On Models and Myths, on Latour and Vygotsky and Voegelin, and on Mathematics

Για τον Αντώνη Σμυρναιο, πολλές απο τις σκεψεις του οποίου εμφωλεύουν εδω

1. Suppose I say

• When people talk to me about the long history of life in earth, they are presenting me with a myth (I do not say this in order to say it is a lie. I say it in the sense that some important truth is hidden in this story. It is a story worthy to consider). Many people would be very unhappy about this. "It is not a myth. It is a model. Indeed it is a model that when strongly verified can guide us in imagining the past. It can be the secure base for any other speculation with respect to the past"
• When people talk to me about the 3 spatial and the one temporal dimension of the world (I leave the thing simple), they are presenting me with a myth (Again, I do not say this in order to say it is a lie. I say it in the sense that some important truth is hidden in this story. It is a story worthy to consider) . Once more many people would be very unhappy about this. "It is not a myth. It is a model. Indeed it is a model that when strongly verified can guide us in imagining space and time. It can be the secure base for any other speculation with respect to the matrix where all things abide"

Thoughts on Obama's farewell talk and the construction of a common world

Obama's farewell talk

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/obama-farewell-address-president.html

This is a talk for the USA audience but it had so many things for a non USAan to think about.

When enligthenement met the psyche

I am thinking of "Facing Gaia" and the image Latour often draws and now finds other expressions too (https://twitter.com/AIMEproject/status/800714136837619714)

A triangle having Land in the one corner, then Globe in the top and perhaps Gaia in the side

Analogies are helpful but aslo dangerous guides. However I thought of using the analogy with another meeting: Enlightenment meeting Freud and his psyche

Προσωπικη σημειωση

Για τον Deleuze

https://terenceblake.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/where-to-begin-with-deleuze/#comments

afterthoughts on a talk of Latour in Cornell

Latour talked to geologists in Cornell

http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/150-CORNELL-2016-.pdf

Reading the talk left me with the following thought:

“Is he perhaps  deluding himself?  This is not how people behave.”

A similarity I am not sure what to make of it

So I just report it.
In AIME is its important (if I understand well) that actors pass through other actors.

Here is a view comming from the study of design in "nature and engineering". It is the "Constructal law", formed by Adrian Bejan

 "For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it."

This is the author http://mems.duke.edu/faculty/adrian-bejan
and has written books and articles  about it

I read also statements like :" Life comes from engines. I define a live system as one that flows and morphs freely in order to persist in time, because that’s basically what living is: Nothing moves unless it is driven, unless it is pushed. "
as in http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/physics-evolution-life-constructal-law-bejan-ngbooktalk/

I am uneasy. On the one hand it is a very interesting approach when it comes from somebody with a very good command of non equilibrium thermodynamics as an expression of his basic understanding there. On the other hand I sense a presence of bifurcationism, of reduction to the priority of Physics that makes me uneasy.

The emphasis on explaining the generation of forms reminds me also of Christopher Alexander's approach (http://www.tkwa.com/fifteen-properties/, but especially I think the "Nature of Order") which seemed more open and less "encompassing".

Trying to find some discussion of both in google scholar I fell on http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.821.5698&rep=rep1&type=pdf

I wander what to make of all these
Perhaps a fraternity of the actors of this world? 

Περι πιστης

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/question-faith-case-151025083426953.html

Δρομοι και δρομοι