In re-assessing the 'great debate' I don't know anymore if it's even possible or timeworthy to continue. To put my reluctance into perspective we have to ask "how are we going to solve this?" That is, when speaking of defining reality or a unified theory of everything. So far the answer seems to be an empirical assemblage of fact and fiction, so to speak. Does the answer lie in science? Maybe. Does it rely on science
and more then science? Quite possibly.
Can we go so far down the causality rabbithole where we stop and find event #1? I don't think causality even works that way, do you? It works perfectly after event #1 to infinity, however, that first event - I think - is more proof that causality only works as a system in and of itself: a closed loop.
Borrowing some words from John Wheeler:
quote:
To endlessness no alternative is evident but a loop, such as: physics gives rise to observer participancy; observer participancy gives rise to information; information gives rise to physics. Only such an ontological loop is capable of forming a lariat wide and strong enough for the theoretical lassoing of reality; the task at hand is therefore to locate a way to make it a medium in which to wield it.
I think trying to explain existance through causality, ie: the Big Bang or Ekpyrotic theories is a moot case. One can always ask "what where the initial conditions?" Which no one knows so we have to repeat intellectual history all over again.
can science really go so far as to explain the origins of the known universe? It certainly can - and should - verify it if we were to find the answer by some other means. But are we looking too deep in one place to help describe
everything?
One more John Wheeler quote to help spur new thought and end mine:
quote:
Will we someday understand time and space and all the other features that distinguish physics - and existance itself - as the self-generated organs of a self-synthesized information system?
This message has been edited by Mission for Truth, 07-03-2004 12:40 PM
In the words of John Wheeler: "Physics gives rise to observer participancy; observer participancy gives rise to information; and information gives rise to physics."
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