When Will Science End?

[Typist]

Ok, here's one of my favorite questions.  A science question, and a atheism/religion question too.

For the last 500 years or so science has been learning about reality in earnest, at an ever accelerating rate.    

When will this process reach it's conclusion?   When will science run out of significant new things to learn?

[Squid]

There will never be a point at which there are no more questions to answer since every answer just produces more questions.

[Typist]

Thanks Squid, that surely does seem to be the pattern so far.

The accelerating rate of knowledge seems a factor worth considering.  Let's say we're learning at 20 miles per hour now.  In a hundred years we might be learning at 100 miles an hour.   In 500 years, 7,000 miles per hour.  

Will the accelerating rate of knowledge development continue?   What does it mean if the rate of learning continues to accelerate, and like Squid says, we never reach the end of it??

[Whitney]

While new information always seems to create new questions I think we'll eventually hit a brick wall where there are more questions but no actual way to investigate them.  However, I don't think we would know we hit it and would just keep trying forever to figure out a way to find the answer.

But, I don't think it would be right to say that "science" would end...people (or at least robot helpers) would still need to practice it in their everyday lives to make products, repair machinery etc.

[Tanker]

At the heat death of the Universe mabye.

[AlP]

Suggest comparing science to scientism and positivism.

[chrisssteeven]

I don't think the science will ever end as science is related to each and everything.I think our end will be the science end as we are the only researchers.

[Typist]

But, I don't think it would be right to say that "science" would end...people (or at least robot helpers) would still need to practice it in their everyday lives to make products, repair machinery etc.

Yes, good point.  Thanks for that clarification.  The question should be rephrased to "when will scientific discovery end."

The question might be worded this way too.    What is the relationship between the known and the unknown?  

If we propose that knowledge development will 1) continue to expand at 2) an ever increasing rate for 3) a long time, then it would seem to follow that the set of things that can be known is extremely large.  

And as Whitney suggests, there may be another set of reality data that is beyond what can be known by humans.  This makes sense as every species has it's limits.

Under this theory, the known would seem to be a very small fraction of the unknown.    If the unknown were assigned a value of one billion, the known might be assigned a value of 221, or something like that.

If this theory is judged to be reasonably plausible, what is our relationship to this data environment?   If it's true that the overwhelming majority of data is not yet in, how do I insist that ABC is true, or that XYZ is false?

[elliebean]

Even if we did finally learn everything there is to know now, things change. Everytime something changes, we'll get to learn something new.

[Ellainix]

For some of us, it's high school.

[theTwiz]

For some of us, it's high school.

Which in some parts of the world is optimistic at best.

[Typist]

For some of us, it's high school.

Ha, ha!  

[elliebean]

For some of us, it's high school.

lol  

[Faradaympp]

The idea that science can and will solve every problem in the universe is called scientific determinism, at some pooint it was believed that math would also reach a perfected climax. That was disproved a while ago so it would not bge unreasonable to think that science may not be able to explain every last detail of our universe. Don't get me wrong I still think science is the best thing since sliced bread but we will never truly know everything.

[Typist]

What interests me is our relationship to knowledge.

If it's true that science will continue to learn, at an accelerating pace, for a very long time, then...

It seems to follow that we currently know a very small fraction of what can be known.  Probably a very very very small fraction.   That seems fascinating.    

What's more fascinating, to me anyway, is that lots and lots of people are running around proclaiming all kinds of certainties in this environment.   We just can't help ourselves.  Our desire to KNOW, and be superior to somebody else, overwhelms the simple logic of the factual situation.

And what gets lost in all these declarations can be ...

You know that feeling we have when we first arrive at a national park that we've never been to before, and we are filled with the enthusiastic excitement of discovery?

What a shame it would be if we instead chose to pretend we already know everything about the park, just so we can position our ego above that of our friends.    Bummer...