- As we come to understand the Universe to better precision and more comprehensively, many questions which were previously pondered by philosophical and religious thought-leaders grow to have definitive answers.
- However, the information we possess within our observable Universe is now, and will always be, finite and limited, implying that there's a fundamental limit to what's knowable.
- As long as we remain curious about the unknown and the unknowable, there will always be a place for philosophy and religion both, independently of whatever becomes scientifically known. Here's why.
No matter how large our body of scientific knowledge grows, there will always be questions that are beyond the realm of science to adequately answer. The number of particles contained within the observable Universe is finite; the amount of information encoded in all the Universe is finite; no matter how much we learn, the amount that we know will always be finite. Beyond all definite knowledge, there will always be room for philosophy. And when it comes to questions of purpose, meaning, or ideas that are in principle unable to be physically investigated, religion will always have a place as well.
This doesn’t necessarily imply that all philosophizing done at the frontier is useful, interesting, or worth listening to, however. Philosophy that is ignorant of science, or of the bizarre and arcane logical rules that science actually follows, will lead even the most brilliant of thinkers astray. To the speculative, curious mind, however, what is known today will never be satisfactory. Until science makes those critical advances, philosophizing will be a necessary tool for gazing beyond today’s frontier, while there will always be room for religion to play a role in people finding their personal meanings to existence. Science is remarkable, but far from all there is.
