Hossenfelder: You can approximate the laws that we know with a computer simulation – we do this all the time – but if that was how nature actually worked, we could see the difference. Indeed, physicists have looked for signs that natural laws really proceed step by step, like in a computer code, but their search has come up empty handed.
Tag: Sabine Hossenfelder
Sabine Hossenfelder on “quantum hype”
Hossenfelder: First, you cannot transfer information faster than the speed of light with the quantum internet or with any other quantum effect.
Was the universe “made for us”? Sabine Hossenfelder weighs in. Rob Sheldon comments
The question, addressed by theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, is more complicated than it appears at first.
One of our favorite physicists thinks infinities and singularities aren’t real
Why would a person need to believe that neither infinity nor singularity are real?
At Quanta: Are we looking at the end of physics?
Ah yes, the problem of dead-endedness that Sabine Hossenfelder often writes about. As does Columbia mathematician Peter Woit, on the subject of string theory. But surely much of the nonsense around string theory and the multiverse is in part due to a practical failure—the inability to find even a single particle of dark matter or similar evidence for dark energy.
Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder is being labelled “anti-science”
Also, let this sink in: Despite believing in determinism, Hossenfelder believes we should “decide” against a new particle collider… We can decide? On that account, to other naturalists, she is “anti-science.” Naturalism is weird like that. Eats its own.
Free will makes more sense of our world than determinism—and science certainly allows for it
Scientists weigh in on both sides but accepting free will allows us to avoid some serious problems around logic and personal freedom.
Mike Egnor on why Coyne and Hossenfelder are wrong to deny free will
Egnor: Now let’s get to the neuroscience. Neuroscience has a lot to contribute to the debate over free will and all of it supports the reality of free will. There isn’t a shred of neuroscientific evidence that contradicts the reality of free will.
Sabine Hossenfelder dismisses fine-tuning; Brian Miller and Steve Meyer respond
Fine-tuning of the universe is one of those concepts that can pass every possible evidence test and still be rejected because it is just not supposed to be true. No matter how foolish the arguments against it are, they will always appear preferable. If the situation results in confusion, well, confusion is clarity.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Flat Earthers are wrong but not stupid
Hossenfelder: It is not possible for each and every one of us to redo all experiments in the history of science. It therefore becomes increasingly important that scientists provide evidence for how science works, so that people who cannot follow the research itself can instead rely on evidence that the system produces correct and useful descriptions of nature.
A Universal Mind is a reasonable idea, says Bernardo Kastrup
One reason that science media are respectful of cosmopsychism may be growing awareness of the problems with strict materialism, naturalism, or physicalism: As Michael Egnor has noted, “How can you have a proposition that the mind doesn’t exist? That means propositions don’t exist and that means that you don’t have a proposition.”
Sabine Hossenfelder: Einstein’s greatest legacy was the thought experiment
She notes that one needs evidence from real experiments to demonstrate that the outcome of a thought experiment is real. But it is significant that the human mind is capable of developing the basis for momentous discoveries even before we commit to stuff that requires a budget.
Sabine Hossenfelder asks: Do we need a theory of everything?
Hossenfelder: So this whole idea of a theory of everything is based on an unscientific premise. Some people would like the laws of nature to be pretty in a very specific way… This is simply not a good strategy to develop scientific theories, and no, it is most certainly not standard methodology.
Science vs pseudoscience? – Sabine Hossenfelder edition
Why do people like Hossenfelder feel they need to honor Darwinism’s rotting carcass?
Sabine Hossenfelder says predictions are overrated; Rob Sheldon responds
Sheldon: … ironically, most of Sabine’s blogs are about the poor predictive power in particle theory, but in this blog she feels she has to reverse herself to defend the good name of global warming. My advice to her is to stick with what she has first-hand knowledge of, because 2nd-hand knowledge always suffers from authoritarian bias.