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Reaction to the book 'The Beginning of Infinity (part 2)

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Written by: Healthysport

Created: 09 March 2024

Last Updated: 09 March 2024

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There were scientific prophets of doom in the past that were proven wrong. Thomas Robert Malthus of Malthusian theory, prophesied that exponential population growth against  linear food production growth would lead to hunger and starvation and lowering of life’s quality and the demise of humanity. Humanity defied him.

Paul Ehrlich is another prophet of doom mirroring the Malthusian who in the 1970s advocated population control due to the world resources’ unsustainability. So far none of his predictions have happened despite the world’s population increasing to more than 7 billion.

Other doom predictions include climate change (which is, at least to me,  real). The ticking nuclear war prediction pushes the world closer to the brink of annihilation (again, it is true to me) but humanity has so far deterred it. The existential threat of another and more deadly pandemic like covid-19 remains a threat. But I got optimism. Necessity can be the mother of all inventions. Or, as Steve Jobs had put it, Invention can create a necessity. 

What the prophets of doom fail to consider is the capacity of the human brain to solve the problems they warn about; their doom scenarios are real and probably correct but human intelligence is a weapon that can counter all  that. Instead of succumbing to Malthusian, humanity’s agricultural productivity matched and even exceeded in answering the needs of  the increasing population; scientists came up with solutions in countering climate change, and some are implementing them. Recent pandemic proved human intellectual capacity. The creation of the vaccine against the COVID  in a matter of months was unprecedented. ***The future depletion of fossil fuels is pushing for machines that use alternative sources.  

In my lifetime we have seen the magic of human intellect. I have worked in the health field and  witnessed progress all the way from laser treatments of kidney stones or eyes (for example), to robotic surgeries, to microvascular surgeries, to reversal of strokes through properly timed treatments and interventions and miraculous recoveries from illnesses by reducing complications, managing infectious diseases through proper isolation and containment and universal precautions.

And there are the revolutionary genetic  diagnostics and possible gene treatments; regeneration  of tissues and organ transplants are widening their scope and audacity in prolonging life. Though I am  happy to note all these advancements, humanity is merely touching the tip of the iceberg. It is not prudent to say we are now  in the final frontier because every frontier is a precursor to  another frontier in the quest for knowledge. What I know today will be obsolete tomorrow. Knowledge is infinite. 

The reason is the capacity of his brain to pursue multiple solutions in meeting the problems thrown at him. The laws of Nature (or Physics) is what it is. Humans have the ability to question, criticize, alter, modify, test, learn from errors, experiment -- and most of all - explain. The most basic and fundamental  quest of Man is a good answer and explanation to his questions. So long as he is asking, probing, experimenting, theorizing, he will always come up with something.

Imagine for a moment if someone told you that what you know today is the most advanced knowledge Humanity can reach and there is no more to learn. Or if someone tells you that God is commanding you to quit learning now and just sit and pray for the rest of eternity. What if someone threatens you to stop learning now or you will be put to jail. 

That  person being told will most likely ask why, how, when, what;  that is a part of human nature. We immediately ask questions (even without verbalizing it) if we’re told about anything. If the response is ‘Because I told you so’ would make the person, especially the inquisitive,  wilt in sorrow and die. ‘I told you so’ in the form of dogma and threat and incapacitation does not match humanity’s nature. Without clear and concise explanations to questions and phenomena causes resentment, hate and distrust. 

***This is due to human nature’s inherent nature to explore the infinity around him. 

Yes, the quest for knowledge (or explanations) is infinite. Because the scope of knowledge is infinite. On a personal note,  I agree with the Biblical explanation of God. Is that the reason why God could not reveal himself through the limited senses of Man. When he appeared to Moses, he was in the form of Burning Bush. His name?  “I am what I am”; or the more recent one in the New Testament, “I am the alpha and omega”. For me, that is basically the law of Nature. And the extent of Nature, including the cosmos, is unlimited. It is Infinity.

Given the accepted theory of the big bang, one would venture to ask what or who caused the big bang and furthermore, who or what caused the one responsible for it and this question will repeat itself ad infinitum until a good explanation is offered. Another would say the earth will die in 5 billion years and someone would ask what happens next and the next after that id infinitum. Physicists claim that the cosmos started with a big bang and will end in a big crunch. In between the two events all of its elements (solar systems, universes, stars, planets, moons)  are speedily expanding out away from each other. 

Surely there would be multiple ‘explanations’ for these phenomena, and none is final most likely. These explanations could be in the form of conjectures open to criticisms leading to another conjecture open for question ad infinitum. 

And that is alright because that is how the human brain is designed. To suppress its conjecture and criticism is basically reducing its expansion and advancement, very similar to the old Chinese tradition of foot binding a girl  at a young age so she loses balance and keeps falling when she turns into a woman. Humans cannot tolerate brain binding. 

That is why it is important to allow open-minded societies (like Athens) and avoid close-minded ( like Sparta). You can extrapolate that between communism and democracy(the right one); or between dictatorships and freely-elected forms of governments. This can further be exemplified by the Dark Ages vs Enlightenment (Renaissance); between preindustrial vs industrial age.

Nature, or more specifically Physics is discovering and transforming more phenomena and keeps on searching for explanations. It is boundless and endless. Much like the lives we live. It is funny how the achievement of something has multiple paths. It is like computer languages that can accomplish the same outcome and it doesn’t matter if you do it in java or c++ or ruby or python or VS or the latest variety of exotics like php, asp, javascript,  (and its many progenies), ror, django. There are indeed many ways to skin a cat. But is the cat alive or dead?