The Limits of Science

Why can't science tell us why the Universe exists and why physical laws take on the form they do?



Here's an analogy.



Consider the game of chess. Let's suppose one knows nothing about how to play the game. By playing against a chess computer one can gradually discover the rules of chess by trying various moves and seeing which moves the computer will permit you to make.

But, discovering the rules of chess tells us nothing about why the pieces are allowed to move the way they do, least of all of who invented the game of chess and why. Nor do we know how the computer works. Why and how does it register certain moves as illegal?



Likewise, discovering the physical laws that describe or govern our physical reality tells us nothing about why physical laws are as they are. Nor can it tell us why there is a Universe at all. Such questions simply do not reside within the scope of science.



(The above is a slightly simpler version of my What philosophical questions does science answer?)

What philosophical questions does science answer?

Just reading the following recently published article:

Mind, Matter And Materialism


Near the beginning the author says:

"Questions that once lay firmly in philosophy's domain have now fully entered the realm of science".

This is something I hear from people frequently. Unfortunately they never seem to specify what philosophical questions science has answered or shed light upon. I'm not necessarily saying that science doesn't, it depends what they have in mind.

But at first blush it seems to me the domains of science and philosophy are distinct. First of all we need to understand that science doesn't provide explanations as such, but mere descriptions. Consider playing a computer game. You need to know how the computer game environment will react when your character performs certain actions. You could be really excellent at the game and have a comprehensive knowledge of exactly how the game environment changes with specific actions. However, that furnishes you with no understanding of how the game is possible and why the game has the rules it does, or even why the game exists at all. The player might know nothing about the underling computer architecture or software in other words.

How the game environment reacts seems to me to be analogically akin to what science is attempting with its description of our physical reality. How the game is possible, why the game exists, why the game has the rules it has, seems to me to be analogically akin to asking how and why the world exists and why it has the attributes it does. Questions that belong exclusively to the domain of philosophy.

How can knowing how the game environment changes, or physical reality changes with particular actions, help with any philosophical questions?

Update 1/10/2019   I have just written a simpler version of this above argument here.

Do scientific explanations actually explain?

To provide a scientific explanation of a given phenomenon is to show how it is ultimately derived from physical laws. Sometimes physical laws governing some aspect of physical reality can be shown to be derived from more fundamental physical laws.  But these more fundamental physical laws appear to be simply a brute fact.  In other words certain physical laws appear to govern the Universe and no one has any idea why such physical laws assume the form they do.  Moreover, by necessity, an answer to this question could not come under the province of science since science assumes such physical laws at the outset.

But then scientific explanations are not in fact explanations in the fullest sense of this word.  It is of little avail to say we can explain the existence of X in terms of Y, if Y itself has no explanation and is simply a brute fact. This is why, contrary to what most people believe, science doesn't strictly speaking provide explanations, but rather mere descriptions. Yes we can explain how a phenomenon is deduced or derived from physical laws, but this fails to provide any ultimate explanation if we don't know why physical laws assume the form they do. Indeed since physical laws are simply a brute fact without any explanation, then in providing a scientific explanation we are only ever engaging in discerning specific patterns (some phenomenon) deduced from more general patterns (physical laws).


28 Dec 2015 Update:

A rather excellent article on the same topic by Dr. Bernardo Kastrup which I'm in full agreement with.  He employs a splendid analogy which is worth quoting:

[O]ne needs to know nothing about computer architecture or software in
order to play a computer game well and even win; just watch a
five-year-old kid. Playing a computer game only requires an ability to
understand and predict how the elements of the game behave relative to
one another: if your character shoots that spot, it scores points; if
your character touches that wall, it dies; etc. It requires no
understanding whatsoever of the underlying machine and code upon which
the game runs. You can be a champion player without having a clue about
Central Processing Units (CPU), Random-Access Memories (RAM), Universal
Serial Buses (USB), or any of the esoteric computer engineering that
makes the game possible. All this engineering transcends the “reality”
accessible empirically from within the game. Yet, the scientific method
limits itself to what is empirically and ordinarily observed from within
the “game” of reality. Scientific modelling requires little or no understanding of the underlying nature of reality in
exactly the same way that a gamer needs little or no understanding of
the computer’s underlying architecture in order to win the game. It
only requires an understanding of how the elements of the “game,”
accessed empirically from within the “game” itself, unfold relative to
one another.

On the other hand, to infer things about what underlies the “game” – in other words, to construct a metaphysics about the fundamental nature of reality – demands more than the empirical methods of science. Indeed, it
demands a kind of disciplined introspection that critically assesses
not only the elements observed, but also the observer, the process of
observation, and the interplay between the three in a holistic manner;
an introspection that, as such, seeks to see through the “game.”