“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature presented to our method of observation,” wrote the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was the first to understand the uncertainty inherent in quantum physics. For those who see science as a direct path to the truth of the world, this quote may be unexpected, or it may even be disappointing. So Heisenberg believed that our scientific theories depended on us as observers? Does this mean that the so-called scientific truth is nothing more than a great illusion?
You can quickly argue: why then do planes fly and antibiotics work? Why are we able to create machines that process information with such amazing efficiency? Of course, such inventions and many others are based on laws of nature that function independently of us. There is order in the universe, and science gradually reveals it.
Yes, this is undoubtedly: there is order in the universe, and the task of science is to find its schemes and patterns, from quarks and mammals to entire galaxies, to determine them by general laws. We eliminate unnecessary complexity and focus on the essence, on the basic properties of the system we are studying. Then we create a descriptive narrative of the system's behavior that, at best, is also easily predictable.
In the heat of research, it is often overlooked that the methodology of science requires interaction with the system under study. We observe its behavior, measure its properties, create mathematical or conceptual models to better understand it. To do this, we need tools that go beyond our sensitive range: to study the smallest, fastest, most distant and virtually unattainable, such as the bowels of our brain or the core of the Earth. We are not observing nature itself, but nature reflected in the data that we collect with our machines. In turn, the scientific view of the world depends on the information that we can obtain with our tools. And if we assume that our tools are limited, our view of the world will definitely be short-sighted. We can only look into the nature of things up to a certain point,and our ever-changing worldview reflects a fundamental limitation of how we perceive reality.
Suffice it to recall what biology was like before the advent of microscopes or gene sequencing, and what was astronomy before the advent of telescopes, particle physics before the collision of atoms in colliders and the appearance of fast electronics. Now, as in the 17th century, the theories we create and our view of the world are changing as our research tools change. This trend is a hallmark of science.
Sometimes people take this statement about the limitations of scientific knowledge as defeatist. "If we can't get to the bottom of things, why try?" But this is the wrong approach. There is nothing defeatist about understanding the limitations of the scientific approach to knowledge. Science remains our best methodology for building consensus on the principles of nature. Only the feeling of scientific triumphalism changes - the conviction that not a single issue will remain outside the framework of scientific understanding.
There will definitely be uncertainties in science that we cannot uncover by accepting the existing laws of nature. For example, a multiple universe: the assumption that our universe is just one of many others, each with its own set of natural laws. Other universes lie beyond our causal horizon, we will never receive a signal from them or send ours. Any evidence of their existence will be circumstantial: for example, a trace in the microwave background of the cosmos, left after a collision with a neighboring universe.
Other examples of the fundamentally unknowable can be identified by three questions about the origin: the universe, life, and mind. Scientific representations of the origin of the universe will be incomplete because they rely on conceptual frameworks: energy conservation, relativity, quantum physics, and others. Why does the universe operate according to these laws and not others?
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Likewise, if we cannot prove that there is only one of several biochemical pathways that create living from non-living, we will not be able to know exactly how life came to be on Earth. In the case of consciousness, the problem lies in the jump from the material to the subjective - for example, from the activation of neurons to the sensation of pain or red color. Perhaps some kind of rudimentary consciousness could have arisen in a rather complex machine. But how do we know? How do we determine - rather than assume - that something is conscious?
Paradoxical as it may seem, it is our consciousness that endows the world with meaning, even if this conceptual picture is imperfect. Can we fully understand what we are a part of? Like a mythical snake that bites its own tail, we are stuck in a circle that begins and ends with our experiences of life in this world. We cannot separate our descriptions of reality from how we experience that reality. This is the playing field on which the game of science unfolds, and if we play by the rules, we can only see a fraction of what lies outside this field.
Ilya Khel