Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder shares her self-doubts about exposing nonsense in cosmology
| October 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Physics |
One must hope that Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, isn’t too worried about the people who criticize her:
Let us leave aside for a moment that you have to skip half the book to not notice I question myself on every other page. Heck, if you ask me to sign the book, I’m afraid I’ll misspell my own name. I’m a walking-talking bag of self-doubt. Indeed that was the reason I ended up writing this book.
…
Needless to say, making a case against a community of some thousands of the biggest brains on the planet has not been conducive to my self-confidence. But I have tried to find a scientific reason for the methods which my colleagues use in theory-development and could not. I wrote the book because I think it’s my responsibility as scientist to say clearly that I have come to the conclusion what goes on the foundations of physics is a waste of money, and that the public is being misinformed about the promise of this work.
I do not think that this will change the mind of people in the field. They have nothing to worry about because the way that academia is currently organized there is safety in numbers.
So, yes, I doubt myself. But I have written a whole book in which I explain why I have arrived at my conclusion. Rather than asking me, you should ask the people who work in these fields what makes them so certain that beautiful ideas are promising descriptions of nature. Sabine Hossenfelder, “You say theoretical physicists are doing their job all wrong. Don’t you doubt yourself?” at BackRe(Action)
News at Linked In
Ah! A question with an answer: It costs the establishment people nothing to be wrong. It may not even cost them anything to suppress people who are right. Keep reading, thinking, and writing anyway.
See also: Sabine Hossenfelder: Black holes do not behave as string theorists say they should
and
“Perhaps physics has slipped into a post-empirical era…” (from a review of Hossenfelder’s book at Physics World)
35 Responses to Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder shares her self-doubts about exposing nonsense in cosmology
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“…what goes on the foundations of physics is a waste of money, and that the public is being misinformed about the promise of this work.”
Wow! Is that true?
If it is, then current po-mo science is in serious problem.
It is a healthy self-doubt that she harbors. A kind of healthy self doubt that Feynman himself promoted so as to have integrity in science:
Hmmm. Something for ba to think about.
Feynman also made an even more important admonition when he said he would rather live with uncertainty than believe things that are not true.
And Feynman also said if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you’re wrong (or something to that effect).
It might behoove jdk to study, besides Feynman’s witty quotes, Feynman’s Nobel prize winning, and groundbreaking, work in QED a little more closely:
Richard Feynman, in his role in developing Quantum-Electrodynamics, which is a mathematical theory in which special relativity and quantum mechanics are unified,,,
,, Richard Feynman was only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics in quantum electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” by a technique called Renormalization
In the following video, Richard Feynman rightly expresses his unease with “brushing infinity under the rug” in Quantum-Electrodynamics:
I don’t know about Richard Feynman, but as for myself, being a Christian Theist, I find it rather comforting to know that it takes an ‘infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do’:
The reason why I find it rather comforting is because of John 1:1, which says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
‘The Word’ in John 1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos also happens to be the root word from which we derive our modern word logic.
So that it would take an infinite amount of logic to know what tiny bit of spacetime is going to do is pretty much exactly what one should expect to see under Christian presuppositions.
In fact, as a Christian Theist, I find both the double slit and quantum electrodynamics to be extremely comforting for overall Christian concerns.
As to having a healthy skepticism towards one’s own approach to science, and one’s own acceptance of unsubstantiated theories in science, I find it extremely ironic that jdk, a Darwinist, would tell me that it is something for me to think about since the healthy skepticism that is so crucial in other areas of science is, in large measure, completely absent from Darwinian thinking:
Perhaps jdk should take his own advice about skepticism and apply it to his own belief in Darwinism?
I just read some about Hossenfelder and her book. She seems like an interesting, talented woman with some important points to make.
HI ba. I have read all of QED, as well as parts of Feynman’s book on Path Integrals, and have read quite a bit about the mathematical issue of renormalization. I’m not sure that you understand the issue, especially in regard to the role of infinity.
Question: how well-versed in calculus are you?
And I am a skeptic – a clear agnostic on many issues, and not a “Darwinist”, for what that’s worth.
So you really want to try the ‘argument from authority” on me ? 🙂
I don’t think this tactic is going to turn out like you think it will.
Anyways, bluff and bluster aside, Infinity, and how it has tried to be tamed, is very interesting to look at, and, as far as I can tell, supports Christianity in how it has been used thus far, (as well as where infinity ‘creeps into’ science).
jdk states:
“I am a skeptic – a clear agnostic on many issues, and not a “Darwinist”, for what that’s worth.”
Well since you are an atheist and are not a Darwinist, and since you fight tooth and nail against the living God who gives you life, then what exactly are you?
More on topic: how well versed in calculus are you? How well do you understand renormalization mathematically?
BA77
I agree. Who in their right mind would try the “argument from authority” against someone who has raised “argument from authority” to an art form? 🙂
re 12: That’s right, ba has a vast catalog of quotes to support his arguments from authority, and I have very few. I am bound to lose an argument from authority contest. 🙂
I am not well versed on calculus. From my very limited understanding of calculus, calculus does not deal directly with infinity but places limits on infinity so as to allow approximate calculations to be possible within calculus.
As to a more robust treatment of infinity, I re-reference this video (which jdk apparently thought himself too smart to bother watching),,,
,,, a video where I give an overview of the work, by Cantor, trying to ‘tame infinity’ mathematically so as to make it useful within mathematics. I also touched upon where Godel picked up the pieces where Cantor had failed trying to ‘tame infinity’, which subsequently led to Godel formulating his incompleteness theorems.
As to renormalization, and to reiterate, I understand that Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization
And whereas special relativity, by ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, has been successfully unified with quantum theory to produce Quantum Electrodynamics, no such mathematical ‘sleight of hand’ exists for unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics.
General relativity, as the following articles show, simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any mathematically acceptable way.
In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
And again, the irreconcilable infinity problem between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity is dealt with in more detail in the following video (which jdk apparently thinks himself too smart to watch).
And as was also touched upon in the preceding video, I believe that the reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ was accomplished in Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Verses:
I lose.
As to the main topic of the thread, i.e. Hossenfelder’s self-doubts, I hold that in order for anything to real and certain for us in the first place then God must necessarily exist.
Simply put, without God, Atheists exist in a world of illusion and fantasy that makes Alice in wonderland seem rational by comparison:
In what I consider a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion, the Atheist himself also ends up claiming that he himself does not really exist as a real person but that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ of his brain. Here are a few references that drive this point home,,,
Besides he himself becoming a ‘neuronal illusion’, the atheist’s entire worldview also dissolves into pure illusion.
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Of supplemental note to something being ‘real’ and therefore ‘certain’ for us in the first place:
In order for someone to claim that something is real for them then they ultimately have to appeal to their own subjective conscious awareness of something in order to claim that it is really real for them. For instance, ‘I kicked the rock, I know the rock is really real because it hurt my foot.’
As you can see, for the rock to be really real for a person, a person must ultimately make reference to his own subjective conscious experience of the rock.
That is to say, for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place then consciousness is not, and can never be, derivative from some material substrate as Darwinian atheists hold, but consciousness itself, i.e. the Mind of God, must be the primary substratum from which everything else is derived.
The founders of quantum mechanics, and others, put this ‘obvious’ and simple fact for something to be ‘real’ like this.
And while the logic that for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place then consciousness must necessarily be primary, not derivative, is straightforward, and, on pain of denying the reality of personhood itself, undeniable (Descartes), it should also be noted that the primary mental attribute of Qualia defies ever being reduced to any possible physical examination and/or explanation.
This inability to reduce the primary subjective mental attribute of qualia to physical examination and/or explanation is referred to as “the hard problem” of consciousness,,,
And indeed one would be very hard pressed to produce any experimental evidence for the primary subjective mental attribute of qualia.
For prime example, the only ‘scientific’ evidence that I can produce for my claim that “for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place then consciousness itself, i.e. the Mind of God, must be the primary substratum from which everything else is derived”, is this anecdotal evidence from personal testimonies about the ‘realness’ of Near Death Experiences.
To quote the headline of the following article, ‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real”
Exactly how is it even possible for something to become even ‘more real than real’ for a person in a NDE unless consciousness, i.e. the infinite Mind of God, truly is the basis for all reality, and this material reality we presently live in, as is claimed in Christianity, really is just a shadow of the heavenly paradise that awaits us after death?
On Christianity this ‘more real than real’ finding is expected whereas, once again, materialism is found to be at a complete loss to explain why this ‘more real than real’ experience should even happen in the first place.
And yet whereas qualia will never lend itself to rigorous physical examination and/or explanation, on the other hand we find that the mental attributes of “the experience of the now” and ‘free will’, do lend themselves to physical examination.
Thus, while qualia gives us a bit of a hard time, the mental attributes of “the experience of the now” and ‘free will’ do give us enough of a ’empirical foothold’ to further warrant our ‘common sense’ belief that consciousness must be the primary basis of reality.
Thus, whereas the Atheist, in forsaking the primacy of consciousness, has forsaken any rational claim he can make in regards to properly defining what is ‘real’ and certain in the first place, the Christian Theist is sitting very comfortable in his belief that God is the basis of ALL reality.
Verse:
in 10, ba wrote
First, I don’t “fight tooth and nail” about God, or anything else: that’s an excessive metaphor. I don’t believe in the Christian God, or, more broadly, that the beliefs of any religion are ontologically true. Discussing, debating, or even arguing with people about that is not “fighting tooth and nail.”
Second, as to what “exactly” I am, I don’t think of there being any one label that describes me, and I’m not interested in trying to settle on any. There are some broad labels that I am most comfortable with (I’ve discussed them in the past), but I don’t feel bound at all to what other people think those labels necessarily entail. I’m interested in discussing beliefs, not labels.
“I’m interested in discussing beliefs”
Except yours of course.
Regardless, your denial of God in and of itself is enough to condemn you to a worldview of irreconcilable irrationality. See post 16 and 17, and this:
Jdk
Certainly by word count, you lose.
re 19: I am not a philosophical naturalist.
I did not say you were anything, I merely said “your denial of God in and of itself is enough to condemn you to a worldview of irreconcilable irrationality. See post 16 and 17, and this:”
Atheism,,, is certainly far more than the mere absence of faith. – David Bentley Hart,,,
———–
To falsely accuse me of calling you anything when I clearly indicated that the only belief you were firmly committed to was ‘denial of God’ is, as usual, dishonest and disingenuous on your part.
Moreover, as such antics on your part make abundantly clear, you certainly are not interested in honest discussion, but are only interested in trolling.
I find your disingenuous and ‘foggy’ debating tactics to be pathetic.
re 19:
ba writes, …Your denial of God …”
Note well what I actually wrote:
ba, the quote you offered by Benton was about philosophical naturalism, so it seemed reasonable to assume that you were addressing that quote to me. Therefore, I implied that the quote didn’t apply to me because I am not a philosophical naturalist.
If you just want me to respond to you, then don’t quote other people.
Whatever jdk, don’t expect me to chase you down the rabbit hole of what God you are willing or not willing to accept. It is not on me to specifically define your belief that you are purposely trying to be obtuse on.
My empirical evidence has been laid out for the robustness of Christianity in regards to the subject at hand. Whereas you, as usual, have nothing save for your own foggy denial of God. Good luck with all that.
Again, I find your debating tactics to be pathetic, even trollish.
And I shall soon weary of it and treat you as such.
Referring back to the Feynman quotes in 2 and 4 above (which is why I got involved in this thread), I strongly endorse Feynman’s thoughts about uncertainty and belief: I would rather live with uncertainty than believe things that are not true.
Therefore, I am a strong agnostic about metaphysical matters because I don’t believe we have the means to investigate them. I enjoy thinking about metaphysical possibilities, and have preferences that I have chosen for my personal orientation towards metaphysics, but I don’t think we can really know. Therefore, I don’t think any religions are true, and I am doubtful, and in fact thoroughly skeptical, of those who claim with certainty that their metaphysical beliefs are true.
That’s part of the answer to ba’s question, “what exactly are you?”
ba wrote, “Thus, whereas the Atheist, in forsaking the primacy of consciousness …”
One can believe, and some do, that consciousness is a component, and perhaps the primary component, of the universe, without believing in a God, such as the Christian one, who takes any kind of active role or interest in how the universe unfolds.
Thus, not all atheists forsake the primacy of consciousness.
jdk, as you know, the vast majority of atheists on this site reject the primacy of consciousness and fully embrace philosophical naturalism.
Thus, if you really want to be considered fair in how you evaluate matters, you would do very well to also argue with the many Darwinian atheists on this site that their naturalistic position is incorrect. Instead of solely targeting ID advocates in general and Christians in particular.
And I don’t know exactly what position you are going to argue for, since, the other day, you seemed to reject pantheism altogether,,,. You said something along the lines of ‘I mentioned pantheism one time but don’t embrace it’
Shoot, in this thread, in post 8, you even said that you do not believe in Darwinian evolution. Which was a bit of a shocker, and when I pressed you on that point you did not answer.
Which is understandable since, even in a passing glance, your position is completely incoherent. i.e. An atheist who rejects Darwinian evolution.
Think about that for a moment,,,
I am sure I am not the only one on this site who is very curious as to exactly how you will possibly try to square that circle.
Yet, I won’t be holding my breath for you to clearly define your position since it is an absurd position even on its surface and is only sure to get more absurd if you try to clearly define it.
Moreover, your typical modis operandi is lack of clarity. In fact, I find that you are the arch enemy of clarity in a debate.
So again, to prove you are truly fair in these matters, why not tell the many Darwinists that visit this site why they are wrong in their beliefs?
Why just ID advocates and Christians?
It is a particular kind of militant agnosticism that you harbor that manifests itself solely in being against ID and, in particular, being against Christianity, and does not bother to openly complain against the many other worldviews that you also hold to be false.
But such is the irrational life of being a militant atheistic troll is it not jdk?
BA77
Just a note. I consider myself to be an atheist that does not believe in Darwinian evolution. But this is because I believe that evolutionary theory has advanced well beyond what Darwin had proposed. And well beyond what is described in neo-darwinism.
Earth to RJ Sawyer- natural selection is still the only posited mechanism that can produce the appearance of design (without an intelligent designer). So how far has evolutionism really advanced?
The alleged evidence for the evolution of the eye/ vision systems is the same today as it was in Darwin’s day- so again how far has evolutionism really advanced?
re 28: I hope to respond more when I have time, but here’s a short reply.
ba writes, “atheist who rejects Darwinian evolution. …”
I assumed by “Darwinist” you meant coming from a materialistic viewpoint, and since I am not a materialist I said I was not a Darwinist.
Am I correct that by Darwinist you imply materialism?
jdk states:
Too funny! 🙂
Thus far, jdk considers materialism, philosophical naturalism, pantheism, Theism, Christianity and Darwinism all to be false. And yet he wants me to clarify exactly which form of Darwinism I meant as if that will help him to clarify exactly which form of evolution he believes in.
You simply can’t make this stuff up! 🙂
Not that I ever expect a straightforward and honest answer from jdk, but anyways, for entertainment purposes, when I said Darwinian Evolution in that context I included all forms of evolution that exclude Intelligent Design and was not limiting my scope to just Neo-Darwinism.
When I limit my scope on which form of evolution I mean, I usually use the term ‘Neo-Darwinism” to differentiate it from the plethora of other naturalistic forms of evolution that are advocated by James Shapiro’s ‘The Third Way” crowd.
ba, you write,
You don’t seem to understand the following sentence, which I wrote in 26.
I don’t believe that we have the means to investigate whether the list of things that you list above are true or false. For instance, when I say I am not a materialist, that is not the same thing as saying, as a positive assertion, that materialism is false. I have reasons to think it isn’t true, but that is a tentative assertion about my own beliefs, which are strongly tempered by agnostic uncertainty, not a definitive statement about ontological truth.
Also you say,
If by Intelligent Design you mean purposively guided evolution by some divine being acting through means outside or beyond the action of natural processes (which I assume you as a theist believe), then yes, I am a Darwinist.
But I think that is misleading. (We had a discussion about this here recently.) I think most people here consider Darwinism to imply materialism, but maybe you don’t.
Or maybe you think the only two possible metaphysics are theism as you believe in it and materialism, in which case you are leaving out multiple other non-materialistic metaphysics that nevertheless accept the theory of evolution as a description of what has happened, and how, as best we know it, over the course of time.
ba, you bagan this discussion by invoking Feynman’s famous quote about not fooling oneself. I added that Feynman said that one important way to not fool yourself is to not think you know more than you do: to accept uncertainty about your beliefs rather than fool yourself into believing things that are not, or might not, be true. (I will point out that this is in part what the OP is about.)
I think if you are going to invoke Feynman, you should accurately represent his views.
Here is an more extended Feynman quote on this topic, which I entirely agree with:
from “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”, an edited transcript of an interview with Richard Feynman, published in the book also entitled “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.”
After all that, I still don’t know exactly which form of ‘naturalistic’ Darwinism that jdk believes in.
I told you guys it would be entertaining! 🙂
But then again, it turns out that jdk’s stated goal is to not know anything for certain save for the fact that he is uncertain about everything. 🙂
Again, you simply can’t make this stuff up!
of supplemental note, I am well aware of the fact that Feynman was an atheist, which is why I find his irritation with ‘brushing infinity under the rug’ all the more telling.
Moreover, despite jdk’s quote from Feynman about living with uncertainty (what else but uncertainty can atheism deliver to a person by the way?), Feynman was certainly far more committed to what empirical science could tell us about what is true and false about reality than jdk seems willing to imply in his highlighted quote.
And again, I find QED, Feynman’s crowning jewel and one of our most accurately tested theories ever in the history of science, to support Theism, even to support Christianity in particular, and not to support Atheism: