Will it ever be possible for us (as a race, not as individuals) to know everything? A point where we truly have explored all areas of science and learned every way in which the universe works?
Because I know someone is going to bring it up… exclude historical events that we don’t know the outcome of due to lack of a time machine (of course, we might be able to invent one once we know everything!) from the “everything” I’m speaking of.
I belief we have determined just about every way the universe works – and the places we aren’t sure about yet already have a lot of theoreticals sketched out. Aside from not having a Grand Unified Theorem, which may be a pipe dream, we’re done.
(Right?)
Even if we discover every last physical law down to why neutrinos like folk music or quarks vote Republican, there will still be things to figure out. There is literally an infinite number of ways such particles can be arranged. The argument that finding these fundamental laws means omnipotence is sort of like saying that once we catalogued all the elements we knew everything there was to know about chemistry. Just ain’t so.
You’re kidding right?
Now we have a greater understanding of the extent of our ingnorance.
Shouldn’t it be omniscience, not omnipotence?
D’oh! Yes, it should.
I guess I don’t know everything.
:o
**Arken wrote:
Will it ever be possible for us (as a race, not as individuals) to know everything? A point where we truly have explored all areas of science and learned every way in which the universe works?**
I doubt it. History shows that once we figure out how things work; new circumstances arise which shows our understanding is simply limited to a small part of the total.
Witness the change from Aristotlean physics to Newtonian physics. Aristotle deduced a lot, and didn’t have the technology available to conduct decent experiments; witness parallax of distant stars. Newton, standing on the shoulders of Kepler and Galileo was able to distill their work down to basic, understandable principles.
Then from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian physics. Einstein showed that Newtonian physics doesn’t necessarily hold true when you deal with astronomically large objects or speeds approaching C.
I’m sure some bright person will show up and demostrate how limited Einstein’s viewpoint is. It’ll just be a matter of time.
Then are you saying, Freyr, that the universe is infinitely complex? I have a hard time buying that, especially since we know that it follows rules (i.e. gravity, thermodynamics, etc.)… plus, I can’t see how infinite complexity would be possible.
Probably not. But maybe we can get close.
(1) The Uncertainty Principle - - it’s physically impossible to know both the velocity vector and position of a particle.
(2) Quantum Mechanics - - there is an element of probability to the universe
(3) Non-linear dynamics - - the chaos theory of complex systems makes some predictions impossible
(4) Areas of the universe too distant for light from those regions to have reached us yet. There is no way to know what goes on beyond our observable universe.
(5) Potentially non-sequetor questions such as what came before the Big Bang or what is outside of our universe. If this has any meaning, then it’s still probably not accessible to us.
A correlary to your question may be how advanced can our technology get? Infinite technology may be the same as omnipotence or even godhood…which is probably impossible. I know we’re talking about omniscience, but it seems to follow that if you know everything, you could do anything.
Huh? What do distant stars have to do with Aristotlean physics versus Newtonian physics?
As for the OP, I’d like to add one more limitation that hasn’t been mentioned yet: the Godel incompleteness theorem. And just what does it mean to “know” something? At this point, the human race has so much information recorded that even if every person memorized a different portion of our collective knowledge, and spent an entire lifetime doing so, the vast majority of human knowledge would still remain outside of any human mind. If you just mean that we have “access” to all the information in the universe, then the question arises what it means to have “access”. It is theoretically possible to measure the chemical composition of the soil of a certain square meter of mars; does that mean we have “access” to that information?
I don’t think it’s necessary for the universe to be INFINITELY complex for it to be beyond our complete comprehension. The human mind (even taken as a theoretical whole- the mind of the human race) is not infinite. Not only does our capacity for understanding have a limit, the nature of our understand is- well, one particular kind of understanding. Perhaps there are other ways of understanding that are beyond us (I hope this doesn’t sound too New Age-y. That’s not how I mean it.)
but I also have to side with Godel on this one. The extension of his theorem to “human knowledge” certainly seems justified, if not explicitely demonstrated.
**The Ryan wrote:
Huh? What do distant stars have to do with Aristotlean physics versus Newtonian physics?**
In Aristotle’s day, the arguement was used; if the earth does move (revolve around the sun), why don’t we notice any parallax of distant stars?
The answer is that to observe parallax, you need much more senstive measuring equipment that was available in Aristotle’s day. Since we don’t see any parallax, it’s another observation that supports the “earth is the unmoving center of the universe” theory.
The whole “the earth is the center of the Universe and unmoving” theory had several observations supporting it. Two important ones:
the earth certainly LOOKS like it’s the center of the unversrse. It doesn’t feel like it’s moving and everything appears to move around it.
Inertia. Here on earth, give something a good push and it would travel a distance but eventually slow down and stop. But objects in the heaven never stopped or slowed down. The stars and planets kept revolving around the earth. Those heavenly objects acted very different from terrestrial objects. Aristotle’s view of the Universe worked within the framework of his observations and understanding of how things acted.
Newton, using the much more accurate work of Kepler and Galileo, worked out his Laws of Motion and his Theory of Universal Gravitation to explain the way the universe worked that fitted with recent observations.
**Arken wrote:
Then are you saying, Freyr, that the universe is infinitely complex? I have a hard time buying that, especially since we know that it follows rules (i.e. gravity, thermodynamics, etc.)… plus, I can’t see how infinite complexity would be possible.**
Good point. Let me ask you to re-phrase the question. By asking: “can we know everything?”, do you mean have all information about it readily available (like TheRyan asked regaring Martian soil composition) or do you mean understanding the basic laws and concepts of how the Universe works? In otherwords, I can look at a bicycle and understand the basic principle without know the chemical composition of a sampling of the grease from its chain.
My question was really regarding the latter, yes. I’ll agree that we may never know what it is like to live in the outermost section of the greater magellanic cloud or where any electron is at any precise moment, but the question really was, I guess, whether we will one day be able to write the ultimate version of ‘The Way Things Work’
Well, according to some skeptics, the earth is several billions of years old. If that’s not enought time to figer things out then it ain’t gonna happen. Guess maybe we do need God, huh?
answers only bring more questions:)
**jenkinsfan wrote:
Well, according to some skeptics, the earth is several billions of years old. If that’s not enought time to figer things out then it ain’t gonna happen. Guess maybe we do need God, huh?**
According to the FACTS, the earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Life started, thru abiogenesis, about 3 billion years ago. Humans evolved in their present form about 100,000 years ago. Writing was invented about 5000 years ago. Widespread dessemination of information (cheap, efficient printing of books) started about 500 years ago. An efficient way of making sure everyone has access to that information has yet to happen; tho the Internet is close to it.
Jenkinsfan, if you and your ilk would stop confusing outdated mythology for science, we might actually make some headway on this.
Apparently about a hundred years ago, the patent office wanted to stop granting patents because they thought everything that could be invented had been. The point is we will never know whether we know everything or not. By definition we can never say ‘We only need to discover X, and then we’ll know everything’.
So er… no. I think.
Freyr commented to Jenkies:
Hmmm…
It seems like one of the nicest things you could do for science is to “confuse outdated mythologies.” Which is better competition: a clear-thinking outdated mythology or one that is confused? 
Joseph Campbell, paraphrased: “Mythology serves a need in humanity, for archetypal heroes, dreams, fears, etc. What we need is a mythology suited for today.” 
I think there will be a time when we can know everything, but it will take billions of years, so if we can survive (and adapt/evolve) that long as a race, I think yes… here’s why I think so:
Look at your computer screen. A finite number of pixels. Look at the number of colors you can display. Another finite number. And yet it seems like you can display any picture on your screen.
So, imagine if you set up a program to cycle through every possible color combination for the pixels on your screen. Eventually your program will cycle through every possible image that can ever be displayed (finite pixels x finite colors). So, at some point, for example, you will get a picture of yourself reading this. In fact, you will have a picture of everything that you can possibly get a picture of, including people and events that never existed or happened.
So, IMHO, if the amount of matter in the universe is finite, then there is a finite number of things that can be done with that matter. Therefore, the amount of knowledge is finite, and can be known.
It will just take awhile.