Практика Shadowing: Philosophy of Science Lecture #1: Introduction - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео

Выберите режим практики

Каждый режим открывает полноэкранную комнату практики.

549 предложений

Если предложения слишком короткие или длинные, нажмите Edit, чтобы их изменить.

Thank you.

What is the philosophy of science?

Different ones among you might have different attitudes toward philosophy.

Some of you might think of it as a very rigorous discipline, logical.

Others might think of philosophy as something kind of squishy and wishy -washy.

But probably all of you understand science to be very different.

Philosophy and science are enormously different enterprises.

Why then philosophy of science?

What is that?

Those are the questions that we're going to be asking ourselves in this first segment.

Let me ask you what what might make science philosophically interesting.

I mean it's interesting to scientists, but why am I for Carl?

So metaphysics is one of the areas, traditional areas of philosophy.

It is supposed to be investigating the basic nature or roots or foundations of the universe at large.

Physics certainly does a good job at, or it seems to be doing a good job of explaining the nature of the physical universe.

So physics is doing a good job at a traditional philosophical task, namely understanding the natural world.

And so biology and chemistry more

and more in the 20th century are taking on the same kind of rigor

and explanatory power that physics has had for some time.

So there's a deep metaphysical interest.

What I'm going to stress, though, is a different angle.

What I want to stress throughout the quarter is science as a means of just gaining knowledge.

Again, physics and the natural sciences will probably be our primary example throughout.

But it's interesting also to ask the question, what is it that the social sciences aspire to?

I mean, what are they trying to do?

Well, they're trying to explain a certain domain of activity.

They're trying to understand it.

They're trying to gain knowledge about, well, economics is trying to gain knowledge about social economic behavior,

and sociology is trying to get some kind of knowledge about the behavior of people in groups.

I suppose those are kind of two rough glosses of those subject areas, but that's their point.

Their point is to try and gain knowledge.

And epistemology, of course, with metaphysics, is one of the central disciplines within philosophy.

It's the study of knowledge.

And so philosophers from before Plato have made distinctions between things

that we could really know and things that just appeared to be true or were mere opinion.

I mean, what's the difference between the scientist's assertion

that the physical world is such and such and my uneducated opinion that the physical world is such and such?

Well, the scientist has something or other, one might think, going for him or her.

The scientist has something behind his or her assertion that the layperson doesn't necessarily have.

It wasn't always possible to distinguish between science and philosophy, because science and philosophy have common roots, but in the modern era,

there is such a distinction.

There is a difference between, for example, metaphysics and physics.

Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where you draw that line, but there's a difference between them.

OK, so science seems, physics especially, again, there goes that example again,

but science seems to be doing a pretty good job of gaining knowledge.

What are some alternatives, though?

Is there any other way of gaining knowledge?

I mean, any other candidate that we have to choose from?

If we say, well, science does a good job, that sounds very nice, but as opposed to what?

What are other avenues to knowledge?

History.

Pardon me?

History.

History. Is that not?

See, that's one of those puzzling areas.

I'm not sure whether history is a science or not.

You'd say perhaps not.

It's one of those fuzzy, it's not like physics.

But people try to approach history scientifically.

At least some people would say it that way.

So anyway, that's one of those fuzzy cases.

I don't know what to say about history and whether it's an alternative to science or whether it's just a science, one of the sciences.

Not religion?

Religion.

How about that?

I mean, it often seems to, at least some of its practitioners, to offer an alternative to science,

a way of getting to knowledge that is different than and sometimes perhaps even opposed to science,

at least another candidate.

Again, I think some people would argue with that.

Some people in religion and some people in science would argue with that characterization of science as being a competitor of religion.

One claimed way of gaining knowledge might be through hallucinogens, through mind -altering experiences.

Within the religious tradition, and here is at least a link between the two things that you suggested, within religious traditions, some of them very old and some of them very new.

There are mystical traditions there.

One of the things that's sometimes supposed to distinguish science and religion as ways of knowing is that science relies on,

we're going to ask ourselves what, but science relies to a certain extent on mathematics, science relies to a certain extent on experimentation,

whereas religion is often said to rely on revelation.

That's a different kind of avenue for gaining knowledge than is admitted in the sciences.

Revelation that is either through some great book, like the Torah, like the Koran,

like the Bible, or perhaps revelation as passed along by wise persons.

I mean, wise guys?

No, by wise men, shamans.

You know, these are in the preliterate and non -literate cultures of the world.

There are no great books, but what there are are great traditions, which are learned rote by the religious leaders of the community and passed along.

Or, and here's the link, sometimes the revelation comes directly.

Sometimes there is a direct experience of divinity alleged, either by the leaders of the religion or within some religions by practitioners.

And you find this in the Christian tradition, great Christian mystics, in the Jewish tradition, great Jewish mystics, in the Islamic tradition,

in all of the main ones, in the minor ones.

There is a tradition underlying the organized doctrines of the churches.

There is reliance on, to some extent or another, The ability of the individual to get into direct touch with divinity, with God.

You don't have to go that far.

You could go to born -again Christianity, in which the relationship between the person and God is supposed to be direct.

No more through churches, no more through priests.

The relationship between an individual and his or her God is alleged to be direct.

You know Jesus directly.

You don't just hear about Jesus and then believe somebody.

You have direct experience.

and you know that it's God. So I understand.

I mean, I have not been in the position where I have received such revelations or known such things in such ways.

100

But if you rely on witnesses, if you rely on people who issue reports through all time and in all cultures,

101

there have been such reports.

102

People are as convinced about these things as they are of anything.

103

And the particular people who are convinced of these things are not characteristically unreliable people.

104

They're often some of the most reliable people around.

105

And among them are scientists, among them are doctors, among them are all kinds of people.

106

It's not like it's just a bunch of uneducated people who feel this way.

107

And this is an avenue to knowledge, to understanding, to truth, which,

108

if it's there, is certainly an alternative to what science offers.

109

I mentioned a moment ago that it's difficult to draw a real sharp line between philosophy

110

and science because they have similar roots, for one thing.

111

Science, in a sense, a sense that I suppose we'll touch on in the quarter,

112

science grows out of philosophical efforts to understand the world around us.

113

And it never entirely leaves philosophy.

114

In the 20th century, both Albert Einstein, for example, and Niels Bohr thought of themselves first and foremost as natural philosophers.

115

which is the old word for physics before they had separate departments over there.

116

I mean, the major degree, the highest degree in all of the sciences is what?

117

Yeah?

118

PhD, Doctor of Philosophy.

119

This harks back to a day when there weren't these separate departments.

120

The granting of that highest degree meant and still means

121

that the person is capable of dealing with the state -of -the -art questions, the things that are sort of right at the periphery of the field.

122

That's what that degree is supposed to mean.

123

And those are, even to the practitioners, to this day, often considered philosophical questions.

124

I mean, you get disagreements that run on for, well, in this century, you've got disagreement between Bohr and Einstein that went on for 30,

125

40 years about the character of the subatomic world, the world within the structure of the atom.

126

Disagreements, I mean, these are not people who don't know what they're talking about.

127

These are the best experts there are.

128

And they have disagreements about what's going on at that level.

129

They agree across the board on tons and tons of other things.

130

But there is, at this edge, at the state -of -the -art edge of the discipline, there remain philosophical disagreements.

131

The science has perhaps not pushed out that far,

132

has not learned how to handle those things in a way that is generally accepted within the profession of scientists.

133

So those questions remain philosophical.

134

So science hasn't completely gotten away from it.

135

Nevertheless, I think if you looked at the way philosophers dealt with problems and tried to gain understanding,

136

and philosophers pride themselves in trying to reach understanding, and then if you looked at the way that physicists went about their business,

137

working physicists, you know, rather than trying to figure out how do we distinguish these fields in principle, it seems to me that you'd be forced to the conclusion

138

that there are differences between the way philosophers try to gain understanding and the way that working scientists try to gain understanding.

139

Now, what intrigues philosophers is that, about science, and especially about physics,

140

is that given the domain that physicists have chosen, namely, you know, the world of matter -energy,

141

I guess we'd say right now, you know, what it is, how it works, what its structure is, that's the domain that physics looks at.

142

Within that domain, physics, especially over the last 300 years, has been monumentally successful.

143

It has had runaway success compared to any other competitor that anyone can think of concerning the development of knowledge,

144

whatever that means, understanding.

145

I mean, it doesn't mean that physics, I mean, no one thinks, well, I shouldn't say no one,

146

but not many people believe that physics has sort of like established the absolute and never -ending truth within its realm,

147

perhaps least of all physicists.

148

But the understanding this year appears to be better than the understanding last year.

149

The understanding in this decade appears to be superior, broader, deeper than the understanding in the decade before.

150

And the understanding in this century appears to be remarkably deeper, broader, better than the understanding in the century before.

151

There seems to be progress here, whereas progress isn't even a question in that mystical revelatory way of knowing.

152

You get shots of insight with mystical revelation.

153

You don't get arguments that develop.

154

You don't get theories.

155

You don't get systems that can be applied here and there and everywhere.

156

You get revelations, glimpses of truth at best.

157

I mean, that's according to its practitioners.

158

That's not according, I mean, forget about whether it really is in sight, which is a very, you know, an open question.

159

I don't mean to beg that question.

160

But, you know, just accepting it for a moment as a possible way of getting some kind of knowledge,

161

even its proponents say that what it gives you is glimpses, insights.

162

Things are revealed to you.

163

Aha!

164

Whoa!

165

Dynamite!

166

Far out!

167

I mean, you get these, and they're often ineffable.

168

That's one of the characters of mystical experiences.

169

They're ineffable.

170

Those who took a philosophy of religion course, you know what ineffable means?

171

Unable to be effed.

172

No, I mean, it means unexpressible.

173

You cannot express them.

174

There's no way of putting the truth that you've just learned into words.

175

I mean, mystical revelations don't come in like this.

176

uh you shouldn't eat butter i mean it doesn't come in like

177

that it doesn't come in like this just plain things like

178

that it goes whoa i see it that's the way revelations

179

come in whether they are hallucinatory uh generated by drugs

180

or whether they are religious they come in in such a way as to be unexpressible

181

that makes them suspect to some of the rest of us who think

182

that you should be able to express what you know

183

or what you understand but lots of people perhaps all of us in some issues would say, look, I've got some knowledge that I just am not able to put into words.

184

There are some things I understand that are not easily expressible.

185

Artists are perhaps the best evidence for the fact that truths,

186

or important things anyway, can be expressed that just couldn't be tackled with paragraphs and sentences.

187

Poets, to a certain extent, are, again, examples of the same sort of thing.

188

And what the mystic claims to get revealed is something that is singular,

189

not something that progresses or regresses.

190

They're truths, shots of truth, and in particular, shots of ineffable, inexpressible truth.

191

And philosophy, for all its pretensions, And I'm, you know, this is my career and my life,

192

but it seems plain, for better perhaps and for worse,

193

it seems plain that philosophy doesn't really progress.

194

I mean, each generation of philosophers seems to just kind of go back to the same, go back to the basics, try and reestablish foundations under everything,

195

works as far as it can, and then it dies off, and then the next generation comes out and says, ah, nah, and they, you know, scrap the whole works, go back to the foundations,

196

work up, scrap the whole thing, go back to the foundations, work up, repetitively, very little progress.

197

What's intriguing about science, long story finally coming to a circle, what's intriguing about science is that there does seem to be progress.

198

We do seem to be getting somewhere.

199

That's the way it seems anyway.

200

We'll have occasion in the quarter to examine that claim, to question it, but boy, it sure does seem like science makes progress.

201

That, given that philosophy has always been concerned with knowledge and trying to gain knowledge and trying to gain understanding,

202

that right there is the main reason why philosophers are interested in science, in physics especially.

203

Philosophers are interested in how it is that we come to know, what kind of thing knowledge is,

204

is interested in distinguishing knowledge from mere apparent truth, is interested in distinguishing knowledge from mere belief belief.

205

Physics, somehow or another, appears to have developed a method for reliably,

206

repeatedly, at least over long periods of time, getting closer and closer to the truth, or at least weeding out more and more error.

207

In other words, making progress.

208

So that, probably more than anything else is what interests philosophers,

209

you know, in science. In a way,

210

I think you could probably take a philosophy of science course to be just another name for an epistemology course,

211

a course in, you know, in the study again of knowledge.

212

If that's a foreign word to you, you should know it.

213

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, not the study of stems or epistles, letters, it's the study of knowledge,

214

and philosophy of science is just an effort to look at the,

215

you know, processes of acquiring knowledge focusing on those disciplines that seem to have had the most success in acquiring knowledge.

216

Okay, let me open the floor to any comments or questions you might have at this point.

217

I'm not sure that there are any, but there might be.

218

Again, the thesis so far, my argument, or not argument,

219

but my contention so far has been that the main philosophically interesting thing about science is not so much the metaphysics,

220

the angle, you know, where it tells us interesting things about the universe, but more as a process, more as a method for acquiring knowledge.

221

If we could figure out what science had going for it,

222

if we could figure out the core thing that physics does that allows it to be so successful in its realm,

223

maybe we could apply it in some other realm.

224

I mean, look what economics has kind of tried to do that.

225

It bold, I mean, you know, what's the story of the calculus?

226

Does anyone know about the invention of the calculus?

227

Who invented it?

228

Why?

229

Descartes didn't.

230

It's around the same years, but Isaac Newton invented calculus.

231

If someone else had said, is there any other candidate that you want to mention?

232

Yeah, Leibniz.

233

Leibniz also invented the calculus, quite independently of Newton, and they had a big fight about it.

234

But Newton invented the calculus.

235

Both of them invented the calculus for the same basic reason.

236

Because they're kind of designing a rigorous language, a mathematical language, that could take care of,

237

could accommodate, could deal with what each of them thought were the basic truths of the world, the basic truths of the physical world in particular.

238

Now, they both had monumentally different theories, but they're writing at about the same time.

239

They're both influenced by the same developments in science.

240

I mean, you know that, or you may know, you should know, that among other things, Newton is writing in this context.

241

Johannes Kepler has figured out that the rotation of the planets around the sun can't be circles, as Copernicus had it.

242

Even Galileo thought they were circles, that the planets rotated around the sun in circles.

243

We've gotten beyond the older theory, which we're going to come back to

244

and dwell upon at nauseating length the older Ptolemaean theory that said that the Earth was at the center of everything, we're now in the mid -1600s,

245

and pretty much the scientific community has managed to gain pretty widespread agreement on something like the Copernican theory.

246

Now, Kepler's the fellow who's figured out that it can't be circular orbits, it's got to be ellipses,

247

And Kepler also figured out the mathematical equations that told you just how those planets moved.

248

As any arbitrary planet goes around the sun,

249

it cuts these segments, areas,

250

area one, area two, area three.

251

What Kepler was able to establish was that the planets, as they move, they cut out equal segments in equal times.

252

Now, Galileo had figured out something entirely different.

253

Forget about the planets now.

254

Galileo had figured out how objects move.

255

You remember Galileo?

256

He isn't really the guy that dropped the balls off the Tower of Pisa in Italy and had them, you know, different mass, big ball,

257

little ball, dropped them off the tower, both hit the ground at the same time.

258

He's not the guy that really did that.

259

He worked with inclined planes.

260

But what he did do was to figure out what the mathematical laws were, laws of motion, that will allow us to tell

261

when we took the ball

262

and put it up here just exactly how far along the incline it would be

263

if we just let it go from this height and let a certain time elapse.

264

He was able to figure out those equations, which you all know very well.

265

It goes on x equals x sub zero plus v, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

266

He was able to figure out those equations, although he did that all geometrically, by the way he didn't have algebra yet.

267

Only Descartes, when he came along,

268

his contribution was to give an algebraic interpretation of these geometric things that Galileo had figured out.

269

In other words, he invented analytic geometry, which allows us to express geometric truths in algebraic terms.

270

But here we have, forget about Descartes now, we have Kepler, who's figured out the rules for the movement of the planets,

271

the rules of motion for planets around the sun.

272

We have Galileo apparently doing a completely different science.

273

He's doing motion of physical objects.

274

Kepler's doing astronomy.

275

Galileo figures out the equations of motion that governs such things as cannonballs.

276

You can now calculate just exactly how much power to put in your cannon to give it the right

277

and put it the right tilt to hit the people over there on the other side of the channel

278

or whatever it is that you're aiming at.

279

So Galileo has figured out this stuff, Kepler's figured out this stuff.

280

What Newton was able to do is to bring all this stuff together.

281

to show that the same basic laws of motion apply to the planets

282

and the heavens as apply to the cannonballs on the Earth

283

and to the marshmallows on the inclined plane on a perfectly marshmallow frictionless surface.

284

But, you know, all the laws of motion are the same for all of these things, and Newton was able to figure out what those laws were only because he invented the calculus.

285

So Newton's invention of the calculus was done with, you know, a particular end in mind, a particular end to, you know,

286

to try to explain physical phenomena,

287

phenomena of motion, whether on the surface of the planet or whether planetary in space.

288

What I'm getting to now, you remember I mentioned economics some time ago, in the 20th century what economists have done is take the calculus over bodily

289

as a tool for explaining the movement of money, as a tool for explaining facts in what's called econometrics,

290

trying to explain economic facts about this abstract thing, money, about the gross national product.

291

The calculus is used in that discipline.

292

Now, what would have led anybody to think that you could use something like the calculus, which was designed for this purpose, in such a disparate field?

293

Well, the same motive that I'm ascribing to philosophers in looking at science.

294

The economists, you know, lots of people, but John Maynard Keynes among them, were looking very hard at physics, and they were saying, look,

295

what can we do to improve our understanding of economic affairs, economic matters?

296

Boy, physics sure does a good job over there.

297

I wonder what it is that physics is doing that's got it right.

298

Maybe it's mathematics.

299

Maybe, in particular, the calculus.

300

Let's see if we can borrow that technique, move it over here, and get something like, you know, equivalent or similar success.

301

Yes.

302

In the 19th century, Ernst Mach was a physicist.

303

Compte, whose first name escapes me right now, was someone who invented sociology.

304

But there, Compte especially thought that sociology should become the new religion in the world.

305

That we should abandon all faith in gods and instead accept faith in science.

306

He thought that societies needed a religion, and for Comte, that religion should be science.

307

And that meant that it would be science that establishes our social goals, science that establishes our policy.

308

and of course that meant in the 19th century

309

that we really got to work hard to make our study of human societies and our study of human individuals more scientific.

310

Karl Marx, also in the mid -19th century, is famous among academics.

311

I mean, academics who sort of are interested in Marx, whether because they're political fans or just interested in him as sort of a theorist,

312

are likely to tell you

313

that one of the first people to be dissatisfied with societies like the Soviet Union or China would have been Karl Marx.

314

He would have been one of the gravest opponents of those particular regimes

315

because they had nothing to do with what he said should happen.

316

In particular, this is a little bit chapter out of political philosophy, Marx said you can never force social change.

317

Social change happens when it is ready to happen.

318

You can't have a little clique of intellectuals holding a revolution and changing all of society.

319

That's Leninism.

320

For Marx, you get changes in society when they're ready to happen, and they are driven by changes in the material conditions of production.

321

Enough about that.

322

But he wanted to try and have a theory of scientific socialism that explained just exactly why societies change,

323

why it is that societies move, why it is they progress, why it is they regress.

324

What conditions are they that are required if a society is to make progress in any measurable way?

325

Is there anything that individuals can do?

326

Marx would have said, not really much.

327

I mean, societies just kind of move and evolve. for objective reasons.

328

So what he tried to do is to establish a science of societies, all this movement in the 19th century to try and

329

take something like what was so successful in physics and to apply it to other realms.

330

That's what philosophy of science is all about, trying to figure out what is it .

331

that physics, especially, has going for it that we can take away, perhaps, and apply in new realms.

332

OK.

333

Now, let me pause and, again, ask if there's any comments or questions there.

334

I sort of, you know, a blunt pause, but.

335

OK, in the back.

336

It addresses a lot of things that are more or less, well, like with physics, we've got certain laws, and they've discovered the laws

337

and they're independent of us you know the people around them

338

like it doesn't matter how you well it matters how you throw the ball

339

but you can always describe how it's going to work where psychology

340

or whatever there's no real laws well i guess

341

that we could say that they've discovered yet

342

that you know given a you know somebody's always going to do b

343

or whatever it just seems like there's not a certain laws of the science yet

344

that they've discovered maybe that's the difference between the two fields

345

there's a lot of yes there are you sort of thinking

346

that well at the very least psychology is young right could

347

I can I ask you to make a leap of faith

348

and sort of speculate do you think

349

that psychology ever can get to be as rigorous as science as physics probably not

350

because we've already discovered how we can change a lot of

351

things on our own just the behavioral end of it

352

so you could constantly modify like if you came up with a law that said if somebody sees

353

red they're gonna get mad or whatever well behaviorally enough I think

354

if you worked at it you could change it around so

355

when people saw red you'd calm them down

356

because you just learn how to change people too much let me just make this off the vision

357

and then go on to the other questions.

358

Progress in science seems to be measured among other things by knowing what kind of regularities,

359

or not knowing, but hitting upon the right kind of regularities.

360

There have been since, well, since the dawn of written thinking, since the dawn of writing,

361

way before the pre -Socratics in Greece, so for 3 ,000 years anyway,

362

There have been, there's evidence of speculation about what the basic processes are in the universe and what the basic regularities are.

363

In other words, what the basic laws are.

364

But for motion, I mean, we've got Aristotelian physics and Aristotelian doctrines about motion,

365

which talked about laws of motion.

366

For example, in Aristotelian physics, the reason this goes over there is because it's seeking its natural place.

367

And it just apparently found it, at least temporarily, unless I remove the floor from under it.

368

But that's what it was doing.

369

This has a lot of impetus in it, too.

370

And so motion is described in Aristotelian physics by impetus within objects as they're thrown, sort of pushing it along.

371

Now, that's not altogether gone in physics we still have this strange thing which I never understand.

372

I don't know if you remember this from physics courses, but right now, this has got a lot of something or other in it.

373

What is it?

374

Potential energy, right?

375

There it goes, quick, there it goes.

376

It's all gone.

377

No, no, at least a lot of it's gone, again, until I remove the floor out from under it.

378

But it had a lot of potential energy in it, which was released.

379

Now, that's a funny way of thinking, it seems to me, but it's still taught to this day, as far as I know, in physics books.

380

So that's some of the Aristotelian stuff that's there.

381

Let me make this suggestion about a law of human behavior,

382

not something as simple or on the surface as if somebody sees red,

383

then they get mad, but rather something like this.

384

When any organism, person or other,

385

when any organism is in a state of deprivation among one of its primary needs,

386

food, water, maybe affection, I mean, what the primary needs are are things that are still, you know, debatable

387

but that when any organism is in a state of deprivation and receives some gratification among, let's say it's hungry, it gets some food,

388

whenever that happens it would be more, it will be more likely,

389

the likelihood is increased that it will repeat whatever behavior it is that preceded the, I mean that's the way you train dogs.

390

I mean I'm trying to state an abstract principle

391

but let's say you make your dog really hungry

392

and let's say what I want to do is to get

393

my dog to sit up i can't do this successfully

394

but this is what trainers do is first of all they get the dog hungry

395

and then and then they just wait and get a bucket of food but they just sort of weight, and the dog behaves.

396

Animals tend, when they're hungry, start pacing, moving around, jumping on and down, barking, yelling, doing all kinds of things.

397

They want food, and especially if you lock them in a room, which is a good idea if you're trying to train them, or lock them in an area where they can't get food on their own, they're just going to start behaving.

398

And so you kind of wait, and the dog will have a propensity to be around you because the dog's been fed by you before, so it's not like it's completely random, but you wait for the dog to behave.

399

When the dog begins to do something like what you want it to do, like it begins to sit up, you feed it.

400

You give it one bit of food.

401

You don't feed it so it's satiated.

402

You give it something.

403

Okay, and then the dog is more likely to repeat that.

404

The dog is not going to be quite so random in its behavior as it was before.

405

It will still be moving around, bouncing up and down, doing all kinds of things.

406

So you wait until the dog does something a little bit more like what you want it to do, and you feed it.

407

And you continue this process.

408

You do what the trainers and behaviorists call shaping behavior.

409

And you can do this with any organism.

410

You can do it with an amoeba.

411

Do it with a damn plant.

412

You can certainly do it with people.

413

And so then what you do if you're looking for a law is you'd look for something general like that, abstract.

414

You'd say, all right, the law is going to be whenever I reinforce an organism,

415

a behaving organism, in some continuum where it is in need, it will have a tendency,

416

nothing certain, but it will have a tendency to be more likely to repeat

417

that behavior that immediately preceded the reward than it would otherwise have been.

418

Now, there's a law of behavior that's really quite general.

419

That would be the sort of thing that you'd look for.

420

So, I mean, maybe it's not so unlikely that there could be laws of human behavior, but that they're going to be complicated and maybe pretty abstract.

421

very interesting.

422

Yeah, it really is.

423

So back anyway to the original discussion here.

424

Just expanding on what you were saying right there, like in the field of quantum mechanics, you've got, if you've got a really small particle,

425

you can't tell exactly where the particle is, but there's a region of probability where you will probably find the particle.

426

and that's what what you can draw a parallel to in psychology

427

if you tell some if you

428

if you put red in front of somebody it is likely

429

that they will get angry or it is more like that

430

so the laws of psychology may be probabilistic rather than deterministic

431

okay again we'll be making some of those distinctions further later

432

so I mean that that's good I mean it's so that we We might be able to, you know, interestingly enough, quantum mechanics is as predictive,

433

rigorously predictive a science as anything else in physics, but what it predicts are probability ranges.

434

And it does this with certainty.

435

It will, with certainty, be able to predict, you know, with near absolute certainty, as near absolute as in any other area of physics,

436

will be able to predict you a range within which a certain phenomenon will occur, or a range of time and a range of space, whatever.

437

But it can't get you the exact thing.

438

And indeed, in quantum physics, there's lots of good reasons to say that the electron doesn't have a particular position.

439

It only has that range.

440

But that gets a little weird.

441

I hope we get there toward the end of the quarter.

442

Yeah, I was just going to say

443

that there may be a point in time where we have more scientific evidence in regards to biochemistry

444

and as to the reasons for behaviors, just like he was mentioning, and that I think we probably will have some solutions to those problems that are based on that.

445

If you look at what's happening with gene cloning and all the other stuff connected to that, right? So you're in time.

446

In time, yeah.

447

I'm surprised I'm not hearing from those who think that, no, there's an in -principle difference here.

448

Here's one.

449

You're going to run into a paradox.

450

The analogy, the economists, they try to predict what's going to happen tomorrow on Wall Street and then they publish their predictions, thus screwing them up.

451

What happens to your psychology subjects after you start publishing your psychology textbooks or your sociology textbooks?

452

Like, what happens if I publish a textbook, which in psychology I prove that

453

if 50 % of the people live in the city and 50 % of the people live in the farmlands, those people who live in the farmlands are going to be happy.

454

But only if that 50 % is maintained, my 50 -50 ratio is going to get messed up because everybody's going to move out to the farmlands to be happy.

455

You know, you're going to run into a paradox like that

456

because the mind has that capability of taking into account laws and using that as a basis for action.

457

I think I'm going to give you another quantum mechanics example, is that right?

458

perhaps no what what he's what you're doing when you publish your results is adding another

459

uncertainty in the in the question it's another thing that's going to move the people if um

460

if there's 50 of the people in the in the farmland the 50 of the people in the city

461

and the 50 50 of people are in the farmlands are happy then um people are going to move

462

when you publish your information.

463

But that's because you published your information, not for any other reason.

464

Let me see if I could.

465

I want to bring this kind of back.

466

A central move that seems to many to be at the foundations of the success of physics

467

is that it has been able to distance the observer from the observed.

468

It is able to give what are called objective analyses.

469

It sets up objective experimental conditions.

470

It tries to do this.

471

I mean, traditional physics has portrayed the world that it looks at as being even more than at arm's length.

472

I'm not sure that's clear, so let me try and go back over it again.

473

Physics is objective, whereas philosophy and religion are sometimes held to be non -objective

474

or subjective because what the physicist tries to say about the data, about the realm that he's studying,

475

is supposed to be not colored by his interests,

476

not colored by or her goals.

477

The institution of science is set up so as to correct for possibilities of personal bias.

478

So that even if a researcher has some professional interest or private interest that they cannot control,

479

The institution of science is supposed to keep these influences out to make sure that the descriptions of the realm are objective.

480

And then the whole idea here is what's going on in the physical world is independent of what we think about it, is independent of us.

481

We are examining an independent world.

482

We, the observer, the mind, or the minds that look at that world,

483

we can sort of stand back and try and figure out how the world works apart from us,

484

independently of us, because there are laws of physics that are determiners of what happens out there.

485

They are not affected by us.

486

So this whole ideal of objectivity, the objectivity of the researcher or of research methods,

487

has seemed to be essential throughout the history of physics.

488

Look, though, at anthropology.

489

I mean, we've chosen some other examples, but look at anthropology.

490

How can an anthropologist believe that same thing?

491

I mean, anthropologists study cultures.

492

There are no big cultures that are kind of unaffected.

493

I mean, the anthropologist comes from some culture, and he's studying some other culture.

494

How can he put the culture on, you know, like a Petri dish plate and study it?

495

How can the anthropologist study the tribe in question without interfering with it?

496

I mean, you ask it questions.

497

You can't control it either.

498

I mean, what you want to do in an ideal physical experiment is to look at a phenomenon unaffected by anything around it.

499

You want to isolate that phenomenon.

500

Make sure that you know exactly what the variables are that are making one thing or another happen.

501

You want to control those variables.

502

Anthropologists would have a very difficult time doing that with any mainstream culture.

503

So of special interest to anthropologists have been cultures that appear to have been isolated from all other cultures.

504

I mean, they're sort of like, you don't have to be able to, in order to study something, you don't have to be able to put it on a Petri dish or manipulate it.

505

I mean, astronomy has been a very successful science, and it's real difficult to put a planet or a star or a galaxy on a Petri dish.

506

But still, it's been tough with societies for anthropologists, and so they thought, boy,

507

it really is great if we could only get a previously unknown culture to work with.

508

You know, in the 20th century, I mean, it's debatable how isolated the societies really have been that have been discovered by anthropologists.

509

I mean, sometimes it's occurred later, boy, these people have been in contact with that tribe over there for years and they are constantly at McDonald's hanging out.

510

No, it's not quite like that.

511

But so they found these cultures, and then the anthropologist is faced with this crazy question.

512

Let's say they find a culture that's never been in touch with outside civilization before.

513

I mean, let's say they somehow detect it from the top of a mountain.

514

There it is down in the valley.

515

You know, like you can't imagine, I mean, you can't, how do they study it? With binoculars?

516

Well, you're not going to learn their language.

517

You're not going to learn their customs that way.

518

You're not going to learn what they think about this, that, the other thing.

519

You're not going to learn how they work.

520

I mean, how are you going to learn about this culture?

521

Well, you can go down in there and enter into it.

522

You can enter into it and learn their ways from the inside.

523

But if you do that, you're the very thing you've been trying to protect against.

524

You are the outside influence.

525

Are they going to behave the same when they know they're being studied by some outsider?

526

Hardly.

527

They may worship you.

528

Are they going to, is it going to be the same culture?

529

Are you going to be able to see really how they operate with one another

530

when you come walking in and here you are, probably different complected, differently dressed, different ways, different language?

531

Their interactions with you, the objective scientists, are going to be different than anything that they've ever done before.

532

How can you see them objectively?

533

How can you study them without interfering with the very phenomenon that you set up?

534

So sometimes, some people would say, you cannot have the same degree of objectivity in the social sciences as you have with physics

535

because you inevitably interfere with the phenomenon.

536

And then in the 20th century, as we'll see later in the quarter, physics fell to the same argument.

537

At the quantum level, in quantum mechanics,

538

you cannot measure or look at or investigate anything

539

that goes on in the quantum domain without radically interfering with it.

540

Science is philosophically interesting because it's so successful.

541

Philosophers want to know, what does science have going for it?

542

Possibly just out of curiosity about understanding knowledge.

543

That's a classic part of philosophy, after all.

544

But also, perhaps, and in many instances, they're interested in trying to figure out how to apply whatever it is that physics, say, has going for it somewhere else.

545

What we need to do now, though, is to look at some specific proposals about just what it is that science has going for it.

546

Thank you.

547

Thank you.

548

Thank you.

549

Thank you.

Скачать приложение

Всё для свободной речи

ИИ-оценка произношенияОценка каждой фразы

Практика IPAОсвойте каждый звук

СловарьСоберите свой словарный запас

Игра со словамиУчитесь играя

Сканировать QR

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

Тот же канал

Philosophy of Science Lecture #2: Verificationism

Daily ConversationUniversity Students

FOR YOU

Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку

В этом видео 549 предложений и 7128 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 49:13. Говорящий держит ровный темп — около 145 слов в минуту, удобный для шедоуинга. 85% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка; остальные стоит разобрать перед занятием.

Ключевая лексика этого видео

15 слов из видео, которые стоит выучить, с произношением и значением:

Слово	Произношение	Значение
physics существительное	/ˈfɪz.ɪks/	фи́зика
philosopher существительное	/fəˈlɑsəfɚ/	фило́соф
calculus существительное	/ˈkæl.kjə.ləs/	исчисле́ние
revelation существительное	/ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/	открове́ние, откры́тие
psychology существительное	/saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/	психоло́гия, пси́хика
invent глагол	/ɪnˈvɛnt/	изобрета́ть, изобрести́
objective существительное	/ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/	объе́кт
phenomenon существительное	/fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/	явле́ние, собы́тие
quantum существительное	/ˈkwɑntəm/	коли́чество
rely глагол	/ɹɪˈlaɪ/	полага́ться, положи́ться
organism существительное	/ˈɔɹ.ɡəˌnɪz.əm/	органи́зм
domain существительное	/ˌdəʊˈmeɪ̯n/	владе́ние
discipline существительное	/ˈdɪsəplɪn/	дисципли́на, дисциплини́рованность
publish глагол	/ˈpʌblɪʃ/	публикова́ть, опубликова́ть
philosophical прилагательное	/ˌfɪl.əˈsɑ.fɪ.kl̩/	филосо́фский

Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите

Слово	Произношение	Значение
figure out глагол		разбира́ться, разобра́ться
set up глагол	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	устана́вливать, установи́ть
come along глагол		сопровожда́ть, составля́ть компа́нию
come out глагол	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	выходи́ть, вы́йти
come up with глагол		придумывать, приходить в голову
cut out глагол		возде́рживаться, воздержа́ться
die off глагол		вымира́ть, вы́мереть
go over глагол		хорошо́ принима́ться

Грамматика в этом видео

Конструкции, которые говорящий использует чаще всего, с точными словами из видео:

Конструкция	В видео
Present Perfect have/has + причастие прошедшего времени — прошлое действие, важное сейчас	has had · have made · have not been
Пассивный залог be + причастие прошедшего времени — важно, что происходит, а не кто это делает	is often said · is admitted · are learned
Придаточные определительные who / which + предложение — уточнение о человеке или предмете	traditions, which are · people who issue · people who are

Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание

Говорящий использует 116 сокращённых и редуцированных форм, например they're, don't, you're. Произносите их коротко, так, как слышите.

Звуки «th»: mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, anthropology /ˌænθɹəˈpɑləd͡ʒi/, nevertheless /ˌnɛvɚðəˈlɛs/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/
Звуки «sh» и «zh»: revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/, practitioner /pɹækˈtɪʃənəɹ/, dish /dɪʃ/
Длинные слова — следите за ударением: philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/, revelation /ˌɹɛv.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, phenomenon /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/, organism /ˈɔɹ.ɡəˌnɪz.əm/

Как заниматься с этим видео

Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
Повторяйте предложение за предложением на обычной скорости, пока ваш ритм не совпадёт с ритмом говорящего.
Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как physics, philosopher, calculus.

Что такое техника Shadowing?

Shadowing — это научно обоснованная техника изучения языка, изначально разработанная для подготовки профессиональных переводчиков и популяризированная полиглотом доктором Александром Аргуэльесом. Метод прост, но эффективен: вы слушаете аудио на английском от носителей языка и немедленно повторяете вслух — как тень, следующая за говорящим с задержкой в 1–2 секунды. В отличие от пассивного прослушивания или грамматических упражнений, Shadowing заставляет мозг и мышцы рта одновременно обрабатывать и воспроизводить реальные речевые паттерны. Исследования показывают, что это значительно улучшает точность произношения, интонацию, ритм, связную речь, понимание на слух и беглость речи — что делает его одним из самых эффективных методов для подготовки к IELTS Speaking и реального общения на английском.

Техника шедоуинга: читать полное пошаговое руководство →

Практика Shadowing: Philosophy of Science Lecture #1: Introduction - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео

Выберите режим практики

Скачать приложение

Тот же канал

Philosophy of Science Lecture #2: Verificationism

Рекомендуемое видео

What is Philosophy?: Crash Course Philosophy #1

Eco 155: Principles of Macroeconomics Class 1

Are we WRONG about most FAMOUS LINGUISTICS experiment??

Map of Science (and everything else)

The Creation of Chemistry - The Fundamental Laws: Crash Course Chemistry #3

Hegel: Philosophy of world history and spirit

Mes arguments philosophiques préférés

Contemporary Topics 2 Unit 5 Lecture with Powerpoint

2. Socratic Citizenship: Plato's Apology

Lecture 01. Introduction to the Course - Philosophy of the Natural Sciences (Univ of New Orleans)

SEM141 - Speech Acts - An Overview

bassham ch3pt1

Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку

Ключевая лексика этого видео

Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите

Грамматика в этом видео

Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание

Как заниматься с этим видео

Что такое техника Shadowing?