Faith Meets Science: Do Beauty and elegance have real meaning?

30 janvier 2021
by A. Adedapo
6 min read
82 Comments

We come across two chemistry students revisiting the debate about faith and science:

Sarah: But are there not scientist like Richard Dawkins who believe that everything is made of matter and can be explained ultimately by natural science?

Reza: Oh, yes this is called the reductionist approach.

Sarah: Well, why can we not explain all human behaviour and discoveries as being due to atoms and equations?

Reza: Well if you believe that the Universe is only physical you can.

Sarah: But that is not all to the argument?

Reza: No there is still a problem even if you assume that the Universe is purely physical (and I am not saying that this is so).

Sarah: So what is the problem then? 

Reza: According to Rodney D.Holder [1], if we are no more than atoms, and molecules, arranged due to processes causes by chance and evolution, then this affects our humanity.

Sarah: How ? What do you mean?

Reza: Well then “love, beauty, good, evil, free will, reason itself – indeed all that makes us human and raises us above the rest of the created order -lose their meaning. Morality ceases to possess any basis in objectivity [2]”

Sarah: Wow!

Reza: It gets worse. 

Sarah: Tell me!

Reza: If my reasoning is due to random processes, I cannot even be certain that what I am thinking now makes logical sense or is related to the real world.

Sarah: But that’s crazy!

Reza: Yes! And also, what would be the basis for morality, law and order and obeying the rules and laws that makes for a stable, safe society?  Why not live selfishly? What would be the basis for justice?

Sarah: But people do obey laws and do good, so there must be something  wrong with the argument somewhere.

Reza: Well, the Mathematician, Kurt Gödel proved mathematically that we cannot know everything [3] for a start.

Sarah: And what else?

Reza: He showed that in any mathematical system there exists statements that we know to be true but that cannot be proved

Sarah: What does this mean?

Reza: This means that we can show mathematically that we cannot explain everything.

Sarah: And so?

Reza: And so, it pains me to admit this as a scientist, but it means that mathematics and natural science cannot explain everything!

Sarah: And this has been proven mathematically?

Reza: Yes and there is more.

Sarah: Oh no!

Reza: Oh yes. We can also say that once you have a  mathematical or scientific explanation of a physical phenomenon or the universe, it does not mean that all of importance that can be said about it has been said or discovered. 

Sarah: Is there more? 

Reza: Oh yes.

Sarah: Tell me.

Reza: Well, the belief that everything can be explained in terms of equations or is only material means that ultimately, the characteristics of good, evil, and beauty would have no meaning.

Sarah: Yes you’ve said this before. And scientist look for theories that are the simplest explanation of the phenomenon and are elegant and aesthetically pleasing.

Reza: I know, but bare with me.

Sarah: Go on.

Reza: But don’t you see?

Sarah: See what ?

Reza: Well, the existence of the laws themselves by being simple but not simplistic, elegant and aesthetically pleasing contradict the view that beauty and elegance have ultimately no meaning in the Universe!

Sarah: But could we not say that it is just by chance?

Reza: If this took place  once or twice, we could say it was chance.

But this is what scientists have observed consistently throughout the Universe. For example the organisation of the 118 or so elements in a logical and meaningful manner in the periodic table or the equation force=mass multiplied by acceleration (f=ma)

Sarah: Are there scientist who support this viewpoint of beauty and elegance?

Reza:Yes, Einstein and Paul Dirac.

Sarah: What was Dirac’s viewpoint?

Reza: According to Rodney D Holder: “The great Cambridge physicist Paul Dirac, who unified special relativity and quantum theory and predicted the existence of antimatter took an extreme view of the importance of elegance in a  theory [4].”

Sarah: What did he say? 

Reza: When Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac visited Moscow in 1956, he wrote on the blackboard: « A physical law must possess mathematical beauty.”[5] and according to Holder he said:“ It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.[6]..”

Sarah: Do we see this elsewhere?

Reza: Yes, in all areas of science: in botany, the chemistry of crystals, in information, in computer science, in mathematics and physics etc. In fact there is “the famous Principle of Mathematical Beauty that Dirac developed during his scientific life”[7]

Sarah: So dear reader, what do you think about the ultimate basis for justice and “reason beyond logic” or Gödel’s  proof or beauty in science?

Sources

[1]  Holder, Rodney D; Nothing but Atoms and Molecules:Probing the limits of science © Rodney, D Holder 2008; 3rd Edn. Monarch Publications, Cambridge, 2008, pp10 

[2]  Holder, Rodney D; Nothing but Atoms and Molecules:Probing the limits of science © Rodney, D Holder 2008; 3rd Edn. Monarch Publications, Cambridge, 2008, pp10-11 

[3] Discussed in Holder, Rodney D. – (2004) “God, the Multiverse and Everything” Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire, England page 89-90

[4] Holder, Rodney D; Nothing but Atoms and Molecules:Probing the limits of science © Rodney, D Holder 2008; 3rd Edn. Monarch Publications, Cambridge, 2008, pp32-33

[5] Index of /vismath/stakhov2009; Stakhov, Alexey. Dirac’s Principle of Mathematical Beauty, Mathematics of Harmony and “Golden” Scientific Revolution, Www.goldenmuseum.com, 1 Feb. 2009, www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/stakhov2009/mathharm.pdf.  see: http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/stakhov2009/Accessed 19th August 2020

[6] Holder, Rodney D; Nothing but Atoms and Molecules:Probing the limits of science © Rodney, D Holder 2008; 3rd Edn. Monarch Publications, Cambridge, 2008, pp32-33

[7] Index of /vismath/stakhov2009; Stakhov, Alexey. Dirac’s Principle of Mathematical Beauty, Mathematics of Harmony and “Golden” Scientific Revolution, Www.goldenmuseum.com, 1 Feb. 2009, www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/stakhov2009/mathharm.pdf.  see: http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/stakhov2009/Accessed 19th August 2020

(c) A. Adedapo

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