Some people cry when they consider their mortality, or the mortality of their loved ones.
What makes me weep are the limitations on our knowledge implicit in the Heisenberg/uncertainty principle, and the impossibility of seeing what’s going on at the outer reaches of the universe in the present time.
It seems to me that there exist certain questions which are valid, but unanswerable.
By “valid” I mean, essentially, answerable in theory but, in light of our human limitations, not in any practical sense.
An example of a non-valid question would be George Carlin’s famous rendition of the Catholic schoolboy’s taunt: “If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so big that He Himself can’t lift it?” Of course, this question really has nothing to do with the potential powers of an omnipotent being, but is merely demonstrative of human beings’ ability to create linguistic paradoxes.
Here is my “ultimate question”, which I believe is both valid and (tragically) unanswerable: Why is there anything, rather than nothing?
It burns me, like Gollum’s ring. I can’t seem to let it go. Yet I know it’s no use pondering over it.
Are there others?
NB: Flippant answers tolerated, of course, but frowned upon.
Do we have free will, or is it all predestined, either because of some sort of god or because of the natural expanding nature of the universe, and the fact that the universe might be cyclical? No way to tell; if we have a planned future we would be planned to talk about the fiction of free will, and if we have free will then someone is bound to come up with the idea of predestination sooner or later. No way to test it since it could all be part of The Plan. This here’s a thing that will keep a body up at night.
As an agnostic I would also say that the existence of a god itself is unanswerable.
I know this is not the main thrust of your question but if it helps what is going on at the “outer reaches” of the universe is pretty much was is going on in our own galactic neighborhood. There really are no “outer reaches”…just things far away from us. Since there is no edge to the universe one place is pretty much the same as any other place no matter where you are (on a broad scale at least). So if you wonder what things look like at places really far away by and large they will look like things that are much nearer to us (relatively speaking of course…“close” in this sense is still pretty darned far for us earth bound humans).
Exactly. The local neighborhood is such a small sampling that I’m not willing to accept it as representative absent more data.
After all, if I followed that logic, I’d assume that the entire planet were inhabited by rednecks, pinetrees, possum, and whitetail deer.
Also, there are questions that can’t be answered without knowing much more about the present overall size and shape and composition of the universe than we’re able to observe.
Remembering that a lot of the mystic stuff out there depends on the uncertainty principle affecting even our beings, this realization from the science of Nanothecnology should not be ignored; I can say our reality just became more “reliable”.
The uncertainty principle is doing just fine, and the article doesn’t affect it. Your cite explains the resolution.
As to the OP, even though my background is in physics, I’m much more tortured by questions of evolution. I want to see how Neanderthals lived. Of course, as soon as I saw that, I’d want to see how Erectus lived, etc.!
The OP assumes that there is something rather than nothing.
The question is, why should that be? Perhaps you refer to the anthropic principle – however, in this case, the anthropic principle is irrelevant b/c the OP does not consider distinctions among universes conducive to intelligent life and those that aren’t.
Regarding the linked article, it’s true that topographic pictures of surfaces on an atomic scale have been obtained via STM. However, you’ll have to explain how this represents an essential negation of the H/U limitations, rather than a mere displacement by one level of granularity. (I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I need a more complete explanation of your claim.)
I think a prime example is when life begins (abortion). That one is a little different in that we have all the science we could use to answer that question yet it isn’t enough. A good working definition requires that humans with very different ideas come together on philosophy and science and that can’t happen in the near future. The question is destined to stagnate for all time (or at least a very long time).
So yea, it is doing fine, but it depends on were the atoms are, as the atoms in our bodies are not free, I have to say so much for uncertainty. Now, what happens when we die? Ah! that is another story…
Because astronomers who study these things say it is so and while I guess it cannot truly be “known” without visiting the educated guess is it is pretty much the same everywhere on large scales. Local variations yes…every planet will be somehow unique from every other like every human is different from every other but broadly planets are planets and people are people all over. To use the analogy piggy used it would be more apt to say I would expect humans to be the same all over the planet. Sure they will look a bit different in the finer details but by and large I would expect humans in China to have two arms, two legs, two eyes, a head on top of a torso, be bi-pedal and so on. I do not need to visit to be pretty certain in this assumption.
As far as I know there are no quasars that are not a long way from our galactic neighborhood both in distance and in time. So things aren’t the same everwhere in the observable universe are they? Or do I misunderstand?
PS. As to the OP’s question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I don’t think there is anything more profound in this than in the question, “Why is there gravity?” Or for that matter, “What is the good life?”
Aren’t most “why questions” the foundation for careers in academic philosopy? And isn’t that subject essentially eternal just because there aren’t definitive answers?
I think this is a misinterpretation of the uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle says that certain physical observables (e.g., position and momentum) can’t be simultaneously known with perfect precision. But that’s because physical particles don’t have a precisely defined position and momentum. That’s because a physical particle (e.g., an electron) isn’t really a point particle (nor is it a wave).
In other words, the uncertainty principle is a statement about the way things are, not a limit on our knowledge. If I ask, “Am I brown?” you won’t be able to give a yes or no answer. But that doesn’t indicate a lack of knowledge on your part. You might be sitting right next to me. But because my hair and irises are brown, but my nose is not, the question doesn’t have a clear cut yes or no answer. In other words, I don’t have a precisely defined color. I see this as (roughly) analogous to the electron, which doesn’t simultaneously have a precisely defined position and momentum, even if you know everything there is to know about it.
That’s the observer effect, dammit! That’s not the same thing as the uncertainty principle, although the two are often mistaken for each other.
You are correct on the observer effect, but the second link shows IMO that uncertainty is not as absolute as it was thought before. In any case, it’s not meaningful to apply QM on a macroscopic scale.
Thank you! It is hard to say which is most abused among these three: Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Godel’s Formally Undecidable Propositions, or Ockham’s Razor.
