Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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At present the evidence is that at a quatum level there IS randomness, so to base an argument on "I can't think how .." seems to leap ahead of the evidence. Now, with the M-string brane theories perhaps some hidden variables will show up ( there's been some strong cases made that they can't show up )

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I talked to a physics major who's studying quantum right now, and the way he discussed it, it said it is more likely that the randomness is merely apparent due to the lack of precision in our measurement tools, and hidden variables. Even in the scientific world, the jury is still out.

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I have a Ph.D. in physics, and I can tell you unequivocably that this is incorrect. Randomness at the quantum level is not due to lack of precision in our measurement devices.

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I'm not saying that there isn't true randomness at the quantum level. I'm not saying there is. I'm saying that I don't know, and that you probably don't either. Quantum physics gets tossed around like a hacky-sack whenever there's a deterministic argument by people who really don't know dick about it.

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It's been a while, but I know a little bit more than dick about it.

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On both occasions when I held a discussion group IRL on free will vs determinism, it ALWAYS boiled down to the libertarians saying "science says I'm right" and the determinists saying "no it doesn't."

It will be a VERY long time, if ever, that science conclusively proves the existence of randomness that is not attributable to lack of precision in measuring tools. I think we need to accept that this is something that is a little beyond our comprehension.

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Think about it this. You have a sample of some radioactive material. Each atom in the material has some probability of decaying in the next x minutes. But there is no possible way to predict when an individual atom will decay. You can measure each atomic decay essentially perfectly. There is no imprecision. Either an atom pops off, or it does not. Uncertainty in your measuring device has no bearing on the process at all.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

Damn...I'm gonna have to clean up my phrasing with a Ph.D around...

/lowly grad student
//we're cheap slave labor..

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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I think of the universe the same way I think of a computer program. The universe has a set of laws (or algorithms) that determine how the matter that the universe is made up of moves about. Just like an algorithm, someone can look at the "script" of the universe and predict what will happen next.



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It sounds to me like you have very little imagination. We have been designed by nature and evolution to have a fairly intuitive understanding of approximately 1000 m length scales in a fairly low gravity system. We have deduced many surprising things that in retrospect we call "intuitive", but how "intuitive" is Electricity and Magnetism if it took us 10000 years to develop?

By the way, there are perfectly well understood, simple, and predictable mathematical models that can be used to generate "random" numbers. I believe that currently, there is no strict mathematical definition for "random", although there are a number of tests that we believe "random" numbers should satisfy. This basically comes from the fact that mathematically we cannot define something negatively (i.e. there are huge consistency problems if we define random as being the lack of repeating patterns). So the fact that we have an intuitive idea of "random" probably means that it is somehow useful.

I also think the idea that there must be some final simple theory beneath everything is also a quest for God in some sense. I will believe in it when they find it.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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I guess unpredictability given infinite knowledge is what I'm talking about. I don't think such a thing exists. I think the entire outcome of all the particles in the universe has already been determined. We certainly don't have the knowledge to predict that outcome, but hypothetically, the answer exists.

[/ QUOTE ] Infinite knowledge is not possible. We know this to be true. Infinite knowledge, of course, would forbid randomness. Your problem is not with randomness but your belief that infinite knowledge is possible.

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This is a very interesting point, but I'm not sure that I agree with your conclusion. It's reasonable to assume infinite knowledge is not possible to obtain.

I'm not sure what infinite knowledge entails. Let's make a bold assumption (that almost certainly isn't true) that the universe is nothing but an infinite number of locations, and those locations either have or don't have the smallest possible unit of matter. The amount of matter in the universe is finite, so if we simply map out all the known peices of matter in the universe, we are working on a finite scale.

Obviously we cannot do this for every particle in the universe, but theoretically, we could do it for any particle in the universe. If every particle is mappable, that means that the information that would lead to infinite knowledge is out there. It wouldbe impossible for humans to ever obtain all of that data, but it's out there.

I dont think that whether or not we can gather all of the information is relevant. The point is that it's out there.

I oversimplified things w/ my false assumption, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say. I'm not sure how to phrase it better.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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If you re-read my earlier post, I tried to create a simple universe. This universe contains a bag, two marbles, and me. I have "infinite knowledge" of the system right? All I have to do know is show that there is something about the system that I cannot predict. I chose to use the result of 100 choices of the marble from the bag.

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The bag would be transparent if you had infinite knowledge. You would always know which color the marble would be.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

Do you see how far from our actual universe your "model" is? I don't think there are any conclusions one could draw from your model that would actually coincide with reality. Your analogy is sub-par.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Alternatively I could show that there is no such thing as "infinite knowledge." You talked about the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle before. One version of this principle states that if you know one thing really precisely(position) then that knowledge comes at the expense of the precision of knowledge of another thing(momentum). In effect, no observer can know everything about a system to begin with, so there is no challenge to the existence of randomness.

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Actually, the uncertainty principle itsself doesn't have much to say about the availability of information. I could tell you complete information about a quantum system without violating the UP. The UP simply says that certain questions (like knowing exact position and momentum simultaneously) are undefined in the context of quantum mechanics. You might know a state exactly -- but it will simply never turn out to be an eigenstate of both position and momentum, because states like those don't exist in the theory.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

Not sure. I could probably be misinterpreting what he said. However, the uncertainty principle as you described it is suggestive of apparent randomness, not true randomness. It outrules practical determinism (I don't think anyone believes in that though), but I don't think it effectively disproves it.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Do you see how far from our actual universe your "model" is? I don't think there are any conclusions one could draw from your model that would actually coincide with reality. Your analogy is sub-par.

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Yes, I was hoping you would understand where I was going with that, but I guess not.

Basically I'm just saying that the fact that we will never be able to gather infinite knowledge as people does not matter. The fact that the solution is out there is what matters, even if we will never have the complete solution.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

I knew there was a reason I'm an experimentalist. Of course I could construct a quantum system and completely describe any state I want to. Also of course I'll never be able to measure them unless they fit the selection rules etc...(i.e. they won't be an eigenstate of the system).

FWIW, I really meant to talk about DeltaX in my post not xbar. My phrasing always lapses when I type things unless I really get down to editing...

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

I'm not sure if this post further flushes out the topic at hand or if it merely obfuscates the truth of the situation. end discalimer.
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I guess unpredictability given infinite knowledge is what I'm talking about. I don't think such a thing exists. I think the entire outcome of all the particles in the universe has already been determined. We certainly don't have the knowledge to predict that outcome, but hypothetically, the answer exists.

[/ QUOTE ] Infinite knowledge is not possible. We know this to be true. Infinite knowledge, of course, would forbid randomness. Your problem is not with randomness but your belief that infinite knowledge is possible.

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This is a very interesting point, but I'm not sure that I agree with your conclusion. It's reasonable to assume infinite knowledge is not possible to obtain.

I'm not sure what infinite knowledge entails. Let's make a bold assumption (that almost certainly isn't true) that the universe is nothing but an infinite number of locations, and those locations either have or don't have the smallest possible unit of matter. The amount of matter in the universe is finite, so if we simply map out all the known peices of matter in the universe, we are working on a finite scale.

Obviously we cannot do this for every particle in the universe, but theoretically, we could do it for any particle in the universe. If every particle is mappable, that means that the information that would lead to infinite knowledge is out there. It wouldbe impossible for humans to ever obtain all of that data, but it's out there.

I dont think that whether or not we can gather all of the information is relevant. The point is that it's out there.

I oversimplified things w/ my false assumption, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say. I'm not sure how to phrase it better.

[/ QUOTE ]The problem is not that we can not know the location of all the matter. It's that we cannot know, amongst other things, the location and the speed of an object at the same time.
Uncertainty Principle or Quatum indeterminancy may help to clarify the impossibility of infinite knowledge.

Now it's also important that I bring up a physcological arguement that I like to call "The all the worlds a" problem. The human mind is very well equiped to learn something and then apply that to all the world. One learns of general physics and then says All the worlds a deterministic thing. We have these great theories that can give us increadible close aproxiamtions of observable outcomes, and we then applies them to all of the world. Hence, free will is thought to be non existant. The problem is that a theory that is useful for describing planets and Galaxies, or a theory that is useful to describe the realy small, aren't neccessarily the ones you wish to use regarding people. Many great thinking minds have made this mistake.

Ok but your post wasn't really about free will vs determinism but was about randomness. And you are correct that if it was possible to know everything about a system nothing would be random. Randomness is almost excluded by definition when one uses the term infinite knowledge. The universe just doesn't work that way. It doesn't let you know everything about a system. Other things exist mereley as a probablity. I'm not a good scientist so I won't go into these things, other than that what we know about is that the process is random. Genetic mutation, radio active decay, the path of traveling light, the digits of Pi, I wish to add some decision making processes(the rest of the world hasn't yet decided that) are examples of random processes.

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I dont think that whether or not we can gather all of the information is relevant. The point is that it's out there.

[/ QUOTE ] Quoted again because I'm not sure if my post answers this point. Just because we can't know the exact speed when we know the exact location, does it follow nessesary that it doensn't have an exact speed? I don't know, but it appears there are other types of randomness that don't depend on the uncertainty princple. Is radio active decay determined by quatum indertimanacy? What is the principle that makes Pi's digits random?

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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I think of the universe the same way I think of a computer program. The universe has a set of laws


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Who wrote the universe program?

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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I think of the universe the same way I think of a computer program. The universe has a set of laws


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Who wrote the universe program?

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What created the thing that wrote the Universe Program? (Can we please not have a discussion about God thrown into the mix?)

What Quantam Theory says is that there is no perfect knowledge (as far as we know). It is impossible to tell the location and momentum of the object at the same time, no matter how accurate your measuring tools are.

Of course, if you could see in more than 4 dimensions, or find a hidden variable that we don't know of, randomness ceases to exist, but for now, the best physics believes that it does.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.

[/ QUOTE ]I make it to easy when I bring up a correct counter arguement to my own arguement. But lets examine light. Keep in mind that we always know the exact speed of light. What do you think that that does to the location of the light? Well it turns out the light while moving, is travelling thru all possible paths at the same time. When we stop it to look at it, it randomly decoheres(sp) to a precise location. So at least the case with light is that it doesn't have an exact location while it's moving. It's not that we just can't measure it, it truely behaves as if it is in all possible locations.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.

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This almost certainly isn't right, The particle does not take these values until the measurement is made, until then its a probability distribution.

All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true
randomness exists.

Also infinite knowledge has nothing to do with it unless you're talking about some god-like infinite knowledge of the future.

chez

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true randomness exists.

[/ QUOTE ] What would get to the point about whether true randomness exists or not?

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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All this is still only about whether the universe appears to behave in random way and nothing to do with whether true randomness exists.

[/ QUOTE ] What would get to the point about whether true randomness exists or not?

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as I said before its a metaphysical question so nothing will get to the point [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If you produce any model of the universe that is random then you can remodel it in a deterministic fashion and vice-verca.

Science can show that things behave in a random way and cannot be determined, but leaps beyond that are not science.

chez

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

"Who wrote the universe program?"

A god far different than the one you believe in. Not one who merely "speaks" things into existence. Or who punishes you based on your beliefs about a nice Jewish boy who charlatans later on wrote fraudelant stories about.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

I thought the position of an electron was truly random?

I did see someone saying that if you could control for everything in an experiment, it wouldn't be random..

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.

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This is fundamentally incorrect. If this were correct double-slit interference, for example, would not exist. It does.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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When I think of the universe, I think of the laws of science, and randomness doesn't seem possible to me. Some people may use the double slit experiment to prove randomness exists, but that is simply something we cannot determine, and is not necessarily something that cannot be determined with more knowledge.

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As it stands right now, it is a scientific, experimentally verified fact that theories that can explain away the randomness (so-called hidden variable theories) must be non-local, meaning they allow for superluminal influences between remote locations. As a result, most schemes you can come up with to try and explain how if we just knew a little more everything would be deterministic fail. For this reason, I think a lot of scientists think the randomness is here to stay. (You might try Googling "Is the moon there when nobody looks?" by David Mermin to read a little bit on this topic.)

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This is why I do not believe in free will.

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This seems like a pretty depressing worldview. If you don't believe in free will, how do you justify making large sums of money and not spreading it out among all the poor, helpless robots who are doomed to lead shitty existences because they are pre-determined to be jobless? It certainly doesn't seem like their fault, in this instance.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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When I think of the universe, I think of the laws of science, and randomness doesn't seem possible to me.

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This is how scientific investigation works. You pose a hypothesis and then it is tested by experiment.

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Some people may use the double slit experiment to prove randomness exists, but that is simply something we cannot determine, and is not necessarily something that cannot be determined with more knowledge.

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Quantum theory is perhaps the most sucessful theory to date to explain observed phenomena at the small scale. all expeiments to date supprt it, none have disproved. As counterintuitive as it may seem all the evidence to date points ti inherent randomness of certain events at the quantum level


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I think of the universe the same way I think of a computer program. The universe has a set of laws (or algorithms) that determine how the matter that the universe is made up of moves about. Just like an algorithm, someone can look at the "script" of the universe and predict what will happen next.

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As did scientists until experiments showed classical physics (as you express it) could not explain certain observed phenomena showing this view is incorrect.

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However, it is impossible for computers to do anything random.

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To keep to the poker theme, some sites use quantum random number generators so the hands are in the truist sense, random.

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[/ QUOTE ]Sure, they can look at a super accurate clock, or use a huge set of predetermined numbers, but that is simply using outside sources to create the illusion of randomness.

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You are right these give the illusion of randomness but the prior example is truly random.



[/ QUOTE ]It doesn't make sense to me that the universe has any tool to possibly create randomness.

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What should make sense is what is observable. Sense or not all experiments show the deterministic view is false.

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If you fully understand all the laws of the universe, and can map every particle that exists in the universe, then you must also be able to predict what will happen to each one of those particles. I can't think of how this could not be true.

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quantum mechanics is one, if not the, intellectual achievent to date to explain the points you touch on. It seems you have a genuine interest in the answers to your questions and I would really suggest you look at some introductions to quantum mechanics. EG
http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/ke...s/quantum.html

Google throws up lots of sites..that was one that looked interesting and aimed at the "layman" and seemed reasonable read on a quick look.



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This is why I do not believe in free will.

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i only wanted to answer the physics points!

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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This seems like a pretty depressing worldview. If you don't believe in free will, how do you justify making large sums of money and not spreading it out among all the poor, helpless robots who are doomed to lead shitty existences because they are pre-determined to be jobless? It certainly doesn't seem like their fault, in this instance.

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Why, because he's predetermined not to give it to them, of course.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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If I've misinterpreted your claim, I apologize ZJ,
Daniel Dennett has an interesting book "Freedom Evolves" that discusses human freewill in a universe with determination in it. Worth a read.

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I started reading this recently. Thus far I've been relatively unimpressed with his argument; it seems to me that he's taking a pretty operationalist view of avoidance. In other words, that game of Life automata can avoid disruptive gliders or the like is supposed to be evidence of how avoidance can rise from determinism. But this seems like a bit of a strawman, so far; it's not like there was any choice involved. I think I need to keep reading.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Why, because he's predetermined not to give it to them, of course.

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Naturally.

A bit more about free will: I sometimes wonder if it is significant that even in a completely deterministic world, the future is still inherently unknowable by humans. To expand on what I mean by this, predicting the future perfectly is going to require perfect knowledge of the state of the universe. There are several barriers to this:

1) Knowing the state of the universe requires measurements. Measurements have imprecision. Slight variation in initial conditions -> huge difference in the resulting world a little bit later.

2) More cosmologically, suppose I shake a fistful of electrons around at the sun. Nobody on Earth gets to know about this for 8 minutes. So my predictions for what happens 8 minutes in the future must be lacking some information. What if we knew the state of the sun perfectly? Well, I already stated that's impossible, but if you don't believe that, humans are always going to have spread their influence over a limited volume of the universe, and you can just pick some point that has been as yet unmolested and make this argument again.

So, the question is, is it philosophically important that even in a world that is deterministic, humans can't ever figure it out? I suspect it might be.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

I guess I can't argue with that.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Any given particle has both a location and a velocity. As the uncertainty principle states, we cannot measure these precisely, but the particle still has a location and velocity whether or not humans can map them.

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ZJ, I'm not any kind of an expert in any of this, but according to some of books I have read, normal "probabilistic" interpretations of QM imply that the statement "any given particle has both a location and a velocity" (simultaneously) is not true. It is not just a matter of not being able to know or measure those parameters, but an absolutely essential characteristic of things. Of course this might be extremely confusing and non-intuitive (at least as for our "classical physics intuition"), but it's possible to "get used to it", IMO.

With regard to your OP: randomness is a word, in the language we use. This word is very useful in some aspects, and this doesn't necessarily have to do with the question of "is there a thing in _reality_ that this word points at?", since it's a very tricky word (BTW, there are certainly people who will say the same things about the words "god", "free-will", "evil", "time", and many others). In other words, until you come up with a definitive definition of the word "randomness", this discussion will be a philosophic/metaphysical/linguistic one. (For instance, you can say that there could be a god that for him "any given particle does have both a location and a velocity", and therefore, from his perspective, there's no meaning to "Free-will". Well, OK, but then we are not discussing science any more.)

BTW, In a book I've read (unfortunately I don't remember where), someone defined "random" simply as "we don't know". If you use this definition, this could bring an interesting (philosophical) twist to your original question.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

"someone defined "random" simply as "we don't know".

That was Not Ready. In one of his lucid moments.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

I'm talking randomness in the most extreme definition. Basically I'm saying that we have to assign probablities for things like atom decay simply because we don't have enough knowledge to know the outcome.

The randomness I am talking about only exists if such predictions are literally impossible even with complete knowledge of the system.

If this randomness does not exist, then the entire history of the universe has already been determined.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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If this randomness does not exist, then the entire history of the universe has already been determined.


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Atheists call it fatalism. Christians call it God's providence.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

[ QUOTE ]
"someone defined "random" simply as "we don't know".

That was Not Ready. In one of his lucid moments.

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I am 100% positive I haven't read it here, although I'm not surprised that someone on this board stumbled across this definition too (or thought about it independently, of course).

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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The randomness I am talking about only exists if such predictions are literally impossible even with complete knowledge of the system.

If this randomness does not exist, then the entire history of the universe has already been determined.

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Part of my point was that even if you accept or insist on some deterministic model, still - until you don't know that _exact_ situation from which to start your "calculation" of the predetermined future (and of course, all the laws that govern that "calculation"), you are stuck in a land where you "don't know", and therefore, have to accept the existence of randomness in _your world_, which is all that matters. Even speaking about the _possibility_ of a predetermined universe is admitting the fact you don't know whether it is so or not, i.e, you already have some randomness in your system.

In other words, there's no way for you to show or prove whether there is free-will or not, when your/our only possible _actual_ perspetive is of a human-being (it might be different if you are some kind of a completely different entity, but that's another story). You can only point out how free-will might be inconsistent with other assumptions in some specific set of arguments with regard to reality.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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I'm talking randomness in the most extreme definition. Basically I'm saying that we have to assign probablities for things like atom decay simply because we don't have enough knowledge to know the outcome.

The randomness I am talking about only exists if such predictions are literally impossible even with complete knowledge of the system.

If this randomness does not exist, then the entire history of the universe has already been determined.

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What you are saying is if someone had all the knowledge of the universe he could accurately predict every event at every instance of time. However, that would require an outside observer, outside of the universe. Once inside, his own thought process would effect the events and disrupt the predictions. Therefore, some degree of randomness will always exist and thus so will free will.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Once inside, his own thought process would effect the events and disrupt the predictions.


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Not if his thought process is determined by natural causes. You are assuming what you're trying to prove.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Once inside, his own thought process would effect the events and disrupt the predictions.


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Not if his thought process is determined by natural causes. You are assuming what you're trying to prove.

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The thought process is determined by natural (chemical and electrical) causes and that is why it would effect the outcome. I don't think that you could include your own thought process in any calculation involving total knowledge (this is getting a little weird). That is why you would need someone outside of the universe (god if you will). But that is why I say if there is a god there is no free will - everything would be pre-determined and predictable as Zee stated.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

it will give you hawking's ideas about time and multiple universes and reality. will that answer your question? it is not an easy read, however.

perhaps a better book for you to read would be "Chaos" by a guy named Glick, i believe.

the whole idea of "predetermined" goes out the window when you think there is room for every possibility and our free will chooses the one we believe we deserve.

randomness however, is so different from what you are talking about. uncertainty says we can predict groups, but not the individual. we can say that in 100 attempts we will expect this many occurrences, but each attempt is unique, so you can't possibly guarantee a prediction of the outcome of anything that hasn't happened. In fact, you can't even predict the outcome of something that has happened, if you believe that all possibilities are still possible.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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But that is why I say if there is a god there is no free will - everything would be pre-determined and predictable as Zee stated.


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Predetermination by God doesn't exclude human free will.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

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Basically I'm just saying that the fact that we will never be able to gather infinite knowledge as people does not matter. The fact that the solution is out there is what matters, even if we will never have the complete solution.

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Not only will we (i.e. humanity) never have a complete solution. No advanced alien race or super-powerful being will ever have a complete solution, either.

Basically, the idea is that any language is countably infinite (a language is simply a set of finite strings). That is, you can map each string in the language to some natural number. But, the power set of languages is uncountably infinite. This implies that there are some languages that cannot be described in a finite manner.

So, there are only countably many "solutions" (or algorithms) but uncountably many "problems." Therefore, there are uncountably many things that cannot possibly be described.

I suck at explaining this, but try googling the words "countable," "uncountable," "cantor," "diagonalization" and perhaps "continuum hypothesis" for better explanations.

Re: How can randomness possibly exist?
 

Your post is fascinating because it shows the absolute dominance of scientific epistemology. That is, the only knowledge taken as valuable is that which is "scientific". Scientific here refers ostensibly to a sort of objectivity or unity of results, a repeatability, or something along those lines. Nobody really knows what makes some knowledge scientific, some borderline, and some not scientific. The logical positivist model, which seems to be what you are adopting is generally considered outdated (by me at least) by the philosophical work of Kuhn, Wittgenstein and even Derrida. The biggest question for a scientific epistemology is that of language and the sign. How is it that these objective and eternal truths, totally determined are communicated? With language. And what guarantees language (or a "meaningless" calculus) as perfectly referential to the objective reality that it is attempting to describe? Absolutely nothing. The material, social nature of the sign in its linguistic importance creates a gap for any form of linguistic knowledge. So the scientific epistemology is troubled and shouldn't necessarily be considered the only model. Once we move beyond it, that is, accept its limitations is quite easy to see how there might be probability. The heart of the matter is your tacit assumption that "reality," that to which truth corresponds is accurately and/or completely described by something unproblematically labelled science. Science is a linguistic and social phenomenon, and perhaps it is nothing more or less.

One thing that might be revelant is the scientific explanation of the forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak-nuclear. There really isn't any ... could there ever be? And if not, which is what I would contend (even if these were described, they would lead eventually to something unexplainable) we recognize a limit to scientific knowledge where we do not recongize an analogous limit to reality. We need either to accept a fundamental ignorance or find another way of knowing.