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A few months ago, as I was reviewing What Remains to be Discovered by John Maddox (see www.samizdat.com/isyn/maddox.html), I was thoroughly convinced that the world is "unknowable."
Now, thanks to The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, I've done a complete flip-flop.
As Maddox says in his concluding chapter, "Unwilling or unable to accept the seemingly paradoxical behavior of single particles, such as electrons moving through both of two slits at the same time, for example, he [Albert Einstein] sought instead a set of equations whose elegance and symmetry would command respect, and by which even paradoxical phenomena would be explicable. Einstein's quest was no doubt impelled by his great success with the general theory of relativity (otherwise the theory of gravitation), which first won attention through its elegance. As the world now knows, it was a fruitless search. Quantum phenomena are often wrongly described as paradoxes for no better reason than that they conflict with the expectations of common sense, which themselves spring from human senses that have been honed by natural selection for telling what the macroscopic world is like. It is disconcerting that phenomena on the small scale are at odds with expectation, but there is a wealth of experimental data for which no other explanation is possible. How else than by experiment can reality be described?" (p. 373)
In my review, I noted, "...a non-scientist, like myself, might well dream the impossible dream of a science that goes beyond science, a means of learning about 'reality' and describing it without depending on experiments."
Remarkably, Greene answers that key question "How else than by experiment can reality be described?" While experiment has its limitations, based on what can be measured and how, indirect techniques can give us glimpses of what lies beyond, leading to new hypotheses which can also be verified, with a high degree of confidence, by indirect techniques. The vastness of the cosmos provides clues to the physical structure of matter smaller than quarks (the components of electrons, protons, and other subatomic particles) and provides ways of verifying hypotheses that are beyond the limits of our most advanced laboratories.
In Green's book, the universe is "elegant" and knowable, in ways man believed before the discoveries of quantum physics. When confronted with new previously unexplained phenomena, he turns to such principles as symmetry, beauty and logic to gain new insight. At the end of the dark tunnel of unknowability, he sees a "multi-verse" consisting of many universes; he sees black holes not just as the ugly ends of dying stars, but rather as seeds for other universes; he see a multi-verse in which those universes that have the most black holes are the most likely to survive and spawn new universes in a cosmic evolution scheme, based on survival of the fittest of universes.
Just when I was getting used to the idea that the world is unfundamentally unknowable -- that our brains evolved to help us cope with the world of ordinary experience and simply aren't equipped to grasp the bizarre realms of the very small and the very large -- along comes a book that inspires me with renewed faith that we can know -- based on a classical belief in beauty and symmetry -- like a revelation from the 17th or 18th century.
This book is convincing, lucid, powerful, mind-expanding.
I had been aesthetically wallowing in the concept of unknowability -- convinced that the greatest advances in the 20th century came from acknowledging the limitations of the human mind, proving what cannot be known. That attitude led me to a high appreciation of the works of Stanislaw Lem (see my review at www.samizdat.com/isyn/lem.html) and to a whole range of authors, starting with Plato, who emphasized that the value of the pursuit of wisdom was all in the process, that nothing can be known with any certainty. It is good to seek truth; but to believe that you have found truth is bad. The value comes from the seeking itself.
In the days of Emerson and Swedenborg, the world and our senses and our ability to understand seemed perfectly suited to one another. Then modern science led us to see a disjunction between the world perceived in ordinary experience and the realm of the extremely small and the realm of the extremely large, both of which were revealed by advanced instruments; and led us to conclude that the limits of our instruments were the limits of our ability to understand. Now it appears that we can leap beyond those limits, arriving at new levels of understanding about the workings of the physical world, both at the sub-particle level and at the cosmic level.
I won't attempt to explain Greene's explanations. I don't presume to have grasped it in great enough detail to do it justice. Read the book itself. He writes with the authority of one of the leaders in the field of string theory, but with a clarity and patience and ability to explain complex matters simply that rivals the efforts of the very best popularizers of science.
Basically, quarks consist of "strings", and the "vibrations" of these strings determine their energy, mass, and other characteristics. These vibrations have "frequency" or rhythm, which leads me to think of this change of perspective in terms of Yeats: the focus is now on the dance rather than the dancer. The dancers come and go and combine and recombine; come into existance and annihiate and come into existence again in new forms. Yes, there are physical limits to what we can know about the dancer; but our knowledge of the dance can extend far beyond and lead us to important new conclusions.
Strangely, such a change in the underlying concepts of physics leads to a new appreciation for old authors. I can't help but think of Frazier, Jung, and Joyce, and their attempts to grasp the flow and rhythm of all of human culture. I think of the multiple natural and mental rhythms of Virginia Woolf's Waves. I think of resonance and harmonics and extraordinary effects that can come from small changes, like a bridge breaking up because of the rhythm of the wind that strikes it; and I think of transistors and how they capitalize on how, in electronics, small changes can result in large effects. I also think of the theme of music and rhythm as an important element in how the mind works and how the world works in Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach. I think of Steven Pinker's books where he gains insight into the workings of the human mind by analyzing how we use language and the rules of grammar, and I wonder if there might be a "grammar" or "rules of choreography" for the cosmic dance. I may even develop a new appreciation for the art of dance. Greene himself alludes to the ancient notion of the "music of the spheres."
And wonder of wonders, I feel myself motivated to tackle Heidegger's Being and Time. Contrary to the ruminations of Hamlet, being and not being may not be opposites, or may not be the only alternatives. To become or not to become? To become what from what? There may be a range or field of becoming, a pattern of becoming and interacting in the rhythm of individual human life and of life in aggregate.
But don't be sidetracked by my vague speculations. Read the book. It could change your image of yourself and the world you live in.
PS -- The author, a professor at Columbia, has his own Web site www.phys.columbia.edu/faculty/greene.htm
This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132-002. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
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