Delightful! And you made an intriguing observation: Only we men seem to find it absolutely and unrelentingly necessary to stick our big fat TOEs in the face of you and everyone else around us!
The fact that no female physicist has found it necessary to persuade you of their theoretical brilliance says something interesting about my half of the species, doesn't it? Are we truly trying to understand the universe better, or are we surreptitiously engaging in a nerdy version testosterone intimidation? A version where instead of building big muscles with which to beat up and potential intimidate competitors, we build build the biggest and most intimidating equations with which to beat up and intimidate our competitors?
But that surely cannot be right!
After all, if testosterone intimidation was the true motivation lurking behind a lot of math and physics research, then in academia there would be widespread reports of thesis advisers who instead of focusing on research seemed more interested in showing off and augmenting their own reputations than in helping and promoting young minds to do the very best they can!
You are so bitter. It's nobody else's fault that you are wasting your time on a paper about fine-tuning without a shred of evidence. You yourself decide to do foolish things like this.
Peter Woit's blog is a similar honest stand against parts of the Physics establishment and seems to be popular despite his sex. Granted, nobody wants to see Peter Woit sing.
"I also think that Sabine's blog would have fewer readers if the contents were exactly the same but she were a man. :-|"
It is hard to make reliable statements about counterfactual realities, but I doubt this is correct for the following reason.
I began blogging around the same time as a number of men, including but not limited to Chad Orzel, Tomasso Dorigo, and Sean Carroll. We are all covering somewhat different topics, but close enough, I'd say, for a fair comparison. 15 years later we have all written books and our blogs have audiences of comparable size, with Sean Carroll, in my estimate, being the most popular among us, at least in the USA.
Also, please note that Google originally did not require blog owners to post with their real name and for many years I posted under the pseudonym "Bee" that many readers mistook to be male.
You can make a similar comparison on YouTube. Look at other channels that cover similar topics as I do, and you will see that for what the physics is concerned, we have a similar audience. Of course I am trying to give a personal touch to my videos, among other things with the hand-drawn graphics, but I don't think this is the main reason people watch my videos. They watch them simply because they're interested in physics, want to learn something, and they don't really care who I am or what I look like.
I am not bitter. I am, quite seriously, one of the happiest people on Earth. I have nothing against Sabine. We don't always agree, but we don't take it personally. (Maybe she can fit that couplet into a new song.)
Harder than a theory of everything might be finding an explanation for why you have nothing better to do than wait until I post a comment, then follow it up with an off-topic and irrelevant comment (already twice for this post).
I work on a PC, so I'm not actually waiting for you or anybody else to post. And the blog is good for learning key points about Physics w/o the slog of working through textbooks.
The explanation is simple. You have not understood that you need a reason to think something is true, so you need telling. This puts you on the wrong side of the Enlightenment along with anti-vaxxers and nutters who attack 5G towers they think are spreading a virus. Organisations like the Templeton Foundation and deluded maniacs like Luke Barnes pushing for "spirituality" in science are the thin end of the wedge. Incompetents like Martin Rees and Ed Witten who claim theories with no evidence are not much better.
Don't you think it's strange that the UK Astronomer Royal has been chuntering on about a theory with no evidence for 40 years and has been rewarded with 1 million quid for being wrong by the anti-science Templeton Foundation? Isn't it strange that an actual Nobel Physics laureate wrote the preface to a purported Physics book, albeit a popular one, in which "God" is presented as a physical concept?
Clowns like this need telling that they are clowns.
You still have provided *zero* evidence of universal fine-tuning. Yet you believe it. This makes you one of the clowns.
Terry Bollinger wrote: >Are we [male physicists] truly trying to understand the universe better, or are we surreptitiously engaging in a nerdy version testosterone intimidation? A version where instead of building big muscles with which to beat up and potential intimidate competitors, we build build the biggest and most intimidating equations with which to beat up and intimidate our competitors?
An interesting question.
I assume you have noticed that very few physicists were ever "Big Men on Campus."
By the way, I knew Sally Field's brother, the physicist Rick Field, when he was a post-doc at Caltech. The rumor was that Rick kept himself in good shape so as to be competitive with Sally's then beau, Burt Reynolds: reportedly, Rick was also a very successful student athlete. Pretty obviously, an exception.
One possible answer to the question you raise may be that modern, post-WW II physics was "born in sin": I'm referring of course to the Manhattan project and the fission and fusion bombs. I really think that a lot of nerdy guys were entranced by the fact that we could use our brains to create these things... see, take that all you bullies!
Twentieth-century modernism also tended to encourage a sort of tough guy stance among intellectuals. I remember back around 1970 that philosophers proudly talked about "knock-down" arguments: to be sure, almost none of their arguments truly, really were "knock-down" arguments, but the very phrase is revealing.
Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? Feynman was comfortable with the idea that there were things he did not (yet) understand, and I've noticed that the Nobel laureates I have known were less arrogant than their less successful colleagues.
We do need the courage to stand up and strongly defend results that we arrive at that we think are right. On the other hand, lots of scientists and other scholars would benefit from keeping in mind Feynman's admonition: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
What's your beef against the Templeton foundation? I've come across other physicists that seem dead set against them.
As far as I know you don't have to be an atheist to do physics, and nor does it particularly help and historically speaking, it hasn't helped.
Personally, I don't think religion/spirituality has much in common with science, especially in its professionalised guise. I mean what has Christ in common with quarks, Mohammed with molecules and the Buddha with gluons? Very little. There is much more commonality with an older conception of cosmology, which is mans relationship with the cosmos - but that has very little purchase in the modern imagination. Except in throwaway comments like Hawkings 'knowing the thoughts of God'.
Actually, Black Elks Speaks, which I regard as one of the few modern religious classics, relies implicitly on this kind of cosmology. I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable - no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world.
Richard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. The same goes for poetry ...
Actually Feynmans admonition has a much older provenance. It was Plato after all, who said that people so love their illusions that they will kill to keep hold of them.
Mozibur wrote to me: >Richard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. The same goes for poetry ...
Well... the most damning testimony against philosophers comes from other philosophers! All you have to assume is that they are generally right when they criticize their predecessors, and you conclude they are all morons.
Now, yes, I know that not all are morons: I respect Tim Maudlin, for example, and, going back further, I respect Locke and Hume.
Anyway, since Feynman was more often than not correct when he wrote about physics, perhaps when he addressed philosophers' writings that somehow touch on physics, there is a presumption that Feynman might know more than they do?
Again, I think the real problem with your claim is that the harshest critics of philosophers are other philosophers: there is a bit of a "Cretan liar" paradox here. If philosophers are not generally wrong, then how can they not be generally wrong when they claim other philosophers are generally wrong?
By the way, what particular piece by Feynman criticizing philosophers has you upset? I took two years of classes from Feynman, and he spent almost no time at all attacking philosophers: I thought he simply found them uninteresting.
"I remember back around 1970 that philosophers proudly talked about "knock-down" arguments: to be sure, almost none of their arguments truly, really were "knock-down" arguments, but the very phrase is revealing."
Just like you claimed to have a "logical proof" that refuted the possibility of the mind being weakly emergent from the brain i.e. a knock-down argument. Except you had no proof whatsoever. Then you blatantly lied and said you had made no such claim.
"Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? "
You mean like writing "veni, vidi, vici" when you have written yet another comment filled with irrational nonsense?
You can't get an ought from an is therefore the mind is not weakly emergent from the brain? Possibly one of the most stupid comments in history. The premise and conclusion are completely unrelated. Please learn some basic, basic logic and stop writing facile nonsense. And quit with the lying.
"What's your beef against the Templeton foundation? "
They are a bunch of religious loonies using the profits of tax dodging to try to corrupt natural science in the name of Baby Jesus.
Someone at UCL published a paper about them: "Questioning the Integrity of the John Templeton Foundation"
"As far as I know you don't have to be an atheist to do physics," Are you from the 1st Millenium? There is no such thing as an "atheist". There are the mentally deluded who believe in Iron Age superstitions, and then there are the sane. Physicists are much more likely to be non-believers than the general population because it is difficult for a deluded halfwit to do Physics.
"Personally, I don't think religion/spirituality has much in common with science, "
Science has refuted or made untenable the main tenets of all major superstitions. So you are wrong.
"I mean what has Christ in common with quarks," Christ, if he existed, was made of quarks i.e. he was human, not a demi-god.
"Mohammed with molecules" There is nothing called "Allah" made of molecules. So Islam is nonsensical garbage, too.
"the Buddha with gluons?" It's an empirical scientific fact that reincarnation is impossible. Not that we should have to be discussing this kind of nonsense.
"Except in throwaway comments like Hawkings 'knowing the thoughts of God'." A metaphor.
"I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable"
It was quite unremarkable because he wasn't doing it, because there is no such thing as a "Spirit World". Many people cannot distinguish between their imagination and reality - the subject of natural science.
" no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world. "
He was a primitive medicine man, apparently, so presumably he is thought of as a primitive medicine man. The vast majority of people in "today's hyper^modern world" are no less primitive in their beliefs and understanding of the world than the medicine man.
"Richard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. " Pity you weren't there to explain it all to the thicko Feynman.
"He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it"
Large swathes of philosophy are nonsense and much of it has been superceded by science. Philosophers of science, Maths, logic, etc. can be useful, but I'm guessing Feynman knew a bit about the philosophy of science.
"and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. "
Science trumps philosophy. If a scientist disagrees with a philosopher, the scientist is right.
"It was Plato after all, who said that people so love their illusions that they will kill to keep hold of them. "
Yes. See Luke Barnes in the comments of this blog.
Steven Evans wrote to me: >Just like you claimed to have a "logical proof" that refuted the possibility of the mind being weakly emergent from the brain i.e. a knock-down argument. Except you had no proof whatsoever. Then you blatantly lied and said you had made no such claim.
Hey, Steve! Hope you are doing well and staying healthy.
Y'know, you may not like my proof, you may claim it is invalid, but no one else has claimed that I did not present what I think is a proof.
I honestly think your ignorance of math and formal logic is showing up here: you seem to think that because my proof was not in two-column form or did not use equations or something like that, that therefore I could not honestly believe I presented a proof.
I do not suppose I or anyone else can ever induce you to go to a good university library and spend a few hours in the math section actually looking at real math proofs. But if you ever did, you would find that many of them are this sort of discursive discussions, in English, and that this is an acceptable form for mathematical proofs.
Steve also wrote: >[Dave]"Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? "
>[Steve]You mean like writing "veni, vidi, vici" when you have written yet another comment filled with irrational nonsense?
“Irrational nonsense” means a proof concerning formal logic that Steven Evans lacks the ability to understand. There are people who have posted here who have exactly the same view of special relativity and for exactly the same reason: they lack the ability to understand special relativity.
Steve asked me: >You can't get an ought from an is therefore the mind is not weakly emergent from the brain?
Well, it is a little more complicated than that, Steve, but I do not suppose it is worth trying to explain the details again to you. It has to do with what terms can show up non-tautologically in the conclusion of a proof. That is a real theorem in formal logic.
But I am coming to accept that you can no more grasp that than you can grasp quantum field theory.
Some people's mental capacities are simply greater than others. Yours are less than, say, Ed Witten's or Steve Weinberg's.
C'est la vie.
Take care of yourself, Steve. Get some fresh air and try to calm down.
And I do thank you again for helping me to clarify my argument, even if it still infuriates you!
Mozibur wrote to Steven Evans: >Actually, Black Elks Speaks, which I regard as one of the few modern religious classics, relies implicitly on this kind of cosmology. I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable - no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world.
Mozibur, perhaps I can try to respond to the issues you raise a bit more calmly than Steven Evans.
By the way, Steve's and my views on religion are fairly similar, which is one of the humorous aspects of his ongoing attacks against me because he somehow thinks I am not quite antagonistic enough towards religion. This is one of several reasons I just cannot get angry with my friend Steve.
Anyway, if we take religious discourse literally, as actually trying to talk about reality, then the different religions rather wildly contradict each other: most of them simply have to be false.
Now, I know of course that it is debatable whether we should take religious discourse literally. But I can assure you from very long personal experience that a huge number of people here in the USA do exactly that.
If what preachers say in the pulpit, what religious apologists write in popular books, and what theologians promulgate in their massive tomes is not meant to be taken literally, then they really have a moral obligation to make this clear to the tens or hundreds of millions (or is it billions?) of people who are being misled.
I have actually discussed this exact point with members of the clergy: I hope you will take my word for the fact that they are very uncomfortable and evasive when the issue is raised.
If you do not want to take my word for it, get hold of Jack Good's book The Dishonest Church: Good is a retired United Church of Christ pastor with far more experience of all this than I have, and he confirms what I just said in spades.
Now, given that most religions cannot be literally true and given that most of them seem to talk about actual reality, it is reasonable to conclude that any given religion is unlikely to be true unless it has serious evidence in its favor.
Of course, none do. Most do not even claim to: you should believe on faith, not scientifically verifiable evidence.
That, I think, is the basic rationale of most thoughtful non-believers, including, I suspect, our friend Steve, and I think that rationale is valid.
Now of course there is much more that can be said. There is Hume's argument against miracles. There is the obvious refutations from evolutionary psychology of C. S. Lewis' argument that only religion can explain our sense of morality.
By the way, all this does connect with your previous questions about philosophy.
Even today, there are philosophers who are accepted as members in good standing in the philosophical community who argue for truly loony positions to defend religion: I have in mind, for example, Dave Oderberg's defense in his book Real Essentialism of transubstantiation. Or google Ed Feser's essay “Transubstantiation and hylemorphism.”
Or the analytic philosopher William Lane Craig, who has argued for the impossibility of an eternal universe using an argument that is simply silly (how would there be enough time for the universe to reach the present if the past is infinite?).
Or Alvin Plantinga, who has argued that non-Christian simply have badly functioning minds (consider all the Jewish scientists and mathematicians whose poor minds were malfunctioning!).
Plantinga was actually president of the American Philosophical Association in the early 1980s.
Which would be a bit like physicists electing a flat-earther as head of the American Physical Society.
Now I have a suspicion you will find none of this convincing. Which is okay, we have freedom of speech and religion, at least in the USA. Or at least we used to, before the rise of “cancel culture.”
Steven Evans wrote to me: >We assume the laws of Physics. >We conclude that the "mind" cannot be derived from the laws of Physics.
>Now you fill in the proof between those 2 lines, you lying troll. Because you have a proof.
You're making some progress in the treatment program, Steve!
It would be more precise to say :"currently known laws of physics," though.
Yes, I do indeed have a proof, which I gave to you a while back: I recently provided you with links in case you forgot.
Maybe if we keep this exchange going, you will eventually actually understand the proof!
By the way, do you agree with my reply to Mozibur or would you have a different take on what's wrong with religion? I really would be interested to hear your opinion, whether positive or negative.
Seriously, my friend, take care of yourself and stay healthy.
PhysicistDave6:23 AM, August 24, 2020 You're completely f*cking nuts. So you're back to having a proof today, but are still not prepared to reveal it.
PhysicistDave3:25 AM, April 29, 2020 I have hated and despised pathological liars ..since I was a very young child..
SE' You claim to have a "logical proof" that mind cannot be emergent from matter, but have provided no proof.'
PhysicistDave4:56 AM, July 30, 2020 "Yes, I have such a proof,"
PhysicistDave12:50 AM, August 07, 2020 "Where have I said that????"
PhysicistDave6:23 AM, August 24, 2020 Yes, I do indeed have a proof,
"It would be more precise to say :"currently known laws of physics," though." As opposed to the laws of Physics in 1650 or 2150? You are truly a halfwit.
"If a structure appears out of “nothing”, then the “nothing” wasn’t nothing after all. "
How do you know this? How do you know that if we work backwards in time that matter and space-time don't eventually cancel out to literally nothing? Do you have empirical evidence? Not that I think Lawrence Krauss showed that we have "A Universe from Nothing", but neither have you shown that we don't.
You are confusing what you imagine to be true with empirical evidence. Again.
Natural Science is a collection of observations - when will you learn this?
Your suggestion that “matter and space-time … cancel out to literally nothing” is a relationship which might be expressed as: “matter + space-time = 0”. A relationship is not nothing; the relationship is not cancelled out. And zero is a number; a number is a special type of thing, not nothing.
I meant this comment with a bit of mirth. When it comes to physics I am referring to the vacuum. The quantum vacuum with an asymmetrical quartic form can permit states in the higher energy false vacuum to tunnel into the lower energy so called true vacuum. This is a sort of approximation to nothingness. In particular if it is timeless, which means there is no global Hamiltonian that generates time. The Wheeler DeWitt equation has this feature.
Nothingness is a contradictory concept. We could ask whether nothingness exists. If it does exist then by virtual of its existence is is "something," contradicting itself. If nothingness does not exist it means instead there must be something, which again makes nothingness hard to put a finger on. Lao Tse wrote on this sort of thing in his Tao Te Ching.
The quantum vacuum appears to have some similar properties, where the false vacuum may contain no particles or radiation, but it is unstable. A quantum fluctuation or transition sends the state of the universe to a lower energy vacuum and the mass-energy gap generates particles and radiation.
" is a relationship which might be expressed as: “matter + space-time = 0”."
I don't mean that matter cancels out space-time, I mean if you go back far enough there is literally nothing - anti-matter cancels out matter and space-time shrinks to zero extent, or whatever.
Dr. H. - has a universe from literally nothing been ruled out physically, or would you just say it's an unscientific question because only "something" can be confirmed by observation? In that case, is a universe from literally nothing consistent with current Physics (like MWI, say)?
Space-time does not shrink to "zero extent" if you go back in time. That's a common misunderstanding with Big-Bang cosmology. What happens is that the curvature of space becomes technically infinitely large, which is why the equations break down.
I don't know what "a universe from literally nothing" means and I don't know of a way to make that into a scientific hypothesis. I don't know whether that is because it is unscientific in principle, or whether it's just the case that no one has yet managed to formulate it scientifically.
Seemingly, many science-loving people have taken a literally-interpreted “universe from nothing” concept to heart. But seemingly, there can be no genuine “nothing”, and in any case, physics is always about “something”. The aspects of the world that physicists represent with words or mathematically/ logically are not nothing: even the number zero or an equation that equates to zero does not represent “nothing”.
Despite what the literal interpreters might think, physicists have not found a way to explain the source of mathematical relationships and numbers, including random numbers. But surely, a proper “Theory of Everything” needs an explanation or rationale for the following types of thing: mathematical relationships and numbers?
If you need some extra money, you could make some by inventing and selling a cure for earworms. According to Wikipedia, you are in good company:
"Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Goyte "Moves like Jagger" by Maroon 5 "California Gurls" by Katy Perry "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga
I'll take the third one on the list. It could also be a motto for those who send you their theories of everything. :-)
Surely one can comment on a video with another video.
Back to the first comment: There are practically no women who claim to have come up with a theory of everything. Except for singers, members of girl groups, and those related to or in a relationship with someone in a band, there are essentially no famous female rock musicians. Are the reasons the same? Discuss. (I can think of only one off the top of my head; she's really good, but, according to my criteria above, she is borderline.)
There is nothing wrong with being a singer, having a relationship with or being related to someone else in the band, or being part of a girl group, but the point is that most male rock musicians (famous or not) are not singers, not in a relationship with nor related to someone else in the band, and not part of a boy group.
Congratulations Sabine! I don't know why but I find this video clip unexpectedly entertaining that gives me ideas of how one (me) may politely say "I am not interested. Please don't send me any letters about your personal theories, I don't have time to read them (I am too busy with my blog (John's blog), you know). Thank you!". I am really laughing right now!!! It is an alternative way of avoiding crackpots (not me, right?), ha, ha!!!
Then, I pressed on the link at the right side of this page that is about an interview you gave recently ("Physics doesn't have to be pretty") and while I am still watching, I noticed those you mentioned around the 5th minute of the interview. So, I thought to tease/challenge (in a good way) you a little.
Here is how it goes:"Why am I the only person on this planet who believes (and demonstrates) that those dark matter (gravity pull), foundations of physics questions stuff can be solved very easily? Please visit my Profile. Replace the linear actuator (Fig.2.Upper) with a rotating galaxy (system mass) and the moving blue part with a star. Does someone sees what comes out of this? And not only in this situation, I would say.".
See eq. 43 (replace velocities with accelerations) that is a consequence of the findings of this work that seems to bring the same results as MoND (adhoc approach, by fitting experimental data), although the paper doesn't address cosmology. In other words, I believe MoND has to do with what I discovered on a theoretical level that extends Newton's laws of motion and special relativity in a natural way (it doesn't need special assumptions, it is self-evident and can be proved mathematically (see eq.1 to eq.20).
"Why am I the only person on this planet who believes (and demonstrates) that those dark matter (gravity pull), foundations of physics questions stuff can be solved very easily?"
@Philip, "Because it is on viXra". Great! At least you had the courage to press on that link in my Profile.
Let's get serious now. As I checked in your Profile and publications (Journals and arXiv) you are a Physicist. So, the question now is, are you going to accept the challenge or are you afraid that you will lose your credibility? Of course no need to comment on this blog (send me an e-mail). See Sabine's blog policy.
Either viXra or arXiv, what matters is the content and especially whether the latter is falsifiable or not. So, here is your challenge (and to any real Physicist in this blog). There are two ways to falsify (if possible) the claims of this work:
a) By testing the mechanical apparatus (even in principle in theory) proposed in Fig.2.Upper. b) By finding what is wrong in eq.1 to eq.20. Note: eq.20 is the complete version of Newton's 3rd law for closed systems. Eq.1 to eq.20 is the mathematical proof of the concept (plain classical mechanics with easy to understand math) and not adhoc claims as one finds in many other works e.g. MoND etc.
I sent my work to several Journals but even if I would be right they would never publish it for two reasons: 1.I have no affiliation as also I am not a Physicist 2.Who would publish something that extends Newton's laws of motion and Einstein's special relativity, especially if the Author is not a Physicist (probably you could but this is also questionable today because of how the established science works)
One of the Journals that rejected my work, they justified their decision as follows: "This Journal's policy is one of severe restraint concerning theories that are well-understood and well-tested experimentally, such as Newton's laws of motion and the theory of special relativity. Regrettably, this fact places the current submission outside the scope of Foundations of Physics."
Do you see why they are wrong? Because my work does not contradict Newton's and Einstein's works but extends them. It is a huge difference! See by yourself (e.g. eq.20 extends Newton's 3rd law for closed system). Check the mathematical proof (eq.1 to eq.20).
However, this work is currently under review by another Springer Journal, but I am not expecting any positive outcome for the reasons I mentioned above.
Of course, Sabine. Well, do you know why I keep injecting this issue in yours blog?
Because I am looking for an objective feedback (Journals don't care as I mentioned above) that is all. Here there are a lot of Physicists and I thought I could find someone who would spend just 15 minutes and then to send me his/her feedback by e-mail.
I will be thankful to someone who could prove me wrong (or otherwise) because that way I will stop wasting my time. Yes, this is the main reason I appear repetitive and annoying in this blog. I just want to get rid off it from my back once and for all (but objectively), it is a long story.
Correction:"the blue part is slowly galaxy (while rotating) mass transfer from the center outwards, affecting (anomaly) stars in the perimeter of the galaxy"
That was just great, had a nice cadence to it. I made the mistake in the past of sending off half-baked ideas to prominent physicists, even before the internet. A commentator responding on "Second Peak Bang On" at Stacey McGaugh's Tritonstation blog nicely highlighted the problems with amateur, and even professional, ideas using the analogy of a car's engine and exhaust system to represent the theory-model. Typically theorists, of whatever stripe, tend to keep adding more parameters to their models to better fit the real world data, corresponding to ever more unnecessary hardware being attached to the car’s engine. A better strategy, he points out, is to ferret out any longstanding assumption of the existing model that does not have a firm foundation, and replace it with a concept on a far more solid footing. This equates to removing a potato stuck in the car’s tailpipe.
My own analogy is to imagine science as an army, marching rank upon rank in a particular direction, that corresponds to the contemporary conception of how nature works. They are supremely confident in the validity of their model. Such was the case of the ‘aether army’ in the late 19th century blissfully unaware, that a lowly patent clerk was about to transform their worldview. Even when Einstein’s relativity burst upon the scientific world, there were those in the army’s rank and file that resisted the change of direction, obstinately loyal to the older vision. But acceptance of the new perspective was inevitable, as data poured in that the old view could not accommodate, but fit perfectly into the new framework. Now the Army of Science is confronted with a mismatch between the predictions of GR and data on the cosmic scale. Another paradigm shift could well be incubating right now in the mind, of some maverick that will once again change the Army’s direction of march.
I'm not a physicist, much less a cosmologist/theoretican but wouldn't miss this blog for almost anything. I'm interested, of course and I learn things as well as am asked to think about things. A heck of a deal.
I look forward to your tunes and I'll be disappointed if EW doesn't like this as well as appreciate it.
Men and Women are the way they are because it works. There is a spectrum of behaviors and they are there because it works. Woe to the ones on the ends of some spectrums. Trying to understand all behavior is futile. Just understand that it works.
Sabine, In most unexpected format, but with characteristic artistic appeal, you ask us to stay on topic, and comment on what you are saying, rather than waste your time with what we may think you should be saying. May this help your headache and, and the comment section remain. I hope it helps motivate you, as it enlightens and absorbs so many of us.
Max Tegmark has a paper with the abstract in couplets:
For power spectrum estimation, it's important that the pixelization of a CMB sky map be smooth and regular to high degree. With this criterion in mind, the “COBE sky cube” was defined. This Letter has as central theme to further improve on this elegant scheme that uses a cube as projective base —here an icosahedron is used in its place. Although the sky cube is excellent, a further reduction of 20% of the number of pixels can be obtained while the pixel distance is maintained, and without any degradation of accuracy for integration. The pixels are rounder in this scheme, where they are hexagonal rather than square, and the faces are small in this implementation, which simplifies area equalization. The reason distortion is lessened is that the faces are smaller and therefore more flat. To use the method, you can get a FORTRAN code from the Internet.
A poet and a Fortran man---a combination that is hard to beat!
Terry Bollinger1:01 PM, August 21, 2020 “My respect for Max Tegmark has just gone up twenty notches! Most impressive, and I too like the nod to good ol' FORTRAN!“
Everyone knows that God uses Lisp! (*) The couplet even scans more *beautifully* — and is therefore, obviously, more correct.
To use the method, you can get a LISP code from the Internet.
(*) actually, according to xkcd, a lot of the universe is just hacked using Perl — which explains a lot...
Steven Evens noted that "... nobody wants to see Peter Woit sing."
While I deeply enjoy and am often also highly amused by Sabine's clever and well-produced videos (plus she has a fantastic voice!), I will admit to one very unfair, chauvinistic, but nonetheless adamant request to the physics community at large, though they owe me nothing:
Please, under no circumstances and in no situations, should folks like Peter Woit, Lee Smolin, Garrett Lisi, Sean Carroll, or even John Baez try to spice up their blogs or tweets by adding clips of themselves singing self-composed physics songs.
Trust me, fellow males of the species: However tempted you may be by Sabine's spectacular success in this arena, it just ain't gonna work for you!
I'll go this far, though: The male physics community may consider the possibility of Garrett Lisi doing an aggro rock dance after an epic A-frame from a good clean-up set... or possibly even Sean Carroll doing a soulful funeral dirge over the HAWC-demise (but of course still zombie-dancing) fate of string theory... but dudes, surfer and otherwise, that's as far as I can go!
I am not a singer. My voice sounds like geese farts on a hot muggy day. When I was very young I did compose music, and tried my hand at a couple of sonatas and a concerto. My interest was highly classical, and with rock music I like the so called progressive rock groups such as Genesis, ELP and Pink Floyd. Later I did rock, playing keyboards and bass.
I am not able to sing, in part because I was born with some speech problems, and when simply talking I have to be very conscious about projecting my voice. If I don't my speech lapses into slurred mumbling.
Thanks for this, and for your book (which I’ve just finished) and for your blog.
I’ve spent a couple of days reading the comments...
I’m astonished that you still appear to read (and reply to) them! How do you manage? Why?? Are there enough where you think “that was insightful/interesting” that make it worth it?
Any physics online space will automatically attract crackpots begging for attention (note to crackpots: try *really hard* to disprove your own theory, *after* you’ve thoroughly understood the ones currently accepted by people who were good at school, good at university, have studied the subject for years, and are capable of writing grammatically correct sentences...)
But even the commenters who clearly know a lot more about QM, QFT and GR than I do, seem to be posting a lot of really unpleasant rants :-(
Yes, the comments are a problem. I want to be available somehow to answer questions on my writing and/or videos, but (as you can tell) most people just use comment sections to dump their opinions on this or that. The consequence is of course that I have trouble fishing out the few comments that actually might be interesting and/or helpful for others because they point out shortcomings in my explanation.
I really don't know how to deal with that. It's not quite as bad on YouTube because they're better both at sorting and displaying comments.
The main reason I keep up the comment section nevertheless is that there are other people here (Dave and Lawrence spring to mind) who do an awesome job explaining physics and I think that is an overall plus.
Also, you may have seen the chat box in the corner. This is a pilot project from a startup company and I was hoping that the people who are looking for a general conversation, rather than having targeted questions, could take their chatty moods there. Alas, so far there's very little traffic on that app. (Getting better though.)
ChrisH wrote: >Any physics online space will automatically attract crackpots begging for attention (note to crackpots: try *really hard* to disprove your own theory, *after* you’ve thoroughly understood the ones currently accepted by people who were good at school, good at university, have studied the subject for years, and are capable of writing grammatically correct sentences...)
Excellent advice of course.
Two problems, I think.
First, Sabine kindly mentioned Lawrence and me (at least I hope I am the "Dave" she mentioned)! who really do try to answer physics questions. But even Lawrence and I have, from time to time, posted ideas that I suspect a lot of people here think are kooky (indeed, Lawrence and I may each have posted occasional comments that the other guy thought was kooky!).
In short, it is hard to draw a clear line between the kooks and the not kooks.
The bigger problem of course is that lots and lots of people have ill-formed and ill-thought-out ideas about physics, but most of these people have enough sense not to embarrass themselves in public. Alas, the people who feel no such inhibition are the people who are quite off the wall and have no sense at all; therefore, those are the ones we see.
The only solution I can see is either very strict moderation or attempts by sensible people to make the point you just made: i.e., sane people ought to presume that if the consensus of very bright people who have spent decades studying a subject has reached some conclusion, then that conclusion is probably not trivially wrong. It may indeed be wrong, but it probably cannot be refuted trivially by an amateur.
But even this is a bit murky. When I first read the EPR argument, almost exactly fifty years ago, I thought Einstein et al. were right and the consensus of the physics community was wrong.
I was just an ignorant young kid then! So was I entitled to that opinion?
Well, I am neither ignorant, nor young, nor a kid any more. And I still think that Einstein's argument is largely correct.
Sometimes, rank amateurs are indeed entitled to their opinions.
Furthermore, one of the loudest and most obnoxious of recent posters here has been Steven Evans, who is on a religious jihad against me personally because I think physics cannot explain consciousness.
But the truth is that I have learned from Steve's rather boisterous objections. He has forced me to rethink and strengthen my own arguments.
It would have been against my own self-interest if Sabine had shut Steve down.
I can make similar points about budrap, antooneo, Andrei, Jay Yablon, and others here whom I have found somewhat annoying: there are real things about physics that I understand better from having engaged them. (Jay is an exception in that he is not obnoxious but generally polite, but he and I did indeed spar in ways that ultimately proved productive.)
So, while your point is on-target, and I encourage you to make it again when appropriate, let's not shut up the "kooks." If we scientists cannot ever engage or tolerate the kooks, that would speak poorly of our own grasp of science.
Yes, you're the Dave I referred to. I think everyone has some ideas that are a little out there. The relevant point is to make clear to the reader when one is crossing the line from pretty much generally accepted knowledge to personal speculation.
"But the truth is that I have learned from Steve's rather boisterous objections. He has forced me to rethink and strengthen my own arguments."
Blah, blah, blah, troll, troll, troll. You have learned nothing. You are still claiming you have a "logical proof" that the mind cannot be emergent from the brain. Or not, depending on the day.
"It would have been against my own self-interest if Sabine had shut Steve down."
Blah, blah, blah, troll, troll, troll. You're the proven liar. You're the one who is writing pages and pages of brain-dead drivel.
A logical proof that the mind cannot be derived from the laws of Physics - I've never heard so much nonsense in all my life.
That we are missing a theory of quantum gravity is a serious and well-defined problem. There has to be an answer to this question how gravity works on the quantum level, yet we do not know it. Trying to develop such a theory is not a waste of time.
The problem with theories of everything is that they try to solve problems which are no problems to begin with and do not require solution. Like chirality. Nothing wrong with chirality and nothing needs to be improved about it. It may well just be how the universe is, end of story.
Reasons why people are commenting on this blog are many, I guess. Some of them are here because they have specific questions about my writing/videos. Those are the reason I have comment sections. Others come with random questions. I don't have time to deal with that. But most of them seem to just look for an opportunity to tell the world they have an opinion on something.
The main reason I blog is that physics is fascinating and I know that a lot of people share this opinion and want to know more about it. There's a demand, I am the supply. It's as simple as that.
I used to blog for the interesting discussions that could follow, from which I learned a lot. Alas, those days seem to be over for good. I blame Google for this. The comments on Blogger have been a pain to handle for years. And the spam filter is miserable. Worthwhile discussions have for the most part moved to the private-message domain. On some level that's a shame. On another level, it's probably for the better.
I think I have various motivations for commenting on a blog. One is name recognition. Two is learning something. Three is getting feedback on my ideas. Sometimes one has to say outrageous things to get name recognition.
Yes, Michael, and that's exactly why I am frustrated about my comment section. I am not here for YOUR "name recognition" and I am also not here for giving YOU feedback on YOUR ideas. What the heck makes you think you own my time?
Perhaps science outreach programs have been *too* successful? Everyone has heard of Faraday’s brilliance despite (according to Wikipedia) not having mastered trigonometry. And of the lowly patent examiner, bad at maths(*), who showed The Establishment who was the real genius. So now, every Tom, Dick and Harry with no maths skills and a crackpot idea thinks that *proves* they’re right! :-)
And they’re desperate for recognition. But then, they’re only human, so what do you expect?
[I’m actually an AI, fine tuning my artificial stupidity networks, so as to fit in better...]
I was hoping to ask the odd question (on the assumption that if *I* don’t understand something there will be quite a lot of others who also don’t understand it :-) But, I tried googling and got some surprisingly good answers...
(*) he was good at maths and got a physics degree. But the legend persists...
Paps, “ I think that that type of blogs or of websites is in someway doing a job that should theoretically be done by public institutions, i.e.: they should make at least annual reports on activities that are paid by our taxes.”
If you look at the cern.ch website you can find *lots* of information. Some of it even formulated for laymen.
Papa. If the citizens are motivated to solve a problem that actually exists, we can solve it better than any public institution. Their guidance, support and even restrictions may be helpful ... but, in the end, they may just create yet another institution. Approach with caution. Jmo., Bert.
Crass irresponsible anti science rubbish, if Sabine had scientific integrity she would be saying don't send me half baked theories that don't explain everything from gravity to quantum entanglement, that don't solve the vacuum catastrophe or provide a testable solution to the double slit experiment but if you have a theory that does PLEASE send it to me. Instead she says, I have given up on physics and anybody who hasn't and is still trying you are not welcome. I haven't got time to read it because I'm too busy enjoying my celebrity. I would have thought with all the finding going into science there would be at least one focus group even one person given the job of checking any and all Theories of everything that provide a COMPLETE unified field theory which has a testable solution to the double slit experiment. This video kind of illustrates the crisis in cosmology, the scientific community has become a joke.
Ah, let me guess. You have your own great theory of something which solves all the problems that the stupid physicists have not been able to solve. And most amazingly, you did it all without ever having to make a PhD or read their terribly thick textbooks. Indeed, that you did not bother educating yourself must be the reason you see so much clearly than all the dumb PhDs who are just paddling with the "mainstream". My inbox is full with people like you.
Delightful! And you made an intriguing observation: Only we men seem to find it absolutely and unrelentingly necessary to stick our big fat TOEs in the face of you and everyone else around us!
ReplyDeleteThe fact that no female physicist has found it necessary to persuade you of their theoretical brilliance says something interesting about my half of the species, doesn't it? Are we truly trying to understand the universe better, or are we surreptitiously engaging in a nerdy version testosterone intimidation? A version where instead of building big muscles with which to beat up and potential intimidate competitors, we build build the biggest and most intimidating equations with which to beat up and intimidate our competitors?
But that surely cannot be right!
After all, if testosterone intimidation was the true motivation lurking behind a lot of math and physics research, then in academia there would be widespread reports of thesis advisers who instead of focusing on research seemed more interested in showing off and augmenting their own reputations than in helping and promoting young minds to do the very best they can!
Uh... wait a minute... :)
There are presumably many reasons.
DeleteI also think that Sabine's blog would have fewer readers if the contents were exactly the same but she were a man. :-|
Phillip Helbig4:21 AM, August 20, 2020
DeleteYou are so bitter. It's nobody else's fault that you are wasting your time on a paper about fine-tuning without a shred of evidence. You yourself decide to do foolish things like this.
Peter Woit's blog is a similar honest stand against parts of the Physics establishment and seems to be popular despite his sex. Granted, nobody wants to see Peter Woit sing.
"I also think that Sabine's blog would have fewer readers if the contents were exactly the same but she were a man. :-|"
DeleteIt is hard to make reliable statements about counterfactual realities, but I doubt this is correct for the following reason.
I began blogging around the same time as a number of men, including but not limited to Chad Orzel, Tomasso Dorigo, and Sean Carroll. We are all covering somewhat different topics, but close enough, I'd say, for a fair comparison. 15 years later we have all written books and our blogs have audiences of comparable size, with Sean Carroll, in my estimate, being the most popular among us, at least in the USA.
Also, please note that Google originally did not require blog owners to post with their real name and for many years I posted under the pseudonym "Bee" that many readers mistook to be male.
You can make a similar comparison on YouTube. Look at other channels that cover similar topics as I do, and you will see that for what the physics is concerned, we have a similar audience. Of course I am trying to give a personal touch to my videos, among other things with the hand-drawn graphics, but I don't think this is the main reason people watch my videos. They watch them simply because they're interested in physics, want to learn something, and they don't really care who I am or what I look like.
"You are so bitter."
DeleteI am not bitter. I am, quite seriously, one of the happiest people on Earth. I have nothing against Sabine. We don't always agree, but we don't take it personally. (Maybe she can fit that couplet into a new song.)
Harder than a theory of everything might be finding an explanation for why you have nothing better to do than wait until I post a comment, then follow it up with an off-topic and irrelevant comment (already twice for this post).
Phillip Helbig6:56 AM, August 20, 2020
DeleteGood for you. They do say ignorance is bliss.
I work on a PC, so I'm not actually waiting for you or anybody else to post. And the blog is good for learning key points about Physics w/o the slog of working through textbooks.
The explanation is simple. You have not understood that you need a reason to think something is true, so you need telling. This puts you on the wrong side of the Enlightenment along with anti-vaxxers and nutters who attack 5G towers they think are spreading a virus. Organisations like the Templeton Foundation and deluded maniacs like Luke Barnes pushing for "spirituality" in science are the thin end of the wedge. Incompetents like Martin Rees and Ed Witten who claim theories with no evidence are not much better.
Don't you think it's strange that the UK Astronomer Royal has been chuntering on about a theory with no evidence for 40 years and has been rewarded with 1 million quid for being wrong by the anti-science Templeton Foundation? Isn't it strange that an actual Nobel Physics laureate wrote the preface to a purported Physics book, albeit a popular one, in which "God" is presented as a physical concept?
Clowns like this need telling that they are clowns.
You still have provided *zero* evidence of universal fine-tuning. Yet you believe it. This makes you one of the clowns.
Hey Steve,
Delete... Actually,
I went to clown School.
--smartass.
suma cum loudly.
- just like you.
Don't be so quick.
-(and more importantly,)
Don't Think you're so quick.
Best wishes,
Terry Bollinger wrote:
Delete>Are we [male physicists] truly trying to understand the universe better, or are we surreptitiously engaging in a nerdy version testosterone intimidation? A version where instead of building big muscles with which to beat up and potential intimidate competitors, we build build the biggest and most intimidating equations with which to beat up and intimidate our competitors?
An interesting question.
I assume you have noticed that very few physicists were ever "Big Men on Campus."
By the way, I knew Sally Field's brother, the physicist Rick Field, when he was a post-doc at Caltech. The rumor was that Rick kept himself in good shape so as to be competitive with Sally's then beau, Burt Reynolds: reportedly, Rick was also a very successful student athlete. Pretty obviously, an exception.
One possible answer to the question you raise may be that modern, post-WW II physics was "born in sin": I'm referring of course to the Manhattan project and the fission and fusion bombs. I really think that a lot of nerdy guys were entranced by the fact that we could use our brains to create these things... see, take that all you bullies!
Twentieth-century modernism also tended to encourage a sort of tough guy stance among intellectuals. I remember back around 1970 that philosophers proudly talked about "knock-down" arguments: to be sure, almost none of their arguments truly, really were "knock-down" arguments, but the very phrase is revealing.
Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? Feynman was comfortable with the idea that there were things he did not (yet) understand, and I've noticed that the Nobel laureates I have known were less arrogant than their less successful colleagues.
We do need the courage to stand up and strongly defend results that we arrive at that we think are right. On the other hand, lots of scientists and other scholars would benefit from keeping in mind Feynman's admonition: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
All the best,
Dave
@Steven Evans:
DeleteWhat's your beef against the Templeton foundation? I've come across other physicists that seem dead set against them.
As far as I know you don't have to be an atheist to do physics, and nor does it particularly help and historically speaking, it hasn't helped.
Personally, I don't think religion/spirituality has much in common with science, especially in its professionalised guise. I mean what has Christ in common with quarks, Mohammed with molecules and the Buddha with gluons? Very little. There is much more commonality with an older conception of cosmology, which is mans relationship with the cosmos - but that has very little purchase in the modern imagination. Except in throwaway comments like Hawkings 'knowing the thoughts of God'.
Actually, Black Elks Speaks, which I regard as one of the few modern religious classics, relies implicitly on this kind of cosmology. I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable - no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world.
@PhysicistDave:
DeleteRichard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. The same goes for poetry ...
Actually Feynmans admonition has a much older provenance. It was Plato after all, who said that people so love their illusions that they will kill to keep hold of them.
Mozibur wrote to me:
Delete>Richard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. The same goes for poetry ...
Well... the most damning testimony against philosophers comes from other philosophers! All you have to assume is that they are generally right when they criticize their predecessors, and you conclude they are all morons.
Now, yes, I know that not all are morons: I respect Tim Maudlin, for example, and, going back further, I respect Locke and Hume.
Anyway, since Feynman was more often than not correct when he wrote about physics, perhaps when he addressed philosophers' writings that somehow touch on physics, there is a presumption that Feynman might know more than they do?
Again, I think the real problem with your claim is that the harshest critics of philosophers are other philosophers: there is a bit of a "Cretan liar" paradox here. If philosophers are not generally wrong, then how can they not be generally wrong when they claim other philosophers are generally wrong?
By the way, what particular piece by Feynman criticizing philosophers has you upset? I took two years of classes from Feynman, and he spent almost no time at all attacking philosophers: I thought he simply found them uninteresting.
Dave
PhysicistDave6:45 AM, August 22, 2020
DeleteYour lies and hypocrisy are endless, Dave.
"I remember back around 1970 that philosophers proudly talked about "knock-down" arguments: to be sure, almost none of their arguments truly, really were "knock-down" arguments, but the very phrase is revealing."
Just like you claimed to have a "logical proof" that refuted the possibility of the mind being weakly emergent from the brain i.e. a knock-down argument. Except you had no proof whatsoever. Then you blatantly lied and said you had made no such claim.
"Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? "
You mean like writing "veni, vidi, vici" when you have written yet another comment filled with irrational nonsense?
You can't get an ought from an is therefore the mind is not weakly emergent from the brain? Possibly one of the most stupid comments in history. The premise and conclusion are completely unrelated. Please learn some basic, basic logic and stop writing facile nonsense. And quit with the lying.
Mozibur8:27 PM, August 22, 2020
Delete"What's your beef against the Templeton foundation? "
They are a bunch of religious loonies using the profits of tax dodging to try to corrupt natural science in the name of Baby Jesus.
Someone at UCL published a paper about them:
"Questioning the Integrity of the John Templeton Foundation"
"As far as I know you don't have to be an atheist to do physics,"
Are you from the 1st Millenium? There is no such thing as an "atheist". There are the mentally deluded who believe in Iron Age superstitions, and then there are the sane. Physicists are much more likely to be non-believers than the general population because it is difficult for a deluded halfwit to do Physics.
"Personally, I don't think religion/spirituality has much in common with science, "
Science has refuted or made untenable the main tenets of all major superstitions. So you are wrong.
"I mean what has Christ in common with quarks,"
Christ, if he existed, was made of quarks i.e. he was human, not a demi-god.
"Mohammed with molecules"
There is nothing called "Allah" made of molecules. So Islam is nonsensical garbage, too.
"the Buddha with gluons?"
It's an empirical scientific fact that reincarnation is impossible. Not that we should have to be discussing this kind of nonsense.
"Except in throwaway comments like Hawkings 'knowing the thoughts of God'."
A metaphor.
"I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable"
It was quite unremarkable because he wasn't doing it, because there is no such thing as a "Spirit World". Many people cannot distinguish between their imagination and reality - the subject of natural science.
" no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world. "
He was a primitive medicine man, apparently, so presumably he is thought of as a primitive medicine man. The vast majority of people in "today's hyper^modern world" are no less primitive in their beliefs and understanding of the world than the medicine man.
"Richard Feynman had a habit of rubbishing what he didn't understand. "
Pity you weren't there to explain it all to the thicko Feynman.
"He didn't understand philosophy, so he rubbished it"
Large swathes of philosophy are nonsense and much of it has been superceded by science. Philosophers of science, Maths, logic, etc. can be useful, but I'm guessing Feynman knew a bit about the philosophy of science.
"and which has led to generations of physicists wannabes and Feynman fans rubbishing philosophy. "
Science trumps philosophy. If a scientist disagrees with a philosopher, the scientist is right.
"It was Plato after all, who said that people so love their illusions that they will kill to keep hold of them. "
Yes. See Luke Barnes in the comments of this blog.
Is "rubbishing" a verb?
DeleteSteven Evans wrote to me:
Delete>Just like you claimed to have a "logical proof" that refuted the possibility of the mind being weakly emergent from the brain i.e. a knock-down argument. Except you had no proof whatsoever. Then you blatantly lied and said you had made no such claim.
Hey, Steve! Hope you are doing well and staying healthy.
Y'know, you may not like my proof, you may claim it is invalid, but no one else has claimed that I did not present what I think is a proof.
I honestly think your ignorance of math and formal logic is showing up here: you seem to think that because my proof was not in two-column form or did not use equations or something like that, that therefore I could not honestly believe I presented a proof.
I do not suppose I or anyone else can ever induce you to go to a good university library and spend a few hours in the math section actually looking at real math proofs. But if you ever did, you would find that many of them are this sort of discursive discussions, in English, and that this is an acceptable form for mathematical proofs.
Steve also wrote:
>[Dave]"Is 75 years of pseudo-machismo in physics and other disciplines enough already? "
>[Steve]You mean like writing "veni, vidi, vici" when you have written yet another comment filled with irrational nonsense?
“Irrational nonsense” means a proof concerning formal logic that Steven Evans lacks the ability to understand. There are people who have posted here who have exactly the same view of special relativity and for exactly the same reason: they lack the ability to understand special relativity.
Steve asked me:
>You can't get an ought from an is therefore the mind is not weakly emergent from the brain?
Well, it is a little more complicated than that, Steve, but I do not suppose it is worth trying to explain the details again to you. It has to do with what terms can show up non-tautologically in the conclusion of a proof. That is a real theorem in formal logic.
But I am coming to accept that you can no more grasp that than you can grasp quantum field theory.
Some people's mental capacities are simply greater than others. Yours are less than, say, Ed Witten's or Steve Weinberg's.
C'est la vie.
Take care of yourself, Steve. Get some fresh air and try to calm down.
And I do thank you again for helping me to clarify my argument, even if it still infuriates you!
Dave
Mozibur wrote to Steven Evans:
Delete>Actually, Black Elks Speaks, which I regard as one of the few modern religious classics, relies implicitly on this kind of cosmology. I found it quite revelatory in how he seemed to move between a spirit world and the real world as though it was something quite unremarkable - no doubt he'd be thought of as some mentally ill dude in today's hyper-modern world.
Mozibur, perhaps I can try to respond to the issues you raise a bit more calmly than Steven Evans.
By the way, Steve's and my views on religion are fairly similar, which is one of the humorous aspects of his ongoing attacks against me because he somehow thinks I am not quite antagonistic enough towards religion. This is one of several reasons I just cannot get angry with my friend Steve.
Anyway, if we take religious discourse literally, as actually trying to talk about reality, then the different religions rather wildly contradict each other: most of them simply have to be false.
Now, I know of course that it is debatable whether we should take religious discourse literally. But I can assure you from very long personal experience that a huge number of people here in the USA do exactly that.
If what preachers say in the pulpit, what religious apologists write in popular books, and what theologians promulgate in their massive tomes is not meant to be taken literally, then they really have a moral obligation to make this clear to the tens or hundreds of millions (or is it billions?) of people who are being misled.
I have actually discussed this exact point with members of the clergy: I hope you will take my word for the fact that they are very uncomfortable and evasive when the issue is raised.
If you do not want to take my word for it, get hold of Jack Good's book The Dishonest Church: Good is a retired United Church of Christ pastor with far more experience of all this than I have, and he confirms what I just said in spades.
Now, given that most religions cannot be literally true and given that most of them seem to talk about actual reality, it is reasonable to conclude that any given religion is unlikely to be true unless it has serious evidence in its favor.
Of course, none do. Most do not even claim to: you should believe on faith, not scientifically verifiable evidence.
That, I think, is the basic rationale of most thoughtful non-believers, including, I suspect, our friend Steve, and I think that rationale is valid.
Now of course there is much more that can be said. There is Hume's argument against miracles. There is the obvious refutations from evolutionary psychology of C. S. Lewis' argument that only religion can explain our sense of morality.
By the way, all this does connect with your previous questions about philosophy.
Even today, there are philosophers who are accepted as members in good standing in the philosophical community who argue for truly loony positions to defend religion: I have in mind, for example, Dave Oderberg's defense in his book Real Essentialism of transubstantiation. Or google Ed Feser's essay “Transubstantiation and hylemorphism.”
Or the analytic philosopher William Lane Craig, who has argued for the impossibility of an eternal universe using an argument that is simply silly (how would there be enough time for the universe to reach the present if the past is infinite?).
Or Alvin Plantinga, who has argued that non-Christian simply have badly functioning minds (consider all the Jewish scientists and mathematicians whose poor minds were malfunctioning!).
Plantinga was actually president of the American Philosophical Association in the early 1980s.
Which would be a bit like physicists electing a flat-earther as head of the American Physical Society.
Now I have a suspicion you will find none of this convincing. Which is okay, we have freedom of speech and religion, at least in the USA. Or at least we used to, before the rise of “cancel culture.”
Dave
Sabine,
Deletegoogling “rubbish dictionary” gives:
verb INFORMAL•BRITISH
criticize severely and reject as worthless.
"he rubbished the idea of a European Community-wide carbon tax"
PhysicistDave5:36 AM, August 23, 2020
DeleteYou lie and you lie and you lie.
"Well, it is a little more complicated than that, "
Is that right, Dave. I love to be patronised by halfwits.
"It has to do with what terms can show up non-tautologically in the conclusion of a proof."
Is that right, Dave. "It has to do" with that does it.
No. You have a proof. (Or you don't depending on the day.)
We assume the laws of Physics.
We conclude that the "mind" cannot be derived from the laws of Physics.
Now you fill in the proof between those 2 lines, you lying troll. Because you have a proof.
Good to see you're not dead, yet. You would be a sadly missed lying troll.
Steven Evans wrote to me:
Delete>We assume the laws of Physics.
>We conclude that the "mind" cannot be derived from the laws of Physics.
>Now you fill in the proof between those 2 lines, you lying troll. Because you have a proof.
You're making some progress in the treatment program, Steve!
It would be more precise to say :"currently known laws of physics," though.
Yes, I do indeed have a proof, which I gave to you a while back: I recently provided you with links in case you forgot.
Maybe if we keep this exchange going, you will eventually actually understand the proof!
By the way, do you agree with my reply to Mozibur or would you have a different take on what's wrong with religion? I really would be interested to hear your opinion, whether positive or negative.
Seriously, my friend, take care of yourself and stay healthy.
All the best,
Dave
PhysicistDave6:23 AM, August 24, 2020
DeleteYou're completely f*cking nuts. So you're back to having a proof today, but are still not prepared to reveal it.
PhysicistDave3:25 AM, April 29, 2020
I have hated and despised pathological liars ..since I was a very young child..
SE' You claim to have a "logical proof" that mind cannot be emergent from matter, but have provided no proof.'
PhysicistDave4:56 AM, July 30, 2020
"Yes, I have such a proof,"
PhysicistDave12:50 AM, August 07, 2020
"Where have I said that????"
PhysicistDave6:23 AM, August 24, 2020
Yes, I do indeed have a proof,
"It would be more precise to say :"currently known laws of physics," though."
As opposed to the laws of Physics in 1650 or 2150? You are truly a halfwit.
He promised her everything but all she got was a theory.
ReplyDelete(free after Mad Magazine)
The vacuum is maybe the big question. So maybe we really need a theory of nothing.
ReplyDeleteLove it!
Delete“Nothing” seems to be a neat and tidy idea, but there is no genuine nothing:
DeleteSomething representable as variables/ categories, numbers, and logical and/or mathematical operators is a type of structure: it is not nothing.
If a structure appears out of “nothing”, then the “nothing” wasn’t nothing after all.
Lorraine Ford12:28 AM, August 24, 2020
Delete"If a structure appears out of “nothing”, then the “nothing” wasn’t nothing after all. "
How do you know this?
How do you know that if we work backwards in time that matter and space-time don't eventually cancel out to literally nothing?
Do you have empirical evidence?
Not that I think Lawrence Krauss showed that we have "A Universe from Nothing", but neither have you shown that we don't.
You are confusing what you imagine to be true with empirical evidence. Again.
Natural Science is a collection of observations - when will you learn this?
Steven,
DeleteYour suggestion that “matter and space-time … cancel out to literally nothing” is a relationship which might be expressed as: “matter + space-time = 0”. A relationship is not nothing; the relationship is not cancelled out. And zero is a number; a number is a special type of thing, not nothing.
I meant this comment with a bit of mirth. When it comes to physics I am referring to the vacuum. The quantum vacuum with an asymmetrical quartic form can permit states in the higher energy false vacuum to tunnel into the lower energy so called true vacuum. This is a sort of approximation to nothingness. In particular if it is timeless, which means there is no global Hamiltonian that generates time. The Wheeler DeWitt equation has this feature.
DeleteNothingness is a contradictory concept. We could ask whether nothingness exists. If it does exist then by virtual of its existence is is "something," contradicting itself. If nothingness does not exist it means instead there must be something, which again makes nothingness hard to put a finger on. Lao Tse wrote on this sort of thing in his Tao Te Ching.
The quantum vacuum appears to have some similar properties, where the false vacuum may contain no particles or radiation, but it is unstable. A quantum fluctuation or transition sends the state of the universe to a lower energy vacuum and the mass-energy gap generates particles and radiation.
Lorraine Ford7:18 AM, August 24, 2020
Delete" is a relationship which might be expressed as: “matter + space-time = 0”."
I don't mean that matter cancels out space-time, I mean if you go back far enough there is literally nothing - anti-matter cancels out matter and space-time shrinks to zero extent, or whatever.
Dr. H. - has a universe from literally nothing been ruled out physically, or would you just say it's an unscientific question because only "something" can be confirmed by observation? In that case, is a universe from literally nothing consistent with current Physics (like MWI, say)?
Steven,
DeleteSpace-time does not shrink to "zero extent" if you go back in time. That's a common misunderstanding with Big-Bang cosmology. What happens is that the curvature of space becomes technically infinitely large, which is why the equations break down.
I don't know what "a universe from literally nothing" means and I don't know of a way to make that into a scientific hypothesis. I don't know whether that is because it is unscientific in principle, or whether it's just the case that no one has yet managed to formulate it scientifically.
Seemingly, many science-loving people have taken a literally-interpreted “universe from nothing” concept to heart. But seemingly, there can be no genuine “nothing”, and in any case, physics is always about “something”. The aspects of the world that physicists represent with words or mathematically/ logically are not nothing: even the number zero or an equation that equates to zero does not represent “nothing”.
DeleteDespite what the literal interpreters might think, physicists have not found a way to explain the source of mathematical relationships and numbers, including random numbers. But surely, a proper “Theory of Everything” needs an explanation or rationale for the following types of thing: mathematical relationships and numbers?
Sabine Hossenfelder1:16 AM, August 25, 2020
DeleteI see. Thanks.
Catchy tune!
ReplyDeleteIf you need some extra money, you could make some by inventing and selling a cure for earworms. According to Wikipedia, you are in good company:
Delete"Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga
"Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue
"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey
"Somebody That I Used to Know" by Goyte
"Moves like Jagger" by Maroon 5
"California Gurls" by Katy Perry
"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
"Alejandro" by Lady Gaga
"Poker Face" by Lady Gaga
I'll take the third one on the list. It could also be a motto for those who send you their theories of everything. :-)
Surely one can comment on a video with another video.
DeleteBack to the first comment: There are practically no women who claim to have come up with a theory of everything. Except for singers, members of girl groups, and those related to or in a relationship with someone in a band, there are essentially no famous female rock musicians. Are the reasons the same? Discuss. (I can think of only one off the top of my head; she's really good, but, according to my criteria above, she is borderline.)
There is nothing wrong with being a singer, having a relationship with or being related to someone else in the band, or being part of a girl group, but the point is that most male rock musicians (famous or not) are not singers, not in a relationship with nor related to someone else in the band, and not part of a boy group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjzHMhBtf0
You wouldn't know of any female dictators, would ya?
DeleteCongratulations Sabine!
ReplyDeleteI don't know why but I find this video clip unexpectedly entertaining that gives me ideas of how one (me) may politely say "I am not interested. Please don't send me any letters about your personal theories, I don't have time to read them (I am too busy with my blog (John's blog), you know). Thank you!". I am really laughing right now!!! It is an alternative way of avoiding crackpots (not me, right?), ha, ha!!!
Then, I pressed on the link at the right side of this page that is about an interview you gave recently ("Physics doesn't have to be pretty") and while I am still watching, I noticed those you mentioned around the 5th minute of the interview. So, I thought to tease/challenge (in a good way) you a little.
Here is how it goes:"Why am I the only person on this planet who believes (and demonstrates) that those dark matter (gravity pull), foundations of physics questions stuff can be solved very easily? Please visit my Profile. Replace the linear actuator (Fig.2.Upper) with a rotating galaxy (system mass) and the moving blue part with a star. Does someone sees what comes out of this? And not only in this situation, I would say.".
See eq. 43 (replace velocities with accelerations) that is a consequence of the findings of this work that seems to bring the same results as MoND (adhoc approach, by fitting experimental data), although the paper doesn't address cosmology. In other words, I believe MoND has to do with what I discovered on a theoretical level that extends Newton's laws of motion and special relativity in a natural way (it doesn't need special assumptions, it is self-evident and can be proved mathematically (see eq.1 to eq.20).
"Why am I the only person on this planet who believes (and demonstrates) that those dark matter (gravity pull), foundations of physics questions stuff can be solved very easily?"
DeleteBecause it is on viXra.
@Philip,
Delete"Because it is on viXra". Great! At least you had the courage to press on that link in my Profile.
Let's get serious now. As I checked in your Profile and publications (Journals and arXiv) you are a Physicist. So, the question now is, are you going to accept the challenge or are you afraid that you will lose your credibility? Of course no need to comment on this blog (send me an e-mail). See Sabine's blog policy.
Either viXra or arXiv, what matters is the content and especially whether the latter is falsifiable or not. So, here is your challenge (and to any real Physicist in this blog). There are two ways to falsify (if possible) the claims of this work:
a) By testing the mechanical apparatus (even in principle in theory) proposed in Fig.2.Upper.
b) By finding what is wrong in eq.1 to eq.20. Note: eq.20 is the complete version of Newton's 3rd law for closed systems. Eq.1 to eq.20 is the mathematical proof of the concept (plain classical mechanics with easy to understand math) and not adhoc claims as one finds in many other works e.g. MoND etc.
I sent my work to several Journals but even if I would be right they would never publish it for two reasons:
1.I have no affiliation as also I am not a Physicist
2.Who would publish something that extends Newton's laws of motion and Einstein's special relativity, especially if the Author is not a Physicist (probably you could but this is also questionable today because of how the established science works)
One of the Journals that rejected my work, they justified their decision as follows: "This Journal's policy is one of severe restraint concerning theories that are well-understood and well-tested experimentally, such as Newton's laws of motion and the theory of special relativity. Regrettably, this fact places the current submission outside the scope of Foundations of Physics."
Do you see why they are wrong? Because my work does not contradict Newton's and Einstein's works but extends them. It is a huge difference! See by yourself (e.g. eq.20 extends Newton's 3rd law for closed system). Check the mathematical proof (eq.1 to eq.20).
However, this work is currently under review by another Springer Journal, but I am not expecting any positive outcome for the reasons I mentioned above.
John,
DeletePlease move this discussion elsewhere.
Of course, Sabine. Well, do you know why I keep injecting this issue in yours blog?
DeleteBecause I am looking for an objective feedback (Journals don't care as I mentioned above) that is all. Here there are a lot of Physicists and I thought I could find someone who would spend just 15 minutes and then to send me his/her feedback by e-mail.
I will be thankful to someone who could prove me wrong (or otherwise) because that way I will stop wasting my time. Yes, this is the main reason I appear repetitive and annoying in this blog. I just want to get rid off it from my back once and for all (but objectively), it is a long story.
Bee,
ReplyDeletecan you comment on this?
A new relativistic theory for Modified Newtonian Dynamics
Constantinos Skordis, Tom Złosnik
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00082
it's in the news
An Alternative to Dark Matter Passes Critical Test
By
Charlie Wood
July 28, 2020
Modified gravity theories have never been able to describe the universe’s first light. A new formulation does.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/modified-gravity-theory-passes-a-critical-test-20200728/
it claims it can reproduce the third peak of the CMB without dark matter and MOND
do these claims hold up?
7 peaks have now been detected. If it can't predict them all as well as the standard model, forget it.
DeletePhillip Helbig4:31 AM, August 20, 2020
DeleteAnd what observations does fine-tuning predict? One universe that we can already see with a nature that has already been observed?
Strange how you require some theories to match the evidence exactly, but for other theories you require no evidence whatsoever.
Why is that? Are you not very good at Physics?
Correction:"the blue part is slowly galaxy (while rotating) mass transfer from the center outwards, affecting (anomaly) stars in the perimeter of the galaxy"
ReplyDeleteNot easy to make a serious contribution to physics, when others are trying to pull you away from that to help them make their own pet ideas work.
ReplyDeleteThat was just great, had a nice cadence to it. I made the mistake in the past of sending off half-baked ideas to prominent physicists, even before the internet. A commentator responding on "Second Peak Bang On" at Stacey McGaugh's Tritonstation blog nicely highlighted the problems with amateur, and even professional, ideas using the analogy of a car's engine and exhaust system to represent the theory-model. Typically theorists, of whatever stripe, tend to keep adding more parameters to their models to better fit the real world data, corresponding to ever more unnecessary hardware being attached to the car’s engine. A better strategy, he points out, is to ferret out any longstanding assumption of the existing model that does not have a firm foundation, and replace it with a concept on a far more solid footing. This equates to removing a potato stuck in the car’s tailpipe.
ReplyDeleteMy own analogy is to imagine science as an army, marching rank upon rank in a particular direction, that corresponds to the contemporary conception of how nature works. They are supremely confident in the validity of their model. Such was the case of the ‘aether army’ in the late 19th century blissfully unaware, that a lowly patent clerk was about to transform their worldview. Even when Einstein’s relativity burst upon the scientific world, there were those in the army’s rank and file that resisted the change of direction, obstinately loyal to the older vision. But acceptance of the new perspective was inevitable, as data poured in that the old view could not accommodate, but fit perfectly into the new framework. Now the Army of Science is confronted with a mismatch between the predictions of GR and data on the cosmic scale. Another paradigm shift could well be incubating right now in the mind, of some maverick that will once again change the Army’s direction of march.
I'm not a physicist, much less a cosmologist/theoretican but wouldn't miss this blog for almost anything. I'm interested, of course and I learn things as well as am asked to think about things. A heck of a deal.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your tunes and I'll be disappointed if EW doesn't like this as well as appreciate it.
Thanks.
Relatively comprehensive.
ReplyDeleteMen and Women are the way they are because it works. There is a spectrum of behaviors and they are there because it works. Woe to the ones on the ends of some spectrums. Trying to understand all behavior is futile. Just understand that it works.
ReplyDeleteSabine,
ReplyDeleteIn most unexpected format, but with characteristic artistic appeal, you ask us to stay on topic, and comment on what you are saying, rather than waste your time with what we may think you should be saying.
May this help your headache and, and the comment section remain. I hope it helps motivate you, as it enlightens and absorbs so many of us.
Sabine,
ReplyDeleteYou sound good, and if you set your next song with a beat and some sort of backing, maybe you could make it into the charts.
Then for a real challenge, you could try setting your next conference talk to music!
Max Tegmark has a paper with the abstract in couplets:
DeleteFor power spectrum estimation,
it's important that the pixelization
of a CMB sky map be
smooth and regular to high degree.
With this criterion in mind,
the “COBE sky cube” was defined.
This Letter has as central theme
to further improve on this elegant scheme
that uses a cube as projective base
—here an icosahedron is used in its place.
Although the sky cube is excellent,
a further reduction of 20%
of the number of pixels can be obtained
while the pixel distance is maintained,
and without any degradation
of accuracy for integration.
The pixels are rounder in this scheme, where
they are hexagonal rather than square,
and the faces are small in this implementation,
which simplifies area equalization.
The reason distortion is lessened is that
the faces are smaller and therefore more flat.
To use the method, you can get
a FORTRAN code from the Internet.
A poet and a Fortran man---a combination that is hard to beat!
My respect for Max Tegmark has just gone up twenty notches! Most impressive, and I too like the nod to good ol' FORTRAN!
Delete
DeleteTerry Bollinger1:01 PM, August 21, 2020
“My respect for Max Tegmark has just gone up twenty notches! Most impressive, and I too like the nod to good ol' FORTRAN!“
Everyone knows that God uses Lisp! (*) The couplet even scans more *beautifully* — and is therefore, obviously, more correct.
To use the method, you can get
a LISP code from the Internet.
(*) actually, according to xkcd, a lot of the universe is just hacked using Perl — which explains a lot...
Steven Evens noted that "... nobody wants to see Peter Woit sing."
ReplyDeleteWhile I deeply enjoy and am often also highly amused by Sabine's clever and well-produced videos (plus she has a fantastic voice!), I will admit to one very unfair, chauvinistic, but nonetheless adamant request to the physics community at large, though they owe me nothing:
Please, under no circumstances and in no situations, should folks like Peter Woit, Lee Smolin, Garrett Lisi, Sean Carroll, or even John Baez try to spice up their blogs or tweets by adding clips of themselves singing self-composed physics songs.
Trust me, fellow males of the species: However tempted you may be by Sabine's spectacular success in this arena, it just ain't gonna work for you!
I'll go this far, though: The male physics community may consider the possibility of Garrett Lisi doing an aggro rock dance after an epic A-frame from a good clean-up set... or possibly even Sean Carroll doing a soulful funeral dirge over the HAWC-demise (but of course still zombie-dancing) fate of string theory... but dudes, surfer and otherwise, that's as far as I can go!
Noted cosmologist Alex Szalay used to be a rock musician, though not singing about physics.
DeleteFor those who don't sing, may I suggest dancing your Ph.D.? (Should astronomers be dancing with the stars?)
"or even John Baez"
DeleteJohn has a cousin who is a very good singer.
I am not a singer. My voice sounds like geese farts on a hot muggy day. When I was very young I did compose music, and tried my hand at a couple of sonatas and a concerto. My interest was highly classical, and with rock music I like the so called progressive rock groups such as Genesis, ELP and Pink Floyd. Later I did rock, playing keyboards and bass.
DeleteI am not able to sing, in part because I was born with some speech problems, and when simply talking I have to be very conscious about projecting my voice. If I don't my speech lapses into slurred mumbling.
Honestly. Bee works harder than all the other physics bloggers combined. Tommaso Dorigo is probably more accomplished in his field.
ReplyDeleteCool, I liked the tune very much! (BTW, also your expressions!) Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteBest,
--Ajit
Dear Sabine,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, and for your book (which I’ve just finished) and for your blog.
I’ve spent a couple of days reading the comments...
I’m astonished that you still appear to read (and reply to) them! How do you manage? Why?? Are there enough where you think “that was insightful/interesting” that make it worth it?
Any physics online space will automatically attract crackpots begging for attention (note to crackpots: try *really hard* to disprove your own theory, *after* you’ve thoroughly understood the ones currently accepted by people who were good at school, good at university, have studied the subject for years, and are capable of writing grammatically correct sentences...)
But even the commenters who clearly know a lot more about QM, QFT and GR than I do, seem to be posting a lot of really unpleasant rants :-(
Chris,
DeleteYes, the comments are a problem. I want to be available somehow to answer questions on my writing and/or videos, but (as you can tell) most people just use comment sections to dump their opinions on this or that. The consequence is of course that I have trouble fishing out the few comments that actually might be interesting and/or helpful for others because they point out shortcomings in my explanation.
I really don't know how to deal with that. It's not quite as bad on YouTube because they're better both at sorting and displaying comments.
The main reason I keep up the comment section nevertheless is that there are other people here (Dave and Lawrence spring to mind) who do an awesome job explaining physics and I think that is an overall plus.
Also, you may have seen the chat box in the corner. This is a pilot project from a startup company and I was hoping that the people who are looking for a general conversation, rather than having targeted questions, could take their chatty moods there. Alas, so far there's very little traffic on that app. (Getting better though.)
ChrisH wrote:
Delete>Any physics online space will automatically attract crackpots begging for attention (note to crackpots: try *really hard* to disprove your own theory, *after* you’ve thoroughly understood the ones currently accepted by people who were good at school, good at university, have studied the subject for years, and are capable of writing grammatically correct sentences...)
Excellent advice of course.
Two problems, I think.
First, Sabine kindly mentioned Lawrence and me (at least I hope I am the "Dave" she mentioned)! who really do try to answer physics questions. But even Lawrence and I have, from time to time, posted ideas that I suspect a lot of people here think are kooky (indeed, Lawrence and I may each have posted occasional comments that the other guy thought was kooky!).
In short, it is hard to draw a clear line between the kooks and the not kooks.
The bigger problem of course is that lots and lots of people have ill-formed and ill-thought-out ideas about physics, but most of these people have enough sense not to embarrass themselves in public. Alas, the people who feel no such inhibition are the people who are quite off the wall and have no sense at all; therefore, those are the ones we see.
The only solution I can see is either very strict moderation or attempts by sensible people to make the point you just made: i.e., sane people ought to presume that if the consensus of very bright people who have spent decades studying a subject has reached some conclusion, then that conclusion is probably not trivially wrong. It may indeed be wrong, but it probably cannot be refuted trivially by an amateur.
But even this is a bit murky. When I first read the EPR argument, almost exactly fifty years ago, I thought Einstein et al. were right and the consensus of the physics community was wrong.
I was just an ignorant young kid then! So was I entitled to that opinion?
Well, I am neither ignorant, nor young, nor a kid any more. And I still think that Einstein's argument is largely correct.
Sometimes, rank amateurs are indeed entitled to their opinions.
Furthermore, one of the loudest and most obnoxious of recent posters here has been Steven Evans, who is on a religious jihad against me personally because I think physics cannot explain consciousness.
But the truth is that I have learned from Steve's rather boisterous objections. He has forced me to rethink and strengthen my own arguments.
It would have been against my own self-interest if Sabine had shut Steve down.
I can make similar points about budrap, antooneo, Andrei, Jay Yablon, and others here whom I have found somewhat annoying: there are real things about physics that I understand better from having engaged them. (Jay is an exception in that he is not obnoxious but generally polite, but he and I did indeed spar in ways that ultimately proved productive.)
So, while your point is on-target, and I encourage you to make it again when appropriate, let's not shut up the "kooks." If we scientists cannot ever engage or tolerate the kooks, that would speak poorly of our own grasp of science.
All the best,
Dave
Yes, you're the Dave I referred to. I think everyone has some ideas that are a little out there. The relevant point is to make clear to the reader when one is crossing the line from pretty much generally accepted knowledge to personal speculation.
DeletePhysicistDave3:01 AM, August 26, 2020
Delete"But the truth is that I have learned from Steve's rather boisterous objections. He has forced me to rethink and strengthen my own arguments."
Blah, blah, blah, troll, troll, troll.
You have learned nothing. You are still claiming you have a "logical proof" that the mind cannot be emergent from the brain. Or not, depending on the day.
"It would have been against my own self-interest if Sabine had shut Steve down."
Blah, blah, blah, troll, troll, troll.
You're the proven liar. You're the one who is writing pages and pages of brain-dead drivel.
A logical proof that the mind cannot be derived from the laws of Physics - I've never heard so much nonsense in all my life.
And sure enough, it hasn't appeared.
Hi Paps,
ReplyDeleteThat we are missing a theory of quantum gravity is a serious and well-defined problem. There has to be an answer to this question how gravity works on the quantum level, yet we do not know it. Trying to develop such a theory is not a waste of time.
The problem with theories of everything is that they try to solve problems which are no problems to begin with and do not require solution. Like chirality. Nothing wrong with chirality and nothing needs to be improved about it. It may well just be how the universe is, end of story.
Reasons why people are commenting on this blog are many, I guess. Some of them are here because they have specific questions about my writing/videos. Those are the reason I have comment sections. Others come with random questions. I don't have time to deal with that. But most of them seem to just look for an opportunity to tell the world they have an opinion on something.
The main reason I blog is that physics is fascinating and I know that a lot of people share this opinion and want to know more about it. There's a demand, I am the supply. It's as simple as that.
I used to blog for the interesting discussions that could follow, from which I learned a lot. Alas, those days seem to be over for good. I blame Google for this. The comments on Blogger have been a pain to handle for years. And the spam filter is miserable. Worthwhile discussions have for the most part moved to the private-message domain. On some level that's a shame. On another level, it's probably for the better.
I think I have various motivations for commenting on a blog. One is name recognition. Two is learning something. Three is getting feedback on my ideas. Sometimes one has to say outrageous things to get name recognition.
ReplyDeleteYes, Michael, and that's exactly why I am frustrated about my comment section. I am not here for YOUR "name recognition" and I am also not here for giving YOU feedback on YOUR ideas. What the heck makes you think you own my time?
DeletePerhaps science outreach programs have been *too* successful? Everyone has heard of Faraday’s brilliance despite (according to Wikipedia) not having mastered trigonometry. And of the lowly patent examiner, bad at maths(*), who showed The Establishment who was the real genius. So now, every Tom, Dick and Harry with no maths skills and a crackpot idea thinks that *proves* they’re right! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd they’re desperate for recognition. But then, they’re only human, so what do you expect?
[I’m actually an AI, fine tuning my artificial stupidity networks, so as to fit in better...]
I was hoping to ask the odd question (on the assumption that if *I* don’t understand something there will be quite a lot of others who also don’t understand it :-) But, I tried googling and got some surprisingly good answers...
(*) he was good at maths and got a physics degree. But the legend persists...
Paps,
ReplyDelete“ I think that that type of blogs or of websites is in someway doing a job that should theoretically be done by public institutions, i.e.: they should make at least annual reports on activities that are paid by our taxes.”
If you look at the cern.ch website you can find *lots* of information. Some of it even formulated for laymen.
Papa.
ReplyDeleteIf the citizens are motivated to solve a problem that actually exists, we can solve it better than any public institution. Their guidance, support and even restrictions may be helpful ... but, in the end, they may just create yet another institution. Approach with caution. Jmo., Bert.
Crass irresponsible anti science rubbish, if Sabine had scientific integrity she would be saying don't send me half baked theories that don't explain everything from gravity to quantum entanglement, that don't solve the vacuum catastrophe or provide a testable solution to the double slit experiment but if you have a theory that does PLEASE send it to me. Instead she says, I have given up on physics and anybody who hasn't and is still trying you are not welcome. I haven't got time to read it because I'm too busy enjoying my celebrity. I would have thought with all the finding going into science there would be at least one focus group even one person given the job of checking any and all Theories of everything that provide a COMPLETE unified field theory which has a testable solution to the double slit experiment. This video kind of illustrates the crisis in cosmology, the scientific community has become a joke.
ReplyDeleteAh, let me guess. You have your own great theory of something which solves all the problems that the stupid physicists have not been able to solve. And most amazingly, you did it all without ever having to make a PhD or read their terribly thick textbooks. Indeed, that you did not bother educating yourself must be the reason you see so much clearly than all the dumb PhDs who are just paddling with the "mainstream". My inbox is full with people like you.
Delete