An interesting interview with Carlo Rovelli about physics and its relationship with philosophy, criticizing the recent philosophy-bashing by Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Horgan: Can physics—or science in general—ever completely solve the mystery of the universe? Rovelli: What is the “mystery of the universe”? There isn’t a “mystery of the universe.” There is an ocean of things we do not know. Many of them we’ll figure out, if we continue to be somewhat rational and do not kill one another first (which is well possible.) There will always be plenty of things that we will not understand, I think, but what do I know? In any case, we are very very very far from any complete comprehension of everything we would like to know. Horgan: Can science attain absolute truth? Rovelli: I have no idea what “absolute truth” means. I think that science is the attitude of those who find funny the people saying they know something is absolute truth. Science is the awareness that our knowledge is constantly uncertain. What I know is that there are plenty of things that science does not understand yet. And science is the best tool found so far for reaching reasonably reliable knowledge. blogs.scientificamerican/cross-check/2014/08/21/quantum-gravity-expert-says-philosophical-superficiality-has-harmed-physics/
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 18:51:56 +0000
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