Indivisible [was Re: From Review of Bio of Tom Stoppard...]

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/4/02 10:29:31 AM, paul.mackin at verizon.net writes:

<< That technological inventions contibute to historical outcomes would never
be disputed. However it sounds here almost like you are hinting at more.
Sounds like you (or maybe Pynchon)  are suggesting that the mathematical
invention of calculus changed thinking processes in some way as to allow an
intelligent acceptance of certain outcomes in the social and political
realms that without the insight of calculus might not be acceptable or even
occur.

Or do the radius or convergence, etc.,  serve mainly as a metaphor for
certain  historical outcomes? I probably would have thought the latter.
 but wonder what others think. >>

W/r/t technological inventions and historical outcomes,
the cart and horse seem to be contesting for priority. That
is, it's difficult to say which led the way. 

A clue from Butterfield:

    Change and discovery were bound to come in cascades
    even if there were no other factors working for a
    scientific revolution...

    Apart from all this there was one special feature of
    the problem which made the issue momentous... the
    peculiar character of that Aristotelian universe in
    which the things that were in motion had to be 
    accompanied by a mover all the time. A universe
    constructed on the mechanics of Aristotle had the
    door half-way open for spirits already; it was a
    universe in which unseen Intelligences had to roll
    the planetary spheres around. Alternatively, bodies
    had to be endowed with souls and aspirations, with
    a "disposition" to certain kinds of motions, so that
    matter itself seemed to possess mystical qualities.
    The modern law of inertia, the modern theory of
    motion, is the great factor which in the seventeenth
    century helped to drive the spirits out of the world
    and opened the way to a universe that ran like a 
    piece of clockwork. [The Origins of Modern Science
    1300-1800, Free Press, 1965, p.18]

Basically, Aristotelian mechanics was under attack from the
1400's. Copernicus and then Gallileo provided the death blows,
but given the church's embrace of Ari, it was not just a scientific
theory that was to crumble, but reality itself. Newtonian
mechanics would come along in time to re-establish a sense of
control and order in a universe in which humanity was no longer
at the center of things, but at a price. The revolution seems
first to have occurred in the minds of a few geniuses. The 
technological golem was but a twinkle reflected in the eye of 
the horse, that would eventually become iron.

This is a gross and semi-accurate argument, I know, but I'm
still pressed for time.

regards