Le 06-juin-05, à 07:14, rmiller a écrit :
Slip-ups aside, I would like to see a rigorous application of the
powerful tools of philosophy, logic and mathematics applied to the
study areas of social science, i.e. the real world. Physicists are
great at telling us why the rings of Saturn have braids, but terrible
(or worse than that, dismissive) of events that occur involving
consciousness. (Social scientists are no better---they fall back on
things like structural functionalism). I suggest its time for the
social scientists to let the logicians and mathematicians have a look
at the data, and it's time for the logicians and mathematicians to
enter the real world and make an honest attempt at trying to explain
some strange phenomena.
That asking too much?
In the long run, it could be a nice and useful project. Today it is
premature I'm afraid.
Logic is not yet applied to physics, except by a minority.
Scientific attitude is still despised in most of the human science, and
even in a big part of "exact" science.
Argument against cannabis, against the Irak war, against the "yes" or
the "no" for the european constitution are full or purely logical
errors; of the type of confusion between "p -> q" and "q -> p"
(actually that sort of errors grows exponentially since the last 20
years).
Yes you are asking too much right now. Most people still believe
Science is reductionnist, when Science is by its very nature the most
modest and antireductionnist conceivable attitude.
But go for it if you feel you can do it, sure. Now be careful of your
own prejudices, in particular the notion of coincidence is infinitely
tricky ...
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
