With so many different viewpoints and sources of information today, how can we best tell when something is true? That’s a big question, but one helpful thing is to notice when separate lines of evidence converge to a consistent answer.
One of the problems with interpreting sources is avoiding confirmation bias. This is when we look for sources that say what we already think. It’s a very common human trait and is largely amplified by social media and today’s biased news sources.
Continue readingHere’s a famous question: “What is the meaning of life?”
The question captures a basic human yearning for relevance, to know that there is a purpose to our existence.
Some assert that the purpose is what we make it, that we invent it. Others claim that it is the result of searching, something we discover. In the end, the choice between these two views is an individual one.
But another way to look at it is whether purpose and meaning is strictly personal, or whether there is a community aspect to it. Since no one lives completely as an island, it seems that the most complete answer is to be part of a shared purpose, one that allows individual expression but yet is part of something greater.
Continue readingThe term “Kelvin’s Clouds” is a reference to a famous lecture given by Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) in 1900. It is often used to illustrate the limits of physics. I use it as the title of this blog as a reminder of the humility needed when considering fundamental questions about reality and the human condition.
Lord Kelvin was a famous scientist after whom the Kelvin temperature scale was named. On April 27, 1900, he delivered the Friday Evening Lecture at the Royal institution in London. In that lecture, he described two urgent challenges of conventional physics regarding “the theory of heat and light”. One of the challenges had to do with the luminiferous ether, and the other with something called the equipartition of energy. He described each of these problems as “clouds”.1
The first cloud, regarding the ether, was resolved with the development of the theory of special relativity. The second cloud was resolved with the development of quantum physics. The development of these two new branches of physics completely redefined our understanding of reality.2
Today, we face a larger, even growing, set of clouds. For example, a theory called “M-theory”, which was hoped to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, has not been supported by the latest particle physics experiments, leaving a whole host of questions without a clear path to solution. Other examples exist both within and outside physics such that we clearly need to be careful when making assertions of absolute truth.
In particular, metaphysical views are often held with deep certainty even though Kelvin’s Clouds should teach us that we need to be humble and constantly learning. Questions regarding science and religion are often contentious, but it seems clear that we really don’t know enough about the world to be certain about things like the existence of God, the ultimate nature of consciousness and humanity, whether life has purpose and meaning beyond what we give it, and so on.
Of course, over time we will continue to learn and perhaps some clouds will be eliminated, perhaps some mysteries will be solved. But, maybe not all. Maybe there are fundamental limits to our ability to know.
In either case, we can’t just throw up our hands until everything is clear, we need to decide how to live in the face of uncertainty, to prioritize and make decisions in life. We each need some perspective, some worldview to make sense of what we do know.
Ideally, one’s worldview would be informed by a variety of perspectives, constantly learning and (when necessary) adapting, and rational without being dogmatic.
The goal of this blog is to explore my own views on science and faith, hopefully in a way that embodies those principles.
(1) many references to this speech describe Kelvin’s second cloud as having to do with block body radiation, but that is incorrect. A good description of the speech and its history can found in this paper: Oliver Passon , “Kelvin’s clouds”, American Journal of Physics 89, 1037-1041 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1119/10.0005620
(2) In addition, the development of quantum mechanics and relativity have shown us that there may be fundamental limits in our ability to describe reality due to the lack of infinite precision in measurements and the hard limit of the uncertainty principle.
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Imagine you have a bowl full of little chunks of unknown material. You want to determine what sorts of materials are in the bowl so you decide to sample some and analyze it. You gather a sample from the bowl by placing a magnet in it and removing whatever sticks to it. Upon analysis you discover that everything in the sample is made of metal, and so conclude that all the material in the bowl was metal.
Do you see anything wrong with this scenario? Continue reading
While taking a picture recently that included some beautiful stained glass windows, I learned how difficult it is to make a good picture. The back light through the windows makes it challenging to capture an image that blends with the rest of the scene. The key seems to be balance between the front lighting and the back lighting. If either one is too strong, the result is not beautiful. With only back lighting, the colors are beautiful, but the context of everything is gone. With only front lighting, the picture is clear and balanced with the context, but much of the beauty is gone.
This brought to mind the interplay of the physical and the transcendent, and in particular, how they intersect in the human mind. Continue reading
One of the nagging mysteries of modern physics is something called the “Fine-tuned Universe” question. It has to do with the fact that our universe has properties that are exactly what’s needed for life to exist. However, our best understanding of these properties seems to indicate that it’s much more likely for the universe to be simpler, so much simpler that life could not exist, so that it’s incredibly unlikely to have just the right properties. The reason for this has to do with the nature of physical laws and how they depend on a small number of constants that seem to have random values. There seems to be no reason for the constants to have the values that they do have, so out of all possible values, why these very particular ones?
Some people have dismissed the whole issue, trying to explain it away as an artifact of the way we approach things, or the result of our limited understanding. However, the mainstream scientific view is that this is a very valid question, one for which we should seek some answer. Continue reading
For the past few years, I’ve been pondering religion “versus” science issues and have worked out an initial attempt of what seems reasonable to me. This post summarizes the ideas as a starting point for more detailed exploration, both with study and discussion with others. The basic idea is that it is a finely balanced choice, more finely balanced than most like to admit. The goal here is to be able to articulate why to make a particular choice, rather than just say “It’s how i was raised”, or “I like this”, or “I don’t like that”, etc. It’s an attempt at a rational perspective. Continue reading
The world is a mysterious place, and part of human nature is to try to understand it. This is the role of science and rationality; we look to them to help us make sense of things. To an large extent they are very successful, and have improved our ability to manipulate the world more and more. And yet, there are things about the deeper underpinnings of reality that give us pause. Continue reading
This little video illustrates one of the big confounding questions in physics. The question is how to understand the role of conscious observation in resolving a quantum state. The problem has been around for a long time, and Erwin Schrödinger came up with this famous illustration to highlight the question. Towards the end, the video describes a higher-level perspective about the question. Continue reading
Imagine a basin of calm, liquid water. Perfectly still and pure. All of a sudden it is jostled, or a speck of dust falls in, and it freezes in a moment. The water must have started below freezing, yet it was liquid. This seeming contradiction can occur when very pure water is carefully lowered below freezing, so ice crystals never have a chance to form. The result is “supercooled” water. Supercooled water may remain liquid while cooled quite far below freezing. It’s easy to make in the lab or at home, and sometimes occurs in nature.
While the water is still liquid, it seems contradictory: below freezing, yet not frozen. If water below freezing is supposed to be frozen, why is this so easy to demonstrate? It just seems wrong. Continue reading
Kelvin's Clouds 