Death of an Ideal? Or of Arrogance?

[Allama]

I just read a very interesting article about space and knowledge of the nature of the universe that has set me to thinking.  Before I begin postulating, what does everyone else think about it?  I have some quotes to highlight, of course:

The most distant galaxies disappear first as the horizon slowly shrinks around us like a noose.

Oh God, that's so depressing I think I'll just slink off into the Games sub-forum to kill myself.

We might be headed toward a universe that is "asymptotically empty," he said, "But I have the uneasy feeling that the U.S.A. is headed into asymptotic futility well before that."

Nevermind, I feel much better now.

[Delfos]

'Death of an Ideal? Or of Arrogance?'

What does this mean? Or what do you mean?

Ideals are true, don't have to be real. It's like truth, it's true, but doesn't have to be real, as long you are convinced (or convincing) that something is true it doesn't mean it's real, but it exists. Whatever you mean, i tend to think that everything has and is a point of view, so that point is true for the person that said it. (Which i respect the 'souberan' thought of truth of a person)

[Allama]

I didn't mean to imply that ideals are arrogant; rather, I meant to ask a question related to the concept presented in this article.  If one day humans or other intelligent beings are unable to observe and collect the data necessary to come up with the Big Bang Theory this would be the death of notion of finite beings knowing the true nature of the universe.

Now, this is both disappointing and very saddening.  I wish to explore why this saddens us.

I wish to pose the contrast between the ideal of seeking knowledge for its own sake, for the love of truth, and the arrogance of seeking it because we believe ourselves to not only be able to ascertain the true nature of the universe but because we deserve to know it.

[Delfos]

Well...most of those theories are either based in smaller concepts, or pure metaphysics. So i wouldn't care much about knowing that specific truth. It will take long time to find, process and understand what really happened and it's not entirely in our hands. I guess we will find the proof by accident some day, there's other and more interesting things to do on earth.

Alot of great theories got kicked out of the nowadays concept of science, i wouldn't be that sad knowing the big-bang theory isn't real and we would have to accept anything...except for creationism theories, i would refuse to accept that even if prooved. I won't live that long...i bet...to see the big-bang theory renegaded.

[Algerianbania]

The subject of space and the universe and like quantum physics and worm holes and time and stuff like that just makes me tired. I once read a Michael Crichton book where these guys time traveled to medieval Europe via some quantum physics thing. This sparked my interests so I picked up A Brief History of Time. Not smart.

[Solnath]

This is why all things are equal, everything rounds down to zero on their own.

[Anniane]

I do see this as a kind of Death of an Ideal - the ideal that humanity can know everything there is to know about the universe. Scientific observation, unfortunately, has its limits. But this is not a new, pessimistic development in physics, nor in science in general - It was probably depressing 100 years ago to find out that Newton's predictable clockwork universe didn't make sense.

That said, I don't personally find this limitation to be saddening. I am content with knowing only what I can percieve affecting me, for if it does not affect me, what use would knowledge of it have? I suppose that Man, driven by fear of the unknown, might desperately seek to fill the void (and be frustrated to find out that such a pursuit is like digging a hole in mud). But curiosity does not drive me, at least, to look to the distant unknown and demand answers (the "arrogance" of the article).

If one day humans or other intelligent beings are unable to observe and collect the data necessary to come up with the Big Bang Theory this would be the death of notion of finite beings knowing the true nature of the universe.

That notion will always exist so long as the heart of human culture (curiosity, arrogance, whatever you want to call it) persists, irrelevant of what observations to which it would be applied. We look now at future people and might be sad they will not be able to share the fleeting glimpse of the universe we now have, but they will not share our depression (until they develop a theory that won't last, either). So them and us will be in about the same position, just with different science. As Soly noted, it all rounds to zero in the end.