On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 5:26 AM Lawrence Crowell < [email protected]> wrote:
> Hogan is a pessimist when it comes to human ability to understand new > things. He has this "end of science" bug, and I will confess that I suppose > science will end. In fact I have doubts about Homo sapiens being around > before long, so science will clearly at least go down with us. However, I > see little productive in following or thinking along his lines. > > LC > You might find this worth a read: Humans: Extinct & Extant <https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2017/12/humans-extinct-extant.html> > > On Friday, September 6, 2019 at 3:06:58 PM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> via John Horgan @Horganism >> >> >> *The Delusion of Scientific Omniscience* >> >> *As time passes, the claim that science can comprehend everything looks >> increasingly nutty* >> >> By John Horgan on September 4, 2019 >> >> Does anyone still believe that science can explain, well, everything? >> This belief was ascendant in the 1980s, when my career began. Bigshot >> scientists proclaimed that they were solving the riddle of existence. They >> would soon explain why our universe exists and takes the form it does, and >> why we exist and are what we are. >> >> For years I believed this claim, out of deference to scientists >> propagating it and desire to believe. The vision of a revelation to end all >> revelations thrilled me. Eventually I had doubts, which I spelled out in >> The End of Science and other writings. Lately, I’ve begun to look at the >> vision of total knowledge as a laughable delusion, a pathological fantasy >> that should never have been taken seriously, even though brilliant >> scientists propagated it. >> >> Stephen Hawking was the most influential know-it-all. In his 1988 >> mega-bestseller A Brief History of Time, Hawking predicted that physicists >> would soon find an “ultimate theory” that would explain how our cosmos came >> into being. He compared this achievement to knowing “the mind of God.” This >> statement was ironic. Hawking, an atheist, wanted science to eliminate the >> need for a divine creator. >> >> >> I’ve often suspected that Hawking, who had a wicked sense of humor, was >> goofing when he talked about an “ultimate theory.” The success of Brief >> History nonetheless inspired lots of similar books by physicists, including >> Theories of Everything by John Barrow (1991), The Mind of God by Paul >> Davies (1992) and Dreams of a Final Theory by Nobel laureate Steven >> Weinberg. >> >> Weinberg, a deadly serious man, was definitely not kidding when he >> envisioned a final theory. He argued that with the help of a new >> “supercollider” in Texas (which ended up being canceled), physicists might >> soon “bring to an end a certain kind of science, the ancient search for >> those principles that cannot be explained in terms of deeper principles.” >> >> Like Hawking, Weinberg hoped that the final theory would crush, once and >> for all, our superstitious faith in an all-powerful, beneficent deity. “It >> would be wonderful to find in the laws of nature a plan, prepared by a >> concerned creator in which human being played some special role,” Weinberg >> wrote. “I find sadness in doubting that they will.” >> >> Physicists were not the only scientists bewitched by the dream of >> omniscience. “I take the position that there is nothing that cannot be >> understood,” Peter Atkins, a religion-bashing British chemist, stated in >> his 1981 book The Creation. “Fundamental science may almost be at an end >> and might be completed within a generation.” He added, “Complete knowledge >> is just within our grasp. Comprehension is moving across the face of the >> Earth, like the sunrise.” >> >> Then there was biologist Richard Dawkins, who declared in his 1986 >> bestseller The Blind Watchmaker that the mystery of life had already been >> solved. Our existence “once presented the greatest of mysteries,” Dawkins >> wrote, but “it is a mystery no longer, because it is solved. Darwin and >> Wallace solved it, though we shall continue to add footnotes to their >> solution for a while yet.” >> >> >> One of those “footnotes” concerns the problem of consciousness. In the >> late 1980s Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix (and another >> hard-core atheist), proposed that consciousness, the subject of >> interminable philosophical speculation, might be scientifically tractable. >> Science could “solve” consciousness by finding its “neural correlates,” >> processes in the brain that correspond to conscious states. >> >> In his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis, Crick declared that “’you,’ >> your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of >> personal identity and free will, are no more than the behavior of a vast >> assembly of neurons.” That statement might have been the high water mark of >> scientism and its corollaries, materialism and reductionism. >> >> Meanwhile, researchers were claiming that advances in computers and >> mathematics were illuminating chaotic and complex phenomena that had >> resisted traditional scientific analysis. These scientists, whom I like to >> call chaoplexologists, were finding common principles underpinning brains, >> immune systems, ecologies and nation-states. Economics and other social >> sciences would soon become as rigorous as chemistry and nuclear physics. >> Supposedly. >> >> To be charitable, all this hubris wasn’t entirely unjustified. After all, >> in the 1960s physicists confirmed the big bang theory and took steps toward >> a unified theory of all of nature’s forces, while biologists deciphered the >> genetic code. You can see how these and other successes, as well as >> advances in computers and other tools, might have persuaded optimists that >> total scientific knowledge was imminent. >> >> But the concept of scientific omniscience always suffered from fatal >> flaws. Read Brief History and other books carefully and you realize that >> the quest for an ultimate theory had taken physicists beyond the realm of >> experiment. String theory and other major candidates for an ultimate theory >> of physics can be neither experimentally confirmed nor falsified. They are >> untestable and hence not really scientific. >> >> >> Let’s say physicists convince themselves that string theory is in fact >> the final theory, which encodes the fundamental laws from which nature >> springs. Theorists must still explain where those laws came from, just as >> believers in God must explain where He came from. This is the problem of >> infinite regress, which bedevils all who try to explain why there is >> something rather than nothing. >> >> As for life, Dawkins’s claim that it is no longer a mystery is absurd. In >> spite of all the advances in biology since Darwin, we still don’t have a >> clue how life began, or whether it exists elsewhere in the cosmos. We don’t >> know whether our emergence was likely or a once-in-eternity fluke. >> >> Brain scientists still have no idea how our brains make us conscious, and >> even if they did, that knowledge would apply only to human consciousness. >> It would not yield a general theory of consciousness, which determines what >> sort of physical systems generate conscious states. It would not tell us >> whether it feels like something to be a bat, nematode or smart phone. As I >> argue in my new book Mind-Body Problems, science appears farther than ever >> from understanding the mind. >> >> There may still be a few true believers in scientific omniscience out >> there. Big Data boosters indulge in hype reminiscent of the heyday of >> chaoplexity (although the phrase “social science” remains as oxymoronic as >> ever). And in his 2011 book On Being, Peter Atkins, who is now 79, >> reiterated his “faith” that “there is nothing that the scientific method >> cannot illuminate and elucidate.” But I doubt many scientists share this >> view any more. >> >> Over the last decade or two, science has lost its mojo. The replication >> crisis has undermined the public’s confidence in scientists, and >> scientists’ confidence in themselves. It has made them humble--and that is >> a good thing. Because what if scientists had somehow convinced themselves, >> and the rest of us, that they had figured everything out? What a tragedy >> that would be. We’re better off in our current state of befuddlement, >> trying to comprehend this weird, weird world even though we know we’ll >> always fall short. >> >> >> The older I get, the more I appreciate what philosopher Paul Feyerabend >> said to me in 1992 when I broached the possibility of total knowledge. “You >> think that this one-day fly, this little bit of nothing, a human >> being--according to today's cosmology!--can figure it all out?” he asked me >> with a manic grin. “This to me seems so crazy! It cannot possibly be true! >> What they figured out is one particular response to their actions, and this >> response gives this universe, and the reality that is behind this is >> laughing! ‘Ha ha! They think they have found me out!’” >> >> I’ll close with a quote from Philip Anderson, a Nobel laureate in physics >> and leading chaoplexologist. When I interviewed him in 1994, Anderson >> derided the claims of some of his fellow scientists that they could solve >> the riddle of reality. “You never understand everything,” Anderson said. >> “When one understands everything, one has gone crazy.” >> >> >> ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S) >> >> John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens >> Institute of Technology. His books include The End of Science, The End of >> War and Mind-Body Problems, available for free at mindbodyproblems.com. >> >> source: >> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-delusion-of-scientific-omniscience/ >> >> @philipthrift >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/790aeb07-04ce-4332-9d0c-f291c5fefc5f%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/790aeb07-04ce-4332-9d0c-f291c5fefc5f%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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