Essay Abstract

Mathematics is part of physics. It is its skeleton, its intrinsic motor. The partition between mathematics and physics is artificial and an unpleasant consequence of the Cartesian method. It pushes us into a totally unproductive schizophrenic attitude which is extremely dangerous for the survival of our societies.

Author Bio

Thierry Periat was a dentist until the end of 2007. He is actually working for the French Health administration, following diverse programs related to the prevention. His second leg is the radioprotection and his passion for mathematical physics is quite so old than himself. He is presenting his theoretical work on vixra and on diverse personal websites. Although this contest is a serious thing because it is connected with an important amount of money, he is just presenting an essay for the sport.

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Sir, I am not certain to perfectly understand what your intervention means. But duality certainly is a central thematic inside our civilization. My essay exposes the defaults of a too strong duality, in general. It is a short plaidoyer for the recovery/re-discovery of an inner coherence.

If the confrontation of opposite poles may be the source for the appearence of a constructive force, new ideas, new initiatives... it may also be the starting point for a war or for a split; driving us then nowhere. All is a question of intensity and of moderation.

As I have tried to explain it in diverse mathematical essays composing my theory, our fundamental duality appears clearly in our way of calculating; e.g.: in a three dimensional space (where we believe we are living in), the local scalar product and some extension of the cross product which I have called the extended Lie product may be seen as two daemons "fighting" together. Seemingly, they are surveying/determinating the volumes by respect for some third factor (the energy?) constructing the future.

10 days later

Dear Thierry,

Your essay is unique in that it is the only one that I have seen so far that frames the relation between mathematics and physics in political terms. I think you propose an interesting idea that is worthy of further study. I have a question, though: could the same argument that you gave for how the social stratification is brought about by the separation of mathematics and physics not be applied to any area of human endeavor? After all, in any such area, there will be spectrum of abilities, and who is to say that the same mechanism you mentioned in your paper would not lead to the same consequences in that area?

If so, then the issue you point out is just one out of many aspects of human activity that could be destabilizing to society. My essay from last year's essay contest was also primarily political and had to do with stratification of society, though of a slightly different kind than what you proposed. Nevertheless, you might still enjoy it:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2102

By the way, my background is in pharmacy, and I did work in a public health setting, before I became interested in this area that lies at the intersection between physics, philosophy and mathematics and decided to seriously pursue it.

Best wishes,

Armin

    Well I did read your last year essay and state that it is effectively parented with mine. Thank you for your comment and for indicating me your work.

    If you allow, I would say that both essays are indirectly telling a question about the existence of a (natural?) mechanism of selection pushing a few from us at the top of a pot containing so many others. This is a fascinating question and I presume that, if that mechanism exists, it works since a very long time. Perhaps should we look for a relation with the Darwinism or with tribal laws? Perhaps should we also have the courage to ask if, concerning the animal or the human life and in opposition with the second law of the thermodynamic concerning inert objects, the chaotic behavior of our life soon or late spontaneously generates some organization, or at least the need for?

    Nevertheless I believe that our analysis differ in the fact that yours considers the devil's side of that mechanism (in extenso when the latter is presumably based on a pathology carried out by a small number of people or, eventually, by only one and) resulting in some form of "pathocratie" whilst mine just concentrates on the hypothesis that an excessive use of the Cartesian approach acts like an activation-enzyme when it is coupled with the mechanism of selection cited previously.

    This is seemingly a slight distinction but (in my head at least) it is an important one in fact; why? With or without that Cartesian way of thinking, or with or without that ability to mathematize, human people have a natural tendency to organize themselves. Each psychology in the group (with or without pathology) and their sum -the resulting psychology for the group at hand- certainly give rise to some organization for that given group. In bad circumstances (developed in your last year thesis), that organization exhibits a pathology (the Nazism is an obvious example but it is far to be the only one; the Stalinism was certainly not a perfect regime). My essay doesn't concentrate on the birth of that mechanism of selection (safe or not) but on a by-side mechanism influencing it.

    My argument is that the Cartesian approach (cutting the whole thing into infinitesimal parts and analyzing each of them with the purpose to discover the rules for the whole thing) creates a contra-productive dichotomy between the observed thing (experiments, physics) and its systematic analysis and parametrization (rules, mathematics). So that, unfortunately, it becomes possible to cut the scientific community into two too separate parts: one part being experimenting and testing the laws proposed or deduced by the others.

    As you asked me, this mechanism can evidently be extended to political organizations characterized by an excessive production of laws and rules written by people without sufficient connections and contacts with the real life inside the enterprises... The danger is obvious.

    Best regards

    7 days later

    Dear Thierry,

    Very interesting look at mathematics and physics. I agree with you. But how to connect the Cartesian "res cogitans" and "res extensa"? Where is the meeting point of the "two worlds"?

    John Archibald Wheeler left to physicists and mathematicians a good philosophical precept: "Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers".When physicists and mathematicians speak about the structure and the laws of Universum for some reason they forget about lyricists that the majority on Mother Earth. I believe that the scientific picture of the world should be the same rich senses of the "LifeWorld» (E.Husserl), as a picture of the world lyricists , poets and philosophers:

    We do not see the world in detail,

    Everything is insignificant and fractional ...

    Sadness takes me from all this.( Alexander Vvedensky,1930)

    It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise,

    as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye;

    but that is sufficient guidance for all our life.

    We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period,

    but we would preserve the true course. (Henry David Thoreau, 1854)

    Fundamental knowledge, mathematics and physics, requires a deep ontological justification (basification). In fundamental physics is necessary to introduce an ontological standard justification (basification) along with the empirical standard. I invite you to see and appreciate my analysis of the philosophical foundations of mathematics and physics, the method of ontological constructing a new basis of unified knowledge - the primordial generating structure, "La Structure mère" as the ontological framework, carcass and foundation of knowledge, the core of which - the ontological (structural, cosmic) memory.

    Kind regards,

    Vladimir

      Thanks so much for the link. I shall think about the "structure mère"...

      For now, I would like to give you this answer.

      A girl/boy wants to discover how her/his toy works in breaking it into its constitutive parts. After a while, (s)he is able to describe exactly the diverse parts but absolutely unable to reconstruct it. The description is not equivalent to the understanding.

      I speak intensively about the Cartesian attitude and, doing so, certainly realize an indirect auto-biography. But in fact -and this is the reason why my essay was so short; and this was my subliminal message- there is no distance between the two rei, there is no motivation to really believe there would be one, except if we misunderstand the Cartesian method. This is actually the case in our modern occidental society (my argumentation).

      And I was trying to explain that we usually misuse the method because we construct a fictive partition between the object (physics) and the image of that object (mathematics) whilst the reality is a set of "Unikaten". Unfortunately most of the classical essays on the topic are focusing on that fictive de-coherence.

      Mathematics is not the image of what we observe or live our self, it is part of what exists (inert or alive) and, at least at a first glance, all what exists is a set of provisory and seemingly inseparable entities (explaining my title: intrinsic motor...). Mathematics is not and abstract object lying outside of the objects and more exactly as we tend to believe it: in our brains. Mathematics is in some way extending inside these objects, as an unveiled and inner essence explaining how and why they behave like we perceive it.

      Objects can contain smaller objects. The inner logic of the greater might be different from the logic of the smaller; the interaction between the two logics can result into a separation, a breakdown of the smaller or of the biggest. In all cases, a code, a law, some systematization is driving the behavior of each object. Not because we have revealed that code with our Cartesian method... but because it is so.

      With other words, the use of the Cartesian method should not be an externalization but a deepening of our understanding. It should not result in schizophrenia but in a greater self-coherence.

      We should understand that when we understand something about an object that has been analysed with that Cartesian method, then what we have understood is not landing inside our brain but is staying where it was, namely inside the observed object.

      This is why I have introduced mathematical objects with real dimensions in my theory (www.cordescosmiques.com).

      Merci beaucoup, Thierry! Je ai commencé à lire votre site avec beaucoup d'intérêt.