> On 1 May 2020, at 12:52, Philip Thrift <cloudver...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/04/book-review-dream-universe-by-david.html > > Sabine Hossenfelder writes: > > > In the end, Lindley [The Dream Universe: How Fundamental Physics Lost Its > Way, by David Lindley] puts the blame for the lack of progress in the > foundations of physics on mathematical abstraction, a problem he considers > insurmountable. “The unanswerable difficulty, as I hope has become clear by > now, is that researchers in fundamental physics are exploring a world, or > worlds, hopelessly removed from our experience… What defines those unknowable > worlds is perfect order, mathematical rigor, even aesthetic elegance.” > > He then classifies “fundamental physics today as a kind of philosophy” and > explains it is now “less about a strictly rational understanding of the > universe and more about finding a scenario that we deem intellectually > respectable.” He sees no way out of this situation because “Observation, > experiment, and fact-finding are no longer able to guide [researchers in > fundamental physics], so they must set their path by other means, and they > have decided that pure rationality and mathematical reasoning, along with a > refined aesthetic sense, will do the job.” > > I am sympathetic to Lindley’s take on the current status of research in the > foundations of physics, but I think the conclusion that there is no way > forward is not supported by his argument. The problem in modern physics is > not the abundance of mathematical abstraction per se, but that physicists > have forgotten mathematical abstraction is a means to an end, not an end unto > itself. They may have lost sight of the goal, alright, but that doesn’t mean > the goal has ceased existing. > > It is also simply wrong that there are no experiments that could guide > physicists in the foundations of physics, and I say this as someone who has > spent the past 20 years thinking about this very problem. It’s just that > physicists are wasting time publishing papers about beautiful theories that > have no relevance for nature instead of analyzing what is going wrong in > their discipline and how to make progress. > > In summary, Lindley’s book is not so much a competition to Lost in Math as a > complement. If you want to understand what is going wrong in the foundations > of physics, The Dream Universe is an excellent and timely introduction. > > > (Sabine Hossenfelder also tweeted that she has no interest in delving into > the Wolfram Model; then Sean Carroll tweeted he was at least interested. > Funny lot.) > > @philipthrift
Read my papers, or ask question, but this is still to much physicalist to make sense with Descartes’ Mechanism, or with Darwin foreseen of digital mechanism (before church-thesis!). The reason why physics is mathematical and more and more a long way from intuition is already understood by Plato, who warns us that the fundamental truth has to be counter-intuitive: the reality primitive are ideas, or with mechanism, simply numbers. The people you are citing still confuse “fundamental physical reality” with the apparent (and phenomenologically real) physical reality. Once you understand that all computations and histories exists, provably, once we assume *any* Turing universal ontology (like a tiny part of arithmetic already) it is up to the physicalist metaphysician to make their case for a ontologically real universe. How could that explains any physical prediction? Physics works because it makes an implicit ontological commitment, but that leads to the mind-body problem, which is basically solved with mechanism, so why add something that nobody has tested until QM (which confirms mechanism and its immaterialism)? It is no better than “God made it, period”. Matter and consciousness are better explain without adding those ontologies for … no reasons, it seems to me. I don’t see any, even without mechanism. I defend rationalism and empiricism. We have looked carefully to the physical universe, and up to now, it confirms Mechanism. Materialism was already refuted by Plato, but Aristotle missed the point, and of course, those who like the idea that a creation exist followed him. Matter is only a recent invention to make people believe that the bread is God’s body, or God’s son’s body. What I do see is that many confuse theories and model, which does not help. Wolfram follows the tradition of ignoring the hard problem of the relation between the first person experiences and the possible third person theories we can do for explaining them. It is mechanist physicalism, which has been shown inconsistent. Bruno > > > On Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 12:06:41 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > It's a symptom of success. Physics has done a good job of modeling > everything within the scope of experiment and observation. So now extending > theories means going beyond what's testable; i.e. speculation. > > Brent > > On 4/29/2020 1:10 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> Over the past few decades there is an explosion of people who think the >> "mathiest" math will help in advancing physics. >> >> This is a typical example: >> >> Modern Physics formalized in Modal Homotopy Type Theory >> https://ncatlab.org/schreiber/show/Modern+Physics+formalized+in+Modal+Homotopy+Type+Theory >> >> <https://ncatlab.org/schreiber/show/Modern+Physics+formalized+in+Modal+Homotopy+Type+Theory> >> >> There are many other examples based on many other areas of advanced >> mathematics. >> >> None of this stuff helps in understanding nature - supposedly what physics >> is about, or is any way useful in using physics in real applications >> (technology). >> >> It can all be interesting pure mathematics, but actually worthless. >> >> >> Actually it's worse than worthless, It suggests nature (or rather, the best >> code of nature we have so far) is this stuff. >> >> @philipthrift >> >> >> > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6292ce75-e086-491a-bb78-4b681198c59c%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6292ce75-e086-491a-bb78-4b681198c59c%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2C8DB968-5468-43BF-A40A-5EFA9B51D88D%40ulb.ac.be.
