[betty boop]

Someone posted the other day that mathematics is the second cheapest science because all you need is a pencil, paper and a wastebasket. Philosophy is the cheapest, because you don't need the wastebasket.

Yes, I saw that, js1138. I thought it was a delightfully amusing comment.

All the same, it seems to me that if you have "internalized" this attitude, it will not help you very much in the quest for truth, nor in the ordering of your existence in truth. For the simple reason that the universe does not reduce to "observables" only. Neither are you so "reducible."

But if you think you can get along just hunky-dory all the same, good luck to you.

[js1138]

I think mathematics and philosophy are tools, not ends in themselves. Although there are lots of "pure" scientists, I think science is closer to being a product. Even in its theoretical form it is utilitarian.