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avevale_intelligencerPrompted 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.
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Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-21 10:34 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-22 01:28 am (UTC)But what's wrong with always wanting to know more and simultaneously believing that there will always be more unknown?
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-22 08:53 am (UTC)The worst outcome I could imagine is that we maybe find out some of how to make a universe, and do it, and get it horribly wrong...and then find we can't learn the rest of what we need to know, because for whatever reason it's unlearnable. I don't know why that wouldn't bother anyone.
The conflict here seems to be between what I think of as the poetic view of the universe and what I think of as the scientific. (Which is ironic in itself given that "poet" means "maker.") I'm all for awe and wonder in its place, as long as it's accompanied by a refusal to settle for it. Ideally I'd have both--to understand and still to wonder. I don't see why they should be mutually exclusive, and that seems to be what some of the commenters here are saying; that once you understand something it's no longer wonderful. I don't think I've ever found that.
If I believed in a god, I would have to believe that sooner or later we would find that god, get to know him, her or it, understand what makes him, her or it tick, and ultimately surpass or at least equal him, her or it. That's what I think a god would expect of his, her or its creation; in the absence of a god, it still seems like a good goal to aim for, but only if there's some chance of achieving it. Reaching without being able to grasp just makes your arms tired.
Maybe there are other levels of being beyond this one, and maybe then we'll find our limits...but if we've already found them, if our brains are truly not sufficient to grasp this single universe and turn it all ways up and find the mainspring, then I can't help wondering what the ultimate point of them is. Inventing a better dishwasher doesn't cut it for me.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-22 02:01 pm (UTC)I don't see anyone here who has said that, and I certainly don't believe it. I 'know' how rainbows work, that doesn't stop me from going 'ooh' when I see a spectacular one. The same with fireworks. Heck, the same with TV and computers. At the same time, I don't expect (or need) to know down to the quantum level what every particle is doing to achieve the effect.
Which also ties into your thing about creating a universe. Assuming that this is your goal (for humanity, although if you want to do it personally I'd only ask that you tell me stories about it), I don't think that it requires that you know everything about it. Steam engines were build and worked without anyone knowing about what heat is or why it turned water into steam and moved things, all they had to know was that it has those effects. Electric lightbulbs worked before they worked out why. And plenty of authors have written great books without knowing every word in the language.
Indeed, I can see one reason for wanting to create a universe being the same as why people like me write programs to simulate stuff -- to find out more about it, by doing it. It would certainly explain why some of this universe seems to be rather oddly designed, perhaps the Designer has since made some better ones...
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-22 02:35 pm (UTC)"Will 'science' ever totally understand people? I hope not, because if it does then we will have nothing left..."
which I don't believe to be true.
Re: Rounding off--a provisionally final attempt to explain myself
Date: 2011-02-22 01:20 pm (UTC)*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
Date: 2011-02-22 02:49 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2011-02-22 07:14 pm (UTC)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.