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One of the painful things about having studied philosophy is experiencing the fact that nearly everyone on the Internet are absolutely sure having read a few paragraphs about the topic makes them an expert.
I hope that one day people can call themselves philosophers without feeling cringey, because the world finally understands and respects it.
Hey, I’ll have you know that I’ve read TWO paragraphs!
Shit! We got an expert here! ;-)
Same with studying anything and then seeing it mentioned on the internet.
Very true
My high-school class on philosophy concerned itself with formal logic (syllogisms, really) and a little ontology, though I have forgotten most of the ontological stuff again. I don’t know just how much there is to know, so I don’t know just how ignorant I am. But where other Internet philosophers pretend to know what they’re talking about, I at least know that I don’t.
Astronomy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat by analyzing the raw image data of several insanely sensitive cameras, then finding out what the cat looks like, what it looked like right after birth, where it’ll be next year and what its gut microbiome consists of, based on a slight reddish hue in its fur.
Alternatively: Astronomy is like being in a dark room and saying “Something seems off. There must be a black cat in here.”
There are certain behaviors of ordinary cats which can only be explained by the presence of “dark cats”.
Lol, all of those are philosophies. Philosophy isn’t separate to science, or theology, of whatever. It’s the bigger group they’re all part of.
The meme’s accurate in that sense. All the others are also in a dark room looking for a black cat.
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This meme is making these different disciplines answer questions they were never intended to answer. It’s like complaining that a school principal isn’t out there teaching students: that’s not their role and it would be silly to expect them to do otherwise.
Philosophers would ask something like, “what is a cat?”
Metaphysicians would ask something like, “how can we know that the cat truly exists?”
Theologians would ask something like, “what does the Bible say about cats?”
The categories themselves also show his ignorance.
Metaphysics is a sub-discipline of Philosophy.
And theology and science stood on philosophy’s shoulders as a means to different ends. It’s almost like the author started at the beginning and selectively broke off little bits to build up a joke, in service of the joke.
The joke didn’t land. That’s cool. It’s not my joke, I’m not offended. But I am mystified by the number of “well akshully…” replies. Had this been intended to be a serious, thorough commentary on various disciplines maybe I could understand the circlejerk around pedantry. But it’s not. It’s a gag based on oversimplification. In a meme community.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love The Oatmeal, but yeah, this one’s a miss
Science is more like systematically searching the room while exhaustively documenting all findings to define every place the cat wasn’t, as well as where it was. Then you release the cat and do it several more times. Then you invite your peers to come in the room and try to achieve the same results, comparing their findings with yours, so everyone can have a better chance of finding the cat in future attempts.
Science isn’t easy. It is precise because it is tediously thorough.
Engineering is crinkling the treat bag so the cat comes to you.
Could it be me who doesnt know what metaphysics is? No, a whole sub-field of philosophy is actually useless and none of them see it.
Also hilarious seeing “philosophy” referred to like its a method you can use and not a whole field including everything from ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, epistemology, aesthetics, etc.
tbf, being in a dark room with no flashlight will give you lots of undistracted free time to work through complex problems and ideas. The presence of a cat in there with you is largely irrelevant.
I work in an underground mine and sometimes when I’m waiting for someone to come pick me up, I torn my cap lamp off and sit on a rock. It’s the darkest dark you can imagine. No shadows, no pin pricks of light just your thoughts. All you can hear is the sound of moving air and the occasionally the rock moving.
It’s genuinely peaceful and so so relaxing. Definitely had some philosophical moments down there
If the cat comes over and let’s me pet it then I can think better
tips fedora
Meh. Natural sciences and philosophy/methaphisics are quite closer/more intimately linked than you seem to think.
To quote my former physics teacher:
If you remove maths from physics you’re left with philosophy.
I’m not qualified enough to approve or contest this statement, but I know for a /phisicistsfact that there was a time when great mathematicians were also great philosophers and they couldn’t conceive doing one without the other (Leibnitz or Descartes, among many others). Why I changed and exactly how, I don’t know, but I find it interesting.
Philosophy and maths are still linked via formal logic.
Indeed!
Physics is like shooting balls at the cat and registering the sounds of pain to draw a shape of the creature. Except that it turns out to be also a dog at the same time
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Problem: Can a black cat be found in a dark room?
Hypothesis: yes
Variable: flashlight
Control: no flashlight
Findings: “v” group found the cat; the “c” group didn’t.
Theory: You can find a cat in a dark room using a flashlight.
Law: cats land feet first (indisputable)
We wouldnt be in this mess if the fucking philosopher hadnt come up with it.
You are in a pitch-black room and hear a noise. A noise you can’t describe properly, you’ve never heard or seen this creature before but it has a high pitched wail.
A man called Philosophy walks in the room. He hears the cry and takes some time to think. He names this creature the cat and deduces that it must be as big as a bear and as fierce as a lion. This creature must be dangerous. He tells you stories about strange exotic creatures, ones with black fur and long tails. These creatures have nails as sharp as swords and mean only harm. He tells you to stay back and listen to his thoughts as he contemplates more.
Then another man called Theology walks in. He too hears the creature yelling. Over some time, he begins to listen to the different tones of the noise this creature makes. He hears a shriek and thinks it’s telling you to get back. It hears a purr and tells you it’s playful. He begins to think it’s communicating and assigns meaning to the creature’s noise. He tells you to have faith in his belief and to follow the creatures demands. He tells you to offer tithes and sacrifices so you too can find meaning in this creature.
And, finally, a last man named Science walks into the room. He hears the cat and listens to the others propositions. He sets up ways to test his hypotheses. He thinks the cat must be big, so he throws some food near the creature and hears its footsteps; they aren’t stomps, they are something more elegant. He no longer thinks he and Philosophy were correct. Because he thinks it’s no longer big, he walks up to the creature and tries to get a closer look. He gets bitten and falls back to the others. Over time he tells you that Theology and Philosophy were right on some things and wrong on the others. He admits that he can be wrong himself but will correct and change his understand of this creature as he learns. He also offers little answers to the creature’s as the others. You don’t understand exactly how he works, you are merely a layman with little education.
So, which of the men do you believe?
