> Interestingly enough, all advances in science stem from the uses of > metaphor - not mathematics. (see Quine) The premature rush to abandon > the language of metaphor and publish using arcane squiggles is the real > - in my not very humble opinion - barrier to progress.
Well, depends on what you want to do - developing _new_ theories is best done via metaphor; to get a qualitative feel for the stuff; speculative philosophy, if you like (that is indeed what I like to do :-)) But to make it into science, which means that you can make predictive models certainly means mathematizing the theory. Look at Einstein for instance: the ideas he had very hanging around "intuitively" for quite some time; but he mathematized it, it went experimental, and voila, scientifically confirmed and accepted. Cheers, Günther -- Günther Greindl Department of Philosophy of Science University of Vienna [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/ Blog: http://dao.complexitystudies.org/ Site: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ Research Proposal: http://www.complexitystudies.org/ph.d.-thesis.html ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
