The Day The Universe Changed
by Richard Reisz
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Actor: James BurkeDirector: Richard Reisz
Brand: PBS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: NTSC
Running Time: 550 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-01-31
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Ambrose Video Publishing Inc
DVD Reviews of The Day The Universe Changed
DVD Review: the real connections
Summary: 3 Stars
I thought I'd note that this applies to "The Day the Universe Changed" as much as James Burke's "Connections." The applicability comes from that of how the dark ages essentialy acts as a social 'clearing of the fields'. There's also the way use of the pole star leads to problems when the sailors try to sail around Africa and find that they can't use it anymore.
James Burke in his "Connections" and "The Day the Universe Changed" tries to show connections between science and history. He finds all kinds of connections; but, it seems to me that sometimes some of his connections are not quite I guess the word is true, but that word is problematical, which I'm sure you know(probably better than me; i've only read general accounts . . . including "Godel's Proof" by I do believe a Nagel guy). I like his third chapter of his "Connections" where he shows how the events that led to England speaking English and not something else are very much tied up with at least technological developments. His accounts of the Knight and its influence on Medieval culture shows a kind of 'connections' that seem similar to other 'connections' throughout his books and videos. He points out how the use of the horse as a vehicle for someone to perform jousting. It's like the anser to one problem leads to two or more problems. The knight on horseback subsequently needs a saddle which is connected to feet supports(forgetting the actual names here), and the horse needs a special collar devise to keep from getting choked. The use of the horse needs horseshoes to help out the horse. The use of the horse needed a certain amount of farming and so on and so forth. This example reminds me of other such connections.
Like in his first chapter of his "Connections" he notes how farming leads to various technologies like irrigation. He shows a few different connections actualy. But, my point here is that it seems to me the really interesting connections are those that come about by a kind of daming up of nature(as in like a hydro-electric dam), or a clearing of the fields in farming. You clear the fields and all of a sudden, your taking on the job of irrigation, pest control, and fertilizing. Or, to get back to the daming up of nature, you dam it up and all of a sudden, you get electricity out. In a similar way, you dam up nature somehow, and the pertinant fundamental concepts one needs to play with in an intellectual exercise comes out.
I'm thinking that daming up nature is kind of like idealization in mathematics. Idealization is one side of the abstraction coin of abstraction. Philip Davis and Rueben Hersh explain the other kind of abstraction in their "Mathematical Experience" book. They call it extraction. Suzanne Langer in her "Introduction to Symbolic Logic" still gives the best account of this. Everything has structure. A structure consistes of a set of elements connected by a relation(s). A given structure's relations can take on many different sets of elements; i ran to the store; you ran to the movies. Basicaly, the form stays the same in this case. This defines abstraction in the sense of extraction. Theorems are kindof proved generalizations. Generalizations are abstractions.
Numbers start out as idealizations, and then with ever more mathematical development take on higher levels of abstraction. When you count, you note certain phenomenon like sets of elements, a matching operation, and one-to-one correspondence. But, then when addition comes along, your mapping from those idealizations to each other. Number went from idealization to abstraction. I mean 2+3=4+1.
The point is that idealization led to problems like how do these idealizations combine? The Pythagorean theorem led to irrationals, diophantine analyses, algebraic numbers. The calculus led to calculus of variations, complex analyses. The fundamental theorem of the Calculus led to Real analyses and the Lebegue integral because when mathematicians took a close logical look at it, they found cases that couldn't be accounted for by even Newton and Liebniz's initial understanding. Once some land is cleared out, or an answer is established to some degree, more problems/questions arise. The reason is kind of Godel's theorem. A finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths. Or, to say the least, some phenomenon cannot be accounted for from a given finite set of axioms. There's still points of vagueness.
I mean like in Galileo's laws of speed. They need reference points. What reference points. This problem wasn't solved by Newton or Laplace. It was solved by Einstein. Then, he was able to derive Newtonian mechanics from his higher general theory.
I get this idea about Godel's theorems and connections to everything from science and mathematics to Jacob Bronowski's "Origin of Knowledge and Imagination." He's saying how the universe is this infinitely detailed continuum. And, that when we establish some boundary, it's really an artificiality. Do you see a little number two laying around on the ground somewhere? How about a bunch of zero dimensional points all lined up in a row?(I hope you don't think that I think that you do) We establish a clearing. We solve some problems, but there's still points of vagueness. And, so by finding a way of defining those points of vagueness, we have new problems to solve. When reading David Hilbert's article about the 23 unsolved problems around 1900, most problems were about defining some point of vagueness.
Just to get back to James Burke for a second. The major interesting connections are either about how mathematics led to some technology like the Nuremburg Egg watch and clock making. Or! They're about the vacuum! I mean by finding the vacuum, we're able to investigate gases, sound(or the absence of). He mentions this in his second episode of his connections and the third one. The steam engine then had something more to do with the vacuum than not as well. And that's the major technological development in the second half of his connections. And then, there's the lightbulb. In his global warming videos, he notes how shifts in the weather for whatever reason led to this or that civilization appearing and technological developments. I can't help noting how scientific periods comes after a dark ages. The first one was really the Mesopotamians(in general) around 3000B.C. to the 1000 B.C.s. Then, after a dark ages, the Greeks took much of that knowledge and put it in a deductive framework. Then, then went further in conics and trigonometry, the three delian problems, number theory, and with Archemides, center points of odd shapes. Then, as we all know the Kepler/Tycho Braha, Galileo, Newton . . . came after a dark ages.
I was watching Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" again maybe a month ago, and couldn't help noting that back in the times when people followed herds wherever they went(before the agricultural times), they couldn't think much of love. Peope didn't select one another. They just delt with each other. They did it when they're time was to do it. I've often thought that intelligence itself may come from some process of 'clearing of the fields.' As Jacob Bronowski notes, non-human language does not abstract out words from the sentences. They are all whole with nature. I mean people are socialy bound up for the most part. For the most part, they don't stop to question it. I mean how back in pre-industrial era certainly, an agricultural worker didn't have time to sit down and work out whatever mathematical mystery was bothering him(generaly speaking). This doesn't mean they were stupid; just that (s)he needs to work almost twenty four hours a day. Must the same for most non-human animals and life. They're too busy to think. The thing is that with Homo Australipithicus on, it did happen. Although, each time we'd become dependent on knowledge, we'd still find ourselves consumed by nature - unable to sit down and work on some new mystery. Usually, the problems eventualy would catch up with us(that is the problems being dependent on a finite understanding represented by that technological existence forces on us), and in the spur of the moment, somebody cooked up some rough solution and away we went again. One implication of all this is we are the technological and hence knowledge dependent species.
I'd like to note connections between all this and logical proof; but, I think I've proved enough(maybe not with symbolic logic; but, well . . . ;), and I thought I'd point out something else.
Godel's theorem says that a finite set of consistent axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths. But, an inconsistent statement can. It just seems to me that supernatural religions do exactly this. That god(s) are algebraic X's standing for "I don't know." and, "I don't want to know because that will force me to think(possibly because it would force someone to break social ties). They say "god works in mysterious ways" because sometimes god does things that in the eyes of someone thinking logicaly, god just murdered someone(since he's all powerfull and all knowing and did everything). So, good or bad, god did it; and if god did bad somehow, he must of had some purpose; god is testing their faith. An old testament example of inconsisten statements would be Exodus 3:14, where god says I am that I am. A new testament example would be "9:22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." This is 1Coninthians 9:22.
It just seems to me that most people are vagueness gamers. Instead of reasoning, they fear monger; they play vagueness games, and if that doesn't work, they resort to violence and fear mongering of some kind. Just to give an example . . . recently, my family had their thanksgiving, and my father wanted me to take a shower. I'm assuming this because he couldn't ask me about taking a shower, He always had to speak indirectly. He'd say things like there's plenty of hot water, or something else. He just could not(cannot think rationaly; this is just one recent case I managed to jot down; i see this all the time, but I don't write them down; i forget, and well; i'm just amazed at the psychological nightmare this society is).
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