Some Writing About Mystery and Unknowing With Some Help From Richard Feynman
Chris Burcher has written an amazing short-form article here, reminding readers that there are “some things humans will never know.” Certainly, few would dispute this as a general rule of thumb. How could we even begin to ever know about what’s going on in quantum systems or if the physical universe itself does not have some unknowable, unfathomable dimensions?
But we can go further than this also. What if what we do not know, and could never know, the vast majority of things?
And how do we consider the unknowable and ever-mysterious dimension beyond our grasp inherent within the small part or parcel of the Cosmos we have mastered?
For the question of mystery, we can turn to the brilliant and revolutionary physicist Richard Feynman. With one of the sharpest scientific intellects and a striking vision that was poetic while also spiritual, Feynman was among countless who held the view that discovering more about the world only enhances its unbounded mystery and beauty. He articulated this so well when writing about the deeper dimensions of a flower, as recorded in The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.
Feynman also so eloquently reflected upon the ultimate mystery of the Cosmos and the sheer unknowability of most of its parts.
It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders.
Feynman’s amazing intellect, reflective mind, and reflective vision echoed what countless of the greatest scientists, philosophers, spiritual thinkers, and others have espoused throughout history. Among other truths, there is the wonder that humans will never know about most things. And among the small sliver of things we do come to understand, there is a dimension of unlimited mystery and unknowability at its heart.
