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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
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.
Science isn’t easy.
But, unlike the others, it fucking works.
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”.
Some catronomers suggest that ‘dark cats’ might just be bugs, but we haven’t seen any bugs in the room yet.
Voids, one might say.
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)
Scientific literature doesn’t always take on the observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion form so strictly. A lot of the time it’s “This is the state of the field so far. Hey look what we found, that’s interesting. Conclusion: somebody should look into this”
Engineering is crinkling the treat bag so the cat comes to you.
We wouldnt be in this mess if the fucking philosopher hadnt come up with it.
But observing the cat with the flashlight fundamentally affects the cat.
The cat both has and hasn’t knocked something breakable off a counter or table before you enter the room.
Remember, who made the flashlight for the scientist? The philosopher.
The amount of “science fans” dismissing philosophy is ridiculous
I don’t see this as being dismissive of philosophy at all. Science has always stood on the shoulders of philosophy. In the context of the meme, it established the possibility of the black cat existing. It’s the baseline. Science then used tools to test the idea, while metaphysics and theology are off somewhere making unfalsifiable claims.
Judging by some of the responses, I’m in the minority with this interpretation.
This meme is highly misinformed about how any of these academic subjects work though. (Meta)physicists and theologists don’t make claims, they research the consequences of certain assumptions. Most elementary sciences work that way.
It’s not about whether or not the meme is dismissive of philosophy. It’s that the writer clearly doesn’t understand the basics of these fields and the kinds of questions they ask/answer, including science. Heck metaphysics isn’t even a separate field, it’s a sub-field of philosophy.
If it puts us in a minority to regard scientific achievement as owing a debt of gratitude to epistemology and empiricism, not to mention ethics and countless other branches of study that cannot be taken for granted, then so be it. To take science on its own as merely a self evident and wholly objective practice solely fit for solving problems and creating better technologies is as boring as it is anti intellectual.
It’s completely insane how they think science somehow invalidates philosophy. First off, it doesn’t even ask the same questions, and only really applies to the physical aspect of the world.
I agree with the conclusion of your metaphor but I think that literally “the scientist” invented the flashlight.
“any. fuckin’. questions?”
- Jeff Tiedrich
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.
Same with studying anything and then seeing it mentioned on the internet.
Very true
I think everyone with a niche skill experiences that to some extent. Almost all posts about mathematics on lemmy attract people acting like they understand what’s going on while making wrong claims lol, I only rarely see comments that are fully correct.
Yeah I expect climate change scientists would roll their eyes pretty hard at my post as well =)
I don’t think I saw any math related post tbh, other than witty 3! = 6 one
I guess me being a mathematician makes me notice them more. I’ve seen many in several communities, but me being biased makes me wish there were more.
I just began math PhD program, maybe it becomes different after finishing it. Maybe we are in different communities? Mine is mostly this one, linux and programming.
I hope that one day people can call themselves philosophers without feeling cringey, because the world finally understands and respects it.
For what it’s worth, as a non-philosopher, I absolutely agree that it’s a field that needs and deserves to be taken far more seriously by far more people.
When I grow up, I want to work at the philosophy factory, making philosophies
Hey, I’ll have you know that I’ve read TWO paragraphs!
Shit! We got an expert here! ;-)
Yeah, I’m an engineer myself, and even I can see that the take on philosophy here is really unnecessarily disparaging, and doesn’t even really fit well into the joke due to a rather meaningful lack of pertinence.
You’re right! I read a few paragraphs about this.
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.
Philosphy literally gave birth to science. Obviously there something more to it. if anything we need something to blance out sciences Obsesion with materialism.
The meme is silly but it starts with philosophy directing the science what to do - look for the fucking black cat using all your capabilities.
Religion is also painted correct: if there’s a part of the room that’s lighted with the flashlight with no cats there, we don’t want to ruin our worldview and still believe in the cat in the remaining part of the room.
Yeah I actually agree with that as a basic underlying concept of what science does, but you have to stop and realize that we have more capabilities than just our ability to sense the physical world around us, hell the irony with science is we actually deal with many meta Concepts while actually performing Science it’s just since they are working with science no one really points them out and explains that literal rationality, reason, and thought are actually used to form meta concepts that we use all the time in order to figure things out in junction with our senses. Meta physics are simply Things we can not touch, but they clearpy have an observable effect, for example im forming a number of associations with in my mind forming a mental model of How philosophy and its essence is clearly at the core of science.
Philosophy is the art of figuring out how things work through meta concepts, a science is the art of figuring out how things work from a physical point of view by using ones senses in combination with Meta concepts, Be it simply tiing with with association, creating a mental mode of a Concept, etc.
You cant really compress These concepts into a Meme doesnt really work as a joke, or a critique. personal taste i supose.
You cant really compress These concepts into a Meme
I am not trying to. It’s a silly meme that doesn’t want to reach your understanding of science, metaphysics, and philosophy. I am pointing out that it might be seen as slightly less silly than scientistic meme, that’s all
You obviously didn’t used your flashlight when you searched for philosophy and the others ^^
I think religion is represented wrong. It should read :
Being in a dark room looking for a black cat, believing that it is there.
I get where the OP is coming from and many religious people have been loud, vocal and hostile recently but it’s not a core principle of religion to be that way.
Not even religion, theology. There are grifters and scammers in every field but apparently theology is the one where the goal is just to unrepetantly lie.
A very clear bias on display.
What’s the one that’s in a perfectly lit room empty white room, with a decently sized black cat thats covered in arrows flashing towards it with a loud siren blaring from it and signs saying “the cat you are looking for is right here!”, who still can’t find the cat?
Pseudoscience/conspiracy theories.
The signs are a fakeout for the lizardpeople scooping your thoughtsponge out via economic taxation.
Just gotta do your research and follow the obvious signs. No, but not those obvious signs.
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.
You can put an exclamation point in front of the link to get the image directly
While true, be advised that some consider it rude to hotlink images without permission
Hmm, I’ve never seen that unless it’s nsfw
It actually gets funnier than etiquette like the old poster mentioned. Some folks got pissed enough from people doing it that they would replace the images with goatse.
It’s old internet etiquette. I think the point is that hotlinking asks someone else to serve content without giving them traffic, if that makes sense.
Does Randall putting “Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding)” directly below each comic on the xkcd site count as permission?
lol I forgot he does that! And yes definitely.
You can embed the image, but I think you need to use the image link, rather than the comic page link:
Hmm. On one hand, the image link properly embeds while the comic link is just a little OBJ square that I can open. On the other hand, the comic link preserves the alt text.
The most useful branches of philosophy are important enough we’ve given them other names like “math” and “science”.
The meme’s accurate in that sense. All the others are also in a dark room looking for a black cat.
