From: "Friedman, Howard J." <hfn-AT-sdpfr.powersoft.com> Subject: pi(e) in your face, Mr. Rothstein Date: Wed, 29 May 96 09:32:00 PDT Re: Rothstein's Envy, Obviously From: owner-deleuze-guattari[SMTP:owner-deleuze-guattari-AT-jefferson.village.Virg inia.EDU] Sent: mardi 28 mai 1996 11:18 To: deleuze-guattari Subject: Re: Rothstein's Envy, Obviously > This is not an easy task. For, as Mr. Sokal teasingly > showed, the sciences and humanities are not identical > enterprises. In both, knowledge is required, premises must > be accepted along with rules of argument, and institutions > of authority are established. But despite Social Text's > protests, in science there exist facts and truths that are > invariant -- unaltered by culture, politics and-prejudices > (and this includes the value of pi, which Mr. Sokal, in his > hoax paper, boldly proclaimed to be a variable). That may > be one reason why science has such prestige and power. Invariant truth? 3.1417....????? To how many places? Odd thing this seems to show about "objective" truth. There are no perfect circles, straight lines or (rational) numbers in nature. These may insist in the Virtual, but they don't exist as such in the Actual. (If they are things, they are things that are always other than what they are, i.e., ideas or cultural "objectivities"). Prestige, power, and "objective" reality remain at the level of representation. Culture and politics are required for establishing this representation. There is certainly a reality external to human culture and understanding, but it's far from "objective" in any sense of the term (adjectival or nominal or even adverbial). .... > But what makes science and mathematics powerful is what > makes them different from games. Unlike baseball, science > reveals something about the world outside of itself and > outside the culture that produces it. Kepler's laws may > have been the product of their time, but still describe the > movements of the planets with great accuracy; Einstein's > Special Theory is as valid in South America as it was in > Europe; and pi, though it was approximated in ancient Egypt > and Greece, is a constant everywhere. It appears in the > Bible and it is used in constructing skyscrapers. A > variable pi, or a non existent pi, wouldn't just give us a > different culture; it would give us a different physical > universe. Mr. Sokal invites anybody who feels that physical > laws are mere social constructs to defy them by leaping > from his 21st-story window. It is more likely that science reveals something about the culture that produces it than about a world outside that culture. Scientists tell stories about signs of nature through interpretations called theories. (Science is also an attempt by a culture to appropriate the "world outside" itself). Technologists and engineers attempt to implement some of these interpretations. When the implementations work, we attribute the "cause" to a "correct" theory. The implementations may work fine in a closed system, but....even "smart" bombs miss their targets once in a while. Interesting that the invention of pi should give us a "different physical universe" (How did we ever live without it?). But this is not so bizarre. It interacts with the physical world in the same sense as other social constructs. And other social constructs can be as lethal as any "physical" law. Of course, maybe I should say that pi was discovered rather than invented. Sort of like a continent with a non-fractal coastline? It requires at least a notion of "self" to validate "objective" reality. And I'm not ready to abandon my notion of self, so I'll skip the invite to - and out of - Sokal's 21st floor (and early 20th century?) window. Maybe he should invite David Copperfield? ------------------
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