|
Thanks, Tim, Interesting.
It seems Freeman is getting older and starts
thinking.
He touches my idea in the different ways or
wholism vs.
the other 'sciences', in first line: math. It is
the planarity:
THEY think in the (one) plain of their
reductionist views,
while things are multiplanar - as a matter of
fact: unlimited.
Chemistry is a plain, bio, genetix, linuistix,
etc. are all ONE
plain in the mental activity. Math is a plain in
the ass. It is
not a topical science, it is a thing at its own
(Ding an sich)
and the problem starts when 'scientists' play
'mathematician' and apply math to topical scinece. (Formalism, the worst format
of reductionism, because it is so successful and ubiquitously
applied).
Cheerz
JohnM
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 1:03
PM
Subject: Re: Freeman Dyson - Godel &
science as inexhaustable
JohnM,
I would have
thought so too. But he seems here to be arguing in quite a different
tone:
"It is true that the fundamental
equations of physics are simple and beautiful, and that we have good reason
to expect that the equations still to be discovered will be even more simple
and beautiful. But the reduction of other sciences to physics does not work.
Chemistry has its own concepts, not reducible to physics. Biology and
neurology have their own concepts not reducible to physics or to chemistry.
The way to understand a living cell or a living brain is not to consider it
as a collection of atoms. Chemistry and biology and neurology will continue
to advance and to make new fundamental discoveries, no matter what happens
to physics. The territory of new sciences, outside the narrow domain of
theoretical physics, will continue to expand."
Regards,
Tim
Tim,
although I hold Dyson among the "great
Minds" of contemporary physical sciences, (more than just a
great physicist) I also hold him as a
citadel (pharos?)
of the reductionistic sciences.
Dangerous, because he is so
good.
Just for a caution to any of us when
reading.
John
M
|