied philosophy, so I’m not really qualified to engage in that type of discussion. To me philosophy is just a series of beliefs, like religion.
And like religion, which I don’t really want to discuss and am just using as an example, it’s not a series of beliefs I have. That whole tangible thing again.
[quote]eengrms76 wrote:
I am. You may have a different definition of “true scientist” than I do, but I believe a scientist is one who looks at facts and figures and is less concerned with the other “fluff”.[/quote]
Actually, I was just taking the piss out of ya. But yes, we do seem to have different definitions of “true scientist.” Where I come from, an engineer is concerned with the practical application of scientific theory, not the discovery or development of said theories. Obviously there is some overlap in real life, but I think the generalization holds.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
an engineer is concerned with the practical application of scientific theory, not the discovery or development of said theories.[/quote]
There is a lot of research and creativity among some engineering minds. Not all of them just use other peoples theories. They do in my specific line of work, but not all. I do agree overall it’s probably a fair generalization.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
KombatAthlete wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
A liitle off topic: Why did Kant belive that, just because we see things in a particular way, we aren’t seeing actual (noumenal) reality? Just because we use space and time to understand our environment doesn’t mean those things are inaccurate.
Neph?
I’ve often thought the same thing. Just because something is a perception, it doesn’t make it an illusion. Either I’m missing something here or some of the world’s greatest philosophers have some explaining to do.
If you see things in a particular way, rather than as a unified whole, you are not seeing reality, you are seeing a construction of it. Physically we understand that what we are looking at are representations subject to distortion.
Senses are simply imperfect; by looking at one thing and comprehending it as separate from another, we are making possibly false distinctions. The real world is a bunch of “stuff,” and we can only understand a little bit of it at a time, and imperfectly. Perfect knowledge would be knowledge of the whole, and only God can know the whole.
As for why Kant thought that way… well, his argument is long and technical. He wrote the Critique of Pure Reason at a fever pitch, worrying that he would die before its completion… which didn’t help its clarity.
Suffice it to say that the Greeks understood that there was some difference between what is thought and the thing itself… their formulations are different from the Kantian one, of course.[/quote]
Thanks, Nephorm! You made it more clear than anywhere in his 800 pages.
The Critique is one of the most challenging books I’ve ever attempted to read, and I have a degree in Philosophy!
[quote]Skuebb wrote:
nephorm wrote:
eengrms76 wrote:
For me, being a true scientist
I thought you were an engineer?
A true scientist would be one who accepts the scientific method of inquiry as a method of finding truth, especially related to the physical world. Neph could probably address this better than I can, but isn’t that method an outgrowth of epistemology?
So, for eengrms76, I’m wondering why you accept that method as the best or proper method for studying the physical world? Here’s a tip: your answer will almost certainly take a detour into philosophy.[/quote]
Unless your name is Rousseau… 
[quote]Avoids Roids wrote:
This is another example of why the Asians are going to take over the world economically. Not only do we force western students to waste part of their finite learning time on this shit, but we don’t even teach them how to use Google or other research tools to find their own answers. What a shame.[/quote]
Actually, I believe the real reason we’re going to hell in a hand basket is because students are taking these kind of questions to friggin’ body-building websites, as opposed to say, a professor, or at the very least a clergyman, for pete’s sake.