Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/

by ekm2 • 14 years ago

10 9 14 years ago

geophile• 14 years ago

Sort of. I'd say that large parts of philosophy and religion are made obsolete by various branches of biology, mainly evolutionary theory and neuroscience.

yters• 14 years ago

I've yet to see a coherent version of this. Replaced in theory, perhaps. Replaced in actuality, such as can be lived as religion and philosophy are, no.

Petrushka• 14 years ago

Religion was created to answer three questions. Why are we here? How are we here? How should we carry ourselves? Its secular cousin philosophy was designed to answer the bookending two.

Empirical science answers the middle question, but it leaves the other two untouched. I'm personally a nihilist, but even if you do not believe we are here due to some divine plan or goal, it is certainly possible to rationalize (and not in a negative sense) a purpose for humanity, such as the pursuit of happiness. As for the latter, although most discussions of the role of religion in general society tend to be negative, the Crusades, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Extremism, pedophile clergy, etc., to name a few (Western) examples, that religion is the fundamental basis for our morality is lost in the shuffle. Sure the edges can get quite frayed, especially when religions bump into each other, but the basic framework of the way we live was codified and enforced by religion, and without it humanity would have had and would have a much rougher existence. Philosophy has attempted to replace it as a secular approach, but they really are doing one and the same.

So the answer is no. Physics has (thankfully, in my book) replaced one of religion and philosophy's three founding bases, but the other two remained untouched. And now you can say you've come across a nihilistic atheist who loves organized religion...

pavel_lishin3• 14 years ago

I would argue that the three questions are "Why are we here?", "What do we do while we're here?", and "What happens to us when we're no longer here?".

Philosophy isn't likely to answer #3, although science has a chance of making up a new answer.

Apocryphon• 14 years ago

Can we ever stop the media from writing sensationalist, meaningless headlines?

pavel_lishin3• 14 years ago

Betteridge's law applies to your question as much as it does to those headlines.

pavel_lishin3• 14 years ago

Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again.

csense2• 14 years ago

The answer to the headline's question is "No, and it never will."

There's a branch of philosophy, the philosophy of science, that deals with analyzing the scientific method.

Discussing the scientific method is a sort of meta-analysis that will continue to be useful as long as we do science, even if every other application of religion and philosophy is eventually overturned by science and technology.

csense2• 14 years ago

The precise definitions of "science," "religion" and "philosophy" change over time. If you described the activities of modern scientists to someone from the 17th century or earlier, they'd say, "Mine own time doth have the selfsame scientists of which thou speakest! We callest them Natural Philosophers!"

What we call "science" today was considered a subdiscipline of philosophy for thousands of years.

Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?

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