The Universe Is Made Of Mathematics

[Obvious Leo]

You can't really blame Plato for reflecting the endemic assumptions of his day, nor for laying the ground for a religion about which he could have had no knowledge.

Who said philosophy had to be fair?

[Obvious Leo]

That the virulent Platonist metaphysic should have so thoroughly polluted European thought for two millennia is largely an accident of history but it has an upside. If nothing else it should keep the philosophers and historians of science in gainful employment for the next couple of centuries as they try and unpick how such an appalling thing could possibly have happened.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You can't really blame Plato for reflecting the endemic assumptions of his day, nor for laying the ground for a religion about which he could have had no knowledge.

Who said philosophy had to be fair?

Can a person be blamed for non intended consequences 2 millennia ahead of time? And if the universe is not intensional, then how much less can Plato be held to be responsible for sins he only set-up?

[Hobbes' Choice]

That the virulent Platonist metaphysic should have so thoroughly polluted European thought for two millennia is largely an accident of history but it has an upside. If nothing else it should keep the philosophers and historians of science in gainful employment for the next couple of centuries as they try and unpick how such an appalling thing could possibly have happened.

I not sure I know of any scientists who are even considering unpicking this mess.

[Obvious Leo]

You can't really blame Plato for reflecting the endemic assumptions of his day, nor for laying the ground for a religion about which he could have had no knowledge.

Who said philosophy had to be fair?

Can a person be blamed for non intended consequences 2 millennia ahead of time? And if the universe is not intensional, then how much less can Plato be held to be responsible for sins he only set-up?

Of course you're quite right. Looking for somebody to blame is always the natural order of things but in fact I'm just being curmudgeonly.

I not sure I know of any scientists who are even considering unpicking this mess.

You might be quite surprised then, Hobbes. There is a considerable underground movement of theorists amongst the community of academic physics who have finally had a gutful. Ultimately the Standard Model of Particle Physics is responsible for the loss of faith and for many the Higgs boson was the last straw. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness string theory has finally gone to join phlogiston. There were always a few with grave suspicions that their beautiful equations were leading them by the nose into the treacherous waters of confirmation bias but this heretical stance is now becoming more widespread. Things are happening. A courageous few have at last noticed Thomas Kuhn who was himself a theoretical physicist as well as a leading figure in the philosophy of science. Kuhn basically said that the problem with physics wasn't a problem with physics at all and that the models of physics could not be unified until this was understood. According to Kuhn the problem with physics was a problem with the way in which we think about the world.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You might be quite surprised then, Hobbes. There is a considerable underground movement of theorists amongst the community of academic physics who have finally had a gutful. Ultimately the Standard Model of Particle Physics is responsible for the loss of faith and for many the Higgs boson was the last straw. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness string theory has finally gone to join phlogiston. There were always a few with grave suspicions that their beautiful equations were leading them by the nose into the treacherous waters of confirmation bias but this heretical stance is now becoming more widespread. Things are happening. A courageous few have at last noticed Thomas Kuhn who was himself a theoretical physicist as well as a leading figure in the philosophy of science. Kuhn basically said that the problem with physics wasn't a problem with physics at all and that the models of physics could not be unified until this was understood. According to Kuhn the problem with physics was a problem with the way in which we think about the world.

Kuhn is bread and butter to an Intellectual Historian like myself . I was first introduced to him during my BA in Archaeology. I was lucky enough to be taught by Shanks & Tilly (e.g. http://www.jstor.org/stable/529825?seq= ... b_contents) who had a fine critical understanding of the role of philosophy in the production of knowledge and together were busy unpacking the ridiculous death-grip that pure science models had infected archaeology since David Clarke introduced "Processual Archaeology" in the 1960s.
As a more exoteric and opaque view of paradigms I'd also recommend Foucault's "Archaeology of Knowledge".

[Obvious Leo]

David Clarke introduced "Processual Archaeology" in the 1960s.

Processual Physics is essentially the paradigm shift I'm advocating although Kuhn was less specific about which form a new procedure of thought for physics would need to take. You may be sure that because of my background in biology I harbour not the slightest nuance of doubt that physical reality is a process and to relate this more directly to the OP it is well known that processes cannot be modelled using Newton's classical mathematics. Thus the problem of physics is not only a metaphysical problem but also a meta-mathematical one.

As a more exoteric and opaque view of paradigms I'd also recommend Foucault's "Archaeology of Knowledge".

I read this many years ago but on your recommendation I'll dig it out of the archives for another work-over. Anybody who can take a balanced and critical approach to the methodologies of science must be taken seriously in a world where the peer review system essentially admits of no deviation whatsoever from the canon orthodoxies. That's basically why theoretical physics has been moribund for a century while the technocrats have been calling the shots. However what I'm saying is true, Hobbes. There are serious rumblings of discontent among the new generation of illuminati and the winds of change are starting to be felt. Einstein was certainly a genius but that doesn't mean he was right.

[Hobbes' Choice]

David Clarke introduced "Processual Archaeology" in the 1960s.

Processual Physics is essentially the paradigm shift I'm advocating although Kuhn was less specific about which form a new procedure of thought for physics would need to take. You may be sure that because of my background in biology I harbour not the slightest nuance of doubt that physical reality is a process and to relate this more directly to the OP it is well known that processes cannot be modelled using Newton's classical mathematics. Thus the problem of physics is not only a metaphysical problem but also a meta-mathematical one.

As a more exoteric and opaque view of paradigms I'd also recommend Foucault's "Archaeology of Knowledge".

I read this many years ago but on your recommendation I'll dig it out of the archives for another work-over. Anybody who can take a balanced and critical approach to the methodologies of science must be taken seriously in a world where the peer review system essentially admits of no deviation whatsoever from the canon orthodoxies. That's basically why theoretical physics has been moribund for a century while the technocrats have been calling the shots. However what I'm saying is true, Hobbes. There are serious rumblings of discontent among the new generation of illuminati and the winds of change are starting to be felt. Einstein was certainly a genius but that doesn't mean he was right.

A couple of things.
"Processual" is a word in archaeology is not to be confused with a positive change to the use of the word in physics. Processual Archaeology made data crunching king, and the humanity was pretty much lost.
For example; processual archaeology calculated the "man-hours" in the building of Iron-Age monuments, stonehenge, pyramids etc. and the 'energy cost benefits analysis" of hunting from a fixed point. All these might be of interest to late capitalist ideology what what about the context of the past?
The other massive problem with this sort of approach is that archaeological data is always partial and never sufficient for an adequate sample size. And of course Processual Archaeology always sought of human behaviour, or applied them to contexts in which they were inappropriate to the contextual historicism.

Post-processual archaeology was an attempt to redress these problems; part of a post-modern project in a wider sense and embracing French philosophy, existentialism, and historical reflexion with anthropological analogy - amongst other things.

`On the subject of science and the problem of physics I'm still unconvinced that Kuhn represents "... a considerable underground movement of theorists ", as yet, though I know he is well received in philosophical circles.
As he was at pains to demonstrate, the paradigm shift you seek here shall come up against a massive barrier of vested interests, and bureaucratic resistance. As, not only are you seeking to change a paradigm about a single area of physics, but the entire approach and underlying ideology - an ideology that is entrenched, endemic and in most cases represents what Zizek would call an "unknown known". It is so entrenched and assumed that physicists do not even realise that they have these beliefs, and are wholly taken for granted; obvious.

[Obvious Leo]

The other massive problem with this sort of approach is that archaeological data is always partial and never sufficient for an adequate sample size.

Sample size is not an issue in physics because it is purely an observational discipline and in any event predictions in physics are only ever possible on a probabilistic basis. However incomplete data is a problem intrinsic to physics because it is only ever able to examine a subset of the universe and never the universe as whole because its referential frame lies within the object of its scrutiny. Furthermore because of relativistic gravitational motion it is always impossible, even in principle, to isolate the chosen subset from gravity, which introduces variables which are quite literally unknowable. Hence the probabilistic predictions. For example, NASA can send a spacecraft to Mars on the assumption that Mars will be where they predict it should be once the spacecraft arrives at its calculated destination. However this methodology is valid only to a finite order of probability which itself cannot be precisely calculated and in fact Mars may not actually be where they reckon it ought to be. Of course this is well known in astrophysics but what is less well understood is that this fact completely belies the entire notion of the "laws of planetary motion". These so-called laws are not laws at all but merely convenient and effective heuristics with a limited domain of applicability. Newtonian physics is intrinsically unable to model this uncertainty and this was something which even Newton understood.

`On the subject of science and the problem of physics I'm still unconvinced that Kuhn represents "... a considerable underground movement of theorists ", as yet, though I know he is well received in philosophical circles.

In the philosophy of applied metaphysics both Kuhn and Feyerabend are held in the highest of regard but it is also true to say that in the mainstream orthodoxy of academic physics, represented in the public spotlight by such troglodytes as Hawking, all philosophy is regarded as fitting only for navel-gazing tosspots. Until such dinosaurs are forced to release their grip on future directions in theoretical physics it is condemned to remain at the bottom of its self-made conceptual mineshaft.

As he was at pains to demonstrate, the paradigm shift you seek here shall come up against a massive barrier of vested interests, and bureaucratic resistance. As, not only are you seeking to change a paradigm about a single area of physics, but the entire approach and underlying ideology - an ideology that is entrenched, endemic and in most cases represents what Zizek would call an "unknown known". It is so entrenched and assumed that physicists do not even realise that they have these beliefs, and are wholly taken for granted; obvious.

You've summed up my agenda quite well and even managed to nail it with your final word. I seek to re-instate the obvious as the central paradigm for physics and show that the universe is exactly what it appears to be. An EVENT.

[uwot]

That the virulent Platonist metaphysic should have so thoroughly polluted European thought for two millennia is largely an accident of history but it has an upside. If nothing else it should keep the philosophers and historians of science in gainful employment for the next couple of centuries as they try and unpick how such an appalling thing could possibly have happened.

I blame the Romans. Apart from giving the plebs more circuses to mollfy them, they understood that a common cause was socially cohesive, hence the god of Catholicism is formless. But then people like idols, so they gave them Jesus. As Xenophanes had noted 600 years before, people create their idols in their own image. Wherever you go, the images of Christ have traditionally reflected local physiology. Islam took the next step and decreed that there should be no images at all.

[Obvious Leo]

I blame the Romans.

Quite right, mate. What have the Romans ever done for us?

In the course of bringing civilisation to Europe they unwittingly became a vector for the spread of monotheism, a chilling doctrine which was invented only once in the entire history of our species and, but for an extraordinary collaboration of circumstances, a belief system which would never have spread its tentacles beyond Judea. The infatuation that a succession of Roman emperors had for all things Greek was also serendipitous because the Platonist philosophy was essentially a political one which cohered perfectly with the notion of a mono-god of vengeance who was to be feared and obeyed. The hoi polloi were sitting ducks.

[uwot]

Dunno if you know the myth of Er. It's basically a ressurection story that includes the template for the Christian heaven and hell. Plato himself was said to be the son of Apollo, his mum, Perictione was even visited by a heavenly messenger, so the story goes. Plato was quite clear that it was brainwashing. Amazing what people will believe.

[jayjacobus]

Mathematics are representations. For representations to have any effect, they must have an interpreter. It is the interpreter that should be explained.

[Impenitent]

the Romans have shown humanity how to imbibe from lead cups...

-Imp