this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024

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Science Memes

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Here kitty kitty (slrpnk.net)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

a fucking flashlight you say? how would that help finding a cat?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Philosophy is often more like looking for things that can't be seen with a flashlight but hypothesizing that they must exist and proving it logically.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Philosophy is determining that there is, probably, a cat in the room. And science is using a flashlight to find it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

But sometimes philosophy is also like not knowing that flashlights exist and looking for a cat in the dark, sadly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Sci-fi is a little more about theorizing science before it gets there. I feel like philosophy is more like: "Why are we looking for the cat?"

It ascribes meaning to the actions that science makes possible. I can find that cat if I use science. But why do I want the cat and what will I do once I have it?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

philosophy is my single favorite field ever invented.

I fucking love it so much. Some fuckhead somewhere was like "wait, why do things mean things, and what does meaning mean?" and now we have fucking nihilism. Truly an incredible field of scientific discovery.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You're thinking on epistemology, not nihilism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

that was just the example i picked to make a funny haha.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Too bad it peaked 2000 years ago.

I know it’s kind of a meme, but Diogenes was really onto something. Don’t keep what you do not need, how can someone be respected as a person if they depend on servants, a wealthy ruler is no different from a slave once they’ve died, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

it'll peak once we figure out how the universe was created, and how it relates to the rest of human existence.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Could it be me who doesnt know what metaphysics is? No, a whole sub-field of philosophy is actually useless and none of them see it.

Also hilarious seeing "philosophy" referred to like its a method you can use and not a whole field including everything from ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, epistemology, aesthetics, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Also hilarious seeing “philosophy” referred to like its a method you can use and not a whole field including everything from ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, epistemology, aesthetics, etc.

well i mean, philosophically, it could be considered a framework to think about things under.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Physics is like shooting balls at the cat and registering the sounds of pain to draw a shape of the creature. Except that it turns out to be also a dog at the same time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Stoopid.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This meme is making these different disciplines answer questions they were never intended to answer. It's like complaining that a school principal isn't out there teaching students: that's not their role and it would be silly to expect them to do otherwise.

Philosophers would ask something like, "what is a cat?"

Metaphysicians would ask something like, "how can we know that the cat truly exists?"

Theologians would ask something like, "what does the Bible say about cats?"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The categories themselves also show his ignorance.

Metaphysics is a sub-discipline of Philosophy.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And theology and science stood on philosophy's shoulders as a means to different ends. It's almost like the author started at the beginning and selectively broke off little bits to build up a joke, in service of the joke.

The joke didn't land. That's cool. It's not my joke, I'm not offended. But I am mystified by the number of "well akshully..." replies. Had this been intended to be a serious, thorough commentary on various disciplines maybe I could understand the circlejerk around pedantry. But it's not. It's a gag based on oversimplification. In a meme community.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Comedy can be and is used to make real criticisms of the world and various institutions. "It's just a joke" is one of the most common lies.

People can laugh at the joke, or disagree with the criticism it communicates, or both, or neither.

But having and exercising critical thinking skills when engaging with memes in a meme community full of scholars and academics is exactly what I would expect.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

I love The Oatmeal, but yeah, this one's a miss

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