月份：2020年3月

Socrates: Let us then, in the first place, be careful of allowing or of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no health or soundness in any arguments at all. Rather say that we have not yet attained to soundness in ourselves, and we must struggle manfully and do our best to gain health of mind …… Whereas he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am rather seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter with me. For if what I say is true, then I do well to be persuaded of the truth, but if there be nothing after death, still, during the short time that remains, I shall not distress my friends with lamentations, and my ignorance will not last, but will die with me, and therefore no harm will be done …… And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee, leave my sting in you before I die.

Philosophical arguments often include incomplete induction and analogy. It first establishes several known examples with certain logical relationship. All of these examples share the same structure. It then proposes a new argument, unknown whether it is true or not. If this argument has exactly the same structure as the previous examples, it is deduced that the same logic must hold for this argument.

In Phaedo, the Forms of absolute beauty, justice, and goodness are invisible and immortal whereas the so-called beauty, justice, and goodness in the material world are visible and changeable. The body is visible and changeable; the soul is invisible. Following an analogous structure, it is deduced that the soul is immortal.

The essence of this problem is whether we could find a pair of opposites, other than the possible pair of life and death, so that among the opposites there is a process to convert A to B, but there is no process to convert B to A. If we could not, it would be very quirky to assume that life and death is the only pair that satisfies this condition, so it would be more natural for us to believe life is generated from death, namely there is reincarnation.

However, beyond life and death, there is actually a pair which satisfies this condition: the state of low entropy in a closed system versus the state of high entropy in that closed system. The former automatically becomes the latter, but there is no way for the latter to go back.

There are many pairs of opposites and pairs of processes which turn one into its opposite, e.g.

The less is turned into the more through the process of increase; the more is turned into the less through the process of decrease.

The parts are turned into the entirety through the process of composition; the entirety is turned into the parts through the process of division.

The coldness is turned into the hotness through the process of heating; the hotness is turned into the coldness through the process of cooling.

The asleep is turned into the awake through the process of waking up; the awake is turned into the asleep through the process of falling asleep.

……

It seems that for every process which turns one into its opposite, there is always a reversed process which turns the latter back into the former. All things which have opposites seem to be generated out of their opposites. And, does it still work for life and death?

The life is turned to death through the process of dying; the death is turned to life through the process of … ?

We are 2-dimensional creatures in a plane. The truth (or the Forms, in Plato’s words) is a 3-dimensional maze which rests on that plane. We can never understand the 3-dimensional maze itself, but we can see the shadow of the maze projected onto the plane, which as well constructs a 2-dimensional maze. Viewing from different angles, there are many entrances to the shadow maze. We can choose any entrance we want to enter the shadow maze. Some of the entrances lead to ugly, complicated and winding routes while some lead to beautiful, simple and symmetric routes. Perhaps both kinds of the routes can eventually lead to the most intrinsic essence of the maze. Yet, we would without hesitation prefer the more comprehensible path. The simpler the route is, the further we are likely to reach and the more we are likely to see.

I once believed that physics is unique. God determines every law that governs nature, unknown but immortal. We keep pursuing the ultimate of the universe, whereby we could talk to God and try to understand the message God has left for us. Before, people believed in myths such as gods driving the Sun to orbit the Earth. We then abandoned geocentricism and adopted heliocentrism. Later, Newton discovered gravity and told us the laws of motion…… Science has greatly progressed. It seems that every time a new theory comes into light, we rectify some widely accepted misconceptions and make a step further on the right course that extends to God’s will.

However, why do we commonly accept that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than the Sun orbits the Earth? One says it is because the heliocentric theory provides us with a powerful tool to predict the motion of all the planets in the solar system. The truth is that geocentricism isn’t less capable to offer such predictions. One says it is because the heliocentric theory is consistent with Newton’s mechanics, which describes motions under gravity in pure mathematical language. The truth is that if we choose a reference frame where the Earth is at rest, we can develop pure mathematics that describes geocentricism, although the mathematics is much more complicated. Actually, geocentricism can do everything that heliocentrism can do. Of course, one argues that we believe in heliocentrism because it is the more concise explanation of the phenomenon. But why do we pursue conciseness? Could we ever prove that conciseness is the better and the more natural way to understand the universe? If not, why are we so confident that heliocentrism is the one closer to the ultimate truth?

Things only get more upsetting when we consider modern physics. In the past, we were at least able to tell which theory appeared to be more concise, but because modern physics deals with things that are either too small or too large for us to imagine with common sense, we have to inevitably establish various counterintuitive theories that are hard to grasp. To explain the wave-particle duality and the behavior of measurement in quantum mechanics, we have proposed nearly a dozen explanations, all of which are reasonable but different. Due to their opaqueness, it is impossible to tell which is the most concise or the most natural way of understanding, so which theory should we believe in as the truth? Besides, the string theory, regarded as the most potential candidate for the Grand Unified Theory of Everything, has a reputation for being extraordinary symmetric and beautiful in its mathematical structure. That’s why most people tend to believe in it for they think such a perfectness could only be created by God. However, we do not know whether there are other theories as beautiful as, or even more beautiful than the string theory, and the answer is probably yes. Moreover, string theory cannot be verified or overthrown by any known experimental approaches, so it is indeed more metaphysical than physical, at least for now. In a word, the interpretations and the explanations of nature largely depend on human beings. Because phenomena in such scales are too abstract and intricate, we often establish different explanations for the same thing, and we are unable to tell which one is the most correct.

Even if the ultimate truth of the universe is unique, we could hardly uncover it and we even could not make sure whether we are on the right course. Therefore, we would never know where physics is leading us. In this sense, physics seems to be merely an art, through which physicists express themselves by coming up with new elegant theories. The study of modern physics is like a little boy asking what the sun is. A painter gives him a drawing of the sun. A composer plays a piece of music symbolizing the sun. A poet writes a poem about the sun. Eventually, the boy gets confused. These works of art are all so beautiful that he does not know which one he should rely on. Even with them in his hands, the boy can never reach the sun himself. These pieces of art are all self-expressions of their creators, rather than a successful attempt to approach the ultimate truth. It seems that physicists are only playing games with numbers, reassembling the puzzles in a way they believe to be the best. In light of this, physics seems to be aimless and meaningless. What is the purpose of physics then? Could we ever find out the truth if every explanation is only an artifact made by us?

It is believed that a best explanation is the one closest to the truth, but how do we define what best is? What are the benefits that heliocentrism can bring to us but geocentricism cannot? In fact, the key point is not which theory stands out to be more correct, but which theory has the potential to tell us more things. We love conciseness, not because it is a more natural and more correct explanation, but because conciseness is more conducive for us to go on our explorations. Both theories are equally right, to some extent, but the simpler theory enables us to calculate and comprehend things in a much faster and more effective way. The conciseness and beauty of the equations help us to develop a new system of intuition, through which we are able to perceive things with more powerful insights. It keeps shedding light on new areas that wait for our discoveries. That’s why we keep developing physics. We are pursuing the conciseness, the elegance, the symmetry, the balance, the conformity, in a word, the beauty of physics so as to find out more things and to build up more intuitions about the universe. Although all of our theories may not be the exact truth or the best interpretation of God’s will, they at least point out a new path for us to further proceed. The purpose of physics is to look for such an explanation that we could read more messages that God has left for us, and we could discover more and more hidden beauty in our life. How do we know whether we are on the right course? In short, the more intuitions the theory helps us develop, the further it could lead us; the more enlightening the theory is, the better it would be.