Peter Kirby

I was subtly trying to make the point myself!

best,
Peter Kirby

Bede

Actually, before we go to far with this train of thought, I should point out the machine analogy was far from new. We find it in Pseudo-Dionysius well before 1000AD and it is current through out the Middle Ages. I would be interested if it could be linked to stuff like Hero of Alexandria's automata or the Byzantine fondness for mechanical marvals.

Do we buy Bruno claiming he believed in a moving earth and infinite universe for the mystical reasons he says? I can't see a reason to doubt him - do we really believe he was inventing dangerous heresies to hide his real scientific ideas. And if Bruno, why not Copernicus? Just because the Church disagreed with him (his model was neither simple nor accurate as it turns out) hardly proves he was engaged in post factum rationalisation.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Peter Kirby

Ah, a bit of a wreck for the mechanical theory; I may have to abandon that train of thought, or seek repair in this: there is nothing new under the sun. Neo-Platonism and Hermeticism and other mystical ideas were ancient yet did not inexorably lead their practitioners to the heliocentric speculation. If any of these etiological hypotheses of ours are historically true, they are true only in respect of the unnecessary extrapolation by Copernicus from the existing mythological belief to the lucky guess. I have no problem believing that physics was born of speculation on metaphysical themes, just as surely as astronomy has roots in astrology.

To give you an answer to your post on EoG in response to me: Yes indeed my comments on Copernicus were wholly incorrect on a historical level. And that just shows once again the power of myth. The myth can be unfactual, if the import is genuinely held. I was following others in upholding Copernicus as a model of parsimony. Yet I still believe in the myth of Occam's Razor even if Nicolaus and William did not, at least not in the same way that I do. And Occam's Razor is validated in my experience, my reasoning, and by the body of practicing scientists.

best,
Peter Kirby

Kosh

The earth IS a machine! It is slowly computing the answer.... "42".

Hugo Holbling

Um... I explained briefly in that thread and elsewhere recently why it isn't. I was kinda looking forward to your reply.

Tyler Durden

'tis would appear that Peter Kirby believes in the mythological account of Ockham's Razor. Thus he implicitly practices mythology himself!

Peter Kirby

Yes, that is what I am clearly intimating. In roughly Bultmannian terms, I am demythologizing the history of science to its essential important lessons that are necessary for doing stuff, of which the particular stories of the legendary Copernicus and Galileo are paradigmatic. But I suppose that I don't see the self-evident truth that Myth=Untrue=Bad. I guess I'm a bad atheist. I love mythology. Don't you watch movies or read novels, suspending disbelief and occasionally "getting the point"? Same thing. Poetic faith. Those who deny the power of myth may be in denial.

Hugo, I don't check EoG often. I will pop in.

best,
Peter Kirby

Tyler Durden

Were you to actually "demythologize" the history of science you would not swear fealty to Ockham, or champion parsimony, which is what I inferred from the following remarks of yours:

To mythologize science is to champion some transcendent, ahistorical standard, which is what you are most definitely doing.

The 'demythologization' of the history of science ends up somewhere on the left of P. K. Feyerabend and to the right of Imre Lakatos.

Peter Kirby

OK at least you might understand where I'm going with this. I am saying that parsimony is good, that the stories about Copernicus being a champion of parsimony are historically false...and the tale of Copernicus overturning centuries of Ptolemaic epicircles with one swift cut of Ockham's razor can be good for reinforcing the general idea that 'parsimony is good', but we must realize it's not the letter but the spirit that is good about the mythology--the principle is right and expressed through fiction. The only historical core is that Copernicus was right about the Earth going around the sun, which original formulation is known to the devout as the Heliocentric Event. I think that Bultmann chose the word "demythologize" because if he were "mythologizing" he would be taking it literally like his opponents, while he tried to reduce the particulars of the tale to an essential form that is worthy of belief, and the mythological expression is thus exposed as unnecessary baggage in terms of what one has to believe, the point of the myth.

Because if it turns out that "the early scientists" were a bunch of theologically-based magically-inclined hermetically-influenced pseudo-scientists running around with wild guesses, that's not the way I want to do science! I have no need to know the details this historical Nicolaus Copernicus that we are all attempting to construct. He was right about the Earth going around the sun, and we need know no more to get the point of doing good science!

I wonder what Bede thinks about myth. Good or bad?

best,
Peter Kirby

Bede

Peter,

Myth is sometimes good, sometimes bad and, as you agree, always necessary. Bad myths include those used by nationalist politicians to justify their policies, the great conflict between science and religion myth, the others I put in my (admittedly rather tongue- in-cheek) great atheist myths etc etc.

Good myths include that humans are basically nice, that society can be improved indefinitely, that all humans are equally valuable.

Necessary myths include that eating oysters with spirits will give you an upset stomach and that England rugby fans are arrogant sh*ts.

But when I have my historian's hat on I am interested in 'what really happened'(TM) and why. As a realist I believe that this might be almost as helpful as what everyone thinks happened. Besides, as I am sure Hugo is itching to point out, your conception of how science is best practiced is as mythological as the Copernicus story. Occam's Razor is just another post factum rationalisation. As an a priori principle it is useless.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason