[alice wellintown]

Wha?
Respect the conceptual divides which obtain in science?


In any event, science, big science and big math are subjected to P's
satire.

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013, Prashant Kumar wrote:

> I of course agree that science needs critics, critics who look at its
> cultural *as well as* conceptual dimensions. My point is just that in
> doing so, we have to respect the conceptual divides which obtain in
> science.
>
> As to comments above on mathematics, mathematics is *not* independent of
> science. Physical theory relies on mathematics, and if we accept results
> following from physics, then we need to admit that mathematical
> structures have some empirical basis<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/>.
> Let's take this argument further still, and say that mathematics which
> isn't invoked in physics constitutes a giant archive of (unrealised)
> possibilities. In other words, one can argue that *quantitative* *
> representation* is contingent, and divides into the realised and the
> counterfactual. In such a picture, mathematics is a formalised way of
> making counterfactual statements about physical reality. This a variant of
> Constructivism, and is counter to the mathematical Platonism you seem to
> assume, bandwraith. Now, the truth statements made in mathematics are of a
> different class than those made by science: mathematical truths which do
> not have empirical basis are riffs on reality. And, all of mathematics is
> just possible (counterfactually speaking) physics. The concept of rigor
> goes out the window, since it is easy to make rigorous statements if they
> are epistemic, rather than ontic. The truth criteria of science and maths
> are, in the account just given, incommensurable.
>
> This opens up an interesting possibility. Consider quantitative truths
> which *do* have some basis in reality; that is, they describe some
> physical phenomenon. Well, why can't we test a theorem by doing an
> experiment? If theorem T_1 is true, then phenomenon P_1 will occur, else
> P_2. In quantum physics, it is now possible to conceive of a kind of
> quantum computer which could prove theorems through experiment, in just
> this fashion. The subtle cheat is that we are not proceeding inductively,
> but deductively. Indeed, parts of string theory (the sci am article I
> linked in the gravity thread; "the thing" is called AdS/CFT) have been
> tested in a similar fashion.
>
> Prashant
>
>
> On 17 April 2013 11:36, <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Interesting you should mention that. Arguing against "science" is like
> arguing that there's no such thing as gravity. Which is fine to do, but
> what is the counter-explanation for all the phenomenon that General
> Relativity explains? Until one comes up with a better explanation, GR
> stands. That's the beauty of science. Unlike religion, it's open to
> challenge. There is a backdoor way to attack the scientific process,
> however, that is less boneheaded, and that's to attack the language, after
> Gallileo, in which it finds expression- mathematics, which is often taken
> for granted. Statistics is the obvious but not the most fundamental
> example. Many scientific hypothesis are accepted or rejected on the
> strength of a statistical analysis of measurements of some kind. The
> assumptions behind statistical validity can be faulty, but science protects
> itself from this by admitting that possibility and allowing for
> reinterpretation and possible rejection of previously accepted results. The
> final description however will still generally be in mathematical terms.
> Biology, which has resisted this trend for a long time, in favor of a
> purely descriptive approach, is also becoming more and more computational.
> And even if biological meaning demands a qualitative framework, many of the
> techniques involved in biological science are heavily dependent on
> mathematical inferences.
>
> But Mathematics is completely un-empirical and completely independent of
> science! Truth, as it is understood mathematically, does not require a
> single empirical observation. It is a purely logical exercise, and much
> more rigorous in its proofs than science. Mathematics would never settle
> for an empirical proof. It may be that reality, in a scientific sense,
> happens to be perfectly congruent and consistent with a mathematical
> description, but that possibility is not a given, otherwise String Theory,
> for example, would be true on the basis of mathematics alone.
>
> Furthermore, mathematics itself, as Pynchon has humorously indicated, is
> by no means a closed case- with all its questions locked up. Science, by
> keeping close to the empirical, avoids these problems. It is a question
> that is suggested by the current cover of The Bleeding Edge- the vanishing
> point- where all dichotomy comes to a final resolution, in this case, the
> divide between description and the described, or, epistemology and
> ontology. Choose your complementary terms.
>
> In the end it is a question of how we know. Mathematics, the chosen
> language of science, is as close to art and music and poetry, as it is
> to dirt and air and stardust- and just as prone to flights of fantasy.
> Algebra is perfectly logical. No such proof exists for reality.
>
> p.s. Anybody made it to The Museum of Mathematics yet? Worth the trip?
>
>      http://momath.org/
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Tue, Apr 16, 2013 5:59 pm
> Subject: Re:
>
> This is a smart post with which I agree.  I would add that science is a
> method -- of investigation and discovery.  To rail against science is like
> railing against algebra.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Mon, Apr 15, 2013 7:36 pm
> Subject: Re:
>
>  So, a couple of things; a two-step if you like: reification and
> generalisation.
>
>  First: science is not a contiguous set of practices. It is not
> monolithic, and therefore its meat and method is not isolable in the way
> our dear interlocutors have presumed. So, whatever you say about the
> ethical colour of man or machine depends peculiarly on man, machine, and
> the way the former uses and is changed by, the latter. *See also*:
> technologies of the self. Variegated of course by a soupcon of historicism.
>
>  What I'm saying maybe does seem irrelevant, but consider that the kind
> of science we get -- fr
>
>
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