The Regge Hypotheses
- There are three hypotheses that i call the "Regge hypotheses" because i first heard them from theoretical physicist Tullio Regge (my thesis' advisor in 1982).
- There are an infinite number of levels of explanation. We discover a new one every time we develop a new generation of tools. First we discovered that matter is made of molecules, then that molecules are made of atoms, then that atoms are made of leptons and quarks. A new generation of scientific instruments will show us what leptons and quarks are made of. And so forth forever. There is no ultimate "indivisible" constituent of nature, there are only limits to our instruments.
(David Bohm wrote something similar in his 1957 book "Causality and Chance in Modern Physics").
- Everything that can exist according to the laws of nature exists. This is an infinite set. The laws of nature allow for the existence of things that we never observed. Whatever can does, somewhere.
- Godel's theorem applied to scientific theories: there is an infinite number of scientific theories because each scientific theory is incomplete and the only way to make it complete is to add an axiom to it which creates a new scientific theory. There is no ultimate explanation of the universe but an infinite series of explanations, each one including the previous ones. Truth is impossible.
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