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It is my honour to welcome Professor Helge Kragh, One of the most famous historians of science.
Professor Kragh, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to take this interview.
Thank you for accepting the invitation.
We already know from your fascinating lecture that there was tendency in the past, in the history, to search for final theory.
Also nowadays some scientists seem to search for such theory.
So, I would like to ask what do you think? Is theory of everything really possible?
No, I don't think it's possible at all
and they are very good reasons
both historical reasons, but also more philosophical reasons.
As you said,
people in the past have
have often try to construct these kind of theories - Descartes, I believe, was one of the first -
and there is a whole series of people who have tried to formulate theories of everything
and they have all were being totally failures.
So that is one kind of argument, but there are also another arguments.
Namely, that it is impossible
to have a theory, which explain everything, because that theory would need to explain itself, so to speak,
and to explain all the symbols and all the operations, even the mathematics of that theory.
And that was just not possible, even from a logical point of view.
So, the theory of everything is a kind of theory which is a dream.
It has been very productive in history
from a heuristic point of view,
but I am almost certain that it never ever will be a reality.
Even in principle?
Yes.
Well, I mean
this kind of theory – “of everything” or “final theory” - is always an “in principle” theory,
but even at that stage
it will remain a dream - perhaps a beautiful dream, but a dream nonetheless.
OK. So, maybe let’s talk about the limits of the science.
Are there any limits of scientific explanation?
I believe there is.
Of course, we have to be
might be a bit clearer what we mean by scientific explanation and when
you speak of science in this context, I assume that you meaning the natural sciences:
physics, chemistry, biology and things like that
and we also have to specify what we mean by
an explanation. I mean, when an explanation is scientific.
So, with these provisos
I would say that sure, there are limits,
there are certain limits almost in principle.
Of course, there are limits in practice as well.
As I pointed it out in my talk,
there are
meaningful concepts
which cannot be translated into scientific language
such as nothingness
or infinity
or absolute creation.
These are in principle, as I said, outside the power of science.
And yet, they are meaningful from a philosophical or and even also to some extent from a theological perspective.
So, I mean
for that reason
alone
there are limits and then of course there are more
practical limits.
Yes, that would be my answer to that,
which is not very original. I guess that most people have the same conclusion.
And I would say,
If I may add, that fortunately so.
I mean it would really really be a dull world,
if we could explain everything scientifically.
Why?
It would be not worth living in, because then our actions and our
emotions and everything
would just be the products
- explainable products -
of scientific laws
in the brain or somewhere else and we would be robots in some sense.
What about neuroscience and its possibilities?
Yes. That is very fascinating,
but also potentially disturbing.
I am very much an amateur in that area,
but my intuition or perhaps it's just my hope
is that this small
ambitious aim
of the neurosciences
to explain human emotions and things like that -
I don't believe in it
and I very much hope that they will not succeed.
Thank you very much for your exhaustive answers.