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On Sat, Sep 7, 2019 at 1:07 AM Philip Thrift <[email protected]> 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/9a41eef3-3584-43dd-b9b7-dd0034a78932%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9a41eef3-3584-43dd-b9b7-dd0034a78932%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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