Newmedia on Mon, 5 Mar 2012 04:52:27 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> The $100bn Facebook question: Will capitalism survive 'value ab...


Jon:
 
> I'm just attempting to put the other side and the paradox 
> and ambiguity back in the equation.....

Alas, the *equation*  does NOT allow paradox! <g>
 
When Larry Kraus (well known popularizer of quantum/particle/string  
physics) opines that "mathematics is the only language of nature," he is just  
continuing the very old tradition that got us into this mess.
 
Needless to say, he's wrong.  We are using language right now.   And, it's 
not "mathematics."  It is equivocal and not univocal and rich  with paradox.
 
Whether this urge to "know the answers" began with the primordial  *desire* 
to definitively know GOOD from EVIL, or Pythagoras and his "beans" or  
Plato's denunciation of the "sophists" or, for our own Western "culture," with  
Ockham's RAZOR (with its own roots in Catharism), the "choice" has been 
between  trying to set up equations (i.e. "gnosticism") and/or trying to live 
with the  necessity of paradox.
 
This is what McLuhan called the "Ancient Quarrel."  I would recommend  his 
1943 Cambridge PhD thesis, "The Classical Trivium" (not published until  
2006) for those interested in the highlights of its history.
 
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY


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