Crick on Philosophy

Francis Crick:

"...Essentially, philosophers often ask good questions, but they have no techniques for getting the ansewrs. Therefore you should not pay too much attention to their discussions. And we can ask what progress they have made. A lot of problems which were once regarded as philosophical, such as what is an atom, are now regarded as part of physics. Some people have argues that the main purpose of a philosopher is to deal with the unsolved problems, but the problems eventually get solved, and they get solved in a scientific way. If you have how many cases in the past has a philosopher been successful at solving a problem, as far as we can say there are no such cases.
Essentially, their main technique is the thought experiment, and here you can argue indefinitely. Let me give you an example-John Searle's Chinese room. You see, I think this shows just the same disadvantages. It says that if you have a system that can only deal with syntax, it can't deal with semantics. Once you've said that, you've said it all, and you haven't proved it anyway."

Heh I found this pretty amusing, mostly for it's basic truth: Philosophy doesn't solve problems. It's basically about speculation: if it were about facts it would be science. That's not to say that philosophy doesn't use facts or science as a basis: that's exactly what a good philosophy should do: it should attempt to assimilate the ideas of modern science into a cohesive whole, filling in the gaps with reason. Arguments and differing philosophies take place over the gaps rather than the facts or assimilation.

Knowing this is true doesn't really change anything for me. I can't live life without figuring out why I want to live life - I can't be motivated without understanding my motivation, and more importantly defining my most basic values and the things that are most important to me (and even further, discovering the basis for those values). As useless as philosophy might be, it's still the best solution we've got...it's why people turn to religions or to introspection to uncover these same guideposts. I'm not giving up, I'm just not too proud to laugh at my ineptitude or the futility of my struggle from time to time.