Uncertainty and Insignificance


Richard Feynman is an extremely quotable guy; and not just about scientific stuff. In fact, it’s almost impossible to read any popular science book of the past few decades without finding at least one quote by him. And each book will have a different quote that’s apt to their topic! It’s easy to see why: the man can articulate things superbly.

I like Mario Livio’s books and blogs, and I was reminded of Feynman’s statements on the topic discussed in two of Livio’s blogs.

Livio’s first blog was on uncertainty and its relation to religion, science and philosophy. From a world where most religions assumed that “everything worth knowing has already been written, either in the scriptures, or in the legacies of very wise men of the past”, we entered the scientific era where we accept that “there are many questions to which we don't know the answers, and that all answers are only provisional”. In this uncertainty-is-normal world we live in, Livio quotes Bertrand Russell about the role of philosophy:
“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”
Except that you don’t need philosophy for that, as Feynman pointed out:
“I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe within any purpose, which is the way it really is, so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.”

The other blog by Livio was on the point that the more we learn about the universe, the more insignificant we seem to be. We live on a small planet that goes round an average sized star; that star is at a nothing-special-about-it location within our galaxy; and there are hundreds of billions of such galaxies that we know of. From a slightly different perspective, the stuff we are made of -- ordinary matter – “constitutes less than 5% of the cosmic energy budget”. The rest is all dark matter or dark energy. So you begin to see how non-special we are in the cosmos. And that insignificance of humans is exactly what Feynman commented about:
“I can’t believe the special stories that’ve been made up about our relationship to the universe at large because they seem to be…too simple, too connected, too local, too provincial. The “earth,” He came to “the earth”, one of the aspects God came to “the earth!” mind you, and look at what’s out there…? how can we…? it isn’t in proportion…!”
I know it’s ironical to say this next to a quote that questions religion, but I’ll say it anyway: Amen to that!

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarJune 29, 2018 at 5:54 PM

    Well, well...this is an eternal discussion of humankind! People go on and on, siding with religion or siding with atheism. It is obvious that this blog writer is expressing his opinion on the subject through quotes.

    Feynman was a person who articulated clearly, honestly and differently. He expressed his views and observations forthright too. I admit to these. However, I use my science training to evaluate what comes across critically, and without swaying. Just because someone I respect or admire says it need not be my cup of tea. :-)

    My point is this. Before quoting Feynman verbatim thus: “I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe within any purpose, which is the way it really is, so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me”, the blog writer introduces with, "Except that you don’t need philosophy for that, as Feynman pointed out". This has the assumption that what Feynman expressed is NOT philosophy! What is it then? Is it physics? Of course not. Is it a limited personal opinion, as unimportant to the world as my (hypothetical for now) opinion, "masala dosa is the tastiest of all dishes"? Again, of course not. What Feynman expressed is philosophy too! Since we agree to such labeling, and actually used in the blog too, it is a valid tag.

    I wish to mention my take on the overall theme. It is true that theist lose the battle if they take to some simplistic philosophy. Surely they demolished through the lines of arguments such as that presented here. Now, the end result of all the battles fought under the banner of a war, some of which are won and some lost by each side, leading to a conclusive finish can only be considered for the criterion, "the war was won by...". There are, I know for certain, issues in Spirituality that would defy simple intellectual demolition that atheists are capable of inflicting upon ordinary believers.

    Thus, despite innumerable battles lost by the theists, this still stands. The mind war of endless battles between theism and atheism has not ended and is still going on! The end doesn't seem any time too soon either. This suggests to me that our collective mind is not letting go of 'faith'. "Why it should be so", is certainly mysterious, nevertheless inexorable possibly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

Animal Senses #7: Touch and Remote Touch

Instinctively, we think touch is based on contact. Not entirely true, explains Ed Yong in Immense World – there’s a more important aspect than contact: “These incredible feats are possible through movement. If you rest a fingertip upon a surface, you can get only a limited idea of its features. But as soon you’re allowed to move, everything changes. Hardness becomes apparent with a press. Textures resolve at a stroke.” As you run your fingers over a surface, they hit the tiny peaks and troughs and set off vibrations in the mechanoreceptors at their tips.   At the tip of its snout, the star-nosed mole has many pairs of hairless appendages. It uses them to touch things around itself. Alive or dead? Food or ignore? It does these movements at an insane speed. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, the star-nosed mole can probe, identify and swallow its food. “Light may be the fastest thing in the universe, but light sensors have their limits, and the star-nosed mole’s sense of
Read more

The Retort of the "Luxury Person"

Image
Coming up with biting and witty retorts. It’s something we dream of, but rarely manage to pull off. Worse, the more we stew over the offending remark, the more likely we are to come up with that dream retort, as Calvin ruefully points out: During our last holiday at the Taj Resort, seeing my wife carrying towels to our poolside chairs, one of the kids there mistook her for a member of the staff and asked for a towel. When my wife narrated this to us, I did not imagine that my 8 yo daughter would come up with her own retort. But a day later, my daughter recapped the incident, an incident that didn’t even involve her in the first place , and said, “You know what I’d have told that kid who asked for the towel?”. And without waiting for an answer, she told us anyway: “I don’t work here. I too am a luxury person who is living at this resort. Go get your own towel.” We were highly amused by the phrase she had coined: “luxury person”. It certainly captures the kind of holid
Read more