[tomlock]

There is a fair overlap between the analytic-philosophy community and physicists and mathematicians. So the analytic community generally doesn't talk out of its arse about these things.

I'm from the other side of philosophy, the continental-philosophy area, which mostly talks about ethics and art and identity, so for me to talk about CTCs I would be talking out my arse.

Philosophy is, generally, very hard to read. So much so that reading Descartes' Meditations (considered an alright starting text) in my first philosophy course took me about 30 mins per page.

But, it seems to me that this is one of those areas where analytic philosophy seems to be breaching an area where actual experiments can be proposed and tested in a physical sense, and it leads me to think, what's the point? The logical (philosophical) consistency of light being a particle and a wave doesn't come in to the reality of it. Was it worth ancient Greeks wondering whether all matter was made of water?

I think similar questions can be asked about continental philosophy. I certainly read a lot of it as a lot of wank that could be answered by real-world surveys (what makes people happy? I dunno, how about we ask them). But I think questions like, how do we determine whether happiness is the thing we should optimize for in life, are still relevant, and philosophical, and more basic! I think the underlying basic question of CTCs might be, does something being a logical paradox actually prevent it from happening?

And, if CTCs are a physical phenomena that we can't observe (maybe, yet), what's the point of a philosopher wondering about them? Shouldn't that be a theoretical physicists job?

[mattmanser]

No brag, but I read meditations in a few lunch breaks when working a manual job power washing ride on lawn mowers at uni.

It's a simple read.

If you'd have said Kant, I might have agreed with you.

Most of the time complicated philosophy (or science) are hard to read because either they're talking crap (Hegel) or they can't write for shit (Kant). Descartes was pretty good in my book (although obviously the 2nd half complete failed).

[tomlock]

I found Kant to be easier than Descartes and Heidegger to be by far the hardest to read of all. Hegel has for me been somewhere between Descartes and Heidegger, but I think its no surprise that Zizek was a Hegelian and also read a bunch of Lacan :D

I think Heidegger is actually deliberately obscure!

[maaku]

>But, it seems to me that this is one of those areas where analytic philosophy seems to be breaching an area where actual experiments can be proposed and tested in a physical sense, and it leads me to think, what's the point?

I think it would be fair to flip that around: if your philosophy doesn't result in testable predictions, then what's the point?

[tomlock]

What I was talking about in that quote is that CTCs are definitely being seriously talked about and explored in relation to tested elements of our understanding of the universe by theoretical physicists, the experts in physics, and so I think its time for philosophers to give up that ground.

Similarly I feel like there are philosophy-of-politics discussions that can (through political change) become the realm of actual politicians, sociologists, etc.

I apologize, but I'd like to flip your question about again. I think philosophy is the realm of the untestable, so in my mind you're asking "what's the point of philosophy". I think philosophy is the place to explore the full ramifications and implications of untestable ideas. I'd also ask what's the point of your question? If its not testable, I think its a philosophical question, QED. If it does result in a testable prediction, what's the test?

[maaku]

If it's not testable, what's the point? If it is not testable you are literally saying it has no effect on the world.

Note that something can be political or sociological and still be testable. You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy where you assign utilities and sum them up, then do surveys or focus groups to to measure agreement with the results.

But if a theory literally has no testable predictions? That is the definition of useless.

[Fargren]

>>If it is not testable you are literally saying it has no effect on the world.

It's provable that things that are true are not demonstrable(see Gödel's incompleteness theorem). It follows that things that are not testable are true, and for some d definition of truth, it means they have an effect in the word. So we absolutely can, in a meaningful way, wonder about the posible consequences of something that while not testable may be true. Just because something it solely potentially meaningful does not mean it it's entirely meaningless.

[maaku]

That's a very uninteresting and unscientific definition of truth. But even less interesting is arguing over definitions.

As a scientific person, I'm only concerned with truth that derives directly from observation. "True but not demonstrable" is an oxymoron.

[tomlock]

Can you observe the truth of the statement:

"Truth from observation is the only truth that matters."

Where can I also observe this?

[tomlock]

>>You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy

Let me stop you right there. You can have a utilitarian moral philosophy, sure. But the question of if you ought to have such a philosophy is a philosophical one. To get to the point of having tests of optimized utility there is an underlying question that has no tests, which is are tests for utility really the best tests to run?

Its either turtles all the way down: tests testing the effectiveness of tests, or, you get into philosophy.

[maaku]

Which is arbitrary and meaningless.

Have fun with your waste of a mind.

[tomlock]

Interesting. What test do you propose to determine whether it is arbitrary and meaningless?

[ctrlalt_g]

Hi, I'm just some dude, but wouldn't it be best for everyone to work on the problem until the problem is solved? Also, what about philosophers who are also physicists? I had a physics professor in college who had a degree in philosophy, and she didn't seem to mind talking with non-physics philosophers about physics-related topics.

[tomlock]

Well, yeah, in my initial comment I said that there are a lot of analytical philosophers that have an understanding of physics. But, I think that CTCs are better suited as an undergraduate physics topic than an undergraduate philosophy one. We did talk at length on them in one of my undergrad philosophy classes.

I think its a fair question if everyone should work on the problem, but I'm wondering if that same question could be applied to every problem?

I don't think many would agree that a mathematics degree should be made entirely of pottery electives. I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage mathematicians to dabble in pottery, I'm just saying pottery is not mathematics, like CTCs don't seem to me to be philosophy.

[ctrlalt_g]

Oh, it's definitely not cool to force people to do things. I didn't know it was like that. Someone probably thought that it's a really important problem, though. Like, if it were up to me, I'd be okay with forcing students to take a course on global warming, since I think global warming is a really important problem. But that's just me though. Anyway, I'm sorry you had to spend time doing stuff you weren't all that interested in.

[tomlock]

I wasn't forced and I found CTCs to be interesting. The time travel discussions were all interesting, but to me they don't feel like philosophy.

[rntz]

> I think it would be fair to flip that around: if your philosophy doesn't result in testable predictions, then what's the point?

"Untestable philosophies are pointless" is an untestable philosophy, and therefore pointless by its own standards. This is a well-known problem with logical positivism, which is roughly the position you are advocating.