[Keith Davis]

Isn't science trying to reconcile the seeming arbitrariness? Maybe it is
all mathematical?


On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 11:14 AM, <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:

> Clarifying my position a bit, I guess I would say that science
> sometimes seems to legitimize itself by appealing to mathematical formulae,
> as if those were somehow the key to the real relationships between the
> phenomenon under scrutiny. The mathematics itself, however, while true from
> a logical perspective, might not reflect reality, which can be damn
> arbitrary. It is in that sense- the overly exhuberant faith in mathematics-
> that I'm suggesting science may be open to criticism, and why I found
> malign's comment that criticizing science is like criticizing algebra, to
> be interesting. Math and Science both have a stake in the description of
> reality, and they are both self-correcting, either through logical or
> empirical testing, and they are somehow co-dependent, but they resist being
> equated, and must stand on there own.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Apr 17, 2013 10:25 am
> Subject: Re:
>
>  I don't necessarily accept your somewhat arbitrary division of
> mathematics into "the realised and the counterfactual." I don't assume
> mathematical Platonism, I was criticizing it. I'm fine with
> Constructivism/Intuitionism, but most mathematicians and scientists,
> whether they admit it or not, are Platonists- it's just more convenient to
> accept The Law of The Excluded Middle.
>
> I'm also fine with the empirical nature of science. It's the dependence of
> science on mathematics, especially a Platonic based mathematics, that
> bothers me. A physical theory can be thoroughly vetted from a
> logical/mathematical point of view and turn out to be wrong. The
> adjustments then made by scientists to accommodate the "new reality" may
> inspire new mathematics, so maybe the two are co-dependent. Any new
> mathematics, however, will be proven true or false or undecidable according
> to the rules of logic, which do not demand the specification of initial
> events, so necessary for an empirical explanation of reality. Platonism
> remains outside of time- no beginning, no end. It can't determine initial
> events, that can only be done empirically, by measurement.
>  You can test a scientific theorem by doing an experiment and refine a
> law of physics with the outcome. I'm fine with that. Attempting to prove a
> mathematical theorem experimentally- with a quantum based computer- might
> be dragging us over the bleeding edge. I would say you are still doing
> physics. You would still have to arbitrarily set the initial starting point
> of the computation. I'm also fine with the notion of computation as a
> physical process- as an aid in studying mathematical processes- no problem.
> I'm not sure that all mathematical truths can be determined by physical
> computation, however.
>
>  -----Original Message---
> From: Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
> To: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>; bandwraith <
> bandwraith at aol.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Apr 17, 2013 12:12 am
> Subject: Re:
>
>  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 -- from methods to what specifically is studied, and how
>> -- depends on the medley of personalities, funding and need one finds in
>> modern scientific contexts. To call it "science" and then sort it into the
>> right morality-bin is to discuss a  *popular, a layman's, version* of
>> science. It's fine, but don't expect such an analysis to say anything about
>> "real science". Prejudice, greed, and the fleshandblood motivations of
>> modern scientists are *indispensable *to discovery. *See also:* *Against
>> Method 4th ed., *Paul Feyerabend.
>>
>>  To say "science gave us computers" is to say quite literally nothing.
>> How? What sequence of discoveries produces a computer? and, now, should I
>> permute the order? What then? One more: how can we be sure of
>> counterfactuals: *"**devices which wouldn't exist were it not for
>> science." *?* *This is a stronger statement than it appears. Is science a
>> * *unique historical process, with equally unique material correlates? *See
>> also:* *Historical Ontology, *Ian Hacking.
>>
>>  Let me say as well, this discussion calls on a particularly Western
>> suppressed premise: the moral rectitude of progress itself. So what if we
>> don't have computers? Fuck 'em.
>>
>>  And now to generalisation. I'm sure you see where I'm going by now, so
>> let me just say this. The choices scientists are presented with, and the
>> decisions which they make, differ in substance between disciplines. And
>> technological innovation from scientific discovery *is a process
>> distinct from science itself.  **See also:* You figure it out...
>>
>>  P
>>
>>
>> On 16 April 2013 08:04, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I didn't say anyone attacked me. I don't think anyone did.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Rev'd Seventy-Six <revd.76 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>  "...rather than argue against what I've argued, which is, that
>>>> science is the new religion, the greatest risk to life on Earth, the
>>>> P-Lister elected to distort my argument and recast it as an atack on people
>>>> who work in science or scientists."
>>>>
>>>>  For starters, it wasn't an attack on you personally; point of fact, it
>>>> wasn't an attack at all.  It was a ramble and probably poorly written,
>>>> sparked by confusion which caused me to ask you to clarify your position--
>>>>  which I couldn't quite tell was farcical or not, considering we're having
>>>> this little chat on devices that allow to communicate over vast distances
>>>>  --devices which wouldn't exist were it not for science.  For as many
>>>> hazards as you might argue science has produced, it has produced an equal
>>>> number of benefits.  I don't see it as being particularly sacred, but I do
>>>> think it's taken an unfair number of knocks over the last little while
>>>> because there's this weird tendency to characterize a vast, fascinating
>>>> field encompassing a scintillating number of disciplines as somehow being
>>>> Against Humanity.  In P there's a certain cautiousness throughout to the
>>>> uses of science, and that's what I thought we were discussing, not whether
>>>> or not capital-S science were going to stomp us with Karloff size twelves
>>>> for our failure to be god-fearing enough.
>>>>
>>>>  You've again stated science is the greatest risk to life on earth,
>>>> which I don't hold to be any more or less true than the statement that
>>>> human greed is the greatest risk to life on earth.  We're at an impasse, is
>>>> all.  Not a matter of fault if we disagree.  Again, sorry for any offense.
>>>>
>>>>  -David
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>


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