The mechanical view of reality mirrors machine structure point for point

Evidence

The new definition of reality of seventeenth-century philosophy and science was therefore consistent with and analogous to the structure of machines. Machines (1) are made up of parts, (2) give particulate information about the world, (3) are based on order and regularity, (perform operations in an ordered sequence), (4) operate in a limited, precisely defined domain of the total context, and (5) give us power over nature. In turn, the mechanical structure of reality (1) is made up of atomic parts, (2) consists of discrete information bits extracted from the world, (3) is assumed to operate according to laws and rules, (4) is based on context-free abstraction from the changing complex world of appearance, and (5) is defined so as to give us maximum capability for manipulation and control over nature. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 874

Categorization

• DEFINE: Compact articulation of the five structural assumptions linking machine and reality that ground the book’s definition of the mechanical worldview.
• XREF: connects to: The mechanical worldview reduced environment from complex existence to mere material object — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 487; World exhibitions engineered realism through painstaking detail to guarantee a perfect model-reality correspondence — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 66

Broader Connections

• The mechanical worldview reduced environment from complex existence to mere material object #corroborates (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 487
• World exhibitions engineered realism through painstaking detail to guarantee a perfect model-reality correspondence #exemplifies (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 66