Hello everyone, I've been thinking about what to post and looking at all the blog entries in the Imperial College HEP blog spot, it is obvious that the majority deal directly with the various HEP experiments carried out here at Imperial or with the HEP group itself. So I've decided to go the other direction - write on stuff that is indirectly related to HEP.
Of the long list of questions that I find interesting to mull over every now and again, I guess one of the more important ones would be my desire to understand the role of HEP in contributing to the well-being of society. Think about it; of what use is HEP to the day-to-day dynamics of society. When I leave the office and am out with my friends how does HEP contribute to my life? If I'm out shopping, sightseeing maybe, how does HEP contribute? Or if I'm simply spending time with family how does HEP contribute to how I interact with them? Another way to look at it would be to ask: how does HEP contribute to my understanding of myself as an independent entity with a role in society?
These questions are not asking about the opportunities that arise from working in a HEP environment such as travelling, attending conferences and the like. They are asking about the intrinsic purpose of HEP with respect to humanity's existence in the sea of creation. To answer, perhaps a good starting point would be to take a step back and try to figure out why HEP and indeed all institutions of knowledge became necessary in the first place.
The first important clue is that every human endeavour, be it Science, Technology, The Arts, Economics or Religion has as its original goal the desire to study and understand the human being, the environment or the interaction between the two, where the environment in this case refers to all physical creation that is separate from the human being, i.e. the earth, the universe, and so on.
The second clue is that a system, any natural system, will be composed of elements that are each unique. The uniqueness of each element automatically generates the property of diversity within the system. In a system that is composed of sentient, self-aware elements, for example human beings, this leads to the phenomena of demand under which each element recognizes its deficiencies relative to the strengths of the other elements within the system and reacts to this by striving to address the balance.
The third clue is that the act of striving is a natural action that is induced and controlled by the principle of evolution that permeates all creation.
And so combining clues 1, 2 and 3, we are left with the conclusion that HEP and indeed any other human endeavour exists for no other reason than to serve the phenomena of demand which is itself a natural attribute that is inherent within any system in creation. This is a sweeping statement. And it is one that raises a lot questions foremost of which are: What is demand? What is evolution? How are they defined and what are their origins? The answers to these questions become of even greater importance in the face of the realisation that there is still much that is unknown by the various institutions of knowledge in their attempts to plumb the depths of the mysteries of man and the environment. Society today is a paradox. It is the epitome of good health - evidenced by the immense technological progress over the last couple of decades, the space age, ground breaking discoveries, etc and yet it appears on the brink of imploding - evidenced by poverty, war and consumerism. How did it all go wrong?
The list of questions can be endless, but inevitably they are all tied in to a common theme - the origin, purpose and future of the human being in the cosmos. As it is today, humanity finds herself in real danger of completely missing the big picture as she concentrates on moving further and further down the path of the individual disciplines in search of the Holy Grail. What should be done to correct this imbalance?
I'll stop at this point and open the floor to comments. I must point out that this blog is somewhat of a teaser. All the questions have answers, no surprise there! However, the point of this blog is to emphasise the fact that HEP and indeed any other discipline in any of the institutions of knowledge exists only to serve demand. And so perhaps the key for maximizing the potential of HEP would depend on understanding fully what demand entails.
Of the long list of questions that I find interesting to mull over every now and again, I guess one of the more important ones would be my desire to understand the role of HEP in contributing to the well-being of society. Think about it; of what use is HEP to the day-to-day dynamics of society. When I leave the office and am out with my friends how does HEP contribute to my life? If I'm out shopping, sightseeing maybe, how does HEP contribute? Or if I'm simply spending time with family how does HEP contribute to how I interact with them? Another way to look at it would be to ask: how does HEP contribute to my understanding of myself as an independent entity with a role in society?
These questions are not asking about the opportunities that arise from working in a HEP environment such as travelling, attending conferences and the like. They are asking about the intrinsic purpose of HEP with respect to humanity's existence in the sea of creation. To answer, perhaps a good starting point would be to take a step back and try to figure out why HEP and indeed all institutions of knowledge became necessary in the first place.
The first important clue is that every human endeavour, be it Science, Technology, The Arts, Economics or Religion has as its original goal the desire to study and understand the human being, the environment or the interaction between the two, where the environment in this case refers to all physical creation that is separate from the human being, i.e. the earth, the universe, and so on.
The second clue is that a system, any natural system, will be composed of elements that are each unique. The uniqueness of each element automatically generates the property of diversity within the system. In a system that is composed of sentient, self-aware elements, for example human beings, this leads to the phenomena of demand under which each element recognizes its deficiencies relative to the strengths of the other elements within the system and reacts to this by striving to address the balance.
The third clue is that the act of striving is a natural action that is induced and controlled by the principle of evolution that permeates all creation.
And so combining clues 1, 2 and 3, we are left with the conclusion that HEP and indeed any other human endeavour exists for no other reason than to serve the phenomena of demand which is itself a natural attribute that is inherent within any system in creation. This is a sweeping statement. And it is one that raises a lot questions foremost of which are: What is demand? What is evolution? How are they defined and what are their origins? The answers to these questions become of even greater importance in the face of the realisation that there is still much that is unknown by the various institutions of knowledge in their attempts to plumb the depths of the mysteries of man and the environment. Society today is a paradox. It is the epitome of good health - evidenced by the immense technological progress over the last couple of decades, the space age, ground breaking discoveries, etc and yet it appears on the brink of imploding - evidenced by poverty, war and consumerism. How did it all go wrong?
The list of questions can be endless, but inevitably they are all tied in to a common theme - the origin, purpose and future of the human being in the cosmos. As it is today, humanity finds herself in real danger of completely missing the big picture as she concentrates on moving further and further down the path of the individual disciplines in search of the Holy Grail. What should be done to correct this imbalance?
I'll stop at this point and open the floor to comments. I must point out that this blog is somewhat of a teaser. All the questions have answers, no surprise there! However, the point of this blog is to emphasise the fact that HEP and indeed any other discipline in any of the institutions of knowledge exists only to serve demand. And so perhaps the key for maximizing the potential of HEP would depend on understanding fully what demand entails.
7 comments:
Hey Onuora, interesting -- now, you do seem to focus on "demand", which you qualify as "demand under which each element recognizes its deficiencies relative to the strengths of the other elements within the system and reacts to this by striving to address the balance".
This doesn't mesh much with what I think of as the main underlying force which pushes us to set up the best physics experiments we can and think hard about what they might tell us.
At a much simpler level, the physics we do is a form of exploration of the universe we find ourselves in. Exploration has occurred throughout history, be it looking inside the cave round the corner, or travelling across mountains and oceans, to other continents, under the sea and to the poles, and of course going to the Moon and sending probes to other planets.
Just as importantly, there has been exploration of the human mind and society through Arts, and of Nature and its living beings, and the exploration of our past by piecing together the artefacts that our ancestors left behind.
Some of these might have been associated with some form of "demand", but I don't believe that is always the main driving force, or needs to be. Exploration for exploration's sake been a behavioural constant for mankind -- though in retrospect some things could have been done differently!
Through Particle Physics, we are now exploring the very "fabric" of the universe, to employ a cliche, and we have an amazing picture of how it works -- and it works in a way that if you had described it to someone a hundred years ago, you would surely have been dismissed as a raving fantasist. By combining our efforts with those of our astronomer and cosmologist friends, we are able to explore inside distant stars and supernovae, the way clusters of galaxies cluster, and make observations of the Universe just after its birth. (It may show that I have been attending the PASCOS07 cosmology/string/particles conference this week at Imperial!)
And we aren't doing random things and seeing what happens just because we can -- the questions we ask are guided by the knowledge we gain, which is why we are all so excited about the LHC starting next year, and the next generation of neutrino experiments starting the year after and so on.
I also don't follow the connection you make with evolution -- even if you lived in a world that was obviously Created by some being, that wouldn't necessarily stop you from wanting to explore the world and uncover more of its beauty.
That isn't to say of course that there isn't a link, in that evolution has probably rendered a certain fraction of human beings curious by nature, and our concept of "beauty" and "simplicity" etc are influenced by it too.
The pursuit of Particle Physics comes with all sorts of practical benefits to society and mankind, which we should also recognise and ensure are never forgotten when there are decisions to be made. Fundamentally, though, I think we should be happy to say that we do it because we are curious -- and after the fantastic progress made in the last hundred years, the rate of discovery now means that we could really be at a point when our understanding takes a major leap forward.
So I think, just like other forms of exploration such as roaming around, singing and making music, writing stories and making pretty things to look at, studying our Universe is part of the human state, and the question is how best to do it, not why we should do it.
But we do have to do a much better job than we do now of conveying to everyone the fun, excitement, and meaning of discovery -- and I hope the Imperial HEP blog can do its bit to help....
Hey Yoshi, you present an interesting argument. You seem to imply that in a nutshell HEP exists simply because of curiosity on the part of human beings. You suggest that it is this innate attribute of curiosity that has led to the exploration of man and the universe. More importantly, you seem to imply we should be more concerned with the “how” rather than the “why”.
Well to begin with, the keyword here is curiosity – the need to explore and understand. Every human being possesses this attribute to varying degrees. The degree is measured only in how they choose to express it through interaction with the environment. It has nothing to do with that which is the source of the attribute. The source of this attribute is universal for all matter – inorganic or organic. The source is the principle of evolution. My definition of evolution is not some external, organic force directing the actions of matter. Rather, I perceive evolution as a law that is part of the fabric of matter itself. And not just matter at that, but creation as well. To use a crude analogy think of matter as a unique potential well defined by boundary conditions. Think of the boundary conditions as being the principle of evolution. The boundary conditions give matter its existential shape and form. It enables and indeed induces matter to interact and grow. And as I said in my previous post, the uniqueness of each matter-element coupled with the propensity to interact, will in a given system, lead to diversity. And in a system composed of complex matter such as the human society, this will lead to the phenomena of demand.
Of course I know that this raises a whole lot of questions; for example, how does demand relate to choice? How does choice influence the world we create? From an “absolute” point of view is there such a thing as good choice or bad choice?
From an absolute perspective, there is no such thing as a good or bad choice. And so the truth of the matter is that human beings are not guided by “the knowledge they gain” but by “the choices they make”. And these choices are guided by our perception of demand. A few elements within a system cannot presume to dictate the needs of all other elements in the system - this philosophy extrapolated into the human societal system is responsible for the various economic models today. A fall out from this are the problems society finds itself faced with today.
As physicists we may argue that since our efforts are directed solely at utilizing our talents to devising ever more ingenious ways of exploring the universe we live in, we are somewhat divorced from the impact of economics, consumerism and other mundane issues. The reality is that our ideas can only ever find expression if they are directed at fulfilling a demand of some sort, and thus we find ourselves directly connected to the progress and well-being of the human being out there on the street. Thus the statement in my previous post that HEP exists only to serve demand.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the phenomena of demand itself. Indeed from an absolute point of view, demand is vital for the progress of a system such as society. This also implies that the actual form in which the human society is seen to manifest itself today is irrelevant in the sense that it is simply the result of how humanity has chosen to react to demand. It could so easily have been different. This however would not make it any more valid because in nature the results of all experiments – of which the human society is one, are valid. However, from the point of view of the society in question, some results will be more desirable than others. Hence the need to place as much emphasis on studying the “why” in addition to the “how”.
Hi Onuora and Yoshi! Wow, took me some time to digest all these posts...
Maybe we can have some more opinions if me simplify the arguments a little. Onuora's and Yoshi's post are above my head.
Isn't all this just the usual argument about whether science is "just" a cultural activity like any other form of creation, or if it is there to produce progress and well-being of the human being out there on the street, as Onuora says?
In the end it's not really relevant as - following Onuora - everything is due to demand. But is it demand for pure knowledge? Or for progress? Is there really a demand for the mass of the Higgs or theta13 outside the HEP community? Is there really a demand for physics beyond the Standard Model? These are few of the driving forces for HEP researchers, and sometimes we even manage to share our interest with the public (estimated up to three million watched the
BBC Horizon programme). But is this what justifies the budgets?
I believe that what justifies science is demand. Not just any demand, but economic demand for economic growths. It's the economy,...
It's not demand for the mass of the Higgs, but demand for innovation. Innovation of any kind no matter what. Economy doesn't fuel itself. It needs external input that creates growths (and growths is assumed in all long term plans... so we better have it!) Innovation is an input. Wars work as well, but I'd rather go to CERN than Baghdad.
There was no demand for the web outside the HEP community, but it clearly triggered innovation. There is no specific demand for supersymmetry but it might be the underlying theory for the twenty-fifth generation of iPhone. Just like the laws of quantum physics discovered almost a century ago are the input to most new developments now. Of course I wouldn't bet on supersymmetry but the demand for innovation justifies science and within science there is an interest for the mass of the Higgs. That's how we got there.
I tried to be shorter than the guys above. So I shut up now. Flame me please. Who'll shoot first?
Just one more question for Onuora: Why do you need evolution? Are your clues 1 and 2 not sufficient?
Hi Patrick,
Yes, I see what you mean by simplifying the discussion a little bit. But of course the problem would then be that if the post is not lengthy enough when discussing tricky concepts, the odds are that it is unlikely to be self-explanatory, in which case time could be wasted discussing bits and pieces rather than the message of the post.
In any case your argument that the “demand for innovation justifies science” is interesting. But then you say very little about innovation is or what instigates innovation in the first place. My perception of innovation is that it is simply a reaction – a reaction to the obstacles humanity comes across in its bid to understand itself and the environment. So since innovation is a reaction to the obstacles encountered in a process, it would seem unlikely that it can justify the process.
I am more inclined to agree with your earlier view that “demand for economic growths justifies science”. However I think that there is a risk of confusing the phenomena of demand with the applications of demand.
To get a clear but simple picture of what I mean, lets go back to the beginning; the existence of modern man in responding to the urge to grow has always revolved around 3 themes: acquisition of knowledge, biological continuity and health. The acquisition of knowledge is what we are interested in because this is what man uses to consciously react to the phenomena of demand by attempting to understand the self and the environment and how the two interact. To this end he started off with the formation of society, came up with rules to strengthen and protect it before moving on to looking for ways to obey the urge to grow by trying to understand in greater detail the dynamics of society. Of course this meant understanding his relationship with his fellow man and with the environment. Out of this the institution of economy was born and the various economic models put into play. Next came the institutions of science – they found expression because they augmented the goals of the institution of economics. Thus in this scenario the institutions of economics and science could both be perceived as physical applications of demand. The phenomena of demand would then be a universal principle that could be applied by humanity in any way it chooses using any tool it pleases.
And this is where evolution comes into play in answer to your final question. Evolution is that which gives rise to the phenomena of demand in the first place. It ties all the pieces together. It is the cause so to speak while demand is the effect. Without it everything falls to pieces.
Hi Onuora,
It too took me a while to digest this thread! I think some of the questions you have raised are fundamental questions and are questions that have been pondered upon for many centuries (actually that's probably more like millennia). You've also raised questions that are relevant to the society in which we live today. However, I think too many questions have been raised at the same time leading to a tangled mess of rhetoric! So, I'll add my comments just to make matters worse!
To start with your original question, what is the point of HEP? It's not clear to me whether you think HEP does play a useful role in contributing to society. I would argue it does. Primarily because HEP drives innovation and the economy (just ask any investment bank). Regardless of these points HEP is a pure science and it's aims are beyond contributing to society and it should be valued for that (I basically agree with what Yoshi says).
Moving on to your points about demand, evolution, etc. It's not clear to me exactly what you mean by these terms. Are you referring to features of society or something more fundamental?
With regards to the "how" "why" point, of course HEP focuses on the "how". I think it'd be easier to understand "why" by first understanding "how".
Hey Ajit,
There are two ideologies at play here– the macroscopic and the microscopic. The former which is the stance that I have adopted throughout this posting, is necessary for me to understand clearly, the pattern behind the dynamics of a system – in this case our society. A consequence of this is that I have to consider many threads simultaneously, hence the many questions that have cropped up. There is no other way. The microscopic point of view, which is what you have adopted (and Yoshi for the most part I believe) focuses on single threads, in which case, too many simultaneous questions become an unwanted distraction.
The microscopic point of view is better equipped to deal with the “how” while the macroscopic point of view, the “why”. You can argue that one needs to understand the “how” first in order to understand the “why” but I’ll beg to differ. There are a vast number of possible threads out there of which HEP is one (bear witness to how science is fracturing constantly into even more specialised disciplines). Consequently, the chances of understanding the “why” just by going down a single route are small, very small indeed. I refuse to believe that as creatures at the top of the food chain, we should be content with just curious exploration for itself without thoughts to the reason(s) for the curiosity or the consequences thereof. We exist in a universe of cause and effect. There is a reason for everything.
With regards to the role of HEP in society, at no point do I suggest that HEP has no role to play. I merely pointed out that HEP, like any other discipline, exists as a direct consequence of the human need to give expression to the phenomena of demand, which is itself beyond society in the sense that it provided the impetus that gave rise to society in the first place. Of course, the important question now (I know... more questions!) would be to find out what is responsible for the phenomena of demand. My answer – evolution. I’ve already explained this so I won’t repeat.
Hi Onuora,
I agree that to answer the question "why" requires looking at different arguments (and branches of science). And I think that we should also consider the question "why". I just think that to find the answers to the question "why" and "how" require different approaches.
I could play devil's advocate and say "why should there be a reason for everything?"!
I think you need to expound on your idea of demand. Does it govern the behaviour of elementary particles or just sentient beings?
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