Is Einstein's statement about the comprehensibility of the world justified?

[oldman]

... However, so far each time we have thought there is a limit to our understanding it turned out we were wrong. So experience tells us that there are no limits...

I should have written "we have limits" or "our understanding has limits" rather than "science has limits", but my excuse is that science can be regarded as synonymous with human understanding --- it's just organised, understood human knowledge, after all.

Yes, I agree, we keep on making the mistake of thinking that the end of science is nigh, but just as we proclaim this fallacy new discoveries are made. John Horgan's has written an entire book about this, called "The End of Science''.

But I have little doubt that we have already encountered our limits, several times. I listed some instances in my OP. Just think: how much of nature do our fellow creatures on this planet understand? -- animals from aardvarks to living zygotes, say. Not as much as we do, I think you'd agree. So why expect our understanding to be unlimited? Theirs isn't.

And if you think we are the absolute pinnacle of creation, compare such limited animals not with sophisticated folk like Einstein and the partners in Goldman Sachs, but to our ancestors who roamed the African veld 50 kiloyears ago, and you may get my point. We haven't evolved much since those days and our remote ancestors were no doubt just as
smart (or dumb) as us.

 

[Borek]

And if you think we are the absolute pinnacle of creation

I don't think that way, looking around I am rather surprised we get that far. And I don't reject the possibility that we will face the wall one day. But so far - so good.

 

[oldman]

I think the point is that even mathematicians use inductive reasoning in the research, but that is not what you see in the final papers. The final result is always cleaned up, presenting typically a deductive reasoning... Once a conjecture or hypothesis is on the table, that hardest task is already made.

Yes, I agree with much of what you say in this post. There's always plenty of window dressing in the final published product of research. But then the purpose of publishing it is to have others understand and accept your work. They don't need to know about the troubles and false starts that most research involves, as it's very name implies.

To misquote Henry Ford: scientific history is bunk. But to many it's interesting bunk, of course. The important thing in research is to focus hard on the problem at hand and not worry too much about the methods you use to solve it. Just do it, with whatever comes to hand!

 

[Fra]

Beeing aware of some of the various attitudes towards this out there, I think it's worth noting that these things - the ideas of induction - can be considered at different levels or abstractions.

First we have the meaning of induction applied to human reasoning, as an attempt to understand and analyse human reasoning. The fuzziest form of this is to dismiss this into psychology, and here the induction is more of a qualitative nature. Ie. it does not described by mathematics.

The next level is to quantify this, and considers "degrees of plausability" as real numbers, which ultimately are argued to follow the axioms of probability and where these things is equipped with mathemtics, and this may help explain a few real world pehenomena such as game theory applications, economics etc, but the idea that all players acts somewhat rationally on given information. This alone will predict various types of group behavour, and various game-type equilibria.

So far it's no news.

But, the next level, is to consider that even physics, physical systems, atoms particles are like players in a game, that does act upon information at hand only (note that this has similarities to the principle of locality!). But this then, comes with a range of new complications. For example, particles don't have brains (unlike players in a game), so it means that one needs to explain the process of selection between possible actions in a different way. Maybe something like random disturbances, that then due to the initial constratins do diffuse as per a particular distribution. This would suggest that the actions of physical interactions should "look like" systems interacting, but where the action of each part is determined by the "information it has" about it's environment. This will naturally give rise to things like inertia, as in resistance against change, depending on the complexity of the parts.

This is what I tried to convey in the other thread. This is very controversial and very non standard, but it's IMHO the natural extension to the spirit advocated by the mentioned scientists. But there are different variations of this. ET Jaynes argued in favour of real numbers from start, I think differently. Ariels suggestions - to suggest that GR is a physical consequence of thinking that physical interactions are like responses based on incomplete information, is a deep insight IMO and not as stupid as it first sounds. And if he is right, some of the current approaches to quantum gravity may be due to a akward way of presenting the problem. I adhere to that view. But I'm in minority and it's hard to convey what isn't a thery, but rather a special way of analysing the problem.

/Fredrik

 

[Chrisc]

I've always considered Einstein's quote to simply mean there is a questionable extent to which the observed (universe) can objectively be the observer.
Humans are made of the stuff of the universe and governed by the laws we seek to discover.
It has been said many times in many different ways, but my favourite analogy is: What does my tongue taste like?
I think Einstein was simply expressing the incomprehensible nature of comprehending what is inseparable from the comprehender.

 

[oldman]

I've always considered Einstein's quote to simply mean there is a questionable extent to which the observed (universe) can objectively be the observer.
Humans are made of the stuff of the universe and governed by the laws we seek to discover.
It has been said many times in many different ways, but my favourite analogy is: What does my tongue taste like?
I think Einstein was simply expressing the incomprehensible nature of comprehending what is inseparable from the comprehender.

Thanks, Chrisc. Or, Einstein was saying that he didn't understand why the universe could be figured out by us humans. But there's so much that we still don't understand that I suspect hubris motivated this clever remark!

People accept very easily that our fellow creatures, from Aardvarks to Zebras, comprehend their environment only to an extent limited by their evolutionary needs. Einstein ignored the possibility that despite the clevernes we have acquired by meme-evolution, we may be similarly handicapped by being "made of the stuff of the universe and governed by the laws we seek to discover" as you say. He attributed to us an exceptional status which I don't think we deserve.

But perhaps he was just celebrating having discovered GR, in which case he can be forgiven for his anthro'centric remark!

 

[Chrisc]

Hi oldman, I appreciate your point with respect to the anthropocentric tendencies of all us humans.
I think in retrospect, Einstein was simply making a humorous statement that reflects this tendency in
the scientific community at large, including himself.

Anyway one interprets his quote, in the end I think it comes down to the same thing.
If one cannot comprehend something, its incomprehensible nature in fact says little about its nature and much more about our own.