Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Philosophy


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 03-07-2004, 05:54 PM   #1 (permalink)
Insane
 
Location: Pennsylvania
Philosophy Paper Topic

Ok, here is the setup. I am in a class called Philosophy of Natural Science. Over spring break, I need to write a paper, but I want you guys to help me pick the topic. The subject of this paper needs to be a scientific discovery/advancement which occured in the time since Darwin (about 200 years) wrote Origin of the Species. Here's the catch, I need to discuss three things about this scientific topic. First, I need to talk about the metaphysics of the topic, what does this topic assume is real? Secondly, I need to talk about the epistemology. What do you have to be able to know, I mean really know? Lastly, ethics. Is there something dodgy about it? I appreciate all suggestions. Try not to do the really obvious things like cloning or computers, as everybody else in class is going to do that.
Giltwist is offline  
Old 03-07-2004, 07:10 PM   #2 (permalink)
Mencken
 
Scipio's Avatar
 
Location: College
Quantum mechanics has some interesting implications on reality and metaphysics. I'm not a scientist, but generally what has been observed is that on a very very small (subatomic) scale, matter behaves in highly unusual ways. These ways don't seem to carry over very closely to larger objects.

You might also do germ theory. That's another biggie. Pasteur and all that.
__________________
"Erections lasting more than 4 hours, though rare, require immediate medical attention."
Scipio is offline  
Old 03-07-2004, 07:14 PM   #3 (permalink)
Psycho
 
3leggedfrog's Avatar
 
Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!
ok how about stem cells. they go back about 100 years but they just became contraversial. yea this goes into cloning a little but not really. first stem cells was called something like lycocytes (not spelled right) in the back bone used to cure some diseases. then in the 50's it was found to help cure come caners. in the early 90s it was discovered that stem cell were what was helping to cure cancer by becoming new cells. the problem is not about stems cells really but about how to research them. umbiblicords or fetuses. you can go into a lot of when can you say a thing is a thing with a soul or if their is a soul.

another topic could be the discovery of physics or atomic physics. this would be a great epistemology topic. for ethics a topic could be should we continue to delve into basic building block of the univers, or the dangers of this kind of research ie atomic bomb(not that i am anti tech). metaphysics is simple is what we are studing really the reality that we live in? this way you can put in a lot of acient greek philosopher quotes to fill up your page. although not to sure when newton discovered physics. might be just out side of 200 years. then i would take the atomic physics stand point.

i have a few more ideas so if you need more topics just ask. if you get stumped for philosophers to quote i can give you some great ones to look up.
__________________
"enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo

"Iam myself every day."
3leggedfrog is offline  
Old 03-08-2004, 12:38 PM   #4 (permalink)
Sky Piercer
 
CSflim's Avatar
 
Location: Ireland
Quote:
Originally posted by Scipio
Quantum mechanics has some interesting implications on reality and metaphysics. I'm not a scientist, but generally what has been observed is that on a very very small (subatomic) scale, matter behaves in highly unusual ways. These ways don't seem to carry over very closely to larger objects.
I'd be wary of covering such a topic.
It is incredibly interesting...and does indeed have many profound philosophical implications...but the problem is that it is quite a complex topic, so unless you are prepared to do some really intensive research/study you are going to make things hard on yourself.

Far too often I have seen people embarrass themselves in the name of philosophy when dealing with this subject...and I am far from an expert!

Don't mean to scare you off such a wonderfully interesting topic...just some words of warning! If you do decide to cover this topic...make damn sure you know what you're talking about!
__________________
CSflim is offline  
Old 03-08-2004, 12:52 PM   #5 (permalink)
Wehret Den Anfängen!
 
Location: Ontario, Canada
DNA
Virus's
Black holes
Theory of the Atom (bohr model)
Relativity (hard, not as hard as quantum)
Information theory (also hard)
Quantum Mechanics (as noted)
More specific: two slit experiment (part of quantum mechanics, one of the "omfg" experiments)
Other galaxies
Red-shift / expanding universe
Human genome project
Cold fusion (silly)
Radioactive decay (curie etc)
Fission
Fission chain reaction
Atom bomb
GPS
Origin of moon (broke off from earth or not, it has see-sawed)
Lucy (anthopological one)
Flight
Nitrogen fixation
Behaviouralism (psychology)
__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.
Yakk is offline  
Old 03-08-2004, 05:50 PM   #6 (permalink)
Insane
 
Location: Pennsylvania
Ok guys, you have inspired me, though indirectly. Yakk, saying Lucy, you reminded me of Liza, a talk bot. For those of you who don't know, talk bots are attempts by computer scientists to teach natural language to computers. Intriguing, but moreso, leads me to think artificial intelligence might be a good topic.
Giltwist is offline  
Old 03-08-2004, 07:00 PM   #7 (permalink)
Insane
 
Location: Denver, CO
If you're going to look philosophically at AI, maybe you should consider the aesthetic side of it as well.

Check out this link, and make your computer write poetry for you. It's hit or miss, but it's still pretty cool. FYI, it's really buggy on Windows XP.

Link: Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet
__________________
"We must have waffles. We must all have waffles, forthwith. Oh, we must think.
We must all have waffles and think, each and every one of us to the very best of his ability."
-- Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D.
FleaCircus is offline  
Old 03-08-2004, 11:12 PM   #8 (permalink)
Mencken
 
Scipio's Avatar
 
Location: College
I second what CSfilm said. As a caveat to my other post.
__________________
"Erections lasting more than 4 hours, though rare, require immediate medical attention."
Scipio is offline  
 

Tags
paper, philosophy, topic


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 08:46 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360