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Having conversations in academic disciplines in which I have shallow knowledge is akin to walking a tightrope without the balancing pole. The outcome of this stunt is predictably obvious: a debacle. I am yet inclined to write on two of the most arduous and oldest fields of academic pursuit—Physics and Philosophy—with some recent knowledge gained from the "Physics of Everything" discussion series at the New York Academy of Sciences. As a cautionary note, I have no formal academic training in either Physics or Philosophy, but both fields of study have always intrigued me enough to be an autodidact, just to overcome boredom during periods of information overload in Biology. Physics, with a strong mathematical foundation deals with interpreting the laws of nature, while Philosophy deals with the mind, and methods that construe these natural phenomena. There is deeper meaning to nature itself, once you begin to delve into the depths of hidden reality illuminated at the intersection of Physics and Philosophy. However, more recent findings in Physics have widened the gaps in knowledge, arguing whether everything around us can be explained by physical abstractions. Recognized as "God of the gaps" from a theological perspective, modern science certainly is challenged with the question are there limits to human understanding?
This exacty was the question an eminent panel of physicists and philosophers, attempted to tackle at the Physics of everything discussion series. Two of the prominent discussants worth mentioning are Eva Silverstein from the Stanford University, who investigates basic questions in several areas of theoretical physics, most notably on recently-detected gravitational waves; and Jim Holt— an American philosopher, author and essayist, who is best known for his book "Why does the world exist?", which eloquently argued Why is there even something rather than nothing? Among six panelists in two separate discussion events, experts from both Physics and Philosophy took the stage to address a question, the answer to which, in my opinion, was certainly beyond the bounds of possibility. As a disclaimer, every panelist at the podium unanimously agreed that the question under discussion is rather diffult to answer. However, they weighed in on some of the outstanding epistemic advances the field of Physics made from the times of ancient Greece to the development of humungous detectors that identified sub-atomic particles to gravitational waves. We can only make baby-steps in science and this true for most fields of scientific inquiry. Much of the progress in Physics came during the later half of second millennium, not becuase we lacked extraordinary scientific talent before that, but just because the right tools were not available or the right methods were not developed. For instance, had calculus arrived few centuries before Newton, the course of developments may have altogether taken a very different trajectory.
Nevertheless, we've come very far in understanding the workings of the Universe, stated Eva Silverstein, who in addition to her work in theoretical physics, also has an expertise in Cosmology. However, the observable matter well-studied in cosmology accounts for a meager 4%, while the rest of the Universe is mostly composed of dark matter and dark energy whose nature largely remain mysterious. The modus operandi of theoretical Physics, and to an extent most other disciplines that involve a body of theoretical work requires simplifying a complex problem for mathematical description. While simple and elegant, this mathematical reductionism can be extrapolated to explain some fundamental laws governing the workings of nature. This has proven remarkably well for many theories put forward during the last millennia such as the standard model of particle physics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics, which were successful in predicting and explaining the history of the Universe. The general trend of how advances in Physics have shaped the modern world overall provides some optimism for this approach, but at the same time, lack of giant leaps in knowledge since the dawn of quantum mechanics warrants sharp skepticism for this time-tested scientific procedure. These epistemic gaps are widening in an accelerated manner compared to what we now have a grasp for, said Vijay Balasubramanian a string theorist working at the University of Pennsylvania. This is partly due to the time it takes to validate a theory by experimental observations. For example, the Higgs boson—baptized by the media as the "God particle" was theorized in 1960's as yet-to-be identified addition to the standard model that explains why some fundamental particles have mass. It took nearly forty years of herculian effort to construct the Large Hadron Collider—a particle accelerator that spans a circumference of 17 miles between France and Switzerland—to confirm Higgs boson is indeed an objective reality. Is the delayed success in spotting Higgs boson a paradigm for how the field of Physics will move forward in future, or is this spectacular trimuph an isolated example, but most theories end up being untestable dead-ends.
Multiverse theory is an example for a likely untestable dead-end. The existence of multiple, parallel universes was postulated by string theory—a contentious offshoot of quantum mechanics. The fact that we are still grappling with the task of understanding the observable Universe precludes any search for a Multiverse, however, similar theories for sure will continue to accumulate. So in science, when we set out to solve a problem, we incidentally create ten more; and this accumulation of unsolved problems eventually magnifies the gaps in knowledge. While these widening gaps may reflect an epistemic stagnation, it is important to note that the progress in science is always very, very slow. In the history of humanity, we've successfully solved several of nature's mysteries and eventually we may fill in the gaps as we make new methodological advances. However, Vijay Balasubramanian remained skeptical with this viewpoint. In addition to being an accomplished physicist, he also studies neuroscience with a strong theoretical bent. He argued, no matter how sophisticated the tools and theories are, may be the human mind is structured to see things only in certain dimensions. That is, the unknown unknown's will always remain unknown, highlighting the fact that they can be limits to human understanding. At this point, the focus of the discussion slightly shifted in a direction where the discussants argued whether we should begin to look outside Physics for solutions to questions that remain unsolved. But, where to look for an answer. Human reasoning is intimately tied to the casue-effect paradigm, where for every effect there will be a cause, effect follows the cause, a cause will always produce an effect and so on, and if you haven't realized yet, we are already in the realm of Philosophy.
Science is a philosophical pursuit from the ages of atomism—a natural philosophy that germinated independently in ancient Greece and ancient India. From early atomists like Leucippus and Democritus to the age of Victorian materialism where Newton formulated his laws of motion, science flowed directly from a philosophical spirit. However, some modern physicists have outrightly abandoned Philosophy as being useless, said Jim Holt. The strangeness in problems that remain unsolved in Physics persist because the world is not stranger than what we know, but because the world is stranger than what we can know. The discussion at this point gravitated towards the question, whether philosophers can help physicists understand the strangeness that permeates modern Physics. Unlike Physics, which is a very sophisticated enterprise where models and theories undergo rigorous observational verification, philosophy abstains from collecting data or performing experiments. However, more importantly, what philosophy offers is the methodology of science that sets oneself on a path towards the truth. So, what people with philosophical training can do though is help physicists formulate questions that may be manageable to tackle or break down problems to obtain arguably simple solutions. Or better yet, it is time to reinculcate philosophical training in academic curriculum, which not only instructs the grammar of science, but also imbue the virtues of self-discipline, patience and humility—qualities that seem to decline sharply among contemporary scientists.
Whether humanity would someday unlock the secrets of the Universe or not, the fact that so much about our vast cosmos remains unknown will enthrall the curious minds for generations to come. And, we will continute to make baby-steps on a march towards understanding the nature of our Universe. Walking out after the discussion series at the New York Academy of Sciences, I was convinced, the answer to whether there are limits to human understanding is certainly beyond the bounds of possibility. After all, understanding oneself very well is not an easy task either. Rather than ruminating if there are limits to human understanding, what I decided to do, for consolation, was to turn to the art of practicing what ancient Greeks called nosce te ipsum,or simply, know yourself.