Posted by
Chris Feola on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/art-and-science-tp2017485p2017671.html
A fascinating discussion. E.O. Wilson made much the
same point in his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, where he argued that
a narrow reliance on mathmatics had destroyed philosophy in particular, while in
general an increasing reliance on specialization and mathmatics had handicapped
scientists, limiting new hypothesis to variation of current thinking in a
particular discipline.
cjf
Christopher J.
Feola
President
nextPression,
Inc.
www.nextPression.com
Hi Jack,
I'd like to take advantage of your post to raise an
issue that is related--but not directly--to what you are discussing.
You wrote, "
What
has made mathematics so important in science, especially physics, is the need
for replacing word-fuzziness with precision in prediction."
Although no
one can doubt the importance of mathematics to physics and the other sciences,
what do you think of this somewhat contrary position. The damage mathematics has
done to science is that it has substituted numbers for concepts.
Mathematics is a language of equations and numbers. Of course equations
operate within frameworks, which themselves involve concepts--such as
dimensionality, symmetry, etc. These are important concepts. But the equations
themselves are conceptless. They are simply relationships among numbers that
match observation. I suspect that this is one of the reasons the general public
is turned off to much of science. The equations don't speak to them. I would say
that the equations don't speak to scientists either except to the extent that
they manage to interpret them in terms of concepts: this is the strength of this
field; this is the mass of this object; etc. But the concepts are not part of
the equations. And (famously) quantum mechanics has no concepts for its
equations! The equations work, but no one can conceptualize what they mean. So
how should one think about quantum mechanics? As a black box with dials one can
read? What should the public think about quantum mechanics if that's the best
that scientists can do?
I can think of two primary goals for science: to
understand nature and to give us some leverage over nature. Equations give us
the leverage; concepts give us the understanding.
--
Russ
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Jack Leibowitz
<[hidden email]> wrote:
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