Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 07:49:01 +0000 Subject: Re: Unthinking science From: michaelP <michael-AT-sandwich-de-sign.co.uk> > This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --MS_Mac_OE_3128312941_157376_MIME_Part on 17/2/03 3:24 am, Greg Ver Steeg at greg-AT-rcf.rhic.bnl.gov wrote: > Is sciences inability to find a grand unified theory a > manifestation of the withdrawal Heidegger speaks of in What is Called > Thinking ? Unsubstantiated, utterly intuitive, easily shot down in (no doubt, Judian) flames, I venture this aphorism: Perhaps begun in earnest with Aristotle's dismantling of the earlier Greeks, importantly, Parmenides, whatness (beings-as-a-whole, if you like) is no longer conceived as a one, unity (e.g., the One {being} of Parmenides; Anaximander's apeiron {the repelling of all limits}, etc), indivisible (atomic), etc [sorry for all the etcs, need to get this down whilst still cool and resting...]; in stead whatness is conceived as having parts; whatness has parts of whatness (topical domains) and in studying each part (of whatness, physis) without regard for the whole (whatness), science can get on with business. Thus in order for Aristotlian science to get on with business, whatness is seen as being composed of parts of whatness, but, this is not the whatness that was begun with: whatness has now been transformed from an atomic one to a conglomerate or federation of parts that 'add up' to the whole, i.e., mathematical science is born and raised. The erotic wonderment that begins science now is resurrected in the search for a unified (interestingly: field) theory, and in this desire rests hidden the shattering and withdrawal of whatness; and the desire to put humpty-dumpty to-gather again as the whole one from which was wrenched the mathematically transformed parts (and correspondingly, the separated areas of science). The tragedy in this scenario is that theory cannot be unified because the parts of whatness do not 'add up' to the whatness with which thinking began (which has no parts). If one begins with a whatness that has parts then we never get away from parts (which multiply themselves at every turn: e.g., specialisms). Whatness needs to be thought as a whole, no, not that either (since wholes can have parts), neither whole nor particular... what can this mean? regards and apologies for non-elaboration michaelP --MS_Mac_OE_3128312941_157376_MIME_Part
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