Limits - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 110

ter at implementation than imagination. That's why we must use daylighting to design
ourselves into a healthier future.
I'm still not safe. After my bike was hit, I told my mum. She knew this was my second mishap of
the month and warned me to be careful as “these things come in threes.” So I stayed off my bike.
But weeks later while jogging I was savaged by a wiener dog. It bit a hole in my leg. You
shouldn't be surprised. It's the most aggressive breed. One in five dachshunds bites a stranger. I
now live in mortal fear of sausage dogs, but I doubt that's how I'll go. As I tell my wife whenev-
er she's anxious, it's what you're not worrying about that will get you.
Understanding Limits
Our universe is 13.8 billion years old, so the diameter of the observable universe is 28 billion
parsecs. The best way to grok this scale is through these words: “Space is big. Really big. You
just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long
way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.” cxliii Of course, Douglas
Adams wrote that in 1979, and the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate, so it's a lot
bigger now.
In truth, we don't know the age or size of the universe. We have no idea what preceded the Big
Bang. All we really know is that the answer is 42. But we're not about to let the universe get in
the way of progress. We've developed all sorts of cognitive and cultural strategies to help us ig-
nore our ignorance. Binary opposition and reductionism enable us to feel good about ourselves.
We are good. They are bad. This is my area of expertise. That's not my problem. And most of the
time this makes sense. We must feel safe to be useful. We must satisfice to survive. But, once in a
while, we should embrace humility by reflecting upon the wisdom of Voltaire.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
When we question what we think we know, we engage in a philosophical inquiry with practical
value. Certainty is the enemy of creativity. It blinds us to the possibility there might be a better
way. Humility opens the door for collaboration. It invites us to ask questions and seek answers
together.
In that spirit, The Outer Limits of Reason by Noson Yanofsky is a helpfully humbling study of
the limitations of physics, logic, and our minds. A self-described extreme nominalist, the author
explains his position as follows.
Most people believe that there are certain objects in the universe and that human minds call those objects
by names. What I am illustrating here is that those objects do not really exist. What do exist are physical
stimuli. Human beings classify and name those different stimuli as different objects. cxliv
Yanofsky argues that we may learn more from looking at the way we are observing the universe
than from the observation itself. To illustrate, he recalls a thought experiment of the
philosopher-scientist Arthur Eddington.