(3 of 3)
HORGAN: Here's the big question we're dancing around: Can we keep discovering profound new truths about reality forever, or is the process finite? You seem to assume that because science has advanced so rapidly over the past few centuries, it will continue to do so, possibly forever. But this view is, to use your word, ahistorical, based on faulty inductive logic. In fact, inductive logic suggests that the modern era of explosive scientific progress might be an anomaly, a product of a singular convergence of social, intellectual and political factors. If you accept this, then the only question is when, not if, science will reach its limits. The American historian Henry Adams observed almost a century ago that science accelerates through a positive-feedback effect. Knowledge begets more knowledge; power begets more power. This so-called acceleration principle has an intriguing corollary: If science has limits, then it might be moving at maximum speed just before it hits the wall.
HOFFMAN: Of course, I accept that science has limits--and may even be up against them in some fields. But I believe there is still room for science, even on its grandest scale, that awe-inspiring discoveries will continue to be made over this millennium. The mathematician Ronald Graham once said, "Our brains have evolved to get us out of the rain, find where the berries are and keep us from getting killed. Our brains did not evolve to help us grasp really large numbers or to look at things in a hundred thousand dimensions." Sounds reasonable, except when you consider that it could be similarly said that our brains didn't evolve to invent computers, design spaceships, play chess and compose symphonies. John, I think we'll continue to be surprised by what the brains of scientists turn up.
HORGAN: I hope you're right, Paul. I became a science writer because I believe science is humanity's most meaningful creation. We are here to figure out why we are here. The thought that this grand adventure of discovery might end haunts me. What would it be like to live in a world without the possibility of further revelations as profound as evolution or quantum mechanics? Not everyone finds this prospect disturbing. The science editor of the Economist once pointed out to me that if science does end, we will still have sex and beer. Maybe that's the right attitude, but there aren't any Nobels in it. No matter how far science does or doesn't advance, however, there's one wild card in even the most pessimistic scenario. If we encounter extraterrestrial life--and especially life intelligent enough to have developed its own science--then all bets are off.