Tyson sweepingly dismisses the entire history of philosophy. Actually,
he doesn't just dismiss it. He goes much further — to argue that
undergraduates should actively avoid studying philosophy at all.
Because, apparently, asking too many questions "can really mess you up."
"I don't have time for that."
OK, he doesn't single me out by name,
but since I think Zen is intriguing and may point to the fallacies of
conventional thought, AND the mere idea that you should “examine
yourself” like philosophy, makes it something worthing of
study...NDT tosses aside like a rancid piece of meat.
From this podcast we now know NDT is
insistent there is only ONE correct (and Rigid) way to look at the
world. Why is it so hard for people to say...”well I don’t get
it, but if you want study philosophy, Zen, poetry, pottery or
whatever..knock yourself out”
No, he as to tells how stupid we are
all for not thinking exactly like him.
Personally I think it is Backward
looking not Forward looking. He cannot just revel in the coolness of
Science, his view of science is only important because it is
not..well, something else. So, he has to dump on people who think
there are other things of interest, especially bad is Philosophy. But why stop at philosophy, remove poetry, fiction, and drama since it delays
your progress. Screw it, why not just burn the books you don't like.
Strangely he is actually a
fundamentalist in regard the religion of progress. Anything that
interferes with this goal is detrimental. And it is really an
unquestioning acceptance of own world view
The thing is he is taking techniques
from science and applying them to the different area of an
interior life.
Plus he has only disdain for Philosophy
and Zen, but they are not like fundamentalism trying to declare what
science is.
NDT feels self reflection and any
examination is pointless and in fact dangerous
5 comments:
I am generally willing to give NDT some slack, based on his other extremely good work, but yeah, that's just stupid. Philosophy is a lot more than investigation into nature - it is Ethics, it is the home of Logic, etc, etc.
I found this article pretty good:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2014/06/23/philosophy-begins-where-physics-ends-and-physics-begins-where-philosophy-ends/
This one was good too: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=7936
Well, I am may have exaggerated the stridency of his views. But in general I think my take is accurate.
the thing that really bugs me is “asking deep questions” can cause a “pointless delay in your progress”.
Those few questions are loaded with unstated assumptions or premises.
What progress is he talking about? What are deep questions?
To answer both of those requires, well.."thinking" and that in itself detracts from "progress", so you can't do it (according to him)
That said, I actually agree that what passes for high level philosophy is probably pointless, but I don't know for sure, and I am kind of glad there people out in the world doing that kind of stuff.
By the way, those links were really good.
I made a post on my blog about your post.
Really, if he is concerned with smart people wasting their time, he should look into the number of the "best and brightest" going into finance, becoming rich economic leaches who produce nothing, contribute nothing, and in fact damage everything.
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