Abstract
There are things that are difficult to recognize, not because they are too small for our eyes, but because they are too complex. In coming to terms with a difficult mathematical treatise or a poem written in a concentrated style, a magnifying glass will not help. Studying the exact form of the letters does not contribute to an understanding of the text. Even if, at the next higher level, we understand the letters as phonemes, and study the statistical laws of their combinations in a certain language, we may learn something about speech mechanisms and the structure of the language, but we will learn nothing about the meaning of the text. A particular text cannot be explained from the rules that govern a language.
For a long time it seemed as if in natural science the problem of language played only a secondary r ôle.
W. Heisenberg, 1960 [2.1]
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Reference
Heisenberg, W.: Sprache und Wirklichkeit in der modernen Physik (1960). In: Schritte über Grenzen, gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze. München: Piper & Co., 1971
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© 1977 Springer Science+ Business Media New York
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Braitenberg, V. (1977). Physics and Antiphysics. In: On the Texture of Brains. Heidelberg Science Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87702-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87702-5_2
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