Monday, May 21, 2007

Doubt- A Matter of Physics?

There's an overabundance of certainty nowadays. Shades of gray don't have a chance on the corridors of power. Certainty is on the march with brazen self-assurance. How did doubt become marginalized on the outskirts of society, holed up in some Midwestern highway-side cheap motel? If it ever got the chance to checkout with the concierge, who would be there to help foot the bill? I think we've lost our human connection with Mr. Doubt. Maybe we're looking in the wrong place. Werner Karl Heisenberg observed that we can't predict with 100% certainty where a particle will be at any given moment in the microscopic world. In order to determine the motion of a particle, one must be able to measure both its position and velocity. Since the position of a particle is impossible to determine here, certainty is trampled by the forces of doubt. Could it be that indeterminism, not determinism, is the way of the universe? If so, maybe we need to reclaim doubt, and begin asking more questions. That's what the ancient Greeks did, and look at what they accomplished. Plato did say, "The unexamined life isn't worth living." I think he was onto something. Walt Whitman, the great American poet exclaimed-

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I'd like to think Walt got it. Doubt is the fertilizer that will continue to allow questions to sprout. Let's start sowing the seeds; the world could surely use it.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If people would just embrace doubt we wouldn't have to kill each other over religion.
Somewhere between doubt and certainty you can find reality if your lookin’ at it right.
Makes me think of another Hunter tune.

Fortune comes a crawlin, Calliope woman
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can,
but what would be the answer to the answer man?

Peace
Darren