Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Flak
Artificial Intelligence, because once it takes off we won't know what hit us. I'm serious.
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Not really. AI is in many ways leading itself into a corner.
I agree with ygolo on the basic concept that it's probably going to achievements in various fields that'll mark the next century. Although the exact nature of those achievements is what I dispute.
Probably what concerns me most is whether or not scientific research and development is moving along routes guided by proper philosophical underpinnings. I'm very concerned that it isn't, and hasn't been for quite some time.
We have the mistaken concept that science is some autonomous field that goes by its own rules, irregardless of everybody else. That's not true. Science is a means to an end, not an end to itself. What is the exact nature of the ends we wish for science to achieve. We're not engaging in proper discussions about that. We confuse science with
scientism.
Frederich Nietzsche made an important point about this in
On the Genealogy of Morals:
"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as science ‘without presuppositions’…a ‘faith’ must always be there first of all, so that science can acquire from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method – a right to exist…It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science."