Limitations of science

Limitations of science

An essay about the philosophy behind boundaries of understanding.

Frederik C.A. Kerling

Introduction

In discussions about principles like religion and anthropic principles, and how they fit in the realm of science. In these discussions there is a often arguments of beauty, and perhaps even mystery. To start of I want to put down a comic by XKCD¹:

 

The comic itself is a beautiful example how the first picture is the view of Weinberg, and by the end of the comic the view of Davies is viewed. I will refer to this when we come to my opinion paragraph.

First I will discuss how Weinberg and Davies differ in their world views about the positions of science. Then I will discuss the position of the anthropic principle in modern physics as used by Susskind. I will elaborate on Einstein's view on the matter. And I will discuss how these principles and requirements limit the possible outcomes of scientific knowledge. As I final I will give my opinion which will be closely linked to my previous essay.

Physics, prison or paradise?

Weinberg quotes philosopher Sandra Harding which calls modern science “not only sexist but also racist, classist, and culturally coercive” These are harsh words for someone who has never practised science. It is as though the thought itself holds some personal grudge to it. Weinberg does not as much states but more fears that science leads to a disenchantment of the world and humiliation of humanity. I do not think the thoughts differ much at all. Neither Weinberg of Davies think that science deserves any of the adjectives named by Harding. Only Weinberg is incapable to share the beauty of science from a direct point of view, even though he himself does see this consoling beauty. And Davies manage to put this beauty in words by the use of historical and cultural engagement.

Davies however takes it up a notch by ascribing this beauty to a meaning. However this is not necessarily the meaning that has carried up by his historical and cultural arguments. It could be that Davies work in itself is misunderstood and interpreted to be of a more religious then atheist nature. Even though the doubt in myself personally is somewhat high on this matter, I am inclined to say that Davies is indeed a soft religious person. And doesn't fully refute the possible connection between a god and meaning of physics, even though he names this as a rational universe assumption. Whereas Weinberg does not do this at all.

My personal opinion is quite simple and I attempt to describe it with art. Take modern art, it has a quite diverse field of styles, and if one is to look at art of say the last 200 years it becomes more difficult. If one is not aware of the historical and cultural background, understanding art is often difficult, and if one is not fully aware of the techniques, time and effort that has to be put into art, one will never fully appreciate it. This is the same for physics. People simply do not put out the effort to try and understand it. And those that do can enjoy its universal and never disappearing beauty. I can walk out in nature and enjoy nature on a visual, mental, audiological, physical, ecological, astronomical, microscopical and biological level. That gives me 4 more levels then If I'd just choose religion. I'd be a fool not to choose for the beauty of science.

This bring us to the question of why? Why is science, and in particular the natural laws, the way they are? I will literally answer this question in my personal opinion, but Davies argues that the lack of a testable theory of the laws of the universe prohibit the possibility of science to be free of a claim of faith. And the claim of anthropic principle is exactly such a claim of faith. I am truly shocked that Susskind would apply such a concept to physics. Then again I have no faith in string theory at all, as I think that one should never need more dimensions to describe the world we live in. If I cannot cognitively imagine it, it has no use for me. And I am having trouble with four dimensions as it is. This would be an argument of choice. Also considering the time and effort that has been put into string theory in comparison to what it has given us, any sane laymen would wonder whether it really is such a good idea.

One could wonder what Einstein's view on the weak and strong anthropic principle (SAP) is. First I would think he would deem anyone attaining the strong anthropic principle a complete nut case. Or 'Krank im Kopf' as Einstein would say himself. Einstein was an agnostic and could perfectly well reason with the rational reasoning behind Spinoza's god. But the SAP is a assumption he would probably deemed too strong, and too pressing to be viewed as an axiom at all.

In respect to the weak anthropic principle (WAP) he would probably have wondered what the difference is with respect to Spinoza's god. And eventually simply choose for a 'meaningful' universe. Regardless of conscious entities having to be present in them. And such a matter of choice always follows to the road of least resistance. And he probably wouldn't have seen the use of it.

Even worse the anthropic principle appears in the book '100 things of physics everyone should know' at the moment I bought the book, just so to know I knew everything in it. I didn't know the anthropic principle at the time. 

The WAP, even though it is disregarded at the discussions is the only axiom in nature today that ascribes a answer to the reason 'why is the world of science the way it is'. Without the italic part in this sentence we get the question that is the very core of science. With the italic part we have a question that isn't scientific at all. Because it is not scientifically falsifiable.
But for some reason, this metaphysical question is sometimes considered a question of science, because people want to ascribe meaning to the way the physical laws are. As I will mention later this is in contradiction with my own world view.

Because of this metaphysical bond people are pulling things into science that do not belong there. Sure there are many limitations of scientific reasoning. Even if we descend into the age old science of logic, which is infallibly used by Spinoza, we can still see that the simple arguments as proposed by Brouwer mark a downfall of Spinoza's god. Science will never give us the reason 'why we are here', but it does give plenty full of reasons why it is great to be here. The anthropic principle is just another argument of faith, as Davies himself described it. It is no difference.

Personal Opinion

For this I will use Brouwerian logic, and completely disregard religions. I will however use notions like arguments of faith and choice, as described by Davies. And I would also recommend reading 'Metaphysical Physics' - An essay about philosophy and it's role in physics. Before commencing on this part.

Physics, or in particular the physical description of the naturally observed world. Is intrinsically not completable. It holds gaps and contradictions and this it what makes it as strong as it is. But when it comes to respect of the anthropic principle, I have to make an elaboration. I must stress that everything I reason here is physics, and not metaphysics². In physics, and my Prime assumption I know that there is something like a conscious observer. Or, let it for now be named as an entity or machine capable of making deterministic choice of any kind. This is physically a minimalistic approach to 'consciousness' but it encompasses a broader field in which the decay of wave functions is observed.
Say that we rephrase the weak anthropic principle by Carter to: "we must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as entities (as described above). ”
And rephrase the strong anthropic principle by Carter to: “the Universe must be such as to admit the creation of entities within it at some stage.”

Now disregarding the possibility of a crude mix-up between the causality of this creation of meaning and entities. We ask ourselves the question: 'What if there would be a universe without observing entities?' The thing is that my world view, and current day experiments have a very good explanation for this. Namely none at all.
In quantum mechanics the only useful information, and only relevant information is that found by such an entity. Without them the wave-function is bound to remain un-collapsed and therefore possible to transcend into its entire domain of space and time. Which means that until such an entity comes into existence, and only during the existence of such an entity local collapses of wave-functions can occur.

What this means is that if for some reason we were to loose all these entities, there would be so many separate small wave functions, that the actual evolution of the universe wouldn't be so much far different from the way we see it now. Though this difference in how we fview the universe would increase over time between the existence of entities. And if none ever exist it isn't in the realm of our interest.
But if for some reason we would not have a previous entity to make up our current situation, then the whole universe would be in a single quantum-super-state and loose all it's physical meaning whatsoever! Even worse a single entity applying choice on this super-state would make the entire universe to become defined, including it's existence in the past² and over all space. In fact it would be a Big-Bang plus, because it bangs over all time. And with that, it creates all of the universe as we know it.
This is a somewhat troublesome position, as why would this happen at all? Say that was just a freak event occurring, then with that event time would also be created and immediately be contradicting itself. So we should never be able to explain the entire flow of time by the use of just the time as we know it. Also it would therefore be irrelevant as to ask questions 'why is the Big-Bang-plus happened' As the question implies a moment of happening, and this is not the case.

This leads us to an effect of my world view; The universe exists the way it does because entities exist at all. This is a reverse between cause and effect of the anthropic principle.

Sadly this leaves the door wide open for creationist theories. So I add right here, that it is completely irrelevant and unprovable if this first entity was just one, or billions. It only states that it collapsed an undefined super-state of the universe. And all that limits this universe is how much we do not know about it. I have no doubt that in the future the lack of knowledge can be a serious consideration in physical reasoning.

[1] XKCD comic – 'Beauty', http://xkcd.com/877/

[2] Metaphysical physics - F.C.A. Kerling, http://extraordinarylivesofbison.blogspot.nl/2012/07/metaphysical-physics.html