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Worship of reason and science overlooks limits of knowledge
By Wan Lixin |
September 8, 2012, Saturday
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IN this enlightened age of science and technology, devotion to religion is still tolerated, though it is eclipsed by our faith in our power to know (science).
This faith to end all faiths is all-conquering, all-excluding and not infrequently assigned the status of state necessity.
The overriding orthodoxy liberates us from our fears and anxieties, after they have been denigrated as superstitious and irrational.
Many people firmly believe today that if scientists are kept busy, their discoveries would solve virtually all the problems confronting us.
If they have to live with cars, pollution, nuclear weapons, and rising sea levels, they are consoled by the brave new world tomorrow.
In "The End of Discovery: Are We Approaching the Boundaries of the Knowable?" physicist Russell Stannard paints a different picture.
Using his encyclopedic knowledge, Stannard suggests that while science won't reach its limits soon, it will stop making fundamental discoveries.
"We take it for granted that science ... progressively advances. But it was not always so. And, more importantly, it will not continue to be so - not indefinitely," Stannard claims.
This won't be because humanity knows everything; rather, the human brain evolved for certain functions, and human intelligence has its limits. For example, confirming string theory would require a "particle accelerator the size of a galaxy," Stannard says.
Certain profound questions have long resisted resolution, perhaps because they have no answers.
These questions happen to be important, lying behind the consciousness of every probing mind, particularly the mind of children.
Big Bang
For example, how did the universe begin?
According to the prevailing theory, our universe began 13.7 billion years ago, when everything in existence compressed into a single point. Then came the Big Bang, which gave birth to everything, including space, matter, and time.
But to ask what caused the Big Bang is meaningless, for answering that would entail a causal analysis. For cause and effect to exist, there must be time. But before the Big Bang, there was no time.
As a matter of fact, to say anything about conditions before the Big Bang would be meaningless, for there is no "before" in the first place.
Here is the border of human knowledge, inaccessible not only to precise scientific investigation, but also human understanding.
The speculation about the beginning of the universe has been based on philosophical deliberation, and any philosophical inquiry is very much subject to the personality and perspective of the researcher.
As we know, they fall into two categories, idealists who regard the objects of their perception as consisting of ideas, and materialists who explain all consciousness and will in terms of material agency.
According to the anthropic principle, a number of coincidences make the universe perfectly hospitable to human life.
If the Big Bang had been more violent, created matter wouldn't have coalesced into stars. If it had been less violent, everything would have been pulled back together into a "Big Crunch."
Gravity had to be the right strength to draw together gases created by the Big Bang, to jump-start nuclear fusion and to keep the sun burning long enough for life to evolve.
The stars had to burn in just the right way to create heavier elements -such as carbon, a foundation of life - via "nuclear resonance." These weightier atoms had to be "blasted out" of stars through neutrinos.
The resulting clouds of matter combined to make planets. Once life began, the "copying process" that transmits genetic material had to permit just the right degree of error: exact enough to create new creatures similar to their parents, but containing sufficient variations for different life forms to emerge.
Given all these coincidences, it's easier to understand why ancient Chinese generally took a more humanistic view of the universe as controlled by a superior force based on the principle of harmony between the yin and yang, and the interplay between the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth).
Lao Tzu posited the existence of a Sage, who "relies on actionless activity, carries on wordless teaching, but the myriad creatures are worked upon by him; he does not disown them. He rears them, but does not lay claim to them ..."
Chinese view
This benevolent view of human beings has kept Chinese in a state of humility for millennia, grateful for what they have, and fearful of incurring divine displeasure for disrupting the natural order.
The new faith in our power to know effectively removes all scruples and constraints.
While our power to conquer nature has become overwhelming, this power is not tempered by a high moral consciousness of human responsibility.
We have nuclear weapons, and we smugly believe this to be the triumph of human rationality.
The earth has trapped huge amounts of carbon in the form of coal and oil for millions of years. Today human beings take great pride in their ability in sending carbon back to the atmosphere, in their worship of GDP.
Could science provide us cures for worsening environmental degradation, overpopulation, human greed, and moral irresponsibility in this age of progress?
There is no answer in Stannard's thought-provoking book, beyond his indication of the inadequacy of human intellect from a technical point of view, claiming that people's internal experiences with their minds and thoughts differ fundamentally from objective or scientific descriptions of thinking.
This faith to end all faiths is all-conquering, all-excluding and not infrequently assigned the status of state necessity.
The overriding orthodoxy liberates us from our fears and anxieties, after they have been denigrated as superstitious and irrational.
Many people firmly believe today that if scientists are kept busy, their discoveries would solve virtually all the problems confronting us.
If they have to live with cars, pollution, nuclear weapons, and rising sea levels, they are consoled by the brave new world tomorrow.
In "The End of Discovery: Are We Approaching the Boundaries of the Knowable?" physicist Russell Stannard paints a different picture.
Using his encyclopedic knowledge, Stannard suggests that while science won't reach its limits soon, it will stop making fundamental discoveries.
"We take it for granted that science ... progressively advances. But it was not always so. And, more importantly, it will not continue to be so - not indefinitely," Stannard claims.
This won't be because humanity knows everything; rather, the human brain evolved for certain functions, and human intelligence has its limits. For example, confirming string theory would require a "particle accelerator the size of a galaxy," Stannard says.
Certain profound questions have long resisted resolution, perhaps because they have no answers.
These questions happen to be important, lying behind the consciousness of every probing mind, particularly the mind of children.
Big Bang
For example, how did the universe begin?
According to the prevailing theory, our universe began 13.7 billion years ago, when everything in existence compressed into a single point. Then came the Big Bang, which gave birth to everything, including space, matter, and time.
But to ask what caused the Big Bang is meaningless, for answering that would entail a causal analysis. For cause and effect to exist, there must be time. But before the Big Bang, there was no time.
As a matter of fact, to say anything about conditions before the Big Bang would be meaningless, for there is no "before" in the first place.
Here is the border of human knowledge, inaccessible not only to precise scientific investigation, but also human understanding.
The speculation about the beginning of the universe has been based on philosophical deliberation, and any philosophical inquiry is very much subject to the personality and perspective of the researcher.
As we know, they fall into two categories, idealists who regard the objects of their perception as consisting of ideas, and materialists who explain all consciousness and will in terms of material agency.
According to the anthropic principle, a number of coincidences make the universe perfectly hospitable to human life.
If the Big Bang had been more violent, created matter wouldn't have coalesced into stars. If it had been less violent, everything would have been pulled back together into a "Big Crunch."
Gravity had to be the right strength to draw together gases created by the Big Bang, to jump-start nuclear fusion and to keep the sun burning long enough for life to evolve.
The stars had to burn in just the right way to create heavier elements -such as carbon, a foundation of life - via "nuclear resonance." These weightier atoms had to be "blasted out" of stars through neutrinos.
The resulting clouds of matter combined to make planets. Once life began, the "copying process" that transmits genetic material had to permit just the right degree of error: exact enough to create new creatures similar to their parents, but containing sufficient variations for different life forms to emerge.
Given all these coincidences, it's easier to understand why ancient Chinese generally took a more humanistic view of the universe as controlled by a superior force based on the principle of harmony between the yin and yang, and the interplay between the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth).
Lao Tzu posited the existence of a Sage, who "relies on actionless activity, carries on wordless teaching, but the myriad creatures are worked upon by him; he does not disown them. He rears them, but does not lay claim to them ..."
Chinese view
This benevolent view of human beings has kept Chinese in a state of humility for millennia, grateful for what they have, and fearful of incurring divine displeasure for disrupting the natural order.
The new faith in our power to know effectively removes all scruples and constraints.
While our power to conquer nature has become overwhelming, this power is not tempered by a high moral consciousness of human responsibility.
We have nuclear weapons, and we smugly believe this to be the triumph of human rationality.
The earth has trapped huge amounts of carbon in the form of coal and oil for millions of years. Today human beings take great pride in their ability in sending carbon back to the atmosphere, in their worship of GDP.
Could science provide us cures for worsening environmental degradation, overpopulation, human greed, and moral irresponsibility in this age of progress?
There is no answer in Stannard's thought-provoking book, beyond his indication of the inadequacy of human intellect from a technical point of view, claiming that people's internal experiences with their minds and thoughts differ fundamentally from objective or scientific descriptions of thinking.
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