Questions Science Cannot Answer?

[ZacharyNardolillo]

Are there questions that quite literally cannot be answered? Think of this question for a moment, as an example to the main idea here.

Could time possibly travel back and fourth into the past and future completely randomly? If it did, I see no way we could possibly detect it, because if we were to go back in time then we would immediately lose our memories of the "future" and any documents we may have written or typed would have been undone. Then again, we may be accelerated into the future, but how could you know that it happened?

Another thing: Is it possible to discover the existence of something that has no effect on our physical universe? If we cannot observe it directly, nor can we observe the effects of it, Can it even be discovered? This seems to remind me of Studdinger's Cat, I beleive it's called but I most likely didn't spell that right.

So can anyone come up with an answer to any of these three questions? I'd like to beleive science can answer any question, but after pondering this I'm not so sure...

[Moontanman]

Science can answer any meaningful question, the existence of something we cannot detect in any way shape or form seems meaningless to me... even something as ethereal as love has effects, if something has no effects then how would we even know to ask the question?

[arkain101]

This is a good subject and one worthy of tackling indeed to deeply understand the substance that makes up science.

 

If we look at matter (the physical universe) and dissect it with all our potential what do we end up with?

 

Let's observe an 'object'.

 

The object has Mass-Energy within a Space-Time field.

 

However, mass is a property of an object, and not necessarily something of an object itself. (Is it not? well thats a good question for science to try and answer).

 

What other 'things' we measure are just properties?

 

Well it turns out in a certain area of science nearly everything we "observe" in our world is made of is a property. We can go further to say that "our world" is infact our mind, which creates this particular macroscopic model out of the primary world which is essentially unknown relative to all our 5 senses and therefore our imagination.

 

Color is a property. Size is a property. Shape is a property. Objects are infact property. Position and many many other things can be considered just properties. Like illusions from some other function, just out of reach, just barely hidden.

 

For example: If we considered the idea that everything in the universe was actually just a string (like in super string theory) then every other single thing would only be a manifestation brought about by that string. Everything would be a property of the undivisible constituents of reality.

[Rade]

Everything would be a property of the undivisible constituents of reality.

I agree--these constituents have been called "primary substances" (Aristotle). All reality (mass and energy) is either (1) predicated of primary substances or (2) present within them. All primary substances act as a unit. That which is a primary substance has no contrary. A primary substance does not have variation of degree. However, a primary substance can admit of contrary qualities, it can, for example, be a wave at one time, a particle the next, yet maintain its identity as a unit. String Theory is a theory with much in common to the concept of primary substances of Aristotle.

[arkain101]

I agree--these constituents have been called "primary substances" (Aristotle). All reality (mass and energy) is either (1) predicated of primary substances or (2) present within them. All primary substances act as a unit. That which is a primary substance has no contrary. A primary substance does not have variation of degree. However, a primary substance can admit of contrary qualities, it can, for example, be a wave at one time, a particle the next, yet maintain its identity as a unit. String Theory is a theory with much in common to the concept of primary substances of Aristotle.

 

 

Interesting Rade.

 

I have a deep question that I wonder if "science" can answer. And it is in my opinion, extremely important to answer this question because it relates to the validation or invalidation of a complete unifying theory.

 

 

The question is:

 

Is there a method or procedure that is capable to measure, observe, and/or capture specific particles, such as quarks when they are grouped together in their natural state (ie proton). And can this be done without using the method of particle annihilation performed by particle accelerators.

 

In more simple terms... Can we reach in with any kind of "tool" and pluck out a desired quark, then measure it, and capture it even if for an instant?

 

 

 

 

The reason I ask this question is because one type of theoretical view says that all quarks are like blank slates and can take on the properties of any one of the six(?) other quarks, and when we smash a particle apart like a neutron or a proton, what we have done is break apart the object into all possible and reasonable forms.

 

 

 

 

So in effect, I am just adding a question to the list which Zac started here.

[maddog]

As Moontanman said, being meaningful is crucial to answerability to generate the drive to ponder an answer.

 

An example (one I ponder) is "what is the speed of thought ?"

 

With current science, this can not be answered. This is primarily because we can not describe what thoughts are composed of in some physical way.

 

BTW, it is Schroedinger's Cat.

 

maddog

[Rade]

The question is:

 

Is there a method or procedure that is capable to measure, observe, and/or capture specific particles, such as quarks when they are grouped together in their natural state (ie proton). And can this be done without using the method of particle annihilation performed by particle accelerators.

 

In more simple terms... Can we reach in with any kind of "tool" and pluck out a desired quark, then measure it, and capture it even if for an instant?

Well, see here:

http://www.physorg.com/news190381902.html

 

It is not about quarks (which current theory states that it is not possible to separate individually) but electrons, which meets your goal of being a "specific particle". In this research single electrons were extracted directly from a single plant cell without annihilation of the plant cell and the electrons were used to generate an electric current. The tool used derives from nanotechnology--an exciting field of study.

[Pyrotex]

questions science cannot answer:

 

Why does size continue to matter even though we know it doesn't?

 

Was irony created in the Big Bang?

 

If a man says something in the forest where no woman can hear him, is he still wrong?

 

If time is an illusion, then why does it matter if I'm late?

 

Why are humans so obsessed with raising ignorance to a form of high art?

 

What do women really want?

[arkain101]

Those are great Pyrotex.

 

Could time possibly travel back and fourth into the past and future completely randomly? If it did, I see no way we could possibly detect it, because if we were to go back in time then we would immediately lose our memories of the "future" and any documents we may have written or typed would have been undone. Then again, we may be accelerated into the future, but how could you know that it happened?

 

First, can time travel back and forth?

 

My investigation tells me that you see time as a line. A line with a beginning and an end that possibly everything travels along. Like how we express evolutionary history or something like this on a time line.

 

However, there are various interpretations of what time is and what time can be defined by and as.

 

If you consider the night sky an observation of time unfolding, different distances being different times, then yes time does flow in all directions. The light leaving you goes into the past. The past event from far away flows towards your future so on and so forth.

 

Time measured by a clock is a wrapped up ruler stick. It measures increments at a specific velocity for a given distance and repeats this order as needed in order to deal with distances and velocities itself.

 

There are many questions science HAS not answered. However, to say that science CAN not answer a question is a bit far stretched.

 

Science is, a method backed up by knowledge and information. So can investigation, knowledge, and information answer any question? As long as the question itself is built from the knowledge and information in some form.. as long as it connects logically. Otherwise, you will have to change the way you think, and invent something new in order to deal with the unknown.

[HydrogenBond]

If you look at the history of science there are many things we know today, which we did not know existed, not too long ago. One hundred years ago, DNA did not exist as far as anyone knew. Nobody would even know how to pose the question to theorize it. It would take a series of other discoveries and improvements in technology and then it appeared in full light.

[Kriminal99]

If you are talking about science as an establishment, then god yes there are many questions it cannot answer.

 

If you are talking about it as more of a pursuit that an individual can partake in, science has far fewer limitations but then it is also less distinguishable from other means of gaining knowledge. It basically just involves being skeptical and careful, using specific techniques which can be understood (along with others) by looking at philosophical principles of skepticism etc..

 

An individual trying to identify, question and test his own assumptions is a clever way to be more certain of what he knows, or so the story goes.

 

However the truth is each person has a line on one side of which lies beliefs that the person would never question, simply because he has never seen a belief of that type turn out to be false. Less intelligent people draw that line such that it includes everything they think they know in the "infallible" group. This is because they suck at "typing" their beliefs and experiences, so they are surprised every time they turn out to be wrong even though from someone else's perspective they are making the same mistake over and over.

 

If you are that person who has a more accurate idea of which beliefs to question, then reciting scientific mantras of self-skepticism does no good. You already know it and don't need to repeat it to yourself, and the less intelligent people won't get anything out of it because you are not teaching them how to generalize better.

 

So science as an establishment adapts procedures to force relatively less intelligent people to question what would be their personal interpretation of what they observe.

 

Doing this also puts a limitation on more intelligent and analytical people who can make written logical arguments with the same validity as a mathematical expression. Of course these arguments would still be up for peer review in terms of specific validity etc however less intelligent people involved in science will look at such arguments and say it is unscientific because it doesn't have references or doesn't prove the assertions with experimental results. The accurate response would be to tell those people that those are things they must always do because they are stupid and cannot follow reasoning which equates to 1+1 = 2 for those of higher intelligence, but obviously such a response would never be accepted by the general populace.

 

Because average scientists/academics can't tell the difference between an assumption and a logical proof of something, we must exclude all non-mathematical proofs from public scientific thought, which precludes "science" from answering many questions that cannot be addressed with mathematics and causes "science" to answer many questions incorrectly due to improper framing of the associated mathematical problem. Because of even the possibility of this happening some people believe that mathematics has devolved into meaningless symbol manipulation. This could happen if mathematicians, in their eagerness to insulate mathematics from all the questions debated in epistemology and logical reasoning at large, made assumptions at various points that contradicted each other or were wrong.

 

(Either general assumptions regarding such things as the properties of infinity, or assumptions specific to an application) I have seen many mathematical arguments that were invalidated because of poor reasoning used in the setup which rendered the results irrelevant or wrong, and yet because the math followed the prescribed rules and conventions it was treated as a valid mathematical proof.

[Illiad]

Are there questions that quite literally cannot be answered?

 

I'd say no, all questions must have answers. We just haven't found it yet. If it doesn't, it's more of a problem than a question.

 

 

Could time possibly travel back and fourth into the past and future completely randomly? If it did, I see no way we could possibly detect it, because if we were to go back in time then we would immediately lose our memories of the "future" and any documents we may have written or typed would have been undone. Then again, we may be accelerated into the future, but how could you know that it happened?

 

Actually you are always kinda living in the past, because by the time your brain gives meaning to the information the senses received, some small amount of time would have passed.

 

Now lets say you are making tea. Then 'god' decided to fling you back to the point in time where you are deciding between coffee and tea. I believe you would decide to make tea again. Though we may appear to have free will, our decision making brain is always influenced by even the most subtle of subtleties. Say in your case, it's the yellow paper clip on your desk, yellow is the color of Lipton, therefore you decide to make tea today. Rewinding to this particular point in time would give you the same '...the yellow paper clip on your desk, yellow is the color of Lipton, therefore you decide to make tea today'. You don't have your memory from the actual time you belong to tell you, ' Well, hah, just to prove I have free will, I would make coffee this time instead of tea'. And since making tea always gives you tea, flinging you then into the future, you would be drinking tea, not coffee, and back to the past, you would be making tea, not coffee. So you cant think 'hmm the last time i was here at this particular point in time, I was making coffee and this time I'm making tea, there is something strange going on'. I'd say you'll never find out. Some people argue that time is not even real, but I can't really elaborate more on that, since I know very little of it.

 

Is it possible to discover the existence of something that has no effect on our physical universe? If we cannot observe it directly, nor can we observe the effects of it, Can it even be discovered?

 

I guess not.

[Michaelangelica]

It would be nice if chemistry was not such an inexact science

Where is the Star Trek Chemical analyser and synthesiser when you want it?

NMR just doesn't cut it esp. when you want atomic structure