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Suppose physics runs its course, and millenia from now we have discovered a single, elegant equation that solves everything--it traces the whole history of the

Suppose physics runs its course, and millenia from now we have discovered a single, elegant equation that solves everything--it traces the whole history of the universe--all the particles and reactions from the big bang up to the chair that you're sitting in now. "Physics is done!" reads the abstract. "We can all go home now." At the conference where this is all presented, some lone undergrad student standing in the back asks "Why this equation? Why does this combination of terms describe the universe, and so many others don't?" You can try to address this question with religion, or "belief", or Dawkins-esque philosophy, or you can choose not to address it at all. But you can't answer it with science. Science has a clear and definite end, and that end does not give us the "why" of the universe, only the "how". You can say "There is no why", but that is still an answer to a question that science does not answer. Speaking purely subjectively, I don't view the "why" (or its absence) as unimportant simply because it can't be addressed purely on scientific terms.

Helianthus16 16y ago
1) There are a number of physics equations that generalize physical equations--Lagrangian mechanics. (IANAP, but I have a physicist friend.) 2) It is a misconception that physics can trace the whole history of the universe, or even any part of it. The Holy Grail Unified Theory is not a full descriptor of our universe, it is a full descriptor of the _forces_ of our universe. 3) There's something in your language that makes me feel like you're not really tackling the question completely. "Speaking purely subjectively" might be part of it--as if one can speak purely objectively. Maybe it's just that _no_ system could ever adequately answer that question. Why anything? Why doesn't the universe not exist? The question itself is temptingly meaningful, but ultimately empty, since it itself is part of the universe. I don't even know how to begin constructing the universe's not existing in my mind. So it's not a fault of science that it does not answer that question. It at least has the wisdom not to try.
- drewcrawford 16y ago
  >So it's not a fault of science that it does not answer that question. Similarly, it's not the question's fault that science cannot answer it. I say "subjectively" because it is not an objective fact that the question has value or is meaningful. Clearly, you and many others view it as "empty". I don't. In that sense the value or utility of the question is subjective.
  - Helianthus16 16y ago
    I don't particularly view it as empty, I just think it lies outside the framework of practicality. It's like asking about the nature of hobbits. (Actually, this does have practical provenance in certain circles, but let's try to overlook that for a bit.) Hobbit qualities can be essentially whatever we want them to be, so their precise nature only matters insofar as they reflect our desires. We desire to hold true to Tolkien's vision, so we accept his details as truth and might extrapolate a bit here and there. That doesn't mean the question has any bearing on reality. Similarly, I could ask, why isn't there a force that could destroy our reality retroactively, eating through space and time a la the Nothing of the Never-Ending Story? And the answer is more or less, if it happened, we would know (or rather, not know anymore) by now. The question assumes that there could be such a thing. I suppose I view "Why doesn't the universe not exist?" in the same light.
psyklic 16y ago
Let us suppose that all physics is solved, as you say. Then, why should we even ponder the "why" if there is no way of knowing the correct answer? If we cannot know this answer, then the "why" is in fact unimportant to divine, a waste of time. To explain further: You are saying that everything observable is understood. So, this means that the only evidence for "why" is the equations themselves. "Why" is the cause or intention underlying something. However, there are infinite explanations how any piece of evidence arose. If all that we have is the evidence, without knowing the laws governing the universe it was produced in, then there is no way of deriving intention, i.e. "why" the evidence exists.
derefr 16y ago
"Science" really just means "the body of knowledge able to be derived, ultimately, by statistical induction from our sensory experience." There's nothing in there that disallows science to answer "why" questions. It might be that there are scientific observations we can use to provide Bayesian evidence for certain philosophies over others (say, that if the transition frequency of the Higgs boson is a rational number the parts of which correspond to our index in a model of a Tegmark multiverse, then a Tegmark multiverse model is strongly likely, and so on.)

Helianthus16 16y ago

1) There are a number of physics equations that generalize physical equations--Lagrangian mechanics. (IANAP, but I have a physicist friend.) 2) It is a misconception that physics can trace the whole history of the universe, or even any part of it. The Holy Grail Unified Theory is not a full descriptor of our universe, it is a full descriptor of the _forces_ of our universe. 3) There's something in your language that makes me feel like you're not really tackling the question completely. "Speaking purely subjectively" might be part of it--as if one can speak purely objectively. Maybe it's just that _no_ system could ever adequately answer that question. Why anything? Why doesn't the universe not exist? The question itself is temptingly meaningful, but ultimately empty, since it itself is part of the universe. I don't even know how to begin constructing the universe's not existing in my mind. So it's not a fault of science that it does not answer that question. It at least has the wisdom not to try.

drewcrawford 16y ago
>So it's not a fault of science that it does not answer that question. Similarly, it's not the question's fault that science cannot answer it. I say "subjectively" because it is not an objective fact that the question has value or is meaningful. Clearly, you and many others view it as "empty". I don't. In that sense the value or utility of the question is subjective.
- Helianthus16 16y ago
  I don't particularly view it as empty, I just think it lies outside the framework of practicality. It's like asking about the nature of hobbits. (Actually, this does have practical provenance in certain circles, but let's try to overlook that for a bit.) Hobbit qualities can be essentially whatever we want them to be, so their precise nature only matters insofar as they reflect our desires. We desire to hold true to Tolkien's vision, so we accept his details as truth and might extrapolate a bit here and there. That doesn't mean the question has any bearing on reality. Similarly, I could ask, why isn't there a force that could destroy our reality retroactively, eating through space and time a la the Nothing of the Never-Ending Story? And the answer is more or less, if it happened, we would know (or rather, not know anymore) by now. The question assumes that there could be such a thing. I suppose I view "Why doesn't the universe not exist?" in the same light.

psyklic 16y ago

Let us suppose that all physics is solved, as you say. Then, why should we even ponder the "why" if there is no way of knowing the correct answer? If we cannot know this answer, then the "why" is in fact unimportant to divine, a waste of time. To explain further: You are saying that everything observable is understood. So, this means that the only evidence for "why" is the equations themselves. "Why" is the cause or intention underlying something. However, there are infinite explanations how any piece of evidence arose. If all that we have is the evidence, without knowing the laws governing the universe it was produced in, then there is no way of deriving intention, i.e. "why" the evidence exists.

derefr 16y ago

"Science" really just means "the body of knowledge able to be derived, ultimately, by statistical induction from our sensory experience." There's nothing in there that disallows science to answer "why" questions. It might be that there are scientific observations we can use to provide Bayesian evidence for certain philosophies over others (say, that if the transition frequency of the Higgs boson is a rational number the parts of which correspond to our index in a model of a Tegmark multiverse, then a Tegmark multiverse model is strongly likely, and so on.)