Philosophers v. engineers

[grant hutchison]

Chris posted this link to a cartoon exchange between a philosopher and an engineer on another thread.
I don't wish to hijack that thread, so I'm reposting the link here. I'll be interested to hear opinions.

Who does the cartoonist think is the loser in the brief exchange?
Why, on the internal evidence of the cartoon, are engineers banned from philosophy conferences?

Grant Hutchison

[Strange]

Obviously it isn't possible to anlyse the exchange without bringing one's own preconceptions into it. As an engineer, I'd like to think that the engineer "won" by deflating the pompous, pseudo-intellectual claptrap of the philosopher with practical, down-to-earth, calling-a-spade-a-spade, no-nonsense answers.

But clearly, engineers are banned because they aren't prepared to engage in an intelligent debate. They think that by ingoring all the subtleties of the problem they have solved it. In fact, all they have done is swept the problem under the carpet. Engineering solution to a bigger problem? Get a bigger carpet!

[grant hutchison]

Obviously it isn't possible to anlyse the exchange without bringing one's own preconceptions into it.

That's why I love the cartoon, and I'm genuinely not sure who the cartoonist thinks is the loser of the debate. I know who I think loses, and I'll say why later, but I am interested to get opinions.

Grant Hutchison

[mike alexander]

Ha.

I think the joke is that they are talking about two different things and don't realize it.

I've had a very similar debate for almost two decades now on the recording and transmission/duplication of digital information.

[grapes]

Obviously, the philosophers lost, because now they don't have any engineers at their conferences. Before, they did. Net loss.

[Strange]

Obviously, the philosophers lost, because now they don't have any engineers at their conferences. Before, they did. Net loss.

I wish I had said that!

[tlbs101]

Engineers do not have the luxury of time to debate philosophical ideas. They produce tangible items, ususally under a fixed, sometimes rapid, timeframe. If an engineer takes an exhorbitant amount of time to produce a design, there is an adage for that: At some time in the project, you have to shoot the designer and get on with production.

Furthermore, engineers do not have the luxury of precision beyond what is required for margins of safety, in producing products. An engineer and a philosopher argued over this situation:
You are at one end of a room and there is a beautiful woman (smart woman for those of you BAUTers who voted that way in the poll) at the other end of the room. You may move 1/2 the remaining distance toward her each second.

The philosopher will not attempt to move toward the woman because he will never reach the woman (only after an infinite number of seconds), so the journey is futile.
The engineer took the journey, because he knows he will get close enough.

[nauthiz]

It seems to me that the cartoonist was making fun of both of them. On one hand, I can laugh at the engineer because he's clearly missed the point. On the other hand, I can laugh at the philosopher because, practically speaking, the question he's asking is stupid.

As a programmer, I laugh at them both. This is a real problem with practical implications that I actually do encounter in real life, and they've both missed the point: The engineer fails to realize there's a conundrum there, and the philosopher fails to understand that it really doesn't matter which one you pick as long as you're consistent about it.

[BigDon]

Well I actually have a good friend who is getting his Master's on his way to his PHD in philosophy. Just listening to him grade papers with a couple of other TA's is an education. I have a couple of points.

One, a couple of very vocal members, whos physics I have the highest regard for, seem to have the heads firmly entrenched with regard to the actual state of modern philosophy. Seriously. It's almost like they want to bash priests, but can't due to the no religeon clause, so they take it out on the philosophers.

That's like small children having a tantrum and claiming not to be related to their own mothers. What? Physics was born like Venus? Rising out of the ocean on a seashell? Or was it a direct offshoot of the laws of correct and honest observation put forth by the schools of philosophy?

And even the cartoon isn't accurate because in philosophy there was the concept of uniqueness called haicisity* (sp?) that specifically deals with this situation and was old by the late 1800's.

Now there are some present day theorectical philosophers who boggle even my friend. That's there job. And one is proposing the consequences of the reality of parallel Universes that has a similar theme to that cartoon.

Believe it or not philosophy has a peer review.

Now....how many of you physicists don't think that whole cartoon couldn't be reversed, as from the perspective of the layman, with some really wild, new and theorectical. Wait, what? black holes are real, physical, macro-scale objects but only have three physical qualities? Mass, temperature and spin? No surface, no volume, no height, width or depth, no color...Yeah, I know, that was from the fifties, but I was trying to make it as accurate as that cartoon.


*phonetically pronounced HEXsisity.

[grapes]

One, a couple of very vocal members, whos physics I have the highest regard for, seem to have the heads firmly entrenched with regard to the actual state of modern philosophy. Seriously. It's almost like they want to bash priests, but can't due to the no religeon clause, so they take it out on the philosophers.

That's like small children having a tantrum and claiming not to be related to their own mothers. What? Physics was born like Venus? Rising out of the ocean on a seashell? Or was it a direct offshoot of the laws of correct and honest observation put forth by the schools of philosophy?

But, to push the metaphor even further than even I would've expected, someone may revere their grandparents, but detest their cousins.

[Ken G]

Seriously. It's almost like they want to bash priests, but can't due to the no religeon clause, so they take it out on the philosophers.

That is one of the funniest, and truest, things I've seen on this forum!

Personally, I think the cartoonist is knocking the philosophers, essentially taking the same stance we see here all the time: engineers deal in the truth, philosophers deal in shadows and mirages of their own making. Further, banning the engineers is intended as an added jab at the philosophers-- not only can they not see the truth, they cannot even deal with it when they are confronted by it, so they just ban it.

However, I also agree with all the points Grant has made about how this narrow view of the exchange misses essentially its entire purpose for existing. The cartoonist is the creationist knocking Darwinism-- a cartoon like that writes itself, imagine your own version.

[harkeppler]

Normally, the diametral positions are taken by "natural scientists" and "human scientist" (as a sum-up of all not-natural sciences). Here, philosopher and engineer are substitutes.

Philosophy: looking for logical rules in a thought system of possible interactions -> does not meet the needs of most people. So far: in most cases irrelevant; Philosopher ask questions most people are not interested in in give answer nobody needs.

Natural Science: looking for logical rules in the only known real system (universe) -> knowledge may help to prevent fatalities So most people accept scientific rearch, but mostly, if there is a direct economic benefit.

Engeneering: the trial to achive a technology out of the knowledge of natural sciences -> Engineers are doing the best which the known matter and giving that benefits people demand for the investment of research.

Between 1 and 2 there is mostly no overlap.

The problem with all not-natural science is a lack in valuability and, because there are no experiments, questions for replicability and verificationability do not arise. Everything is only opinion, and therefore there is no progression. "Believing", not "Knowledge" is the basic of that methode. It is interesting to see that a special type of people is attracted by "human sciences" and there are problems in most cases, when they start to cope with procedures coming from mathematics and natural sciences.


By the way: a clone is not a 1 to 1 copy on atomic level. Even the arrangement of cells is different, also some epigenetic markers in the DNA coming from biochemical reaction of a metabolism to the environment.

[grapes]

By the way: a clone is not a 1 to 1 copy on atomic level.

Except in this case.

The first sentence of the cartoon says "So...if a perfect duplicate of you is made,"

[Fazor]

I don't see why (the cartoon's) conversation needs a "winner"; it's just a difference in view. Though I'd personally agree with the engineer.

[Gillianren]

The philosopher's side of the debate reminds me of the sort of thing you talk about in the dorms at two in the morning. It sounds all powerful and deep, and then you wake up the next morning and realize it wasn't. The question works for bacteria, but not for something which doesn't just reproduce by cell division.

[Fazor]

A lot of this discussion seems to argue about the cloning process as we know it; however the first panel of the cartoon only says "if a duplicate you was made". I took that to mean some as-now unknown (and likely impossible) process that exactly copies you atom by atom in an instant, rather than cultivates a new living being through what we know as cloning. That said:

The philosopher's side of the debate reminds me of the sort of thing you talk about in the dorms at two in the morning. It sounds all powerful and deep, and then you wake up the next morning and realize it wasn't. The question works for bacteria, but not for something which doesn't just reproduce by cell division.

I agree; the cartoonist needed a better philosophical question to propose. A copy is a copy, even if it's identical to the original. It just is.

[nauthiz]

I agree; the cartoonist needed a better philosophical question to propose. A copy is a copy, even if it's identical to the original. It just is.

If I understand what the idea was, then I think the real problem is that the philosopher in the cartoon worded the question poorly.

The hypothetical isn't supposed to be that you take an object and then Xerox it. It's supposed to be that it sort of splits by binary fission, like in the bacteria example mentioned above, except the additional assumption is that the two "child" objects both perfectly identical to the original.


As I mentioned, it's a sort of contrived situation, but a situation like this can and does happen in computer science. There's an operation called "forking" where a process is split into two identical copies - same code, same data, same everything. Depending on how the computer's operating environment is set up, it is possible to end up in a situation where the child processes have any way of distinguishing between each other. (In reality the case is that one is a copy of the other and they can be distinguished, but that information isn't necessarily available to the program.) A situation like that can be a real problem. Usually if you're forking a process it's because you want the two child processes to be doing two different tasks, and if they're given no way to reliably and consistently identify themselves according to some "original/copy"-type distinction, then it's potentially much harder for the programmer to ensure that each does a different task instead of both doing the same task and the other being neglected.

So of course in any well-designed system the operating environment does supply both of the children with some way to distinguish between themselves. But there are always poorly-designed systems.


All this by way of saying, the question isn't just stoner philosophy. Computer software is abstract, sure, but it's not imaginary, and it is possible for a software engineer who hasn't really thought about the problem this philosopher is talking about to unwittingly create a design flaw that lives in the real world.

[HenrikOlsen]

As I mentioned, it's a sort of contrived situation, but a situation like this can and does happen in computer science. There's an operation called "forking" where a process is split into two identical copies - same code, same data, same everything.

Except for their process id and the return value of the fork() call. The parent is returned the process id of the child, the child gets 0.

Basically one steps into the duplicator and two steps out, each is handed a card one saying "you're a clone" the other saying "you're the original".

[crosscountry]

A lot of this discussion seems to argue about the cloning process as we know it; however the first panel of the cartoon only says "if a duplicate you was made". I took that to mean some as-now unknown (and likely impossible) process that exactly copies you atom by atom in an instant, rather than cultivates a new living being through what we know as cloning. That said:


I agree; the cartoonist needed a better philosophical question to propose. A copy is a copy, even if it's identical to the original. It just is.

The philosopher and many other people would disagree.


Something more subtle that hasn't been addressed yet is what happens after the duplicate is created. From that point on they two people will have different experiences and react differently to external pressures. Say the 1st has a wife. Well, the 2nd isn't going to sleep in the same bet as her. Or imagine that someone mistakes the 2nd for the 1st and confides with him. Now the 1st doesn't know what happened and has to ask the 2nd. From the moment of conception they are different people. Therefore the question is flawed because it even if it were possible to duplicate someone, they will never be the same.

[KaiYeves]

Obviously it isn't possible to anlyse the exchange without bringing one's own preconceptions into it. As an engineer, I'd like to think that the engineer "won" by deflating the pompous, pseudo-intellectual claptrap of the philosopher with practical, down-to-earth, calling-a-spade-a-spade, no-nonsense answers.

Same here. I'd say the engineer won.

[harkeppler]

Yes, "if"...

"perfect duplicates" are ruled out by the Pauli principle if not made out of bosones...

[Donnie B.]

One big difference: the Philosopher lives in the world of abstract ideas, so things like perfect duplicates are possible. The Engineer lives in the real world, where the constraints of Physics (known and not-yet-known) must apply.

Since I'm an Engineer, you can probably guess which world I live in most of the time (and who I think won). But I enjoy occasional visits to the other world, too.

[Canis Lupus]

The first thing to note about the cartoon is the way philosophers are visually represented, bald or bearded. Apparently engineers are best represented by someone young and haired, while philosophers are old, bald and bearded.

One big difference: the Philosopher lives in the world of abstract ideas, so things like perfect duplicates are possible. The Engineer lives in the real world, where the constraints of Physics (known and not-yet-known) must apply.

I'm not sure which philosophical system you are basing your post on when you state "so things like perfect duplicates are possible", but it is not one I am familiar with. The one I am most familiar with is Plato's - said by some to be the cornerstone of western philosophy, and, to mix a metaphor perhaps, which all subsequent western philosophy is no more than a footnote to - an idea I would happily agree with.

Plato's Theory of Forms says the opposite to your idea about abstractions being capable of perfect duplications, and is at odds with the cartoon's question. His theory, which he regarded as a reality and taught it as such, as did Euclid (also a Platonist), is that the abstractions are the originals, and we are surrounded in what we call the physical universe with the imperfect copies of those abstractions, labelled by Plato as Forms.

Euclidean geometry, with its fundamental definitions making its geometrical constructions physically impossible, provide a practical model as to how this works. All attempts to draw an Euclidean construction are impossible because they, as physically represented constructions, are only an approximation of the abstract - the abstract being the reality, not the drawn construction, which cannot conform to its description in the physical world. This was one of the points Plato was making in his Cave Allegory, with the shadows cast on the wall, being imperfect and illusionary copies of the Forms (abstractions).

To the Platonic philosopher, living in the abstract world is not possible while being physical, but may be appreciated or grasped by use of the mind considering metaphysics. Geometry to Plato was of vital importance in this endeavour because it provided a "metaphysical two way street" when considered as it was intended, from the metaphysical to the physical and back again. To him, the idea (Form) is reality, not the copies or shadows cast on the cave wall, which only provide a representation or approximation of the idea.

There are different types of philosophy, of course. Aristotle himself, a student of Plato's, parted company with Plato's ideas, but Plato has always been the master in terms of approaching a coherent system of thought dealing with reality. Aristotle lacked coherence, was contrived rather than real, and to the Platonic philosopher, Aristotle's thinking based itself on a flawed source - the shadow of reality, not reality itself.

Getting back to the cartoon, the engineer won; the philosophers represented being the hair-splitting variety, more closely related to the likes of Betrand Russell than Plato, which might explain the baldness. It's not surprising that the cartoon concerned itself with the idea of duplication in its attempt to create a philosophical issue, it just distorted the issue a bit to make it comical, but the issue itself is fundamental to philosophy and its attempts to grasp reality - is now, as it was in ancient Greece.

[JamesMasten]

Well, I see a lot of engineers siding with their cartooned colleague in this debate, and that's to be expected. In the interests of full disclosure, I am that philosopher friend of Don's, so I think we all know which side I'm going to take in this debate. And that side is of course:

What? Who cares? It's a cartoon. Both sides are cartoons. They are making cartoony arguments. When we want to know whether cats or dogs are better (A most real and serious of debates, I assure you) do we appeal to Garfield? Between Garfield and Odie, who wins? I don't know, but I sure find both of them asinine.

But perhaps that's unfair. Perhaps it's unfair to compare this debate to one of the most insipid comics in existence. I suppose it might be more correct to compare this to the ranks of "A Priest, A Rabbi and an X walk into a bar" jokes that press ever upon us at social events. In the question of who wins in those jokes the answer is probably "the member whose religion matches the religion of the teller." Many of you have taken this course and suggested that the author must be a this or a that because he makes this or that side look better.

I've been reading SMBC since close to it's start and I'll say that he makes fun of both sides. His philosopher jokes tend to focus on their abstract and absurd nature. His engineering jokes tend to focus on their over preciseness and their nerdiness. Both are accurate enough to create humorous caricatures. Neither are metaphysical treatsies on what really exists. Seriously those of you who are suggesting that this amounts to a "creationist cartoon of Darwinism" would do well to look through the archives a bit before making such unfounded (from both a scientific and philosophic perspective) conclusions.

Here are but a few examples of what I mean, taken mostly from comics I recalled from the past few months. Philosophers as absurd. Engineers as nerds. Physics v Philos v Engins. Astronomer v neurologist v engineer (QUICK START A THREAD TO FIND OUT WHO WON IN THESE LAST TWO! IT IS IMPORTANT!)

And here's one for all of you Bad Astronomers. (Does this mean he is anti-astronomy? He must be right? or is he just a dude making jokes?)

As to the rest of this thread. I wish I could explain to you all in simple and unmistakable terms why I think you're wrong, why I think that both philosophy and science are important, but I don't think i can. Regardless your mistakes and misapprehensions make me sad. Seriously. ::Sad face::

On a personal note, when I first saw this cartoon a few days ago I laughed. The philosophic argument contained in it is bad, but close enough that I recognized what he was getting at. (if you would like me to rephrase the philosophic point he's getting at, I will. Though I think others in this thread have tried and come close enough) I sent it to a very good of friend of mine who I'll call "Chris." Chris studied as and started his career as a chemical engineer (As he tells the story, he saw a chart somewhere in his high school days that compared years of schooling vs. median expected wage and choose chemical engineering because it required the least school vs the highest wage. If that doesn't assure you of his engineeringness I don't know what will.) He didn't hate it per-se but decided it was not for him. He ended up using the computer science he had learned as part of his engineering degree to build data-systems and such for large corporations. He realized that he still hated his job and was spending most of his free time reading philosophy in a dark apartment while drinking (these last two things are assumptions on my part, but well grounded assumptions, I assure you). Due to this he quit his job and went back to school to pursue a masters in philosophy, which is where I met him. He is now well on his way to a Ph.D and a much better philosopher than me, but he's still in many ways very much an engineer. So if you think the two are mutually exclusive I have strong anecdotal evidence they are not.

On a secondary and almost totally unrelated note, the cartoon that reminds me most of him and our discussions is this one: BUT WHY?!? The reason is thus: Our school was going to have a conference and was trying to decide on a good topic. Many reasonable suggestions were thrown out: Environmentalism. Globalism. Ethics. etc. I forget what they ended up choosing. But after the meeting Chris and I went out for the drinks (as is our want) and tried to find the optimal conference topic. We agreed that the best thing was to combine as many topics as possible into one large conference. The answer? Well of course it would be normative globalized environmentalism. What does that mean? Well it means that the ethical (normative) thing to do is to make the entire world (the environment) as homogeneous (globalized) as possible. (this is what philosophers do when we drink. This should give you more fuel for your hatefire. Enjoy it. Use it to your best advantage.) Somehow our conversation turned to animals, they being part of the environment, and from there to crocodiles. We again agreed that the thing to do was to make sure that the animal we chose to globalize could survive in any environment, which entailed making crocodiles flying, intelligent predators so that they could exist in any of the homologous environments that existed. And that's what that cartoon reminds me of.

(by the way, if you don't know, if you hover your mouse over the little red button at the bottom of each of the comics you get an extra little joke by the cartoonist. Enjoy.)

[mugaliens]

Some are both. Different hats, same head.

[Nereid]

Well, I see a lot of engineers siding with their cartooned colleague in this debate, and that's to be expected. In the interests of full disclosure, I am that philosopher friend of Don's, so I think we all know which side I'm going to take in this debate. And that side is of course:

What? Who cares? It's a cartoon. Both sides are cartoons. They are making cartoony arguments. When we want to know whether cats or dogs are better (A most real and serious of debates, I assure you) do we appeal to Garfield? Between Garfield and Odie, who wins? I don't know, but I sure find both of them asinine.

But perhaps that's unfair. Perhaps it's unfair to compare this debate to one of the most insipid comics in existence. I suppose it might be more correct to compare this to the ranks of "A Priest, A Rabbi and an X walk into a bar" jokes that press ever upon us at social events. In the question of who wins in those jokes the answer is probably "the member whose religion matches the religion of the teller." Many of you have taken this course and suggested that the author must be a this or a that because he makes this or that side look better.

I've been reading SMBC since close to it's start and I'll say that he makes fun of both sides. His philosopher jokes tend to focus on their abstract and absurd nature. His engineering jokes tend to focus on their over preciseness and their nerdiness. Both are accurate enough to create humorous caricatures. Neither are metaphysical treatsies on what really exists. Seriously those of you who are suggesting that this amounts to a "creationist cartoon of Darwinism" would do well to look through the archives a bit before making such unfounded (from both a scientific and philosophic perspective) conclusions.

Here are but a few examples of what I mean, taken mostly from comics I recalled from the past few months. Philosophers as absurd. Engineers as nerds. Physics v Philos v Engins. Astronomer v neurologist v engineer (QUICK START A THREAD TO FIND OUT WHO WON IN THESE LAST TWO! IT IS IMPORTANT!)

And here's one for all of you Bad Astronomers. (Does this mean he is anti-astronomy? He must be right? or is he just a dude making jokes?)

As to the rest of this thread. I wish I could explain to you all in simple and unmistakable terms why I think you're wrong, why I think that both philosophy and science are important, but I don't think i can. Regardless your mistakes and misapprehensions make me sad. Seriously. ::Sad face::

On a personal note, when I first saw this cartoon a few days ago I laughed. The philosophic argument contained in it is bad, but close enough that I recognized what he was getting at. (if you would like me to rephrase the philosophic point he's getting at, I will. Though I think others in this thread have tried and come close enough) I sent it to a very good of friend of mine who I'll call "Chris." Chris studied as and started his career as a chemical engineer (As he tells the story, he saw a chart somewhere in his high school days that compared years of schooling vs. median expected wage and choose chemical engineering because it required the least school vs the highest wage. If that doesn't assure you of his engineeringness I don't know what will.) He didn't hate it per-se but decided it was not for him. He ended up using the computer science he had learned as part of his engineering degree to build data-systems and such for large corporations. He realized that he still hated his job and was spending most of his free time reading philosophy in a dark apartment while drinking (these last two things are assumptions on my part, but well grounded assumptions, I assure you). Due to this he quit his job and went back to school to pursue a masters in philosophy, which is where I met him. He is now well on his way to a Ph.D and a much better philosopher than me, but he's still in many ways very much an engineer. So if you think the two are mutually exclusive I have strong anecdotal evidence they are not.

On a secondary and almost totally unrelated note, the cartoon that reminds me most of him and our discussions is this one: BUT WHY?!? The reason is thus: Our school was going to have a conference and was trying to decide on a good topic. Many reasonable suggestions were thrown out: Environmentalism. Globalism. Ethics. etc. I forget what they ended up choosing. But after the meeting Chris and I went out for the drinks (as is our want) and tried to find the optimal conference topic. We agreed that the best thing was to combine as many topics as possible into one large conference. The answer? Well of course it would be normative globalized environmentalism. What does that mean? Well it means that the ethical (normative) thing to do is to make the entire world (the environment) as homogeneous (globalized) as possible. (this is what philosophers do when we drink. This should give you more fuel for your hatefire. Enjoy it. Use it to your best advantage.) Somehow our conversation turned to animals, they being part of the environment, and from there to crocodiles. We again agreed that the thing to do was to make sure that the animal we chose to globalize could survive in any environment, which entailed making crocodiles flying, intelligent predators so that they could exist in any of the homologous environments that existed. And that's what that cartoon reminds me of.

(by the way, if you don't know, if you hover your mouse over the little red button at the bottom of each of the comics you get an extra little joke by the cartoonist. Enjoy.)

I'm bumping this because no one seems to have responded to any part of it!

What would two of the flying crocodiles have said, had they been intelligent?

[grant hutchison]

I'm bumping this because no one seems to have responded to any part of it!

I had a response, but never got around to posting it. I thought someone else might remark on it, and then forgot. Since you've raised it again:

Of course it's a cartoon. Pointing out that it's just a cartoon is a little like pointing out that a Rorschach test is just inkblots. The arguments are cartoonish, and bear only a passing resemblance to real arguments, in the same way Rorschach bears only a passing resemblance to two dancers or a skull.
What's interesting (to me, anyway, and the reason I started the thread) is how people respond to this cartoonish outline of an argument: how they fill in the gaps, and how they leave stuff out that doesn't accord with their first impression.

Grant Hutchison

[Ken G]

The first thing to note about the cartoon is the way philosophers are visually represented, bald or bearded. Apparently engineers are best represented by someone young and haired, while philosophers are old, bald and bearded.

Yes, I noticed that too-- it's part of why I do think the cartoonist is making the philosopher the butt of the joke, while, in my opinion, taking the perspective of the engineer as the perspective of the cartoonist. Imagine the appearance of that cartoonist-- which do you suspect is the closer match?

It's not surprising that the cartoon concerned itself with the idea of duplication in its attempt to create a philosophical issue, it just distorted the issue a bit to make it comical, but the issue itself is fundamental to philosophy and its attempts to grasp reality - is now, as it was in ancient Greece.

I'm not sure I see what you are saying that contradicts Donnie B., but I think you make a valid point-- the issue of whether the duplication is regarded as holding in the realm of the shadows on the cave, or of the Forms, seems quite essential to establish. No one is metaphysically troubled if two shadows on a wall are indistinguishable-- they merely conclude the projection has lost something vital, something that would have distinguished the sources. But indistinguishability in the Forms themselves would have been a more troubling aspect, if that model is being used-- if two Forms are indistinguishable, even as Forms, then they are the same Form. That might parallel the idea that our bodies live in the realm of shadows on the cave, but our minds live in the realms of the Forms, and it should not be possible to duplicate our minds, as there would be definitively only one of each.

Of course, I think modern science has an uncomfortable relationship with Platonic Forms-- the materialistic direction that physics took with Newtonian law briefly subjugated the Form to the shadow, as the shadow was no longer something distilled from the aethereal Form, the Form was something distilled from the physical shadow. Nevertheless, our more recent highly rationalist theories of fundamental mathematical structures (field theories in particular, and now string theories) that are thought to underlie and support the more materialistic manifestations of experimental physics, and by implication, all of reality, seem much more like a return to the physical being distilled from Forms that are only accessible via abstract thought. But modern physics hasn't really decided if a perfect copy of a person means copying all the states of all their atoms, or if it means copying a field-theoretical structure whose existence predates and underlies the crude mechanistic construct of a bunch of atoms. We find ourselves in the rather bizarre predicament of conceptualizing two people who are not identical at the level of our deepest abstract constructs, but think they are the same, and are measured in every way accessible to our instruments as the same. Does that qualify them as indistinguishable in every way, or just indistinguishable using our crude measuring techniques? One fairly trivial example of this general point is that in quantum mechanics, multiplying the state of a system by an arbitrary complex phase does not change any measurements done on the system, but it is a different "wave function" at the abstract level.

Or another example, John Wheeler speculated that there was only one electron in the universe, which weaved its way back and forth through time, via the positrons, so that it could be in all the vastly many places we find electrons. This would explain why physics must treat all electrons as identical-- one Form, many shadows. However, the view was never widely taken on, so I believe it must have had some problems. Assuming the idea doesn't work, we find ourselves again in the strange circumstance of having any two electrons be identical in every way that we might try to label them or distinguish their fundamental characteristics (a fact that changes their physics in important ways in materials), yet the way we conceptualize the two electrons as abstract concepts is that there are in fact two separate electrons there. It is one of the many ways that our physics really doesn't hold philosophical water, which many would tend to discount as irrelevant, but I would tend to suspect means it isn't really right-- and will one day be replaced by something righter that avoids the philosophical pitfall of indistinguishable yet separate particles. If that lesson from individual particles has something to say about humans and minds, then it might shed some light on the OP issue, if we can wait that long to find out.

A way to sum that all up is to ask, how do we know the question comes down to which is the copy, or if they both are-- are we not overlooking the remaining possibility, that both are the original? That's actually the tack taken in the "Next Generation" episode where Riker got copied in a transporter mishap. So much for the engineer, I guess he wasn't a "Trekkie."

[Disinfo Agent]

One big difference: the Philosopher lives in the world of abstract ideas, so things like perfect duplicates are possible. The Engineer lives in the real world, where the constraints of Physics (known and not-yet-known) must apply.

Isn't it quantum mechanics -- i.e. physics -- which asserts that all electrons are indistinguishable?

It's easy to deride philosophy, until you stumble upon it. But many people don't even seem to be aware of what they've stumbled on. This, if nothing else, makes philosophy worthy of interest.

My take on the cartoon is that the "engineer" is not as knowledgeable of science as he believes himself to be.

P.S. Apologies if I'm repeating other posters. I haven't had the chance to read the whole thread.

[Ken G]

It's easy to deride philosophy, until you stumble upon it. But many people don't even seem to be aware of what they've stumbled on.

Indeed-- they continue to deride it even after stumbling on it. Their logic seems to be something like "the only thing I can stumble over is a rock, so if it's not a rock, then I could not have stumbled over it. Therefore, I did not stumble over it, and can get up on my own thank you."

This, if nothing else, makes philosophy worthy of interest.

Good point, by feeling such a pervasive need to deny philosophy, they inadvertently stumble over one of the things that is important about philosophy-- the way it challenges our assumptions about what is important in the first place. The engineer has no interest in challenging his own assumptions in that regard, and is thus seemingly unaware of what that reveals about him, both to the philosopher, and to the reader.