Science cannot solve the final mystery

[Audie]

It may be a mystery to science but people with religious faith understand.

We understand that religious folks make up any number
of silly ideas.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

From the linked article of the OP

"We see in all modern scientific advances that the solution of one problem only unveils the mystery of another. Each hilltop that we reach discloses to us another hilltop beyond. We must accept this as a hard-and-fast irrefutable fact… The aim of science… is an incessant struggle towards a goal which can never be reached. Because the goal is of its very nature unattainable. It is something that is essentially metaphysical and as such is always again and again beyond each achievement."

Thus, he asserts the absolute 'hard-and-fast irrefutable fact' that we can never know any 'hard-and-fast irrefutable fact' about nature...well except this one, which is untestable/irrefutable...much in the sense of Godel's theorem...

Edit: it's starting to sound to me like it's elephants all the way down...

 

[Audie]

There will be a lot of surprised atheists when the truth comes out.

takes fewer words to just say "pascal's wager"

 

[sealchan]

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”


Relativity, the Absolute, the Human Search for Truth: Nobel Laureate and Quantum Theory Originator Max Planck on Science and Mystery

Science writes the story of the evolution of mystery by continually re-writing the old story. Science is like a never-ending serial epic which builds on the outcome of the previous narrative and takes us out from a static happily-ever-after and into a whole other realm of mystery and knowledge.

There is no ultimate mystery but only a continuing unknown that we may capture as mystery that is always in flux and always changing.

This means that at its core the Universe if a wonderful balance of order and chaos and we may never penetrate the full depth of it.

Perhaps we will get to a point where our ability to progress will slow down but we seem to have hit a period in which our technological advances are even less limited than they were perceived to be in the Victorian and earlier eras when technology began to arise as a thing we were experiencing rather than something we made.

 

[sealchan]

From the linked article of the OP

"We see in all modern scientific advances that the solution of one problem only unveils the mystery of another. Each hilltop that we reach discloses to us another hilltop beyond. We must accept this as a hard-and-fast irrefutable fact… The aim of science… is an incessant struggle towards a goal which can never be reached. Because the goal is of its very nature unattainable. It is something that is essentially metaphysical and as such is always again and again beyond each achievement."

Thus, he asserts the absolute 'hard-and-fast irrefutable fact' that we can never know any 'hard-and-fast irrefutable fact' about nature...well except this one, which is untestable/irrefutable...much in the sense of Godel's theorem...

Edit: it's starting to sound to me like it's elephants all the way down...

Godel's theorem, I think, reflects a very important quality of the Universe as a whole as it pertains to any definable system of order.

 

[sealchan]

Is that a problem?

Religion certainly can't solve it either.

Religion can't even keep up with the mystery that science is gradually exploring.

 

[We Never Know]

There will be a lot of surprised atheists when the truth comes out.

And if we all just go back to the earth after death no one will be surprised.
(I used if because I don't know and don't claim to know)

 

[atanu]

What is this final mystery you speak of?

I think it is clearly mentioned in Max Planck’s statement.

 

[atanu]

Wikipedia puts it like this (with my emphases) ─

Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that demonstrate the inherent limitations of every formal axiomatic system capable of modelling basic arithmetic. These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The theorems are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible.​

But unfortunately for generalizing this argument into a statement about the real universe, the real universe is not a formal axiomatic system at all, let alone one capable of modeling basic arithmetic.

However, as it stands science still has no way of making absolute statements, so can never say when the job is finished.

​

My friend, I cited Gödel himself writing on implications of Incompleteness theorems. Why bring in Wiki?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Godel's theorem, I think, reflects a very important quality of the Universe as a whole as it pertains to any definable system of order.

I'm not sure if it's actually a quality of the universe, or just a quality (property) of our ability to conceive about the universe.

 

[sealchan]

We are much closer to the solution of the mystery of nature with Quantum Mechanics. Existence and non-existence are just phases. RigVeda knew it, Krishna explained it, but we stubbornly cling to 'maya' (existence), not understanding that it is just a phase.

"sato bandhumasati niravindan hṛdi pratīṣyākavayo manīṣā ll"
(Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.)
https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10129.htm

"Avyaktādīni bhūtāni, vyakta-madhyāni bhārata;
avyakta-nidhanāny eva, tatra kā paridevanā?"
(All created things are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?)
Bg 2.28

I think that popular science authors have used Hindu and Chinese concepts to help us to intuitively relate to the theories in physics of the strange quantum world. But I also think that Eastern mystical and intuitive thought is simply more sophisticated in a way of understanding the self-conscious limitations of human thought and reason.

I am beginning to perceive a need to develop a set of metaphors in language to help us to understand the systemic nature of our reality and release us from the more simple, rational ways we have of trying to understand it. In that area I think that Western and Eastern religious thought we have equal means of contributing.

 

[Audie]

Science writes the story of the evolution of mystery by continually re-writing the old story. Science is like a never-ending serial epic which builds on the outcome of the previous narrative and takes us out from a static happily-ever-after and into a whole other realm of mystery and knowledge.

There is no ultimate mystery but only a continuing unknown that we may capture as mystery that is always in flux and always changing.

This means that at its core the Universe if a wonderful balance of order and chaos and we may never penetrate the full depth of it.

Perhaps we will get to a point where our ability to progress will slow down but we seem to have hit a period in which our technological advances are even less limited than they were perceived to be in the Victorian and earlier eras when technology began to arise as a thing we were experiencing rather than something we made.

Order and chaos..

I wish I could find the original but someone wrote a
piece about how god made the universe.

First, he went for order, perfection. Every element and
compound in gigantic crystals, exact to the electron.

Hmm. Boring. He tried the opposite extreme. The
end point of entropy perfect disorder.

That was even worse.

Then, he said, "I have a Divine Idea! I will combine
these forces in a dynamic interchange!"

 

[gnostic]

I don’t give a fricking crap about “absolute” or “ultimate” knowledge because there are no such as “absolute”, “ultimate” or “perfect” certainty about anything in nature.

We do the best again, what we are trying to investigate and understand, explain how it may work, and then test the explanation, via observation like evidences or experiments.

If the evidences support the given explanation, then it is probable that it is true. But if the evidences are stacked against the evidences or there are no evidences whatsoever, then the probability is that isn’t true, thus you have refuted the explanation.

That’s how you objectively test the explanation, be they be hypotheses or theories.

We can only determine the true (ie “what is probable”) or false (“what isn’t probable”) of our understanding of nature, on the basis of evidences and data available to us.

That’s science, and there is nothing absolute or ultimate in that methodology in knowledge-gathering and evidence-gathering.

Science don’t deal with absolutes, only philosophy, religion and spirituality focused on this nonexistent absolute or ultimate certainties.

 

[We Never Know]

I think it is clearly mentioned in Max Planck’s statement.

You can't just say what mystery you are speaking of?
There are many mysteries,
-does life exist in other galaxies
-how did life form
-what do women really want

 

[Nakosis]

No, I believe it does not revolve around atheists.

Same thing atheists believe.

However, do you believe that there is a God that has a plan for you?

 

[exchemist]

“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”


Relativity, the Absolute, the Human Search for Truth: Nobel Laureate and Quantum Theory Originator Max Planck on Science and Mystery

Well of course it doesn't. That is not what science sets out to do.

Science makes predictive models of the physical world so that we can understand how it seems to us to function. "Ultimate mysteries of nature" are something between metaphysics and woo, depending on who defines the terms, but are not the preserve of science.

Planck understood that of course, hence his remarks. The basic limitation of science is that it has always to be anchored in observation, and what we can observe is inevitably limited.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

And if we all just go back to the earth after death no one will be surprised.
(I used if because I don't know and don't claim to know)

But inquiring minds want to know.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

Same thing atheists believe.

However, do you believe that there is a God that has a plan for you?

It doesn't matter what anyone believes. The truth will come out in the end.

 

[We Never Know]

But inquiring minds want to know.

Actually our bodies do go back to the earth. Does a spirit or soul go elsewhere is the "what if".

 

[We Never Know]

It doesn't matter what anyone believes. The truth will come out in the end.

Didn't Jesus die for all man's sins including the present and future?