Descartes' Dream The World According to Mathematics

Name: Descartes' Dream The World According to Mathematics
Price: 7.63 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780486442525

ISBN-10: 0486442527

ISBN-13: 9780486442525

Edition: 2005

Authors: Philip J. Davis, Reuben Hersh

List price: $17.95

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Description:

Philosopher Ren Descartes visualized a world unified by mathematics, in which all intellectual issues could be resolved rationally by local computation. This series of provocative essays takes a modern look at the seventeenth-century thinker's dream, examining the physical and intellectual influences of mathematics on society, particularly in light of technological advances. They survey the conditions that elicit the application of mathematic principles; the effectiveness of these applications; and how applied mathematics constrain lives and transform perceptions of reality. Highly suitable for browsing, the essays require different levels of mathematical knowledge that range from popular…

Book details

List price: $17.95
Copyright year: 2005
Publisher: Dover Publications, Incorporated
Publication date: 3/24/2005
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 352
Size: 6.25" wide x 9.25" long x 0.75" tall
Weight: 0.946
Language: English



Preface


Acknowledgements



This Mathematized World


Descartes' Dream


Where the Dream Stands Today


The Limits of Mathematics


Are We Drowning in Digits?


The Stochastized World: A Matter of Style?


Feedback and Control: The Equilibrium Machine


Computer Graphics and the Possibility of High Art



The Social Tyranny of Numbers


Mathematics and Rhetoric


The Criterion Makers: Mathematics and Social Policy


The Computerization of Love


Testing


Mathematics as a Social Filter


A "Marxian" Analysis of the Role of Computing in Organizations



Cognition and Computation


The Descriptive, Predictive, and Prescriptive Functions of Applied Mathematics


The Intellectual Components of Technology, Mathematics and Computation: Four Lists


Metathinking as a Way of Life


Three Meanings of Computation


What Scientific Computation is for


Why Should I Believe a Computer: Computation as Process and Product


The Whorfian Hypothesis: Ends and Means in Computer Languages


The Programming Milieu



Perspectives Through Time


Of Time and Mathematics


Non-Euclidean Geometry and Ethical Relativism


The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Computers. Are We Hooked?



Mathematics and Ethics


Platonic Mathematics Meets Platonic Philosophy of Religion: An Ethical Metaphor


The Computer Thinks: An Interpretation in the Medieval Mode


Mathematics and the End of the World



Personal Meanings


Mathematics and Imposed Reality


Loss of Meaning through Intellectual Processes: Mathematical Abstraction



Envoi


Bibliography


Index