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In this highly-interdisciplinary volume, we systematically study
the role of metaphors and analogies in (mis)shaping our
understanding of the world. Metaphors and Analogies occupy a
prominent place in scientific discourses, as they do in literature,
humanities and at the very level of our thinking itself. But when
misused they can lead us astray, blinding our understanding
inexorably. How can metaphors aid us in our understanding of the
world? What role do they play in our scientific discourses and in
humanities? How do they help us understand and skillfully deal with
our complex socio-political scenarios? Where is the dividing line
between their use and abuse? Join us as we explore some of these
questions in this volume.
In this compendium of essays, some of the world's leading thinkers
discuss their conceptions of space and time, as viewed through the
lens of their own discipline. With an epilogue on the limits of
human understanding, this volume hosts contributions from six or
more diverse fields. It presumes only rudimentary background
knowledge on the part of the reader. Time and again, through the
prism of intellect, humans have tried to diffract reality into
various distinct, yet seamless, atomic, yet holistic, independent,
yet interrelated disciplines and have attempted to study it
contextually. Philosophers debate the paradoxes, or engage in
meditations, dialogues and reflections on the content and nature of
space and time. Physicists, too, have been trying to mold space and
time to fit their notions concerning micro- and macro-worlds.
Mathematicians focus on the abstract aspects of space, time and
measurement. While cognitive scientists ponder over the perceptual
and experiential facets of our consciousness of space and time,
computer scientists theoretically and practically try to optimize
the space-time complexities in storing and retrieving
data/information. The list is never-ending. Linguists, logicians,
artists, evolutionary biologists, geographers etc., all are trying
to weave a web of understanding around the same duo. However, our
endeavour into a world of such endless imagination is restrained by
intellectual dilemmas such as: Can humans comprehend everything?
Are there any limits? Can finite thought fathom infinity? We have
sought far and wide among the best minds to furnish articles that
provide an overview of the above topics. We hope that, through this
journey, a symphony of patterns and tapestry of intuitions will
emerge, providing the reader with insights into the questions: What
is Space? What is Time? Chapter [15] of this book is available open
access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
This volume presents essays by pioneering thinkers including Tyler
Burge, Gregory Chaitin, Daniel Dennett, Barry Mazur, Nicholas
Humphrey, John Searle and Ian Stewart. Together they illuminate the
Map/Territory Distinction that underlies at the foundation of the
scientific method, thought and the very reality itself. It is
imperative to distinguish Map from the Territory while analyzing
any subject but we often mistake map for the territory. Meaning for
the Reference. Computational tool for what it computes.
Representations are handy and tempting that we often end up
committing the category error of over-marrying the representation
with what is represented, so much so that the distinction between
the former and the latter is lost. This error that has its roots in
the pedagogy often generates a plethora of paradoxes/confusions
which hinder the proper understanding of the subject. What are wave
functions? Fields? Forces? Numbers? Sets? Classes? Operators?
Functions? Alphabets and Sentences? Are they a part of our map
(theory/representation)? Or do they actually belong to the
territory (Reality)? Researcher, like a cartographer, clothes (or
creates?) the reality by stitching multitudes of maps that
simultaneously co-exist. A simple apple, for example, can be
analyzed from several viewpoints beginning with evolution and
biology, all the way down its microscopic quantum mechanical
components. Is there a reality (or a real apple) out there apart
from these maps? How do these various maps interact/intermingle
with each other to produce a coherent reality that we interact
with? Or do they not? Does our brain uses its own internal maps to
facilitate "physicist/mathematician" in us to construct the maps
about the external territories in turn? If so, what is the nature
of these internal maps? Are there meta-maps? Evolution definitely
fences our perception and thereby our ability to construct maps,
revealing to us only those aspects beneficial for our survival. But
the question is, to what extent? Is there a way out of the
metaphorical Platonic cave erected around us by the nature? While
"Map is not the territory" as Alfred Korzybski remarked, join us in
this journey to know more, while we inquire on the nature and the
reality of the maps which try to map the reality out there. The
book also includes a foreword by Sir Roger Penrose and an afterword
by Dagfinn Follesdal.
The revolutions that Gregory Chaitin brought within the fields of
science are well known. From his discovery of algorithmic
information complexity to his work on Goedel's theorem, he has
contributed deeply and expansively to such diverse fields.This book
attempts to bring together a collection of articles written by his
colleagues, collaborators and friends to celebrate his work in a
festschrift. It encompasses various aspects of the scientific work
that Chaitin has accomplished over the years. Topics range from
philosophy to biology, from foundations of mathematics to physics,
from logic to computer science, and all other areas Chaitin has
worked on.It also includes sketches of his personality with the
help of biographical accounts in some unconventional articles that
will provide a rare glimpse into the personal life and nature of
Chaitin.Compared to the other books that exist along a similar
vein, this book stands out primarily due to its highly
interdisciplinary nature and its scope that will attract readers
into Chaitin's world.
This highly interdisciplinary book, covering more than six fields,
from philosophy and sciences all the way up to the humanities and
with contributions from eminent authors, addresses the interplay
between content and context, reductionism and holism and their
meeting point: the notion of emergence. Much of today’s science
is reductionist (bottom-up); in other words, behaviour on one level
is explained by reducing it to components on a lower level.
Chemistry is reduced to atoms, ecosystems are explained in terms of
DNA and proteins, etc. This approach fails quickly since we can’t
cannot extrapolate to the properties of atoms solely from
Schrödinger's equation, nor figure out protein folding from an
amino acid sequence or obtain the phenotype of an organism from its
genotype. An alternative approach to this is holism (top-down).
Consider an ecosystem or an organism as a whole: seek patterns on
the same scale. Model a galaxy not as 400 billion-point masses
(stars) but as an object in its own right with its own properties
(spiral, elliptic). Or a hurricane as a structured form of moist
air and water vapour. Reductionism is largely about content,
whereas holistic models are more attuned to context. Reductionism
(content) and holism (context) are not opposing philosophies — in
fact, they work best in tandem. Join us on a journey to understand
the multifaceted dialectic concerning this duo and how they shape
the foundations of sciences and humanities, our thoughts and, the
very nature of reality itself.
In this highly-interdisciplinary volume, we systematically study
the role of metaphors and analogies in (mis)shaping our
understanding of the world. Metaphors and Analogies occupy a
prominent place in scientific discourses, as they do in literature,
humanities and at the very level of our thinking itself. But when
misused they can lead us astray, blinding our understanding
inexorably. How can metaphors aid us in our understanding of the
world? What role do they play in our scientific discourses and in
humanities? How do they help us understand and skillfully deal with
our complex socio-political scenarios? Where is the dividing line
between their use and abuse? Join us as we explore some of these
questions in this volume.
In this compendium of essays, some of the world's leading thinkers
discuss their conceptions of space and time, as viewed through the
lens of their own discipline. With an epilogue on the limits of
human understanding, this volume hosts contributions from six or
more diverse fields. It presumes only rudimentary background
knowledge on the part of the reader. Time and again, through the
prism of intellect, humans have tried to diffract reality into
various distinct, yet seamless, atomic, yet holistic, independent,
yet interrelated disciplines and have attempted to study it
contextually. Philosophers debate the paradoxes, or engage in
meditations, dialogues and reflections on the content and nature of
space and time. Physicists, too, have been trying to mold space and
time to fit their notions concerning micro- and macro-worlds.
Mathematicians focus on the abstract aspects of space, time and
measurement. While cognitive scientists ponder over the perceptual
and experiential facets of our consciousness of space and time,
computer scientists theoretically and practically try to optimize
the space-time complexities in storing and retrieving
data/information. The list is never-ending. Linguists, logicians,
artists, evolutionary biologists, geographers etc., all are trying
to weave a web of understanding around the same duo. However, our
endeavour into a world of such endless imagination is restrained by
intellectual dilemmas such as: Can humans comprehend everything?
Are there any limits? Can finite thought fathom infinity? We have
sought far and wide among the best minds to furnish articles that
provide an overview of the above topics. We hope that, through this
journey, a symphony of patterns and tapestry of intuitions will
emerge, providing the reader with insights into the questions: What
is Space? What is Time? Chapter [15] of this book is available open
access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
"Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always
say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the
earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied,
"Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going
round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have
looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?"
What would it have looked like if we looked at all sciences from
the viewpoint of Wittgenstein's philosophy? Wittgenstein is
undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the
twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by
numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to
philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together
some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences
and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes
underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The
contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy,
mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all
of them have written in an accessible style that demands little
specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the
deep issues at hand.
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