Early morning thought before I start in on the housework

[avevale_intelligencer]

Prompted by this quote, relaed by 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.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Thought provoking, though most of my thoughts started with "but..." :-)

Cleaning dishes vs poetry may be an extendable analogy, so let's go that way first.
There are always more dishes to be washed, but there are different techniques, different technologies, there's exchanging painted china for dishwasher safe china for recyclable paper and plastic and, who knows, perhaps in the future we'll have "forcefield" or "self-cleaning", or even "totally recyclable" plates where the dirty plates disappear into the table to have all organic matter recycled and the table passes the clean plates back into the plate store (or disintegrates them back into hoppers to make new plates for the next meal).

Poetry, as you say, you learn once ... and then have to refresh your memory or it disappears. Some people are very lucky and require very little refreshing (eidetic memory), others need to re-read it every year for it to stick well. But the *meaning* of the poetry and the effect can change as you change through life. You find new insights, it reveals something else about the human condition, or you learn that it is insipid and banal, or derivative of a poem that you hadn't heard of before. Your relationship to that poem can change.

Science is seeking for the "how" and "why" and attempting to understand what may well be the infinite. But things are learned along the way, many of which are of use to people in general (or specific). And that journey is the point of science, not reaching an end where everything is known, but finding out how the heart works (which can then lead to artificial hearts and save lives) or how dolphins communicate, or how the universe was formed, or how a bee flies ... there *is* a point and purpose to learning so very much, even if science is not completable. I will never understand another person completely, but there's still a point in learning more about other people.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Washing up isn't infinite. It lasts, at most, for less than my lifetime (I didn't start doing washing up until I was probably around 5 years old, and there will probably be some time before I die when someone (or some thing) does the washing up for me).

A single poem is finite, yes. But If I ever knew that I had read the last poem or the last book because they had all been written then it would be a cause for despair indeed. Some writers have indeed declared that there are "only 6 plots" -- and then gone on to write many times that number of books (Georgette Heyer, for example).

Will 'science' ever totally understand people? I hope not, because if it does then we will have nothing left, no one would every try to write a book or a poem because it will be known exactly why they did it beforehand. A science which included total knowledge of why and how music is appreciated would be like "the ultimate tune", it would come up with the perfect melody and all composers would be out of a job. Indeed, a science that knows everything would no longer have any place for free will or surprises or unpredictability, it would be a monobloc and totally sterile.

If "understanding must be attainable", why does anyone bother? No one at our stage can know everything, so why not just give up? That we don't do that indicates that your "all or nothing" approach is not correct.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Most honest scientists believe that we never will fully understand the universe -- and that it's okay, because we'll always understand it better tomorrow than we do today. I can't see it as completable, as long as we can always measure something more closely, or find something we hadn't noticed before, that doesn't fit our then-current models. That's what makes the universe wonderful and awesome, in the literal meanings of those words, and a very good reason to keep on keeping on. Perfection doesn't need to be attained: it's a nice thought, but it's the carrot that keeps us donkeys moving in the right direction.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

A fine poem about work which can never be completed.

I don't see the same problem you do. It's mostly that I see science as getting some solid information (I think the periodic table is a permanent accomplishment) and moving forward into ever weirder and more useful information.

Even if we get a final understanding of the ultimate principles of the universe, this doesn't mean we'll have a grasp of the very complex consequences of the way those principles work out. Ever notice how biology keeps finding out how much more crucial detail there is to living things?

"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."

Not that I expect to convince you-- I suspect our emotional defaults are very different.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Excuse me, but "desperate grab" at "some kind of mysticism" sounds pretty rude. I think it's much more reasonable to view this attitude as based on past experience. Maybe someday it will make sense to close the patent office because everything has already been invented, but it didn't work out the last time it was tried.

But suppose it's true. Sit down and consider it a little. What would that mean about who believes it versus who doesn't? Religious scientists, like Francis Collins, wouldn't "need" the belief and wouldn't have it. Especially given that it is a "desperate grab." Atheistic scientists, would "need" (ugh) the belief and would be more likely to have it.

Do you really think that's true? Only atheist scientists believe gathering knowledge about the physical world can go on forever, religious scientists (at least half of all scientists and probably more) think it's limited and we'll have to stop at some point?

Second. 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.

??

It is not possible to learn every song. Even if you had a prodigious memory and knew every language, there are new songs being written all the time. Therefore there is no purpose to learning a new song?

It is not possible to view every painting. Yada yada there are new paintings being made all the time. Therefore there is no purpose to viewing any painting.

It is not possible to see every dance, every play, every movie; it is not possible to learn every language, read every book, hike every trail...

Why does a task have to be complete-able for doing part of it to be worthwhile?

If partial understanding weren't worthwhile nobody would ever *start* to learn everything, because partial understanding is all you can achieve in any kind of reasonable time frame. Heck I got a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and only achieved a partial understanding of the field.

[earth-wizard.livejournal.com]

What's always been interesting is the divided idea of what scientists mean by a 'Theory of Everything': most layman think of TOE as the idea that science can someday lock down all possible solutions to a description of the universe and its laws; whereas scientists, at least the many I've studied and spoken to over the years, see it not as a finality, some closure to the grand scheme of scientific enquiry that will then say: yes, now we have a fully qualified description of life, the universe, and everything.... no, this is not the real TOE, that is the ficiton, the babble of journalists, instead of scientists.

Instead scientists themselves see TOE as but the apprehension of a special case of theoretical physics that will only give them a limited set of mathematical descriptions and a new foundation for the sciences, a sort of - to use a Arnoldian term, 'touchstone' for all possible cases of the universe. For as most scientists will tell you we are limited minds seeking possible answers to a complex ever-changing universe that can never be apprehended in the moment of now by a finite mind, and even if that mind could formutlate a mathematical theorem to describe those laws that describe the universe: the universe that they describe would always already be a dead universe; i.e., a universe that was past, cut off from our ever-changing time-moving universe we all live in.

The universe is dynamic and our descriptions of it are only and always a topigraphical mapping of its surface tensions, never the actual thing itself; the thing-in-itself will always remain outside our calculations, that is why poetry and the universe are closer to the untruth that is; for truth is always a slice, a partial grasp of the universe through the lens of a finite mind called the human.

As we are discovering, even the brain itself changes, has plasticity: and, from infancy to old age we learn new things about both the universe and ourselves. The universe may be finite: but we do not know that for a fact... It might be stranger than we have yet thought... maybe the poets are closer to the truth or untruth, maybe hyperbole and metaphor reaches into the dark recesses better than scientific description.

Science as we know it now is hooked to technology and industry and is therefore locked into a political and goal oriented system of production rather than some impersonal pursuit of truth.

At least that is my take... although many scientists would love us to believe they are bound to some idealist pursuit of truth rather than the pragmatic ventures of investment bankers that sponsor them and their institutions. But that is another tale...

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

My first reaction ... well, I checked to see if anyone else had said this, and I don't think they have, so here goes:

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.

O RLY? How tall are you? No, don't round it off: tell me precisely. Or choose any other measurement in the real world.* And the answer is unattainable, because the precision required is infinite.

* (Even if there are some real-world measurements with integer values, there are at least as many whose values are irrational and probably transcendent.)

That's one way in which complete knowledge of the universe is unattainable. I'm at work, so I'll stop here, at least for now.

Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

The goal is to be God. The goal is to make universes, to make life. That seems to me to be the best possible guess as to our purpose here, if we have one; and if we don't, it still seems to me to be the best, most meaningful thing we can focus on trying to do as a species. That's what I've believed for as long as I can remember. I think it's why I'm a writer, a creator of fictional worlds, however ineptly. It's important to me, as the question of whether or not there is a god could never be. Whether we're growing up to be like Dad (or Mum), or just finding something to do that will survive when this universe has burned out, this seems the obvious choice, the only real choice.

This, to me, is what science is for. All the rest, all the technology, is just glorified survival behaviour: more food, more land, better spears, better cooking pots. This goal, to me, puts science on an equal footing with art, in the service of human creativity.

In order to achieve this goal, in order to make a universe, we have to understand how universes work. In order to understand how universes work, we have to start by understanding how this universe works. Therefore, for the goal to make sense, it has to be possible to understand how this universe works.

I will admit that the idea that this isn't possible--that we can only grope endlessly after an ever-receding horizon--upsets me, at a visceral level I can't reason away. I'm completely happy with the idea that it will take thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands, before we get to that level of understanding. That's not a problem.

But I can't accept that we never will, and I can't understand how anyone could accept that. It does in fact seem wrong to me, fundamentally wrong, an abdication of responsibility, almost a betrayal. Merely basking in the awe and wonder of it all and not wanting more, being content just to know some of it and content that that will never change, seems to me like a waste of our time and our potential, and makes me want to scream at people. I know that's unreasonable. I'm afraid I can't help it.

And that is why I come off the way I do on this subject. Sorry I caused upset.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

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.)