“Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds,” goes the saying attributed to Richard Feynman, the late Caltech Nobelist, and repeated by Dr. Weinberg. – an article in the New York Times, 12-18-07
the first thing that occurred to me was the statement that the speaker of that quote got it wrong. it should have been, “Philosophy is about as useful to humans as ornithology is to birds.”
as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time floating in, swimming in, flailing in, and sometimes, drowning in the waters of philosophy, this is something i feel i know.
it’s a conundrum really. why i continue doing it. i could give many reasons… i can’t stop. it keeps me sane. it keeps me alive. it keeps me busy. it keeps me curious. it keeps me interested. it keeps me looking. it keeps me content. the list is much longer, but these few, the things that first occur.
of course, i’m not all of them all the time. but in those times i am, i am because i’m thinking about philosophy and how it affects things. human things. world things. the explication of things. buddhist things. meh. too many labels. i should just leave it at ‘things’, shouldn’t i? heh.
taking a break here for a glass of orange juice. i’ll be right back.
see, that’s kind of it, isn’t it? perfect example. i just got up and walked off and spent oh… about thirty minutes doing something else because i wanted a glass of orange juice. that led to realizing i was hungry. that led to a moment of pensiveness for how empty the cupboard is, that led to laughter for choosing to think of that rather than the food i did have, that led to a happy bout of putting on the kettle for grits and coffee.
so what if i’m eating grits this weekend until monday? you see? i’m eating. that’s what counts. and i still have coffee.
the difference between equanimity and anything else is philosophy, i think. that’s the thing that we chase, turning away from the reality that grits are still better than starving. of course, it leads us right back to it as well…. so perhaps the matter isn’t really philosophy at all, is it?
which, of course, leads me once more to the quote, which is really quite elegant, albeit with the required modifier…. philosophy is about as useful to humans as orinthology is to birds.
actually, no, hah, you know me, it’s never that simple. my mind is still running around waving metaphysical arms at this. hmm. ok… another break to think on it. (see?)
the cynic in me wants to leave it at this. i can’t, because it would be like telling a lie. all things serve their purpose and saying the fault rests in ideas or others who support them is, frankly, disingenuous. any idea, too tightly held, creates it’s own opposite and from this, suffering.
of course, this too, is an idea. hah. you see? you see? if i could just build a nest and eat worms and fly south for the winter, how filled with equanimity i would be!
“if” is a big word. it should have more letters. it’s humor, that, for all we look down our noses at the animals and ‘pooh pooh’ the notion that they are more than to be pitied or we, exalted… for our thinking, no less… heh… it would seem that thinking itself is a curse under which we must struggle in an effort to find that liberated state of ‘just being’ in which animals and organic things and the elements naturally flow.
you know, sometimes it really does make me wonder if humans are even half as advanced as we seem to think we are…. after all, that’s a philosophy, too.
ok. letting myself get off this train of thought and doing something else for a while. it’s raining fit to beat the band, i’m hurting all over for it, and the coffee is ready.
maybe some tiles. maybe.