In an effort to get some discussion going, I'm going to start an 'Open-ended question' feature, a-la Eric Furst.
Today's question has an strong physics undertone to it: Can everything in the world be exactly described?
See, much in the same vein as Einstein, it seems to me that we should be able to break every physical system down, classify its components, and describe what it's going to do in the future. I'm talking having someone throw a baseball and see where it lands based on the initial velocity, the wind current and air density, the exact force of gravity acting on the ball, and the possible spin of the ball. It seems to me that everything can theoretically be broken down like this and described to the most minute details.
Of course, this would strongly suggest a grand design to the universe, which many people have their own opinions on. But I would tend to say that if scientists were able to solve for every physical system in the world, this would neither prove nor disprove the idea of divine structure. Rather, it would only prove that scientists have it within their capability to determine how a baseball will land in the grass.
My two cents.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle gives us a limit for how small things can get before observation and measurement becomes impossible. I'm not sure that this means there's not a determining factor that gives us a set outcome rather than a statistical one, rather it means we can't measure what the determining factor is.
Really, though, I think it's true that we can't and won't ever be able to describe physical systems fully. There are certain limits to what is in the realm of possibility when it comes to what we can measure and describe.
Is this God making sure we can't discover His grand design?
Posted by: Andy at December 17, 2003 8:23 PMGodel's incompleteness theorem seems to suggest that not all things in the universe can be described completely. Steven Hawking recently gave a lecture on this idea and its implications for the end of physics.
Posted by: Kris at December 19, 2003 5:31 PMDude, the comment page needs help son.
I don't remember the open ended question, but thanks for the props...I probably didn't originate it.
Theories smearies. It doesn't matter what Johny IQ Physicsman says about it, as history seems to show that Mr. Physicsman's beliefs are often thrown away every twenty years.
"Really, though, I think it's true that we can't and won't ever be able to describe physical systems fully."
I think that "can't" and "won't" are two different scenarios. Can we not determine the full nature of the Universe because it is, in fact, not deterministic at subatomic levels, or will we not determine the full nature of the Universe because it is obviously too complex for us to model such a huge system. In order to model the Universe, and keep track of the state of every electron, wouldn't we need a binary storage means to store each state? We'd be creating a computer bigger than the Universe just to study it.
Furthermore, because we have been unable to deterministically model behavior doesn't necessarily mean that the Universe is non-deterministic. It just means that we have yet to find a means of determining it.
But I write software, look at oscilliscopes and blame hardware for my problems now. I don't know anything about this stuff. At this level, it's all philosophy anyway...ask Camus what he thinks about existence.
Didn't that Heisenberg guy say we can't know everything precisely? I know he's talking about quantum mechanics, but I guess if you look at that philosophically, there's always going to be something that we won't be able to measure precisely, whether that's because it's too small, or too...something else. We certainly can't prove if God exists or not with science; to me it seems that either our science would be so uncertain in that kind of measurement that the question would still be 50/50, or if God does exist, he wouldn't let us find Him. Or he'll get pissed off and smite the hell out of us.
Posted by: jackattack at December 16, 2003 8:40 PM