> On 7 Sep 2019, at 05:11, Samiya Illias <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 5:26 AM Lawrence Crowell > <[email protected] <mailto:[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> > >
God will never know that this sentence is true. Bruno > > 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 > <http://mindbodyproblems.com/>. > > source: > https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-delusion-of-scientific-omniscience/ > > <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] > <mailto:[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] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CANgFmkGqBtQrUL3%3DcHm2QFnJAdAGrfPq3sNEysEdg7m08VcepA%40mail.gmail.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CANgFmkGqBtQrUL3%3DcHm2QFnJAdAGrfPq3sNEysEdg7m08VcepA%40mail.gmail.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]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/7406EDA8-E01F-4D45-A7D1-AE6EAF4F6C73%40ulb.ac.be.
