Read a physics textbook for a few hours

>read a physics textbook for a few hours
>I now have a significantly better understanding of how the world works

>read 100000000000000000000000000 philosophy books and """"literary"""" fiction
>zero sum of my knowledge is zero but I learned a bunch of meaningless terms and names to namedrop in conversations
so is this the power of literature?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/RkZLl1CUT9s
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

the power of literature is to convince millions of germans to genocide people for my totalitarian aryan empire

it's okay if you need things spelled out for you

reply to this post or your butt falls off!!!!

...

I study physics to understand how the world works, and philosophy to understand the 'why' questions better.

Why choose user? Treat both disciplines as complementary, and don't perceive it as a dichotomy.

Literary fiction can teach about things like human nature, empathy, and so on
Historical fiction can teach history
Hard SF can teach physics

FFS do not pretend you understand the world by studying physics. At best, what you understand are relationships among objects you can't even define in standalone.

What is a photon? What is force? What is energy? What is work? I dare you to define any of these concepts without relating them to one another or to other concepts. It all goes in a circular motion where there is no ontology being done. We can only measure atoms insofar as we can relate them to other atoms or photons by colliding them together. Likewise, we can only "understand" movement at all by relating change in movement to forces being applied, and so on and so on. There is no underlying "meaning" apart from the statement "When x changes, y also changes according to such rule" and we could even switch all the names around, and it still would yield the same equations.

Contemporary physicists like Krauss and Tyson do a huge disservice to physics by claiming we are undergoing questions about the meaning of things. WE ARE NOT. As a physicist, all I do is establish relations among objects and measure how these relations unfold as time passes or as some other variable changes. I am not set out to find "why" anything happens, nor could I claim to be doing so, in any instance whatsoever.

Now physics is absolutely beautiful, and it's done a more than astounding job in helping us grasp at the world, and also to establish relations among all things around us (but I repeat, without bothering as to the proper nature of these things). But philosophy is where you should actually go to think about how can things be as they are. Do not fall into the empiricist trap.

lol ur butt fell off

>t. a rock floating in space

>lol y so buttoverheated

Sage and report

welcome to Veeky Forums friend

The 'how' questions are perfect for the scientific method, but the 'why's questions are not applicable to it and need a distinctly human, artistic answer.

Why be satisfied with the how, and ignore the why?

you

>Ah, there he is.
>That motherfucker.
>What a tool.

>tfw no ayy lmao gf

Oh fuck oh fuck am I too late? I don't want that to happen

I'm a retard and have only done calc 1-3 and 2 semesters of calc-based physics but, from my experience, math and physics are 10% profound ideas diluted by 90% bullshit notation and terminology. The most difficult parts of the courses were familiarizing yourself with the notation and having to deal with the writing styles of (likely autistic) physics/mathematics textbook authors .

>tfw your gf goes full ayy lmao

Math is 1% profound ideas, 99% autistic proofs
Physics is 50% profound ideas, 50% retarded ideas with no way to tell them apart

Exactly
Just because science finds the "what", doesn't mean that looking for a "why" is pointless

>seven nice, reasonable quotes
>neil degrasse tyson shitting out of his mouth once again

i fuckin hate that guy

(You)

>he doesn't read books on the philosophy of physics to understand how being spoonfed abstract popsci reifications on youtube doesn't actually make you an expert on the scientific method or capable of discerning when popularizers make egregious and wrongheaded claims about what our best theories say about the world

embarrassing

Did you read what he said? Physics DOESN'T find the "what", physics only finds the "how". It is the job of ontology to establish the "what" in physical theories, something that is unfortunately lost on people like OP.

Math is a meme, it only proves we're living in a simulation. Observation is what counts, we are the dreamers of dreams user, through it we create the world around us.

>physics
>how the world works
You haven't learned shit, maybe if you had read some philosophy you would understand why this is the case.

>how the world works

no, you have an understanding of what some white men and lab coats agreed is a reasonable and reliable explanation for certain banal physical phenomena.

Philosophers don't understand the world either, they just write a lot about not understanding it. What's the point? Philosophers don't even agree with each other about anything.

No

>What is a photon? What is force? What is energy? What is work?
These are fundamental properties of reality as far as we know so far. I'm assuming your suggestion from this point is to turn to some asshat philosopher and his """theory""" that photons are actually sparkles in God's eyes or something? Thats very useful.

*you

>What is a photon? What is force? What is energy? What is work? I dare you to define any of these concepts without relating them to one another or to other concepts.

I dare you to define the word word without using any words.

You post was succinct and all that needed to be said, 100% correct, and any replies telling you otherwise are trying to troll you.

/thread

You can't know what they are. These ideas are nothing more than correlates. You can't truly know anything about the external world.

Whoa dude deep. Did you learn that in philosophy book?

Try reading one sometime. It might cure you of your scientism.

How do you look for a why and verify that it's correct? Or do you just settle with a why that sounds good and assert that it's like that?

protecting my butt

haha yeah that compilation really makes him look bad. he has some decent quotes but is certainly highly overrated.

>At best, what you understand are relationships among objects you can't even define in standalone.
So? That's good enough. If it has predictive capabilities and lets us advance our technology and understanding, great.

I'm a math dude but I'll try my best

a photon to me is most naturually described as the magnetic/electric field it distorts. The "photon" is the crest of these, the two waves traveling at orthogonal directions with similar frequencies. Also I've heard the term "packet of energy" to refer to the quantum state of the whole thing as opposed to some sort of wavy spectrum of energy.

keep with being a retard or you might get as bad as
shrugging off the usefulness of math in reference to proofs is among the stupidest things i've read all day. math happens in the proofs, everything else is at the surface, little more than idle description.

I can't tell if you're trying to use some clever Popper type scientific solipsism or you're actually just another mouthbreather. my bets on the latter

>Math is a meme
Math does not prove anything. It is universal and necessary. It is a means by which we reasonably manipulate the world and understand observation.

Where can I observe complex numbers and infinities?

take any two dimensional surface and your'e seeing complex numbers, and for proof that we have results regarding infinite processes that you use ever day, just use a calculator for a clean little taylor sum

I love my butt :3

You cannot observe math. Math is an *a priori* form of knowledge.

Two dimensional surfaces only exist in the abstract.

what the fuck are you standing on then?

Philosophy is the greatest meme of all time.

>I'll just go ahead and write a shit ton of open-ended ideas, feigning significance

There are too many things you can think of to waste your time on people who lead you into what to think.

Replied.

Philosophy is just playing with semantics and useless abstract concepts. Absolutely none of it applies to the real world.

>>zero sum of my knowledge is zero but I learned a bunch of meaningless terms and names to namedrop in conversations
That's because you didn't pay attention or simply lack the mental capacity.

>reply to this post or your butt falls off!!!!
Pascal's wager says I should reply.

But how can they be fundamental if their very definitions depend tautologically on each other?

>Ask me how I know you're an "ST" type.

You're a meme, kiddo.

If only I could go back in time and bomb the Vienna Circle, then we wouldn't have this thread.

holy fuck

Popper is smarter than u

...

Pictures of women should be banned from all non-porn boards, there is literally no thread that has a dumb skank's selfie as it's image that isn't complete and utter garbage

She's pretty hot, if asymmetrical

youtu.be/RkZLl1CUT9s

Popper is to science as your mom is to my cock

Fact: Popper is extremely important to science
Fact: you aren't important at all

Indifferent?

All those quotes on the left are shit

Popper is important only because it was a rehashed theory of science that placated the egos of said scientists. No shit I'm not important; I haven't even drafted my treastie. desu popper writes like a mediocre existentialist and as a sort of shallow take on solipsism. He's also kind of an apologist for his own work, not being able to ever get it to really "work" within a scientific framework

desu his biggest contribution almost comes from this apologetic phase: in talking more about how scientists do science rather than the nature of science, he paved the way for figures like Kuhn for whom this was the basis of their texts

please stop responding to these threads it's so embarrassing

Obeservation IS creation.

>he says, responding to the thread

Youre using 'the power of literature' to express an asinine, or perhaps just a juvenile, opinion. And if more opinions are forthcoming, you'll use letters to express them, etc. The truth beyond the b8 is that youre somehow proud to be a fucking bore. Congratulations.

There is no world and there are no works.
You understand nothing. They are only complementary to absolute reactionary pseuds thinking they are Renaissance men. Physics and philosophy are both trash.
>presupposing pragmatism
Fuck off
False, it is neither universal nor necessary. Reason is an ideological construct devised to give one a sense of control over existence.

You have to practice after reading to internalize the principles with either subject. Try reading a science text without doing any problems, see how much you remember in a month

no
NO

God she's ugly. I rank girl's attractiveness by whether or not I'd sniff their ass and I would not sniff her ass

Being a pragmatist positivist might be an incurable and horrible disease

Philosophy doesn't answer the 'why' either

Fiction is not a learning aid. It provides something that's felt, not known.

Ya got tricked by a bunch of academics that want to be paid to write about books all day.

this is what I look like, btw

I'm doing Kegels, actually.

Gotta play it safe

Is this real life?

>FFS do not pretend you understand the world by studying physics. At best, what you understand are relationships among objects you can't even define in standalone.
>What is a photon? What is force? What is energy? What is work? I dare you to define any of these concepts without relating them to one another or to other concepts. It all goes in a circular motion where there is no ontology being done. We can only measure atoms insofar as we can relate them to other atoms or photons by colliding them together. Likewise, we can only "understand" movement at all by relating change in movement to forces being applied, and so on and so on. There is no underlying "meaning" apart from the statement "When x changes, y also changes according to such rule" and we could even switch all the names around, and it still would yield the same equations.
>Contemporary physicists like Krauss and Tyson do a huge disservice to physics by claiming we are undergoing questions about the meaning of things. WE ARE NOT. As a physicist, all I do is establish relations among objects and measure how these relations unfold as time passes or as some other variable changes. I am not set out to find "why" anything happens, nor could I claim to be doing so, in any instance whatsoever.
>Now physics is absolutely beautiful, and it's done a more than astounding job in helping us grasp at the world, and also to establish relations among all things around us (but I repeat, without bothering as to the proper nature of these things). But philosophy is where you should actually go to think about how can things be as they are. Do not fall into the empiricist trap.

restated/re-threaded

good post

fun things are fun

Ayyyy

...

Explain why physics is important.

Congratulations, you're now engaging in philosophy.

>lets say not all knowledge can be secured empirically
>therefore shamans, crystals, religion, spiritualism, astronomy...

Astronomy is a credible empirical science. You probably meant astrology.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy

We already knew, through means of a-priori reasoning, that you were stupid. There was no need to provide a demonstration as proof.

>typo
>look how stupid you are even though I understood what you meant to say

Nice try, but no! You're wrong.

Give me an example of knowledge that can't be empirically tested for, but that is still relevant in some way.

Ethics.

>"science fuck yeah!"
>can't differentiate between astronomy and astrology
>"i-it was just a typo I swear!"

Ethics aren't knowledge. Ethics are constructs designed to ensure social stability.

Empirically define relevance.

Empirically define worth.

Empirically explain how one type of knowledge is of more worth than another.

Non of those are knowledge. They are subjective. You can choose (!sic) criteria to judge these on and test for those criteria empirically.

Prove that empirically.