Time to Think

A note on "life and the forces of nature"

Dr. Sean Carroll has an interesting post on the life and the forces of nature. If I understand it correctly, it is claimed that since the only two forces of nature that can act at long distances are the gravity and the electromagnetism, then all phenomena known as paranormal are doomed to failure because they have no chance of being right even before we test them directly. I want to say that this is a very dangerous way of thinking which many have fallen into before. Science is very good at modeling the physical observations. However, it has been shown repeatedly that sticking to ideas that were developed using less accurate/comprehensive observations is nothing but committing suicide.

When we look at the model which Aristotle had developed for the universe, we find out how well the model matched with the observations. However, as the observations became more comprehensive (by Galileo and others) it was clear that his model had a fundamental flaw. We all know the reaction of conservative scientists and society to Galileo. Nowadays, we think we have discovered all the forces of nature and can explain almost everything using these fundamental understandings. Nonetheless, we forget that these knowledge have root in the way we observe the physical phenomena. Any limitations in these observation capabilities at our side will lead to a model that has a lower accuracy/order.

Perhaps a good mathematical counterpart example is the problem of extrapolation. The extrapolation problems are potentially very difficult. We want to use a limited knowledge of a certain function at a limited window to produce a model that can predict the behavior of the same function at other points outside the observation window. No matter how accurate we make this model, it impossible to have a perfect predication unless we have a priori knowledge about the behavior of the function (the luxury we do not have in science).

The science is sort of like this example too. We have created a model that explains many things yet there are other observations that need a new way of thinking and modeling approach. It is wrong to deny the existence of such observations because they cannot be predicted by our low order model of universe. I agree that many of these paranormal activities are fraud but many of them are not and need more investigations.

Perhaps one of the classical examples of such phenomenon is the quantum entanglement. Although it is shown that the quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmit information faster than speed of light, however, even the fact that two particles can have effect on each other at long distances without being influenced by EM or gravity forces is the proof that we need to have a more open mind about similar phenomena too.