Is the universe driven by mathematics or is it driven by aesthetics ? One cannot fail to look upward at the beauty of the night sky without a feeling of wonder.
Physicists look for ultimate explanations for the behavior of the universe in mathematics, and indeed one cannot avoid mathematics in describing the physical universe. Many have remarked at the fact that the universe is so intellegible. Indeed, Plato at his academy admonished, Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here”, for his cosmology of the structure of the universe was based on a series of geometrical forms. Forms. This perhaps suggests, because of the entrance of beautiful forms into Plato's metaphysics, an aesthetic aspect to his cosmology. Similarly, advancing this a step further, while Leibniz was well grounded in mathematics (being a co-discover of the calculus), and was constantly amazed at the geometrical structures in nature, his metaphysics also shaped his thinking due to his a) Principle of Sufficient Reason, in which there is a reason why every aspect of the universe is as it is, and b) the pre-established harmony, the word "harmony" indicating an aesthetic beyond logic of relations of parts of the universe into his metaphysics. Thus Leibniz viewed the history of the universe as following the metaphysics of a "pre-established harmony", ever striving toward a more perfect harmony or beauty. Now beauty appears as a unity in diversity, which I have suggested as moving toward the One from the Many. But others have suggested that the One is just one, not unity in diversity. Leibniz, through his metaphysics, in which the parts are related to the whole, suggests that metaphysics, even aesthetics, rules the universe, not mathematics. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
