SUO: Re: Detached Ideas On Virally Important Topics
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
| But no science can rest entirely on measurement,
| and many scientific investigations are quite
| out of reach of that device. To the scientist
| longing for non-quantitative techniques, then,
| mathematical logic brings hope.
|
| W.V. Quine, 'Mathematical Logic',
| First edition 1940. Revised edition 1951.
| Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981, page 7.
My objective this time is to explain why the "manifold situation" --
which is precisely what arises from the "measurement situation"
whenever two or more observers have the trying task of trying
to "coordinate", as they say, their separate collections of
observations with regard to the sundry variables that they
can use to size up any putative object in their reputedly
commmon cosmos -- why, to reiterate, this joint situation
falls under the archetype of a sign-relational situation.
If we grapple with this type of situation, successfully
enough to begin to get some kind of a mental grip on it,
then we shall have arrived at the point of grasping the
significance of the circumstance that a large amount of
the work that was done beginning with Riemann to master
this situation mathematically, that, though it was done
at the outset by the most abstractly-oriented varieties
of minds, turned out to be exactly what would be needed
as physicists got around later to entertaining the idea
that the physical cosmos might just be a lttle bit more
subtle than they had then foretothen "allowed" it to be.
The significance of all of this intellectual history is,
according to my take on it, that what we now have to do,
that is, if we have the wit for exploiting the manifest
reusability of much of this work for our presently more
categorical, logical, linguistic, qualitative, symbolic,
or what-you-may-call-it brand of interoperative problem,
is to formulate the corresponding qualitative analogues.
I have to break away for now, so:
The story of "A Case of Influenza"
continues at "Episode 6", later on.
Jon Awbrey
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤