>From Frances... Some guesses on admirable beauty and intellectual aesthetic experiences if of interest to listers.
----------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Free Lists: Mailing List Manager <[email protected]> Lit Ideas Digest: Volume 06 Issue 133 Date: Tuesday 12 May 2009 In This Issue: Science as Aesthetics? ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----- From: Eric Yost <[email protected]> To: Julie and List I have been, in this thread, trying to work out what sort of "objective" beauty is referred to, or whose perspective of beauty must be satisfied. We were discussing separation of church and state versus separation of science and state. Donal reacted to an Eagleton quote by valorizing the predictive value of science. Science, after all, is something we have been conditioned to regard as "objective." I raised the case of Dr. Edward Witten, of the Center for Advanced Research in Princeton, winner of the 1990 Fields Medal in Mathematics. Witten is one of the major figures in superstring theory and has often praised the theory for its elegance and beauty. 1. He believes superstring theory is too beautiful to be wrong. 2. Yet superstring theory is untestable. It would require a superconducting supercollider 1,000 light-years across to validate even its basic assumptions. 3. Therefore, for Witten, the criteria of the theory's truth is its beauty. It cannot be tested. 4. I asked the List, "Doesn't this make superstring physics a branch of aesthetics?" 5. Furthermore, I have to take Witten's word for the theory's beauty. I do not understand the mathematics of deep symmetries in tangled 18-dimensional topological knots. Therefore, for me, this branch of physics is not only aesthetics, but also aesthetics-by-authority: again, I have to take Witten's word for its beauty. My point is that Eagleton is right. Science and religion have different intentions and are different modalities; comparing them is like "comparing ballet to running for a bus." End ----------------------------------------------------------------- -----
