Friday, July 25, 2025
I recently started reading Three Roads to Quantum Gravity by Lee Smolin. One of the things that fascinated me about this book is that science is not only diving into how to bring quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together, but they are also studying the relationship between the observer and the observed. One of the strangest phenomena of quantum mechanics is how to separate what’s being observed from the observer. If the universe has no outside, how can we truly observe the cosmos as a separate entity? We’re “in” it, how can we study it from the “outside?”
Another interesting question is how to figure out how matter and energy behave at the smallest level. Is there a smallest unit of time, or the smallest structure of matter, or is the microcosm infinitely divisible and the macrocosm truly unending? Was there a first moment? Will there be a last moment? What was there before the first moment?
It sounds like a quest to top superlatives. Smallest. Largest. Beginning. Ending. What’s beyond and what’s before? To me, it sounds personal. It sounds like a quest for God. Sounds like a search for the end of duality, or the theory of relativity. Sounds like wanting to know I AM. Is there a difference between observer and observed, or do the two seeming individual components depend entirely upon each other? Is there the highest of the most high? Is there indivisibility?
If science could demonstrate the cessation of division, we’d pinpoint the head and tail of the universe. We’d be able to explain everything. Then what? Artists would have nothing to express. Musicians would have nothing to compose. Authors would be at a loss for words. Poets would have no reason to embellish words. Do we really want to know everything? I mean, everything.
I think we should leave the unknown alone.