2009 - The Event of Discovery. Understanding the Dynamics of Human Advancement in Science and Culture.
University of San Marino, Ancient Monastery of Santa Chiara
August 28-30, 2009
International Symposium organized in collaboration with the Templeton Foundation and in connection with the XXX edition of Rimini Meeting for Friendship amongst Peoples.
The topic we propose for the 2009 Symposium is exploring the theme of discovery. In particular, the theme of scientific discovery directly connects to the 2009 Rimini Meeting theme "Knowledge is always an event", and provides a natural continuation of the 2008 focus. However, we intend to look at the dynamics of discovery in broader range of situations, seeking to understanding some dynamics of major stages of advancement in human history in both science and culture. Thus the program will include "discovery" (or "progress") in the religious and spiritual culture over significant episodes of human history, exploring the experience of faith in connection with a culture of discovery. Read More Four hundred years ago this year, Galileo initiated observations of celestial objects using the new technology of the refracting telescope invented in Holland in 1608. His astonishing successes can be thought of as one of the important events in the extended "birth" of the early culture of science. This important anniversary in the history of science generated huge lessons about the value of the empirical-scientific method. And it provides an opportune context to focus on the very big issue of Discovery and its connection to the cultures enabling it. In order to engage the "very big picture" of this theme, we are seeking to develop wide-ranging interdisciplinary insights into some of the most major transitions in cultures having to do with significant innovations creating major new perspectives. These range from some world-transforming scientific discoveries (Evolution, Big Bang cosmology, and the new understanding of "entanglement" in quantum mechanics deriving from the theoretical work of John Bell and the experiment of Alain Aspect), to the ongoing efforts to discover if the Reimann conjecture in mathematics is correct, to the big story of the development of early modern science itself in the 17th century. As a title for the 2009 symposium we propose: "The Event of Discovery. Understanding the Dynamics of Human Advancement in Science and Culture." Various are the objects of discovery. On one side discovery may indicate the unraveling of the fundamental laws of nature and mechanisms continuously at play (e.g. in a galaxy or in a cell). In other cases, discovery may indicate the knowledge of unique events in natural or human history (such as the K-T impact or the path of migration of ancient hominids). Moreover, discovery may also be related to technological invention, where a new combination of known phenomena enables unexpected and potentially useful functions. In all facets, discovery is an encounter with reality where planned efforts and previously achieved knowledge combine with the new observation to produce new understanding.Discovery is a fruitful encounter between the human rational mind and the cosmos. A discovery has the characteristics of an "event" in that it introduces a genuine novelty in our understanding of the world that can't be reduced to any previously achieved knowledge or definition. In science, discovery comprises the development of a coherent understanding constraining all future considerations about that matter. But also in other manifestations of the human quest for ultimate reality, such as in arts, philosophy or theology, the deep nature of things sometimes appears to unfold, revealing significant new facets of reality, which then become stable elements contributing to our vision of the world. In science, any particular discovery opens up a new angle on the orderly structure of the universe, and it highlights our ability to recognize and grasp such underlying order. Any discovery, however small, is therefore an event of universal significance, even though the protagonists involved are generally one or few individuals. The beauty and thrill characterizing the personal experience of discovery are probably born from the coincidence of such universal dimension with the specific circumstance enabling its occurrence. While the experience of discovery has some clear characteristics, unraveling its dynamics opens to a wide range of fascinating questions. What is the dynamics of discovery? Is an element of unexpectedness always part of a discovery? How does the novelty achieved relate to the necessary careful planning and long-lasting dedication? To what extent confirming something largely expected and sought for (e.g., the Higgs particle with LHC) can be considered a discovery? Can we speak of "discovery" in a non-scientific context? What do we mean in that case? And when do we actually speak of "discovery"? We normally do when new knowledge is introduced that unveils an aspect of reality that is perceived not only as "new", but also as "highly significant". What distinguishes a "discovery" from an ordinary step in the progress of science? What are the criteria by which we regard a given issue as "highly significant" compared to others? We seem to inevitably weigh the significance of a discovery insofar as it is able to shed new light on fundamental issues. A list of current "hot topics" in science, for example, would include extra-solar planets, origin of life on Earth, life in the Universe, consciousness, the origin and destiny of the Universe, the intimate structure of matter. Interestingly, the above list suggests that the focus of scientific interest is related to the main human existential questions: what are the origin, the destiny and the ultimate nature of our existence? Discovery is a manifestation of an intrinsic correspondence between our human minds, with its capacity to create symbolic and mathematical languages, and the intimate texture of nature: "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is the fact that it is comprehensible" (A. Einstein) "The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning"</em>(P.E. Wigner) The very fact that discovery is possible is a great mystery and an object of much debate. What is the significance of this fact? What is it telling us about the structure of reality and the nature of human mind? What are the implications for the issue of purpose in the universe? In science, the observation of nature leads, through discovery, to a single universal scientific language and to a shared trans-cultural knowledge. On a broader perspective, the advancement of knowledge beyond science, such as in philosophy or theology, can be seen as a motion through which human reason reaches out to a broader intelligible reality and becomes aware of it. What is the nature of this motion? What is the relationship between the discovery of a particular feature of the world (in science, philosophy or theology) and ultimate reality? Following the successful scheme adopted in previous years, each of the three sessions will have 4 speakers (12 in total) and appropriate time for discussion. Once we have a definitive list of participants, the speakers in the three sessions will be chosen to ensure cross-disciplinary input. We would request abstracts and short papers to be distributed to each session’s sub-group in advance. We will include a built-in feedback mechanism. Discussion and exchange between the participants before the symposium will be encouraged. Following the successful scheme adopted in the previous editions of the San Marino Symposium, the above questions will be addressed in three sessions, each involving four outstanding thinkers from both science and humanities. We shall invite world experts and direct protagonists of major discoveries, to open a lively debate among scholars across disciplines. While maintaining top-level academic standards, we encourage that the style of the contributions should be that of “personal witness” rather than “impersonal analysis”. As in the 2008 edition, works at the Symposium will be shared by speakers, chairpersons and to a very limited number of observers.
Discoveries may come out in several different ways, but they always are, in some sense, surprising and satisfying. Through discovery, nature becomes more familiar not only for the increased number of details that we learn, but for a more profound awareness of its coherence and unity. In this sense, the event of a scientific discovery allows a deeper appreciation for a meaning of the natural world - not just the meaning of the physical phenomenon under study, but the meaning of reality as a whole.
The proceedings have been published on Euresis Journal.
1st session - The Event of Discovery
This session will provide accounts of significant examples of “discovery cases” in science, but possibly also in other domains of rational human knowledge. What are the distinguishing traits of a discovery? On the personal side, a significant discovery is undeniably an event of great psychological impact. Getting closer to the truth is an experience of satisfaction: why? We wish to promote a discussion on these questions contextualized by paradigmatic examples reported and discussed by the protagonists of major discoveries.
I was at Bell Telephone Labs in the 1940s when my good friend Walter Brattain accidentally discovered the transistor by careful measurement of a semiconductor. He was puzzled by what he found, but another friend, John Bardeen, recognized and explained that he had found amplification.
The maser and laser came about from my extensive and intensive drive to try to make an oscillator at wavelengths shorter than those produced by electronic oscillators. After a long effort, the right idea suddenly came to me. And my graduate student, Jim Gordon, in a couple of years helped make the first system of this type work, the ammonia maser.
A little later, Arthur Schawlow and I extended the idea to much shorter wavelengths, light waves and beyond - the laser.
Kepler is rightly famous for this three laws of planetary motion, the first two published just 400 years ago in his Astronomia nova as part of his “warfare on Mars,” and the third one in 1619 in his Harmonice mundi. The best known one concerns the elliptical form of planetary orbits (his “first” law), but the most profound is his law of areas, since it is equivalent to the conservation of angular momentum, one of the most fundamental laws known to physics. But Kepler never called them laws; they were not specially singled out and ordered until 1774 in J.-J. Lalande’s Abrégé d’astronomie, probably conceived by the French astronomer himself. In fact, “laws of nature” in the modern sense did not come about until the philosophical inquiry starting from first principles as elaborated by René Descartes, while in English the expression arose through the works of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton.
This paper will first situate the origins of Kepler’s laws within the larger framework of his discoveries and his cosmology, and then will reflect on the construction of the modern concept of laws of nature. Kepler’s and Newton’s laws are epistemological constructs, manmade and always subject to question and doubt (as Einstein expressed it). This claim will be investigated by a brief excursus into Newton’s law of gravitation. The widespread belief of scientists in the existence of ontological laws of nature (that is, a deep structure of the how the universe ultimately works), is a leap of faith in the underlying rationality of the universe.
We humans are a remarkably inquisitive and exploratory species, and very optimistic about discovery. We tend to assume that we live in a world that is orderly, intelligible and accessible, such that we can reveal the reasons why things happen the way they do, and that these reasons will make sense to us. How did we come to be like this? Historians of science rightly point to specific social situations and events for part of an explanation.
However, a broader look at the human species shows that the roots of our attitude of discovery are widespread and lie deep within our nature. Evolutionary biology can help us to explain how this happened. As humans became ecologically dominant, we eventually became our own most hostile force of nature. This means that in addition to adapting to predators, hunger, disease and climate, we came to evolve primarily in adaptation to everincreasing competition with other humans. Early humans who were able to more efficiently exploit resources, to better understand relations of cause and effect, and to make useful discoveries would have been more successful in this competitive scenario than those who were less adept at these endeavors. Moreover, although individuals make discoveries, science also has an inherently shared or social aspect, that ultimately derives from the group context within which our curiosity and inventiveness was originally manifested in our history.
More recently, aspects of our social environment have either promoted or hindered the advancement of our attitude of inquiry and discovery. Religion has played a pervasive role in our conception of nature and our place in it. Insofar as this is the case, our religious beliefs must always have strongly influenced both our tendency to investigate nature and the interpretations we draw from our discoveries. Particularly in the age of modern science, religion has largely been seen as an impediment to science, for good reasons. On the long view, however, religion will have aided discovery under certain conditions: when a monistic or monotheistic view has promoted consistency and universality in our conception of nature, when religious morality has fostered ideals such as human equality and free inquiry, and when a religious worldview is holistic enough to embrace or even inspire naturalistic explanations.
Understanding that Man is a medium size being among billion of others on a planet of a medium size star system (the sun), among billion of others in a medium size galaxy (the milk way), among billion of others has been really an event. Finding that Man is a Mammal descending from bacteria, invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, insectivora, and Primates, sharing common ancestors with Apes, born in tropical Africa because of a drought almost three million years ago has been as well a succession of unexpected events.
But understanding that Man is also the most complex being since four billion years of life, the only one knowing that he knows, the only one researching where he is coming from and when, why he is looking for and how, is probably also the most unexpected event of the universe.
2nd session - Dynamics of Discovery
I will tell the story of many surprises in the history of cosmology, from Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe in 1929, to the discovery of the cosmic background radiation (CMB) by Penzias and Wilson in 1965, the astonishingly perfect spectrum of that cosmic background radiation as measured by the COBE satellite, the stunning map of of the CMB variations across the sky made by the COBE in 1992, which Steven Hawking called the most important scientific discovery of the century if not of all time, the discovery of dark matter, and finally the discovery of the cosmic acceleration by the “dark energy” in 1998. All were the result of intense and focused efforts, but were nevertheless surprises because of the difficulty of the work and in many cases previous incorrect measurements and strong opinions. One was a complete surprise (the discovery of the CMB), but only because the discoverers were not familiar with previous theoretical work. I will tell the story of my personal involvement with these discoveries, including the early measurements of the CMB and the construction of the COBE satellite. I was a college student when the CMB was discovered, I was a graduate student trying to measure its spectrum with a balloon experiment (that did not work right the first time!), and I attempted to change subjects by moving into radio astronomy, but then NASA invited proposals for new satellite missions. I organized a team to propose the COBE satellite mission and led the project through its completion, despite having to completely redesign the satellite after the Challenger shuttle accident. In 2006, our work was recognized by the Nobel Prize and a trip to Stockholm. And now, in 2009, I am helping lead the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2014 to extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, farther out in space and closer to the Big Bang.
The weak interaction is a force acting on elementary particles. It is responsible for the beta decay of nuclei, but also a crucial ingredient in the production of energy in the Sun. New particles, discovered in the fifties, among which the muon, a particle similar to the electron, but 200 times heavier, and the so-called “strange” particles, including the K mesons and the hyperons, disintegrate under the action at the weak forces.
Weak interactions were first identified by Enrico Fermi in his 1933 paper on beta radioactivity. In a prophetic way Fermi proposed a close similarity of the weak interaction with the well established electric and magnetic forces, vindicated in the seventies by the unified theory of weak and electromagnetic forces, and crowned with the discovery in 1983 at CERN of the W and Z bosons, counterparts of the quantum of electromagnetic energy.
I will describe the genesis of my own work of 1963, a crucial step in building a link between electro-magnetic and weak forces The similarity between the two forces required that weak interactions have a universal character, as is the case for electromagnetic forces. In fact the electric repulsion between two protons is exactly equal to the repulsion of two electrons, or, with opposite sign, to the attraction between an electron and a proton. At the beginning of the sixties fresh experimental data seemed to cast doubts on the universality of weak interactions. The intensity of weak forces was by a few percent smaller in nuclear beta decay than in the decay of the muon, and about five times smaller in the decay of Hyperons and other strange particles. I showed that weak interactions are indeed universal, but their strength is in a very precise sense shared between the beta radioactivity of nuclei and the decay of strange particles. The sharing was described in terms of a numerical parameter that I called the “weak interaction angle”, and is also known as the “Cabibbo angle”.
Only in the last few years it was possible to complete accurate tests he verification of the detailed predictions of my 1963 paper, but in the meantime further developments of the original ideas, that go under the names of quark and lepton mixing, led to unexpected results that range from an asymmetry of matter with respect to antimatter, to the recently established phenomenon of neutrino oscillations.
The rationality of hypotheses has been questioned throughout the whole history of
logic. Twentieth-century philosophy held two standard views. On the one hand, hypothesis
was simply something that transcended the limits of logic and was better left to “pretheoretical
intuitions” (Popper 1934). On the other hand, historicism and hermeneutics
defined hypotheses as a relationship with truth that belonged to tradition and to the history
of effects of ideas (Gadamer 1960; Khun 1962). Both these views, by rejecting the inherent
rationality of hypothesis, end up leaving scientific discoveries, trials based on circumstantial
evidence, medicine diagnoses, or daily acts of trust, to the mere force of arbitrary will or to
the force of social conventions and politics.
C. S. Peirce (1839-1914) was a scientist and a logician who strove all his life to
define the rationale of hypothesis. He called this kind of reasoning “abduction”. This is a
subject-matter that has been frequently studied over the last forty years, but those accounts
have often blended abduction with induction, thereby missing the originality of the abductive
pattern. I intend to present Peirce’s original insight and then to complete it with a slight
modification that should make it fully operable.
Peirce described abduction as the passage from consequent to antecedent, the most
uncertain but the most fruitful type of human reasoning. The problem is that according to
deductive logic the affirmation of an antecedent amounts to an all-too-elementary kind of
fallacy. But Peirce was sure that abduction was a bona fide kind of reasoning, the only issue
being that of formulating an exact definition.
His more complete proposal (1902) shows that hypothesis begins when a new
surprising phenomenon C is observed (“new” meaning something whose apparent
discontinuity asks for a novel explanation that restores continuity). We formulate a rule A
according to which “If A is true, C is understandable”. We then cautiously assert the
antecedent “Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true”. We deductively draw all
possible consequences of this abduction. We verify them inductively.
The main difficulty lies in the passage to a rule A. How can we find it? It follows from
Peirce’s semiotic studies that we find a rule by reading lower levels of signs, signs that are
not yet symbols - thus, icons and indices - according to motivations that are both aesthetic
and ethical, falling as they do gnoseologically under the heads of admirability and
plausibility. Icons and indices imply a more general order or continuity of signs to which they
belong and according to which they help read the surprising phenomenon. Logical research
in our new century needs to explore iconic and indexical logics.
Philosophical implications:
a) Hypotheses work because they are as genuinely inferential as any other kind of
reasoning. Their reading of signs and their success imply epistemological realism.
b) Realism emphasizes the continuity between reality and human minds more than the
existence of objects “out there”. The history of philosophy has labelled that attitude
“nominalism”. Nominalism can believe in the ontological reality of objects without
accepting that they govern either the method or the meaning of inquiry.
c) Realism, on the other hand, implies the reality of different modalities: possibility,
existence, and generality. We cannot create existence, but we can actualize
possibilities and understand the generality of meaning.
Any scientific discovery, regardless its peculiar development and general relevance, can be described as a specific moment in which an aspect of reality, previously hidden or completely unknown, gets disclosed to the experience of a person, who can embrace its existence and, at least to some extent, comprehend its nature. Even when this is the conclusion of a long, patient and dedicated work, motivated by a precise question, there is always a discontinuity, as the discovery is set by the onset of something that “happens”, an element of newness and otherness that breaks the horizon and unexpectedly meets the researcher, always leaving behind a sense of wander and gratefulness, as for an undeserved gift. On the other hand, the role of the researcher is by no means that of a simple spectator: his/her presence and human position are decisive, full part of the dynamics of scientific discovery, whose nature is precisely this unique encounter between the searching subject and reality. I will illustrate these aspects of the adventure of scientific discovery by means of selected examples, taken from the reports of famous scientists and from my own experience as an experimental physicist. I carry out my scientific activity both at a large scale research infrastructure – the third generation synchrotron light source in Trieste - hosting every year a great number of scientific users from all over the world - and in a smaller size environment, a scanning tunneling microscopy laboratory where experiments are performed together with a team of few researchers. I have observed and would like to discuss some elements, e.g. curiosity, attraction, correspondence, and fruitfulness, that appear to be there irrespective of the specific situation and individual temperament, and therefore can be regarded as characteristic of the human experience of scientific discovery.
3rd session - Discovery and the Intelligibility of Nature
he event of a scientific discovery discloses both the orderly structure of nature and, at the same time, the ability of human reason to recognize and grasp such order. Thus discovery is the continuous manifestation of the intelligibile character of nature. In particular, the remarkable ability of mathematical language to describe deeply and faithfully the structure of the physical world remains one of the greatest mysteries. What explanations do we have today for this striking situation? What is its relevance in the present scientific context? To what extent does a similar correspondence between “objective reality” and “rational understanding” also apply to domains of human knowledge other than science?
The unique characteristic of the Cosmos of being “out-of-reach” by an interactive physical investigation and the fact it can only be “imagined”, places the cosmological quest in a special position among sciences. Possibly for this reason, the major discoveries and revolutions in astronomy and cosmology have had an impact not only within its own scientific progress, but also on other knowledge-seeking disciplines, in particular philosophy and theology. Through an analysis of the most well known historical occurrences of such impacts, the talk tries to support the hypothesis that the mentioned interaction between scientific astronomical discoveries (many of which unexpected) and philosophy is not occasional, but deeply rooted in Man’s vital need to find his own role in space-time and beyond.
In its best moments, the dialogue between science and religion has become less a battle over who may claim supreme authority to pronounce on the fundamental nature of the world or on our proper place within it and more a cooperative investigation in which these dual sources of understanding complement each other and jointly paint an informative and awe-inspiring portrait of our universe – its origins, its inhabitants, its laws, and its purposes.
There is another participant in this dialogue, however, one who contributes a great deal to our successes and discoveries in both science and religion. Unfortunately (and despite a long-standing and impressive tradition in which it received a tremendous amount of well-deserved attention) the presence of this third partner in the dialogue is frequently no longer adequately acknowledged. Indeed, the reward for its contributions is, on occasion, even worse than ingratitude or neglect but instead takes the form of the explicit denial that there is any substantial role for it to play at all.
Philosophy (especially contemporary analytic philosophy) deserves a clearly-marked place at this conversational table. Metaphysical and epistemological tools and insights are often at the core of our abilities to make scientific progress, to interpret religious texts and traditions, and to combine these unique perspectives on the world into a unified and intelligible whole. Moreover, we may also look to philosophy to help us reveal the boundaries of our representational and cognitive capacities and to recommend an intellectual modesty where it exposes limitations on our powers of understanding.
In this talk, I will provide a bit of an overview of the role of contemporary metaphysics and epistemology in both scientific discovery and religious discovery, and I will offer some critical remarks on what I take to be the threats to the health and success of the dialogue between science and religion that come from not attending properly to the philosophical presuppositions and philosophical restrictions that are operative in the relevant debates. In so doing, I will make a case for the benefits of a many-sided conversation in achieving the goals of both science and religion.
All progress about the understanding of nature hinges on our ability to model abstract ideas using mathematical tools. The remarkable fact that the universe is somehow intelligible has amazed scientists and, often, borders with its opposite, namely the unintelligibility of nothingness.
Vacuum stands as a remarkable middle point. We here propose to recall the basic steps that have taken us from a seemingly hopeless discussion on nothingness to our detailed but far from final understanding of the vacuum.
The classical discussion between Parmenides and Socrates of what can be apprehended about the Not Being serves as the starting point of the human endeavor to understand the absence of matter. The modest attitude of experimenting the vacuum led to remarkable technical progress and to the rethinking of space. Special Relativity provided a first non-trivial structure to nothingness in the form of Minkowskian Space-Time. General Relativity, in turn, proposed the amazing idea that space-time is dynamical, that is, differential equations control the evolution of the underlying structure of the vacuum. The intelligibility of vacuum went one step further with the introduction of Quantum Mechanics. Vacuum fluctuations are responsible for measurable effects. Once more, new mathematical tools were needed to produce a sensible representation of such intricate nothingness. The fate of the Universe is now understood to be related to the mysterious dark energy, which stands as a single term in the equations of motion of space-time as a whole. We are, thus, far from a satisfactory understanding of the nothingness.
Quite remarkably, the unintelligibility of the vacuum stands as a source of sound scientific progress.
Doubtless evolutionary necessity explains why our brains are shaped to be able to understand the world of everyday experience, but how is that we can understand the subatomic world of quantum physics and the cosmic world of curved spacetime, both regimes that are remote from direct impact on our survival needs and both requiring for their comprehension modes of thought that are counterintuitive in character?
Einstein once said that the mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. The universe has proved to be astonishingly transparent to our enquiry.
It has also proved to be astonishingly rationally beautiful, rewarding scientists with the experience of wonder at the marvellous order that they discover. It is an actual technique of discovery in fundamental physics to seek theories which in their mathematical formulation are described by equations having the unmistakable character of mathematical beauty. This search for beautiful equations is no act of aesthetic indulgence on the part of the physicists, for time and again it has turned out that it is only such theories that are found to display the long-term fruitfulness of explanation which persuades us that they are truly verisimilitudinous accounts of nature, a point that will be illustrated by the career of Paul Dirac.
Scientists are happy to exploit these remarkable properties, but why the world is rationally transparent and rationally beautiful are questions that arise from science but lie beyond the power of science itself to answer. It would be intolerably intellectually lazy, however, not to seek to address these metaquestions. They are too deep to have simple answers that no one could question, but it will be proposed that a theological perspective provides the best available coherent and intellectually satisfying answers. The universe is shot through with “signs of mind” because the divine Mind of its creator lies behind its marvellous order.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Tommaso Bellini, Department of medical biotechnology and translational medicine, University of Milano
Marco Bersanelli, Physics Department, University of Milano
Giorgio Dieci,
Giorgio Petroni,
Elio Sindoni, CEUR Foundation
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Marco Aluigi, Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples
Tonino Ceccoli, Euresis Association
H.Choi,
Donatella Pifferetti, Euresis Association
Nicola Sabatini, Euresis Association
A few photos of the Symposium are available.
Interview (in Italian) by IlSussidiario.net to Professor Tommaso Bellini on the Symposium results.