Why is there so much crackpot physics?

[BurntSynapse]

a) No we can't "expect" that. That's up to Nature, not to you.

If you believe human expectations of future theories are determined by nature rather than by people choosing what they want to expect, we will simply agree to disagree.

I choose to expect what the best experts in relevant disciplines expect, absent some reason not to.

b) "next"? What makes you think so?

Because I judge the findings of the Quantum Universe Report which argues that more or less reliable.

How do you know there aren't 1000 years of non-process spacetime theories (whatever that means) intervening?

I don't, but a core principle of project management is "progressive elaboration". This principle informs us to expect more detailed conceptualization of project components as they become more near-term. Distant, longer-term objectives are proportionally more vague. Thus: "know" is a stronger term and implies more certainty than seems prudent to me.

c) In view of our modern understanding of dualities, what is the actual difference between an object and a process?

Object concepts are related more logically, possessing attributes which take certain values (like 'bird' with a foot attribute that can take the value "webbed" which tells us it's a water bird). See: http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0039368111001014-gr1.jpg

Process concepts are like 'seasons' or 'days of the week'. They relate sequences (often of object concepts) in an order of sequence rather than via frame hierarchies.

Is AdS a process concept and CFT an object concept, or vice-versa, or both, or neither?

If you mean Anti de Sitter space & class field theory, these would most commonly be thought of as object concepts, with attributes which take values that then link them to subordinate concepts.

 

[Perpetual Student]

It doesn't seem to me we can directly support FTL research until our maths are improved,...

I guess you really have no idea how utterly absurd that comment is.

 

[ben m]

Because I judge the findings of the Quantum Universe Report which argues that more or less reliable.

You must have read a different Quantum Universe report than I did. I recall no such "findings"---indeed, nothing I would describe as "findings" at all. I read sort of a glossy brochure delivering a chipper message about how particle physics was healthy and wanted funding.

Can you quote the text that you think supports your reading?

 

[ben m]

If you mean Anti de Sitter space & class field theory, these would most commonly be thought of as object concepts, with attributes which take values that then link them to subordinate concepts.

"Conformal field theory". But they also take things that could be seen as objects (quantum amplitudes in CFT) and related them to actions/processes (warped trajectories in AdS).

 

[dafydd]

Process concepts are like 'seasons' or 'days of the week'. They relate sequences (often of object concepts) in an order of sequence rather than via frame hierarchies.

What? Can we have that again in English please?

 

[Steve]

What? Can we have that again in English please?

Whaddayamean? Every one of the words in those two sentences is definitely English!

 

[theprestige]

What? Can we have that again in English please?

It all made sense to me except "frame hierarchies", which I guess is a term of art whose definition I don't yet know.

As for the rest of it... does "arrange things in sequence order" make sense to you?

Like, for example, arranging the days of the week in the order they appear in the calendar--their sequence. Instead of, say, arranging them in relation to other calendar objects, like weeks or months (a frame hierarchy?).

 

[Perpetual Student]

Yes, it's always good to "relate sequences ... in an order of sequence ..."

 

[ben m]

Object concepts are related more logically, possessing attributes which take certain values (like 'bird' with a foot attribute that can take the value "webbed" which tells us it's a water bird). See: http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0039368111001014-gr1.jpg

Process concepts are like 'seasons' or 'days of the week'. They relate sequences (often of object concepts) in an order of sequence rather than via frame hierarchies.

I'm starting to wonder if this "Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions" mightn't be a load of vague baloney to begin with. Some of by best friends are science historians, and none of them talk like that. Let's do some Web Of Science-ing.

Several of the authors of CSoSR, prior to publishing this book, wrote articles with (presumably somewhat early) iterations of the same thoughts. Let's look at some of those articles:

Title: Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and cognitive psychology
Author(s): Chen, XA ; Andersen, H ; Barker, P
Source: PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Pages: 5-28 DOI: 10.1080/09515089808573246 Published: MAR 1998

Is this a mainstream, accepted view among science historians? Let's check the citations count: Web of Knowledge lists 15 citations---uh-oh. Four of those are by Andersen, Barker, and/or Chen citing themselves. Six appear to be irrelevant or mistaken ("Chinese medicinal herbs for sore throat.", COCHRANE DATABASE OF SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS) And a grand total of five are external citations. Uh oh again.

Let's go through 'em, with some quotes from some of the abstracts:

Bird, Alexander)
Source: THEORIA-REVISTA DE TEORIA HISTORIA Y FUNDAMENTOS DE LA CIENCIA Volume: 27 Issue: 3 Pages: 293-321 Published: SEP 2012 "Contrasting these, I argue that the conceptual strand fails to be a complete account of scientific revolutions."

(Driver-Linn, E) Source: AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST
"Psychologists' appropriation of language. and ideas from Thomas Kuhn's (1962, 1970b) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions reveals deep and contradictory, concerns about truth, science, and the progress of the field."

(Nickles, T)
Source: PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE "I study the early Kuhn as an anticipation of case-based reasoning and schema theory. These recent developments in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence may point toward a more computational version of Kuhn's ideas, but they also expose ambiguities in his work, notably in his understanding of exemplars. "

Let's look at another article, presenting the revolution-predicting management tool that BurntSynapse thinks will break physics out of its supposedly-obvious cognitive ruts:

Object and event concepts: A cognitive mechanism of incommensurability
Author(s): Chen, X (Chen, X)
Source: PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

This big one has been cited twice.

Title: The Cognitive Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Author(s): Barker, Peter
Source: ERKENNTNIS Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Pages: 445-465 Times Cited: 0 (from All Databases)

Title: The development of urine diagnostics and its visualisation in "frames"
Author(s): Martin, M.; Fangerau, H.
Source: UROLOGE Volume: 45 Issue: 6 Pages: 742-748 Times Cited: 0 (from All Databases)

Yeah.

BurntSynapse, not only does your object/process distinction look pretty useless for physicists and managers, it looks like it wasn't even particularly popular among psychologists and/or historians.

ETA:

Process Concepts and Cognitive Obstacles to Change: Perspectives on the History of Science and Science Policy
Author(s): Chen, X (Chen, Xiang)[ 1 ] ; Barker, P (Barker, Peter)[ 2 ]
Source: CENTAURUS Volume: 51 Issue: 4 Pages: 314-320 DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0498.2009.00155.x Published: NOV 2009
Times Cited: 1 (from Web of Science)

The one citation is from Barker.

Why did John Herschel fail to understand polarization? The differences between object and event concepts
Author(s): Chen, X (Chen, X)
Source: STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Volume: 34A Issue: 3 Pages: 491-513 DOI: 10.1016/S0039-3681(03)00044-X Published: SEP 2003
Times Cited: 8 (from Web of Science)

Only four citations actually show up, I don't know why that listing shows 8. The four are: Barker 2011, Chen 2010, Barker & Chen 2008, and Chen 2007.

Let's check Chen 2007:

Title: The object bias and the study of scientific revolutions: Lessons from developmental psychology
Author(s): Chen, Xiang
Source: PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY Volume: 20 Issue: 4 Pages: 479-503 DOI: 10.1080/09515080701441744 Published: 2007
Times cited: 6

Five of the six citations are from Barker and Chen themselves. The sixth is from a study of why people believe in alternative medicine.

Very early in this line of discussion, BurntSynapse, I asked: who exactly thinks that object/process psychology is a good tool for guiding science policy? You never quite answered that. It didn't occur to be to ask who exactly thinks that Andersen, Barker, and Chen is a good tool for anything whatsoever. And the answer is "not many people".

It'd be one thing to take major, well-accepted science history text and ask whether it has any predictive power. It'd be one thing to take a major, well-accepted psychology text and ask whether its psychological insights could be applied to management. What you have done is neither. You pulled an obscure academic book off an obscure bookshelf, pretended it was an incontrovertible science-management gospel, and then attempted to lord your Gospel-truth-cog-sci wisdom over everyone else.

... and I am pretty busy with frankly higher priority than teaching people to swim outside their current depth.

 

[BurntSynapse]

I guess you really have no idea how utterly absurd that comment is.

If you are certain the math tools are up to the task of describing a consistent model of physics, what do you think is the root cause for our inability to resolve the long-term mysteries?

 

[BurntSynapse]

You must have read a different Quantum Universe report than I did. I recall no such "findings"---indeed, nothing I would describe as "findings" at all. I read sort of a glossy brochure delivering a chipper message about how particle physics was healthy and wanted funding.

Can you quote the text that you think supports your reading?

If that's all you got from the "brochure", you would need to give me an example or criteria for something you would accept as "support".

 

[Dancing David]

If you are certain the math tools are up to the task of describing a consistent model of physics, what do you think is the root cause for our inability to resolve the long-term mysteries?

Nicely vague, which long term mystery are you hiding behind now, you can't explain what you tool does or how to apply it, so now the funny thing is that you move the goal posts. I wonder if you even know, what year did Bequerel have his paradigm opening discovery?

Oh wait you mean it was a a fortuitous accident? Now a paradigm shift?

How long from then until these other famous events:
-Rutherford finds alpha particle angles of scattering (oops another fortuitous accident)
-Fermi finds a hole in the equations, neutrinos invented
-Yukawa proposes weak force
-chriality of weak force found by Wu
-Feynman and the 'sum of histories'
-Gell-Mann

I bet you haven't even got a 'long standing mystery', in fact my guess is you have some philosophical position.

So please enlighten us, what exactly are these mysteries?

 

[BurntSynapse]

Is this a mainstream, accepted view among science historians?

No.

Let's look at another article, presenting the revolution-predicting management tool that BurntSynapse thinks will break physics out of its supposedly-obvious cognitive ruts:

Absent any evidence anyone has ever considered the management of science in a cognitive rut, this claim seems false.

It didn't occur to be to ask who exactly thinks that Andersen, Barker, and Chen is a good tool for anything whatsoever. And the answer is "not many people".

I don't think anyone would debate that their field is highly specialized and not widely understood or communicated.

It'd be one thing to take major, well-accepted science history text and ask whether it has any predictive power.

But that would not be what I'm doing.

It'd be one thing to take a major, well-accepted psychology text and ask whether its psychological insights could be applied to management.

But that would not be what I'm doing, either.

You pulled an obscure academic book

True: it is obscure as I've said many times. I'm not convinced popularity is a reliable measure for the most advanced knowledge in many cases.

off an obscure bookshelf

False and irrelevant to the merit of the proposal.

and pretended

False and etc (irrelevant to the merit of the proposal).

an incontrovertible

False and etc.

science-management gospel

False and etc.

and then attempted to lord your Gospel-truth-cog-sci wisdom

This seems like it could be a matter of perspective. I'm sorry my communications strike you this way, but this seems more like venting against me than any real objection to my assessments.

Absent some positive recommendations, I don't see how criticism of me, my communication deficits which amount to "lording over" people helps me or anyone understand where, how, or if the proposal is justified or mistaken.

over everyone else.

Everyone? Don't you think this a bit of an exaggeration, and off topic about the proposal's relative merit or defects?

 

[BurntSynapse]

So please enlighten us, what exactly are these mysteries?

If you can tell me what you will accept as "exact", I can try. Otherwise I would simply refer you to the 9 mysteries described in the Exec Summary of the Quantum Universe Report.

 

[godless dave]

If you are certain the math tools are up to the task of describing a consistent model of physics, what do you think is the root cause for our inability to resolve the long-term mysteries?

Lack of data, partly because we do not have the technological tools to collect some of the data.

 

[ben m]

If that's all you got from the "brochure", you would need to give me an example or criteria for something you would accept as "support".

I repeat, BurntS, that I know the authors of the QU report. I've read many such reports ("Connecting Quarks to the Cosmos" was a big one; the Astro 2010 Decadal Survey produced several such things) and these days we're in a process called Snowmass2013 which will, I presume, produce another one.

If you want to see technical guidance for physicists, you don't want to be reading the four-color report, you want to be reading the advisory panel reports. Start at http://science.energy.gov/hep/hepap , the supercommittee which requested the Quantum Universe report.

The Quantum Universe report is a document about things physicists plan to try. It describes questions about the universe, and it describes the subset of hypotheses that we think are worth following up on, in case they turn out to be true. The Quantum Universe report does not spend much time on the (many) hypotheses that don't go anywhere---hypotheses which describe no TeV-scale SUSY discovery at the LHC, hypotheses that describe a boring Standard Model Higgs, untestable hypotheses that "unify" gravity and quantum mechanics via phenomena that are strictly invisible without an planet-sized exavolt-scale ultra-collider.

Perhaps you read the description of physics' exciting possibilities, and misunderstood them to be certainties. Yeah, we're hoping for a revolutionary discovery, because that would be fun, and because without one we won't understand the Universe properly. But that doesn't mean we're going to get one---ever. That depends on what Nature is actually up to, which we don't currently know.

ETA:

And I'm still amused by the source here. BurntS is claiming that physics needs his new, cog-sci-informed management to get it to identify and focus on paradigm-shifting research. To show that paradigm-shifting research is identifiable, he cites ... a document by the old, non-cog-sci-informed management that identifies and focuses on paradigm-shifting research.

 

[Dancing David]

If you can tell me what you will accept as "exact", I can try. Otherwise I would simply refer you to the 9 mysteries described in the Exec Summary of the Quantum Universe Report.

Hi,
this is a dialogue, so I ask you a question and you give an answer.

So it is up to you to say which alleged mystery you want to focus on. Referrals to other sources are not really you answering a question, which mystery is indicative of 'our inability to resolve the long-term mysteries?'

Considering that quantum mechanics is really about a hundred years old, I have to wonder at the use of 'long term'.

So which alleged mystery do you want to discuss?

 

[BurntSynapse]

Hi,
this is a dialogue, so I ask you a question and you give an answer.

I consider a dialog taking place when both participants answer reasonable questions.

Repeated objections that answers are inexact while refusing to help me understand what constitutes "exact", and dismissing requests for clarification as "fudging" suggests we don't share the same ideas of productive dialog.

 

[BurntSynapse]

Start at http://science.energy.gov/hep/hepap , the supercommittee which requested the Quantum Universe report.

I don't see how that is relevant. Nevertheless, if one looks into the HEPAP's work sufficiently, they will find that I was invited by the Chair to work with that group at FermiLab in what I believe was Spring of 2007. I came out from Aspen, and perhaps some of your friends were among the many people I met there at that time.

To show that paradigm-shifting research is identifiable, he cites ... a document by the old, non-cog-sci-informed management that identifies and focuses on paradigm-shifting research.

The QUC report was cited in answer to a request for what made me think there will be a "next, more consistent model" in physics, rather than to show paradigm-shifting research is identifiable.

My claim is that improvements in management functions like identifying and assessing potentially transformative research identification appear plausible by taking advantage of the latest findings in history, philosophy, and cognitive science of scientific revolutions.

 

[Dancing David]

I consider a dialog taking place when both participants answer reasonable questions.

Repeated objections that answers are inexact while refusing to help me understand what constitutes "exact", and dismissing requests for clarification as "fudging" suggests we don't share the same ideas of productive dialog.

So you don't have a long term mystery then, issue resolved.

You can't explain your tool in use and now you can't explain what a long term mystery would be.

And the fact that you can't express your alleged cognitive tool clearly, not explain how to apply it, just makes it foolish to try another tactic by mentioning alleged log term mysteries.

Your ability to express your ideas and answer questions is your issue, and only you can change it.

There is no burden on me to express your ideas clearly.

I did ask you express how this alleged cognitive tool would apply to cold fusion research, you failed to give any answer much less an exact one.