What is the message that Oppenheimer gave in Mexico?
The lecture he gave at the Mexican-American Institute of Cultural Relations was given for “the Mexicans of the 20th century.”
It was a series of reflections about the relationships that exist between science and culture and how the time in which he had to live coincided with a historical moment, from which the world would begin to change forever.
Oppenheimer insists that, unlike art, the accumulation of scientific knowledge has an irrevocable character that no effort could erase and that, therefore, every discovery and practical application would have an effect for all humanity. Sometimes with a character of unimaginable and uncontrollable consequences.
However, he declared that science does not choose for what purpose the knowledge developed will be used, for which reason he called for the development of morality and advocated a kind of public policy that would help regulate these advances.
These ideas of Oppenheimer’s can be seen, for example, in the rise of institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency or the equivalent as the creators of ChatGPT ask for Regulate Artificial Intelligence.
“There has been a lot of talk about getting rid of the atomic bombs. I sympathize with these talks, but we must not deceive ourselves. The world is not going to be the same, no matter what we do with the atomic bombs, because the knowledge of their manufacture cannot be conjured. That knowledge exists, and all our adaptations to live in a new era must take into account its virtual and omnipotent presence, as well as the fact that we cannot modify that state of affairs”, he said to exemplify his idea.
ethics and progress
But, despite the fact that at the time he doubted the ethical question of the invention of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer called not to confuse the two types of human progress: scientific and moral. And that while the first is always forward, the second can have setbacks.
When “we regret making notable progress in cybernetic and space research, without having achieved comparable moral advancement, we commit an absolute fault,” says the scientist.
Freedom and democracy in science
Among his reflections, he points out that, after the renaissance of science in the Western world, democracy and the values of individual freedom and the eradication of the arbitrary exclusion of difference were the values that led scientific work to its current splendor. A potential that, however, poses new economic and social problems.
On freedom, he also points out that science is free at first to choose what to investigate, but then it is determined by the reality it finds. He has no freedom over the facts he discovers.