#limitsofknowledge

[sidmhr]

Does a simple system exist which is capable of exhibiting infinite complexitis or in other words can we define a finite simple manageable system which could explain or accommodate all the possibilities offered by the nature and humankind? If no, then humankind is doomed forever or its a game untill they disappear. If yes, mankind could grasp everything the universe has to offer and inevitably transcend it. Religion, institutions, society or any philosophy are humble beginning towards such journey.

[stag28]

"the rate of progress is accelerating: the number of scientific publications has doubled every nine years since the second world war. [..] many natural systems, such as the weather, are “chaotic” or sensitive to small changes: a tiny nudge now can lead to vastly different behaviour later. Since people cannot measure with complete accuracy, they can’t forecast far into the future. [..] Lord Kelvin, a great physicist, confidently announced in 1900: “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now.” Just a few years later, physics was upended by the new theories of relativity and quantum physics. [..] Quantum physics presents particular limits on human knowledge, as it suggests that there is a basic randomness or uncertainty in the universe. For example, electrons exist as a “wave function”, smeared out across space, and do not have a definite position until you observe them (which “collapses” the wave function). [..] there seems to be an absolute limit on how much people can know. This is quantified by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which says that there is a trade-off between knowing the position and momentum of a particle. So the more you know about where an electron is, the less you know about which way it is going. Even scientists find this weird. As Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, said: “If quantum physics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” [..] There may be things people will never know, but they don’t know what they are."