As we know, mathematicians come in two kinds, and these two kinds work in two different domains. Applied mathematics is practiced close to physics and practiced to make formulas applicable to physical matter. The field holds to the values: “it is true because it works” and “if it doesn’t work within established certainty it is not viable.”
The other type typically works alone, preferably withdrawn from considerations about practicality, in pleasant rooms or walking, or lying down. They ponder the aspects of existing forms, and attempt to forge, enlightened by them, ahead in the dark, a bastion of knowledge. Truth - symmetrical, awe inspiring certainty. Both these types of thinker however ponders the mind like a general scopes the battlefield, keenly observe how it compares to the positions of other, visionaries who have established knowledges and/or are still making paths of their own. When genius strikes, and it always does if one keeps oneself positioned, a possibility for an advancement relative to the other positions makes itself known. An increase of power to incorporate.
But this is only result, and only the part of the result that is valued. Yet the first glimpse of the thought hints at truth by it’s complete separateness, its newness - it is this which makes it so perfect, round, symmetrical, and fits the context of the field of study as if it was meant to be. The truth of science that discovery does not follow from the original context, but is an original rebellion against it! Small rebellions get beaten down and stripped of their means, science is the art of disproving a certainty perceived as weak and establishing a greater one. Thinkers are comparing their thoughts to other thoughts all the time, except when someone really manages to produce an original thought - then the beneficiary of science is not pleased at all, because values tumble down, and so they quickly get reinstated as close to their previous position as manageable. This in order so that the ship will not overturn, but that it add to the existing technology, which is basically ammunition against physical threats and production of artificial increase on pleasurable experiences of life. Very deeply, technology as a means to power dominates science and determines where it may go. In other words, the applied mathematicians own the theoretical mathematicians. Of course they also are owned. The best minds get bought by the government, to sustain the programme, and this is the morality of science. That sounds like a conspiracy theory and it is, but it is also a natural course of resources in a technocratically shaped world. Eistein wrote something like “it takes a touch of brave genius for science to be moved away from the drive to produce things more complex and violent”. This genius is lacking obviously (even though not in man, in the methods whereby he is permitted to make himself useful), swallowed by the doctrine
“It is true because it works.”
Because what works? This is the non-sequitur upon which the path of science is determined.
- Theoretical mathematics is based on something altogether unaffiliated the things that must be made to work - it is only drawn out by the desire to make things work. The desire for not only power in military and strategic ways, but fascination, wonder, the magic mirror of being. In other words - the only reason why science has the cold grim image that it has despite all its wonders, is because we use it as if it were not a mirror. . We think that it dictates a truth outside of us, so we are meek before it, we let it take gestalt as an awe inspiring warmachine. Fear of destruction produces means to destruction. We are producing our own moral self-annihilation as long as the values are not properly understood - science is, like all of life, out to please itself. It is only hindered by powers that also want to please themselves. But what is it that science can do that is most pleasing? Immoral fixation: why do we enjoy looking at explosions? What is it that we repress by this idealization of it’s opposite? - Genius is the mind understanding what it can produce for the circumstances. This is the result of the mind knowing itself as original, un-dogmatic, non-robotic. Applied science, as it is aimed at universalizing forms of action by demonstrating them to be valuable, necessarily moves away from theoretical mathematics. It has to, because theoretical mathematics proposes symmetries far greater than the vague and incidental ones that emerge in a world where the only security from total annihilation is the threat of total annihilation. This is I believe the reason that governments hide their most non-malicious technologies in the most aggressive applications. And from here we may think of another way to produce certainty. To go back to the original instinct of the mathematician, lying down at the waterfall so to speak, in the knowledge that the mind is certain to produce things which will overturn certainties. This pioneer thinks not of himself:
“I question, therefore I am”, but:
“Being is a question, therefore it is possible for me to be”.
In this sense, science is not yet opportunistic enough. This sounds cynical but, what is opportunity? Is it defined by destroying an enemy? That can hardly be the first value, as then nothing would ever have been spared destruction [cultural thermodynamics]. Capitalism has not been understood by science in its full capacity as an agent of the phenomenal world, it is judged as rather violent, anti-civilizing, by its calling to our lowest instincts: a monster instead of a domesticated animal. It has conquered all our forms, we do not yet know how to manage it. It eludes us for reasons to do with good and evil - we hail our victories and overcome our losses. We should be doing the reverse as well - victory may be of the good, but is itself, if in the process of overcoming uncertainty relatively bad. It make us complacent by resolving general tension. On the other hand - losses are, if not excessive, good - they incite thought and activity, awaken will to power. What is done first when the will to power is awakened? Where does it automatically seek its increase? In this automatism is our axiom. Uproot this plant, dig up the dirt, mix it around a bit and feed it water and sunlight - and hop! genius! (I need to get out and drink some).
Recapitulation;
- Science does not of itself commit itself to a course. Yet we are committed to “the cause of science”.
- We are committed to an impossibility to commit. This is the contradiction as it naturally follows from the non sequitur of approaching science as a necessarily viable truth.
- Truth, in its human meaning, pertains to the value given to experiencing understanding. The outcome of a scientifically calculated operation can amount to truth in this sense, but it can as easily amount in the totally incomprehensible, in fact it must. There is no logical argument for the premise that an acceptable truth arrived at by science does not eliminate possibilities for truths less acceptable which had up until then been possible.
- Technology is approached less as what it is (the general approach to a certain aspect of reality creating within reality an exploitation of this one aspect) than as what we would like to have of it - power over uncertainty.
- The ultimate failure of the scientific project to create security (its original morality) is shown in the tremendous uncertainties looming now above us as we have followed the path of science, towards an end that seems less and less pleasant.