Endless Creation Out of Nothing
December 13, 2020 3:44 PM Subscribe
A universe is the greatest gift that an experimentalist could hope to get out of the vacuum. Inside, the gift might contain early atomists who consider the vacuum as empty, followed by scientists who end up creating a new universe out of it. What a spectacular interpretation that would be of Rilke’s phrase: "inexhaustible creation, enduring beyond the fate of earth."Endless Creation Out of Nothing
I really think scientists should leave the mysticism to the mystics. Quoting Rilke in the pages of Scientific American doesn’t quite justify the cheap science fiction this piece devolves to in its conclusion.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:49 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:49 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Ceci n'est pas une
What if we remember that science describes how things behave relative to a logical or mathematical approximation, not what they are or how they work. It's not that dark matter exists per se it's that there's a descriptive model that does not work without a term we've labelled "dark matter." It's not that light is a particle and/or a wave, it's neither, as far as can be proven: those are merely convenient ways of describing how it would have to behave in order to precipitate the effects we believe we observe.
Could our universe be an experiment? Well sure, it could be the final stage of a unicorn's digestive process for all we know. Models don't tell us what it is they just describe in a limited way what parts of it appear to be doing. And I'm not sure what an astronomer contributes to our understanding of what it is other than a shoal of highly-sophisticated red herring.
Shit's cool though. I'll say that much.
posted by klanawa at 5:52 PM on December 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
universe.What if we remember that science describes how things behave relative to a logical or mathematical approximation, not what they are or how they work. It's not that dark matter exists per se it's that there's a descriptive model that does not work without a term we've labelled "dark matter." It's not that light is a particle and/or a wave, it's neither, as far as can be proven: those are merely convenient ways of describing how it would have to behave in order to precipitate the effects we believe we observe.
Could our universe be an experiment? Well sure, it could be the final stage of a unicorn's digestive process for all we know. Models don't tell us what it is they just describe in a limited way what parts of it appear to be doing. And I'm not sure what an astronomer contributes to our understanding of what it is other than a shoal of highly-sophisticated red herring.
Shit's cool though. I'll say that much.
posted by klanawa at 5:52 PM on December 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Why is there anything at all? Why does anything at all exist? Why is there even consciousness? How can the simple building blocks of the universe combine in such magnanimous ways to create us out of literal fucking stardust?
I'm not a theist but "just because" doesn't really sit well with me. All I know is we're probably only scratching the surface.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:06 PM on December 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm not a theist but "just because" doesn't really sit well with me. All I know is we're probably only scratching the surface.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:06 PM on December 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I really think scientists should leave the mysticism to the mystics.,.
I dunno, some mystic theologists defined the existence of god as the space that is not defined by physical realty.
If some scientists wanna try to muscle in on that space, let them have some fun.
posted by ovvl at 6:36 PM on December 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I dunno, some mystic theologists defined the existence of god as the space that is not defined by physical realty.
If some scientists wanna try to muscle in on that space, let them have some fun.
posted by ovvl at 6:36 PM on December 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
science describes how things behave relative to a logical or mathematical approximation, not what they are or how they work.
This is important, and forgetting it is a key symptom of "scientism."
Adorno on this very topic in his Lectures on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason:
"The emergence of the natural sciences made possible an unprecedented expansion of knowledge .... This knowledge has as its only criterion the fact that it works -- and that it does so because it renounces any attempt to make any statement about the nature of things, and about what things really are.... For the sciences ... achieved a real dominance over the world only when they renounced the attempt to gain knowledge of anything apart from what is accessible to human organization and human shaping." (134-5)
By that last part I believe he means something like what can be formulated by and for human reasoning via math, logic, etc., but that's just my take. Anyway, there's much more to it, but it's a thoughtful, provocative analysis.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:28 PM on December 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
This is important, and forgetting it is a key symptom of "scientism."
Adorno on this very topic in his Lectures on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason:
"The emergence of the natural sciences made possible an unprecedented expansion of knowledge .... This knowledge has as its only criterion the fact that it works -- and that it does so because it renounces any attempt to make any statement about the nature of things, and about what things really are.... For the sciences ... achieved a real dominance over the world only when they renounced the attempt to gain knowledge of anything apart from what is accessible to human organization and human shaping." (134-5)
By that last part I believe he means something like what can be formulated by and for human reasoning via math, logic, etc., but that's just my take. Anyway, there's much more to it, but it's a thoughtful, provocative analysis.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:28 PM on December 13, 2020 [4 favorites]
A yet to be widely appreciated glory of modern cosmology is that it makes 'mysticism' look timid and conservative by comparison.
posted by jamjam at 7:59 PM on December 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 7:59 PM on December 13, 2020 [6 favorites]
Why is there anything at all? Why does anything at all exist? Why is there even consciousness? How can the simple building blocks of the universe combine in such magnanimous ways to create us out of literal fucking stardust?
My favorite response to this feeling of the special-ness of the universe, of the 'anthropic principle', comes from Richard Feynman. It's the story of a pothole filled with water, and how the pothole is mystified and awestruck by the miracle that water could so exactly fill its unique shape, as if the water was created solely just for it.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 10:01 PM on December 13, 2020 [12 favorites]
My favorite response to this feeling of the special-ness of the universe, of the 'anthropic principle', comes from Richard Feynman. It's the story of a pothole filled with water, and how the pothole is mystified and awestruck by the miracle that water could so exactly fill its unique shape, as if the water was created solely just for it.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 10:01 PM on December 13, 2020 [12 favorites]
like a bullet through jello...
posted by clavdivs at 11:28 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 11:28 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
When I was younger I used to believe that science held all the answers, at least most of the important ones. I held a view of progress much like leveling a tech tree. You're given a world, and it has certain rules and properties, and you figure them out bit by bit, and then you use that knowledge to build progressively bigger sticks. So I studied AI and started building sticks.
Now I think the process of teasing out the rules of the world, our symbolic expression of those rules and the glimpses of gratifying coherence between those symbols and the world, manifests an immense creativity that's both more rigorous and more whimsical than mechanical knowledge grinding or plodding pre-ordination. In so far any metaphor is useful at all, it's less like leveling a tech tree and more like baking a cake. We could just be building bigger and bigger cakes. But that's not what happens. The cake gets sprinkles, and frosting, and candles, and people eat them at birthdays, which relate the position of the earth in relation to the sun to the concept of love and the meaning of life. How the world affords this rich symbolic layer I don't know. But it does, cake is proof.
posted by dmh at 4:12 AM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Now I think the process of teasing out the rules of the world, our symbolic expression of those rules and the glimpses of gratifying coherence between those symbols and the world, manifests an immense creativity that's both more rigorous and more whimsical than mechanical knowledge grinding or plodding pre-ordination. In so far any metaphor is useful at all, it's less like leveling a tech tree and more like baking a cake. We could just be building bigger and bigger cakes. But that's not what happens. The cake gets sprinkles, and frosting, and candles, and people eat them at birthdays, which relate the position of the earth in relation to the sun to the concept of love and the meaning of life. How the world affords this rich symbolic layer I don't know. But it does, cake is proof.
posted by dmh at 4:12 AM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
The cake is a lie.
posted by Poldo at 6:15 AM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Poldo at 6:15 AM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh, Look! I found another turtle.
posted by mule98J at 6:35 AM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by mule98J at 6:35 AM on December 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
Why is there anything at all? Why does anything at all exist? Why is there even consciousness? How can the simple building blocks of the universe combine in such magnanimous ways to create us out of literal fucking stardust?
Not a theist either, over here. I've got peace with "I don't know. Let's find out".
Science may have a few answers here and there, but the questions... oh my. They are beautiful.
posted by DreamerFi at 6:42 AM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not a theist either, over here. I've got peace with "I don't know. Let's find out".
Science may have a few answers here and there, but the questions... oh my. They are beautiful.
posted by DreamerFi at 6:42 AM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
« Older Fucking Cameras, How Do They Work? | Don't get together for Christmas Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:24 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]