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What a steaming pile of unmitigated bullshit. Prof. Tallis has constructed a critique of something he clearly isn't willing to understand: his example of a str
by scrumper 11y ago
What a steaming pile of unmitigated bullshit.
Prof. Tallis has constructed a critique of something he clearly isn't willing to understand: his example of a straight line connecting two points on the earth's surface through means of a tunnel is simply the invention of an extra dimension, a simple concept that even a superficially educated but curious layperson (like me) would recognize.
He creates a bizarre straw man equivalency between 'social space' and curved mathematical space based apparently solely on the fact that they're both labeled by the same word, then kind of axiomatically assigns legitimacy to the former over the latter without any explanation. The whole thing is bizarre in the extreme.
The picture is just wonderful, however.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoI think Tallis is thinking at the level of the words and the analogies. But the thing is, what the physicists really believe are the equations. (Hat tip to C. S. Lewis, from whom I stole that observation.) Tallis is expecting the physicists to talk in the same way (using the same tools of communication) that philosophers do, and they don't, so Tallis misses the point.
- scrumper 11y agoOh I agree. And if you're right, it's a pretty thumping indictment of Prof. Tallis, don't you think? On what basis does he form that expectation? If a man is so conscious of language and meaning that he feels confident dissecting a long-established tool of physics on the grounds of semantics, and he simultaneously ignores the existence of jargon, culture, and context in another field, then I think it's hard to take him seriously at all. (Sorry if that sentence was hard to parse; this horrid article infected me.)