[lbo-talk] Re: Scientistism

Etienne tim_boetie at fastmail.fm
Wed Oct 11 14:55:04 PDT 2006


On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 05:58:20 -0700 (PDT), "andie nachgeborenen" <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> said:
> Nonetheless, the language of nature is mathematics,
> and while you can get it in translation, you lose a
> lot, just as the very best translations of Homer
> aren't the same as reading it in Greek, or the very
> best explanations of sculpture or painting leave out
> the crucial visual experience. If that's arrogant,
> well, to paraphrase Che's remark that "it's not _my_
> fault that the world is Marxist," it's not my _my_
> fault that God wrote the world in the language of
> numbers.

It seems a bit innaccurate to characterize the sort of maths thats involved in modern science, particularly physics, as "the language of numbers," though, and maybe that's part of what's causing people to reject the centrality of maths to science. For example, Joanna wrote that:

"the numbers are only a beginning (or sometimes a diversion) as they always have to be interpreted because when you run an experiment, you get all kinds of numbers, some of them you include in your data; some you don't."

But measurement and experiment (although doubtless essential to the practice of science) are not really where maths becomes essential to understanding science. Rather, maths is the vocabulary which scientists use to describe the objects they study; particularly in physics, there simply is no other vocabulary available. Doubtless you could make one up, and you could even use "everyday" words in your new vocabulary, but you would just be finding a new way to express the maths, it seems to me. --

"The bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic; the

reverse would be better."

-- Adorno Tim http://www.huh.34sp.com/



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list