Actual Infinities

[Alex K]

I agree that philosophy is useless when used as a substitute for evidence. It's an attempt to circumvent the scientific method by creating a simplified model which leads to the desired conclusion via a tautology.

And because there is no evidence, there's no way to dismiss it and move on. So the wank just stays around forever cluttering up the literature and making it impenetrable for the people that follow.

Whereas if your scientific theory is wrong then eventually the body of evidence will grow to demonstrate this and the field moves on.

That's not to say that there isn't a room for philosophy. I have read and referenced philosophy papers myself and found some of them useful. But in each case it has been written by someone who has been philosophising about a particular subject in which they themselves are an expert.

Of course we need philosophy to understand nature, e. g. physics - the science alone does not really tell you what you have actually learned and understood about reality.