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Lol, all of those are philosophies. Philosophy isn’t separate to science, or theology, of whatever. It’s the bigger group they’re all part of.
The meme’s accurate in that sense. All the others are also in a dark room looking for a black cat.
You can put an exclamation point in front of the link to get the image directly
You can embed the image, but I think you need to use the image link, rather than the comic page link:
Hmm. On one hand, the image link properly embeds while the comic link is just a little OBJ square that I can open. On the other hand, the comic link preserves the alt text.
While true, be advised that some consider it rude to hotlink images without permission
Hmm, I’ve never seen that unless it’s nsfw
It actually gets funnier than etiquette like the old poster mentioned. Some folks got pissed enough from people doing it that they would replace the images with goatse.
It’s old internet etiquette. I think the point is that hotlinking asks someone else to serve content without giving them traffic, if that makes sense.
Does Randall putting “Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding)” directly below each comic on the xkcd site count as permission?
lol I forgot he does that! And yes definitely.
The most useful branches of philosophy are important enough we’ve given them other names like “math” and “science”.
What’s the one that’s in a perfectly lit room empty white room, with a decently sized black cat thats covered in arrows flashing towards it with a loud siren blaring from it and signs saying “the cat you are looking for is right here!”, who still can’t find the cat?
Pseudoscience/conspiracy theories.
The signs are a fakeout for the lizardpeople scooping your thoughtsponge out via economic taxation.
Just gotta do your research and follow the obvious signs. No, but not those obvious signs.
But observing the cat with the flashlight fundamentally affects the cat.
The cat both has and hasn’t knocked something breakable off a counter or table before you enter the room.
Remember, who made the flashlight for the scientist? The philosopher.
The amount of “science fans” dismissing philosophy is ridiculous
I don’t see this as being dismissive of philosophy at all. Science has always stood on the shoulders of philosophy. In the context of the meme, it established the possibility of the black cat existing. It’s the baseline. Science then used tools to test the idea, while metaphysics and theology are off somewhere making unfalsifiable claims.
Judging by some of the responses, I’m in the minority with this interpretation.
It’s not about whether or not the meme is dismissive of philosophy. It’s that the writer clearly doesn’t understand the basics of these fields and the kinds of questions they ask/answer, including science. Heck metaphysics isn’t even a separate field, it’s a sub-field of philosophy.
This meme is highly misinformed about how any of these academic subjects work though. (Meta)physicists and theologists don’t make claims, they research the consequences of certain assumptions. Most elementary sciences work that way.
If it puts us in a minority to regard scientific achievement as owing a debt of gratitude to epistemology and empiricism, not to mention ethics and countless other branches of study that cannot be taken for granted, then so be it. To take science on its own as merely a self evident and wholly objective practice solely fit for solving problems and creating better technologies is as boring as it is anti intellectual.
It’s completely insane how they think science somehow invalidates philosophy. First off, it doesn’t even ask the same questions, and only really applies to the physical aspect of the world.
who made the flashlight for the scientist? The philosopher.
You misspelt engineer.
I agree with the conclusion of your metaphor but I think that literally “the scientist” invented the flashlight.
Problem: Can a black cat be found in a dark room?
Hypothesis: yes
Variable: flashlight
Control: no flashlight
Findings: “v” group found the cat; the “c” group didn’t.
Theory: You can find a cat in a dark room using a flashlight.
Law: cats land feet first (indisputable)
Scientific literature doesn’t always take on the observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion form so strictly. A lot of the time it’s “This is the state of the field so far. Hey look what we found, that’s interesting. Conclusion: somebody should look into this”
You are in a pitch-black room and hear a noise. A noise you can’t describe properly, you’ve never heard or seen this creature before but it has a high pitched wail.
A man called Philosophy walks in the room. He hears the cry and takes some time to think. He names this creature the cat and deduces that it must be as big as a bear and as fierce as a lion. This creature must be dangerous. He tells you stories about strange exotic creatures, ones with black fur and long tails. These creatures have nails as sharp as swords and mean only harm. He tells you to stay back and listen to his thoughts as he contemplates more.
Then another man called Theology walks in. He too hears the creature yelling. Over some time, he begins to listen to the different tones of the noise this creature makes. He hears a shriek and thinks it’s telling you to get back. It hears a purr and tells you it’s playful. He begins to think it’s communicating and assigns meaning to the creature’s noise. He tells you to have faith in his belief and to follow the creatures demands. He tells you to offer tithes and sacrifices so you too can find meaning in this creature.
And, finally, a last man named Science walks into the room. He hears the cat and listens to the others propositions. He sets up ways to test his hypotheses. He thinks the cat must be big, so he throws some food near the creature and hears its footsteps; they aren’t stomps, they are something more elegant. He no longer thinks he and Philosophy were correct. Because he thinks it’s no longer big, he walks up to the creature and tries to get a closer look. He gets bitten and falls back to the others. Over time he tells you that Theology and Philosophy were right on some things and wrong on the others. He admits that he can be wrong himself but will correct and change his understand of this creature as he learns. He also offers little answers to the creature’s as the others. You don’t understand exactly how he works, you are merely a layman with little education.
So, which of the men do you believe?
Astronomy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat by analyzing the raw image data of several insanely sensitive cameras, then finding out what the cat looks like, what it looked like right after birth, where it’ll be next year and what its gut microbiome consists of, based on a slight reddish hue in its fur.
Alternatively: Astronomy is like being in a dark room and saying “Something seems off. There must be a black cat in here.”
There are certain behaviors of ordinary cats which can only be explained by the presence of “dark cats”.
Some catronomers suggest that ‘dark cats’ might just be bugs, but we haven’t seen any bugs in the room yet.
Voids, one might say.
Science is more like systematically searching the room while exhaustively documenting all findings to define every place the cat wasn’t, as well as where it was. Then you release the cat and do it several more times. Then you invite your peers to come in the room and try to achieve the same results, comparing their findings with yours, so everyone can have a better chance of finding the cat in future attempts.
Science isn’t easy. It is precise because it is tediously thorough.
Science isn’t easy.
But, unlike the others, it fucking works.
You obviously didn’t used your flashlight when you searched for philosophy and the others ^^
We wouldnt be in this mess if the fucking philosopher hadnt come up with it.
One of the painful things about having studied philosophy is experiencing the fact that nearly everyone on the Internet are absolutely sure having read a few paragraphs about the topic makes them an expert.
You’re right! I read a few paragraphs about this.
I hope that one day people can call themselves philosophers without feeling cringey, because the world finally understands and respects it.
For what it’s worth, as a non-philosopher, I absolutely agree that it’s a field that needs and deserves to be taken far more seriously by far more people.
When I grow up, I want to work at the philosophy factory, making philosophies
Same with studying anything and then seeing it mentioned on the internet.
Very true
Yeah, I’m an engineer myself, and even I can see that the take on philosophy here is really unnecessarily disparaging, and doesn’t even really fit well into the joke due to a rather meaningful lack of pertinence.
Hey, I’ll have you know that I’ve read TWO paragraphs!
Shit! We got an expert here! ;-)
My high-school class on philosophy concerned itself with formal logic (syllogisms, really) and a little ontology, though I have forgotten most of the ontological stuff again. I don’t know just how much there is to know, so I don’t know just how ignorant I am. But where other Internet philosophers pretend to know what they’re talking about, I at least know that I don’t.
I think everyone with a niche skill experiences that to some extent. Almost all posts about mathematics on lemmy attract people acting like they understand what’s going on while making wrong claims lol, I only rarely see comments that are fully correct.
Yeah I expect climate change scientists would roll their eyes pretty hard at my post as well =)
I don’t think I saw any math related post tbh, other than witty 3! = 6 one
I guess me being a mathematician makes me notice them more. I’ve seen many in several communities, but me being biased makes me wish there were more.
I just began math PhD program, maybe it becomes different after finishing it. Maybe we are in different communities? Mine is mostly this one, linux and programming.
Different communities then I guess, I browse ‘all’ a lot.
I don’t like this allegory because if the room is perfectly dark the color of the cat doesn’t matter, and if there’s a bit of light its eyes will glow.
I think religion is represented wrong. It should read :
Being in a dark room looking for a black cat, believing that it is there.
I get where the OP is coming from and many religious people have been loud, vocal and hostile recently but it’s not a core principle of religion to be that way.
Not even religion, theology. There are grifters and scammers in every field but apparently theology is the one where the goal is just to unrepetantly lie.
A very clear bias on display.
tbf, being in a dark room with no flashlight will give you lots of undistracted free time to work through complex problems and ideas. The presence of a cat in there with you is largely irrelevant.
If the cat comes over and let’s me pet it then I can think better
I work in an underground mine and sometimes when I’m waiting for someone to come pick me up, I torn my cap lamp off and sit on a rock. It’s the darkest dark you can imagine. No shadows, no pin pricks of light just your thoughts. All you can hear is the sound of moving air and the occasionally the rock moving.
It’s genuinely peaceful and so so relaxing. Definitely had some philosophical moments down there
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.
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.
it’ll peak once we figure out how the universe was created, and how it relates to the rest of human existence.
You’re thinking on epistemology, not nihilism.
that was just the example i picked to make a funny haha.
