Imagine a world where there are no laws of nature whatsoever to control and restrict space, time, matter and energy. What would it be like?
Will it be a world of infinite possibilities as there won’t be any laws of nature restricting us from realizing our imagination?
or
Will it be a world of complete chaos where anything and everything can happen randomly resulting in chaos and noise everywhere?
THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE:
We don’t know for sure but what we do know is that the world in which we live in (all the matter and energy in the universe) is governed by the same set of laws in all corners of the universe. The laws of nature can be applied to all the things universally. The collection of these absolute laws by which the world operates is what we call as science.
One can say that science is an evolution of philosophy which describes nature in a way that is universal to all and can be tested experimentally. Science is a way of understanding the universe around us in a reasonable way by creating these universal laws that can be verified experimentally. Everyone can come up with their own philosophy about how the universe works but only one philosophy which can be verified experimentally and holds true with previously established theories is the right one and this one philosophy becomes the science.
EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE:
The first and foremost theories of universe form the fundamental science. Now these pre-established fundamental science becomes a platform upon which the new layer of science is built. This, in turn, becomes a platform upon which further science is built and this process of building science upon one another goes on like this till we find the answers to all our questions.
Thus each and every layer of science is evolved from the previous layer that acts as a point of reference for new layers of science. This is how the evolution of science happens. The evolution of science is gradual as it is built layer by layer.
The scientific proof is not really a proof but is either verification or disproof. Thus science is not absolute. We can never be sure that the laws that are in effect today were the same in the past and will be the same in the future. Science is based purely on the present observation of the universe. It can deduct from the remains of the past and can predict the future but neither of them is absolute.
As many scientific laws of past were disproven with time, today’s scientific laws might be disproven tomorrow and thus science is never absolute as the universe that we study is not of our own creation. We can only create, verify or disprove a hypothesis based on what we observe and what we observe changes over time. Hence science is not absolute and changes with time.
MATHEMATICS:
The mathematics is also a part of science which is evolved from philosophy. Abstraction and logic form the basis of mathematics. Mathematics can be thought of as a language that is used by science to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Unlike science, mathematics is absolute which is proven for all time and all circumstances. Any mathematical theorem can be absolutely proven as it only explains the universe created by the mind of the mathematicians and they have the knowledge of all of its parts. In mathematics, a theory once proven is always proven.
THE TREE OF SCIENCE:
The evolution of science is analogous to a tree. The seed represents the philosophy from which the tree of science is grown. The root of the tree represents the fundamental science upon which all other layers of science is built on. The trunk of the tree represents the common middle layers of science which act as a stem that supports the further layers of science and links them to the roots of science (fundamental science).The more common and more certain sciences like physics and chemistry form the trunk of the tree. These give a strong base for the tree to branch out further.
THE BRANCHES OF SCIENCE:
Continuing on the analogy, the branches of the tree represent the various branches of science that specialize in various narrow fields. The sciences are broadly branched out into natural science studying the material world, social science studying the people and societies, the formal science of mathematics and applied sciences like engineering, medicine, etc…
These branches further branch out into twigs which study even narrower sciences like statistics, probability, botany, zoology, Nanotechnology, Nuclear physics, astronomy, psychology, neurology, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, etc… Finally, the leaves of the tree of science represent the concepts and theories within those narrower fields of science.
THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE:
Presently, applied sciences are progressing exponentially while the underlying laws of theoretical physics are almost stagnant for over half a century. This is partly due to the uncertainty associated with the quantum theory and the absence of viable experiments to verify the hypothesis of different theories. If a field of science is stagnant for this much period of time without any testable theories, then there must be an underlying error or mistake associated with it.
As I explained earlier, the tree of science is built as many layers of abstractions of science. The structure is such that any error or mistake in the lower layers of the tree can result in enormous impacts on the top layer, the crown of the tree causing the scientific field to stagnate or move in the wrong direction. To avoid derailing from the path and to move towards the theory of everything, at every step we must re-evaluate science from its roots and go up gradually finding any errors overlooked by others and re-coursing the path towards the progress of science.
“THE GREAT QUEST OF LIFE HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO DISCOVER TRUTH.”
-Joyce Meyer.
“EVERYTHING IS THEORETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, UNTIL IT IS DONE.”
-Robert A. Heinlein.
“DON’T CLING TO A MISTAKE JUST BECAUSE YOU SPENT A LOT OF TIME MAKING IT.”
-Unknown.
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