“In creating the world, God used arithmetic, geometry,
and likewise astronomy.” – Nicholas of Cusa (click here for
article)
QUOTES
Bertrand Russell
The law of causality
is a relic of a bygone age.
Charles
Sanders Peirce
To be logical men should not be selfish.
Albert Einstein
Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Deanna Rubin
Our mathematical universe: every person a number
Infinitely different, yet all created equal
Madelaine L’Engle
Comparing our lives to a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have
to write the sonnet yourself.
Arthur I. Miller
Metaphors and models of scientific thought
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Some noble work of noble note, may yet be done
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
Robert Root-Bernstein
Problem generation is far more critical to innovation than problem solution.
John D. Patton
Certain key members of a field find themselves in contact with problems that
have high growth potential.
Edward Rothstein
Reason has its limits. Its own processes negotiate a precipice.
David C. Gooding
Computer-based simulation methods may turn out to be a representational
turning point for the sciences, enabling
a new way of thinking.
Kevin Kelly
If the theory of digital physics holds up, movement, energy, gravity, dark
matter, and antimatter can all be explained by elaborate programs of 1/0
decisions.
Ludwig Boltzmann
All our ideas and concepts are only internal pictures. (1899)
BOOKS
The
Concept of Physical Law,
by Norman Swartz
Human beings can choose (some of) the world's physical laws. We do this simply
by choosing to do what we do. (Full text online)
Every Schoolboy Knows (from Mind
and Nature)
A list of presuppositions, some familiar, some strange to readers whose thinking
has been protected from the harsh notion that some propositions are simply
wrong.
A
Primer on Determinism (excerpts)
by John Earman
Determinism and Free Will: why thinking about these controversies
is like banging your head against the wall.
The Tao of Physics
by Fritjof Capra
An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism.
(complete text pdf)
ARTICLES
Taking Science on Faith
by Paul Davies
Both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in
the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God
or an unexplained set of physical laws. (full text online)
Chance, Necessity, and Chaos
by William Sims Bainbridge
A new school of thought in science regards
natural processes as a combination of chance and necessity, with the former
holding priority over the latter.
A section of: New Religions, Science, and Secularization
A Neo-Humean Perspective: Laws as Regularities
by Norman Swartz
There is orderliness is Nature. That's the way Nature is. There are no
secret, sublime, mystical laws forcing Nature to be that way.
Is
God Mathematician?
by Claes Johnson
Questioning the quasi-religious position of mathematics in contemporary culture
and education.
Charles
Sanders Peirce
There is no doubt that language evolves, and Peirce made foundational contributions
to the theory of semiotics, the study of signs and symbols.
"Every symbol is a living thing, in a very strict sense that is no mere figure of speech. The body of the symbol changes slowly, but its meaning inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off old ones." Every symbol is, in its origin, either an image of the idea signified, or a reminiscence of some original occurrence, person or thing, connected with its meaning, or it is a metaphor.
"A regular progression of one, two, three may be remarked
in the three orders of signs, Icon, Index, Symbol. The Icon has no dynamical
connection with the object it represents; it simply happens that its qualities
resemble those of that object, and excite analogous sensations in the mind
for which it is a likeness. But it really stands unconnected with them.
The Index is physically connected with its object; they make an organic
pair, but the interpreting mind has nothing to do with this connection,
except remarking it, after it is established. The Symbol [ground] is connected
with its object by virtue of the idea of the symbol-using mind [interpretant],
without which no such connection would exist."
Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers II, Elements of Logic, 2.222
Tychism
A thesis proposed by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce that
holds that absolute chance, or indeterminism, is a real factor operative
in the universe.
VIDEOS
The Cave
An Adaptation of Plato’s Allegory in Clay
The Religion of Science: Worshiping at the Altar of Truth
Evolutionary Biologist David Sloan Wilson discusses science as religion.
The End Of A Physics Worldview
by Stuart Kauffman
Life bubbles forth in a natural magic beyond the confines of entailing
law, beyond mathematization, free to become the world Kantian wholes co-create
with one another. And we may become re-enchanted and find a way beyond
modernity.
Ian Hacking on The Mathematical Animal
“Who is this human who creates mathematics? What sort of organism are we,
who create mathematics and in a few places, and in a few times, make it
an integral part of the life of the species?”
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
by Alex Gendler
An animated retelling of Plato's allegory.
LINKS
Stochasticism: A Profound Knowledge
Stochasticism provides a way of understanding both science and religion as
two sides of a common human conception.
Michael
McIntyre's home page
The ideas of Cambridge atmospheric scientist Michael McIntyre, Emeritus Professor,
Centre for Atmospheric Science at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical
Physics, University of Cambridge, with reference to “the unimaginably large
number of ways for complex systems to go wrong.”
Anekāntavāda
One of the most important and fundamental doctrines of Jainism,
Anekāntavāda refers to the notion that truth and reality are perceived
differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of
view is the complete truth.
Centre for Reasoning
Multi-disciplinary research relating to reasoning, inference and method.
Evidence and Causality in the Sciences
A conference examine the relation between causality and evidence. This involves
questions about the foundations of the sciences, e.g. what is evidence
and how does it contribute to causal knowledge?
Conferences on Causality in the Sciences
Past and upcoming conferences, with information on publications.
