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The limitations of science

שו”תCategory: generalThe limitations of science
asked 8 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to know what the rabbi thought were the limitations of science? That it could never achieve anything beyond that.
For example, can science look “above the laws of nature” to understand why the laws of nature are this way and not otherwise?
“For example, the answer to the question of whether this or that law of nature could have been determined “by chance” is sometimes positive; today it is believed that the fact that the universe is made of matter and not antimatter is related to a coincidental “symmetry breaking” that occurred very shortly 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 that different laws of physics prevail in each of them, 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 claim this or is it metaphysics?


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מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
The questions must be distinguished. Science can look beyond certain laws and ask why they are the way they are, but the answer will place them above other laws. I don’t think science can offer an explanation for why our fundamental laws of nature are the way they are, because if these are the fundamental laws then it doesn’t have the tools to explain them (any explanation is done within their framework). The only way to explain the laws of nature from the ground up is if it ultimately turns out that the laws of physics are nothing more than laws of mathematics/logic, i.e. pure logic that leaves no room for chance (which could have been different). It is now common to think that the laws of nature are not logic but something that could have been different. Additional universes may exist, and perhaps there may be some scientific indications of their existence. This does not mean that every time a scientist says what one is, it is a scientific finding. On the contrary, it is usually speculation and possible hypotheses.

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