Mike Smith Cosmos Posted December 24, 2015 Author Share Posted December 24, 2015 (edited) Is this another, "I don't understand maths so I wish people would stop using it so much" thread?. Not at all! . I do understand maths , quite deeply., in fact deeper than you might give me credit for. But It makes my head hurt though , for some reason or another. However, that is not the point. The model that springs to mind , is that of the human being! Maths is like the skeleton. Necessarily fairly rigid , strong , essential to hold many of the essential parts ( though not all) ,of the human body together , into some semblance of being! Our internal organs , need space to operate, otherwise the heart would be unable to beat, the digestive tract unable to process and digest food . The arms and legs unable to swing about and do, the things we do . The nerve pulses need to be free to flow . The brain waves and impulses totally free to seek out creative thought . And quite where this conscious feeling ,I have right now floats " I am not sure " but ' by heck' I am glad to have the freedom of 'form' to stand erect as a 'homo errectus " to exist, wonder, appreciate, look in awe . I am conscious of being a " Form " and being in the " Form " end of the spectrum of being . ( Perhaps when the arthritis kicks in , I feel the function end . ) . So , Maths is good , Skeletons are good , but Human Consciousness is Fantastic . As a life Form ( Space, Shape, Colour, Feelings, Play, Emotion, Love, Wonder and Awe .....etc) If we were to accept that science consists as this entire spectrum of endeavour from one end to the other and use is , in its entirety, in our research , who knows we may discover answers that might otherwise be missed. There has been an attitude that the ' stuff' that really matters is in the 'Function ' end of the spectrum , and the other end ' Form ' is the region of Poets, Artists, Romancers , Play, ' Wooly thinkers ' . Thus if we were to use this proposed model say in looking at the problem of 'quantum gravity ' and other science research , who knows , we might release a ' genii out of the bottle ' or many ' genii out of bottles'??? Mike Edited December 24, 2015 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted December 24, 2015 Share Posted December 24, 2015 Maybe this is like the difference between experimental and theoretical science. I was just listening to a radio program on Farady. Apparently, he didn't really approve of Maxwell's mathematization of his work because he didn't think maths was "the language of nature", only experiment and observation told you about the natural world. So there have been scientific advances that have been lead by "form" (the observed behaviour of electric and magnetic fields, the shapes of planetary orbits, crystal growth, classification/breeding of plants) which eventually lead to "function"; i.e. theory (Maxwell's equations/relativity, Newton's laws of gravity, etc) But there have also been times when function/theory leads and experiment/form follows (antimatter, neutrinos, ...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ophiolite Posted December 24, 2015 Share Posted December 24, 2015 . There has been an attitude that the ' stuff' that really matters is in the 'Function ' end of the spectrum , and the other end ' Form ' is the region of Poets, Artists, Romancers , Play, ' Wooly thinkers ' . You keep saying this, but fail to convince because: You offer no evidence for the claim that the attitude exists and is (implicitly) common. At no time have you offered recognisable definitions of function or form. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted December 25, 2015 Author Share Posted December 25, 2015 (edited) You keep saying this, but fail to convince because: You offer no evidence for the claim that the attitude exists and is (implicitly) common. At no time have you offered recognisable definitions of function or form. I understand the two issues you raise here. And have the Dictionary definitions to hand , and will post . Each ( Function and Form ) both have 9 or 10 definitions . ( I will post ) . The other point ( about evidence ...of attitude) . Some of this is born out, to some extent, within this thread. However external evidence , is to some extent what this thread is all about , a discussion of the historic and current attitude , to the relationship between function and form . I am rushing off to see the Grandchildren ' running around like idiots ' this Christmas Day . However I will leave an abbreviation of the Dictionary Definitions of Function and Form . ----- abbreviated definition ---------- Function is the description of a ' Things Purpose, and the way it builds one thing on another to fulfil that Purpose ' Form is the way a ' Thing or Condition ' appears to Human observation ' ---------------------------------------------- In scientific terms these extremes seem illustrated by ' Isaac Newtons ' Calculus ' at Function . And Einstein's relativity as seen by an observer. From my perspective in scientific terms , for what it is worth. I see either end of the Function - Form spectrum , is in some respect : " Bottom up .. ". Function . To " Top Down ." .. Form Mike Edited December 25, 2015 by Mike Smith Cosmos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puppypower Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 I used to do development work and had a stretch of several years where I be the goto guy who would be asked to develop technical solutions, under emergency conditions, where the state of the art; BET, was not up for the task. I need do to develop the new BET. Because their was a tight time constraint; emergency, my developments were functional but not always pretty or fancy looking in terms of form. Form and function were related but in terms of my style of crude simplicity. After the emergency was over and the tech was transferred to production, the form would change to something that was more like a monument. It could have stayed simple and cheap, but now form exceeded the original function. In government, money is power and the bigger the monument the more money needed the more power you have. The final form would be for technical utility plus prestige/power utility. The power prestige is where subjective appears. Subjectivity tends to exceed the baseline for form and function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hypervalent_iodine Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 ! Moderator Note I realise this is a little belated. Mike, you were given a chance to provide more definition and some science to clarify yourself. You have not, and now this is closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts