A theory for the very large?

You cannot start a paragraph with, "I'm no philosophy major..." without somehow implying that you intend to assert that you do indeed have some knowledge of philosophy. While the subject of this blog (as many of mine will be) is philosophical in nature, I am ultimately completely aware of my extreme ignorance of all general philosophical premises which have been posited throughout the course of human history. So... my ignorance is submitted as an initial assumption for this course of thought.

I am relatively aware (as most are) of the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and others whose general ideas certainly recognize the limits of human thought and our place in nature. But that said, the average (amateur) person who seeks to study a very general understanding of philosophy will no doubt, at some point, realize how the vast majority of ideas and premises seem to single out the human mind as something beyond or above the natural world. This isn't some expression that we are somehow supernatural at all. But instead, that the human capability of understanding reason, self-awareness, morality, etc... is somehow unique to the natural world. And on the surface level this may appear true. Certainly, we do not believe that most animals and plants have complex notions of freedom, or the will in general.

And yet, lately I am reminded just how much we really are a part of the natural world, and how even our thought processes are (in many ways) dictated by the very laws of the natural world. For example, I recently posited that perhaps our notions of the dialectic were not all that realistic. That instead, our social evolution is not predicated by a continually perfected process, but instead by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

And tonight, again I find a fascinating link to theories (or laws) of the natural world. It has occurred to me that when it comes to questions concerning my own subjective actions, I really have very few questions any more. How should I act? Is this wrong? What does that mean? Etc... Certainly it was a painful effort to get there, but I can confidently say I have no mysteries about the nature of my own personal behavior. However, when I consider problems of society, I find many questions which I cannot so "easily" answer. That is to say I cannot state that "this theory" or "that theory" should conclusively answer the problem. Subjects like, abortion, capital punishment, racism, ethics, etc.... So why is it the rules which govern the self, cannot answer the problems of society? Sure...you can rationalize this one quite easily. "Everyone is different." But that isn't good enough for me.

So, once again just a little digging into the world of physics led me to something interesting. There seems to be 2 general theories which govern the natural world. From these 2 theories, all other laws of nature are derived. The first is the Theory of General Relativity (the theory of the very large) and the second is the Theory of Quantum Mechanics (the theory of the very small). What physicist have discovered (not recently) is that at incredibly small sizes, the theories of relativity do not apply - the very laws of space and time break down. And it is here that you must apply quantum mechanics in order to understand the behavior of the objects.

I couldn't begin to understand these theories. But it certainly opens up an interesting comparison to our own behavior. At the personal level, for the individual, there may very well be a general theory which can be used to govern the behavior of that person. But when you begin to look at a society, suddenly those rules begin to break down and you require a new theory - a theory of the very large.

I'm not suggesting that these theories do not exist. Deontology, consequentialism, hell...even all of religion in general are attempts at theories for the very large. "How does one act/behave with respect to all humanity." But here is the kicker.... Is there one theory which, like Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, can answer all problems laid before it. (Caveat: Einstein's theory is still just a theory and there are competing theories which may still be proven to be more accurate or not.) The answer is a resounding, "Yes!". Which one? The answer, again resoundingly, "Beats Me!". But I have a theory.

Then again, I could be completely wrong...