Jesse Fourt: Topic 7: Are There Limits to Science?

	The final Speaker’s Corner presentation proved to 
be more thought provoking for me than I had 
anticipated.  My prior thoughts about the limits to 
science had been narrow in scope, and now I am left 
wondering about the division between scientific 
knowledge and its application, about the relationship 
between limits to the physical universe and limits to 
scientific knowledge, and about the appropriate 
geometric analogy for a discussion of these matters.
	Perhaps because I study engineering rather than 
the classic hard sciences, I have trouble separating 
science from its applications.  On Tuesday, I 
gathered that most people consider science to be 
equivalent to scientific knowledge. That is, science 
is simply a set of facts about the physical world.  
Personally, I consider science to include much more 
than a set of facts.  I believe that applied science 
is indeed science.  This being said, I conclude that 
science is unlimited, in one sense, by virtue of the 
fact that people can conceivably come up with 
infinitely many applications for science.
	Turning away from the boundary of what we call 
science, I am still wondering about the relationship 
between the size of the universe and the limits to 
scientific knowledge.  Since I have not decided 
whether I believe in an infinitely or finitely 
extended universe, I must consider both cases.
	Suppose the exists a finite amount of matter in 
the universe.  By “finite,” do we mean bound (there 
is a single furthest element, for example)?  Even if 
the universe were bound in this manner, scientific 
knowledge about matter could still be infinite if 
matter is dense.  That is, if we follow the apparent 
trend in particle physics to continually divide 
matter into smaller and smaller parts without ever 
running out of possible divisions, then matter is 
infinitely studiable and we can formulate infinitely 
many conclusions.  Now suppose that matter is not 
dense.  That is, a mass can only be divided a finite 
number of times.  Does it follow that there are only 
a finite number of relationships among the particles 
of matter?  Can there be infinite relationships among 
a finite set?  I have not studied enough math to 
answer this question.
	What if we suppose that there exists an infinite 
amount of matter in the universe?  Can we conclude 
that a complete set of scientific knowledge must be 
infinite?  I am not sure.  Suppose we use the natural 
numbers as an analogy to the matter in the universe.  
There are infinitely many natural numbers, as we are 
supposing that there are infinitely many particles of 
matter in the universe.  However, I believe that I 
have a pretty good handle on the natural numbers.  
Certainly, I personally posses only a finite amount 
of knowledge (because I have only a finite number of 
brain cells, I have had only a finite amount of time 
to learn, etc.).  However, I grasp the cataloging of 
the natural numbers.  I am compelled, though not 
convinced, to believe that a finite set of facts 
about the physical world may be sufficient to 
describe the entire physical world, be it finite or 
infinite.  In this sense, then, perhaps only a 
limited amount of scientific knowledge is necessary 
to fully account for all physical knowledge.
	Ignoring the above discussion, I am somewhat 
puzzled by Seth’s ray analogy.  I agree that 
contrasting line segments, rays and lines is a useful 
way of discussing limits.  However, I think that the 
analogy at hand demands a more complex geometric 
model.  Even a line, extending infinitely in two 
directions, is limited because it is only one 
dimensional.  Shouldn’t we be considering more 
dimensions?  What if there are concepts lying on 
other lines, running parallel to Seth’s?  They would 
be outside of the scope of science, even if science 
extends infinitely in two directions.  And suppose 
science is extended to being an entire plane.  What 
if there are concepts in the third dimension?  This 
puzzle continues for higher dimensions.  Although I 
find lines and line segments to be somewhat 
oversimplified, I cannot come up with a better model 
myself.
	Clearly, I have not resolved any of the issues I 
have brought up.  I don’t believe that I can resolve 
them in my lifetime.  However,  I am grateful to 
group seven for making me think about them.