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I glimpse vast changes emerging in how we understand ourselves and the world. They involve integration of fields we have taken to be far apart, and distinctions between what we havegrouped together. We do not know what their final form will be, but I am lured into sketching some shapes that loom through the mist of the future. At one level our knowledge of the world is integrated as never before. The same basic laws operate from the minutest particles through living cells and organisms to the remotest galaxies, giving us unparalleled, though incomplete, knowledge. As science expands on many fronts new discoveries lead to revisions, but they only spur broader syntheses. Yet at another level, the more we know about the universe, the more we wonder how we fit into it. Familiar patterns of thought and behaviour come under challenge, not only as our impact on the environment becomes more problematic, but also as we ask what the point of our existence might be. |
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