THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION Series editors Avshalom C. Elitzur Iyar The Israel Institute for Advanced Research, Rehovot, Israel e-mail: [email protected] Laura Mersini-Houghton Department of Physics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. Padmanabhan Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune, India e-mail: [email protected] Maximilian Schlosshauer Department of Physics, University of Portland, Portland, OR 97203, USA e-mail: [email protected] Mark P. Silverman Department of Physics, Trinity College, Hartford, CT 06106, USA e-mail: [email protected] Jack A. Tuszynski Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1Z2, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Rüdiger Vaas Center for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, University of Giessen, 35394 Giessen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION Series Editors A.C. Elitzur L. Mersini-Houghton T. Padmanabhan M. Schlosshauer M.P. Silverman J.A. Tuszynski R. Vaas The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the forefront of modern science, including related philosophical debates. In contrast to typical research monographs, however, they strive to present their topics in a manner accessible also to scientifically literate non-specialists wishing to gain insight into the deeper implications and fascinating questions involved. Taken as a whole, the series reflects the need for a fundamental and interdisciplinary approach to modern science. Furthermore, it is intended to encourage active scientists in all areas to ponder over important and perhaps controversial issues beyond their own speciality. Extending from quantum physics and relativity to entropy, conscious- ness and complex systems—the Frontiers Collection will inspire readers to push back the frontiers of their own knowledge. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5342 For a full list of published titles, please see back of book or springer.com/series/5342 Shyam Wuppuluri ⋅ Giancarlo Ghirardi Editors Space, Time and the Limits of Human Understanding 123 Editors Shyam Wuppuluri Giancarlo Ghirardi R. N. Podar School (CBSE) Abdus Salam International Centre for Podar Educational Complex Theoretical Physics Mumbai Trieste India Italy ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic) THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION ISBN 978-3-319-44417-8 ISBN 978-3-319-44418-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44418-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950405 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Chapter 15 is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Vox audita perit litera scripta manet, The thing heard perishes but the written word remains —Latin Maxim. Foreword First of all, let me thank Mr. Shyam Wuppuluri for his years of effort devoted to inspiring, assembling, and editing this volume. Rather than attempting to comment on the papers in it, I shall try to outline my approach to some issues that the reader may find helpful to bear in mind when reading these papers. Unfortunately, the concepts needed to discuss these issues are so interrelated that I have not found it possible to provide a simple, sequential introduction to these concepts. Indeed, they are inextricably intermingled in my presentation. Every human community is based on an interrelated complex of labor processes that enable the community not just to survive but that, if successful, enable it to grow and thrive. Each such labor process involves three elements: the labor of a group of people using some tools to act upon the initial objects of labor (the “raw materials”). The goal of this process is action upon these initial objects in such a way as to produce final objects (the “finished products”) that will benefit at least some members of the community. But not all tools and initial objects are external to the members of the com- munity. Language—and other symbolic systems that language enables people to create—allows them to form conceptual systems, some of which in turn become intellectual tools that can be used to modify the initial conceptual systems and to create new ones. In other words, not all labor need to be manual. Just as important is intellectual labor. Like all forms of labor, intellectual labor starts from some object—in this case a conceptual object—and works on this object with the aim of modifying it to produce a new conceptual object (see my paper “Problems not Disciplines”). There are many types of intellectual tools (art, literature, religion, etc.) but most important for the questions discussed in this volume are the scientific disciplines, including both the so-called natural and social sciences (better called the human sciences—the Geisteswissenschaften in German). Why include the social sciences? As in all other forms of labor, a successful intellectual labor process is ultimately the result of the collective labor of more than one individual: knowledge is our name for such results. Rather than being an vii viii Foreword individual problem, as it has been treated in Western philosophy since the time of Descartes, the problem of knowledge is a social problem (see my paper Where is Knowledge?). And it should always be borne in mind that the ultimate goal of all intellectual labor is to provide additional resources to some human community for action upon the material world and, intended or not, to produce changes in the community itself. As noted already, in the case of intellectual labor the objects of labor are complexes of concepts; and the collective labor acting upon these complexes is that of some intellectual community. When it is successful, new knowledge is our name for the results of such a process of intellectual labor. And it is important to bear in mind that knowledge itself is indeed a process that will never end as long as intellectual communities continue to exist. So one should be suspicious of any proposed axiomatization of some realm of human knowledge, especially if it is accompanied by claims of the closure of what should be an open, unending process. An important philosophical issue is the distinction between the conceptual objects that constitute our knowledge and the objects of that knowledge, and the relation between these two. Such philosophical doctrines as conflicts as empiricism, rationalism, naturalism, materialism and idealism depend on the answer to this question. Suffice it to say that I regard the goal of action on the objects of knowledge as primary. The introduction of a new conceptual object, or the modi- fication of an existing one, must make clear its relation to some object(s) of knowledge. In the case of physical concepts, such as space and time, this means that their definition must be accompanied by some account of the means by which an ideal measurement of this quantity can be carried out. Let me emphasize: I am not maintaining that it is meaningful because it is measurable; rather that because it is meaningful it must in principle be measurable. No one has stated this lesson more eloquently than Gaston Bachelard: In order to embody new experimental evidence, it is necessary to deform the original concepts, study the conditions of applicability of these concepts, and above all incorporate the conditions of applicability of a concept into the very meaning of the concept. … The classic division that separates a theory from its application ignores this necessity to incorporate the conditions of applicability into the very essence of the theory (La formation de l’esprit scientifique. Paris: Vrin. 1938, pg. 61; transl. by J.S.). Like all tools, intellectual tools themselves may become the object of a labor process aimed at improving their effectiveness—indeed one tool may even be set aside totally in favor of some new tool. The prime example is relation between language, the first intellectual tool, and logic. Logic is a tool created for the improvement of language when it is applied to certain subjects. Indeed, one should rather say “logics,” since more than one consistent logical system may be employed in the critical reconstruction of a language. So one might say that logic is about language and language is about the world. Often this two-step relation is reduced to a one-step relation: logic is about the world—a view I have criticized for decades [A] logic always has some language as its object. The more formalized one wants the logic to be, the more formalized the language must be.