The Newtonian Imagination

May 28th, 2007 Fred McVittie Posted in Descartes, Rene, Embodiment, Metaphor, Newton, Isaac |

The mechanistic paradigm devised by Newton and Descartes, and refined by Locke, Le Mettier etc. represents the final stage in the development of a truly ‘embodiable’ body of knowledge (sic). By virtue of the paradigm being limited to the the mechanical interactions of medium sized objects moving at medium speed, its area of of explanation corresponds to that which falls within the horizon of direct human experience. The fact that the model was used to explain phenomena which would later be more effectively explained by theories lying beyond the reach of human embodiment: electricity, chemistry, particle physics, astrophysics etc. does not diminish the achievements of scientists working in and advancing an understanding of the mechanistic paradigm. Rather it is more useful to recognise that one of the properties of the mechanistic paradigm is that it not only explains much of the workings of the human-sized world, but also that it describes what (metaphorical, imaginary) cognitive structures we need to create in order to think about elements of the cosmos which lie beyond the horizon of the senses. In other words, our minds are adapted to solve only those problems which apply to medium-sized objects moving at medium speed, and which are directly apprehensible to the senses. All of the problems that we are adaptively enable to detect and deal with fit within the mechanistic Newtonian/Cartesian paradigm. When we address problems or create theories which appear to lie outside of the mechanistic paradigm, we do to through the use of embodiable, Newtonian metaphor.