Writing about how cultural narratives of technology shape what worlds we can build https://keikreutler.net 🗝️

Science is mnemonics for remembering the future

@keikreutler

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

Was thinking about how Bruno was a crackpot who believed the right thing (Copernicus model, infinite universe) for the wrong reasons (hermetic numerology, infinitude of god). Similarly Kepler fit the Platonic solids to planetary orbits — wrong models of the right orbits. The pattern is that models are effectively compact mnemonics for remembering arbitrarily constructed ideas. Like “My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos” is a mnemonic for planet names, Platonic solids are just a geometric mnemonic for 5 orbits.

Science is also just arbitrary constructs to remember ideas. But newton’s law of gravity additionally “remembers” the future because unlike the Platonic solids model it can predict future orbits of newly detected bodies. Kepler can only describe.

Curious to hear the thoughts that led to this one

How so? This is one of those piths that sounds cool to me at first but when I start to think about it critically I don't really get it...