Death

http://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/death/content/class-sessions

by sutro • 18 years ago

56 65 18 years ago

oyc.yale.edu

Tichy13• 18 years ago

Confirms my prejudice that studying maths and economics is much more worthwhile than philosophy. (Edit: I have only read chapter 23, which is concerned with choices and values - really, game theory and economics give you much better insights here, with fewer words).

thorax3• 18 years ago

That's not very fair. "Worthwhile" can be judged in lots of ways. I agree that math and economics are very practical, but that doesn't mean philosophy is without value.

I was a very interested in philosophy in college, and if I had chosen anything other than CompSci, that probably would have become my major. I have a lot of respect for people exploring metaphysical questions. While it's easy to dismiss them as "non-practical", I can't think ill of people who try to seek underlying meaning behind the day-to-day sciences/morality/etc. and improve our understanding of truth and logic.

Those questions are really far harder than the ones I tackle day-to-day or even in my highest math/CS studies. I still feel like a wimp sometimes for not trying to attack "deeper" questions and paradoxes.

In a sense, philosophy asks questions that all the sciences, ultimately, try to get us closer to answering. I don't think there's as much glory in asking the questions, but there's still a whole lot of them to ask.

That being said, I understand your position entirely. Had I become an engineer without being introduced to philosophy first, everything there (sans the logic/fallacy discussions) would seem impractical. Now I see it as a fundamental that helped to start most of the major branches of science, and keeps growing discussion around some of the tougher problems we've yet to solve.

Retric2• 18 years ago

Most philosophy questions are a result of language not abstract ideas. When someone says something 'blue boy dry kite' you try and extract meaning so when encountering an idea that lacks meaning you still try and parse it. Some words even imply a world view that could be wrong. So: Q: What is ethics in a random universe? A: They are not compatible concepts. (In other words the question is wrong.)

PS: As to the few big questions like life after death there is nothing in philosophy that let's you tackle such questions.

Tichy13• 18 years ago

Usually when I try to read a philosophical text, I find it very unsatisfying. The philosophers are just not rigorous, effectively invalidating all their own thoughts.

Take chapter 23 from the lecture. It is about "how to live life in the face of death" and possible ways to maximize "value". But it seems to dodge the question what is value in the face of death, which would be the only worthwhile question. Instead it dwells on ways to optimize value, which could be better done with solid economic theory (it is "how to invest actions and time to maximize results").

Why does it matter what value one's life has? The lecture doesn't seem to give an answer. Will there be a judgment in afterlife, depending on our lives value? I don't think so. I think the "value" is strictly a subjective, individual thing, and therefore Philosophy can't help much with it. Perhaps what is useful is to get a better idea of the effects of our decisions (will people be harmed by my life style, that kind of stuff). But then again it seems "hard sciences" would be much better suited to answering that question than ancient poems and philosophy.

Even if you believe in a judgment after life, I guess then you should assign a probability to the kind of god you will encounter and align your actions accordingly. I just don't see how philosophy could help.

Except if you say mathematics is a special kind of philosophy - I could accept that. So in theory there could be useful philosophy, but I have never seen it (except for maths).

Take that lecture: I actually new I could safely skip most of the chapters because they are obviously irrelevant (like the one's about "is there a soul or not"). They are just WAY too shortsighted. I bet they don't have a proper definition of what a soul would be, to begin with.

bOR_2• 18 years ago

game theory never seemed that convincing (I'm a theoretical biologist). Most people just don't seem to be that mathematically inclined and they stop iterating through some decision problem well before where logic should take them. As such, it makes a lot of the points that the field is making m00t, as they try pin the results derived from Homo economicus / logicus onto Homo Sapiens.

see http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1518&aid=-1 for an example of this. The result seems to be an outcome of people only thinking one step ahead, and those thinking superrational (i.e. estimating how much steps ahead people will be thinking, and chosing according to that).

Philosophy (reading transcript 23 now as well) might in general be more useful to a human mind then some theoretical system on how a non-existant optimal human would behave.

Just read it. It's nice I think, especially if you've never been exposed to the ideas in there and if you are willing to seriously consider the questions raised. I'd rate it as more useful than game theory by far.

Tichy13• 18 years ago

The most interesting aspect of Game Theory I have encountered are the "Evolutionary Stable Strategies". Not sure if they are even officially considered Game Theory, as I read about them in a Dawkins book.

But I think the concept is extremely important when trying to understand the world around us. It makes the "people are just not rational" aspect irrelevant - evolution in the long run is rational, or rather mindlessly testing all the relevant strategies, so we still need Game Theory to figure out which strategies will be the most likely to prevail.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

game theory wouldn't be interesting if it was the study of the actions of perfect bayesian reasoners. that's the whole point, studying where we DON'T make the purely rational choice and why. Exposing cognitive bias is very important for every field of science.

fireywrath114• 18 years ago

Wow. Philosophy really has added so much to the world that you people seem to have blinded yourself towards: Scientific method, traced back to Aristotle, or Charles Peirce. Both well known and respected philosophers. B.F. Skinner's behaviorism research which was pivotal within psychology; also a respected philosopher. I really can keep going on and on, but it doesn't seem necessary. Philosophers have been responsible for turning heads in new directions, as opposed to just those logically connected to an idea. Those arguments which call philosophy not well thought out or baseless are looking at these novel ideas as baseless without some body of evidence to back them up. Treating the philosopher's ideas a hypothesis rather than their declaration of fact should satisfy some comments based around how they can be worthwhile. Try writing a 200 page book describing a large-scale system in exact detail which covers all loose ends, and I think you'll run into the same issues with vague-ness and seeming leaps in logic. Half of the interest in philosophy is the argument, the debate and defending and fleshing out one's ideas. To turn out something that's perfect really detracts from the evolution of ideas. At the very least, this training your mind how to overcome arguments and refining your ideas leads to people of stronger characters, sharper minds, and a more diverse set of interests than just the issue in front of them.

Sure game theory describes a way to get what you want based on the circumstances, but do they go into what virtues are, how ethics apply, or even how life is changed by what you're doing? The ideas may not be set in stone and clear as day, but they make people think about different ideas and offer more insight based on the research that people have done than just "aha, this protein does inhibit viruses." The synthesis of ideas and cross-application nowadays is where science is at. Sure they may get there eventually using cold hard facts and logic, but every once in a while, a baseless argument ties in pretty nicely and can advance a theory more quickly just by making people think a bit harder.

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

Upvoted for mention of C.S. Peirce. Never hear that much about him, but he was the man, at least 120 or so years ago.

pfedor• 18 years ago

Philosophy really has added so much to the world that you people seem to have blinded yourself towards: Scientific method, traced back to Aristotle

If you want to read what a real scientist has to say about the value that philosophy adds to science, I suggest "Dreams of Final Theory" by Steven Weinberg, chapter 7, "Against philosophy": http://depts.washington.edu/ssnet/Weinberg_SSN_1_14.pdf

maurycy3• 18 years ago

Why not have the best of all worlds?

Philosophy of math generated a lot of interesting questions in the past.

yelsgib5• 18 years ago

The salient question is "what is value?"

One aim of Philosophy is to align our abstractions with our intuitions. Game theory/math can't do this, sorry.

Your prejudice is undoubtedly based on your lack of understanding of math, economics, and philosophy. Please do not be so arrogant. (note that I'm not claiming a perfect understanding of any of these - and yes, I realize this is ad hominem - but I'm fairly bored/frustrated by reading these same tired criticisms of philosophy)

Tichy13• 18 years ago

"One aim of Philosophy is to align our abstractions with our intuitions"

I don't understand this sentence. I guess it means "philosophy is subjective"?

If your understanding of those subjects is so great, then please elaborate.

Also, I was referring to chapter 23, which seems to be purely about economic decisions. So clearly maths and economics are much better suited for treating the issue.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

You do know what PhD stands for don't you? Everything is philosophy at high enough (or you could say low enough) level. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics

educate yourself.

nazgulnarsil3• 18 years ago

it's quite amusing that "do" and "don't" can be switched in that first question and the meaning is the same.

iamelgringo• 18 years ago

-1 off topic

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

I don't think this is necessarily true, but in this case I'd agree with you. This link utterly fails to convince me that it's on topic.

sethg• 18 years ago

Does the Yale philosophy department have a "Taxes" course, as well?

steveplace• 18 years ago

Certainly.

Herring3• 18 years ago

You gotta figure something's gone horribly wrong if you're still reading Plato for anything.

Anyone got some decent resources to wash away the taste of fail?

river_styx3• 18 years ago

You're right. Classics are such a waste of time. Let's throw out Ovid, Homer, Dante, Bach, and Mozart while we're at it.

maurycy3• 18 years ago

You're comparing oranges to apples, and depreciating philosophy, which is more science than art. No one seriously discusses papers of guys who believed odd scientific theories from XVI.

swombat• 18 years ago

Those who ignore history are condemned to relive it.

More importantly, in your case, those who think the classics are a waste of time are cretins.

streblo2• 18 years ago

I disagree. I'm a philosophy major, I hate reading Plato. Boring, dry, antiquated - definitely. Regardless, he is a cornerstone of western thought. Know your classics.

Herring3• 18 years ago

As more than just a historical curiosity? Greek geometry contributed much, but we don't teach it in college, do we? I'd hate to think my field peaked 2000 years ago.

See the fruits of it in that page. Modern biology tells us the soul doesn't survive death any more than 'treeness' survives the fireplace. I suppose it's easier to read Plato than to study evolutionary psychology or game theory.

fauigerzigerk• 18 years ago

What about the "Hacking Death" lecture? I'd really love to find a cool hack to make death a little more palatable ;-)

j2d2• 18 years ago

I think the 60's discovered a few.

abcde• 18 years ago

Well, I'm a transhumanist so I don't believe that I will necessarily die. I would guess the best bet for a compsci major is to try to invent a AI or something that enhances cognition so that scientific research is sped up enough to find a cure for death before you die.

mynameishere• 18 years ago

27. Parrots, and

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

He's just pining for the fjords

clueless• 18 years ago

could someone enlighten us as to what this means?

mhartl• 18 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Parrot

andreyf• 18 years ago

Most Philosophy departments have something like this, although with more wordy names. At Rutgers, there was (01:730:371) Philosophies of Death and Dying.

http://catalogs.rutgers.edu/generated/nb-ug_current/pg20657....

lg• 18 years ago

Yeah, and at Rutgers I think this is usually a summer class taught by a grad student and taken by nonmajors trying to fulfill a requirement. Probably for good reason.

mrtron• 18 years ago

Dying is easy to understand, and you won't fail to accomplish it. Living well on the other hand...

yelsgib5• 18 years ago

"well"

Dying is not easy to understand.

time_management• 18 years ago

A major philosophical problem with death is that its character changes dramatically depending on what happens afterward, and nobody knows what does happen, which makes the whole topic rather difficult to evaluate. The best we can do is to study how death's approach affects our lives, which has more to do with our attitudes toward it and what we think will happen.

If there's no afterlife, death is to be hated intensely, but not feared at all, because no unpleasant experience will come from death itself, though the prelude may be terrible. In fact, the great casualty of materialism is not death but aging. Death becomes neutral, while aging becomes terrible, pointless, and ultimately disgusting. The fact that we're aging from the first moment of life makes materialism especially horrifying. No offense to the atheist materialists here, but I'd become severely depressed if I thought materialism were the case, because the omnipresence and inevitability of eventual bodily failure are rarely far from my mind.

If there is an afterlife, death is not to be hated, and possibly to be loved, but it is to be feared, because it marks a transition into a sort of existence we know nothing about. Many atheists who have near-death experiences describe an initial, liminal point of awareness, surprise, and fear. They anticipated eternal sleep in death, and yet experience a moment of awareness while being "dead", and this is shocking to them.

So it seems like exactly one of these two attitudes-- hatred, fear-- is appropriate for death. It seems like very few people can sustain the sort of metaphysical confidence that would prevent them from having one of these two attitudes; I think it's psychologically difficult to keep perfect faith. Death could be hated and feared by a person who anticipated a negative afterlife, but few people anticipate such a fate for themselves, and indeed this scenario seems far more unlikely than any of the alternatives (namely, a positive afterlife such as heaven, a neutral-positive one such as rebirth, or the dismal but ultimately neutral scenario of annihilation).

delackner• 18 years ago

Thank you. This is the most thoughtful and really mind expanding thing I have read in months.

I notice a lot of commentary on lecture 23. Skip that. Read 16 onward. The meat of this whole thing is his really long treatment of the questions of why we fear death, what it is we fear, what about death is so bad, and what that suggests about how we should LIVE.

These are not new concepts, but it is easy to try to ignore them.

Death

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