Physics of X Episode 1: Where X is Everything Except Politics

Welcome to the Physics of X: Where X is everything except politics, a combination blog post and YouTube video series. If you’ve already watched the first YouTube episode, this blog post provides a bit more detail and information. If you have not watched the YouTube video below, it might be worth the 3–5 minutes to get the general goals of this series.

I became interested in the Physics of X because of my passion for science (especially physics) outreach and a realization early in my career that scientists often do outreach for specific topics in science but not so much about what science is. In speaking on topics ranging from superheroes to aliens to faith, I realized that even scientists do not always do a great job conveying either the true power of science or its limitations. I have had particular success and fun with a “stump the professor” style of talks on superheroes — ask me about any superpower and I will “talk science” about it! The real trick is understanding both the value of things that are consistent with our understanding of science and those that are not.

This is the first part of doing the Physics of X. Exploring proposed behaviors and asking the question: “Would they violate a fundamental law of physics or are they really technologically challenging?” The other important aspect of this process is learning how critical definitions are to science. If I cannot define something in a way that makes it measurable, in the end, science can not really comment on it. A great example is invisibility. There are many ways to define invisibility, and depending on the definition, it presents different technological challenges. But, it rarely violates any fundamental laws of physics. Basically, you are trying to make sure light does not reflect off you in a way that reveals your presence to another person! Instead of violating the laws of physics, it is a great way to talk about so many interesting things: index of refraction, meta-materials, reflection, absorption, near and far-field effects, etc.

Perhaps the more surprising aspect of the Physics of X is when I talk about “religion” or “faith.” These are not great words for this part of the Physics of X, but they are the best I have. Faith is better than religion, as religion generally conjures up an image of organized practices and beliefs such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Faith is a tricky word because, too often in contemporary conversations, faith has come to mean “blind faith,” or accepting things without question or evidence. In fact, faith has a long history of questioning and requiring evidence. The people of faith that I most respect are always questioning what they believe and asking what, if any, evidence there is to support their beliefs.

For me, the reason we need a concept like faith is the fact that the scientific process is not capable of answering all questions about reality. Science, as a process, has been fine-tuned to study and make predictive models regarding physical reality or material things. It is grounded in the world we experience through our senses and the devices we make to enhance those senses (microscopes, oscilloscopes, telescopes, etc.). It is also grounded in doing experiments that are repeatable and able to be duplicated by others. From this, we have developed a model of the physical world that is amazingly precise and able to predict a wide range of phenomena. It also allows us to build amazing things with confidence! However, it seems dangerous to make the argument that just because science is really, really good at helping us understand physical reality, only physical reality exists. This is the premise (or point of faith) for materialists. And while I cannot prove this view to be false, I would suggest that it is not necessarily the most rational starting point.

This brings me back to the issue of all of reality, or a phrase I like to use, the fullness of reality. There are things that seem to be quite real but not physical. Mathematics is the first thing that comes to mind. Conscious experience is another, though some philosophers argue that it is not real in and of itself. It is just an illusion based on the physical properties of the brain. More on that later, for now, I would simply say there is no scientific experiment that I have seen or can imagine that proves consciousness is not real. And even if human experience is somehow an illusion or emergent property of the physical interactions of particles, there is a reason we have art, literature, music, drama, the humanities, etc. as ways to understand and explore human experience. It is not something that is subject to scientific experimentation in the way the physical world is if we want to understand it better.

Coming back to the Physics of X, where X is faith, it seems by thinking about the “physics” of faith, I am really asking about the “physics” of the non-physical. At first glance, this seems to be nonsensical. But, what I mean by it is the following: What happens if we use the following logical, or rational, steps? Experience tells us that something other than physical reality might exist, so as good scientists, we should take this hypothesis seriously. Given what experience says about all of reality (both the physical and non-physical), are there ways of knowing things that we can build on to better understand what the non-physical might be? Are there lessons from physics that provide any context or constraints on what the non-physical might be? Can we better understand what aspects of materialism are assumptions taken on faith versus actual results of scientific enquiry?

How might we bring this all together? Superheroes, magic, aliens, faith, and physics? That is a lot to consider, so I thought to get things started, why not focus? But what to focus on? Well, I personally love the The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is modern-day Chicago’s only practicing wizard. The book series has a great magical system, a wonderfully consistent world with supernatural creatures, really fun physics quotes, and some interesting reflection on core questions of the non-physical (or faith). Given this, it seemed like a great place to start the Physics of X series. So for the next 11 weeks, I will alternate between a cool physics example and a challenging faith question from the books. The physics questions will touch on things like fundamentally prohibited versus technologically challenging and will generally have actual answers. The faith questions will probably raise more questions than answers but will hopefully provide context for interesting questions and directions for more thought and exploration. The weeks will alternate, and unfortunately, generally have spoilers for the books. So if you do not want those, go read the books first!

Also, I will be looking for the next set of X to explore, so please leave your suggestions and comments!

Explore more about what I do at my website: denninmichael.com, or follow me on social media (instagram, linkedIn, facebook). Want even more details on my thoughts on science and faith? Check out my book: Divine Science: Finding Reason at the Heart of Faith.

Originally posted on Medium.