>>13903345Set theory and the "geometry" it spawned: topology.
The Cantorian rejection of infinitesimals and the endless autism that is discontinuous real analysis.
The endless source of abstract navel gazing that is category theory, which at its worst is basically formalized pilpul.
And logic/metamathematics as hallucinated by Tarski, à la verité de La Palice "P is true iff P is true", the precursor to category theory for wasting time and paper and feigning productivity.
What they have in common is this:
They are hasty abstractions and overgeneralizations with shaky ontological basis, that fit the immediate purpose for which they were created "alright", but that time always proves to be unfit abstractions for the emerging problematics of what they were supposed to model, and that, by their incredible genericity, appear to say a lot, encouraging philosophical misconceptions and mathematical mysticism akin to modern numerology, when in reality they say very little, again as time tends to demonstrate.
E.g.: Set theory and its model theory, then subsumed by category theory (to be subsumed by type theory, unless the latter is consumed by the former), but now you must nod to the set theorists masturbating to syntax and dreaming up large cardinals (studying HYUGE infinities!!), even after being BTFO about the meaning of their work multiple times (Godel, Lowenheim-Skolem paradox).
Or category theorists sniffing their own farts about how deep their index pushing logic is.
On the physics side:
Replacing mechanics with unjustified reification of abstract mathematics. (Relativity)
Forcing philosophical misconceptions of its meaning as dogma, then having to cope that reality disproves your postulate by rejecting even more mechanics to make enough room for it in your theory. (Quantum mechanics)
Diverting attention from classical electrodynamics proper, which is not a spotless theory.
"Gauge theory." "Virtual particles." "Properties of the vacuum." "Vacuum fluctuations." etc.
