Colin Blakemore - Why Philosophy of Science?

It is with great sadness that we note Sir Colin Blakemore died on June 27, 2022. Blakemore made substantial contributions to neuroscience, including visual system development and neural plasticity, and he was a stellar communicator of science and neuroscience. His videos on Closer To Truth were just a small part of his engaged and erudite public output. Our condolences from Closer To Truth to Colin's family, friends, and colleagues.

Science is humankind's magnificent achievement, the way of thinking to discern facts and truths and to reject errors and myths. But how to understand the scientific method itself and what is it really that science is learning? That's the role of philosophy. For example, when science discerns 'regularities' in nature, are these 'laws' of nature?



Professor Colin Blakemore, Ph.D, FRS, FMedSci, HonFSB, HonFRCP, is a British neurobiologist who is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and University of Warwick specializing in vision and the development of the brain.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[tamaragorman]

One of my favorite undergrad classes was The Philosophy of Science. It was the class in which I first read Thomas Kuhn's well-known book, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." It was also where I first learned about bias in science.

[jasonemryss]

Philosophy is the best field to address the fundamental question of 'what is the nature of reality?"

[mozzerianmisanthrope]

Science and philosophy are often seen as incompatible, but the way my brain functions they are perfectly aligned. Such fascinating topics apart but they enrich each other when studied together.

[officialspaceefrain]

One of my favorite quotes comes from Camus. It’s something like this: Let a scientist speak enough and he becomes a poet.

[longcastle]

One of the greatest philosophers of science ever imo is Karl Popper. But he also wrote on other subjects as well. His two volume book _An Open Society and Its Enemies_ is, now more than ever, a book for our times. Volume 2 especially addresses the threats that can befall a democracy -- due to a lack of vigilance and a corrosion to it's system of checks and balances.

[dongshengdi]

Science and religion are two sides of the same deep human impulse to understand the world, to know our place in it, and to marvel at the wonder of life and the infinite cosmos we are surrounded by. Let’s keep them that way, and not let one attempt to usurp the role of the other.

[NothingMaster]

Because if it is not falsifiable it is not science. All the protocols, working mechanisms, and the critical analysis needed for determining the falsifiability of a scientific theory, for instance, come from the Philosophy of Science. In analogy, a philosopher of science also plays the same role as that of an experienced film critic, examining the boundaries of creativity and the exploratory expressions.

[mintakan]

Anil Seth maybe typical of how neuroscience views philosophy. He said to to pay close attention to the questions they ask. They maybe important. Philosophy can have a clarifying role, esp. in raising the issues. But he also said, to be very wary of the answers it gives.

As for the nature of "objects", this may not be as mysterious as one would initially think. It's an issue that already occurs in machine learning. For e.g., in unsupervised learning, how does one determine the "clusters"? In supervised learning, it's initially approached as a classification problem. But even more specifically, in vision systems, image segmentation (identifying parts in a scene). In self driving cars, the vision system needs to identify other cars, pedestrians, street signs, etc.

So the abstract "thinkism", simply meditating on concepts, in philosophy, is now starting to give way to concrete implementations, in machines. And there is a huge amount of cross pollination between "AI" and neuroscience, as each side tests out ideas from the other side.

[projectmalus]

Science has a diffused identity that allows a precise focus, philosophy enables strong individual identities to see the big picture. Science is a ship of fools cleaving what's there, philosophy is on the front of that ship as the figurehead, watching the cleaving and rescuing bits out.

[science]

Colin Balkemore was a great english scientist. RIP.

[wayneasiam]

Another good video from Robert Kuhn. I wonder if a major part of the problem is due to mathmatics. Our reliance, relationship and dedication to it.

[gregory_head]

The philosophy that applies do unto others the same as you would have others do for you seems the shortest path to already having a good start.

[mehdibaghbadran]

when, science 🧬 and scientists 👨‍🔬 struggling to find the reasonable answers for sensitive phenomenon, then philosophy comes to helpings science to giving better understanding and scenes to the subjects, and, also philosophy can helped the other phenomenon, likes, fundamental, spiritual, and, etc….

[AmitRay]

I suggest a book to read : The Problems of philosophy by Bertrand Russell, the last chapter is The value of Philosophy.

[junanjinaahmed]

Ok..seems like now it has come closer to truth.. the one I am seeking for..12hrs ago…so it takes years to reach the thoughts

[soubhikmukherjee]

There's a reason it was called natural philosophy.

[sudarshanbadoni]

On a topic one intreprets data is science. On the same one Express the feeling is PHILOSOPHY. One is IQ And other is EQ kind of thing being two faces of the same coin. May be thoroughly wrong but my instantaneous cognitive output is like that on this video. Thanks.

[ReynaSingh]

philosophers engage with epistemology which science neglects. science is equated to truth although it adheres to reductionism and material monism which are philosophies of their own.

[deepakkapurvirtualclass]

Let's go in distant future. Let's assume that Science has discovered all the fundamental particles/concepts that explain this universe completely.


I think..


1. These fundamental particles/concepts will have to be taken as a 'given' (with no further explanation possible).


2. This is the ultimate future of science...to reach at something, which has to be taken as a 'given'.

[jamesruscheinski]

Philosophy as starting point for scientific investigation?