[The World]
How we perceive the world we live in is fundamentally a philosophical question, and science is merely one of many possible interpretations. Newton referred to his work as the “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” (rather than natural science), and many renowned scientists have deep philosophical insights. In China, philosophy has historically not been given much importance; since Laozi and Zhuangzi, there have been no truly great philosophers, which may be one reason why the modern scientific revolution did not occur in the East. To this day, for most Chinese people, philosophy remains very distant, and there is a general lack of philosophical training and literacy (though many may disagree with this statement), which could be a significant shortcoming for technological innovation, especially for original and groundbreaking scientific discoveries.
Human understanding of the world ultimately converges on those famous physical laws, which are essentially a series of mathematical symbols and formulaic operations, representing specific mathematical structures. Many significant scientific discoveries and constructions throughout history have been based on breakthroughs or discoveries in mathematical methods, such as:
—— Calculus in Newton’s classical mechanics;
—— Maxwell’s equations in electromagnetic field theory and later special relativity;
—— Schrödinger’s equation in quantum mechanics;
—— Riemannian geometry in general relativity;
……
So, why does our world operate on such mathematical structures?Did these mathematical structures exist before the world, or did the world evolve into these mathematical structures over time (in other words, the mathematical structure of the world is not immutable since the origin of the universe)? These mathematical structures are so “beautiful,” so awe-inspiring, that it is no wonder many famous scientists have, to varying degrees, chosen to believe in the existence of a “Creator.”
Unfortunately, we may never be able to confirm or refute the hypothesis of a “Creator.” “Not recognizing the true face of Mount Lu, only because one is in the midst of the mountain.”
—— Laozi said, “The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao”;
—— Quantum mechanics pioneer Bohr believed that “science is not an objective description of the physical world, but merely our understanding of the world achieved through various interventions in nature (i.e., measurement results).”
In the current mainstream quantum mechanics theory, “measurement” holds a very special and mysterious status, causing the wave function to collapse, thus allowing the physical system to enter a certain definite state according to the probability density of the wave function. Physicists have attempted many different interpretative methods regarding this, and there is still no conclusion. If we adopt Bohr’s viewpoint, that science is based on measurement results, then the measurement process inherently divides the world into two parts: the measuring subject and the object (since humans are part of this world and cannot step outside to have a global perspective), so science is merely a series of accumulations of measurement results of the local world. For example, when studying mechanical drawing in college, one can represent a three-dimensional part as a two-dimensional view, and conversely, by integrating the three views, one can restore the original three-dimensional part. Similarly, science is constantly exploring and discovering various local views of the world and attempting to integrate them to restore the true overall picture.
With each major discovery in the history of science, the more local views humanity masters, the closer we get to the truth. The debate between Einstein and Bohr lies in their differing views on the ultimate mathematical structure of the world; the former believes in causality, while the latter insists on probabilistic randomness. Einstein believed that the “uncertainty principle” in quantum mechanics was due to an incomplete understanding of the world, akin to missing a part of the local view (hidden variables), which is why a complete description of the objective world cannot be constructed. To this day, although many experimental results have favored Bohr’s theory, there are still many physicists who persist in trying to find a “complete scientific description” of the world. Rather than being purely scientific, this resembles a philosophical question, namely, choosing to believe in different answers to the question of “what the world should be like.”
However, even if humanity could one day construct an objective overall view of the world (can we?), we still cannot answer the aforementioned question about “why.” The “Creator” cannot be confirmed or refuted, so this transcends the realm of science and ultimately returns to philosophy.
Using Laozi’s words, “Man follows the Earth, the Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows Nature,” reflecting on the above philosophical and scientific discussions, a similar relationship could be: Humanity’s exploration of the world’s understanding/Science (“Man follows Heaven and Earth”) —> Objective physical world (Heaven and Earth) —> The complete mathematical structure of the world (the ineffable “Dao”) —> “Creator” (Nature).
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