Re: [-empyre-] metaphor

["Joel Weishaus" <weishaus@pdx.edu>]

Scientific models work to describe the world for which science is equipped
to find. The moment mathematics was invented it set this course. But there
may be worlds that science has not adapted to recognize. After all, science
was evolved by the brain, and the brain evolved in order to allow our
species to survive. Science, and its proactive partner, technology, has more
to do with survivability than the possible spectrum of reality.

On the other hand, art is not about _how_ to survive, but the _reason_ to
survive. Thus, in countries that practice institutional violence, like the
present US Government, science is well-funded, while art is something extra.

 -Joel


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>
To: "Soft_Skinned_Space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 2:16 PM
Subject: [-empyre-] metaphor


> It's interesting to think of the role of 'superstition' in science over
the
> years and how that has continually been regarded with a dubious eye. Some
> would think it is no longer present in scientific discourse, but talk
about
> such relatively mysterious realms as quantum mechanics is, at least in the
> popular literature, full of references to shamanism and consciousness as a
> 'force' that acts upon things. The more scientific training it takes to
> actually understand the science, the more open it becomes to popular
> misconception. Literary science? Science fiction or science email? Also,
> fallacious 'proofs' (Penrose) that humans can do things like solve the
> halting problem are published and become best sellers. We live in a
magical
> time, do we not? Giordano Bruno's time has nothing over on ours, in this
> regard.
>
> The alchemy of poetry and art is, at least in part, in the way that it
> operates metaphorically in such a way as to make it profoundly resonant
with
> the inner world. Its truth is of a different kind than the truth sought by
> science. Are the propositions of science, couched within mathematical
> abstractions, essentially metaphorical in that they are directly about the
> abstract models and only indirectly about 'a way the world is', or are the
> mathematical models in some fundamental correspondence with 'the way
things
> are'? We can amass experimental evidence to the point that, for instance,
> the existence of the atom, as described in the mathematical models, can
> hardly be contested, yet our conceptions about it are necessarily models,
> metaphors. So perhaps our understanding is necessarily metaphorical in its
> operations and there will always be this diffusion of superstition through
> science, which nonetheless seeks some objectivity from the vaguely
personal.
> To imbue stones with consciousness, to postulate an animistic universe, is
> quite resonant with the inner world, isn't it. Whether it is a hypothesis
> that is of any use in science is another matter.
>
> It is probably like the question of how many angels can dance on the head
of
> a pin. That is my feeling, also, about the question of free will vs
> determinism. The question of how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin
> involves assumptions that are not required in science (angels) and the
> 'answer' is inconsequential to science. The question of free will versus
> determinism, in popular thinking, often involves the assumption that an
> algorithmic model of how thought operates limits thought in ways that
cannot
> be demonstrated.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com/animisms (kinetic poetry with soul)
>
>
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