Wed Apr 17 10:23:39 CDT 2013

Arbitrariness is almost always superficial.  The more science tells us
about how the universe works, the less arbitrary things seem.

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130417/d3f109fd/attachment.html>