The Limits of Science

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Ned
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The Limits of Science

Post by Ned »

In theoretical physics, physicists have been turning to mystical analogies, meditation, arguments of symmetry, harmony, elegance and beauty, both for inspiration and ‘proof’ of theories that become more and more ‘empirically un-testable’.

Here are a few quotes from leading physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and other scientists (many of them Nobel laureates) of the last few decades.

Sheldon Glashow (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1979) “Science is certainly slowing down….for the first time since the Dark Ages we can see how our noble search may end, with faith replacing science once again.”

Steven Weinberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1979) “…nor any other earthly accelerator could provide direct confirmation of a final theory; physicists would eventually have to rely on mathematical elegance and consistency as guides….might not reveal the Universe to be meaningful in human terms…all our ‘whys’ would eventually culminate in a ‘because’.”

Hans Bethe (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1967) when asked “Could there ever be another revolution in physics like the one that accompanied quantum mechanics”? – “That’s very unlikely”.

Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1965) “The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. ..There will be the interest of the connection of one level of phenomena to another – phenomena in biology and so on” (my emphasis)

Robert Oppenheimer (“the Father of the Atomic Bomb”, Princeton,1965) “The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and refinement of old wisdom”.

Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1932) “The great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory”.

Niels Bohr (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1922) “The search for the ultimate theory of physics might never reach a satisfying conclusion; as physicists sought to penetrate further into nature, they would face questions of increasing complexity and difficulty that would eventually overwhelm them…. For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory … [we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence”

In the “Scientific Method” section, I have said that the most important prerequisite for the method is intellectual integrity. Follow the data where they lead you, without prejudice. In other words, we need a completely open mind, which, among other things, admits the possibility that we may never even become aware of some phenomena in the Universe, and the possibility that understanding some others may be forever beyond our capabilities.

Think about it. We humans live on a planet orbiting a star that is just one among billions of other stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies in the known universe, which may be just one of billions of universes. Our recorded civilization goes back a few thousand years on this planet which was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, in a universe which is 13.8 billion years old (give or take a year). And it may be just one of billions of Big Bang - Big Crunch cycles. And we know for a fact, that we are equipped to understand everything?!

Admitting the possibility that we may not be able to understand everything does not require us to give up science or the scientific method. It only means that we keep an open mind and do not reject any reasonable suggestion out of hand, just because it lies outside the currently recognized boundaries of science. In his book, “The Meaning of It All”, Richard Feynman gives a delightful account of how he would investigate someone’s claim to be a mind reader and able to prove it. He finishes the story with the most open-minded statement I have ever read from a physicist:

“To be prejudiced against mind reading a million to one does not mean that you can never be convinced that a man is a mind reader.”

Accept it my friends, we are not gods with infinite power, no matter how much we would like to be. I can’t help thinking of a joke, involving patients in a mental institution. I hope no one will be offended:

There is a tall pole in the middle of the exercise yard. The patients affix a board to the top of the pole, with a note on it, and climb the pole every day, one by one, read the note, nod, then descend. The staff are burning with curiosity. Finally, one night, after the patients retire, one of the doctors climbs up the pole, reads the note, nods and descends. “What does it say”? asks the other doctor. “It says: ‘this is the end of the pole, don’t try to climb any farther.” the first doctors replies. They both nod and go home.
duszek
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by duszek »

Can you give us some examples of limits of science ?

One limit I can think of is the survival of the human race and of life on earth in general.
The sun will stop shining one day and without sun we are all doomed.
Ned
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by Ned »

duszek wrote:Can you give us some examples of limits of science ?

One limit I can think of is the survival of the human race and of life on earth in general.
The sun will stop shining one day and without sun we are all doomed.
duszek, I wasn't talking about an absolute limit to science but a possible limit to science.

Look at it this way:

Wee human beings have five sensory inputs (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) through which we can perceive the universe. We use these five senses to tell us in which way to expand them with instruments, to see better, farther and to observe phenomena, like electromagnetism, that we are not directly equipped to observe.

So far so good.

However, how do we know that in that enormous universe doesn't exist phenomena that we don't have the input for from our senses, so we don't even know in which direction to look with instruments. There may be dozens or more senses that we don't have that would enable us to notice things out there. These may be those we may never even learn about.

One concrete thing I always refer to: in order to prove String Theory, we would need a particle accelerator the size of the Milky Way Galaxy.

I fully expect that we will continue expanding our knowledge forever and ever (maybe even after the Earth is swallowed up by the Sun -- in other planetary systems), but with ever diminishing returns. That's what some of the quotes were about in the OP of this thread.

Bottom line: don't look for "Ultimate Truths" and "Final Answers" because there may not be any and we may not be equipped to search for it.
duszek
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by duszek »

How about the curved space ? Can you imagine it somehow ?

I have difficulty grasping this concept.

A cube of jelly can be curved when someone had punched it. But empty space ?

Wind can possibly curve the air but if there is no air what is curved then ?
Ned
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by Ned »

No, duszek, I can't imagine it and nobody can, because we evolved in a very limited segment of the universe.

The basic idea came from what Einstein later described as “the happiest thought of my life”. He realized that, without looking out of a closed box, we could not tell whether we were freely floating in intergalactic space, totally free from any gravitational effect, or freely falling in a gravitational field of some huge mass, like a planet or a star. He called this insight the “Principle of Equivalence”.

This equivalence is exactly what enables NASA engineers to simulate zero gravity environment by a freely falling spacecraft (a modified Boeing 727, called the “vomit comet”) in which, for a short period of time (about 30 seconds), the training astronauts can’t tell without looking outside that they are falling toward Earth and not in zero-gravity space.

According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, there is no force at all. The sun doesn’t know about the planets, the planets don’t know about the sun. They don’t pull on each other; there is no attraction at all. What each chunk of matter does, it does it by itself, independently of any other chunk, but the effects add up and create the reality of our planetary system.

We have already seen from the special theory of relativity that space and time are not absolute, because observers measure distances and durations differently from one another, depending on their relative uniform motion. As it turns out, it is not only relative speed that influences our space and time: matter and energy (interchangeable, as we will see later), as distributed through space, will also have an effect.

This effect will redefine the concept of “straight line” and “shortest distance” between two points in such a way that in the vicinity of large masses like the sun, the straight line will become distorted into a curve. So the planet ‘thinks’ it is going in a straight line, minding its own business, unaware that the sun is there, yet it goes around in a closed loop. Very much like a man going north in a straight line on Earth will have to follow a curved line through the two poles, leading back to the point where he started.

Every object follows its motion through space along the shortest, straightest path, as it is distorted in the vicinity of big lumps of matter. The sun does not affect the planets; it affects the space around itself. John Archibald Wheeler said, “Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to move”.
Advocate
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by Advocate »

[quote=Ned post_id=202119 time=1431285140 user_id=9566]
In theoretical physics, physicists have been turning to mystical analogies, meditation, arguments of symmetry, harmony, elegance and beauty, both for inspiration and ‘proof’ of theories that become more and more ‘empirically un-testable’.

Here are a few quotes from leading physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and other scientists (many of them Nobel laureates) of the last few decades.

Sheldon Glashow (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1979) “Science is certainly slowing down….for the first time since the Dark Ages we can see how our noble search may end, with faith replacing science once again.”

Steven Weinberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1979) “…nor any other earthly accelerator could provide direct confirmation of a final theory; physicists would eventually have to rely on mathematical elegance and consistency as guides….might not reveal the Universe to be meaningful in human terms…all our ‘whys’ would eventually culminate in a ‘because’.”

Hans Bethe (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1967) when asked “Could there ever be another revolution in physics like the one that accompanied quantum mechanics”? – “That’s very unlikely”.

Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1965) “The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. ..There will be the interest of the connection of one level of phenomena to another – phenomena in biology and so on” (my emphasis)

Robert Oppenheimer (“the Father of the Atomic Bomb”, Princeton,1965) “The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and refinement of old wisdom”.

Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1932) “The great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory”.

Niels Bohr (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1922) “The search for the ultimate theory of physics might never reach a satisfying conclusion; as physicists sought to penetrate further into nature, they would face questions of increasing complexity and difficulty that would eventually overwhelm them…. For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory … [we must turn] to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence”

In the “Scientific Method” section, I have said that the most important prerequisite for the method is intellectual integrity. Follow the data where they lead you, without prejudice. In other words, we need a completely open mind, which, among other things, admits the possibility that we may never even become aware of some phenomena in the Universe, and the possibility that understanding some others may be forever beyond our capabilities.

Think about it. We humans live on a planet orbiting a star that is just one among billions of other stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies in the known universe, which may be just one of billions of universes. Our recorded civilization goes back a few thousand years on this planet which was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, in a universe which is 13.8 billion years old (give or take a year). And it may be just one of billions of Big Bang - Big Crunch cycles. And we know for a fact, that we are equipped to understand everything?!

Admitting the possibility that we may not be able to understand everything does not require us to give up science or the scientific method. It only means that we keep an open mind and do not reject any reasonable suggestion out of hand, just because it lies outside the currently recognized boundaries of science. In his book, “The Meaning of It All”, Richard Feynman gives a delightful account of how he would investigate someone’s claim to be a mind reader and able to prove it. He finishes the story with the most open-minded statement I have ever read from a physicist:

“To be prejudiced against mind reading a million to one does not mean that you can never be convinced that a man is a mind reader.”

Accept it my friends, we are not gods with infinite power, no matter how much we would like to be. I can’t help thinking of a joke, involving patients in a mental institution. I hope no one will be offended:

There is a tall pole in the middle of the exercise yard. The patients affix a board to the top of the pole, with a note on it, and climb the pole every day, one by one, read the note, nod, then descend. The staff are burning with curiosity. Finally, one night, after the patients retire, one of the doctors climbs up the pole, reads the note, nods and descends. “What does it say”? asks the other doctor. “It says: ‘this is the end of the pole, don’t try to climb any farther.” the first doctors replies. They both nod and go home.
[/quote]

The answer to physics is the same as the answer to philosophy or economics or any other intractable problem; a simplified metaphorical understanding that makes finding actionable certainty possible.
Advocate
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the limits of scientists

Post by Advocate »

Hans Bethe (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1967) when asked “Could there ever be another revolution in physics like the one that accompanied quantum mechanics”? – “That’s very unlikely”.

We'll never discover a new layer or find new emergent properties? That's very unlikely.

Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1965) “The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. ..There will be the interest of the connection of one level of phenomena to another – phenomena in biology and so on” (my emphasis)

It will never come again because it will never end.

Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1932) “The great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory”.

If i was there to hear him say "the philosophical substance of quantum theory", i'd have to punch him in the mouth . What a fucking asshat.

>And we know for a fact, that we are equipped to understand everything?!

We're equipped to understand a subset of everything. Does anyone contend otherwise?

>Admitting the possibility that we may not be able to understand everything does not require us to give up science or the scientific method. It only means that we keep an open mind and do not reject any reasonable suggestion out of hand, just because it lies outside the currently recognized boundaries of science.

What's reasonable to believe isn't fixed. It was once reasonable to believe in slavery or god or that the way Earth was flat. Intellectual maturity is the process of Closing your mind. When you find a necessary truth you accept it as a foundation for more complex understanding.

>“To be prejudiced against mind reading a million to one does not mean that you can never be convinced that a man is a mind reader.”

But it does. He's failing to account for the fact that no reasonable person is going to give a fair hearing to something with a vanishingly small probability of being true because it would have to overturn increasingly more settled propositions the more counterintuitive it is. He's right in theory but there's a practical limit to what an intelligent person can, and therefore will, bother vetting.
Atla
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Re: the limits of scientists

Post by Atla »

Advocate wrote: Wed Sep 30, 2020 4:11 pm Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1932) “The great scientific contribution in theoretical physics that has come from Japan since the last war may be an indication of a certain relationship between philosophical ideas in the tradition of the Far East and the philosophical substance of quantum theory”.

If i was there to hear him say "the philosophical substance of quantum theory", i'd have to punch him in the mouth . What a fucking asshat.
He spoke up, no need to punch him in the mouth for that. Some of the stuff inherent to quantum theory is just plain incompatible with Western thought. So one of the two is probably fatally flawed.

We'll add this to the list of things that Advocate, philosopher-king of the world and solver of all philosophy, didn't understand.
Advocate
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by Advocate »

[quote=duszek post_id=202363 time=1431365995 user_id=3516]
How about the curved space ? Can you imagine it somehow ?

I have difficulty grasping this concept.

A cube of jelly can be curved when someone had punched it. But empty space ?

Wind can possibly curve the air but if there is no air what is curved then ?
[/quote]

It's a matter of metaphor and physics is in a fail state. If we'd accept Occam first many problems would cost up much faster. The carrier wave hypothesis does much better work than string theory.
zinnat13
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by zinnat13 »

To find the limits of the science, we have to define and understand what science actually is.

Contrary to what is commonly perceived now that the science can find all answers, the truth of the matter is that the science is/was never meant for finding answers.
The science is nothing more than a physical verification tool for philosophy. That is all the science can do.

Having said that, it is not the case that a scientist cannot be a philosopher. He certainly can which is clearly visible in quotes of the famous scientists mentioned in the OP.

With love,
Sanjay
Skepdick
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by Skepdick »

zinnat13 wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 2:58 pm To find the limits of the science, we have to define and understand what science actually is.

Contrary to what is commonly perceived now that the science can find all answers, the truth of the matter is that the science is/was never meant for finding answers.
The science is nothing more than a physical verification tool for philosophy. That is all the science can do.
Medice, cura te ipsum.

If science is simply a tool for philosophy, then surely we need to define and understand what philosophy actually is, and we need to understand the limits of philosophy itself.
PeteJ
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Re: The Limits of Science

Post by PeteJ »

The limit of physical science is its methodology. It's methods only allow the study of the physical. So it has tight limits. This approach leaves it unable to deal with the data of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg seems spot-on with his comment about the philosophical substance of QM. Likewise Schrodinger with the his view that the Upanishads provide this philosophical substance (or, if you like, an interpretation).

I've long thought that physicists would twig to the non-dual nature of Reality before philosophers, the latter group being so completely stuck in their 19th century ways, and it would make sense if it were Japanese physicists who led the charge.
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