When we think about the universe, the
galaxies, the stars, the planets, the solar system, the asteroids, the comets et al,
we always subscribe to the myriad stories and theories galore that baffle and boggle our
minds on these innumerable scientific discoveries, revolutions, and inventions that are part
of a particular social milieu! Ain't we? ‘Paradigm shifts’ as Thomas Kuhn would call it!
One such book of our times that analyses and
examines these paradigm shifts in the history of scientific revolutions down
the ages right from the times of the Ionian Greeks, is the wonderful 2010 book
titled, The Grand Design by Stephen
Hawking!
If to Nietzsche the philosopher, God is
dead, to Stephen Hawking the physicist, philosophy itself is dead! ;-)
In the very first chapter titled, ‘The
Mystery of Being’, he vouches hard to this viewpoint when he says,
We each exist for but a short time, and
in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a
curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is
by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have
always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which
we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality?
Where did all this come from? Did the
universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying
about these questions, but almost all of us worry about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are questions for
philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern
developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the
bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
Moreover, to Stephen Hawking, it was not
god who created man, but man, who created god! And as James Frazer traces this
evolution of humankind from 'the black thread of magic to the red thread of
religion to the white thread of science', so does Stephen Dedalus! oops Stephen
Hawking!!!
Says Stephen –
Ignorance of nature’s ways led people in
ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There
were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and
rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the
gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from
natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came drought,
war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in
nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people
at their mercy.
But with Thales of Miletus about 2,600
years ago, that began to change. The idea arose that nature follows consistent
principles that could be deciphered. And so began the long process of replacing
the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed
by laws of nature, and created according to a blueprint we could someday learn
to read.
His chapter 3 might enthuse ardent and
avid devotees to Theory!
Reality, to the phenomenologists, the
structuralists and all of their ilk has always been based on the premise that reality
consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in the human
consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness (albeit
with degrees of differences to their subjective quotients!!!) But that’s not
the point here!
The point here is that, Stephen Hawking
also tows this philosophical stance when he advocates a model-dependent realism,
which ‘provides a framework with which to interpret modern science.’
Now therein-after lies a little contradiction
of sorts, as I would garner or glean from his hypos!
Well, having said that philosophy is
dead, he perpetually resurrects the great philosophers from their graves time and again, to
cite and validate as authentic props for his conjectures and inferences! Why so? If
philosophy is dead, why resurrect them again and again to augment one's hypos?
Says Stephen –
‘Philosophers from Plato onward have
argued over the years about the nature of reality…!’
Then he adds,
For example, according to the principles
of quantum physics, which is an accurate description of nature, a particle has
neither a definite position nor a definite velocity unless and until those
quantities are measured by an observer. It is therefore not correct to say that
a measurement gives a certain result because the quantity being measured had
that value at the time of the measurement. In fact, in some cases individual
objects don’t even have an independent existence but rather exist only as part
of an ensemble of many!
A different kind of alternative reality
occurs in the science fiction film The Matrix, in which the human race is
unknowingly living in a simulated virtual reality created by intelligent
computers to keep them pacified and content while the computers suck their
bioelectrical energy (whatever that is). Maybe this is not so far-fetched,
because many people prefer to spend their time in the simulated reality of
websites such as Second Life.
How do we know we are not just characters
in a computer-generated soap opera? If we lived in a synthetic imaginary world,
events would not necessarily have any logic or consistency or obey any laws.
The aliens in control might find it more interesting or amusing to see our
reactions, for example, if the full moon split in half, or everyone in the
world on a diet developed an uncontrollable craving for banana cream pie. But
if the aliens did enforce consistent laws, there is no way we could tell there
was another reality behind the simulated one.
It would be easy to call the world the
aliens live in the “real” one and the synthetic world a “false” one. But
if—like us—the beings in the simulated world could not gaze into their universe
from the outside, there would be no reason for them to doubt their own pictures
of reality. This is a modern version of the idea that we are all figments of
someone else’s dream.
These examples bring us to a conclusion
that will be important in this book: There is no picture- or theory-independent
concept of reality.
And hence, says Stephen, he adopts a view
that he’d prefer to call the model-dependent realism!!!
According to model-dependent realism, it
is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with
observation. If there are two models that both agree with observation, like the
goldfish’s picture and ours, then one cannot say that one is more real than
another.
One can use whichever model is more
convenient in the situation under consideration. For example, if one were
inside the bowl, the goldfish’s picture would be useful, but for those outside,
it would be very awkward to describe events from a distant galaxy in the frame
of a bowl on earth, especially because the bowl would be moving as the earth
orbits the sun and spins on its axis.
Why-o-why do those immortal lines from
the Beatles ping me hard this sudden?
I
am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together!
And there ladies and gentlemen, lies, [I guess,]
some authentic specks to reality!
To be continued…
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