The “Cartesian Split” Is a Hallucination; Ergo, We Should Get Rid of It

June 12, 2005 | Jean F. Drew

[Red Sea Swimmer]

What if someone came along who could explain existence and the purpose of humankind, in a rational, coherent form ?

Would he be accepted or vilified ?

[betty boop]

This has implications for all branches of science as he seems to advocate for scientists to pay more attention to the results of actual experiments rather than try to reduce them into philosophical packages.

I like the way you think, spinestein. It's reassuring to know that someone "out there" has gotten the jist of this article right -- that is, has captured its meaning in the spirit in which the communication was intended.

Thank you, oh so very much, for writing!

[betty boop]

It would be delightful to hear from you again, MHGinTN. Long time, no see....

[Red Sea Swimmer]

How about "Messianic Jewish Traditional Conservative Anarcho-Nationalism" for a belief system ?

Think it has legs ?

[stripes1776]

The “Cartesian Split” Is a Hallucination; Ergo, We Should Get Rid of It

Pascal said that there are two ways of thinking: the intuitive mind (esprit de finesse) and the mathematical mind (esprit de geometrie). He thought the intuitive mind was superior to the other and therefore stopped doing math and science and moved on to theology.

I think he got it right. Rather than try to eliminate the difference bewteen these two ways of knowing, let's acknowledge the difference, set them in a hierarchy with theology superior to science, and let people choose which way they want to think. They can even move between the two if they so choose as long as they keep their bearings about which kind of thinking they are doing.

We have already gotten rid of the "Cartesian Split." It's called the American education system. It only creaes the muddled mind. It's been a dismal failure.

[paulat]

Hey!!! who moved my worm-hole???!!!

(Physics, people...not 3rd-grade humor)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Thus science was born in the ancient world of the classical Greeks.

I would disagree with this idea. The ensuing Hellenistic age did much more to establish science and the scientific method than the ancients. Russo's book "The Forgotten Revolution" is a good (if a bit pro-Hellenistic) introduction to this era.

[spinestein]

I first started to notice that the process of science itself was not static (as I was led to believe in school), but evolving, when I got interested in Chaos theory in the early 90's and began to learn as much about it as I could.

I think that this (practically new) branch of science started a kind of revolution in the way scientists think about nature's law philosophically. In spite of the fact that Chaos theory has been over-hyped by some people as replacing other physics (it hasn't and it won't), it started scientists thinking that the philosophy of reductionism may not be a correct way to analyze everything about the universe.

String theory proponents are in danger of doing this as well. While the concepts behind string theory are elegant and MAY show truly great promise, it's too soon for its adherents to start popping champagne corks and celebrating their Ultimate Theory Of Everything before ANY experiment to try to validate its predictions has yet to be run.

I'm glad you posted this story. As long winded as it seems, it's a good read on the evolution of science, which happens to be my favorite topic. :^)

[Alamo-Girl]

Wow! What a magnificient essay, betty boop!

I strongly agree - let this be the memorial service for the Cartesian Split so that we can all finally have closure.

Perhaps then we will actually resume making giant leaps in the big issues facing science. As Dallaporta said, it's been far too long since since the last round of "big thinkers" in science.

[Treader]

Is not mythology & philosophy the birth parents of scientific reasoning?

[boojumsnark]

After dinner, the waiter asked if Descartes would like dessert.

"I think not," replied Descartes.

Then he disappeared.

[Old Professer]

Boy, you do dig up some really deep stuff; for me, a simpler way to put it is that man can't walk past god without pausing.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the ping to your discussion with spinestein! And thank you, spinestein, for both of your informative and insightful posts!

Seems to me the most exciting result to come from string theory is the Vafa/Strominger solutions of the Hawking/Beckenstein entropy wrt black holes. This may be helpful with the black hole information question too.

[orionblamblam]

> What if someone came along who could explain existence and the purpose of humankind, in a rational, coherent form ?

Locutus of Borg?

[RightWhale]

Gautama took care of all that. No substance to matter or to mind. Very modern even now. An illusion, like time, ripples on a pond. Don't ask about the pond; analogies aren't worth the trouble.

[spinestein]

The most amazing result of string theory that I've read is the prediction that the Planck length may be a fundamental unit of size to our universe (much the same way that the speed of light is a fundamental unit of speed), and that trying to measure anything smaller than the Planck length is, in reality, the same thing as measuring anything larger. The size of any object compared to its Planck length and the reciprocal of the size of the object compared to its Planck length are interchangeable.

I wonder if this prediction might be an artifact of a misunderstanding or misapplication of the string theory equations, but if it's accurate this is on the order of the formulation of general relativity.

[AntiGuv]

It's an intriguing essay, but deeply flawed by the obviously suspect motivations of the author. She evidently takes off with the wrong perspective ('lemme see if I can get the evidence to go where I want to take it' rather than 'lemme see where the evidence takes me') and therefore severely misconstrues the scope of the inquiry and the avenues of inquest.

Gautama reconciled the matter in an altogether different manner, and (for what little it's worth by comparison) my own personal vision takes yet a different direction. But, this essay follows a clearly prebiased trajectory that excludes both, amongst several others. Oh well. The topics raised are of great interest nonetheless!

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

He missed how Protagoras developed string theory.

[RebelTex]

"...Ultimate Theory Of Everything..."

= 42

(sorry - couldn't resist, lol)

;^D

[MilspecRob]

12:40 am on Sunday night is not the time to be reading this. Bookmarked for later read.