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.

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."

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.

This meme is making these different disciplines answer questions they were never intended to answer. It's like complaining that a school principal isn't out there teaching students: that's not their role and it would be silly to expect them to do otherwise.

Philosophers would ask something like, "what is a cat?"

Metaphysicians would ask something like, "how can we know that the cat truly exists?"

Theologians would ask something like, "what does the Bible say about cats?"

Remember, who made the flashlight for the scientist? The philosopher.

Metaphysics isn't looking for a black cat that isn't there. It's assuming that there is a black cat even though there might not be one, because flashlights don't exist yet.

Engineering is crinkling the treat bag so the cat comes to you.

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.

But observing the cat with the flashlight fundamentally affects the cat.

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.

Could it be me who doesnt know what metaphysics is? No, a whole sub-field of philosophy is actually useless and none of them see it.

Also hilarious seeing "philosophy" referred to like its a method you can use and not a whole field including everything from ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, epistemology, aesthetics, etc.

tips fedora

What's the one that's in a perfectly lit 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?

Meh. Natural sciences and philosophy/methaphisics are quite closer/more intimately linked than you seem to think.

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.

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)

Physics is like shooting balls at the cat and registering the sounds of pain to draw a shape of the creature. Except that it turns out to be also a dog at the same time

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.

Philosophy is often more like looking for things that can't be seen with a flashlight but hypothesizing that they must exist and proving it logically.

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.