Nothing to be proved out there

• MUKUL SHARMA
THIS notion that science seeks to empirically understand the nature of physical reality is not only wearing thin but has begun to beg the question in a big way. That’s because the premise of a “physical reality” — one that is considered to be the sum of all matter-energy patterns in existence — is turning out to be such a dynamic and fast-changing concept that hypotheses regarding it have to be modified almost as soon as they are formulated. What this means is that the goal of objectivity in knowledge can no longer be properly sustained. Before the 20th century, for instance, the “out there” was something which was believed to be static and basically provable and, therefore, considered easy to analyse and investigate. But after Einstein and quantum mechanics, this peaceful worldview underwent a historic transformation. Time turned out to be a fourth dimension, gravitation was the result of curved space, subatomic particles could be at two places at once, one aspect of something could never be measured without compromising another, black holes sucked stuff into the limbo of oblivion — in short nothing was as it appeared to be. Still science soldiered on. Next, two foundational pillars of objectivity began crumbling: causality and the ultimate nature of the medium things are immersed in — spacetime. The flow or arrow of time appeared not to necessarily respect a past to future movement. Meaning, the theoretical statements that describe physical processes at the microscopic level remain true even if the direction of time is reversed. So can effects at this level come into existence before their causes are generated or what? Also, theories suggest that at sufficiently small scales spacetime loses its continuous nature because of things like virtual particles popping in and out of existence in a process called “vacuum fluctuation.” Both space and time then become a grainy foam instead. Of course science doesn’t have to be abandoned because of these momentous discoveries. For one thing, the discoveries themselves were made because of the findings of science. It has also given us awesome and almost magical technological prowess and continues to do so. However, what it needs to develop now is a little respect for what it studies and probably a generous helping of subjectivity, too, in order to justly elaborate on the transcendent nature of its subject.