Is science the ultimate answer?
Before explicitly
answering this question, the thing that we need to understand is, what is
science? We use this term in our conversation and in fact we have studied this
subject in our high school, but what exactly does science mean? Well, science
is a way with which we understand the universe or it is framework of
understanding the universe. We wish to know why the stars twinkle then science
has the answer, its E=mc2, we wish to know how molecules are formed,
well the electron is shared among the bonded atoms according to the laws of
Quantum theory. Newton wanted to understand the fall of an apple so he
invented calculus and the force of gravity. But, is it the ultimate answer to
all our questions? If you want a straightforward one liner answer then the
answer is no, not yet. It has still many depths left to plump. But let's see how much of information we can bring.
Einstein spent last 20 years of his life trying to find that equation
that could explain all the forces in the nature. Like Michio Kaku's book's title,
is there a god equation that could unify the two theories i.e., General
Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The leading proponent is String theory which
says that the quarks are not the end of the story, there is something more fundamental.
It says that the tiny particles like electron, neutrino are nothing but
vibrating filament of energy. If the mathematics is precise this theory will lead
us to hyperspace, a world of 10 dimensions but this theory has no experimental
evidence.
Science is very good
in describing objective entity and physical process but we as a human also have
that inner movie of subjective conscious experience. Can mathematics describe
consciousness? Is consciousness all about brain? Can neurobiologists ever
answer this question? The famous 'Mind body problem'. People doubt that science
can ever answer these phenomenon of subjective experiences. Neurophysiologists
have made a tremendous amount of progress in cognitive neuroscience. They
believe in their hearts of hearts that consciousness can be reduced to
activities in brain and by better knowledge and understanding of the brain, it
can be explained precisely. A very reputed physicist Sir Roger Penrose proposed an idea which was very intriguing. According to him, we need Quantum physics to understand consciousness. We've always been told that consciousnesses plays a role in quantum measurement but to present an idea that is opposite to our intuition is staggering. The neural firing must be studied preserving the quantum coherence, which is difficult to do as we must take several quantum factors into consideration. So, these kind of ideas and hints could one day coalesce into a coherent and compact theory. The questions like, what happened before the big
bang? Are the aliens really there? Is our universe a part of a multiverse? are
still not unambiguously answered. Maybe one day science could answer those
questions too, who knows, only the time will tell.
But for me personally the most beautiful thing about science is that in science it is allowed to not know. Yes, to not know. And I think this very fact makes science so alluring and convincing to many people. So what do you do if you do not know? Go there and find out. I believe this is what makes science different from religion. Religion is about answers whereas science is about exploration. Religion is about sticking firm into certain dogmas whereas science is about going beyond the boundaries. Just the sheer fact that you can explore and learn enormous amount about the universe is so alluring. There is always room for exploration in science. A scientist proposes a model based on his mathematics but you can absolutely kick that model out with yours that has better mathematics and observational findings. It doesn't matter who you are, if someone has a better maths or observations he will push you aside. This makes learning so much fun. There is a global scientific society where a scientist will always appreciate if someone dethrones his theory with better observations. It is a matter of learning and getting better. Imagine if you did same in a religious society. A boy says to a Muslim guy that your god's theory has mistakes, i've got a more correct theory. What happens to him? He will be declared an anti Muslim or a paranoid, gets kicked out of society and in worst case has his head chopped off.
Science may or may not be the ultimate answer but it has certainly
changed human history. Now people are able to live longer and cure dangerous
disease, we are able to understand entities from huge enigmatic black holes to
the tiniest of particle like an electron and be able to actually observe and
prove experimentally what those math predicts. We literally can sit here and
seriously discuss about what happened at a millionth of second after the big
bang, I mean we truly are in a golden age of science. Many believe that with developed
technologies science can one day answer the unanswered. Be it or not but I, sitting
in my bed at my home in Tansen, Nepal ,which is a tiny tiny portion of Earth,
the Earth itself is a tiny pale blue dot of Milky way, the Milky way itself is
a tiny portion of this vast universe, in fact this universe of mine which is
one in millions of other universe, am thrilled to be part of this
scientific quest of understanding our vast and finely tuned beautiful cosmic
realm.
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