“This is not a pipe”
I think I’m finally starting to get to a point where I can make some references to things I believe in. I have lots of ideas about philosophy, science, ethics, and the univerise in general, but they’re all just a big mess in my head. I’m never able to argue anything coherently and I’ve always hated that.
Though there are things that they all say that I disagree with, I’m finally discovering that men like Bertrand Russell, David Bohm, and Alfred Korzybski had ideas that fit very well with what I think I probably believe.
One problem I’ve had quite a lot with how physics tends to work is that there’s far too much emphasis on the mathematics. It seems as though many people take it to be that the universe works the way it does because it is governed by math. It’s certainly an elegant idea, and I’m certaintly not going to deny that the universe behaves very much in accordance with mathematics, but I cringe at the idea that it is governed by it. Never does an electron solve for its equations of motion before deciding which way to move.
I think this is where Korzybski’s general semantics can really come into play. Mathematics could be considered a map of the universe, but of course is not the universe itself. Yet I’m not sure if I’m willing to commit entirely to this. Physics — mathematics — might be unique in being the only map that, once we had a unified theory, you could get all the information you needed about the universe is you just poke at it long enough.
