Re: cracks and pots

[Vaughan Pratt <pratt@cs.stanford.edu>]

Category theory, and for that matter modern (as opposed to elementary)
algebra, is to mathematics as mathematics is to physics, and for that
matter to computer science.  Whereas mathematics organizes reasoning
about the phenomena studied by physicists and computer scientists,
algebra and category theory perform a similar function for mathematics.

In any setting organization is desirable, and arguably necessary on
occasion.  But the use of algebra and category theory to organize
physics and computer science is a double whammy here.  One should
therefore be doubly sympathetic of those physicists and computer
scientists who want to know what substantive contribution is being made
to their subject and can't evaluate the answers because they are one if
not two levels removed from the necessary abstractions.

Vaughan Pratt