Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!dgp.toronto.edu!elf
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From: elf@dgp.toronto.edu (Eugene Fiume)
Subject: Re: Fractals, and Philosophy of Science
Message-ID: <1990Jan6.122804.21949@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <119.256E54C5@uscacm.UUCP> <1247@becker.UUCP> <9144@cbmvax.commodore.com> <6780@lindy.Stanford.EDU> <9215@cbmvax.commodore.com> <12707@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 6 Jan 90 17:28:04 GMT
Lines: 23

In article <12707@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> markv@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Mark VandeWettering) writes:
>
>
>I don't believe that science will ever gain a view of the "big" picture, 
>only increasingly more complex and intricate views of increasingly smaller
>and smaller scale effects.
>
>So ends the philosophy.
>
Reductionism doesn't preclude unifying the "big" with the "small".  That's the
goal, and it's the most effective scientific stance we've got.  I'd rather see
a hard problem broken up into small pieces than to believe in magic.

I guess that's the thing that bugs me most about the fractal bandwagon.
Fractals aren't magic.  They're cute, fun and frilly mathematical objects that
might have something to say about the world (I personally have my doubts).
But fractallographers (!) run perilously close to endowing them magical power.
[Just go to a populist talk on fractals sometime.]  Soon, some yuck will
be marketing New Age fractal crystals (-: .
-- 
Eugene Fiume, Dynamic Graphics Project
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
elf@dgp.toronto.edu, (416) 978-5472