[lbo-talk] The Ontology of Two Chairs (was Reich on sex & religion)

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Sat Jan 1 10:42:54 PST 2005


There is no "mathematics" apart from people. There is "what is," which possibly operates according to certain "laws" -- we don't know because that level of being is not commensurate with how knowledge operates.

Knowledge operates by casting a kind of cognitive net over the given "data flow." The cognitive net is defined by culture. What it catches in the net, it calls "reality," "the laws of nature," etc., but it is always and by definition a partial view if you accept the thesis that the universe is dynamic/ever-changing.

The fact that this partial view can be used to make the billiard ball go into the pocket or the ariplane stay up in the sky, does not make our "science" "truer" than someone else's science in an absolute sense.

There have been any number of excellent critiques of universalist/absolute science in the 20th century, and they make for fascinating reading. I already mentioned Jacob Klein with respect to math, there's also Feyerabend of course, Cristopher Caudwell (The Crisis in Physics, Illusion and Reality), and all the phenomenologists.

Joanna

Jon Johanning wrote:


> On Dec 31, 2004, at 12:44 PM, joanna bujes wrote:
>
>> 2+2 = 4 if you count as far as four. In some cultures, everything on
>> the other side of three is infinity.
>
>
> If so, they have a knowledge of mathematics that won't get them very
> far, though it may be enough for their life-styles. It's sort of like
> a small society living in a valley which to them is the whole world,
> since they've never been out of it. They think it's the whole world,
> but they're wrong.
>
> You are talking about a culture's *knowledge* of mathematics, not
> mathematics itself. This is a common problem with sociologists, etc.
> -- confusing what people know or believe about a subject with the
> subject itself.
>
> Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
> __________________________
> The very existence of the state demands that there be some privileged
> class vitally interested in maintaining that existence. And it is
> precisely the group interests of that class that are called
> patriotism. -- Mikhail Bakunin, Letters on Patriotism, 1869
>
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>
> .
>



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