NEW OUTLOOK OF SCIENCE

Evening Star, Issue 19143, 9 January 1926, Page 18

NEW OUTLOOK OF SCIENCE

B AS THE CENTRAL MYSTERY THE FUTURE GF RELSGIGH [By J. W. N. Sullivan, in the London ‘ Observer.’] It has been apparent for some little time past that tiio latest advances in science have made a radically new outlook on the universe inevitable. While tho ordinary man inis been becoming more and more familiar with thq old scion tide outlook, the» men of science themselves have been engaged in destroying it. And with their work of destruction has come tho realisation that the old conflict between the scientific and religious outlooks is baseless. Wc are veritably at the dawn of a new age; the materialistic philosophy which has weighed so heavily upon the human spirit since the days of Newton can no longer look to science for its chief support. Wo now know the limitations of science, and these limitations have been revealed to us by science itself.

Tho whole of this new orientation of thought really began in 1915, when Einstein published his generalised theory of relativity. But it did not become, as it were, fully conscious until quite recently, and there arc still many implications, of course, that remain to be explored. But how great is the revolution that has been accomplished, the reader may see by turning to the now volume of essays, ‘.Science, .Religion, and Reality,’ and particularly to the contribution by Professor Eddington, our leading authority on relativity, entitled ‘ The Domain of Physical Science.’ MINDS AND BRAINS.

Wo may say briefly that Professor Eddington has shown that the science of physios, the basic science, and the one that has provided the other sciences with their ideals, is concerned only with the form of phenomena, and not with their content. Of the intrinsic nature of matter, for instance, science knows nothing, and never can know anything. Relativity theory lias made it possible to analyse, in a way novel' possible before, the actual procedure of physics. Wo reach Urn at first sight paradoxical conclusion that physics is concerned with nothing whatever but readings on measuring insti iiincnts. All that physics has to say about the properties of matter is real 13’ a recoid of the relations that arc found to exist between readings on various iusliuOl Tv'-hsil matter is science tells us nothing. . , Lot us consider, for instance, pile old problem as to whether qur minds are the product of our brains, uidfasliioncd materialism said’ yes, and this answer was supposed to toll us something important. For our mams arc made of matter, and it was supposed that everybody knew what matter was. But now wo realise t.iat the answer tells us nothing at all. Jt may even bo a true answer, but the materialist has explained nothing by_ it. For all we know matter may itself he mental. As Professor Eddington puts it; “There is nothing Lo prevent the assemblage of atoms forming tho brain from being itself a thinking machine in virtue of that nature which puysms leaves undetermined and undeterminable.” WHAT IS MA ! i .Eu ?

The fact is Unit matter has been, bv relativity theory, analysed away into something that seems just as different from matter as thought itself. lor instance, matter can bo mathematically derived from what are called ‘ potentials ” it is not necessary to know what potentials arc. The interesting Umm is that they can be derived from other things—via., “point Neither is it necessary to know vnai- “ noint events ” are. Ah _wc J’ ccfl know is that they can ho derived Irorn “ matter.” So thn-t the analysis tomes back to its starling poim. Jt is Hi-' dictionary definition ol vioun as a small violoncello, and violoncello ns a largo violin. The science of physics forms a, closed system simply bv his extraordinary device of circular dchmtK]t might ho thought that a science constructed in this wav w.r, tell ns nothing. But it does tell us something, because, although P 'Y ignores consciousness _in thorny, it thc,. not do so in practice. In practice, when the term “matter _ is reached, wo link np the mathematicians work, of symbols with our own pcrcepfions. Consciousness, at ibis point, in Fes 0root contact with the universe the. mathematician is talking about But of (lie real yontent of all these ,7’ "G “ matter,” “ potentials, poini events,” we know nothing. The Old view, therefore, that atoms nr' electrons are the ultimate reality and that, by interacting on one another in accordance with the laws of Nature, thov produce pur minds, with all their hopes and aspirations, has no ioVeranv scientific basis. . Matcnahsm lakes matter much too seriously. o‘l.or entities, such as potentials, ■NT as much right to ho considered fundamental.

THK LAWS OF NATURE. Another bugbear that many artists and religious people have foundl so depressing. the iron laws ol also acquire an entirely new stauis as the result of recent scientific wnik. It can bo shown that these laws arc the results of the mind’s own action. iNobodv feels his aspirations to bo baseless" because ho cannot draw a circle whose circumference is ten times us radius. The laws of Nature, it has been shown, arc of this kind. They are not something imposed on an independently existing universe from without. Indeed, not only the laws ol Nuturc. but, space and time and the malaria! universe itself, are constructions of the human mind. The mind has not constructed all ibis out of nothing, it is true. The ultimate reality, whatever it may bo, has a certain minimum of structure, and from this fact the universe wq know may he deduced. Thus the, existence of the universe becomes primarily a psychological problem. That we know the past and not the future, for instance, is merely a psychological peculiarity. There" seems to be no reason in the nature of things why we, should not know the future and have to deduce the past. THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION. These conclusions, although some of them may have occurred to philosophers and mystics'in the past, arc now the results of the severest science, and are therefore of extraordinary importance. They leave the field free, as it were, for religion and philosophy. To an altogether unsuspected extent the universe we live in is a creation of our own minds. The nature of it is for ever outside scientific investigation. If we are ever to know anything of that nature it must bo _ through something like religions experience. The various aspects of this point of view are admirably set forth in this collection of essays. It is the latest contribution to a profoundly _ interesting and important revolution in thought, A great deal of the criticism which has led’up to the new outlook has been contributed by philosophers as well as by men of science. The limitations of science have been more and more carefully surveyed, and more and more exactly established. The result is, wo venture to say, a great enfranchisement of the human spirit. And science, in learning its limitations, has become more profound and more valuable. There are still science is still a long way from being complete. But the mind of man, which, on the old outlook, was a random and insignificant outcome of alien forces, is once more restored as the central ’mystery in the universe it surveys.