“The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done."” – Provost Zakharov
Often people tend to confuse philosophers with scientists for some inexplicable reason. Philosophers are the ones that keep thinking and theorizing, hardly ever doing something. This is why there are very few philosophers who do it full time. It is generally a sidegig, a hobby. It is the supporting structure of scientific innovation, it is simply one way of pondering about the question ‘why?’. In that sense, philosophy is a lot closer to religion than science (though it can be debated that science itself is a religion). But there is quite a difference between the three.
Religion is a way of explaining how, it generally does a poor job at explaining why. It teaches us how the world was created, how laws originated, even how we should live. The only ‘why’ explanation appears to be bad karma – disobey and you will suffer. It is amazingly conservative, albeit most people ‘misinterpret’ it. That is to say, there appears to be no common interpretation per religion. Sure, there are similarities (all Christians believe in the ten commandments), but detailed interpretations differ (some of them believe in killing in the name of religion anyways).
Science is also a way of explaining how, and doesn’t even try to explain why. It teaches us how the world is built, how it functions, and how we can make better use of it. Even how to create better laws and how we should live. Science, however, falls into two categories, one changes slowly, one changes nearly every day: "There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn nonetheless for the latter." (Provost Zakharov) The more interesting one tends to be the ever-constant innovative spirit[1] of science – every day new theories are worked out, proven, research done, experiments carried out. A lot of work goes into it and most people never hear of it, the results are published in science publications limited to certain narrow branches of science which are commonly exclusively read by specialists of the field. Some discoveries and theories make it to the public media where they are twisted and bent so far very little of them remain far enough for anyone to actually understand the discovery or theory. The slower side of science is also conservative, it classifies what should be made known to people, what should be taught at specific points in a person’s educative progress, which theories correlate with other previously tried-and-true theories and which theories are rendered obsolete. The categorization and classification process is not an exact science and many important discoveries can lie dormant without anyone learning of them for quite a while.
Philosophy rarely discusses the question how, but it almost always deals with why. Why you should think, why you should consider something ethical or non-ethical, why should ethics matter, why matter exists, why existence itself is so bloody important. Sometimes it tries to teach people how to live, how to achieve enlightenment, how to experience true joy, how to tell love apart from other emotions… but unlike religion it does not include threats. Instead of telling people to do something because otherwise they will go to hell, lose a loved one or a limb or a whatnot, philosophy tells people how to improve their lives on a mental or spiritual level, because otherwise they will continue to live life like they have been for decades, which is not that bad either. On the whole, it is a lot friendlier than religion and more open than science – everybody can practice it as it doesn’t require any specialized base of knowledge. The first thoughts and theories are likely to coincide with previous theories, probably by famous people who have been dead for quite a while.
This is actually what intrigues me about philosophy – the first things to ponder about are probably beauty and ethics, the first results match the theories of the first great philosophers. As a person keeps thinking about odd stuff, he reaches the problems of education and reasons for having a state for a body of people, sometimes hitting Buridan’s ass on the way. This leads to questions of free will and perception while figuring out that ‘we are made of space stuff’. It is a person’s own journey through history without being aware of it, the development of the mind of a human traces the evolutionary development of philosophy as a whole. And, as biologists may have noticed, it is quite expectable due to previous observations of other evolutionary processes where a single goes through all the steps that have been necessary to create the single.
Science, religion, and philosophy have certain similarities, but due to their different natures they cannot be thrown in the same pot as equals. Religion is the input, science is the interaction, philosophy is the output.
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