Everything (except subatomic particles) in our tiny solar system moves
so slowly that classical mechanics is extremely accurate.
> > What are the other levels?
>
> Heisenberg and Schroedinger had things to say about the quantum.
> Norbert Weiner and Benoit Mandelbrot gave us glimpses at the
> stochastic level.
What does that have to do with celestial mechanics or sustainable
agriculture? Those phenomena are too small to be very relevant.
> There's the poetic...the spiritual...the economic...the
> artistic. Spheres within spheres, eh? Galileo didn't
> deal with those. Just with the one.
I see, when you say "other levels" you really mean what people think
about, rather than the system itself. So, if I were to write a poem
about the solar system, that would be a different level than Galileo was
addressing. I can go along with that. I thought you meant something
more profound by "level."
> His views were mechanistically more accurate than other views
> of his time, but still terribly partial.
It was up to Newton to complete the picture, for practical purposes.
> For instance, I'll bet he never looked at a full moon and thanked it
> for its tidekeeping and drumming of rhythms of life on earth.
That's nice, but doing it doesn't affect the operation of the solar
system, so far as anybody can tell.
>> Do they have any consequence in the operation of the solar system?
> But to answer your question: Yes. No. Maybe. What's your frame of
> reference? Mechanistic operation of the solar system? Then
> mechanistic principles are your tool. If the frame of reference is
> mechanism, then it's unfair (and sloppy thinking) to judge other
> levels of knowing for their inability to account for or predict
> mechanism.
You are changing vocabulary on me. By using Einsteinian jargon (even
though relativistic conditions clearly do not apply), you try to infuse
respectability into your ambiguous concept of "level". I reject the
notion that reality is parochialized into competing "frames" or
"levels". Reality is one (even if we only know a little). Further, I
reject the proposition that domains of knowledge exist which are
incommensurable.
In a practical sense this means that if LionKuntz sells me a
"biodynamic" formulation that has been blessed by her shaman, I can put
in replicated trials and find out if it works using an F test. Finding
out why it works could be a lot harder, I admit!
See Misha, I think you (and several others on the list) are ontological
relativists. You want to reify your mental constructs rather than
immerse yourself in the simple reality of nature.
> I see that on SANET sometimes--old battles getting played out that I
> sure as sheepdip would like to see us bury and move beyond. To issues
> like figuring out how to provide food in a way that respects land and
> people.
I wish that the environmental movement could get past the romantic
relativism (having roots in mind/nature dualism) that sees traditional
agricultural science as unnatural. I don't believe that the competing
viewpoints are incommensurable. I think I understand where you are
coming from.
The academic left has seized on this whole incommensurability
idea(different modes of knowledge) as a tool to drive a wedge between
the scientific community, and farmers trying to be environmentally
responsible. I think this is very unfortunate.
> Or the ongoing insistence by many members of the ag science
> Establishment that small-scale farmers are driven by heresy--no,
> wait, I meant "hearsay"--and woo-woo nonsense like the Gaia
> hypothesis and concern for social justice, community, and the spirit.
I think you are driving that wedge right now!
> But that's a discussion for another pot o' joe, companeros.
I agree!!
> And I think it brings us back to the front end of this entire thread,
> experiential and scientific knowledge. There's that snake again.
I thought I killed the snake! Folks, don't be fooled by the new age
"physicists." Scientific knowledge IS experiential knowledge. That
frame-of-reference stuff is just smoke and mirrors hiding a political
agenda. The political agenda is a worthy debate, but let's try not to
entangle it with the simpler reality of agricultural systems.
Dale
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".