Hi Jack, I'd like to take advantage of your post to raise an issue that is related--but not directly--to what you are discussing.
You wrote, "What has made mathematics so important in science, especially physics, is the need for replacing word-fuzziness with precision in prediction."* * Although no one can doubt the importance of mathematics to physics and the other sciences, what do you think of this somewhat contrary position. The damage mathematics has done to science is that it has substituted numbers for concepts. Mathematics is a language of equations and numbers. Of course equations operate within frameworks, which themselves involve concepts--such as dimensionality, symmetry, etc. These are important concepts. But the equations themselves are conceptless. They are simply relationships among numbers that match observation. I suspect that this is one of the reasons the general public is turned off to much of science. The equations don't speak to them. I would say that the equations don't speak to scientists either except to the extent that they manage to interpret them in terms of concepts: this is the strength of this field; this is the mass of this object; etc. But the concepts are not part of the equations. And (famously) quantum mechanics has no concepts for its equations! The equations work, but no one can conceptualize what they mean. So how should one think about quantum mechanics? As a black box with dials one can read? What should the public think about quantum mechanics if that's the best that scientists can do? I can think of two primary goals for science: to understand nature and to give us some leverage over nature. Equations give us the leverage; concepts give us the understanding. -- Russ On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Jack Leibowitz <jrl...@earthlink.net>wrote: > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
