What's the point of philosophy any more?

[polymath257]

Well, the 'feel' seems to be a combination of the information and the emotional response to that information. The emotional response is the 'flavor'. And it seems pretty clear why the flavor was added from an evolutionary viewpoint: in makes it easier to remember and recall. It also makes it easier to act on in emergencies.

Do you question whether your dog is conscious? Isn't it clear?

Yes abundantly clear and I suspect that it is a common thing way down line toward animals far simpler than my dogs.  But it isn't clear whether any of the others (with the possible exception of some apes, whales and maybe elephants) engage in the conscious weighing of alternatives in the abstract manner we do it, incorporating a concept of time and making use of language.  I assume by information you are referring to memory and making links from past experience to current circumstances which I assume happens for all animals possessed of even a rudimentary for processing sensory input, even though for most may amount to little more than a preconscious stimulus/response capacity which they lack the capacity to step beyond.

But yes the emotional response and feeling is the flavor, and appeals to our existence as a complex set of chemical actions as opposed to our existence as information processors.  Since we come to the hard question of consciousness from the information processing direction it is important to bear in mind that there is more to what we are and do than that.  Our chemical existence may well inform emotion and go toward explaining things like compulsion and fight/flight response as well as being the secret sauce of happiness, something no idea can replace.

Language is a different thing. And there have been studies about rudimentary aspects of language in other species.

But I fail to see what the 'more to what we are and do than that' is supposed to be. I really don't see anything substantially different that isn't explained by the 'chemical existence'. Could you be more specific?

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I find it interesting that we call it philosophy until we figure out a way to actually test an idea. After that, we call it science. The first is speculation and the second is knowledge.

This is not to say that speculation isn't a useful thing: it most definitely is. But it isn't knowledge.

Philosophy is more than just speculation. Not everything can be empirically verified. Just as philosophy has its limitations, so do the sciences.

And one of the limitations of philosophy is that it is speculation. it cannot, by its very nature, prove things. It can investigate logical alternatives, but logic alone is a very, very weak filter on ideas.

The best philosophy is done when alternative definitions are investigated and their benefits analyzed.