[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[vulcanlogician]

Hume got a ball rolling, by noting that we cannot *observe* causality. But he still thought causality was basic. Kant thought of it as a basic way of thinking.

Modern quantum theory is acausal. It is probabilistic in essence and there are no 'necessary causes'. Instead, the main 'theory of causation' in modern physics is in quantum field theories and, essentially, says that correlations in probabilities don't travel faster than light.

Classical examples of causality arise because macroscopic things are made of a LOT of quantum level things. The *averages* of the probabilities have a deterministic, even Newtonian, structure. The fact that Avagadro's number is big is why we can even talk about causality at the macroscopic level.

I don't see philosophers grappling with this basic set of facts. Instead, they seem to think that causality is an a priori truth that *must* hold for science to be done. But that is clearly wrong.

Instead of causality upholding the laws of physics, we now see that the laws of physics *allow* for causality in some circumstances.

Philosophers do sometimes grapple with that basic set of facts. Karl Popper, for instance, pointed out that determinism can't be true because of QM. ie. "no cause necessitates a given effect." So, these days, metaphysicians don't analyse hard determinism in their papers. They analyze hard incompatibilism. The hard incompatibilist (like the determinist) denies free will, but the incompatibilist denies it because all states and events happen because of prior states and events. The determinist-- erroneously-- thinks that all states of the universe are necessary given its previous state. A quaint difference, sure. But all I'm trying to show is that philosophers do grapple with the basic facts of QM. Even if, ultimately, they are interested in whether we make our own choices in life, and not in details of QM that don't impact that question.

Sure philosophers don't work out equations and run QM experiments. But that job's already taken. Physicists do that. Physics is also STEM, which btw pays more than philosophy. And, as an added bonus, Brewer will take you seriously if you do STEM.

Me too, if you catch me at the right time. My mom was recently hospitalized and given multiple operations in order to save her leg. I brought some Plato along to read. But I found that all I could care about was that the surgeon knew what the fuck he was doing so my mom didn't have to undergo amputation. At that moment, I cared less about what justice is and more about the truths of biology. But the pendulum swings both ways. If you found yourself in some futuristic Nazi dystopia, where people with certain DNA strands are being scanned and executed in the streets... in that situation... "what is justice?" might be a more salient question than "how do we make our dna scanners more accurate?"

I'm not trying to oversell philosophy here. All I'm trying to say is, it's important sometimes. That's all. Most of the time it isn't important. But not all the time.

And so what else is required above consistency? You cannot determine the truth of falsity of a consistent statement by simply sitting and thinking about it. At some point, you *need* to do some sort of observation. That is why some empiricism is required. It is an additional filter to weed out falsehoods. And it does this incredibly well, as witnessed by the advances of science once it became prominent.

"Some empiricism" is a pretty low bar. And I'd argue that most if not all philosophers begin with observations. Plato was observant. Thales predicted a solar eclipse, so it seems like he looked at the moon every once in a while. (It surely wasn't a lucky guess.) Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz... the great "rationalists" who are often seen in contrast to pure empiricism, obviously based their theories on observations.

Not that you deny this, Poly. I know you don't. You were just getting to the principle of the matter: empiricism is obviously valuable. Agreed. I'm totally with you on that one. Empiricism is indispensable.

But, by the same token, we could take another vantagepoint when studying the issue. "Empiricism alone" (ie just looking at stuff... sensing stuff) is useless without trying to formulate the observed phenomena into a genuine understanding. After all, how do we know science has "advanced" at all? Because we have cell phones? Because science is "internally consistent"? (We can't use that one, and for good reason.)

I say what makes a scientific theory strong is that it withstands scrutiny. A sound theory opens itself up to challenge from those who might demonstrate otherwise. (Both in science and philosophy). Otherwise, it's hard to say by what metric science has "advanced." A future generation, where scientific knowledge has declined, might obtain their cell phones by worshipping our AI overlords. That doesn't mean they should believe that Hal-9000-ism is "more advanced" than investigating things for themselves. Even if the science of that era fails to produce cell phones.