Boundaries and Barriers

by John L. Casti and Anders Karlqvist

Are there scientific problems that cannot be solved? Mathematics is riddled with such problems, but can we pose analogous questions outside of mathematics? Does nature itself impose fundamental limits on our knowledge of the universe? Despite the work of some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, no one really knows.In May 1995 this profound and far-reaching concern brought together a small but select group of scientists in a remote scientific outpost in Abisko, Sweden, a village far north of the Arctic Circle. Boundaries and Barriers captures the spirit--and the content--of the talks given at the meeting. Included are contributions by John Barrow on the limits of science, John Casti on the search for the "unknowable" in science, James Hartle on quantum cosmology, Harold Morowitz on complexity and epistemology, and six more fascinating chapters that illuminate the possible limits to what we can know by using the tools of science. The issues discussed here challenge the very foundations of science, but the conclusions are optimistic. When the dust clears, science remains standing-our best bet for understanding the way the world works.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201555700
• ISBN13: 9780201555707
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A sad place for Rosen's essay to reside...

I tracked down a used copy of this book in order to complete a collection of Robert Rosen's work. His essay, presented at a Sante Fe conference on the 'limits of science' is probably the most concise distillation of his ideas I have found to date. He neatly captured all of the major methodology and resulting implications from "Life Itself", "Anticipatory Systems" and the later "Essays on Life Itself" within the short paper in a very clear manner.However, when one reads the other papers here it is evident how the other presenters were still lost within their self-imposed prisons. That is, none seemed to fully grasp why their methodologies had run aground and instead presented various myths. Myths that have now been shown to be just as limiting as what they were trying to escape.It is still more disheartening to see Casti's paper and then look at some of his recent books. He obviously did not (and still doesn't) grasp what was obvious to Rosen. Rosen voiced concerns about the inability of many of his peers to dispense with their 'religious' beliefs in their frameworks and return to a more pure form of science; one where we acknowledge that all results are tentative and open to revision.It is certainly worth tracking down this paper but the remainder of the book is little more than a sad footnote to what is wrong at the heart of science at this time.