what i believe but can't prove
The Edge has an interesting article. In it they ask 100 scientists/academics what they believe but can't prove. Many of the responses surprised me... especially those put forth by some of the non-science contributors. If you have an hour or two to kill, I highly recommend reading it.
What do I believe but can't prove? Lots. But that's mostly a reflection of my proving abilities. For the sake of putting something concrete down here, I'll go with the following:
I believe in a flip-side to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics (2ndLOT) which is, loosely speaking, organized systems become more disorganized as time goes on. Many people on this planet ascribe this flip-side to the existence of a God. Depending on how you define God, I may agree with that. In the interest of clarity, I'll define this flip-side as being a law of nature... just like the 2nd law. Why do I believe this law exists? Life is the single greatest contradiction to the 2ndLOT. Biological molecules organizing to produce a highly organized structure, when they should be randomly dispersed into a homogenous mixture? To me this points to there being something else at work. The inorganic realm also displays contradictions to the 2ndLOT, albeit not as blatantly as in the biological realm.
posted by rugged @ 9:33 a.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
I believe but cannot prove that we are witnessing the zenith of American power right now and that it's overall importance and influence will be on the decline for the next 100 years as India and China gain power.
-Petter
Funny, for once I think I might agree with petter.
But what I believe but can't prove is determinism. I believe that life is deterministic. And I could pull a really long post out of my ass to tell you my reasons, but I'm feeling a bit constipated.
-bitch
-in response to the comment about determinism. What do you mean by determinism ... do you mean in the sense that some observer sitting at some point (or interval) in time (whatever observer might mean) can exactly predict or exactly know what happens(ed) at another time ... or do you mean in some sort of grand model of the universe which does not produce any means of testing determinism for such an observer. I'm not sure that a lot of these big questions are anything more than a collection of untestable assumptions. If you can PROVE something to be untestable, that might be interesting too ... not that there is anything wrong with discussing beliefs or ideas without worrying about proving things.
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