But that the task is completable--that it is finite--that has to be true, or else there is no point or purpose to learning anything.
This just baffles me. Most scientists are not saying "I want to learn everything about everything" they're saying "I want to learn this one thing about this one entity."
Like, "I want to know why stag beetles have such big horns, so I will look at stag beetles in the wild and see if horn size correlates with reproductive success, or food gathering or predator evasion."
Obviously knowing everything about everything is impossible. Perhaps I shouldn't mention it, but species don't live forever, therefore humans almost certainly won't be around forever, therefore we have a limited amount of time to learn.
But learning one thing about one entity certainly is possible. And it's the people who think that is worth doing, and never mind if humans are around in another million years, who look around and say "you know, I don't think we'll ever run out of things to learn, and that's wonderful." They also happen to be the people who do science.
Science is like poetry--written, and learned, one poem at a time.
And seriously, if your goal is to be a God and create universes (other than metaphorical universes in writing and so on, but you were talking about science before, which deals with the physical world, so I had the impression you were talking about real universes), what are you doing to make that happen?
I am assuming it's your goal, because you say it's "the goal" and it's certainly not mine. But goals are things the goal holder normally actually takes steps to attain. Are you planning to study physics and cosmology or do you intend to take a more metaphysical tack?
And if it's not your goal, why are you telling me it's mine, or someone else's, or the goal of a whole field, like science? How do you know? Who are you to say?
(Of course I will note that making life is a much simpler thing than making universes. The question becomes how lifeless do the components have to be, and how different does the created life have to be from the life that already exists, for it to count? Because by some measures we've done it already.)
no subject
This just baffles me. Most scientists are not saying "I want to learn everything about everything" they're saying "I want to learn this one thing about this one entity."
Like, "I want to know why stag beetles have such big horns, so I will look at stag beetles in the wild and see if horn size correlates with reproductive success, or food gathering or predator evasion."
Obviously knowing everything about everything is impossible. Perhaps I shouldn't mention it, but species don't live forever, therefore humans almost certainly won't be around forever, therefore we have a limited amount of time to learn.
But learning one thing about one entity certainly is possible. And it's the people who think that is worth doing, and never mind if humans are around in another million years, who look around and say "you know, I don't think we'll ever run out of things to learn, and that's wonderful." They also happen to be the people who do science.
Science is like poetry--written, and learned, one poem at a time.
And seriously, if your goal is to be a God and create universes (other than metaphorical universes in writing and so on, but you were talking about science before, which deals with the physical world, so I had the impression you were talking about real universes), what are you doing to make that happen?
I am assuming it's your goal, because you say it's "the goal" and it's certainly not mine. But goals are things the goal holder normally actually takes steps to attain. Are you planning to study physics and cosmology or do you intend to take a more metaphysical tack?
And if it's not your goal, why are you telling me it's mine, or someone else's, or the goal of a whole field, like science? How do you know? Who are you to say?
(Of course I will note that making life is a much simpler thing than making universes. The question becomes how lifeless do the components have to be, and how different does the created life have to be from the life that already exists, for it to count? Because by some measures we've done it already.)