tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post7629812417898859539..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: A philosopher of science reviews “Lost in Math”Sabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-57554850833615178882019-02-15T00:39:24.815-05:002019-02-15T00:39:24.815-05:00You can maintain your opinion all you want but tha...You can maintain your opinion all you want but that doesn't make it correct. Your notion of "naturalness" has nothing to do with the notion of naturalness I am talking about. If you want to continue blathering nonsense, that is fine with me, but please leave me out of it. Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-4309066748600598332019-02-14T12:43:15.007-05:002019-02-14T12:43:15.007-05:00I maintain that there is not much difference betwe...I maintain that there is not much difference between saying that "the occurrence of life screams out for an explanation" and "the fact that the universe has critical density screams out for an explanation". Perhaps a difference of degree, because life seems to me even more in need of an explanation, but not a fundamental difference. And you do not need a detailed mathematicalTheLambLiesDownOnBroadwayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07148586222290109507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-19766546727738641712019-02-14T11:45:51.399-05:002019-02-14T11:45:51.399-05:00Unknown,
Thanks for the reference, will look at t...Unknown,<br /><br />Thanks for the reference, will look at this.<br /><br /><i>"Sabine you would have answered him:<br />"Nonsense! That's an excellent explanation.""</i><br /><br />This badly misstates my argument and illustrates that you have no idea what I am saying in the first place. Look, if you want to continue talking nonsense, fine. But please stop fabricating Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-71662292105642559702019-02-14T11:18:37.178-05:002019-02-14T11:18:37.178-05:00@Sabine
> As I already said, the naturalness ar...@Sabine<br />> As I already said, the naturalness argument is that the stars should not be far away to avoid parallax, <br /><br />Just take a look only at the title of this detailed<br />report on the issue:<br />https://arxiv.org/abs/1112.1988<br /><br />It will tell you<br />1. that it was about size not distance of "heavenly bodies" (indeed<br />they did not know yet whether the Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-75038073772014818792019-02-14T01:35:07.524-05:002019-02-14T01:35:07.524-05:00As a physicist, I try not to speak about the pheno...As a physicist, I try not to speak about the phenomenon called "life", or at least I will try to hold back until past my retirement. The notion of "naturalness" that I am using refers to theories that have a mathematical framework. If you want to discuss other notions of naturalness, you are welcome, but I'm not the person to talk to.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-55198033515655484232019-02-13T12:14:18.595-05:002019-02-13T12:14:18.595-05:00Sabine
what do you have to say about my example th...Sabine<br />what do you have to say about my example that the observed phenomenon called "life" is highly unnatural, and that this unnaturalness spurred the search for a scientific explanation, as is often the case?<br />I can provide other such examples if you wish.TheLambLiesDownOnBroadwayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07148586222290109507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-32713291126746759572019-02-13T11:51:53.346-05:002019-02-13T11:51:53.346-05:00Btw, "Such an explanation is scientific, invo...Btw, <i>"Such an explanation is scientific, invoking mere chance is not."</i><br /><br />This is nonsense. I strongly suggest you read my book before spreading further misinformation.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-67873929710899783082019-02-13T11:50:51.778-05:002019-02-13T11:50:51.778-05:00As I already said, the naturalness argument is tha...As I already said, the naturalness argument is that the stars should not be far away to avoid parallax, so it's more natural that the Earth is in the center and the stars are close. That turns out to be bluntly wrong. I don't buy the argument that the size was Brahe's misgiving because at that time it was far from accepted that the stars are suns to begin with. For all I know it wouldSabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-9794974407937838862019-02-13T10:30:45.673-05:002019-02-13T10:30:45.673-05:00@Sabine
Brahe based his argument against the Coper...@Sabine<br />Brahe based his argument against the Copernican<br />system on a naturalness argument:<br />"It would be unnatural that the sun is vastly smaller than all other stars."<br />And this argument turned out to be CORRECT even though his further argument against Copernicus did not.<br /><br />@opa<br />You make a good point. Yes all science starts with<br />an argument based on Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04675219299594942456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-36204583915760697502019-02-13T08:56:12.377-05:002019-02-13T08:56:12.377-05:00Ok. I'm sorry.Ok. I'm sorry. Samuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05545253890973817644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-14999730692645724332019-02-13T02:57:44.608-05:002019-02-13T02:57:44.608-05:00Samu,
First, please do not post your personal the...Samu,<br /><br />First, please do not post your personal theories for something in my comment section, especially not if they are off-topic. I do not normally approve those and you are wasting both your and my time.<br /><br />I made an exception for your post because for reasons I cannot fathom people keep asking this question. Is it possible that dark matter is a particle that interactions onlySabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-67233173881083360952019-02-13T02:41:08.082-05:002019-02-13T02:41:08.082-05:00The fact that the Universe could be essentially &q...The fact that the Universe could be essentially "unnatural" and "ugly" is IMO logically consistent. And after more than 30 years of failures trying to move forward it's time to think seriously in that possibility.<br /><br />Now that SUSY hypothesis finally seems wrong (together with the rest of "beauties" alternatives), we should start wondering about "Samuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05545253890973817644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-70585211507117956352019-02-12T09:56:27.897-05:002019-02-12T09:56:27.897-05:00Consciousness is something that, in the minds of m...Consciousness is something that, in the minds of many, demands an explanation. But many scientists today deny this. A similar situation to the time before Darwin?<br /><br />And I note that Darwinian evolution arguably does not explain the actual origin of life, i.e. why it exists as a latent property of matter. Similarly, I doubt that any convincing 'explanation' of consciousness can be jim_hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10618326446656475641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-88445981516633347462019-02-11T16:23:46.594-05:002019-02-11T16:23:46.594-05:00@Sabine
I am not so sure that one can do without a...@Sabine<br />I am not so sure that one can do without any notion of naturalness and still do science. Take life for instance. Life is very unlikely. Certainly, most people thought and still think that it "screams for an explanation”. In pre-Darwinian times, many believed that a suitable explanation was an intelligent being (God) that designed it. This is not such an unreasonable solution. TheLambLiesDownOnBroadwayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07148586222290109507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-69503138197053279552019-02-11T15:22:56.366-05:002019-02-11T15:22:56.366-05:00SUSY might occur in some completely different mann...SUSY might occur in some completely different manner. There is not so much about SUSY that demands it be a part of the standard model. The standard model, in particular the mass renormailzation of the Higgs, in some ways begs for SUSY to get around some issues. <br /><br />There is the sphaleron hypothesis with B - L and it is possible that SUSY is connected with that. This is an interesting, if Lawrence Crowellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12090839464038445335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-9520438305184117132019-02-11T06:04:32.129-05:002019-02-11T06:04:32.129-05:00The Renaissance Mathematicus has longer piece on t...The Renaissance Mathematicus has <a href="https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/the-prof-says-tycho-was-a-scientist-not-a-blunderer-and-a-darn-good-one-too/" rel="nofollow"><b>longer piece on this</b></a>. Yes, distance was a problem, but this was connected to the apparent angular sizes. Assuming his estimates of the angular sizes were correct, the lack of observed parallax implied that they Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-15253741826711739352019-02-11T05:51:49.030-05:002019-02-11T05:51:49.030-05:00Yes, exactly.Yes, exactly.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-24151685989228392342019-02-11T05:11:00.859-05:002019-02-11T05:11:00.859-05:00I think the main philosophical critique of argumen...I think the main philosophical critique of arguments from naturalness could be along this line:<br /><br /> 1- naturalness arguments presuppose a probability measure on theoretical parameters (=a principle of indifference, not on a priori possible observations, but on a priori possible theories or models within a framework)<br /><br /> 2- this kind of probability measure is very strongly Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-78347333317864273162019-02-11T04:51:32.871-05:002019-02-11T04:51:32.871-05:00I agree that the issue could be taken up by philos...I agree that the issue could be taken up by philosophers. <br />It's related to many trendy topics in general philosophy of science: the nature of explanations, the validity of inferences to the best explanation, the interpretation of probabilities...<br />I did a quick search and there seem to be a few articles on the subject<br />https://philpapers.org/browse/fine-tuning-in-cosmology Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-55757895065320011012019-02-11T04:33:11.208-05:002019-02-11T04:33:11.208-05:00Thank you for your response.
As I see it, the prob...Thank you for your response.<br />As I see it, the problem is also that the explanations proposed are kind of ad-hoc, and so we can't even evaluate how good they are?<br />This would be (somehow) defensible if they were the only possible explanations... They would be vindicated by elimination. But it seems to me quite presumptuous to think so.<br /><br />Quentin Ruyanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18395553776256376317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-54324007989356355632019-02-11T00:34:21.871-05:002019-02-11T00:34:21.871-05:00Brahe's key misgiving wasn't the size of t...Brahe's key misgiving wasn't the size of the stars (which he estimated wrongly) but their distance, which he estimated by noticing the absence of parallax, and that was about correct. But that's not the relevant point. The point is that he used the "too large ratio" argument to discard a correct hypothesis, hence a failure of naturalness arguments.<br /><br />Even more Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-62519651077649163942019-02-10T20:10:22.132-05:002019-02-10T20:10:22.132-05:00How mentionned the Austrian-Californian Psychoanal...How mentionned the Austrian-Californian Psychoanalyst Paul Watzlawick?: "Don't be mistaken to take the map for the land that is designed on it!" I'm very glad having seen the author of that book for the first time some days ago in the TV-show "Nano" of the German chain "3Sat". Though psychiatrist&psychotherapist and former theologian, I still am an "Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-91733155741316300832019-02-10T17:15:00.263-05:002019-02-10T17:15:00.263-05:00In some ways if MSSM is false I will say the putat...In some ways if MSSM is false I will say the putative FCC might drive the stake through the heart of MSSM and we can throw it out completely. <br /><br />then how do you connect SUSY to phenom?neohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16769182614452171312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-86516593599941401042019-02-10T15:11:12.517-05:002019-02-10T15:11:12.517-05:00"sixteenth century astronomers over-estimated...<i>"sixteenth century astronomers over-estimated stars’ size, so that supposing them to be very far away also implied that they were much larger---unacceptably larger---than the Sun"</i><br /><br />There is a crucial point missing: Tycho Brahe didn't know about wave optics. The apparent angular size of a star of about a minute of arc is due mainly to diffraction on the pupil; the Phillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-1260518576606206372019-02-10T14:06:06.832-05:002019-02-10T14:06:06.832-05:00Thank you for providing the link to Butterfield...Thank you for providing the link to Butterfield's review. It's clear that he has spent considerable time and thought in assessing "Lost in Math" and his document, in length and detail, reads more like a commentary than a review. <br /><br />In your post you reference the phrase “this just can’t be the last word,”. I would say (and I'm guessing this would go for most RGThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07140943290963588247noreply@blogger.com