Prelude continued
All of the so-called "hard sciences" are really informed by a philosophical, that is, metaphysical outlook. Empirical science only "views", it is unable to say what it views, in what manner it views, or make any connections among what it views without said recourse to metaphysics. The world view of the cognoscenti determines the way in which nature is seen. Let us continue our thought process and reason about the sciences, which enlightens the view of metaphysics held by men.
Mathematics has been about the study of man since its inception. Even with the ancient Greeks it was this way. Pythagoreans thought they were studying the "mind" in nature. Plato saw the "forms" the idea, existing upwards. Aristotle saw the study of quantity qua quantity. The only way quantity can exist separate from substance, in an Aristotelian hypothesis, is in the mind. Math is in the mind. Forms of Plato - existence in the mind (disjointed somehow, but one can forgive the mistake for excellent dialectic). Now to the moderns - they have studied mathematics as the pure intuition of the minds logic. Nothing outside of man is required. Definitions and axioms are posited as the way in which human reason proceeds. All of this can lead us to only one thing - consensus sapientiam puts mathematics in the mind of man. It does not exist outside of ourselves.
And to what, we may ask, does modern science conform its viewings? To mathematics. All of nature is pushed into the mind of man, with thoughts of laws, and "love and strife", "struggle for existence" all according to mathematical forms. The humanization of nature (after the de-deification of nature) has pushed the existence of all learning inside of man - and thus imposed man on all of nature.
Which now brings us back to our original point. Since the sciences cannot of themselves comment, and their comments have shown the impression of man on the cosmos, the metaphysics of the age is that of a humanization of nature. This is our task: a deconstruction. If all that I study is only a study of what I know, I respectfully opt out.
If all you mean is that the sciences mathematicize nature, I fail to see that as anthropomorphizing. This would only follow if you accepted the modern view, typified in Kant, in which space and time are a priori and imposed upon nature. I for one can't imagine what it would mean for the corporeal world to not be founded in its very being in a uniform, Euclidean, four-dimensional space-time. This was read out of nature, not into nature. Any other understanding of corporeality is self-contradicting and absurd. Things in themselves must be essentially incorporeal if space and time are a priori, which is exactly what Kant thought.
Argued by
N |
8:25 PM
Burdon of proof is on you dude.
Plus, if you read any modern physics, space-time is non-Euclidean
Argued by
beitiathustra |
8:49 PM
B.'s got a point about burden of proof. Besides, how is more than four-dimensional space-time absurd? Because we cannot imagine it? Does our inability to know something make it absurd. I say no. Inabillity to know, of course, does not mean contradiction.
Argued by
Andrew Simone |
9:50 AM