If we knew the exact properties and position of every single subatomic particle in the universe at a given point in time and if we knew everything about the behavior of said subatomic particles, we would be able to predict exactly what will happen for the rest of time. We would know what other people are thinking, who will win the next world cup and how the world ends. We would know everything.
Of course, knowing the exact properties and position of every particle in the universe is impossible, but science attempts to get us closer and closer to knowing its behavior. Unfortunately, only physicists and mathematicians (and maybe chemists) realize this.Physicists and chemists study matter (and energy, in the case of physicists) in all of its forms and structures, from subatomic particles to black holes and from the diatomic molecules in the air to the complex dna strands that exist in all of us, and mathematics study the way matter and energy behave following certain equations. But theorists from other fields don't realize this, and thus we have unnecessary pseudosciences such as statistics (which is a tool to predict (and be right in a majority of cases) very broad aspects of a system we don't know much about) and psychology (which categorizes people into different groups and makes up rules for those groups based on majority behavior observation, which is ok to a certain point but doesn't really give us any insight while it ignores the underlying electrochemical activity of the brain which causes humans to act in certain ways), and even in biology and genetics we have people sequencing entire genomes but not knowing anything about them, overexpressing a gene and saying oh, this gene probably has something to do with this metabolic pathway, and thinking about life as something mystical or magical or divine in nature.
Life is nothing special. What we call 'life' is just the ability of certain systems (cells, organisms) to maintain a more-or-less constant state of matter/energy exchange with other systems and to replicate themselves. What lies beneath is merely chemistry with very complex molecules: cells consume nutrients and produce other substances (which either return to the medium or are used as prime matter to grow and eventually undergo mitosis) and energy (which they use to drive all of the reactions in them). Cells interact with other cells in a physical and chemical way, and in the case of multicellular eukaryotes they act together to do the organism's activities. But there's nothing extra, there's nothing mystical, there is no soul which only living things have; it's all just chemical reactions, just like memory, which is coded as a network of neurons and synapses much like the instructions to make proteins are coded as dna. Thus the main question of the life sciences shouldn't be what is life?, but why sentience? Sentience is our ability to interpret signals and synapses in our brain and nerves as thoughts, emotions and senses. Thoughts, memory and emotions are coded in the brain; sight is neurochemical activity in the brain's occipital lobe triggered by the interaction between photons and photon receptors in our retina; touch is an electric pulse going from the nerves to the brain; and taste and smell are, much like sight, the interaction between molecules and the receptors in our tongues and noses. But why do we interpret them the way we do? Why are we able to think, to ask ourselves questions about the universe? Why can we feel happy or sad or angry or lonely? Why sentience? My guess is it's also coded in the brain in some way, but who knows?
Just as life is nothing more than a complex series of physicochemical reactions, everything that happens in the universe is a consequence of the properties and interactions of all particles and energy that exist. Thus, there is only one possible consequence of any specific situation, because any other consequence would be rendered impossible by the way the universe --matter and energy-- is structured and works. The obvious conclusion to this affirmation is that the whole fate of everything that exists was determined since the big bang (or before, if anything existed before). It also follows that there is only one universe, as the universe is everything that exists and there can only be one everything (the universe isn't a place, it is the collection of all particles in existence and the empty space between them; thus, if we traveled to the edge of the universe --to the place where if we look one way we see the whole universe and if we look the other way we see nothing because there is, in fact, nothing-- and took one more step we wouldn't be walking out of the universe, but rather expanding it, becoming the new edge (or part of it anyway); we can't leave the universe because we are part of the universe), and this in turn means that there is only one reality (no parallel universes and no what if everything is just a dream and we don't really exist?). To believe in multiple realities is to believe in multiple universes with different laws, but why should a hydrogen atom behave one way here and another way in another place?
Of course, knowing the exact properties and position of every particle in the universe is impossible, but science attempts to get us closer and closer to knowing its behavior. Unfortunately, only physicists and mathematicians (and maybe chemists) realize this.Physicists and chemists study matter (and energy, in the case of physicists) in all of its forms and structures, from subatomic particles to black holes and from the diatomic molecules in the air to the complex dna strands that exist in all of us, and mathematics study the way matter and energy behave following certain equations. But theorists from other fields don't realize this, and thus we have unnecessary pseudosciences such as statistics (which is a tool to predict (and be right in a majority of cases) very broad aspects of a system we don't know much about) and psychology (which categorizes people into different groups and makes up rules for those groups based on majority behavior observation, which is ok to a certain point but doesn't really give us any insight while it ignores the underlying electrochemical activity of the brain which causes humans to act in certain ways), and even in biology and genetics we have people sequencing entire genomes but not knowing anything about them, overexpressing a gene and saying oh, this gene probably has something to do with this metabolic pathway, and thinking about life as something mystical or magical or divine in nature.
Life is nothing special. What we call 'life' is just the ability of certain systems (cells, organisms) to maintain a more-or-less constant state of matter/energy exchange with other systems and to replicate themselves. What lies beneath is merely chemistry with very complex molecules: cells consume nutrients and produce other substances (which either return to the medium or are used as prime matter to grow and eventually undergo mitosis) and energy (which they use to drive all of the reactions in them). Cells interact with other cells in a physical and chemical way, and in the case of multicellular eukaryotes they act together to do the organism's activities. But there's nothing extra, there's nothing mystical, there is no soul which only living things have; it's all just chemical reactions, just like memory, which is coded as a network of neurons and synapses much like the instructions to make proteins are coded as dna. Thus the main question of the life sciences shouldn't be what is life?, but why sentience? Sentience is our ability to interpret signals and synapses in our brain and nerves as thoughts, emotions and senses. Thoughts, memory and emotions are coded in the brain; sight is neurochemical activity in the brain's occipital lobe triggered by the interaction between photons and photon receptors in our retina; touch is an electric pulse going from the nerves to the brain; and taste and smell are, much like sight, the interaction between molecules and the receptors in our tongues and noses. But why do we interpret them the way we do? Why are we able to think, to ask ourselves questions about the universe? Why can we feel happy or sad or angry or lonely? Why sentience? My guess is it's also coded in the brain in some way, but who knows?
Just as life is nothing more than a complex series of physicochemical reactions, everything that happens in the universe is a consequence of the properties and interactions of all particles and energy that exist. Thus, there is only one possible consequence of any specific situation, because any other consequence would be rendered impossible by the way the universe --matter and energy-- is structured and works. The obvious conclusion to this affirmation is that the whole fate of everything that exists was determined since the big bang (or before, if anything existed before). It also follows that there is only one universe, as the universe is everything that exists and there can only be one everything (the universe isn't a place, it is the collection of all particles in existence and the empty space between them; thus, if we traveled to the edge of the universe --to the place where if we look one way we see the whole universe and if we look the other way we see nothing because there is, in fact, nothing-- and took one more step we wouldn't be walking out of the universe, but rather expanding it, becoming the new edge (or part of it anyway); we can't leave the universe because we are part of the universe), and this in turn means that there is only one reality (no parallel universes and no what if everything is just a dream and we don't really exist?). To believe in multiple realities is to believe in multiple universes with different laws, but why should a hydrogen atom behave one way here and another way in another place?
