Science game

The first time I saw the idea that science is a game stated explicitly was in an article by Isaac Asimov (Although it was probably Karl Popper And the first to formulate it); but the best expression I know of this idea is this: “Are we playing a game?” This is the old question that the universe, or something beyond the universe, began to ask the bewildered featherless creatures who spread out on the third planet from the sun, once their monkey brains could figure out the game of science. It is a strange game. There is no definite set of rules, and part of the game is trying to figure out the basic rules. It seems mathematically simple, beautiful, varied, arbitrary, and increasingly difficult to figure out. The game has never been so exciting and dangerous as it is now. It is a quote from the book Order and surprisefor Martin Gardnerwhose title expresses with a certain elegance the duality – the dialectic – of the perception of reality, matter – mind, the reflection of the universe: the universe – the system – looks in the mirror of its evolutionary peak, which is consciousness, and is continually amazed by its own harmony.

Science is a game in which all human beings participate, to varying degrees. Being aware of this game, its beauty and its risks, makes it more effective and enjoyable. And for this you don’t have to be a scientist: we can all, and should all, participate actively. We can all, and should all, be players, if we don’t want to become mere toys. There are no final rules. But one of the basic techniques of the game is to ask questions, and another, as he said, GalileoIt consists of measuring everything that can be measured and making the immeasurable measurable. All measures must be taken. You must dare to ask all the questions (no matter how silly or rude) and try to find all the answers; and vice versa.

We have come a long way in the last ten thousand years, but we are not there yet, assuming there is a goal. We have not even glimpsed it. Some think we are close to achieving complete knowledge of the rules of the game; others think we will never reach it. In any case, the game of science has never been so exciting and dangerous as it is now.

Reflection and myth

The surprise in the order of the universe, which makes it – though not completely or finally – understandable and expressible through relatively simple descriptions and models, is not limited to scientists: it is also the basis of literature and art. In his most famous novel. The Man Who Was Thursdaydeclares the indescribable G.K. Chesterton“I tell you that every time a train reaches its destination, I think that man has won the battle against chaos. You say lightly that when you leave Sloane Square behind you, you must reach Victoria. I say that a thousand different things can happen, and when I get there I feel as if I have narrowly escaped. And when I hear the conductor screaming victoryis not a meaningless word. To me, it is the herald’s cry announcing the conquest.

The reverent amazement at the harmony of the universe found its first expression in the cosmological myths of various cultures, which over time evolved to give rise to today’s religions. Until very recently, this tendency to attribute order to an orderly God coexisted with science. King Newton He saw in his great discovery the gravity, the continuing miracle by which God has brought together all that he has created. But today, only biblical fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that the conceptual leap from order to supposed “order” is baseless. Order is an objective fact that in itself leads to no other result. Myth is replaced by speculation (though not always); exciting doubt, by poppy certainty.

Ignorance and power

He said Einstein The most incomprehensible thing in the world is that it is understood. Rudolf Carnap He expressed the same idea in a more technical but essentially identical way: “It is truly amazing that nature can be expressed by relatively simple mathematical formulas.” Bertrand Russell He wrote at the end of his book on relativity: “The bottom line is that we know so little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and it is even more astonishing that so little knowledge gives us so much power.”

But in reality, the world is not that comprehensible—Einstein himself could not accept quantum mechanics because of its inherent incomprehensibility—and the power that comes from knowledge is in the hands of a very few, not the best. Only a true cultural revolution can reverse this situation, which is as discriminatory as it may be disastrous.

At the pioneering scientific conference held in Mexico a few years ago, Mario MolinaThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the ozone layer, he noted, is that the main reasons for the slowness and inefficiency with which the very serious risks of climate change are being met are, on the one hand, the economic interests of most people. On the other hand, there is widespread ignorance of the true nature and magnitude of the problem. An educational revolution is needed to enable the general public to understand and appreciate technological progress and its social and environmental consequences, Professor Molina, with whom I had the privilege of speaking at the lunch that followed his conference, told me.

In these critical moments when the future of humanity is literally at stake, and when solutions require, more than ever, a rational approach to problems, scientists and research centers must make an educational effort and be generous in making blogs and interactive pages available to the general public that would gather the doubts and fears of the population, and that would answer in a simple, but no less rigorous way, those questions that usually find their answers only in the demagogic speeches of politicians and in the lies spread by the powerful. Interests that conflict with correct information.

Innovation and excitement

Something paradoxical happens with cutting-edge science: it is the most interesting from a media point of view, but at the same time the most difficult to communicate. News, by definition, is new developments, the latest results. Which, logically, must relate to the latest research. Which in turn is usually based on the most advanced theoretical developments. This involves physical and mathematical concepts that are usually far from the knowledge and understanding of the general public. This is why most media, and even some specialized magazines, resort to sensationalism, replacing explanations with shocking headlines and suggestive images. Thus science, which should be the opposite of magical thinking, sometimes surrounds itself with a mythical and mysterious aura that often seems, far from promoting rationality, like the outlines of a new religion (in this sense, the disturbing success achieved by that moral and intellectual deviation that calls itself “Scientology” is no coincidence).

A century after relativity, quantum mechanics and Gödel’s logic had radically changed our view of the world, only a small minority were clear that Galileo, Newton and Aristotle And they didn’t say the last word. What is the solution? How can knowledge be disseminated without trivializing it? It doesn’t seem easy. But we now have a new and powerful tool, interaction, which can and should be an extension of that dialogue through which Plato He saw the surest path to knowledge. The game of science can, and should, be a game too. Connected.