More deranged modern physics, here in a total throwback to the ancient Pythagoreans: “If you grant that both space and everything in space is mathematical,” he says, “then it begins to sound less insane that everything is mathematical.” No, I do not grant that first premise. For that some (though not all) aspects of Existence can be quantified and otherwise described by mathematics, does not turn mathematics into metaphysics. This is a monstrous conflation of epistemology and metaphysics -- for mathematics, as a science, is ONLY a form of epistemology; a HOW of knowing. But our HOW of knowings aspects of reality is not the WHAT of reality itself. Who originated this how/what switch in philosophy? Pythagoras? No. Plato? No. Descartes? No. Kant? Yes.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:53:28 +0000