Necessity plus Chance
The presentation by Professor Taner Edis had a most promising title and theme, “Necessity plus Chance”, but did not deliver so much insight. There was a list of topics taught in the academic course, and as much strategic exposition as could be fit into the time. One might not wish to criticize the quality of the summary presented. But nothing departed much from convention. No new philosophy was exposed from the possible leads not followed.
What is it that necessitates, and how is chance different from necessity? There is certainly not a God, the Designer, to decide on necessity, since there is no physical mechanism for this sort of design work.. Contrary to Derrida and Lakoff, humans do not have the computational power to mandate their own designs as necessary, and thereby project them onto the universe. But mathematics, not as a unified authority but as its sets of contingent possibilities, does have all of the needed power to make for necessity. Chance then becomes the lesser and more rare sort of mathematical axiom.
Range of Expression
Then, what makes for the greater and more ubiquitous sorts of mathematical principles that end up as important physics? Professor Karen Gipson put forward a very key phrase, “range of expression”. But I think she meant this to be understood empirically rather than as intrinsic - a misfortune. To be sure, intrinsic properties are more valuable for theoretical understanding.
Consider a comparison of mathematical systems, that are more or less expressive, to play actors that have mastered more or less of their lines. It is practically a truism that actors with more roles mastered are heard more often. So mathematical systems that include more possible expression are to be preferred for theoretical physics. And actors that require particular co-actors, implement only part of their roles or exceed them, or share an identity with other actors are heard less for those reasons. And so it goes with the comparable mathematical systems; they are found less in good physical theory.
Clear and Distinct Ideas versus Anti-intellectualism
But Professor Gipson upheld the utility of models that are false, and of models that do not contribute to understanding. This makes it possible to defend conventional models that have no theoretical merit and require an exercise of compensating errors in order to fit experiment. You might think that this sort of cultural stagnation has been overcome; epicycles are an object for scorn. But no: consider the mathematically defective models used in current physics, such as vectors and magnetic monopoles.
And again, Professor Gipson did not uphold the utility of understanding ideas in academic physics. But Spinoza, by contrast, upheld the central importance of clear and distinct ideas, to the point of choosing them over others for further study. Spinoza asserted that illucidity, unfounded multiplicity, and arbitrariness were among the illusions that arose from inadequate understanding of ideas. So he was the great opponent of the rampant anti-intellectualism of his time.
Liberal psychoanalysts identify early modern times, the 16th century, as psychotic in the degree of its cultural neurosis. The enlightenment was then an attempt at recovery from this neurosis. But the culture of the 1970s was still thought of as severely neurotic by Doctor Theodore Rubin.
So it is well advised and very productive to keep watch for and oppose outcroppings of anti-intellectualism wherever they occur, even in the departments of mathematics and physics.
Michael J. Burns