Q&A: The Limits of Science
The Limits of Science
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to know what you think the limits of science are—what lies beyond what it will ever be able to attain.
For example, can science look “above the laws of nature”—for instance, understand why the laws of nature are this way rather than some other way—or not?
After all, “for example—the answer to the question whether this or that law of nature could have been determined ‘by chance’ is sometimes yes; today it is thought that the fact that the universe is made of matter and not antimatter is connected to an accidental ‘symmetry breaking’ that occurred a very short time after the Big Bang. One of the surprising answers to the question of why there is life in the universe is that there may be many universes, and in each of them different laws of physics prevail, and our universe is, by chance, one of the universes in which the laws of physics allow for the existence of life.” (The quote is taken from an article by Prof. Yoram Kirsh.)
Can science make such a claim, or is this metaphysics?
Answer
One has to distinguish between the questions. Science can look above certain laws and ask why they are specifically like that, but the answer will ground them in other laws. I do not think science can offer an explanation for why our fundamental laws of nature are what they are, because if those are the fundamental laws, then it has no tools with which to explain them (every explanation is given within their framework).
The only way to explain the laws of nature from the ground up is only if it ultimately turns out that the laws of physics are nothing but laws of mathematics/logic—that is, pure reason in which there is no room for chance (something that could have been otherwise). Today it is generally accepted that the laws of nature are not logic, but rather something that could also have been otherwise.
Additional universes may exist, and perhaps there may be some scientific indications of their existence. That does not mean that every time a scientist says such a thing it is a scientific finding. On the contrary, usually these are speculations and possible hypotheses.