8. The State of Art of Science

We have what we call a scientific philosophical system. Interestingly, no one deliberately built it. In fact, many scientists would disagree with the system I proposed. Scientific work has been going on for centuries. Philosophy of Science is a separate field that philosophers have been working in parallel. Instead of getting caught up with the nuances and difficulties of any philosophical system that explains science, let us just pick the simple system that was written by yours truly and move on.

How well does science answer the What Is? question? Remember, the What Is? question has to explain the subject (mind/self), the object (the world) and the nature of knowledge.

• Science is the best tool we have to explain the world we perceive. There are some caveats from a philosophical perspective which we discuss in later chapters.
• The rules we have in the system already explains the nature of knowledge. For example, the rule about observable predictions tells us that empiricism is a valid form of knowledge. The rules of inferences and logical reasoning already cover some valid rational knowledge. We use Mathematics extensively to develop scientific theories. While not accurate, let us treat Mathematics as an advanced form or rational knowledge. Hence both empiricism and rationalism are considered valid knowledge in the scientific philosophy

What about the subject (mind/self)? Explaining that too will give us a complete philosophy. It gets tricky here. But we will deal with that after going on a journey through science as it is not that straightforward.

About the world we perceive, science tries to come up with laws which explain everything that happens in the arena of the world - space and time - and also the arena itself. We experience three dimensions of space and a lot of matter and energy in it which evolves in one dimension of time. Science’s claim is that the entirety of the arena and its contents behave according to well-defined physical laws.

Over the next few chapters, we will go through the scientific progress we have made over centuries. The system fundamentally remains the same. We just add more physical laws to them.

Usual disclaimer - As with any attempt to condense vast amounts of material, there will be inaccuracies. I am not a physicist, just like I am not a philosopher, just a guy who read too many popular science and philosophy books and watched too many popular science and philosophy videos. So apologies if I made any ridiculous errors.

Further Reading

• Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

• Six Not-So-Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

• The Character of Physical Law by Richard P Feynman

All The Feynman Lectures by Richard Feynman are good. The books listed above have some handpicked lectures which are particularly interesting.

• The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

• What We Cannot Know by Marcus du Sautoy

• Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli

• The Biggest Ideas in the Universe series by Sean Carroll if you want to get a little bit deeper into the Mathematics. Third book yet to be released at the time of writing.

Sean Carroll’s blog is also very good