English, philosophy, art history, and film studies are interesting to me but I'm also weeaboo trash into East Asian cultural studies.
What the fuck do I choose, Veeky Forums. Any essential texts in any of these subjects that'd give a better picture of the field?
(Doing STEMfag double major ftr.)
Also what are your major(s) and what are you doing now?
English here. But I have enough room in my schedule to take classes in creative writing, film, East Asian studies, and anthropology as well.
smbc is even worse than xkcd
...
This is correct. Funny how stemfags never understand this.
It's a bit embarassing to say but I want to become as close to a well-balanced renaissance man as it's possible for a single person to be nowadays.
So, looking at all the stuff I needed to learn, I decided that STEM would be the most difficult to learn independently. Literature, art, and fitness I'm attempting to self-teach, but with science where it is today you pretty much can't do that.
I wanted my degree to be as wide-reaching and difficult as I could get without going as abstract as math, so I picked physics. And, honestly, because most engineers and cs majors are unbearable. So far I love it.
I don't know much about getting a degree in humanities, so I can't help there. If I get a PhD and get enough money to settle down, I might be one of those old guys who goes back to get another bachelors in english or something like that.
>le stem is just as subjective as humanities meme
It's more subjective, actually.
Starting as a sophomore so i'm able to double major and still graduate in four years.
Honestly, i would like to find a way to make a living from creative writing, but I'm probably not at that skill level yet, and (if i ever reach that level)it will take a while.
Right now I'm telling the school i'm majoring in Linguistics, but i'm debating on what to add onto that.
Physics will be interesting and challenging as well as financially viable.
Neuroscience will be very interesting, but probably not financially securing.
Philosophy will probably teach me the most i can use towards my writing, but a philosophy is a philosophy degree.
What do i do Veeky Forums? :,(
fucking materialists
>What's your major
Music theory
>how'd you choose it, Veeky Forums?
Kind of by accident.
3/10
how well can you tell if an instrument is on key (flat or sharp)?
Will be a senior in the fall double-majoring in English & History, and then I take phil courses for all my history electives.
I started with History and eventually figured out sophomore year that I really enjoyed reading and thinking abt lit, so I picked up English.
Now English is sort of my main thing, but History keeps me fairly honest on the hard research side.
I'll be applying to graduate programs in the fall.
English major with education option here. I chose it because I want to teach young people how to love reading. I doubt it will get through to them but i'll try anyway.
I really don't understand this
What's an established scientific concept you'd like to do argue is wrong, user? Electromagnetism? Relativity? The Krebs cycle?
Unless you're one of those "everything is a lie dude r we even real tho" guys there's no room for debate.
Depends. If what I'm listening to is tonal, and the instrument isn't washed out by a large ensemble, and there isn't a lot of space registerally, then I'm pretty good at being able to spot out of tune instruments within a few cents.
all of them, they're based upon presumptions and thereby pseudo-science (they require an un-confirmable grab at an exterior)
Aerospace Engineering. I like planes and rockets and Tommy Pynch.
>typed the technologically illiterate user from his computer onto the fucking internet
Empiricism doesn't confirm empiricism; i.e. my observation of machine A does not confirm the realness of all other empirical phenomena or any empirical phenomena (or realness in general)
Try again boy, I've worked in STEM longer than you've been pubescent and I'm not even that old; I know all these crap arguments and basically just ignore them if I wanted to, because I'd first have to accept the premise (logical grounds in general) that they are built on to even begin any kind of argument (rather than just a one-sided perpetration)
er, I meant one-sided projection.
I do not understand how someone lives their life when they don't believe that anything their senses perceive is real. Where's the line between solipsism and mental illness?
The problem, user, is that you cannot, no matter how hard you try, conclusively prove something, because every proof requires another proof proving that that proof is valid, and every proof proving another proof is valid requires a proof proving it is valid, and so on and so on, until you have an infinite regression. Now, you could go around this by suggesting that the proof itself is its own proof, but this is circular reasoning, which is, like an infinite regression, logically unsound. No matter how you crack at it, nothing can be definitively proven, meaning every scientific concept and theory you can think of is an assumption.
Advertising
I don't know.
>if u dnt accept my ideology ur mentally ill
the existence of 'senses' is also empirical, user
empiricism does not confirm empiricism
Marketing.
I like business stuff and as far as literature goes I can read on my own time
just gonna make this fight a little shorter
empiricism is what we like to call a "circular argument"
scientists generally refuse to accept any such as proof or evidence of a given state, except for when it supports their own preconceived notion(s)
e.g.
invalid:
>everything I say is true
>it's true because everything I say is true
"valid" (to scientists):
>everything I say is true
>it's true because everything I say is exactly what Person 2 says
>everything person 2 says is true
>therefore everything I say is true
Then it becomes recursive as they cite earlier and earlier "Person 2"s in a desperate attempt to justify empiricism.
Environmental science. My ultimate plan is move the fuck out of US, and live in Latin America among my people, reading Borges, and chewing coca leaves.
Industrial Engineering and Data Analytics
I want to make money after I graduate.
Ok. So in your view, nothing can be proven. Why debate anything? Why search for truth? Do you just live a life of hedonism?
I have absolutely no point of reference for how someone can live when they doubt the existence of their own self. Everyone has their "what if we live in the matrix dude weed lmao" moment when they're 16, but to pretend you exist on some plane beyond the material world and that nothing you see is real is a completely useless idea.
This honestly seems like philosophy attempting to keep relevance by sticking its tongue out and saying "prove it lol" to science as a whole.
>prove it lol
Burden of proof is on ___ ________?
Let's play hangman; figure out what I wrote. Or, you know, use your head to figure out what I meant.
>This honestly seems like philosophy attempting to keep relevance by sticking its tongue out and saying "prove it lol" to science as a whole.
you'd be wrong.
>Do you just live a life of hedonism?
autism; you live a life of hedonism though.
>but to pretend you exist on some plane beyond the material world and that nothing you see is real is a completely useless idea.
your presuming acceptance of this rhetoric, presuming existence, and arguing on a singular stance of mindless pragmaticism.
>This honestly seems like philosophy attempting to keep relevance
This is a stem undergrad in a nutshell. What a post.
I majored in English and Cinema Studies (Film).
For English start with the Greeks ;) But actually just read some classic lit, because that's what you'll read in any intro class.
For film, most intro. classes will just run through basic film terms while showing examples in class. Maybe you'll get into some basic theory. Read Peter Lehman's introduction to film theory to get a taste of what that's all about.
Being into anime isn't necessarily a negative thing. I'm going for my masters and part of what I'll be researching is anime.
>money
literally the worst reason to get a degree. if you go to college to get a job, then you're a fucking lost cause.
>presuming
>existence
Jesus fucking christ
Yes, I presumed existence. Seemed like a safe thing to assume. Here I am, user.
>I'm going for my masters and part of what I'll be researching is anime.
atleast you are aware that you're producing worthless stuff that will influence nothing on the field. knowing your mediocrity is sometimes good
Philosophy stopped mattering when philosophers ceased contributing to other fields.
Absolutely nothing is gained from the masturbatory shitshow of modern philosophy.
But yknow, I can't empirically prove that can I :^)
Where did you get that from my post?
>Seemed like a safe thing to assume
Wrong. I'm fairly sure they teach this shit in high school now, don't they? I mean, really.
Wait a goddamn second.
I don't know all the math behind those principles, but I know that even when they don't have phenomena explained 100%, its been tested enough WITHOUT EVIDENCE AGAINST IT that they feel safe in saying that they can assume the principle is true. That doesn't mean that the proof proves that the principle is unshakably true, but that since the chances that the proof against it failed to appear after all of the tests that were done means that until it is recorded that there is clear evidence against said principle, the principle is, in effect, true.
Also, even though it could be that our senses are sensing things that aren't real since they are imperfect and whatnot, does it matter if we have no way to tell the difference? With the matrix as an example, maybe we do live in a simulated universe, and all that would entail. But if we have no reason to believe otherwise, why should we act any differently than if it were real? Unless we are presented with clear evidence that we're in a simulation, it is, in effect, the same exact thing as being in the "real" world.
Do I have this all wrong somehow? Am I missing something?
>Philosophy stopped mattering when philosophers ceased contributing to other fields.
Yikes.
>Why debate anything?
>Why search for truth?
Because a pointless existence doesn't have to be a bad one.
>Do you just live a life of hedonism?
I don't know how you would draw this conclusion. I wake up; I eat breakfast; I go to classes; I talk to people; I read; I go to bed--I do everything a normal human being would do, but the difference is: I don't need to play pretend to keep on going.
>but to pretend you exist on some plane beyond the material world and that nothing you see is real is a completely useless idea.
I don't. I believe we all live in an objective reality, and that we just can't accurately perceive it.
>philosophy attempting to keep relevance
I don't understand why people think this. Science--more accurately, empiricism--is based on fundamental philosophical assumptions, so, without philosophy, science can't exist.
>literally the worst reason to get a degree
said the person who isn't going to earn any money
from this part: "part of what I'll be researching is anime"
I went to college on an athletics scholarship. After two years I quit sports and became a philosophy major. Had to give up my full scholarship and get a catering job (I eventually got a job as a writing tutor though). Now I read books and browse Veeky Forums. No regrets.
hurr its safe cuz i sed thing i talk so i r reel
are you even trying now you stupid cunt.
>gained
>contributed
wow you're projecting pragmatism (philosophy) onto the whole of philosophy
>its been tested enough WITHOUT EVIDENCE AGAINST IT that they feel safe in saying that they can assume the principle is true
This presumes that evidence (observation) is correct.
>this presumes that evidence is correct
Yes, because not presuming that prevents any statement from being made on anything.
You're no different from a child constantly asking 'why' until your babysitter gets tired of answering.
>Chemical Engineering
In short - I enjoy it, and it pays the bills. My main way to explain it to other people is my passion vs. my dedication - I enjoy being passionate about literature, philosophy, history, higher level math and physics, yet I employ my skills as an engineer to pay the bills and as a form of creativity in my everyday life that I enjoy.
I've now been up 48 hours, so that might sound kind of bad, but just bear with me.
So you admit that there is no sound basis upon which even logic, the father of science, can stand.
>statements are good
lol
you see the problem of the positivist, or even the rationalist in science,:
doubt is permitted only when the doubt is judged acceptable by the scientist [what is acceptable is what makes you have faith in what the scientist claims]:
-if you doubt too little from the statements of people talking to you, the scientist will call you a religious, a sheep, a guy spending his time on metaphysical theses which are disconnected form the reality [the reality that the scientist posits]
-if you doubt too much from the statements of the scientist, the scientist will wave then the card of nominalism, anti-realism, relativism/nihilism/solipsism and terrorize you, since the scientists have no other means, than terrorism, to validate their position
the fact that you have faith in mathematical models to tell you about ''the world'' (which is an inductive concept, like all concepts) is already a philosophical stance. but scientists cannot justify this stance and they become very upset as soon as they are recalled that they fail at justifying their claims that their inductions and deductions are more than conventions inside some formal language.
So they even say explicitly that they are not paid to justify their faith and that this justification does not matter anyway (because they choose to claim that ''science works, look it gives us computers and cars :DDDD'' which is nothing but feeding our hedonism and the statement itself remains very dubious)
No, but is that the conclusion you're trying to reach? That all science is bullshit?
How far down does the criticism go, then? Are you saying that mankind cannot know for sure if 1+2=3?
My idea of science is that it is the system where we find the best possible explanation for the world around us by observing it. Claiming that it's impossible to know anything about the world because every single human's senses might be lying is just willingly putting on blinders and retreating into fantasy.
>Science--more accurately, empiricism--is based on fundamental philosophical assumptions
Lel no. what you call empiricism
what you call empiricism is empiricism done by rationalists, aka people who love to speculate, know more or less that their speculations are sterile, are always disappointing, more so once they compare them to their fantasy of the ''empirical world'' through their other fantasy of ''empirical proof'' and ''thought experiment'', but still choose to cling to their speculations in claiming that they are not able to stop speculating, therefore that ''not speculating is impossible, it is mandatory to speculate'' (plus we are paid for this now) so let's continue.
What they say is that their rationalism remains bounded by their hedonism, even though they love to claim otherwise, and yet always fail to justify that their speculation goes beyond hedonism. The more they work on their speculations, the more they show that Rationalist-scientists choose to dwell in the past to have a better future. Nothing more nihilistic than this.
what you call empiricism is empiricism done by rationalists, aka people who love to speculate, know more or less that their speculations are sterile, are always disappointing, more so once they compare them to their fantasy of the ''empirical world'' through their other fantasy of ''empirical proof'' and ''thought experiment'', but still choose to cling to their speculations in claiming that they are not able to stop speculating, therefore that ''not speculating is impossible, it is mandatory to speculate'' (plus we are paid for this now) so let's continue.
What they say is that their rationalism remains bounded by their hedonism, even though they love to claim otherwise, and yet always fail to justify that their speculation goes beyond hedonism. The more they work on their speculations, the more they show that Rationalist-scientists choose to dwell in the past to have a better future. Nothing more nihilistic than this.
It is fairly easy: logic and any rationalism is a disease embraced by people who despise enough empiricism to choose to dwell into their mental proliferation, then trying to claim that their speculations are less speculative and nihilistic than what they are, typically in fantasizing about speculations which give access to truth, reality or even back to their fantasy of empirical world, but this time with a better hedonism for everybody (because pains must be hated and pleasure be loved).
Right on the ball. Basically end of conversation.
Well, theres the issue I have.
Are you trying to say that the observation isn't necessarily correct because
A) the things that people observe aren't necessarily what is actually happening- because the human senses can be tricked and might be perceiving an entirely unreal situation?
Or B)someone didn't record their data correctly, for whatever reason? I assume this isn't what you mean, but I wanted to put it out there, to make sure I understand what's being said
Alternatively, C) something else I'm not getting?
I think its obvious you mean A. If you do, and you're saying that the perceived universe is likely (or absolutely, I don't know the details there) flawed in some/every way, then I need a better explanation of this mindset, because the way I see it that view defeats itself.
If you can't accept the things you perceive as "real", then you have no sure way of knowing what is or isn't actually happening- you can't even be sure that the world you perceive ISN'T real. If you can't be sure of any of it, then what do you do? Why do you do it? You can't just sit in one place and do nothing.
The way I see it, your only choice is to act upon the world around you as if it IS real, because whether its real or not makes no difference. If it isnt real, it makes no difference whether you act or not- and if it is real, and you do nothing, then its just a stupid waste of life.
Therefore, it would make sense to accept the world you see as real. Including your observations and the observations of others.
Did i fuck up somewhere?
>You will never watch Elba fuck your wife to orgasm before ejaculating into her unprotected pussy
Why even live bois?
math and philosophy.
it's interesting. i also like poetry and fiction that makes me feel like i'm reading poetry.
>psychology and sociology are more "complex" than physics and math
Stop before you make yourself look like a fool.
>No, but is that the conclusion you're trying to reach? That all science is bullshit?
Who said I'm trying to reach a conclusion?
>How far down does the criticism go, then? Are you saying that mankind cannot know for sure if 1+2=3?
en.wikipedia.org
>Claiming that it's impossible to know anything about the world because every single human's senses might be lying is just willingly putting on blinders and retreating into fantasy.
en.wikipedia.org
I'm dead serious, I learned this shit in 9th grade. Where the hell did you go to school?
The difference lies in the real-world consequences of your viewpoints.
Doubt it all you want, science achieves results that are tangible in the world as we perceive it. Your phone's gps works because of a giant network of satellites objectively proving that special and general relativity and innumerable other scientific concepts are valid. The only way around that is the "but we can't trust our senses" argument, in which case debating anything at all is completely pointless.
>tangible
>results
why is this good
I didn't say it was good, I said it was evidence that the scientific framework is not invalid.
I'm imagining a very frustrated freshman math teacher trying to teach a class while you shout about how he can't prove that algebra is valid
I have a b.a. in music composition and 2/3rds of an MFA in fiction..
i'm not really good at a lot of stuff and i was pretty lazy and stupid out of high school. so now i'm just, you know, trying to make it work.
yes it is 'muh feels if it cant use it its bad if i can use it its good' isn't validity
more fallacies, I see
"willingly putting on blinders and retreating into fantasy" also provides tangible results. It's almost as if... wait? Could it be? MASAKA?
>empiricism is what we like to call a "circular argument"
>scientists generally refuse to accept any such as proof or evidence of a given state, except for when it supports their own preconceived notion(s)
The first thing I said in this thread is still very much valid to your current argument. Huh, but that would mean... that also...
>Then it becomes recursive as they cite earlier and earlier "Person 2"s in a desperate attempt to justify empiricism.
Come back tomorrow, I kinda wanna see another troll thread like this.
You missed the point entirely.
I didn't say it was bad or good, the idea is that if it were INVALID, the internet wouldn't allow us to talk right now.
My 40 year old freshman math teacher watched anime on his laptop whenever he wasn't teaching. He got caught trying to perv on some 15 year old girl or something, and was fired. One year later, he married an 18 year old Japanese girl.
Even if I *had* shouted about the validity of algebra or reality, I doubt I could have made things worse.
empiricism does not confirm empiricism
I have to observe that we are 'talking'
pfft i married a 14 year old girl and when I tutored, just watched anime on my laptop while having the lazy and stupid ESL kids go through khan academy videos
step it up etc
...
Your argument essentially boils down to: A exists because A exists, which is circular logic. Just stop.
>using established algorithms and following procedure to solve math problem is more difficult than analyzing, recording, deconstructing personalities, etc
HAR HAR
>"willingly putting on blinders and retreating into fantasy" also provides tangible results. It's almost as if... wait? Could it be? MASAKA?
But those tangible results do not depend on the validity of the ideas you espouse. Closing your eyes has consequences that don't depend on the daydream you have when they're closed.
>The first thing I said in this thread is still very much valid to your current argument.
Claiming that all possible arguments are undefendable does nothing but kill all possible discourse. There was literally nothing anyone could say without you declaring yourself right because "u cant proov it."
they think difficult means complex
>discourse is good
Confirmed for mever seeing any math after calculus.
You remind me of my grandmother, who thought a mathematician was somebody who could add a bunch of twenty-digit numbers in their head.
>putting words in my mouth
tbqh I just hate the one user's "make another troll thread so i can btfo einstein by asking him to prove it lmao" smugness
proof is an empiricist fallacy as well
>There was literally nothing anyone could say without you declaring yourself right because "u cant proov it."
So... you get it? Because that's the argument. It's primordial.
It's a valid argument, but one with
>no consequences
>no conclusions
>no further steps
>no effects on any other argument
So a completely useless one.
Why do you keep projecting your ideology onto this?
>no effects on any other argument
It renders them useless and essentially destroys secularism
>useless
Just when you were so close
i win
first victory on Veeky Forums I've had in a while
feels good, friends
Cringing at this STEM vs Humanities debate tbhonest
STEM autist is clearly right
>STEM majors on Veeky Forums
self-hating stem major here, kill yourselves my men
In an argument, there shouldn't be a winner or a loser- ideally, there should be an exchange of ideas and information where one is concluded to be more valid than the other and everyone learns something. Now if you could stop being such a shitposting faggot, could you please respond to my fucking post () with a real, fully explained argument? Otherwise ill have to believe you're just here to stir the shitpot, and are nothing but a namefagging prick
Shit boils down to representation. The problem is that we only have access to a limited spectrum of inputs, what is observable to our five senses. Representation is the only way we have access to things in our world, but a representation is not the real thing. Representations are subjected to errors. So you must be aware that the possibility exists that the things you observe may be wrong i.e. when you are dreaming or taking drugs.
What 90% of lit don't get is that you don't "prove" something exists. You show how accurate a given representation is in matching with reality. i.e. you use a representation to make predictions about things to look for in reality. Humanitiesfags don't seem to understand that "proving" something in logic means to show how a statement can or cannot be derived from strictly the manipulations of a given set of axioms.
it's true
that's why those fields are so shit
they have nobody smart enough to master them
>What's your major
law
>how'd you choose it
I'm good at reading and it takes a shit ton of reading so I've got talent for it. Also it's like practical ethics. Except when it's used to create tax havens in Panama. Or actually that is very much ethics as well. Also I'll make enough money that on holidays I can go to Italy or something and drink wine in a cafe and be elegantly depressed instead of just depressed.
>bad subjectivity vs. good objectivity
Shut the fuck up
didn't mean to quote
>a given set of axioms
en.wikipedia.org
>axioms
>why are axioms
>because axioms
>circular argument
>Representation is the only way we have access to things in our world, but a representation is not the real thing. Representations are subjected to errors. So you must be aware that the possibility exists that the things you observe may be wrong i.e. when you are dreaming or taking drugs.
I'm aware of that. Was I wrong before, when I said that such a view is self-defeating and pointless?
Example: I say statement A is true because of a 'proven' theory, X. I accept that there is the possibility that my sense's representation of the universe around me is bullshit, but because the end result of that possibility could possibly render literally everything redundant and unreal, I ignore it. Am I wrong to ignore it?
Now that you mention "'proving' something in logic," I realize I have mainly been talking about scientific proofs, although I'm not sure the difference there matters.
Using your link as a source,
>The failure of proving exactly any truth as expressed by the Münchhausen trilemma does not have to lead to dismissal of objectivity, as with relativism. One example of an alternative is the fallibilism of Karl Popper and Hans Albert, accepting that certainty is impossible, but that it is best to get as close as we can to truth, while remembering our uncertainty.
In Albert's view, the impossibility to prove any certain truth is not in itself a certain truth. After all, one needs to assume some basic rules of logical inference to derive his result, and in doing so must either abandon the pursuit of "certain" justification, as above, or attempt to justify these rules, etc. He suggests that it has to be taken as true as long as nobody has come forward with a truth which is scrupulously justified as a certain truth.
What he said. Please argue against this, so I can understand what all of you mean.
>Please argue against this, so I can understand what all of you mean.
en.wikipedia.org
>"Nothing can be known, not even this", Pyrrhonian skeptics withhold any assent with regard to non-evident propositions and remain in a state of perpetual inquiry.
>They disputed the possibility of attaining truth by sensory apprehension, reason, or the two combined, and thence inferred the need for total suspension of judgment (epoché) on things.[4]
>A Pyrrhonist tries to make the arguments of both sides as strong as possible. Then he asks himself if there is any reason to prefer one side to the other. And if not, he suspends belief in either side.
>According to them, even the statement that nothing can be known is dogmatic. They thus attempted to make their skepticism universal, and to escape the reproach of basing it upon a fresh dogmatism.[5]
So does that mean that at this point, it boils down to opinion, or personal preference on a train of thought?
>train of thought
Er, school of thought.
Computer Science. I chose it not because I would some day like to be able to buy my own books rather than with the NEETbux I should be eating from.