'What I cannot Create I do not Understand'

Richard Feynman was a very gifted man, a remarkable thinker, a physics pioneer. Like many very gifted people, he seemed to have little appreciation of quite how special his real gifting was. 

Feynman seemed to like spinning his own myth regarding his personal life. He stored up anecdotes enough to fill a book or two. You can still buy them. Some of this material is not at all politically correct by modern standards, and rightly so. But he also encouraged equality in the workplace and had a tenacious concern for truthfulness and realism there, which I'm getting on to. Nearly everyone other than he saw his real gifting. We don't remember the man for his womanising or trickster antics. We remember him as someone with a profound, natural, apparently-effortless, insight into physics. Someone with the ability to explain difficult concepts to the rest of us; the less gifted.

Feynman illustrated a combination of brilliance with necessary condescension. By that I mean the ability to put himself in the shoes of his students, intellectually. He could condescend in a benign way to bless the rest of us. For me this was second-hand, through books taken from his lectures. (Condescension, if realistic and genuine, is not inherently bad, and knowing others' limitations when teaching is good and necessary). Feynman could adapt concepts he understood very clearly and make them as simple and amenable as possible. Would that we all had had lecturers like that.

Feynman was the hero of that far more widely known and appreciated physicist, Sheldon Cooper. (You probably know Sheldon was the central character of 'The Big Bang', a popular TV comedy series).

Feynman displayed humility and awe toward his teaching subject. And so on to the point of my post. 

Found on his blackboard at Caltech at the time of his death in the top left corner was a simple statement.

'What I cannot create I do not understand'. 

We don't know exactly what he meant, or what led him to write this. Perhaps a pervading awareness of his terminal physical illness brought this phrase to him. Doctors could not transform or recreate the malignant tissue of his rare form of cancer. Doctors can't create tissue directly, period. We can indeed grow certain tissues. We analyse nature, we play with and rearrange nature, but ultimately we do not truly create anything. To truly create is to bring about from nothing. Or from nothing within the creation, anyway. 

To prove our understanding, we must demonstrate it in action. This is a hard wall for hard science. 'Do the experiment for us'. The engineer understands this. Conjecture is one thing, working practice resulting in hard product may be quite another. Sometimes we fail to acknowledge the line between these.

Feynman's statement certainly applies to deep past science. Can we create life from inanimate matter? Can we set it up to evolve and populate? In this case, we have the constituent matter readily available. We have the right atoms. But the answer is 'No'. We are nowhere near those goals. Our theories, in truth, remain theories until we can test them.

Can we invoke a universe from nothing? Can we provoke a universe (or the beginnings of one), seed it to unravel, from an initial set of conditions we engineer, as a physical reality? No. We cannot. 

Is science useless then? Of course not. To see its limitations simply means you have stopped worshipping it. 

Underneath the quote, in another box, Feynman wrote 'To solve every problem that has been solved'. Again we weren't party to his thought processes or context. But that second sentence is achievable, by definition, by mankind corporately. It's an unrealistic aim for one man, although mankind could in principle achieve it. That's to say, all problems, with their solutions, so far achieved, could be brought together in one place for general access. 'Wikipedia' is trying to get there and doing a pretty fair job.

Feynman's two statements are boundaries. They are the two banks of a precipice, a precipice between God's type of knowledge and power and our own. 

There's a huge veil and a huge chasm between the sum of our knowledge, and the ability to truly create; to create as Christ, in His divinity, has created.

A Very Brief Summary So Far: Limits of Science. Seven Points.

1) Scientific, materialistic reductionism is a valid, powerful and reasonable method. However it is an inherently limited mode of investigation. Using logic itself, it can be shown to be logically restrictive. In particular, it precludes mechanisms which are outside of its own 'natural' sphere. There's an analogy to be had with Godel's incompleteness theorems here. 

2) It's true that the 'sphere' of what is designated 'natural' will likely expand, and it already includes many inferences we cannot observe directly. However there remains a strong possibility that there are mechanisms completely outside of our ability to discern. Physical mechanisms could easily be enshrined in law, but, being defined by a higher being, man may lack the intellectual, perceptive or investigative capacity to uncover them.

3) The substantiation of a cosmos remains a singular event, as far as we know, and a supernatural one. Mathematical law may be self-consistent and correct, but that does not mandate an associated, substantiated, consciously-perceived, physical existence. This event of cosmos-incipience is necessarily supernatural.

4) Science also assumes that physical law and biological law are fixed and in that sense 'eternal'. We back-extrapolate in time using the same laws that manifest today. We can't prove this is a valid assumption to use.

5)  The next two points are unapologetically Judeo-Christian. All this connects with theology. What we can know of both God and creation, using our natural observations and reasoning, is going to be limited and subject to possible fundamental error. We need revelation from God. We need to believe He has engineered a supernatural ability within the human spirit to receive revelation and conviction about eternal, spiritual matters. 

6) God writes in simple ways for our benefit, not His. He knows in glorious intricacy how He created everything, us included. Consider this. God allows us, using simple procedures and acts of the will, to initiate complex processes, like reproduction or digestion! We still don't fully understand them. Indeed when we didn't understand them at all, we were still able to 'perform' them! In a similar fashion, He has given us a conscious existence we have relatively little real understanding of. We are entrusted with an existence we don't fully understand, but even so we are still given real freedoms to act, freedoms to initiate and change the course of events. We can have simplistic notions of how we interact with 'reality', but they still 'work'. God hands off to us, in our conscious existence, certain responsibilities. We were told, in the beginning, to populate and subdue the earth. Fulfilling our responsibilities does not require us to fully understand how they work. We don't need to know how God gave us the capacity to fulfil them. God relates to us in simple everyday language, pertinent and practical.

God's actions, and His intent toward us, as taken from Genesis, may likewise look simplistic, especially if we are inclined to intellectualism. They are simple for our sake. They are practical and pertinent. They are received by relational trust, through love. But the mode of communication works. They give us the necessary information. God's Word, His revelation, remains true through the ages and into eternity. All we can rightly do, if we wish, is consider the manner in which they are true, and the manner of the revelation. We can suggest and discuss details of the science behind creation. The important impetus of God's revelation is open to all to discover though, scientific in thinking or not. We are to meekly receive the Word of God, because it is uniquely able to save our eternal souls. Our souls will transcend the present creation anyway. The means for that transcension are known to God alone; our main job is to trust Him.

7) The truly important issues for us are in the relational and spiritual realms. Believe in God. Trust Him. Respond thankfully to His initiative in Christ. Keep trusting Him. The truly significant element of the Bible is received as it is lived. It is a living book, and absorbed as such. Its impetus hits us fully when we live in the presence of the God who ultimately authored and compiled it. It imparts ever increasing life as we grow in yielded obedience to Him.

There you are. The seven points overlap and interact of course. What do you think? Feel free to comment.

Steady State Cosmos, Steady State Laws, or Neither?

I'm a creationist because I believe we were created by God. What does that look like? Like Genesis. But if we want to expand on that? There are many in the creationism camp who think the world and its environment were formed 'mature'; as is. (Or rather 'as was'). In other words while there is an appearance, to modern Western man, of an evolving earth and cosmos, no such very slow maturation, from tiny initial seed beginnings, actually occurred. That is an illusion. The Big Bang is an illusion, an incorrect inference.

What if science does indeed have this badly wrong? What if we have dialled incorrect assumptions into our big picture thinking, thinking based on the scientific method? That method has limitations, and is a method with inherently and arbitrarily restricted scope. I just discussed some of the often-overlooked limitations in my last post.

Here I want to look more at the 'looking back deep into time'. Or 'back extrapolation'.

Science looking at recent time is a powerful method, giving clear results. But 'deep time'? Why might we get things wrong with that?

Reductionism always assumes this one present and constant reality, one framed by the same laws and equations. One framed by other observed constraints, such as the arrow of time. On planet Earth, by biological decay and death. By reproduction and birth. But what if a supernatural agent has shifted the very framework of reality at different times or places? What if our steady-state assumptions are not warranted? What if the current backdrop as investigated by us, from within it, is a 'temporary' arrangement? What if we have a) assumed it's permanent without justification, and b) as a result, have fooled ourselves into thinking we have successfully back-extrapolated to beginnings and obtained the 'big picture'?

I've already, last post, pointed out that by assuming science is always naturalistic, we limit science as a method. It has a restrictive mode of operation. Mechanisms beyond our familiarity are screened out before they get a chance for consideration. A corollary of this is that science can never be considered a technique with universal efficacy, universal powers of explanation. 

Further than that, with science, we are always doing this exercise in back-extrapolation. In doing this, we are assuming our basic governing laws and equations, as well as being discoverable, have remained constant throughout. Perhaps laws have pertained in the past that we don't and maybe can't 'get'.

When we question what God has said in Genesis, we may be insisting on this steady state back extrapolation in our worldview. What if laws and time have changed fundamentally? What if reality cohered in the past, to physical law, but in a very different way? There I go, I'm already using terms like 'past'. We verbalise, and we conceptualise, starting from the familiar. Sure, that can and has got us a long way. Too many thought experiments without physical reality checks, whether retrospective or predictive/verified, and we can easily deceive ourselves about long-range science. We need to acknowledge we always reason with what we've got. That's the real essence of naturalism. Without revelation from a truthful higher source, we would have no option.

Heisenberg said that 'we investigate reality as it presents to our modes of investigation' and not 'reality itself'. We have no choice there. There's actually a further qualification. In science, we investigate reality as it is now, and assume the underlying, bottom-rung 'fabric' always was the way it is. If there is a theory of everything, what if it has changed, or even morphed, since the times recorded in early Genesis?

Instead or questioning the Word of God, we need to humbly acknowledge our limitations. We need to admit that we of necessity bring unproven assumptions to the table when we attempt to reason our way into the past.

It's unlikely we could understand, or even relay, an adequate report of, the process of creation. Likewise a sudden, God-ordained transition in the framework of our existence, in the past, might be undetectable to us. It may leave no trace, or traces which we misinterpret when view through our own paradigms. All we can do is investigate the existence we find ourselves in, using tools available from within. Using our minds, methods and instruments, which materialist-reductionists take to have been derived, evolved, produced from within.

The Bible discusses the end, as well as the start, of this physical age, in several places. The end, apparently, is also beyond anything but allegorical description.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

(2Peter 3:8-10)

What if we live in a cosmos with a tentative, transitory, stability? A cosmos with the illusion of great age, when subjected to certain modes of investigation? A cosmos which was fundamentally different before, even in the time of the first man and woman? Not only in the framing physics but also in terms of the characteristics of biological life? Were there biological species not succumbing to death? Not reproducing by the present sexual means? Were we once like that? Having a fixed maturity rather than requiring a process of maturation?  What if we have deluded ourselves about our origins, because we want to delude ourselves? Because we are too proud to face our limitations and assumptions about life?

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

(Revelation 6:14)

Is our problem not that the Bible is a dated, or incorrect, book? Rather that we have deluded ourselves about our present existence by effectively worshipping it as final reality? and deluded ourselves by worshipping ourselves, by filing to acknowledge our limitations and necessary assumptions? 

The Bible is the written Word of God. It will prove true. Our job is to meekly receive it. There are mysteries currently hidden from us, and from our most effective and earnest investigative techniques. The techniques have some real power, don't get me wrong. I'm a scientist and an engineer. But don't worship them. Don't carry them outside of reasonable and proven remit.

 

What sort of Explanation are we hoping to get to with Naturalism?

When man investigates anything at all, using the 'Greek' mode of thought, he looks for causes for the effects he observes. This is the essence of the scientific method. Not only that, it is also the essence of the general western mode of thought. In many or most things. We look for predictive and explanatory powers. For this we look for an underlying theory, mechanism or set of laws. These laws then 'cause' all the emergent structures and behaviours of our experiments. Indeed, ultimately, they 'explain' everyday life. Or so it seems.

What is interesting to me is the types of cause we are able to admit into our scientific thinking.

With science, we are generally looking for causes we already understand, at least to a degree. I'd agree that with physical science, we often have a good or excellent understanding of how reality behaves. In science, we limit ourselves to naturalistic causes. Naturalistic causes are means and mechanisms which arise in the natural world around us. That's why we call them 'natural', to distinguish them from 'supernatural'.

We could argue about whether there even is a 'supernatural'. We could also discuss what would count as supernatural. I'll keep it relatively simple.

But how can we ever know that the means and mechanisms, behind everything and anything, were already in place for us to see? We can, with science, often infer realities we can't see directly. Sub-atomic particles like quarks, as an example, are inferred, along with the rules they behave under. Scientists would include them as part of natural explanations. Why? Not because they can be observed; they can't. But because they clearly exist within this creation and because they obey laws. We can make real predictions with them. 

Isn't it clear that to assume all causes will be amenable to this kind of analysis and explanation is really a leap of faith? How can we really know we'll always be able to detect and understand the mechanisms and laws behind what we see? Yet science insists we will. The very definition of science restricts us to things we are already able to understand.

It is good to look for explanations, and this is not a call to defeatism or ceasing investigation. We won't find out unless we try. It is certainly possible we will be able to comprehend an underlying law or process in a certain scenario or remit. There may be no understanding at present, and understanding may develop with time. As an example, and whatever you think of Darwinism, there was clearly a mechanism for conveying the attributes of organisms onto their progeny. Although within his lifetime no-one had any real idea how the inheritance of traits occurred, it was evident that it did occur. You only had to observe your own family over a couple of generations to establish that. Of course the science of genetics and DNA followed on. Darwinism, if correct*, had a deeper potential theoretical underpinning.

It is perfectly reasonable to infer that a mechanism exists to explain the behaviour you observe. It's also reasonable to start by asking if it is one humanity is able to grasp, understand and use predictively.

It's at this point scientists and others usually jump the gun. They make an associated leap and infer that there always will be a mechanism of this type. One we can understand. A naturalistic one.

We need to be truthful and objective here. We need to note that

1) There is no solid reason to assume all mechanisms, all causes, are going to be 'naturalistic'. In other words, arising from within the creation we see.

2) Our idea of 'naturalistic' includes the assumption that our species can understand it.

3) We probably don't have a rigorous definition of  'naturalistic' anyway. What exactly fits into that category of explanation? 

Anyhow, at some point, of necessity, we'll wind up tracing things back to something that 'just is'. Look at the overall flow of science. We've attempted to trace man back to an ancestral species, then to a primordial cell, then to chemical elements, then to particle physics, then to a basic field theory or other 'theory of everything'. This we don't have, but we are travelling hopefully and may get there. If we do, we can then ask, 'why is there a universe, one we experience consciously, built around that theory?' It's one thing to have an elegant set of formulas constraining the behaviour of everything, another to explain why there's an 'everything' corresponding to the mathematical laws. And why is the mathematics behind the laws even 'true'? Does mathematics need a universe to be valid? For example, is Euclidean geometry* just 'true', or is it only true in a universe like ours, with our consciousness? 

 I'd suggest there is no precedent whatever for the creation, or substantiation, of an experienced reality associated with any physical-mathematical law or laws. We can't consider this conflation of maths and physical substantiation as an inevitability

A creation like ours necessarily derives from a supernatural event, even if the laws associated with the event are themselves 'natural'.

My conclusion on naturalism? There seems an inevitable point coming where we will have to ditch it, in this one place at least. 

We'll come to a line in reductionism where it's unrealistic, unreasonable even, to expect a naturalistic explanation. In fact, there are probably other such places, such as the beginning of life.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

(Hebrews 11:3)

*Euclidean geometry is, physically speaking, an approximation, of course.

*I don't think it is correct, in the big picture. I use it as an example to highlight the flow of scientific investigation and discovery. There is much sound science in genetics.

Eric Hedin's Course on the Remit of Science 'Cancelled', and the Basic Logical Hole in Naturalism

Eric Hedin is a PhD physicist originating from the University of Washington. He's done post-doctoral research on plasma physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Eric has just published a book through the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He began a course at Ball State University, with the approval of the University authorities. 'Boundaries of Science' was an exploration of where science might fade off in efficacy. This is a theme that also interests me of course. Science has become 'god' for many. Adherents to a 'hard scientific worldview' consider it to have limitless capacity and potential for uncovering truth and dismissing superstition and blind faith. They look at technical progress, and understandably perhaps, make a leap of reasoning. They assume science can answer all questions and, with technology, solve all problems. Provided of course we stay the course and don't lose faith in science itself. And there, of course, lies the rub. Is it appropriate and reasonable to have this sort of pervading faith in the scientific method?

Hedin sought to examine issues here, rather than indoctrinate people into his own Christian faith. However, he was accused by Jerry Coyne, a well-known atheist and evolutionary biologist, of proffering a 'religiously infused science course'. This was an interesting accusation, and it is certainly very possible Mr Hedin was partially motivated by a desire to steer minds into further thought; examining the case for the Biblical Creator.

Actually atheists and agnostics have written on the limitations and possible blind spots of the scientific method as well. I have previously mentioned two popular-level books addressing such concerns. The first is 'a Different Universe' by Robert Laughlin, the second 'What We Cannot Know' by Marcus du Sautoy. 

Why is Coyne so edgy and keen to shut this sort of thing down? Does he have logical and reasonable grounds? 

More profoundly, is the near absolute reverence for the scientific method, held by many scientific thinkers, well-founded? Is it as logical and rational as they say? I've addressed this before, but Hedin states the paradox embedded in scientific naturalism very succinctly. I don't know if the way the argument is presented is original to Hedin. But I'll re-state the essence of it here. Naturalism, incidentally, is a science-related term for the quest to explain everything by purely natural means, i.e. to exclude the supernatural or mystical. 

Hedin basically says, very simply: 

1) Science seeks explanations of observed phenomena that rely solely on natural causes.

2) A scientific model makes testable predictions about natural phenomena allowing us to revise or abandon the model if the predictions do not agree with observations. 

Makes a lot of sense on the surface. But definitely not complete sense. The Big Question. Is definition 1) subject to the scrutiny of definition 2)? In other words, is science subjected to its own constraints? If we define and treat science itself as a scientific model, do we then subject it to the scientific tests and possible adjustments set out in 2)?  The answer, in the general thinking of most scientists, is 'No'. We don't use the method of science to prove or disprove the scope of science itself. If we tried to, the case for the all-sufficiency and supremacy of the tool of science would disassemble. It's an unwarranted precondition (or at best, a tentative working assumption) to say that any model of reality must be based only on what we presently consider to be natural causes. To assume point 1) is actually a constraint on our truth-searching, if our aim is to pursue reality by any and every possible means. This assumption that point 1) can be adopted, without limiting our thoughts, postulates and activities, is widely made but usually not explicitly stated. It's a precept which must be adopted before we can get started with science. But it's actually an arbitrary precept. It came out of 'thin air'. Science is a way of looking at reality, but in truth it is only an arbitrarily constrained way.

Scientists usually start with this assumption and work with it in the background. A little thought shows that what we defined with point 1) is actually only a restrictive patch of reasoning, not the sum total of all possible logical reasoning.

We can see that the scientific method is not saying, 'let's look at everything we might glean about reality using logical thought'.

Instead, it's saying, 'let's assume everything about reality can be explained using what we already know about reality'.

This really (sorry) is not nearly as logical as hard science reductionists like to think, or to tell us.

Robert Laughlin, the Nobel Laureate author I mentioned, was aware of this paradox. He mentioned unease about how we use concepts derived from everyday observation, such as waves and particles, to attempt to penetrate to the very core of absolute reality. Stated another way, he noted that, yet-to-be-discovered, underlying physics manifests to us, in the form of particles and waves. The reality itself is very unlikely to be correctly, adequately modelled using those particle- and wave- paradigms. Yet our whole mathematical set of constructs revolves around spatial constructs like waves, and integer counts of objects such as particles.

In scientific and indeed mathematical thinking, you can never reduce back to nothing. In fact you cannot even reduce back to just one commodity or variable. This is because all causes and all equations are relationships between multiple parameters.

If there's a transcendent Creator, as Hedin and myself believe, then what we can understand of His Creation will be discernible and comprehensible only because He made it possible for us. Not because we are really smart and on top of the search for underlying causes.

Anthropocentric Reasoning

We usually reason from our own sense of self-importance. That statement might get you hopping. That is often true socially and relationally. We tend to see the world as it affects us, more than as it affects other people. We have a filter. That filter governs our outlook over what immediately affects our lives. Do we see a workplace challenge, for example, objectively, or predominantly in terms of what is likely to happen to us?

There's also a corporate potential for blinkered thinking with mankind in general. Man has a certain filtered outlook. This is what I'm calling 'anthropocentric reasoning'. Our reasoning is an attempt to model reality so we can act positively toward our environment. (Often with 'me' at the centre when we define 'positively', see first paragraph!) Science is an attempt to model reality, to anticipate outcomes, to affect them where possible. 

What is 'reality?' We really don't know, even for the 'world' we do see and perceive, measure and investigate. As Stephen Hawking said: 'there is no model-independent view of reality to be had'. What he is saying is that there is no relationship with whatever reality really is for mankind unless you somehow picture it, imagine it, find a way to mentally conceive of it. With physics, the best conceptions are mathematical ones. This is the story of science, to find that model for whatever you are considering. In the case of physicists, they are trying to model everything, and they're looking for a theory of everything. They don't have it. They have two chunks of pretty good understanding which unfortunately don't meet in the middle. They're called the Standard Model and General Relativity. In certain scenarios the agreement between the two we would expect is not there. We are missing something major in our conceptualisation of the ultimate physical reality of this particular created order, or realm. 

Beyond the fact that our attempts to model the universal fabric of our existence have stalled, there's something else to say, hard to deny. We ourselves, as humanity, are filters on how we are able to perceive reality. We are only so smart, and only so capable, in terms of perception. We are bounded by five senses, plus instrumentation geared to feeds only those senses. We could very well be constrained within a lesser existence, lesser when compared to All Things. I believe we are. We are not normally able to perceive the full nature of all realities. God is. He decided we wouldn't be able to, for His reasons. 

The proud soul will not admit this, but it is obviously true. A greater being can constrain the existence of a lesser. The greater spirit can constrain the perception, the perspective of existence of the lesser.

Listening to really smart guys, by human standards, like Roger Penrose and Sean Carroll, it seems glaringly obvious to me that they are not even close to having a handle even on this present reality. They use terms defined within our current existence, such as 'beginning', to attempt to extrapolate how the universe got here. They talk about the possibility that time is not fundamental, but a subjective outcome from other things. Are the 'other things' final reality? We don't know. How would we know? That deferral will never end. Perhaps that' a good thing for physics funding and careers! In the end, we live in a framed existence, bounded by God. And our ability to comprehend it physically is also bounded. By God.   

The writer to the Hebrews understood this. He understood by Divine revelation, not human reasoning.

But Christ came as a High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)

(Hebrews 9:11)

Concerning realities yet to be revealed Paul says:

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

(1 Corinthians 2:9)

Emergence. A Paradox at the Heart of Reductionism.

Some people are trying to tell us that everything evolves (in a very general sense of that word) out of the interactions, and self-organising tendencies, of very simple particles, and/or mathematical equations.

Stuff around, like us, is simply confusingly complex manifestations of really simple stuff. Simple in principle, simple in variety, that is. The mathematics is hard for most of us, and intractable for specialists.

That's the story. The simple stuff is the outcome of a process called 'reductionism'. The complex stuff, like bacteria, hippopotamuses, religion, arguments about where to eat and iTunes catalogues of  60's music, is down to 'emergence'. There are layers of emergent behaviour, we are told. Things like evolutionary biology and sociology.

All this begs a question or two.

If our processes of analysis are 'emergent' and ultimately down to the emergent mechanism of evolution by natural selection, then how can we even be sure our thinking is 'objective'? Can we know we are seeking the truth, or are we just trying to survive by saying the right things?

I've aired that one before here and there. More fundamentally though there's a point about the whole idea of emergent behaviour. I'm going to highlight this paradox in a certain way after Robert B. Laughlin, a Nobel Laureate Physicist. In 'A Different Universe' (it's a book, not a cosmos), Laughlin points out that we use emergent phenomena, and in particular waves, energy and particles, to try to describe and model underlying final reality. Laughlin himself is rather uncomfortable about this.

In my own words, we are using emergent phenomena as the basis for our attempts at reductionist models.

This is paradoxical. A little thought should show us this is very likely not going to get us to 'final truth' about Physics or anything else.

So much for the rationality espoused by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and company.

Now an honest person will tell you there are many places where our present rational understanding fades off into inherently unknowable mystery. Direct personal experience of absolutely nothing, of the infinitesimal, and of the infinite would be one. My focus here, our attempts to model fundamentals using outcomes of fundamentals, is another. Richard Dawkins' successor at the Oxford Simonyi Chair, Marcus du Sautoy, is on to this idea of what lies beyond rational analysis. It has led Marcus to doubt at least the finality of his atheism.

Now Richard Dawkins, for himself and his followers, is pretty good at working God out, and deciding why He can't be there. But, dear Richard, you are limited to using the creative activities of God in an attempt to deduce the absolute nature of God. A similar paradox to that above. Logically and rationally you are limited to at best partial success here, surely.

The best man can hope for is for the Infinite One who created us from Nothing we know about to reveal Himself as He chooses through avenues we can, at some level and to some degree, comprehend.

I believe that is actually precisely what He has done. Read the first chapter of John's Gospel. Then the rest.

Like Maxwell, look at the created world also.