• Question: Do you think that there is a limit to what we can find out about the world and how much we can improve technology and if so, what would happen to scientists after that?

    Asked by to Aimee, Chris, Dave, Greig, Laurence on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Aimee Hopper

      Aimee Hopper answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      we will never know why everything happens, because every time we find one answer to something it opens up a massive number of other questions.
      The only real limiting factor is technology, and whether that is up to the same level as the questions it hopes to solve.

    • Photo: Greig Cowan

      Greig Cowan answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      In general, I don’t think there is a limit, we will always be able to ask deeper and deeper questions about how the World works. Over 100 years ago a famous scientist (Lord Kelvin) said that there was nothing new to be discovered in science and all that was left is more and more precise measurement! He was a good scientists but on this aspect he was wrong as we have discovered many many new things since then! Some of these have only been discovered through more precise measurements, but some have not. I think science has a lot more to teach us in the years ahead.

    • Photo: Laurence Perreault Levasseur

      Laurence Perreault Levasseur answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      That’s a very deep question you are asking, onyeari!
      I should start by saying that many philosophers and scientists have very different opinions on this question, so there is definitely no consensus. All what we, the 5 scientists, are saying here are our own opinions, because there is no ‘proof’ or ‘fact’ supporting one answer to your question over the other (because no one has been in the future to test ;)).

      At this precise moment, I can think of a number of questions to which science may not ever provide complete answers. For example, questions like ‘why is there a Universe rather than nothing’, ‘what is the nature of time’, ‘what is the origin of consciousness’, ‘is there free will’…

      But then, I guess it probably says more about my brain’s limited capacities than about a fundamental truth concerning humans and their nature. After all, in the past, many people have argued that we would never understand earthquakes, or volcanos, or atoms, that merely asking those questions was trespassing on divine territory. But we still have asked, and we have researched, and we have obtained answers on all these questions.

      So that leads me to think that even if I can’t see how today, maybe all questions can eventually be answered (but, again, I can’t be sure…).

      Lets say that, for the sake of argument, any single question can eventually be answered. To answer your original question, we need to think about whether there is such a big number of questions to be asked that we will never answer them all. So we have to think about what it means to scientifically answer a question. According to the scientific method, it means to experimentally make a measurement to prove an hypothesis. So answering all questions would mean to measure everything. Will we ever be able to measure everything? I think it’s unlikely.

      Another interesting question is, even if we did, how would we know that we knew everything?

      I’ll leave you on a quote from Planck:
      ‘Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.’

    • Photo: Dave Jones

      Dave Jones answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      I don’t think so. Part of the beauty of science is that by answering one question, you discover that there are ten more we need to ask! So, it just gets more and more interesting!

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