The Ultimate Goal of Science

[AltF4]

There's entirely too many religious threads right now. Let's talk about something new!


What is the ultimate goal of science?


Allow me to give a brief (hopefully, but probably not!) description on the background of this subject and what we currently know about it.

Science can be described as the ongoing quest to explain how the world works. People of every age have had questions that were beyond their capability to explain, and this drives us to search for answers.

There was a time when basic properties of motion were not known. Previous to the 1700's, if you asked the worlds smartest man the question "why does an ball stop rolling after you throw it?" He would reply with "because it got tired". If you asked him "Why does an object fall back down then I throw it upward?" He would reply "because it longed to be reunited with the Earth". [1]

Tthese explanations were then replaced by Isaac Newton's laws of mechanics. But there were still more questions. Certain phenomena could not be explained by Newton's physics. Some of which being the startling conclusion about the calculation of the speed of light, and other things such as the weird coloration on the top of oils. These would later be explained by Relativity theory and Quantum Mechanics, respectively.

So you begin to see a pattern:
-Observations
-Explanatory Theory
-Inconsistency found within theory
-New Theory
-Repeat

This is the scientific method in a nutshell. But where does this leave us in the indefinite future? What is the ultimate goal of science itself? The following are a few popular options:

1) The Grand Unified Theory of Everything. Such a theory would be the final answer to all questions. It would have ultimate explanatory power and would represent the underlying truth to the universe. This is considered the holy grail of science. It would in fact end science as we know it.

2) An infinite number of sub-theories. Currently we split science into many different subdivisions: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, etc... Even within these divisions there are divisions. Physics has Quantum Mechanics (the study of the very small), Relativity Theory (the study of the very big, etc...

It can by postulated that science will never converge on a single unified theory, but rather regress into a series of infinite sub-theories. Each of which are accurate in describing their own domain, but increasingly inaccurate at describing others.

3) An infinite regression of inaccurate theories. Essentially this is to say that we keep doing what we are doing now... but forever. Every time a theory is made, it is shown to be inconsistent and must is replaced, indefinitely.


Something else to consider: In the early 1900's a man named Kurt Godel (a good friend of Einstein's in fact) proved what is called Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. What it states in a nutshell is this:

Given any nontrivial system (one capable of describing mathematics) there will be true statements in the system which are unprovable.

This was HUGE, and is very relevant to our discussion. What it says is that no matter how hard we try and how smart we are, we can never know if there is more to know in the world. There are certain principles which are TRUE, yet cannot ever be proven.


I really want to hear what some of you think about this idea. Some of the relevant topics to discuss can be:

- Whether an underlying truth to the universe exists.
- The task of determining the ultimate truth.
- Whether or not we (given an infinite amount of time, mind you) will ever find such an ultimate truth.
- Something I'm not even considering?


Oh, by the way: 42. There. I said it. Now you don't need to.


[1] - Taken in part from some science channel show with Michio Kaku. I love that guy.

 

[Teebs]

This is my wrong section of science, but I'll try my best.

Anyway, as to your third point of ever finding the ultimate truth, I still don't think even with an infinite amount of time we won't find out the ultimate truth. As much as I love science also, and I know this isn't intended to be a religious topic, I still believe that God has created the universe, and no amount of science can disapprove of this, even though many scientists do. Could you refresh my memory and provide some other examples of what scientists have found to be the source of the beginning of the universe and such? I will state that archeology has been a good source of how long the world has been around, but I would like some examples of what scientists find to be part of the "creation of the world." Correct me if this is off-topic of being an ultimate truth.

And if your wondering, I'm into Atmospheric Sciences.

 

[snex]

godel's incompleteness theorem does not apply in the way you think it does.. the universe may or may not be a true system (that is, axiomatic rules and rules of inference used to generate theorems), but even if it is, certain propositions will only be unprovable within the rules of that system. we as humans can observe true propositions about the world even if they are unprovable given the universe's axioms and rules of inference.

say, for example, that it turned out that "the mass of an electron is x" was an unprovable proposition. does that mean our measurements of the mass of the electron are wrong? no, it just means you can access propositions with different axioms, so long as those axioms are consistent with the other ones.

 

[AltF4]

Anyway, as to your third point of ever finding the ultimate truth, I still don't think even with an infinite amount of time we won't find out the ultimate truth.

Was that supposed to be a double negative? I just want understand your viewpoint.

But why do you see religion and science as mutually exclusive? Even if there is a god, you can ask these questions.

About the origin of the universe, the best consistent account to date is Hawking's "No Boundary" boundary condition. Just google it, you'll get lots of info.


Snex:
Yes, but when we're talking about mathematics and the universe I can't imagine how you could use information not of that system to prove something in it. Though it's possible in principle, I suppose.

And the point isn't that we can't ever discover these true properties, it's that we can't ever be sure that they're true, or that we've got them all.

****it, I can't remember the name of the theorem, but I'll try to. Anyway, Godel has a math theorem attributed to him that he proved was unprovable. (As weird as that sounds) He proved that this particular theorem is impossible to prove true. But it has never been wrong yet, and it certainly seems intuitively correct. It is a famous (potential) example of a "missing" theorem.

(It had something to do with cardinality of infinite sets. Something along the lines of "there are infinitely many degrees of uncountable sets", but I don't think that's it.)

 

[snex]

i dont know what theorem you refer to, but i know that the continuum hypothesis is the most popular (if you could call it that) theorem that is known to be unprovable... HOWEVER, it is only unprovable given the ZFC axioms. there are other systems where it is provable. the only question is whether those other systems are consistent with ZFC or not, and that question is also unprovable. but that doesnt mean its not reasonable to accept the continuum hypothesis one way or the other. we can gather *evidence* about the consistency of other systems with ZFC.

 

[AltF4]

Yea! That's the one, the Continuum Hypothesis. But my professor kind of lied to me. Godel didn't create it, he just tried to disprove it. Oh well.

Anyway, we both understand the implications I think. And I'm certainly not doubting our ability to gather information and test the consistency of other axiomatic systems or hypotheses. This topic is meant to be more of a kind of meta-discussion. In the practical world, we can accept certain things that aren't proven (or provable) but that's not what I'm getting at.


EDIT:

Ahh, you know what? I've neglected to really state my own opinion on the matter. Here goes:

I like to believe that there is some underlying truth to the universe. Some set of solid laws that whatever the universe consists of must obey. So you can put me under column A with those who believe in the existence of a "Grand Unified Theory of Everything". I think it's out there, and that with enough brain power we can figure it out.

It's really just a kind of intuitive notion. The other alternatives just don't seem adequate to me. I find it difficult to believe that the very laws of nature can vary depending on your level of abstraction. (Choice B, in the original post)

 

[Zero Beat]

I like to believe that there is some underlying truth to the universe.

In terms of what?

That's actually the main focus of Astronomers at the moment, more or less. We've(humans) gotten as far as the quantum gravity area, and how it goes like :

Electroweak---->Electromagnetic/Weak.
Strong---->Strong.
Gravity----->Gravity.

This would range from 10^-50 seconds before the big bang until present time. Just a quick example.

Now the question is; What came before that? And don't say "Jesus playing marbles in a white room."

I think that to understand the universe's ultimate truth, Alt, you'd have to start from the beginning. What's your(and everybody else's) take on "before the Big Bang"?

 

[The Executive]

Personally, I believe that there are too many variables involved in any field of science for one 'grand unifed theory of everything' to exist...scratch that. Do you mean to say that the theory itself is the explanation for everything, or that everything has a meaning that can be derived using that formula?

 

[AltF4]

Zero Beat:

By that I mean that there is some law or set of laws that are truly fundamental. IE: they hold true in every situation, and are not merely an approximation of some other law. (As is the case with Newtonian physics)

About the beginning of time: It's a little off topic, but if there was a "before the big bang" it would be impossible to know anything about what happened there. No information would pass through the singularity. But see, you're not supposed to be able to destroy information so we're left with a problem anyway.


The Executive: Too many variables? What is that even supposed to mean?

To answer your question: Both. A G.U.T. will be the fundamental underlying truth to the universe. Any question capable of being answered can be done so using it. Thus all other theories will be subsets of it.

 

[snex]

a GUT would be nice, but so far quantum mechanics is resisting it. one philosophical opinion is that our universe is likely to be a simulation created by intelligent beings on their computers. of course, our universe is so large that any computer that simulates it must be at least as large as it is. unless, of course you used shortcut hacks, like oh i dunno, quantum indeterminacy?

 

[Zero Beat]

By that I mean that there is some law or set of laws that are truly fundamental. IE: they hold true in every situation, and are not merely an approximation of some other law. (As is the case with Newtonian physics)

About the beginning of time: It's a little off topic, but if there was a "before the big bang" it would be impossible to know anything about what happened there. No information would pass through the singularity. But see, you're not supposed to be able to destroy information so we're left with a problem anyway.

Huh? What do you mean no information would pass through the singularity? Are we talking about black holes here?

And sure we can get information(we already have infolol, somewhat), BUT how familiar are you with the "Background radiation" subject and
the following :

# Separation of the strong force
# Inflationary period
# Quark-anti quark period
# Quark confinement
^^^^These all changed according to temps lowering and equalizing(For those uninformed)^^

I was reading about them the other day, pretty good stuff. And a lot of sense too.(For anyone intrested, these are the phases through which our universe went "at the beginning," as in 3 mins afterwards.(At 10^-40s [before big bang "explosion," *man that's the wrong wordlol*] the periods are referred to as:
# Before 1 Planck time
# Era of 1 Planck time)

Do somequick research, it's very self explanatory.

 

[AltF4]

Well, barring something like Hawking's No Boundary proposal, the typical model of the big bang includes the universe being compressed into a singularity to start with. At time = 0, as it were.

If there was any time before the big bang, it would be impossible to know about it because of the singularity. It's basic application of the Uncertainty Principle. You cannot know a particle's velocity and position at any one time.

Since all the matter of the universe is in the singularity (a single point) we know their position EXACTLY. Thus we can not know anything about their velocities at that moment. So it's impossible to know anything about where the particles were before the singularity because we have no information about their velocities AT the singularity. If that makes any sense.

EDIT: But to answer one of your questions directly: I'm not an astronomer. I remember you saying that you're studying that, so I'm willing to bet you may know more than me about the details of Plank scale time and stuff. I would say that I know the concepts and basics.

 

[Zero Beat]

Well, the word Planck itself derives from a famous german physicist.

With that out of the way, here's the basic and simplified concept(Not talking about how fast, but how they[things] formed):

First phase is "Before 1 Planck Time": Basically, all we can infer is that it took place at 10^43s, and that presumably, all four fundamental forces were unified into one force.(Sorry about the misconception with black holes, I was just in the middle of reading about them<_<)
Matter, energy, space, and time are presumed to have exploded outward from the singularity.

Now remember, this is all happening in lightning speed(Lighting speed doesn't even do justice, if you know what I mean).

Era of 1 Planck Time: Fundamental forces begin to differentiate. (Which explain the four observable forces in today's world)
If you want a detailed way of picturing why it's hard to gather info at this point in "time," then try researching Hsu and the whole deal with a black hole's event horizon.(Can't see past that point, ect..)

Then comes the separation of the strong force:

Roughly 10^-37s, the strong force separates and would be held in a nuclei in later eras.

Inflation period, think of it as this:
-From 10^36s to 10^32s, the expansion went from the size of a proton(or so they say) to the size of
a "grape gruit."

That's big. Astronomers say that's more of an expansion than the one from 0 years to current time(Around 14 billion).

Quark-antiquark Period:
Inflation cease, universe is mainly energy in the form of photons. And according to the read "and those particles which exist cannot bind into larger stable particles because of the enormous energy density" - Book I got from my Astrophysicist teacher

Think of a sea of quarks for this phase, basically.

Finally we arrive at the quark confinement:

Universe begins to cool, quarks hang on to each other for dear life, protons/neutrons/bayrons form, blah blah.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Our composition now.

For further info, do a research on Steven Weinberg's The First Three Minutes.

Sorry if I bored you.

-----------
For those interested in Astronomy, here's a greaaatttt Hubble Space Telescope documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpkrVw_E6Nw&feature=related

 

[Teebs]

@ AF4

I just read my answer again, and it is not intended to be double negative, I didn't even think it was, but to try and make it easier, I was saying even if we have an unlimited amount of time to find an ultimate truth, I still don't think it will happen. I'll get back to you on the religion part, too late to think out a full thought at the moment.

 

[The Executive]

A G.U.T. will be the fundamental underlying truth to the universe. Any question capable of being answered can be done so using it.

I call dibs on the scientific explanation for FALCON PAWNCH.

 

[itsameSMB]

What is the ultimate goal of science? This may be a bit too simple for this topic, but I do not believe there is one ultimate goal in science. Science, in my opinion at least, exists as a way for mankind to improve itself, be it understanding the world we live in (world not confined to Earth), creating new technologies, or even solving simple problems. If science did have one ultimate goal, it would be to satisfy our curiousity, and that's about as close as a G.U.T. (if not further away). It is simply too broad of a subject to summarize into a single objective, no matter how broad it may be.

Now, in response to the bulleted prompts:
1) I do believe there is an underlying truth to the universe. Everything does, even chaos (it's always predictably unpredictable, right?)! The question is: do the variables that describe that truth lie in the realm of science and mathematics, or for that matter, any realm we humans have access to?

2) (read #3 first) Just because we most likely will not be able to find an absolute truth doesn't mean we can find any truth at all. We know that atoms decay, just not the rate. We know that the human brain is a complex system of chemicals and electrical messages, just not how they add up to form a conscienceness. We've though that we've come close to a complete understanding of physics many times before, be it during Newton's time, Einstein's time, and plenty of other times before that! That's why I think that we can persue the GUT, but it will constantly elude us, even if by a hair.

3) We may find a GUT, but what good will it do us as a whole? will we gain anything from it but intellectual pride and the ability to predict how simple interactions (I'm talking very simple) will take place? I don't see that much practicality in such an application of such theory (wait, what?). Besides, since when has science=physics? Sure, it may be the root of all sciences, but there's anatomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, aerospace(which, I guess, is pretty close to it), technology, psychology, pathology, astronomy, and zoology to name a few.

(My first post on this board, FTR. Hope I didn't screw up.)

 

[Steck]

So far they have been able to trace the universe back to the big bang (I think they do this by seeing how far light has traveled? Something about if stars are far enough away, the light that is just reaching US now will be how the stars looked in the past) To get a theory of everything they would need to see how the various forces came out in this event- liking them together and finding a explanation of WHY things are the way they are and not just HOW

But I don't think they can do that. If the record the universe gives only goes back so far trying to find a theory of everything just leads to endless tinkering with math- but math, as it is used in physics, is used to give a picture of post-big bang reality- it cannot extend to a reality that's laws of physics were completely different.

 

[AltF4]

itsameSMB:

I find it a strong claim to say that there is a GUT out there, but we as humans will never find it, even given an infinite amount of time. What would cause you to make such a claim? The fact that the universe changes isn't important. We're looking for a theory that describes HOW it changes. I see no reason why we cannot do that.

Steck:

You make a distinction between "how" the universe is the way it is and "why" it is. What is this distinction? In order there to be an answer to the question "why", there must be an intention, a goal. This seems like an implicit appeal to a god to me.

 

[itsameSMB]

So far they have been able to trace the universe back to the big bang (I think they do this by seeing how far light has traveled? Something about if stars are far enough away, the light that is just reaching US now will be how the stars looked in the past) To get a theory of everything they would need to see how the various forces came out in this event- liking them together and finding a explanation of WHY things are the way they are and not just HOW

Does the WHY really matter? The universe is as it is and unless it helps explains the HOW, or help make predictions, it is nothing but a philosophical curiousity. Sure, it would be cool to know, but how would knowing it affect society's development, or perhaps just the development of the scientific database/community/whatever it should be called?

 

[Steck]

I may be wrong but isn't the theory of everything supposed to answer every scientific question? Why the laws of physics operate is the biggest question. If a theory can answer that then science is done. Society may just say "meh" can go on its way but science, or at least physics, will be done with all our knowledge complete. To find WHY means to not to see if everything has purpose but if there is a root cause of everything- be that god/vibrating strings/whatever
Of course that's not to say that HOW is not important- the theory of everything needs to do that too (it would also possibly be more useful to society at large) but only answering how would seem to fall short of the true theory of everything

 

[itsameSMB]

itsameSMB:

I find it a strong claim to say that there is a GUT out there, but we as humans will never find it, even given an infinite amount of time. What would cause you to make such a claim? The fact that the universe changes isn't important. We're looking for a theory that describes HOW it changes. I see no reason why we cannot do that.

Perhaps I didn't accurately convey my ideas with my post, and for that misunderstanding, I apologize. What I was trying to get at was the practicality of a GUT rather than the actual discover of one. Let's say we did find a GUT. Super duper, we can now predict how objects of any size and mass will behave in a system to a reasonable degree and even trace back to the beginning of the universe. Now think about this: what good will it do mankind as a whole? Will it be able to tell us how the brain will function and what the person who it belongs to will act? Can it predict how a patogen will mutate or how a cancer cell will metastasize and grow so that it could be used to develop a panacea? In fact, could it even be used practically on a daily basis, for say, predicting who will win a sport or video game? To answer my own leading rhetorical question, probably not (but feel free to answer it if you feel like it). The thing is that [most of] these processes are far too complex to be determined by a GUT. From what I know about what a GUT could do (

Spoiler

I'm only a freshman, so I may not be as knowledgable on it as some of you

), it can only be used to make general predictions of how two bodies/entities (or maybe it was particles with two of something I cant remember off-hand) would interact with each other. If you where to throw in another body/particle into the equation, it would fall apart. Now, I maybe be totally off with that, but if a GUT would have problems keeping up with a system like that, imagine what it would be like if it were used on processes such as the one's I have previously stated?

Wow, I think I digress quite a bit there, didn't I? Well, no matter. In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is it is possible for us to discover it, but for anything other than scientific purposes and intellectual curiousity, it would not do a great deal of good (even though I fully support the pursuit of a GUT). I'll go edit my post now to avoid future misinterpretations.

 

[AltF4]

Okay, so I think you're just saying that a GUT would have to not only describe exactly how our universe works, but why it is that way as opposed to another. Not actually looking for a "purpose to life".

Something along the lines of deriving cosmological constants, or multiple universes, yes?

ItsameSMB:

Yes, good point! Even if we find a GUT, it may not be of immediate practical use. Real predictions would be simply intractable.

Suppose for a moment that current Quantum Mechanics is the ultimate theory. It describes the universe perfectly. However, it deals with objects on such a small scale, that trying to gather any useful predictions from large scale objects is just impractical.

(We cannot even currently describe the motion of three objects, let along quadrillions or more)

Technically speaking, all the information about the whole universe is there, but making sense of it is an impractical task. (Certainly NP hard at least!)

 

[Steck]

Yeah that sounds about right- "purpose to life"- that would mean something new having real value would come out of just one person or all things living-which seems silly- but that's off topic

 

[itsameSMB]

I may be wrong but isn't the theory of everything supposed to answer every scientific question?

Even though the Grand Unified Theory is called the "theory of everything", Isn't it jut a theory that unifies quantum mechanics with general/special relativity? I mean sure, it could be used to predict quite a bit, it wouldn't be able to answer something to the effect of what the missing link is or how the first living cell came into existance. So to be far, the GUT isn't necessarilly a CUT (complete unified theory).

...Right?

 

[AltF4]

That sounds more like a problem with terminology. Some call the combination of Quantum mechanics and Relativity the "Grand Unified Theory". And in other contexts, you see the GUT being referred to as how I've defined it. Not necessarily relating to Quantum Mechanics or relativity.

If we had a GUT (as I've defined it) it WOULD necessarily give us the answers to both of those questions you asked. But interpreting it correctly would probably be beyond our computational ability.

IE: Even if we were given the initial state of the universe at one point and knew exactly how it would interact, determining things in modern day time would be a problem of such incredible computational complexity we couldn't ever actually do it.

Think of it this way: To record the current state of the universe, you need (at least) a bit for every elementary particle that exists. So a machine capable of storing the state of the universe must necessarily be as large or larger than the universe itself!

 

[Steck]

Well actually wouldn't be better to find the GUT as itsameSMB defines it as a steppingstone to GUT as you have defined it? The more data one has about the universe the closer one is to trying to fit all together right?But both seem really impossible to do though.

 

[Zero Beat]

So far they have been able to trace the universe back to the big bang (I think they do this by seeing how far light has traveled? Something about if stars are far enough away, the light that is just reaching US now will be how the stars looked in the past) To get a theory of everything they would need to see how the various forces came out in this event- liking them together and finding a explanation of WHY things are the way they are and not just HOW

But I don't think they can do that. If the record the universe gives only goes back so far trying to find a theory of everything just leads to endless tinkering with math- but math, as it is used in physics, is used to give a picture of post-big bang reality- it cannot extend to a reality that's laws of physics were completely different.

Meh, kind of. In terms of stars, we measure distance in outer space(partially) through the noting of Cepheids(a star whose period of variability has been shown to be related to their absolute luminosity by a period-luminosity[Think of a candle] relationship), super giants(their absolute magnitudes are really good for this, they're around -8 for red supergiants and about -9 for blue supergiants) which are temporarily more effective (not in the long run) than the cepheid variable, and one or two off the top of my head, eh, I think red shifts and the hubble constant.

Do some research on "3K Background Radiation" and "Weinburge's first three minutes."
----------
Alt, I think it's crazy to even think about knowing the truth to everything, unless even this deep into your topic, I haven't understood you:|.

Anyway, the actual way we've been able to date so far back is through the "The 3K Cosmic Background Radiation." Eh, I don't know how to dumb it down but I'll give it my shot.

It helped to paint this picture = Galaxies could not have begun to form at 3000 kelvin, but after the universe began to cool down(below 3000 Kelvin). Before 3000 Kevlin was the picture I tried to describe in the first page of the thread.
-Planck time
-Inflationary Epoch
-Symmetry breaks
-And the four fundamental fources(You know, ever seen in the history channel when they put the big bang as a liquid[just to paint a picture] ball with 4 things trying to get out?)