🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BtpA01.KJ@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)  
writes:
> 
> In article <1992Aug28.133107.8402@math.ucla.edu>, barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu  
(Barry Merriman) writes:
> 
> 
> Why not give us an idea of the scope of your knowledge and study
> in these areas?  At least this would enable the participants to
> communicate a little more efficiently with you.  I bet I've taken
> more courses in (and done more reading of) science than you have
> of philosophy.  Geez, my wife (who used to be a philosopher of
> science [biology]) has a degree in biology and was second author
> of a paper in _Nature_ as an undergraduate.  You seem to think that
> philosophers of science don't know any science and have never been
> in a lab.  Not so.
> -- 
> Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]

Im not a philosopher---I don't even play one on TV :-)
I'm a scientist. My knowledge of philosophy stems from 3 or 4 phil
courses I took as an undegrad, reading a lot of existential philosophy,
an occasional glance at books on the philosophical aspects of QM and 
Relativity, and whatever one absorbs in the course of learning science

As far as modern phil, I took a (senior level) course on theories
of personal identity. Much of the work presented there was modern
stuff (at least the last 30 years or so). I was thoroughly dissapointed
in their philosophical approach, by the way---the want to copy 
the gedanken exp style from physics, but the experiments they propose
as just a vague as the issues they are trying to clarify, unlike the
case in physics. (they propsoe all sorts of exotic brain transplants
and stuff to probe the nature of identity---but they have no way of
knowing the outcome of such procedures, so they seem to be probing their
own preconceptions...)

That taste of modern philosophy, which deals with a somewhat scientific
issue (personal identity), was plenty to convince me that philosophers 
have not learned their lessons since the "I think therefore I am" days.

By the way, I note that you are not a practicing philosopher either.
In fact, you seem to work on compiler development. I'm happy about
that, since we need good compilers more than we need philosophers.

But this makes it easy for you to _talk_ about philosophy and science, as you
have no professional, personal stake in either. On the other hand, 
I am a practicing scientist, and so the philosophy of science has
some coupling  to my work. 

You might be ticked off yourself if there were a bunch of "Philosophers of  
Compilation" spouting of about the philosophical aspects of compiler
design, the history of compilation, etc, etc, yet they had never written
or even compiled a program! Agreed?


--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)