In existographies, Steven Weinberg (1933-) (FA:156) (SPE:4) (CR:63) is an American elementary particle physicist noted for his 1967 model of the unification of electromagnetism and the weak nuclear forces, for his oft-cited 1977 The First Three Minutes: a Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, wherein he argues that according to the second law the universe is pointless, for his 1992 Dreams of a Final Theory, wherein a number of noted atheism positions are stated, and for his 2001 discussions of quantum gravity. [1]See main: Anti-reductionismIn 1974, Weinberg, in his “Unified Theories of Elementary Particle Interactions”, stated that particle physicists hope to find a few simple general laws that would explain why nature is the way it is and that at present the closest we can come to a unified view of nature is a description of elementary particles. [10]
See main: ReductionismIn 1864, Russian psychological novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his Notes From the Underground, has his character the underground man imagine a scientist telling him: [9]
“Nature doesn’t consult you; it doesn’t give a damn for you wishes or whether its laws please you or do not please you. You must accept it as it is.”
“Good god, what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic if for one reason or another, I don’t like these laws.”
“At its nuttiest extreme are those with holistics in their heads, those whose reaction to reductionism takes the form of a belief in psychic energies, life forces that cannot be described in terms of the ordinary laws of inanimate nature.”
“The reductionist worldview is chilling and impersonal. It has to be accepted as it is, not because we like it, but because that is the way the world works.”
| Pointless Universe Theory |
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| Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes (1977) and Dreams of a Final Theory (1992), interjects, at "points", on how he believes the universe, which he says began from a "point", is “pointless”, and that the more we comprehend about the universe, the more this conclusion seems to hold. |
See main: PointlessnessWeinberg is frequently cited and or quoted as an atheist who argues, via the second law, for the purposeless universe hypothesis. [2] Specifically, in 1977, Weinberg, in his The First Three Minutes, dismissed the infinite oscillating model of the universe with recourse to heat death theory, discussed in upgraded particle physics language, at the end of which he famously or infamously, depending on one’s point of view, concluded that the universe seems pointless: [3]
“Some cosmologists are philosophically attracted to the oscillating model of the, especially because, like the steady-state model, it nicely avoids the problem of Genesis. It does, however, face one severe theoretical difficulty. In each cycle the ratio of photons to nuclear particles (or, more precisely, the entropy per nuclear particle) is slightly increased by a kind of friction (known as ‘bulk viscosity’) as the universe expands and contracts. As far as we know, the universe would then start each new cycle with a new, slightly larger ratio of photons to nuclear particles. Right now this ratio is large, but not infinite, so it is hard to see how the universe could have previously experienced an infinite number of cycles.
However all these problems may be resolved, and whichever cosmological model proves correct, there is not much of comfort in any of this. It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, what human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. As I write this I happen to be in an airplane at 30,000 feet, flying over Wyoming en route home from San Francisco to Boston. Below, the earth looks very soft and comfortable—fluffy clouds here and there, snow turning pink as the sun sets, roads stretching straight across the country from one town to another. It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelming hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar earlier condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
“In my 1977 book, The First Three Minutes, I was rash enough to remark that ‘the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless’. I did not mean that science teaches us that the universe is pointless, but rather that the universe itself has no point. I hastened to add that there were ways that we ourselves could invent a point for our lives, including trying to understand the universe. But the damage was done: that phrase has dogged me ever since.Here again Weinberg seems to assert that, according to modern science, “there is no point to life”, but that we can be secular scientists and “invent” points, e.g. trying to understand things. He continues:
“Why should it have a point? What point? It’s just a physical system, what point is there? I’ve always been puzzled by that statement.”— Margaret Geller, Harvard astronomer
“I’m willing to believe that we are flotsam and jetsam.”— Jim Peebles, Princeton astrophysicist
“Though aware that there is nothing in the universe that suggests any purpose for humanity, one way that we can find a purpose is to study the universe by the methods of science, without consoling ourselves with fairy tales about its future, or about our own.”
“Among today’s scientists I am probably somewhat atypical in carrying about such things. One the rare occasions when conversations over lunch or tea touch on matters of religion, the strongest reaction expressed by most of my fellow physicists is a mild surprise and amusement that anyone still takes all that seriously. Many physicists maintain a nominal affiliation with the faith of their parents, as a form of ethnic identification and for use at weddings and funerals, but few of these physicist seem to pay any attention to their nominal religion’s theology.”
“One of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. I think that’s a good thing.”— Steven Weinberg (date)
“Premature as the question may be, it is hardly possible not to wonder whether we will find any answer to our deepest questions, any signs of the workings of an interested god, in a final theory. I think that we will not.”— Steven Weinberg (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory (c. pg. 244)
“I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for an intelligent person to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.”— Steven Weinberg (1999), “A Designer in the Universe?” [14]
“It's a consequence of the experience of science. As you learn more and more about the universe, you find you can understand more and more without any reference to supernatural intervention, so you lose interest in that possibility. Most scientists I know don't care enough about religion even to call themselves atheists. And that, I think, is one of the great things about science—that it has made it possible for people not to be religious.”— Steven Weinberg (c.2001)
“Thales’ ocean had no room for Poseidon. In Hellenistic times, Epicurus adopted the atomist theory of Democritus as an antidote to belief in the Olympian gods. Scientists aren’t often driven in their work by motives of this sort. Of course, none of this bears on the question of whether the reductionist perspective is correct. And since, in fact, it is correct, we had all better learn to live with it.”— Steven Weinberg (2001), Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries [15]
“For myself, the pleasure of the work had always provided justification enough for doing it. Sitting at my desk or at some café table, I manipulate mathematical expressions and feel like Faust playing with his pentagrams before Mephistopheles arrives.”— Steven Weinberg (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory (pg. 5)
“Electromagnetism and gravitation happen to be the only fundamental forces that are evident in everyday life, but there are other kinds of forces in nature, including the weak and strong nuclear forces.”— Steven Weinberg (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory (pg. 18)
“The reductionist attitude provides a useful filter that saves scientists in all fields from wasting their time on ideas that are not worth pursuing.”— Steven Weinberg (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory (pg. 64)
“The authors of physics textbooks are usually compelled to redo the work of the magicians so that they seem like sages; otherwise no reader would understand the physics. Planck was a magician in inventing his 1900 theory of heat radiation, and Einstein was playing the part of a magician when he proposed the idea of the photon in 1905. It is usually not difficult to understand the papers of the sage-physicists, but papers of magician-physicists are often incomprehensible. In this sense, Heisenberg’s 1925 paper was pure magic.”— Steven Weinberg (1992), Dreams of a Final Theory (pg. 68)
