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Science has provided so many answers to important questions, that it's easy to overlook the
DEEP mysteries of reality that remain. But keeping those mysteries in mind (at least
in the back of our collective mind) is essential -- it keeps us wondering; it keep us humble;
and it keeps us working for answers.
First let's look at biology: We REALLY don't know...
How, in detail, the first living creature arose: What was the mechanism of life's origin?
And: Has life arisen on other worlds? In other environments?
What about the strangest feature of life? (Do I mean photosynthesis? Sex?! Male pattern
baldness?!!) No, I mean: the subjective sense of awareness.
How does THAT happen? "Subjective awareness" refers to the having
of experiences. What IS an "experience"? What goes on in a nervous system to make an experience
subjectively vivid for one person while it is objectively bland for everyone else?
For example, consider the pain of a burn. It's easy to build a device that will respond
to high temperature; a thermostat can do that. But we have no idea how to build a device
that will FEEL the pain of a burn. It's tempting to say "It just takes neurons; the neurons
do it." But HOW do they do it?
Consider the tiny roundworm called CenorhabDItis Elegans (C. Elegans) Its "brain" has only
302 neurons; 302 switches. When C. elegans "intentionally" swims away from a hot environment,
does it "feel" hot? Or is it just reacting to a higher temperature, like a thermostat?
Nobody knows. Nobody even has any IDEA how to find out! It's tempting to say that the
neurons "just do it": neural networks give rise to subjective sensation. But when we
build a fake C. elegant with 302 electronic switches rather than 302 neurons, no one thinks
the the robot worm has sensations. How can neurons do what electronic switches cannot?
No one knows. Right now, subjective awareness is a profound and important riddle. What's
more important than our subjective experience? Subjective experience may be the single most
important aspect of single individual's life!
Let's move from biology to deep physics mysteries: (These are so numerous, I'll just rattle them
off...) Why is ordinary space 3-dimensional?
Why is the dimension of time so different from the 3 dimensions of space?
Are there additional dimensions of reality? What laws of physics are truly fundamental?
(...that cannot be explained by even more basic laws)
What constants are truly fundamental? (...Planck's constant? The Universal Gravitational Constant?)
What particles of matter & energy are truly fundamental? (Strings? Loops? Spin foam?!)
What is this mysterious "dark matter" that constitutes 80% of the material universe?
And what about the so-called vacuum energy? Given this EXTREME energy of empty space,
why is the universe expanding so slowly? How did the universe come to be -- and to
expand -- in the first place? And what happened before that?!
Perhaps the second hardest science question of all is ... Why is there something rather
than nothing? Physicist Lawrence Krauss has written a fine book with that title, but,
of course, he doesn't really answer the question.
Maybe the hardest question of all, is a question that reveals the fragility of all of science:
Why is the universe consistent? Why do the same laws of physics apply day after day,
moment after moment? I am not asking whether or not some particular fundamental "constant"
changes a little over the eons. Rather: why is ANYTHING the same from moment to moment?
The laws of physics are CALLED LAWS only because we observe them to be consistent. We have
no idea WHY they are consistent! Accordingly, we have no SCIENTIFIC reason to believe that
the universe and its laws will continue to be consistent. We just take it for granted
that reality will be the same in the future as it has been in the past. Talk about accepting
something on faith! But, then again, we really don't have a choice but to adopt this faith.
The alternative is not mere ignorance or emptiness; it is utter chaos: reality changing in every
way at every instant!
That the universe is consistent MAKES SCIENCE POSSIBLE. Let's study that consistency; let's
understand the laws, the regularities. That's what Radical Physics is about. But, in the
back of our minds, let's remember how little we know about the deep foundations of our
knowledge. Profound mysteries envelope us as water envelopes a fish. How many fish are
privileged to appreciate the water?