There are many Big Questions in science, many of which go back to the ancients, even back into prehistory in all probability. One of the best modern set I’ve found recently were sidebars in a book* by Emeritus Professor of Physics at the Open University, Russell Stannard. These are my answers, thoughts and commentary to those Big Questions. Many readers might have ‘fun’ trying to come to terms with these in their own way based on their own worldview.
My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.
Q. Why is there something rather than nothing?
A. If there was nothing rather than something you wouldn’t be here to ask the question! So perhaps the fact that there is something is another case of fine-tuning! Something could be a natural condition that’s part and parcel of any conceivable universe or something could be simulated, the simulation of course arising because something existed on up the line that created the simulation. It could be a case of fine-tuning in that universes than consisted of nothing couldn’t give rise or evolve into a something that could ask the question; only a universe that consisted of a something could evolve something that wondered why there was something rather than nothing.
Q. Where do the laws of nature come from?
A. It’s hard in our ordered cosmos to imagine anything but regularity, so the better question might be where do the irregularities, the violations to those laws of nature come from. When they happen we call them miracles or anomalies or if you’re a professional skeptic, pseudoscience (except those “Twilight Zone” anomalies in quantum physics of course – that’s science). Of course anomalies might be a reflection of our not understanding the laws of nature well enough. Or, violations might be due to intelligence. Intelligence is unpredictable, and often has a quirky sense of humor. So intelligence might be behind those exceptions to the rule, so if you see or experience an exception, an anomaly, think intelligence, and if it can’t be human intelligence in the here-and-now, think Supreme Programmer.
Q. How are we to understand the built-in creativity of the physical world?
A. Human beings are highly creative beings. We create 2-D and 3-D art and architecture; sports and games; music and storytelling; designing experiments; create new food recipes, create computer simulations, etc. We love to indulge in the ‘what if’ game. Apparently so does the Universe! From a primeval ‘fireball’ of elementary particle ‘soup’, the cosmos created forces and fields, atoms and molecules, and stuff and structures* like galaxies and stars and solar systems full of planets and associated debris, but from our biased point of view or perspective the Universe created life and us. If this creation in particular was inadvertent, it borders on a near miracle given all those pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that have to come together just so. If life was a deliberate creation then you are down to postulating either an infallible supernatural deity (or deities) or a probable flesh-and-blood and fallible Supreme Programmer.
· But not just galaxies but spiral galaxies and barred galaxies and elleptical galaxies and irregular galaxies; not just stars but dwarf stars and giant stars and neutron stars and quasars and Black Holes and binary star systems too as well as stars that burp and stars that explode; not just planets but gas giants and icy giants and rocky planets (and I’m sure there’s no planet ever envisioned by any science fiction writer that doesn’t have a real counterpart somewhere out in the cosmos).
Q. What significance, if any, ought we to attach to the self-ordering nature of matter?
A. The cosmos is a highly ordered place. The only real question is why it is so. There are roughly about 60 elementary particles (and antiparticles) grouped into three generations. There’s no theoretical reason why there couldn’t have been trillions of elementary particles grouped into hundreds of generations, or no generational structure at all. The fundamental particles can only combine in just so many ways – you can’t have an atom consisting of one neutron, 5 protons and ten electrons. Atoms can only combine in just so many ways. There are a lot more ways atoms can’t combine than ways they do. The same applies for molecules combining. The ancients noted this ordering by suggesting that everything has its natural place in the cosmic scheme of things. Solids (earth) seek ground level; liquids (water) go down too but rest on top of solids; gases (air) hover above solids and liquids and heat (fire) tries to rise through gases and occupy the top rung. The planets don’t orbit the Sun in a square orbit one year, then switch to a rectangular orbit the next year and switch again to a triangular orbit the year after that. The lunar cycle follows its steady rhythm; ditto night follows day that follows night that follows day, etc. Thunder follows lightning. Plants grow upwards while plant roots grow downwards. In other words, causality operates. If you have X, Y follows (but not A, B and/or C). So the fact we have ordering is significant. But, consider this. Software is the same. Your PC is predictable. If X, then Y (but not A, B and/or C).
Q. The problem of understanding things in themselves.
A. No matter what sort of thing you wish to describe, its properties, you eventually exhaust appropriate concepts and language to dig any deeper. You often hit an ultimate barrier when you come up against the ‘what’ and ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. We know there is gravity but ‘why’ gravity at all and ‘how’ does gravity actually work. We know an electron has a negative electric charge of one unit but ‘what’ exactly is electric charge and ‘why’ does the electron have the value of electric charge that it has. The problems disappear if one suggests well, this is the programming, the software code that gives us the illusion of all things gravitational and another software code that determines that there be an negative electric charge on an electron and what the value is, also properties that are totally an illusion, or virtual reality. Ultimately those ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions like why introduce gravity and why have an electric charge can best be answered by those who do the (supreme) programming.
Q. Is the task of science to describe the world-in-itself, whether or not it is being observed, or must it confine itself to speaking only of our observations of the world?
A. Ideally, science tries to account for those actual observations one makes of the world-in-itself. However, there are numerous bits and pieces in scientific texts that rely on speculation and theory and what ifs and extrapolations and mathematical equations. We can’t observe inside the core of the Sun or inside a Black Hole. Nobody has actually observed an electron or a quark. There are many theoretical things we haven’t observed yet like monopoles or gravity waves or supersymmetric particles or extraterrestrials, yet they too are considered a legit part of science.
Q. Does the world-in-itself exist between our discontinuous observations?
A. This is a case of does the Moon exist even if no one is looking at it. Presumably, the answer is yes, even if the observer is just phytoplankton that absorbs photons reflected off the lunar surface. Presumably water must be observing the Moon as it does its tidal thing, a thing it wouldn’t otherwise do if the Moon wasn’t there. So hairy issue number one is what exactly is an observer? An observer can be anything. An electron observes another electron when the two come in close proximity and repel each other. Hairy issue number two is how does the Moon know it is being observed? It can’t, therefore it cannot respond to a state of non-observation by vanishing. What about software? Do those video game characters exist when the game isn’t being played and sitting on your shelf? If we’re simulated beings in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe and the Supreme Programmer leaves the room and does not observe us, presumably we keep on keeping on. So the answer is that the world-in-itself exists whether real or simulated. If real, well the world-in-itself (i.e. – the Universe) got along very nicely before there were observers as we traditionally define them and we traditionally define them as living things that react (observe) to their surroundings. The simulation exists as long as the software exists whether it’s running or not.
Q. Can one prove mathematically that science will be forever incomplete?
A. I don’t know about a mathematical proof, but science cannot ever be complete if for no other reason than there is always something over that next hill which we haven’t seen and explored yet. Further, there are just some restrictions on what we can know about, like the fact that there is probably more to the Universe than just the observable Universe, since what we observe or cannot yet observe is related to and by the speed of light. If light from Object X hasn’t had time to reach us yet, will science can’t yet deal with the nature of Object X. The same philosophy applies to say the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, whereby, through no fault of our own, the very act of observing something changes the properties of that something. Other parts of the cosmos might forever be inaccessible to our sciences, like say exploring the insides of a Black Hole. One could explore the inside of a Black Hole but forever be forbidden from getting the nitty-gritty scientific details of what they found out to a wider peer-reviewed audience.
Q. What is the status of mathematics?
A. Mathematics has no status outside of the human mind. Mathematics is an invention of the human mind (since I know of no other life form that makes use of mathematics in any abstract sort of way) to assist humans in dealing with the many (also invented) complexities of human society (like trade, commerce and economics). Mathematics provides practical applications like navigation and provides ordering and predictability in the natural world that rule the human roost. Mathematics is a not-thing since it has no physical properties and cannot be detected via any of your sensory apparatus. Of course if we’re in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe then we totally exist as, and in, a mathematical construct.
*The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford
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