“.
. . my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
but queerer than we can suppose.”
“If
materialism is true, it seems to me that we cannot know that it is true. If my
opinions are the result of the chemical processes going on in my brain, they
are determined by the laws of chemistry, not those of logic.”
Both of
these, especially taken together, hint rather strongly, at a future time when
science may grind to a halt. That
statement may sound spectacular, even unreasonable, but Haldane was on to
something, perhaps more so than even he himself suspected.
The first
quote expresses the idea that the universe is quite possibly unfathomable to
the human brain. For evidence of that,
consider relativity and quantum mechanics (QM).
They are counterintuitive to us. They
are far beyond the reach of most people to understand, much less to
develop.
The second
quote is even more discouraging than the first, because it questions whether
the human brain, the instrument of our intellectual abilities, is even designed
to understand nature beyond our immediate needs. When we venture beyond our primitive skills,
then as someone once said, we cannot answer the questions we ask, and perhaps
we are incapable of even asking the right questions. Our brains are wired for certain limited
functions, mainly having to do with survival and reproduction.
That said,
it is indeed amazing that great minds have developed such theories as
relativity and quantum mechanics, and the other endeavors of humanity (music,
art, etc) that seem disconnected in whole or part from our survival needs. One explanation might be that the ability to
form a mental model of the grand design of the universe is simply an
overextension of our survival talents, much as a bird can fly higher than it
really needs to, simply because evolution did not stop when it could have.
For whatever
reason, natural or supernatural, a tiny portion of humanity has devised the
Standard Model of Physics, which is considered to be a step toward a complete
fundamental understanding of physical nature.
Do we need that much intellectual skill?
Do only a very few individuals need it?
Judging from the generally few offspring of such mental giants, (Isaac Newton
had none), it would seem that powerful intellect is actually an impediment to
survival.
But can the
final goal of science (fundamentally complete understanding of nature), ever be
reached? What if it cannot? Will the moment ever come when the best
scientists announce that not only is it true that they cannot presently explain
certain features of nature, but also, that they have demonstrated conclusively that
they have reached the finite limit of human understanding?
That moment
came decades ago, and more than once.
For example, at one time, scientists announced that the earliest moment
of the Big Bang is fundamentally unknowable.
That may still be true, but today, it seems that many scientists are
pressing on, theorizing as to how the Big Bang occurred, and not only that,
speculating on what might have existed before time began (an oxymoron, but
nevertheless).
We are
reaching that moment again. Science
still has not reconciled relativity theory with quantum theory. Will it ever?
Moreover, the widely accepted theory of dark matter has a rival theory
called MOND (modified Newtonian
dynamics), which is held by a minority of physicists, but which in some limited
respects does a better job of explaining observed gravitational effects. Whichever theory (if either) is ever
demonstrated beyond doubt to be true, it will perplex physicists, because both
theories seem to be outside the Standard Model.
Beyond all that,
there are unexplained phenomena that are entirely beyond physics, for example a
definition and explanation of consciousness.
On the largest scales, physicists have been unable to explain why the
universe is so precisely suited for human life, with a precision vastly more
exacting than that required to fly a jet airliner. In their attempt to explain the fine tuning
of the universe, scientists have had to resort to very unscientific theories
involving infinite numbers of unobserved, undetected universes, a theory requiring
more fine tuning than our presently known universe does.
Let us
conclude with two further quotes from Haldane.
They may offer an explanation as to why science may eventually become an
inherently futile endeavor.
“The
advance of scientific knowledge does not seem to make either our universe or
our inner life in it any less mysterious.”
“The
conclusion forced upon me in the course of a life devoted to natural science is
that the universe as it is assumed to be in physical science is only an
idealized world, while the real universe is the spiritual universe in which
spiritual values count for everything.”
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