avevale_intelligencer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2011-02-21 08:44 am
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2011-02-21 08:44 am
Early morning thought before I start in on the housework
Prompted by this quote, relaed by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
earth_wizard.
There are two kinds of things we can do, exemplified by washing up and learning a poem. Washing up is always necessary and always there; it doesn't end, it goes on, and even if you use paper plates and plastic cutlery there'll always be something that needs cleaning. Washing up is infinite.
Learning a poem, on the other hand, involves starting at the beginning, memorising each line in its relation to the others, till you get to the end, and there stopping. Once it's done it's done, and as long as you refresh your memory every so often you won't need to do it again. Learning a poem, learning anything, is finite.
But if every time you went back to the book there were a hundred more lines to learn, you'd soon give up in despair.
It's tempting to see this belief (that the task of learning how the universe works is unending) as a desperate grab by some secular scientists at some kind of mysticism. They don't have room in their probably finite universe for an infinite god, so they figure something has to be infinite here. Why not the quest for knowledge? So far it's been a series of Chinese boxes, each one containing a smaller one; why shouldn't that literally go on for ever? Pattern under the chaos, chaos under the pattern, alternating into eternity, and always more to learn. As if, every time you turned up for your driving lesson, there was a new knob or a new pedal or a new lever in the car that you had to learn about before you could take your test, and you knew there always would be, every single time.
I'm quite convinced we haven't cracked the secrets of the universe yet. The task of science is nowhere near complete, and any scientist who says so is mistaken, I think. 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. Understanding must be attainable, or we might as well go and do the dishes. At least they'll be done for a little while.
And speaking of which.
earth_wizard.There are two kinds of things we can do, exemplified by washing up and learning a poem. Washing up is always necessary and always there; it doesn't end, it goes on, and even if you use paper plates and plastic cutlery there'll always be something that needs cleaning. Washing up is infinite.
Learning a poem, on the other hand, involves starting at the beginning, memorising each line in its relation to the others, till you get to the end, and there stopping. Once it's done it's done, and as long as you refresh your memory every so often you won't need to do it again. Learning a poem, learning anything, is finite.
But if every time you went back to the book there were a hundred more lines to learn, you'd soon give up in despair.
It's tempting to see this belief (that the task of learning how the universe works is unending) as a desperate grab by some secular scientists at some kind of mysticism. They don't have room in their probably finite universe for an infinite god, so they figure something has to be infinite here. Why not the quest for knowledge? So far it's been a series of Chinese boxes, each one containing a smaller one; why shouldn't that literally go on for ever? Pattern under the chaos, chaos under the pattern, alternating into eternity, and always more to learn. As if, every time you turned up for your driving lesson, there was a new knob or a new pedal or a new lever in the car that you had to learn about before you could take your test, and you knew there always would be, every single time.
I'm quite convinced we haven't cracked the secrets of the universe yet. The task of science is nowhere near complete, and any scientist who says so is mistaken, I think. 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. Understanding must be attainable, or we might as well go and do the dishes. At least they'll be done for a little while.
And speaking of which.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
*Your* goal is this. Possibly the reason why you're confused about how other people see things is that this isn't their goal at all. And this assertion of what the goal should be certainly counts as mysticism in my book, since "should" is an appeal to authority.
I think this is something where you need to accept that you're marching to the beat of your own drummer, Zan. Which is fine, and I'll be happy to come and watch any parades you care to put on... so long as you don't then criticise the folks on the next parade ground over for being off the beat.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
I would ask "well, if that isn't the goal, the reason we're here or at least a worthwhile objective to aim for, then what is?" but I probably wouldn't understand the answer. "To mill around aimlessly for a few thousand years and then die off" doesn't do it for me. "To conquer and exploit every planet and life form in the universe"...nope. "To create one ultimate work of art that perfectly expresses the epitome of what it means to be human"...mmm, well, maybe, but I think that's kind of what I'm talking about anyway. "To bring about the destruction of reality itself"...who let the guy in the knobbly wheelchair in here?
You'd maybe say--I don't know--that we're incapable of understanding our purpose, if any, and that we don't need to understand it to fulfil it. And that would bring me back full circle to my initial beef.
I think I'd rather think I'm hearing a beat that nobody else is yet. And that's fine, because nobody else needs to, yet, and it's certainly not doing me any good. As for the things that make me want to scream, I'll try and confine it to a stifled whimper.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
If you're asking what motivates *scientists* to do what they do, then you need to ask the actual scientists, and be prepared for them to all have their own indivisual answers. But it seems more like you're asking what "The Goal of Science(TM)" is, in some absolute sense... which, to be a meaningful question at all, requires there to be some Absolute Person(TM) who has this Goal(TM) to which you refer... which naturally means you're going to be talking at cross purposes to half your readers, whom you already know are atheists, when you ask the question.