Rebecca I think you agree that science is expanding and philosophy is shrinking and as philosophy presents questions and as they're subjected to scientific thinking various elements of what used to be philosophy are peeled off or squeezed off become scientific and going into the future and I think everybody applauds us the fundamental question is when that process goes to its limit when it goes to completion will there be any residue will it be anything left for philosophy right so I want to address that question but first I want to disagree a little bit with what you
said I agree with and that is I do think that fields of fields of science have broken off from from philosophy I think that that's you know it's undeniable that's just the history of science but it's not clear that the number of Asafa chol questions shrinks because the content of science itself provides new philosophical questions and so for example the view of time that is perhaps suggested by relativity theory Einstein thought so and he seemed to have understood the relativity theory pretty well when he said that the distinction between the past the present and the
future is an illusion albeit albeit a persistent illusion philosophers go crazy trying to figure out whether that's true whether that scientific theory really does entail or suggests or you know that that view and if that's true how do we reconcile that with what it seems one of the most salient features of our experience which is the flow of time you know the past no longer exists we occupy some present we have no idea of what the future is that that is this the substance of human life you know that we regret or long for the
past and worry or hope for the future and here is some somebody saying 'look science the scientific theory that we all use in science it's a fantastic predictive instruments but it's telling us that the flow of time is is not real that presents philosophical issues quantum mechanics is presented tremendous numbers that's right because that's a fascinating of your point for whereas physics as a as a field split off from so-called natural philosophy which existed for hundreds of thousands of years and then physics now came in no more natural philosophy but suddenly this physics has created
a question about time I mean I've been at conferences where physicists talk about the philosophical issue of the flow of time a and B and and which is the reality and how to science support it and and the relationship between philosophers and physics and physicists become even stronger in that case yes no and I think I think you know any for almost I should say that for many many fields of philosophy maybe if I thought about it longer I would say for all fields of philosophy a philosopher has to be knowledgeable in science because we
actually need that input from science science itself what it's telling us is is giving us new material for dealing with old problems of philosophy but also suggesting new ones like like this women who would have thought that we would have to worry about reconciling this salient feature of our consciousness with the static the frozen view of time because that's that's that's what relativity theory is telling us you know I also you know I would say you know evolutionary psychology and giving us new explanations for where our ethical intuitions come from is this answering the questions
the age-old questions of ethics is it not is it is it is it do we have to take it into it how nevertheless and answering the age-old questions of ethics so the content of science itself changes the color of the philosophical question it shifts them as shifts our attention to the differences that some scientists would say that yes we're exposing all these questions but we're exposing it within the context of science and we really don't need the philosophers engaged so if we if we if we surface the problem of time which philosophers dealt with we
took it over they should stay away now we'll solve it where were the physicists we can solve the problem of time where we can solve the problem of quantum mechanics and in the observer the issue of the nature of information which is very important in physics they cannot solve the problem of reconciling the they can't help once they tried to tell you what are what what is reality like given the success the predictive success of this theory what is reality like they just agree they all disagree you know many scientists I know disagree with Einstein's
statement that time it's frozen right so that's going you know you could agree on the science and you disagree on the interpretations of the sides and once you're doing that it's its philosophy so with this problem for example of time you know what does the scientific theory actually entail just does it what does it tell us about reality but there is this but like what science need and do and has really no business doing has no interest in doing is to try to reconcile the view that emerges out of science about reality with what the
20th century philosopher Wilfred sellards had called the manifest image of man manifest image of us in the world right a correct the sexist language and it is he puts forth this view in in philosophy and the scientific image of man that what philosophy tries to do is to reconcile the scientific image of us in the world the scientific so this is already presuming real ways in which you'd have to argue for let's give us scientific realism science is giving us a description of what it is like you know what the world is like we or
like and well y-you know our relationship to the world but it's it's it's not reconciling it with these pre scientific ideas that we have and that we use in order to arrive at the scientific image all of the assumptions and presumptions that we have to make in order to make sense for the world to be coherent to us even such things is proportioning our belief to the evidence trying to have internal coherence just the sense that it matters the truth matters right so basic that you can't you don't get this out of science you bring
it to science and that's how we're able to do science but then sometimes science seems to be at odds with our manifest image of what it's like for us to be in the world time is an example how do I make sense out of my life if I don't attribute to it that it's that that it's changing over time then it flows that the past is gone that there's this future I'm certain and my entire emotional life presupposes the flow of time how do i reconcile these two things science doesn't need to worry about it
it needs to worry about developing the scientific image hard enough right in if it belongs to philosophy to try to reconcile that with all of the views we need in order to be coherent
