RE: den.list-d Digest V2002 #28

["John McConnell" <wysowl@msn.com.au>]

Ed Baker wrote: My question for DENizens: Is "perfect state of knowledge"
possible, or
is it nothing more than an idea that can never be?
*************************
Surely to accept a certain degree of uncertainty is on of the fundamentals
of science.  We can never prove anything absolutely, but can disprove
something through experiment.

Quantum Electrodynamics is the most widely applicable and perfect theory we
have, where experiment matches theory to about 9 or 10 decimal places.  Yet
Dick Feynman, the Nobel Laureate who gave the theory its most powerful form
(see QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, by Richard P. Feynman,
ISBN: 0-691-02417-0) was careful to point out that we can never be
absolutely certain about any theory.  It is possible that another scientist
will one day develop an even better theory and again revolutionise science
the way that people like Newton, Einstein, Dirac and Feynman did.

I have this vision of an aged statistician shaking his head during a similar
conversation and saying: "Regardless of how hard we try or how good is our
knowledge, sometimes we make mistakes of the first kind, and sometimes we
make mistakes of the second kind". Or later: "We do the best we can; guided
by theory; but we can't even establish a true value for any characteristic".

So how can any "perfect state of knowledge" exist, unless one can know the
mind of God?

John McConnell
wysowl@msn.com.au