QUESTION TEN
10. How does a purely materialist explanation of the universe help one in trying to answer philosophical questions? Give several examples and flesh out your answers.
like the answer i have provided before for question nine, i still think that philosophy is a field of study that seeks the truth through rational answers to the questions it proposes. materialistic explanations are usually accompanied with facts, or experimental evidence, and those are the rational answer that philosophical questions seek. it is of what nature i do not know that rationally logical answers are much more easier for one to accept, rather than answers that are based on intangible concepts; probably the tangibility? i guess it is much more easier for one to accept an explanation if one can construct a tangible depiction of it in his/her mind.
in the metaphysics class i took in january, i was introduced to two philosophical issues that are still being questioned until now: time, and the mind and body problem. the philosophy of time is simple; it basically asks what time IS and how does it behave, exactly. however, there is still no good, rational answer that can answer that question. the mind and body problem is about how an intangible concept such as the MIND can have control over something as tangible as the BODY. what connects the mind to the body? does the mind really exist, or is it just a bunch of chemicals in the brain?
well, i think stephen hawking's the universe in a nutshell and steven pinker's the blank slate have attempted to provide the rational answers to these two different field of philosophy. hawking in his book talks about time, and even introduces the idea of an imaginary time that makes physical theories of the universe consistent with one another. sounds really intangible, but if it is consistent mathematically, chances are it can be the correct idea. the answer is still unclear, since physicists haven't really gotten up to the point where they can give experimental evidence to a claim on what time really is, but at the very least, physics provides the ground to providing the philosophy of time potentially rational answers.
pinker's book also attempts on providing some rational explanation to the mind-body problem. i remember talking about dualism in the metaphysics class, which is also mentioned by pinker in his book. although not directly talking about how the mind is connected to the body, pinker certainly provides some insights in his argument regarding the ghost in the machine. behaviorism, which belongs to monism (who believes that there is only one substance) is also discussed by pinker, and how evolutionary theory can be used to explain this. pinker also briefly mentions descartes, who is a dualist, and his famous line "i think, therefore i am" in his discussion on nature vs nurture. so in a way, pinker touches many of the philosophical aspect of the mind-body problem.
like the answer i have provided before for question nine, i still think that philosophy is a field of study that seeks the truth through rational answers to the questions it proposes. materialistic explanations are usually accompanied with facts, or experimental evidence, and those are the rational answer that philosophical questions seek. it is of what nature i do not know that rationally logical answers are much more easier for one to accept, rather than answers that are based on intangible concepts; probably the tangibility? i guess it is much more easier for one to accept an explanation if one can construct a tangible depiction of it in his/her mind.
in the metaphysics class i took in january, i was introduced to two philosophical issues that are still being questioned until now: time, and the mind and body problem. the philosophy of time is simple; it basically asks what time IS and how does it behave, exactly. however, there is still no good, rational answer that can answer that question. the mind and body problem is about how an intangible concept such as the MIND can have control over something as tangible as the BODY. what connects the mind to the body? does the mind really exist, or is it just a bunch of chemicals in the brain?
well, i think stephen hawking's the universe in a nutshell and steven pinker's the blank slate have attempted to provide the rational answers to these two different field of philosophy. hawking in his book talks about time, and even introduces the idea of an imaginary time that makes physical theories of the universe consistent with one another. sounds really intangible, but if it is consistent mathematically, chances are it can be the correct idea. the answer is still unclear, since physicists haven't really gotten up to the point where they can give experimental evidence to a claim on what time really is, but at the very least, physics provides the ground to providing the philosophy of time potentially rational answers.
pinker's book also attempts on providing some rational explanation to the mind-body problem. i remember talking about dualism in the metaphysics class, which is also mentioned by pinker in his book. although not directly talking about how the mind is connected to the body, pinker certainly provides some insights in his argument regarding the ghost in the machine. behaviorism, which belongs to monism (who believes that there is only one substance) is also discussed by pinker, and how evolutionary theory can be used to explain this. pinker also briefly mentions descartes, who is a dualist, and his famous line "i think, therefore i am" in his discussion on nature vs nurture. so in a way, pinker touches many of the philosophical aspect of the mind-body problem.
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