All Popes and No God

I grew up in a religious family but am not myself a believer. This upbringing shaped my attitudes to life, belief, certainty and respect for contrary views. When members of your family harbor beliefs that you do not share then it is necessary to come to some accommodation. You cannot simply discount matters of the human spirit.

In my view, that which moves the human spirit is ultimately some form of faith. It may be faith in an External God, for the Spiritually Minded. It may be faith in the Scientific Method, for those who believe in a Rational World. Or, something else entirely.

In my case, I developed Faith in Creativity. To me the God was innate in the ability of us all to create. We may not be able to create in the Biblical sense, but we sure can be creative in our lives, thoughts, actions and artifacts. This idea has proven to be a meaningful motor for my spirit. It gets me out of bed each morning.

However, many other Scientists seem contemptuous towards matters of faith. There grew up in the 1990s a form of Scientific Triumphalism which irritates me immensely. On the one hand, you had scientists lambasting faith-based religion as lacking any sound basis. However, they then trumpeted ideas such as The Theory of Everything, Many Worlds, Parallel Universes and a host of other bits and pieces of histrionic nonsense. None of these had evidence to support them – pure mind fluff.

All of this happened in the context of a quantum theory which has never once seemed self-consistent. It makes no direct statement of how the objects of the theory relate to observable reality. It is based on a panoply of rules without coherent foundation and a set of recipes for throwing away any results that should prove embarrassing.

Infinite predictions? Don’t worry, just settle on a cut-off and re-normalize away.

Infinite zero-point energy? Don’t worry, just ignore it.

Paradoxes of measurement and self-reference? Don’t worry, just kick the cat.

It is not bad to be pragmatic. It is sensible to press on and see what can be done in face of these difficulties. However, there also seems to be a stark double standard.

On the one hand, Scientists lambast faith as an arcane and primitive deficiency of the intellect. They trumpet rationalism in place of this and then laud Science as its most perfect exemplar. On the other hand, they hound and pillory those within their ranks who would fix the cracked foundations of their own glorious theories.

You simply cannot have it both ways.

If Scientists want the Public to be humble before their own God of Rationalism then they must be humble before the Flaws in Their Own Theories.

However, this is not the spirit of our age…

Much as a messianic leader of old, there is an attitude among Scientists, especially Physicists, that questions are unwelcome for the answers have been given.

I do believe in Rationalism, but I also believe in what the philosopher-investor George Soros described as Rational Fallibility. No theory is perfect. There is no Final Theory.

When you think you know it all, a surprise is surely in store.

In this connection, Weinberg once said that:

Science has Heroes but no Prophets.

Perhaps that is true, but who then will show the way to new theories? Is not prophecy the art of foreseeing that which the multitude will not see?

No rational mind would attribute divine qualities to a Hedge Fund manager. However, what equipped George Soros with the gift of financial prophecy was an understanding of Human Fallibility, both his own, and that of other market players.

The Prophet sees what could happen which the multitude do not want to happen.

Hence I am led to a small prophecy about Physics.

I think physics has become very authoritarian. What is done and what is praised no longer seems to bear a strong relationship with scientific method. Instead, it seems to have become a game to garner social favor. Ideas are presented and then canonized seemingly without regard to their level of empirical support.

Once we develop a social caste of High Priests then the destination is clear:

Physics will have Popes but no God.

Once a community stops asking the searching questions, the rational basis of Science is lost. Not for ever, but until the boil is lanced.

Until that day, there is next to no difference between Science and Religion.

It will be High Priests versus the Heathen Mongols.