Dax discussions of Beyond SM theories/including newcomer questions

[Fra]

Isn't the question somehow, here we are in all our ignorance: What do we do to learn more in the most optimal way?

Some people apparently think the best we can do is to keep working on ST.

Some people, think otherwise, but then the question isn't ST or not. The question is: what else? No need to keep referencing to ST, let's get on with the discussions. ST is not a standard in my eyes, except in the sense that it has become the major BTSM field.

ST will have to prove itself eventually just like any other program.

/Fredrik

 

[Lt_Dax]

how's it any of my business what others work on? Including creationists.

Creationism isn't a part of science even in principle, even as a hypothesis, so your analogy is bogus.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

You've been referencing creationists in a lot of your arguments, just pointing that out.

 

[Lt_Dax]

You've been referencing creationists in a lot of your arguments, just pointing that out.

Yes, why is that a problem? Are you a creationist? As I've explained, it illustrates the point well. In science we can't use multiple definitions of a theory across disciplines. Science is universal. The meaning of a theory in evolutionary biology is the same as in physics. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

No, I'm not, but you were refuting someone's point upon the basis of them using creationism yet sixty percent of the arguments you've made have referenced creationists. It just seems to be a loss of continuity. Anyways I don't want to argue, this thread has achieved absolutely nothing and it will remain this way.

 

[arivero]

Natural selection will make sure wrong theories eventually die out, no?

Er, no. Natural selection permits the accumulation of "wrongs" if they are compatible with the ambiance in the sense that they do not handicapp the species survival compared to others. In this way, Natural selection can build complex structures, which is where a set of "wrongs" becomes, surpresively, because of accumulation or because of a change in ambient conditions, a "right"

 

[Lt_Dax]

sixty percent of the arguments you've made have referenced creationists.

Don't exaggerate.

this thread has achieved absolutely nothing and it will remain this way.

In your opinion. Stating something doesn't make it the case.

I tell you what, the quality of arguments from these so-called experts has been poor.

 

[negru]

I tell you what, the quality of arguments from these so-called experts has been poor.

In your opinion. Stating something doesn't make it the case.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Exaggerating isn't the point, it's the principle in which states that you've made a hypocritical post.

 

[Lt_Dax]

No, I'm not, but you were refuting someone's point upon the basis of them using creationism yet sixty percent of the arguments you've made have referenced creationists. It just seems to be a loss of continuity.

Hey hang on - you were accusing me of hypocrisy here. The other person who raised creationism did so in a way that created a fallacy. He wasn't using it to create the same point I was making. I was using evolution to justify my point, not creationism. Read more carefully before you accuse someone of having double standards.

 

[Lt_Dax]

In your opinion. Stating something doesn't make it the case.

Oh aren't we the clever one. Actually, my statement just backs up something which is manifest. His statement was without support.

 

[marcus]

... If you like evolution so much, why are you so stressed out? Natural selection will make sure wrong theories eventually die out, no?

Good you mentioned that, Negru. Something analgous to natural selection happens with human theories, concepts, even mathematical ideas. As long as the community retains its critical standards.

I that is the root issue in this thread. The scientific community is a traditional aristo self-selecting community that decides who is and who isn't a scientist, and decides what is what isn't a scientific theory, what gains cred and is copied and replicated, and ultimately decides when a theory is no longer interesting---according to the subjective, sometimes adversarial application of some traditional standards.

You can't argue from definitions and axioms here--a lot of it is subjective, and even social. Somehow the scientific community continues to operate pretty well, however.

Historically there is a kind of put up or shut up rule, after a while if something produces no testable results it goes out of favor. The issue here, in this thread, I think is should the physics community relax its standards.

If standards were relaxed then natural selection would work differently. I suppose we could evolve in the direction of multiversalist fairytales---abandoning the effort to explain why this particular universe we live in is the way it is. Some overarching untestable theory provides for a landscape of 10¹⁰⁰⁰ possible versions of physics, and we just happen to live in one of them.

Or evolution could take many other courses---the explanatory fantasy of myth etc etc. If you change the selection criteria, natural selection goes on a different track. I don't want to speculate---just suggest that different futures are possible.

For me, in this thread, string is not the central issue. It is only people who see it as threatened and rush to its defense that make string an issue. The real issue is the perpetuation (or not) of Baconian scientific standards and expectations.

If we eliminate all references to string from our posts we would still have a discussion--maybe even a more interesting one.

 

[Lt_Dax]

Here's at least one reason this thread has not been pointless - I've learned something - that even practicing professionals can be arrogant, self-serving, nest-feathering and mentally manipulative, which further solidifies a view I had already acquired long ago that my mentors and colleagues at work only care about publications, travel, career kudos and what the next restaurant they want to eat in is. They don't seem to care about the methods of science, as long as they get the citations. My decision to not carry on in academia has been strengthened, not weakened.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

How exactly did his post create a fallacy, he was merely stating that he believes it is not the customary observer's perspective to state what is and isn't right, people will do what they wish and care less about how one person believes high energy physics should be guided principally. I'm not arguing against you, I'm just stating what is.

 

[Lt_Dax]

His fallacy was that people's right to believe in creationism justified the right to study string theory. They cannot be equated. I pulled him up on that, and you bizarrely accused me of hypocrisy, like the wise old expert that you are (!)

 

[Kevin_Axion]

And the fact that they can't be equated is an invention of your mind. In fact many people have stated that studying String Theory has become religious in essence, a most suitable relation it seems. Anyways I'll feel sufficed to your argument if you can present one fact that states in anyway how theoretical research in general or specifically String Theory has deterred our motivation or knowledge of physics.

 

[arivero]

Marcus, the comparision with natural selection enerves me... by doing it, you seed the roots of Inteligent Design. It is not that you can not assume a ecosystem of theories, you could do it if the theories were varying randomly and they were surviving just on the grounds of consuming resources from other theories.

But if there is an Inteligent body, in this case the Humanity, selecting some theory in basis to an inteligent criteria, then it is not natural evolution.

Theories evolve not by natural selection, but by "Inteligent Pantheist Design" (opposed to Inteligent Monotheist Design").

 

[Lt_Dax]

Anyways I'll suffice to your argument if you can present one fact that states in anyway how theoretical research in general or specifically String Theory has deterred our motivation or knowledge of physics.

The fact that you probably view "theoretical research" as a valid stand alone pursuit shows why we can't make progress in this discussion. The fact that 30 years and countless PhDs, conferences and postdocs has produced few, or arguably no, testable predictions, in contrast to the productive times of earlier decades, is surely proof that real damage may have been done to progress? This would be true even if ST was a proper theory! And I mean real progress, which means do an experiment, build a theory, verify with another experiment, lather, rinse and repeat.

 

[Lt_Dax]

And the fact that they can't be equated is an invention of your mind. In fact many people have stated that studying String Theory has become religious in essence, a most suitable relation it seems.

And if they can be equated, then all the better for my argument, because it means they are both unscientific, and people lose their justification to thrust them upon society in publicly funded ways. If they can't be equated then my accusation of fallacy stands.

 

[marcus]

-As a model, technically we're just missing a selection principle to choose from the landscape. Hardly an obvious dead-end or utter failure.

... Why is everyone so anxious?

You tell me. Why are string theorists so anxious? The minute someone clears their throat and appears to have some reservations about the value of stringy research, a half-dozen defenders rush in and start talking about how great it is.

Speaking for myself I don't feel at all stressed or worried.

I see string jobs drying up. I see citations to string research have crashed. I see publication slacking off. Particularly by top level people.
I see that Nima Arkani-Hamed tells a small Princeton audience that we do not expect String Theory to tell us anything about particle physics. That was November 2009 as I recall.
The message was "give up on stringy unification".

"Landscape" papers were excluded from the Strings 2008 conference at Geneva, and almost completely absent from Strings 2009 in Rome.
For some 5 years after 2003 we were told the String Landscape was about 10⁵⁰⁰ different versions of physics, but I hear that the recent estimate is more like 10¹⁰⁰⁰. You are right to suggest the trouble is there is no selection principle.

I see the top former stars of string working all or part time on non-string topics. And many others working on applying string math to stuff that is extraneous to the unification program.

Basically the objective facts that I see denote a field in decline. This does not bother me, it is part of the natural cycles. They will find all sorts of extraneous applications for the math.

This is entirely unstressful and uncontentious AFAICS. The chorus of denialist defenders is not even mildly annoying. There are plenty of other things to think about.

And heck, the course of historical decline might reverse! We don't know the future! What I've mentioned is just how things are going for the moment. Don't hold your breath, but if I see any signs of that I will certainly let you know and let anybody else who will listen know.

 

[negru]

Dax, if string theory were to move to the math department, pending experimental evidence, would that make you happy? How do you justify research in abstract mathematics? What's the difference and why is it relevant to anything?

 

[Kevin_Axion]

No, it doesn't mean they are both unscientific, it means that they share the same strength of advocacy. String Theory uses rational argument and creationism doesn't. Anyways I do agree that String Theory is really lacking experimental inquiry and understanding but I don't believe it has devalued any other forms of research (LQG people would disagree). I'm sure you can agree that String Theory must hold some truth or else it wouldn't explain so much.

 

[Lt_Dax]

Dax, if string theory were to move to the math department, pending experimental evidence, would that make you happy? How do you justify research in abstract mathematics? What's the difference and why is it relevant to anything?

Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. In my country (and earlier when you advised me to see a congressman, you assumed I was from the USA), physics and mathematics are mostly funded by different research councils.

The leaders of the councils aren't always aware that what's going on is abstract maths, they just assume they are funding the pursuit of genuine particle physics knowledge (the funding council which pays my QCD research also pays for LHC research, for example). These issues have a real impact.

Justifying research in abstract mathematics is surely an issue of mathematical proof, or whatever other things motivate the production of new mathematics. If funding claims to fund abstract mathematics, then that's fine. But the STFC in the UK, for example, does not fund abstract maths, they fund particle physics, in principle.

 

[negru]

Marcus, people are anxious because none of this criticism id new. Everyone was well aware of the inherent troubles of string theory when they decided to start working on it. In fact, some of my profs said that's exactly what drew them to string theory: the fact that it's just testing human knowledge to the maximum, with little external hints to make things easier. So to them in particular it's mind boggling why or how these string wars appeared in recent years. Like woit or smolin had found some dark secret of string theory - when instead that dark secret was the feature some people liked most.

In any case I agree with what you said above regarding natural selection and science. Science has always been arbitrary. Science was never successful because scientists were some kind of pure, rational objective thinkers with no agenda. It was successful only because you could use science. And who used the better science prevailed (where "used" can mean experiment, check consistency, build technology, explain stuff, or anything like that). That's why I believe time will tell, and there's no reason to get all worked up about what everyone is doing (unless of course it's done on tax payers' money. but as long as global warming, math, literature, and other such fields get funded, I think everyone should be funded). I'm confident that good theories will stand the test of time. As for me, I'll just try to stay on the side which I believe to be true. And Dax will get angry here, but research is pretty much by definition the same as religion (in its initial stages). The only thing you can do is believe in it. If there were any objective evidence in favor of one path or the other, it wouldn't really be research.

 

[Lt_Dax]

I'm sure you can agree that String Theory must hold some truth or else it wouldn't explain so much.

I question how much it really explains. It (arguably) contains the SM, which I find boring. It is a quantum theory of gravity, but whether or not physics is a unified whole is a question for which there is no evidence, it is merely compelling. And even if it predicts new things (branes, colliding universes etc.), the validity of these predictions depends not only on their experimental validation, but on the premises of the theory being sound. We develop a theory with experiment front and back, not just at the front.

 

[marcus]

Dax, if string theory were to move to the math department, pending experimental evidence, would that make you happy? How do you justify research in abstract mathematics? What's the difference and why is it relevant to anything?

Excellent question! Mathematicians also have a traditional self-selected community with standards of what is good and interesting mathematics. If it moved over into a new setting, string would have to sink or swim.

Mathematics also undergoes something like "natural selection". Fruitful ideas are imitated. Ideas that get boring or don't lead anywhere (not "interesting" by the hard-to-define traditional judgment of the top mathematicians) are dropped, or left to low-status obscure folks.

Top mathematicians have a way of rating what is "hard" or "deep" or "nontrivial". It's part of what a mentor, like a PhD advisor, instills.

Mathematical ideas mutate spread and evolve in a kind of dialog with this critical scrutiny by the community. Eventually "deeper" ideas prevail. Community subjective judgment is involved.

You ask what would happen if String moved to the math department. That might be very interesting! Then it would be competing for jobs, for citations, for seminar attendance, for the hard to define "prestige" that math people confer on each other. It would be competing with different things from what it competes with in the physics department. That could be very interesting.

I remember in 2006 Witten came out here to Berkeley to give 3 lectures 90 minutes each on his current research interest. I attended all of them. One of the things that impressed me was that he did not mention string theory for the entire 270 minutes. At the end of the third lecture someone in the audience raised their hand and asked "and what about string theory?"

People say different things if it is a large widely-advertised public lecture versus a smaller unadvertised talk.

Nima Arkani-Hamed was very different at that small conference about the "Landscape" at Princeton from how he was, for example, at Cornell recently in a big format video-stream set of lectures.

Actually some string physicists have moved over into the Math Department and are now doing different stuff like more abstract category theory not so obviously related to string. Urs Schreiber used to be a string stalwart, boosting string all over the place. Now he is in the Hamburg University math dept and doing n-category theory and stuff. I think it was a very smart move. He is extremely smart. Making it as a mathematician---according to math department standards---is a really good way out, if you can do it.

 

[Lt_Dax]

And Dax will get angry here, but research is pretty much by definition the same as religion (in its initial stages). The only thing you can do is believe in it. If there were any objective evidence in favor of one path or the other, it wouldn't really be research.

There are many essential differences, come on you can't be serious?

Everyone believes in things, belief is not the issue. Scientists believe in things, but they believe in things based on evidence (and they try to do this even in the fluffy early beginnings of a theory, otherwise there's no justification to call it a theory. Even hypotheses have experimental origin). Religious people believe in things based in faith.

I'm sure I don't need to list the myriad other ways in which science differs from religion: no personality cults, a competitive peer review system, institutions which foster learning rather than shut it down, etc. etc. ad infinitum). Of course adhering to the scientific method is not as clean as you would think from reading a textbook, but you can't argue that that makes it lack objectivity.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

I'm not qualified to make a judgement anyways, I'm only 16. You probably thought I was slightly older unless my ignorance bled through the flaws in my arguments. It was a fine debate though.

 

[negru]

Dax, if we had evidence for a theory, we wouldn't be talking about research. If you have evidence for it, it's established as fact.

How do people decide whether to go into string theory or LQG? Assuming we're at a stage were none had any evidence in its favor, how would you decide which one to follow? How would you decide which one was more likely to turn out being the correct one? There's no objective way to do that, you can only go with what you believe will happen.

 

[negru]

Or just any simple problem. Why do people start working on a particular problem? Because they believe they can solve it. It's always a matter of faith.

 

[Lt_Dax]

Dax, if we had evidence for a theory, we wouldn't be talking about research. If you have evidence for it, it's established as fact.

But that phase where we lack evidence is transient, or it should be. If you can't test something, or the test fails, you discard it and move on. 30 years is not what I have in mind by transient.

 

[Lt_Dax]

I'm not qualified to make a judgement anyways, I'm only 16. You probably thought I was slightly older unless my ignorance bled through the flaws in my arguments. It was a fine debate though.

You're a superb thinker for your age. I'm in my mid 20s, in the thick of research, and you gave me a run for my money. Getting someone frustrated is usually a sign that you've made a good argument, and I think everyone has gotten frustrated at some point.

 

[negru]

But that phase where we lack evidence is transient, or it should be. If you can't test something, or the test fails, you discard it and move on. 30 is not what I have mind my transient.

That transient phase represents the whole of research.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

Thanks, I just love physics and enjoy reading about it and researching it. May I ask what you are researching? I believe you mentioned QCD. I will also add that I know of almost none of the technicalities of String Theory although I am lurking through The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose

 

[Lt_Dax]

I work on hadronic contributions to the muon g-2. Some people do things with nonperturbative QCD (e.g. on a lattice), but the work I do is better done using experimental data to estimate the specific contribution. It's very collaborative so no one person can work on g-2 theory alone.