Scientific knowledge is more valid [†] because it travels across space and time 
better than other forms of knowledge.

I'd rank "artisanal knowledge" a close second. The apprentice, journey, master 
infrastructure worked pretty well, I think. But "financial knowledge" is a 
close competitor. I sometimes make the argument that the merchant class is 
primarily responsible for peace on earth because projection from the 
high-dimensional space of human relations down to a one-dimensional currency 
helps everyone get along ... just enough to do business with one another.

[†] Validity, in contrast with soundness. All types of knowledge are sound 
within their scope, where the scope is exogenous. But validity sets its own 
scope, like closure under an operator. Some may say validity is boolean, where 
a small system is valid or invalid and a large system is valid or invalid. But 
I'd argue that a smaller system is less valid than a larger system. A 
*universal* system will be the *most* valid. Or if that bugs you, it's easy to 
say, instead, that a valid but so small as to be useless system is 
*technically* valid, but nobody cares. What we want is a very large system 
that's valid.

On 3/11/20 10:00 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Why is one view more valid than the others?  Because science (actually with 
> engineering) has made it possible to send probes to Neptune?  Depends on your 
> goals.  

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Reply via email to