I’m not necessarily putting a lot of stock in my specific explanations but it would be a pretty big surprise to learn that it turns out they’re really the same.
Does it seem to you that the kinds of people who are good at science vs good at philosophy (or the kinds of reasoning processes they use) are especially different?
In your own case, it seems to me like you’re someone who’s good at philosophy, but you’re also good at more “mundane” technical tasks like programming and cryptography. Do you think this is a coincidence?
I would guess that there’s a common factor of intelligence + being a careful thinker. Would you guess that we can mechanize the intelligence part but not the careful thinking part?
A lot of people are way better than me at technical tasks (at some point I wanted to go into cryptography research as a career but had stick with applied cryptography which is less technically demanding), but way worse at philosophy (or at least have shown little interest in philosophy which itself seems like a major philosophical error). I don’t know how to explain this if science and philosophy are really the same thing or use same methods.
I would guess that there’s a common factor of intelligence + being a careful thinker. Would you guess that we can mechanize the intelligence part but not the careful thinking part?
It probably has to be more than that, because lots of people in cryptography (and security in general) are highly intelligent and careful thinkers (how else can they survive in those fields), but again AFAICT most people in those fields are not particularly good philosophers. Maybe at least one necessary additional ingredient is “good philosophical intuitions” (for example you have to have an intuition that philosophy is important before you would even start thinking about it) but I have little idea how to break that down further.
Does it seem to you that the kinds of people who are good at science vs good at philosophy (or the kinds of reasoning processes they use) are especially different?
In your own case, it seems to me like you’re someone who’s good at philosophy, but you’re also good at more “mundane” technical tasks like programming and cryptography. Do you think this is a coincidence?
I would guess that there’s a common factor of intelligence + being a careful thinker. Would you guess that we can mechanize the intelligence part but not the careful thinking part?
A lot of people are way better than me at technical tasks (at some point I wanted to go into cryptography research as a career but had stick with applied cryptography which is less technically demanding), but way worse at philosophy (or at least have shown little interest in philosophy which itself seems like a major philosophical error). I don’t know how to explain this if science and philosophy are really the same thing or use same methods.
It probably has to be more than that, because lots of people in cryptography (and security in general) are highly intelligent and careful thinkers (how else can they survive in those fields), but again AFAICT most people in those fields are not particularly good philosophers. Maybe at least one necessary additional ingredient is “good philosophical intuitions” (for example you have to have an intuition that philosophy is important before you would even start thinking about it) but I have little idea how to break that down further.