The theory of theries and the model of models (3)
Modified theories struggle with reformulated concepts, discredited and rejected theories skulk in the doorways and shadows. Naive theories are downtrodden by more sophisticated theories who succumb to more sophisticated versions until sophistry is no longer a viable solution. Conformist theories rub shoulders with evolutionary and revolutionary theories, static sparks fly from the friction between them. Untested theories line up to be falsified, tentative theories reach out for composite theories and hypotheses or merely for a vague proposition.
The fractured air cries out with the eternal roar of battle. Statistical regulations punish tomes of chemical phenomenology, fighting for the overthrow of materialsim. Quantitative formulations struggle against mechanical representations of nature, but these are nothing more than rules for calculation, bereft of explanation. Formal arguments in progress across the whole continuum, defend against empiric evidence with qualitative, predictive statements. Naturalists, symbolists, realists, relativists and other protagonists shout heuristic slogans demanding static dynamism, rational idealology, free radicals and organic structures with natural impurities and contaminants.
Abstract mathematical concepts and constructions cry out against the evaporation of the ether into space and time by relativity. Theorists face a noisy, constant struggle to reduce phenomena to simple laws, before new experimental data forces them to modfy their interpretation and come up with superior models. Experimental spears prod the soft underbellies of the well-fed theorists, staticians, administrators and corporate echelons.
Spells, incantations and rhetoric chatter away relentlessly, seeking the combination that will lift them from arcane obscurity. Simple substances with complicated names drown in a sea of mirrors, vainly trying to bear the weight of their clumsy nomenclature.
Even though the landscape is dotted with discarded old theories, some stand out like monuments, endearing and still part of our consciousness. Look yonder, to a time when the world was flat, when ships sailed over the edges of the world into the fires of hell below.
Above was the ether, the ether that held everything and was made of nothing. The sun and the moon and the stars were held in place by the ether as they turned in their fixed orbit around the earth. This ether was one of just four fundamental elements. We breathed in phlostigen and breathed out dephlostigated air.
Heat had a caloric theory and magnets sprouted magnetic effluvia in their wake. We believed in the transmutation of gold from base elements and that the elixir of life would give us immortality. But that was not to be. Gradually it became clear that the world was made from tiny little atoms, too small to see, and unable to be divided, probably because of their hard shells.
Spiralling vortex theories were constructed to hold these atoms in the swirling ether. Then it was found that atoms must contain thousands of electrons, fixed in place by an external positive sphere. Slowly our electrons began to turn and to spin and smear and pertubate and jiggle . . . and as they did so, they diminished in number as it was found that there were not nearly as many electrons as we had thought there were. Electricity helped us to understand what these electrons were; vitreous and resinous electricity, caused by the contact of different metals, flowing streams of electrions in a vitreous fluid.
Once all of these atoms were ordered by their atomic weight then things started to become clearer. This naturally ordered form could be organised onto a square, discontinuous table, with the really interesting and useful bits isolated from the rest, like lepers with contagious ideas . . . so that misinformation can be propagated to formative minds . . . so that the pattern of truth can be hidden . . . This powerful fundamental information was too dangergous to let loose in the wider community . . . disbelievers would be liable to all forms of heretical punishment . . . or distracted by bread and circuses smoke and mirrors, . . . freedom and rhetoric . . . freedom and consumption . . .
Chris Loft 2004
updated 21 March 2007