Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[Kwalish Kid]

These sources I consider reliable:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn

Really? Because there are many examples out there of how Kuhn failed to present the relevant history correctly.

Einstein's evidence for GR, for example, spectacularly fails to be seriously different from the kind of scientific reasoning that Newton used. Einstein takes pains to demonstrate that Newtonian mechanics holds in approximation and he uses all the evidence from Newtonian science (so to speak) in order to generate the new evidence that he needs (the deviations in the perihelion shift of Mercury, for example) to establish GR. The evidence for GR is exactly the type that a Newtonian scientist could, and should, follow given their own reasoning.

 

[TjW]

I took the quote from Penrose, who knows more than I, although I don't think much of his quantum consciousness mind stuff...too much woo for me.

I read your objection as a claim that no one has ever asserted that Schrodinger's cat actually exists in a superpositioned state represented by the dual wave function. Is that correct?

I suppose our difference of opinion could be based on my rejection of the "many worlds interpretation" because I currently view it as incompatible with traditional scientific rationalism's definition of "reality", which we think of a thing which exists regardless of what we're doing.

The claim that reality didn't actually exist for quantum phenomena was argued against most famously by Einstein, with whom I provisionally agree (at some point we have to trust experts). Did he misunderstand?

Criticizing the rejection of objective reality claim, he said: "I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it" - a view towards which I lean, but regardless of any personal inclination, his view of reality appears more clearly consistent with the traditional meaning of reality used in philosophy of science.

Will you share your thoughts?

I never said a word about Schroedinger, his cat, or superposition.

The theory predicts what happens. That's as good as science gets. It works. Even though it may not be intuitive. It works. Even though really smart people aren't satisfied with their feelings about it. It works.

That's the reality.

If Penrose or someone else comes up with a theory of equal or greater explanatory power that satisfies his personal preferences of how one ought to think about the world, great.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Really? Because there are many examples out there of how Kuhn failed to present the relevant history correctly.

Not "really" in the sense that much of his historical presentation was without defect - but SSR does merit acknowledgement, IMO. Perhaps a brief "reliable" was insufficiently precise, which I take to be a valid criticism.

Einstein's evidence for GR, for example, spectacularly fails to be seriously different from the kind of scientific reasoning that Newton used. Einstein takes pains to demonstrate that Newtonian mechanics holds in approximation and he uses all the evidence from Newtonian science (so to speak) in order to generate the new evidence that he needs (the deviations in the perihelion shift of Mercury, for example) to establish GR. The evidence for GR is exactly the type that a Newtonian scientist could, and should, follow given their own reasoning.

I agree.

Do we further agree that both the assumptions we use to understand, and the interpretations we use to give meaning to GR may still differ without violating this Newtonian reasoning?

 

[Dancing David]

Of course I believe physics as a whole is progressing, but I do agree with Penrose, Smolin, and various groups that in critical areas, the progress has been purchased at the cost of good science, especially when "reality" is rejected at quantum scales, because science rests on this assumption.

Uh, and what 'reality' is that exactly and definitively. I know, do you?

 

[ctamblyn]

I never said a word about Schroedinger, his cat, or superposition.

The theory predicts what happens. That's as good as science gets. It works. Even though it may not be intuitive. It works. Even though really smart people aren't satisfied with their feelings about it. It works.

That's the reality.

If Penrose or someone else comes up with a theory of equal or greater explanatory power that satisfies his personal preferences of how one ought to think about the world, great.

A thousand times this.

It seems that many crackpots who have posted here object to modern physics on what amount to little more than aesthetic or vague philosophical grounds, and have nothing of equal utility to offer in its place (let alone greater utility).

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Do we further agree that both the assumptions we use to understand, and the interpretations we use to give meaning to GR may still differ without violating this Newtonian reasoning?

I don't know what you mean.

 

[BurntSynapse]

I never said a word about Schroedinger, his cat, or superposition.

I agree, you did not.

My assertion that physicists have claimed progress is being purchased by rejecting traditional "reality" was described as "nonsense" without evidence.

To provide evidence (despite the criticism's lack of same), I offered Schrödinger's cat as a well-known thought experiment used in debates of the Copenhagen Interpretation. These debates focus primarily, AFAICT, on replacing the traditional meaning of reality if we agree on a key point.

Do we agree a super-positioned cat 50% alive and 50% dead does not exist in traditional definitions of reality from either physics or philosophy of science?

 

[ben m]

Do we agree a super-positioned cat 50% alive and 50% dead does not exist in traditional definitions of reality from either physics or philosophy of science?

Who cares? Since when have "traditional definitions" been the governing principle?

 

[BurntSynapse]

I don't know what you mean.(about understanding and interpreting GR)

It seems well established within cognitive science of science that our processes of ascribing meanings to concepts like "sunrise" depend on the conceptual framework (paradigm) we are using at the time.

I think we probably agree our understanding of an observation like a sunrise can change when our cognitive frame changes from an Earth centered system to a sun-centered one. I'm asking if we agree this kind of change which we see in the history of science, will probably occur at some point in the future to current frames, for example: GR.

I hope that's sufficiently clear. If so, do we agree on that future probability?

 

[BurntSynapse]

Who cares? Since when have "traditional definitions" been the governing principle?

We can adopt new definitions if merited, but ctamblyn raised a critical point on the importance of having something of at least equal utility to offer in place of the thing one wishes to reject.

AFAICT, no such utility has been offered for rejecting a core assumption of science: that an objective reality exists which is shared by all rational observers. Note "an objective reality", not a superpositioned 50-50 reality, not a many-worlds of infinite outcomes set of realities, not one constructed by our consciousness. A hard, "real" reality we can investigate with science.

 

[dasmiller]

We can adopt new definitions if merited, but ctamblyn raised a critical point on the importance of having something of at least equal utility to offer in place of the thing one wishes to reject.

AFAICT, no such utility has been offered for rejecting a core assumption of science: that an objective reality exists which is shared by all rational observers. Note "an objective reality", not a superpositioned 50-50 reality, not a many-worlds of infinite outcomes set of realities, not one constructed by our consciousness. A hard, "real" reality we can investigate with science.

To me, a hard "real" reality means something that we can run experiements on. I'm comfortable assuming that we have that. A physics model is something that makes predictions about the outcomes of those experiments.

I don't know if there really is a Higgs field, or if a "wave function collapse" is anywhere close to being an meaningful description of what's really going on down there. I'm not convinced that things are even comprehensible at a sufficiently small scale; I have no reason that they should be.

To me, a mathematical model (e.g. QM, SR) is useful only if it accurately predicts observations. To be "better" than QM, for example, a new model would have to predict more accurately than QM, or it would have to explain more things with the same accuracy, or it would have to explain the same things to the same accuracy with simpler math.

To me, one of the hallmarks of crackpot physics is the claim that a model is an improvement over QM, SR, etc, without meeting the above criteria.

That's a tall order. QM, SR, etc, make stunningly accurate predictions for a huge range of phenomena.

By my standards (and I don't think I'm alone), discussion of whether a 50-50 superposition or time dilation or other counterintuitive effects are 'real' is irrelevant to establishing the relative merits of various physics models.

 

[BurntSynapse]

To me, a hard "real" reality means something that we can run experiements on. I'm comfortable assuming that we have that. A physics model is something that makes predictions about the outcomes of those experiments.

Hi Das,

One can't argue against apathy. And we rarely need or want to bother with technical details of scientific. logical, or philosophical definitions unless we happen to be into the particular field where they apply. I've no interest in RBI stats, but I've spent decades in a career building on the project management lexicon, information systems and philosophy of science.

While I'm happy without understanding RBI stats, I acknowledge its value to professional baseball. We may not know someone's hobby, profession or academic discipline, but we do know it has a specialist vocabulary.

Would you consider it reasonable for most philosophers of science to adopt the position that "analysis of science benefits from rigorous definitions expressed in specifically defined terms"?

I don't know if there really is a Higgs field, or if a "wave function collapse" is anywhere close to being an meaningful description of what's really going on down there. I'm not convinced that things are even comprehensible at a sufficiently small scale; I have no reason that they should be.

I'll do a poor job, but here's a summary of what The Teaching Company video course on Philosophy of Science had to say about this that struck me as worth remembering.

Like "cogito ergo sum" is to logical reasoning, "a rationally comprehensive reality" is to science. It is what we must assume as true in order to justify engaging in the activities of logical reasoning or science.

This reason is a pragmatic one: by making these assumptions, we can proceed with logic and science that have proven the most productive and reliable systems of thought in history.

By my standards (and I don't think I'm alone), discussion of whether a 50-50 superposition or time dilation or other counterintuitive effects are 'real' is irrelevant to establishing the relative merits of various physics models.

We might plausibly predict your work does not involve physics, philosophy of science, or information systems project management, which is my field.

Although perhaps most of us do not perceive this connection, physicists like Einstein and Steven Weinberg, Bayesian philosophers like E.T. Jaynes, and much of the logical positivist community have regarded it as crucial.

This kind of makes sense though...if we had a job where we needed to choose between the following approaches, would we ever choose Approach 2 from the following unless we were in some religion, political party or some other compromised mindset?

Approach 1 says "using our latest & best tools, this observation remains unexplained satisfactorily". Approach 2 says "Using new tools, this is the explanation...but it cannot be falsified even in principle, and although its predictions match observations, the explanation conflicts with core our understanding of reality".

If we think of it this way, it seems more clear to me. What do you think?

 

[ben m]

Approach 2 says "Using new tools, this is the explanation...but it cannot be falsified even in principle, and although its predictions match observations, the explanation conflicts with core our understanding of reality".

It doesn't "conflict with our core standards of reality". It IS our core standard of reality. The intution that you're mislabeled as a "core standard of reality" is flatly wrong, and contradicted by experiments.

There's been a very general study of this. We have asked the question in this form: "Suppose there is an underlying law of quantum mechanics that we haven't discovered yet. Suppose this law has <various properties claimed to correspond to old-fashioned reality>. Can any such law explain <new entanglement experiment>?" The answer has consistently been no. This line of inquiry begins with Bell's Inequality, and two key experimentalists have been Zeilinger and Aspect.

I understand you really want reality to work a certain way. Well, that's fine as a place to start, there are many laws of physics that I want to work certain ways. Nature is telling you you're wrong. There does not appear to be a loophole.

It's like, imagine a tax-protestor who really really wants the IRS to be unconstitutional, and thinks this is a fundamental principle of how America must work. He reads a heap of tax codes, Supreme Court decisions, and constitutional scholarship, can't find a loophole. He throws up his hands and says, "Well, clearly the tax-protestor-justification industry needs better project management, because they've missed all their milestones for finding the loophole."

 

[The Man]

Hi Das,

One can't argue against apathy. And we rarely need or want to bother with technical details of scientific. logical, or philosophical definitions unless we happen to be into the particular field where they apply. I've no interest in RBI stats, but I've spent decades in a career building on the project management lexicon, information systems and philosophy of science.

While I'm happy without understanding RBI stats, I acknowledge its value to professional baseball. We may not know someone's hobby, profession or academic discipline, but we do know it has a specialist vocabulary.

One can certainly argue against apathy, though such an augment would need to be particularly compelling and an appeal to language and/or you having made it a “career” hardly seems compelling.

Would you consider it reasonable for most philosophers of science to adopt the position that "analysis of science benefits from rigorous definitions expressed in specifically defined terms"?

Analysis of anything benefits from “rigorous definitions”. What “rigorous definitions” are not “expressed in specifically defined terms”?

I'll do a poor job, but here's a summary of what The Teaching Company video course on Philosophy of Science had to say about this that struck me as worth remembering.

Like "cogito ergo sum" is to logical reasoning, "a rationally comprehensive reality" is to science. It is what we must assume as true in order to justify engaging in the activities of logical reasoning or science.

This reason is a pragmatic one: by making these assumptions, we can proceed with logic and science that have proven the most productive and reliable systems of thought in history.

The only two assumptions that are needed are logical consistency (TRUE = NOT FALSE) and historical consistency (that events of the past can be predictive of events in the future). These may be the ‘rational’ and ‘comprehensive’ axioms you refer to above. It is specifically because they can’t be proven (within a “rationally comprehensive” system) or disproven (within an ‘irrational incomprehensible’ system) that they can only be taken as axioms. Indeed accepting them as axioms is for pragmatic reasons as asserting the universes is logically inconsistent (TRUE = NOT TRUE) and/or historically inconsistent (past events can’t be predictive of future events) has absolutely no use (except to crackpots). As while the former makes even the impossible possible the latter ensures none of it can have any predictive power in relation to future events.

We might plausibly predict your work does not involve physics, philosophy of science, or information systems project management, which is my field.

Although perhaps most of us do not perceive this connection, physicists like Einstein and Steven Weinberg, Bayesian philosophers like E.T. Jaynes, and much of the logical positivist community have regarded it as crucial.

The problem of course comes that by your own assertion of “objective reality” what dasmiller, you, I, Einstein, Steven Weinberg, Bayesian or philosophers like E.T. Jaynes think (or thought) or what they are (or were) apathetic about or not can’t change that “objective reality”. So there is no reason not to be apathetic about it (unless you plan to make a career of it) as it can not change the predictive applicability of some theory and/or model. In fact having some preference for how “objective reality” appears to you can be quite detrimental in one’s ability to make such effective predictive models.

This kind of makes sense though...if we had a job where we needed to choose between the following approaches, would we ever choose Approach 2 from the following unless we were in some religion, political party or some other compromised mindset?

“some other compromised mindset”? Sure you don’t what to load that question more?

Approach 1 says "using our latest & best tools, this observation remains unexplained satisfactorily". Approach 2 says "Using new tools, this is the explanation...but it cannot be falsified even in principle, and although its predictions match observations, the explanation conflicts with core our understanding of reality".

If we think of it this way, it seems more clear to me. What do you think?

Unfortunately “Approach 2” seems to be exactly what you’re doing…

AFAICT, no such utility has been offered for rejecting a core assumption of science: that an objective reality exists which is shared by all rational observers. Note "an objective reality", not a superpositioned 50-50 reality, not a many-worlds of infinite outcomes set of realities, not one constructed by our consciousness. A hard, "real" reality we can investigate with science.

Rejecting interpretations based simply on what you profess to be your “core” “understanding of reality".


‘Philosopher, heal thyself’




Whether we actually have (at least) the three spatial dimensions we directly perceive or the third is just information encoded on some lower dimensional ‘brane’…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

…we may never know and if the two interpretations have the same predictive power one is entirely justified in being apathetic about which, if any, others might consider to be more realistic based simply on their expressed ‘core understanding of reality’.

 

[Dancing David]

I agree, you did not.

My assertion that physicists have claimed progress is being purchased by rejecting traditional "reality" was described as "nonsense" without evidence.

So bare assertion, false dichotomy, fallcy of construction and a strawman.

To provide evidence (despite the criticism's lack of same), I offered Schrödinger's cat as a well-known thought experiment used in debates of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Huh, so even Schrodinger rejected his paradox as soon as he stopped and thought about it. So you throw out a strawman about QM, rejected by teh man who started it.
Much less the whole 'interpretations of QM are not QM" thing.

These debates focus primarily, AFAICT, on replacing the traditional meaning of reality if we agree on a key point.

No they don't that is just silly assertion on your part.
I suppose you have actual data to support your position?

Do we agree a super-positioned cat 50% alive and 50% dead does not exist in traditional definitions of reality from either physics or philosophy of science?

Do we agree that you don't understand that Schrodinger rejected his own paradox for obvious reasons, but some how you were never informed of it.

(I will give yo a hint, the cat was never subject to CI superposition, duh.)

 

[Dancing David]

It seems well established within cognitive science of science that our processes of ascribing meanings to concepts like "sunrise" depend on the conceptual framework (paradigm) we are using at the time.

I think we probably agree our understanding of an observation like a sunrise can change when our cognitive frame changes from an Earth centered system to a sun-centered one. I'm asking if we agree this kind of change which we see in the history of science, will probably occur at some point in the future to current frames, for example: GR.

I hope that's sufficiently clear. If so, do we agree on that future probability?

Uh huh, and the relevant data to the cognitive reframing of 'sunrise' was quite apparent.

When you come up with anything showing a shift in GR I am sure we will all be very interested.

 

[Dancing David]

We can adopt new definitions if merited, but ctamblyn raised a critical point on the importance of having something of at least equal utility to offer in place of the thing one wishes to reject.

AFAICT, no such utility has been offered for rejecting a core assumption of science: that an objective reality exists which is shared by all rational observers. Note "an objective reality", not a superpositioned 50-50 reality, not a many-worlds of infinite outcomes set of realities, not one constructed by our consciousness. A hard, "real" reality we can investigate with science.

So now you resort to ontological sophistry, that is totally weak dude. maybe you should read around teh forums before making such foolish statements.

The question being: you can show a difference between the ontologies, so why the ferd are you even bringing it up. Please stop and consider that many of us have had these thoughts and considered them at length.

The relevance of the assumptions about objective reality matters because? The fact that you are engaging is sophistry so early on does not speak well for whatever your underlying point is.

 

[Perpetual Student]

The "objective reality" provided by QM is contained in the mathematics of QM. The "objective reality" underlying QM is evidenced by the predictive power of QM, which is a mathematically based revelation of the behavior of matter and energy at the most fundamental levels.
Verbose grumbling about someone's intuition is merely so much sophistry and an indication of a lack of understanding of that mathematics.
If you don't get the math, you don't get QM!

 

[ctamblyn]

We can adopt new definitions if merited, but ctamblyn raised a critical point on the importance of having something of at least equal utility to offer in place of the thing one wishes to reject.

AFAICT, no such utility has been offered for rejecting a core assumption of science: that an objective reality exists which is shared by all rational observers. Note "an objective reality", not a superpositioned 50-50 reality, not a many-worlds of infinite outcomes set of realities, not one constructed by our consciousness. A hard, "real" reality we can investigate with science.

First, quantum theory works extremely well, and so that surely justifies whatever changes (if any) we need to make to our view of "reality" in order to accept it.

Second, the natural world can still be investigated by science despite being described by QM, even if you subscribe to an intepretation of QM which does away with "an objective reality".

Third, even if "an objective reality" is incompatible with QM (and I think that is yet to be demonstrated), this is precisely the sort of argument I was objecting to - namely, arguing that the theory is weak because the ontology is distasteful, even though the theory is self-consistent and vindicated by experiment.

ETA: For the avoidance of doubt, I see QM as the "thing one wants to reject" in this scenario, rather than pre-QM ideas about the world. That is, QM is the best description we currently have of how reality is, until someone comes up with a demonstrably superior alternative.

 

[BurntSynapse]

We have asked the question in this form: "Suppose there is an underlying law of quantum mechanics that we haven't discovered yet.

This is my reading of an assumption upon which the Quantum Universe Committee based their report.

Suppose this law has <various properties claimed to correspond to old-fashioned reality>.

If I read you correctly, I see a problem: its that the rules for reliable science lie outside the science itself the same way the rules for car repair are developed outside the local repair shop where repairs actually occur.

Reliable rules for distinguishing science from pseudo-science are not within the purview of biology or astrology, they are in philosophy of science, except unlike repair manuals which mechanics are aware hold best practices for their work, books by Carnap or Bhaskar are not generally known or used.

OTOH, mathematics are the nuts and bolts of quantum cosmology - but AFAIK it lacks any constraints that we would want to distinguish between good science and non-science.

In my field and using the specific technical definitions, rules to select projects from a pool of available options lies outside project management itself just as comparison of which theory is better lies outside science. In the project mgt world, these rules are researched and developed in portfolio management. Project mgt is like car repair, where significant effort goes into coordination of the flow from development of good ideas, documentation in manuals and standards, and distribution to practitioners.

We don't see this coordination in science. In fact, one of the newest groups in the philosophy of science community is The Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice, which last year published some work on how that coordination might start to be built.

I understand you really want reality to work a certain way. Well, that's fine as a place to start, there are many laws of physics that I want to work certain ways. Nature is telling you you're wrong. There does not appear to be a loophole.

This is significantly different than my view, which is more from a decision theory paradigm.

I regard reality as a thing that exists and operates quite well in its own way, and in decision theory are called "states of nature". One of these future outcomes is that scientific theories and laws will continue to evolve as humans do research, but in this view, it would be very unusual to claim nature provided the law. Scientists often do this, but this seems acceptable since it's not the scientists' job to provide clarity of meaning. That's a philosophers job.

In such a paradigm, nature tells us nothing, certainly not her laws if such even exist. She offers us an environment in which some of our ideas about regularities in our observations can be tested and refuted.

I would say that I really want physics research to work more like project management and car repair research, where development of good, clear rules and standards feeds back into improving the quality and reliability of that practice, and can serve as the basis for testing and further imlater

This desire should not in any way be taken as denigrating the spectacular achievements of science, arguably our most productive method of thought.

IMO, this recommendation for continuous improvement feedback embodies scientific advance.

It's like, imagine a tax-protestor who really really wants the IRS to be unconstitutional, and thinks this is a fundamental principle of how America must work. He reads a heap of tax codes, Supreme Court decisions, and constitutional scholarship, can't find a loophole. He throws up his hands and says, "Well, clearly the tax-protestor-justification industry needs better project management, because they've missed all their milestones for finding the loophole."

I appreciate your effort on this, and hope the clarification above of my view diverges from tax loon significantly.

In acknowledgement of your effort in presenting this, I feel it and you deserve more than sidestep however.

I suggest we both would consider his premises a bit odd, his goal irrational, and his conclusion a non-sequitur. If all milestones had been missed, they had to have been planned, and we can conclude that plan was not very good, and/or someone had not been managing very well (or at all) since the project should have been killed before heaps of research effort was wasted.

In kind, I offer one of the first direct arguments I encountered that seems to me to present plausible evidence the problem exists. From Amazon: "Not Even Wrong shows that what many physicists call superstring “theory” is not a theory at all. It makes no predictions, not even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish. Peter Woit explains why the mathematical conditions for progress in physics are entirely absent from superstring theory today..."