Agreeing with Heinlein

I was born too late to appreciate Robert A. Heinlein's work. I get too fussy about things like characterisation and plot.

Coming into Science Fiction when it has matured makes it harder to appreciate the masters who helped make it what it is.

Heinlein illustrates, for me, the contrast between idea driven science fiction on the one hand and character or plot driven fiction on the other. (although a good story does it all together) I find his manipulation of plot and assertions of 'the way it is' somewhere between flippant and arrogant.

Perhaps one could define a master as someone who breaks all the rules of writing (show don't tell etc etc etc) and gets away with it.

I also disagree quite strongly with Heinlein's conclusions about the way the world is. The meaning of life, the universe and everything, if you like.

So it was quite a shock to see within a couple of chapters some arguments and ideas that I particularly agree with. To whit:

In the mouth of Lazarus Long, who at this point in the novel is being portrayed as a sage,

"Never mind computers. Ira, the most sophisticated machine the human mind can build has in it the limitations of the human mind. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Time Enough For Love p29 1982 reprint.

This relates to one of the philosophical problems that people who are strict evolutionists have. How do you inject meaning and purpose, any sense of value into a world defined (by the evolutionary assumptions to have none) The common answer is that we create value, but Heinlein's argument applies equally to this question. It is impossible for the product to be greater than the system that created it. If human life is the result of meaningless happenstance, it can have no meaning.

Also:

"To figure out the basic questions about this world it would be necessary to stand outside and look at it. Not inside. no not in two thousand years, not in twenty thousand." Time Enough For Love p39 1982 reprint.

This statement seems almost anti-enlightenment in its assertion of the limit to human understanding. While Heinlein was probably not thinking along these lines (and would perhaps be horrified by my use of his words) this statement agrees with my understanding of the inability of the fallen human creature to fully understand himself without input from the creator. This idea stands in stark contrast to the enlightenment and modern ideas of the progress of human knowledge (and in particular scientific inquiry). It is also quite different to the postmodern rejection of authority and meta narrative which actually makes an absolute authority out of personal subjective understanding.

I read Heinlein because I like Science Fiction, because I respect his lofty position amidst the great authors, and because I like to understand the ideas that I disagree with.

So it's felicitous to find something in his work that I can actually agree with, even if I would come to a different conclusion at the end.

Why Is It So?

Science Fiction author China Mieville raises an idea that I have been thinking about for some time. What is it that science does? People tend to think that science answers why questions. Why do apples fall to the ground? Why do some people get sick? While science investigated these questions, I don't think it answers them.

I think science provides descriptions not explanations. This is how Mieville puts it:

"lsaac was still piqued by the ignorance surrounding watercraeft. It brought home to him, again, how much mainstream science was bunk, how much 'analysis' was just description - often bad description - hiding behind obfuscatory rubbish."
Perdido Street Station, 2000, p28

I hope we can excuse the derogatory tone (this is put into the mind of a fairly brusque scientist, so maybe we'll forgive the harshness). But it's an interesting point.

I remember the time I snuck a look at my X-ray report from the radiologist and discovered the word idiopathic, which is a word that means in layman's terms 'it's just there'. There is a word invented to put on the reports that says 'I don't really know'. I was terribly disappointed to discover that little Band-Aid of a word almost completely covers up a vast ignorance of my condition.

Before I go on, let's not underestimate the power of description. Science is a powerful tool. It is acute and accurate description that helps us understand the processes of most of the systems of our world and allows us to influence and change many of them. From scarlet fever to semiconductors science has brought great benefit.

But as I said before I don't think it answers the why questions. We ask the 'why' question, but we end up with a 'how' answer. And I think many people don't realise that, perhaps even many scientists.

An example: We ask the question, "Why does the apple fall to the ground?" And we answer, "Easy, gravity. But gravity is just a name for what happens, not an explanation of why it happens. Newton didn't discover gravity he named it. Before Newton coined the word things were falling to the ground and his label didn't make any difference.

Furthermore, Newton's equations, although powerful, and revolutionary, still do not explain why. Newton's equations with great mathematical beauty describe the manner in which bodies attract each other. And, once again, let us not forget how powerful theses equations are. These beautifully simple equations explain the complex dance of the planets in the sky. To extrapolate the falling of objects in our atmosphere to the level of the moon and planets was an astounding leap of understanding, and provided the needed foundation for the mechanics of a heliocentric universe.

But Newton still hadn't answered why. And even today, we still haven't answered why objects with mass are attracted to each other. Why is it so? We just don’t know. And diagrams and theories and descriptions of bodies of mass bending space don't take us any closer to an answer. For every question science answers, we get another question. Along the way we get a better understanding of the process, but we never seem to get closer to purpose or reason.

Let me give you a recent example of what I am talking about. This article in the Sydney Morning Herald. http://news.smh.com.au/secrets-of-the-platypus-revealed/20080508-2c2x.html

THE platypus is a bizarre creature: a furry mammal that lays eggs, makes milk like a cow, produces venom like a snake, has a bill like a duck, and detects its prey using electricity.

Now scientists have discovered why.

Scientists have discovered why…

The article goes on to talk of the recent coding of the platypus genome. And the reason that the platypus is the weird creature it is is…

Jenny Graves, of the Australian National University, said the platypus had genetic features similar to those of other mammals, birds and reptiles, as well as unique ones. "We expected the genome to be weird, and it certainly is," she said.

Can you see what I mean? This is a description, not an explanation.
I have no more than a layman's understanding of DNA, but I would have expected the platypus to have both similar and different DNA to humans. This explanation does not answer why platypuses are as they are. It gives us more detail, a better understanding of what a platypus is, but no better understanding of why.