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Amid all this
talk about whether economics is a
science, I began to wonder about
philosophy. Not only do we have our
own
Nobel Prize, but most of us
spend our days testing hypotheses,
and even making (all too easily)
falsifiable predictions (e.g. about
what sort of intuitions rational
beings will have under various
counterfactual circumstances). There
is furthermore a lot of
circumstantial evidence that we're
scientists. Many of us spend our
time hanging around semi-reputable
folks like linguists and
psychologists, and even
topics that have no prima
facie connections to anything
reputable, upon closer
investigation, are in fact linked in
fairly obvious
ways to the most respected
disciplines of all. Indeed, over the
course of my career, I've been
surprised to see how the most
abstractly metaphysical topics
originally discussed by philosophers
have come to impact a variety of
clearly empirical disciplines
outside philosophy. Work by
philosophers on the metaphysics of
modality (or the semantics for modal
languages) resulted in a model that
has useful applicability in a wide
variety of topics (e.g. the study of
probability, the study of natural
language meaning). Philosophers
nursed the notion of causation while
it was hiding from anti-metaphysical
forces, and now it is a respectable
topic again in the human sciences
(e.g. no discussion of practical
reasoning can ignore it).
Psychologists interested in concept
formation appeal to work in
metaphysics as abstract as David
Wiggins and Michael Ayers on sortal
concepts (to the great chagrin of
some of my colleagues). Some of
us are even quite explicit about the
fact that we do
experiments. It is not just in
my Quinean moments that I wonder how
to make a distinction between
philosophy and 'real' science.
-Jason Stanley
Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) worked in
theoretical philosophy and in logic. (In practical philosophy—ethics and
political philosophy—his contributions are negligible.) He is perhaps
best known for his arguments against Logical Empiricism (in particular,
its use of the analytic-synthetic distinction). This argument, however,
should be seen as part of a comprehensive world-view which makes no
sharp distinction between philosophy and empirical science, and thus
requires a wholesale reorientation of the subject.
-Willard van Orman Quine First published Fri Apr 9, 2010;
substantive revision Mon Dec 1, 2014
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine/
Contemporary Issues under Discussion:
Premise: Newton's 3rd Law of Motion may be applied internally with all
living creatures (Thermodynamics 1st. Law).
In this exercise, we investigate the theory as
applied to homo sapiens. There appears to be no empirical method of
accurately determining if the theory can be proven at this stage, or
possibly ever, (objectively quantifying emotion) although Nature is
abundant with examples supporting it. Human beings are objects in
constant motion, even when sleeping.
Newton’s law has been proven empirically regarding motion occurring
externally from human action (e.g. energy on hand from pushing a ball)
but it has not been progressed to motion occurring internally from human
action (e.g. energy of grief from acceptance of a child’s death).
If the probability can be accepted, it offers people in adversity, a
path to proceed with greater clarity: the probability of positive
potential energy waiting to be expended beyond that being expended
naturally.
Is data available to contradict the application of
the law to humans’ cerebral-emotive motion? No, because emotion cannot
be accurately and objectively quantified in humans, so there may never
be any universal agreement. Using the above example, a child dies from
cancer = negative emotional force. A potential positive force can be
observed with the application of life-long energy in some cases, where a
parent devotes theirself to an activity to save other children from
cancer. So why don’t all parents, whose child dies similarly, display
positive forms of energy, particularly when some just appear to spend
enormous time in ongoing grief? Where is that positive energy?
The energy being expended due to such grief is so
intense, it consumes the vast majority of one's awareness for a time.
All actions experienced by human beings
have internal forces, both positive and negative. The nature of how
those forces are applied is both elective and non-elective by degree. It
is the elective component with which we wish to address for this
exercise.
The more a person /applies/ builds upon/ the
positive force, the more the negative force is expended. Allowing the
positive force to prevail is always an option, similarly with a negative
force. Again, it is always a matter of degree.
When a positive event is experienced, one can
actively utilise it, gradually expunging the negative force.
When a negative event is experienced, one can actively utilise it,
gradually expunging the positive force. It is a matter of choice, of
focus, but be aware as a force cannot always be immediately identified,
be it positive or negative, regardless the strength of the opposing
force. At times one must search hard for the positive options to
overcome negative effects.
A positive energy, in such cases, is potential
energy and remains as such for an indefinite time, until it begins to be
expended. Some is expended naturally, (the body seeking homeostasis: the
end of the sadness). Nature does that for us. It’s a combination of
cerebral energy and emotive energy, activating at different levels, at
different times.
We can create a conscious cerebral energy force to
accelerate overcoming sadness. The awareness of the existence of such
counter-balance can offer hope, inspiration and too, the birth of
creativity.
-Kiram Rend
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