Archive Home Page Subj: Re:RE: SPACE RUSH 94-04-22 07:27:04 EDT
From: Joe Uhrig
>>I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR DEFINITION OR PERCEPTION OF THE WORD FUNDAMENTAL-ARE YOU SPEAKING SCIENTIFICALLY, OR SPIRITUALLY? <<
Both, though I'm not looking for a discussion on religion.
It has always seemed to me that one of the unfortunate consequences of the necessarily rational focus of science is to limit the range of "valid" questions that can be investigated. Scientists of the stature of Einstein are allowed to use the "G" word and speculate publically on the metaphysical ramifications of science, but I suspect that many many good idea's by scientists are simply squelched outright thru peer pressure (and fear of losing credability and grants) because they are considered to be in the domain of religion and metaphysics and therefore unsolvable.
Let me give an example, and I'm going to use some numbers so folks correct me if I get them wrong :)
I got really excited when I first heard about Hubble many years ago. Not because we were going to be able to look 7 times farther out in space, but because we were going to be looking 7 times farther back in time, halfway back to the instant of creation (imagine debating that with a pre-relativity astronomer... we stand on the shoulders...). In terms of total volume of observable space this is largest expansion of human consciousness ever. Nothing else even comes close. I for one will be extremely disappointed if considering the exponential advancements in science and math (not to mention the incredible increase in the range of solvable problems that computers have given us), that all we get from Hubble is confirmation of the old big bang versus steady state.
I'll be disappointed if we don't get a paradigm shift similiar in magnitude to the shift from geocentric to heliocentric. And if not with this Hubble, then with the next (taxpayers get your wallets). Sooner or later we'll get to the point of creation and I hope we don't someday say, is this all there is for us to learn?
Many of the questions addressed by science, particularly Astronomy, are metaphysical in origin. And who is to say that God doesn't want us to know "what he was thinking". He's let us get this far.
Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge". I think the level of new problems that Hubble will bring to us will require as much imagination to solve as rational judgement. And who is to say that those problems won't be as much metaphysical in nature as scientific.
This is such a rich rich field of inquiry.