Post by Arlette on Jan 26, 2015 4:29:28 GMT
1. Why is understanding physics and the general rules of the universe so important in doing philosophy?
Understanding physics and the general rules of the universe is so important in doing philosophy because to understand philosophy, one needs to understand physics first. Just like one of the films mentioned that "the entire universe is composed of matter", one needs to first define what matter is. Knowing that atoms is what makes up matter helps understand that atoms have both negative and positive charges and also discovering that there are protons, neutrons, and electrons like the film "Electric Surfing" explained. I believe that once a person gets a basic understanding of what atoms and matter is then one would be able to understand philosophy. But sometimes I think that even understanding physics would be difficult to understand philosophy. For instance, in "Quantum Wierdness", the text gives an example of objective reality where it says that "conventional quantum theory says there is no reality beyond what we observe". I think that to understand philosophy you need to know more beyond than what is being observed to be able to explain things more accurately.
2. What is eliminative materialism? Provide three examples of it.
From my understanding of the films that I watched, eliminative materialism is just a scientific method to explain things that are inexplicable. For example, when we talk about how the universe was created, we can never get a good answer of how it was created. Even when we try to explain it in a scientific way, it doesn't make sense. Saying that the entire universe is composed of matter and getting a deeper explanation of what matter is, is not enough to explain the creation of the universe. That's why for some people it is just easy to say that "God did it" and have people believe that this is the best way to explain these topics that are very confusing and hard to explain. A second example of eliminative materialism would be words that are associated with emotional states, such as desires, beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the feeling of craving some type of food that one is in the mood for eating is probably a feeling that one can explain. One would say that they are hungry and if one were to ask what hunger is, then they would just say that it is a feeling that one gets when they want food. But when we use eliminative maternalism to explain what hunger is then one would involve psychology to explain it. In psychology, one might say that hunger is caused by signs that the brain gives to our body. A third example of eliminative materialism would also be using anatomy to explain the way our body functions. In the third part of the film of eliminative materialism it mentions that we explain how muscles function by using anatomy instead of saying that our body's movements is caused by invisible "things" that are in our body.
Understanding physics and the general rules of the universe is so important in doing philosophy because to understand philosophy, one needs to understand physics first. Just like one of the films mentioned that "the entire universe is composed of matter", one needs to first define what matter is. Knowing that atoms is what makes up matter helps understand that atoms have both negative and positive charges and also discovering that there are protons, neutrons, and electrons like the film "Electric Surfing" explained. I believe that once a person gets a basic understanding of what atoms and matter is then one would be able to understand philosophy. But sometimes I think that even understanding physics would be difficult to understand philosophy. For instance, in "Quantum Wierdness", the text gives an example of objective reality where it says that "conventional quantum theory says there is no reality beyond what we observe". I think that to understand philosophy you need to know more beyond than what is being observed to be able to explain things more accurately.
2. What is eliminative materialism? Provide three examples of it.
From my understanding of the films that I watched, eliminative materialism is just a scientific method to explain things that are inexplicable. For example, when we talk about how the universe was created, we can never get a good answer of how it was created. Even when we try to explain it in a scientific way, it doesn't make sense. Saying that the entire universe is composed of matter and getting a deeper explanation of what matter is, is not enough to explain the creation of the universe. That's why for some people it is just easy to say that "God did it" and have people believe that this is the best way to explain these topics that are very confusing and hard to explain. A second example of eliminative materialism would be words that are associated with emotional states, such as desires, beliefs, feelings, etc. For example, the feeling of craving some type of food that one is in the mood for eating is probably a feeling that one can explain. One would say that they are hungry and if one were to ask what hunger is, then they would just say that it is a feeling that one gets when they want food. But when we use eliminative maternalism to explain what hunger is then one would involve psychology to explain it. In psychology, one might say that hunger is caused by signs that the brain gives to our body. A third example of eliminative materialism would also be using anatomy to explain the way our body functions. In the third part of the film of eliminative materialism it mentions that we explain how muscles function by using anatomy instead of saying that our body's movements is caused by invisible "things" that are in our body.