Is Mechanism definable?

[thinkandmull]

We were recently talking about Decartes, and I have a science thread on here two, so I thought I’d start a new one that combined those themes.

People call Cartesians mechanistic. What does this mean? Belief in forces and matter. But what besides that is science about? Are they saying that Cartesians would have rejected the idea that matter and energy were the same thing? Well so would Aquinas.

Anyway, let’s discuss this

P.S. Can anyone get this for us: Daniel Garber, “Descartes and the Scientific Revolution: Some Kuhnian Reflections,” Perspectives on Science 9, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 405–22.

I hear it’s about reconciling Descartes and Aristotle

 

[lmelahn]

We were recently talking about Decartes, and I have a science thread on here two, so I thought I’d start a new one that combined those themes.

People call Cartesians mechanistic. What does this mean? Belief in forces and matter. But what besides that is science about? Are they saying that Cartesians would have rejected the idea that matter and energy were the same thing? Well so would Aquinas.

Anyway, let’s discuss this

P.S. Can anyone get this for us: Daniel Garber, “Descartes and the Scientific Revolution: Some Kuhnian Reflections,” Perspectives on Science 9, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 405–22.

I hear it’s about reconciling Descartes and Aristotle

By “mechanism” we usually refer to the way Descartes thought he could explain all physical phenomena by considering material things through the arrangement and collisions of bodies. It is, in a sense, a resurrection of Democritus’ and Epicurus’ atomism.

Descartes thought, in essence, that everything that we consider a physical “quality” (e.g., color, texture, solidity) can be reduced to the configuration and movement of bodies. Looked at on their most basic level, bodies consist in so much quantity (i.e., volume) and so much movement (what we would call velocity or momentum, although Descartes predates Newton).

I can’t speak for Cartesians in general, but I expect that Descartes would have had a hard time accepting that mass (akin to his “quantity”) and energy (akin to his “movement”) are the same thing.

(Note that the law of conversation of energy can be traced philosophically back to Descartes: he thought that the total “quantity of movement”—he did not yet have the concept of “energy”—of a system would always remain the same.)

Aquinas would, as you point out, have his reservations about this as well, but for a different reason: because both mass and (kinetic) energy are characteristics, or qualities, of substances. They may be convertible in a predictable way (E=mc[sup]2[/sup]), but they are not exactly the same quality.

(On the other hand, if we consider mass and energy as different “species” of energy—the way heat energy, electric energy, and potential energy are different “kinds” or “species” of energy—then I think Aquinas could accept that.)

In summary: “mechanism” basically means thinking that you can explain all physical phenomena ultimately through the movements and collisions of simple bodies.

 

[thinkandmull]

Descartes position is not different from regular science. Don’t they explain color by going “deeper and smaller” into it. Is not sound waves of energy?

 

[PseuTonym]

We were recently talking about Descartes, and I have a science thread on here too, so I thought I’d start a new one that combined those themes.

People call Cartesians mechanistic. What does this mean?

Was Descartes himself a Cartesian? My impression is that if Cartesians are mechanistic then Descartes was not a Cartesian, because he believed in a realm of mind that is not controlled by matter.

Belief in forces and matter. But what besides that is science about?

I do not follow your train of thought here. Why are you making reference to science? I would think that Cartesians are committed to the philosophy of Descartes, particularly to those parts that have not been adopted as part of mainstream science. Something like Cartesian coordinates in analytic geometry will be credited to Descartes, but not thought of as special baggage carried by Cartesians.

 

[thinkandmull]

Cartesians are seen as followers of Descartes. I don’t see Descartes as saying something different than the scientific method: search for the physical attributes, if there are any, or sound and color, ect.

 

[PseuTonym]

I don’t see Descartes as saying something different from the scientific method:

I believe that Descartes had at least one manuscript distributed to some important philosophers prior to publication of the manuscript, and that Descartes took into consideration written comments that were made about the manuscript(s). Also, I believe that at least one book on this subject has been translated into English. So it should be possible for you to read Descartes’ comments on why he believed that some criticisms were faulty, and to read some of those criticisms. You could try to summarize all of the controversy by simply saying that everybody was following the scientific method, and that the scientific method does not guarantee agreement, but that kind of summary does not seem to be very informative.

search for the physical attributes, if there are any, or sound and color, etc.

If that is a reference to something that Descartes wrote, then I have to admit that I do not recognize it.

 

[PseuTonym]

People call Cartesians mechanistic. What does this mean? Belief in forces and matter.

Surely the ideas of force and matter were introduced before Descartes was born. Also, some attempts to describe nature are more mechanistic than others. What Wolfram proposes in “A New Kind of Science” seems more mechanistic than any well-known proposals made between the years 1596 and 1650.

According to Wolfram, “traditional” mathematics and science are doomed: mathematics because of its emphasis on rigorous proof, and science because of its preference for models that can make accurate predictions. He says that the most interesting problems presented by nature are likely to be formally undecidable or computationally irreducible, rendering proofs and predictions impossible. Mathematicians and scientists have managed to keep busy only by carefully choosing to work on the relatively small set of problems that have simple solutions (ANKS, p. 3).

There is more: most mathematical models in science are based on the assumption that time and space are continuous, whereas Wolfram says that time and space are discrete. He would have us abandon models based on calculus and Euclidean geometry in favor of discrete systems like cellular automata (“CA”). Indeed, he sees the entire universe as a CA-like system that likely follows a simple dynamical rule, and the better part of Chapter 9 consists of some clever speculation on the exact nature of such a rule.

Link:
ams.org/notices/200302/fea-gray.pdf

 

[thinkandmull]

What manuscript? It sounds like you are talking about the Meditations?



Anyway, so far I haven’t seen an explanation of what Mechanism is. They say it means the world works like a watch. Don’t design arguments say the same (Paley). That statement doesn’t really mean anything except the world has interaction.

lmelahn says Descartes is atomistic, while you are saying he is not. People say Descartes is a subjectivist, that the mind is everything, but you are saying in the last post that quantum physics is contrary to Descartes.

I think people put Descartes in certain vague categories and forget about him. I’ve read some of his writings. A lot of people though comment on him without really taking his words into account