Theory of everything ? A joke

[fleem]

You are welcome to check how he uses it in his book "Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries"

This proves you haven't read the post to which you are responding.

Can you tell me which is more "complex": Maxwell's equation for electromagnetism, or the electroweak theory? Which one is more of a "reductionist"?

My understanding of electroweak theory and my understanding of Maxwell's equations is unrelated to the validity of my claim that someone who does understand them should be able to roughly estimate (in theory) which is more complex by counting the words required to describe them.

You still haven't shown me any sources to support your argument that this is a "standard" criteria of defining what reductionism is in physics.
Zz.

Look it up in the dictionary, man! Reductionism is just as I've been using it! Its the belief, idea, process, whatever, of every behavior of the universe being explainable (reduced) to simpler and more generalized rules. the word "simple", here, refers to the concept of complexity, and roughly measuring the complexity of a statement, for lack of a better way, can be done with something like counting the words and hoping each word has roughly the same complexity (number of simpler words in its definition)--unless you can think of a better way, in which case i will be glad to embrace it.

You know, whether its the case or not, I really have the impression you haven't been reading half of what I've said. Perhaps I should revisit and expound on what I was trying to say in the beginning:

I believe the universe is the result (outside of time--since time is a facet of the universe) of some extremely simple concept. I believe this because it appears that every behavior we see is a special case of more general rules, which describe many different special cases. I am convinced that if we knew everything about particles, we'd see that superconductivity is unavoidable. Now it might be that the description for "everything about particles" would be more complex than the description for superconductivity. However, that description for "everything about particles" would explain a lot more than superconductivity. Said another way, if we knew everything about particles and concluded superconductivity should not happen, but then observed it, then we should by all reckoning call that a paradox.

 

[ZapperZ]

I want also to say that when you built up a QFT what u construct from the bottom (Fock space) are the asymptotic state when time goes to infinity (Non interacting particles). About what happen when they interact in a collider we don't know anything. we know only the cross sections and similars arguments. <psi|S|psi'>.
we can just built up a theory self consistent away from the "cahos". I tink this is the really problem of deriving EVERYTHING from the QFT theories.

QFT certainly has its own issues. However, I don't think this has any bearing on TOE, or the inability of constructing a First Principle description of many-body phenomena from individual interactions. Why? Because in condensed matter itself, we use QFT formulation, albeit using renormalized, many-body potential, for example. The Fermi Liquid Theory is an easy example. We lump all the many-body interaction into the self-energy of the system. That is why you can get, for instance, an electron in a heavy-fermion material that has an effective mass 200 times its bare mass.

So QFT itself isn't at fault here, since obviously we use it to describe these emergent phenomena as well.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Look it up in the dictionary, man! Reductionism is just as I've been using it! Its the belief, idea, process, whatever, of every behavior of the universe being explainable (reduced) to simpler and more generalized rules. the word "simple", here, refers to the concept of complexity, and roughly measuring the complexity of a statement, for lack of a better way, can be done with something like counting the words and hoping each word has roughly the same complexity (number of simpler words in its definition)--unless you can think of a better way, in which case i will be glad to embrace it.

This is like arguing with someone about the use of the word "theory". When one tries to explain how that word is used in science, we get "go look in a dictionary" argument.

Somehow, that has infected "complexity" as well.

Zz.

 

[fleem]

This is like arguing with someone about the use of the word "theory". When one tries to explain how that word is used in science, we get "go look in a dictionary" argument.

Somehow, that has infected "complexity" as well.

Zz.

You ask for evidence for the definitions I use, I give my definition, say it matches that in the dictionary, and you proceed to scoff at dictionaries. Suddenly it all becomes clear. I realize now that the definition you've been using for the word "the" is from some other source than the dictionary.

So tell me, if we thought we knew everything about particles and concluded superconductivity should not happen, but then observed that superconductivity does happen, does that imply we don't know everything about particles?

 

[ZapperZ]

You ask for evidence for the definitions I use, I give my definition, say it matches that in the dictionary, and you proceed to scoff at dictionaries. Suddenly it all becomes clear. I realize now that the definition you've been using for the word "the" is from some other source than the dictionary.

This is what I asked:

You still haven't shown me any sources to support your argument that this is a "standard" criteria of defining what reductionism is in physics.

So who's not reading what here?

So tell me, if we thought we knew everything about particles and concluded superconductivity should not happen, but then observed that superconductivity does happen, does that imply we don't know everything about particles?

Somewhere in this thread, someone gave a link to Laughlin's Nobel speech. I have the strong impression that you haven't read ANY of the links I've given you, because you are asking not only about something that I've already mentioned, but something that has been mentioned multiple times in those links, ranging from Laughlin's Nobel speech, to his PNAS paper, to Phil Anderson's "More Is Different" essay.

I'm going to end this here because I'm tired of repeating myself. Everything that you accuse me of doing, they're the same thing that you are doing. I do not like doing something that goes nowhere fast.

Zz.

 

[arfa]

Er... where did you learn quantum mechanics from?

I think you have a serious misunderstanding of not only quantum mechanics, but how physics is done. "indeterminancy" is not a "doctrine", at least not in physics.

Nonsense. Indeterminacy is a doctrine in quantum physics as long as quantum objects are described as being in a superposition of states before their behaviour is directly detected and measured and all physics undergraduates are not taught at least that some kind of determinate account like Bohmian mechanics could well be scientifically valid. If only because Schrodinger's cat paradox does not apply to such an interpretation that describes in detail how quantum objects could be both waves and particles while in motion and because it a systematic argument that is consistent with a wide range of experimental results.

I've now come across many physics graduates on the Internet who are simply unaware of Bohmian mechanics or who have misunderstandings about such an account.

Quantum gravity is being formulated to "explain quantum mechanics"??!

If only because quantum gravity theories seek to combine relativity or some kind gravity theory with quantum mechanics into a single theory then surely the implication is that such a general theory would explain quantum mechanics? And especially since general relativity is a cause and effect theory of gravity, it could be expected that the quantum mechanics should be causally explained. If not then why should such an account of quantum gravity be regarded as an adequate scientific theory in any case?

Where did you learn quantum mechanics from?

 

[fleem]

So tell me, if we thought we knew everything about particles and concluded superconductivity should not happen, but then observed that superconductivity does happen, does that imply we don't know everything about particles?

Somewhere in this thread, someone gave a link to Laughlin's Nobel speech. I have the strong impression that you haven't read ANY of the links I've given you, because you are asking not only about something that I've already mentioned, but something that has been mentioned multiple times in those links, ranging from Laughlin's Nobel speech, to his PNAS paper, to Phil Anderson's "More Is Different" essay.

I'm going to end this here because I'm tired of repeating myself. Everything that you accuse me of doing, they're the same thing that you are doing. I do not like doing something that goes nowhere fast.

Zz.

Zz it is ridiculous to imply that your answer to this simple "yes/no" question is so complex that you can't even give a hint at what it would be, and must send me away looking for it among all the other things in several papers you cite. Your actions, whether sincere or not, reek of avoidance. I suggest you answer the question. Here it is again:

If we thought we knew everything about particles and concluded superconductivity should not happen, but then observed that superconductivity does happen, does that imply we don't know everything about particles?

 

[friend]

Er.. I know all about entropy. I just don't see the context in applying it to THIS situation. What were you arguing for? That the inclusion of entropy can, in fact, allow reductionism approach to describe all the emergent phenomena? Do you have a particular formulation to show this to support your argument?

Zz.

I can't imagine that I will ever be able to prove from QFT the necessity of the fingers and eyes of the human form. Although, if it can be proven from cosmological horizon entropy, for example, that the complexity of intelligence is inevitable, then perhaps fingers and eyes can be considered necessary to get intelligence. And I think there are people that are trying to connect cosmological considerations to QFT. For example, there is the Higgs mechenism to explain cosmological inflation which produces a horzion and ends in particles obtaining mass (as I recall). The point being that there seems to be principles derived from QFT that do explain the emergent properties.

 

[arfa]

Nonsense. Indeterminacy is a doctrine in quantum physics as long as quantum objects are described as being in a superposition of states before their behaviour is directly detected and measured and all physics undergraduates are not taught at least that some kind of determinate account like Bohmian mechanics could well be scientifically valid. If only because Schrodinger's cat paradox does not apply to such an interpretation that describes in detail how quantum objects could be both waves and particles while in motion and because it a systematic argument that is consistent with a wide range of experimental results.

I've now come across many physics graduates on the Internet who are simply unaware of Bohmian mechanics or who have misunderstandings about such an account.

If only because quantum gravity theories seek to combine relativity or some kind gravity theory with quantum mechanics into a single theory then surely the implication is that such a general theory would explain quantum mechanics? And especially since general relativity is a cause and effect theory of gravity, it could be expected that the quantum mechanics should be causally explained. If not then why should such an account of quantum gravity be regarded as an adequate scientific theory in any case?

Ah but then, of course, there is an uncomfortable fact for the quantum gravity theorists, which they never mention and would like everyone to ignore or not take seriously. Which is that Bohmian mechanics is the only systematically argued theory of quantum mechanics that does, like general relativity, describe a distinct cause from its effects upon objects in motion to explain the observable evidence and is consistent with a wide range of experimental results. And this mechanics

• shows that the uncertainy principle need not describe any indeterminacy in the behaviour of quantum objects but only a universal limitation in the measurement of this behaviour in any quantum experiment. And so there need be no such thing as the "quantum foam" on the Planck scale that all quantum gravity theorists assume;
  
• describes a cause called the quantum potential that is quite distinct from any force since it would have nonlocal effects as it produces quantum wave and spin behaviour and as it acts at a distance to produce quantum entanglement. So that, as is consistent with the results of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments" , such a cause would act without varying in any way at any distance between objects and thus act with no measurable strength. And therefore the conclusion can be that the nature of such a cause could not be deduced and described from any theory of quantum gravity.

[Quantum gravity theory as] a theory of everything, a joke? More like a quite tragic misunderstanding arising from an 80 year old error in interpreting the evidence found of matter and radiant energy on the smallest scale, I'd say.

 

[Fra]

the uncertainy principle need not describe any indeterminacy in the behaviour of quantum objects but only a universal limitation in the measurement of this behaviour in any quantum experiment

My personal objection to this viewpoint is that what I can say scientifically say about the behaviour of anything can not come from anywhere else, than from interactions, external of with myself (interactions that is essentially remodelling of the observers record). Direct, or indirect mediate by some chain of intercommunications.

This is what I personally consider to be the biggest point of QM - the emphasis on epistemology. And a point that I think will more or less survive to it's spirit into any future revisions including gravity.

If there is a limitation on measurements which is in essence is interactions, then that is the same thing as saying that there is constraints what I can say about things. Wether there are things that are certain ways, but I can't say anything about it that is almost an undefined reflection because if I could reflect to it, I could also say something about it via induction, a contradiction.

The essence I like to keeep from GR OTOH, that is disrespected in QM, is that there is a relation between ontology and epistemology that almost takes the form of an ontology of the epistemology and you can't have one without the other.

What I think is the problem with QM is that the epistemology is unmatched. We consider operators and measurements in absurdum, without connecting them to a matching ontology that can relate to this. This is where I think probability and information theory, with information processing, information storage and gathering can fill in the gap.

How can we collect information if we don't have a memory record where we can contain the results? This is one thing that is not respected in QM foundations. We related and store the information in background ontologies that are not respecting the measurement ideals, at least how i see it.

/Fredrik

 

[arfa]

But if your looking for the natural truth beyond the results of quantum experiments that explains matter and radiant energy then you won't do it by talking about the philosophy of knowledge.

Neils Bohr insisted that there was no such natural truth and thus devised the indeterminate Copenhagen interpretation (CI), which most physicists have since accepted some version of who have any interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Whereas Bohm's mechanics showed in mathematical and diagrammatical detail how it is that CI could be wrong. So that the Bohmian account describes an account of quantum particles with definite and determinate trajectories that are also real extended waves beyond the experimental results, and which is perfectly consistent with these results. While the wave would be a distinct cause that acts upon quantum particles in addition to the forces. And you can ask if this description represents, if only in a limited way, the unobservable natural truth about matter and the energy it radiates then how, in enough detail, could this be so and how could you empirically confirm that this is so?

And one can conclude that the only way of doing this is to develop a general cause and effect theory from both the quantum findings and the large scale observable natural evidence, while the observable evidence serves to confirm a detailed enough hypothesis of quantum behaviour that is based upon Bohmian mechanics.

 

[Fra]

First, we can agree that QM as it stands is not satisfactory.

But if your looking for the natural truth beyond the results of quantum experiments that explains matter and radiant energy then you won't do it by talking about the philosophy of knowledge.

The philosophy of knowledge is not irrelevant, since it relates to philosophy of science. I personally think it's a common bad habit of many people to reject all philosophical reflections with the assumption that they are irrelevant to the scientific process. I strongly disagree with that. Technically, I would say that philosophy is self-interaction/observation and not disjoint from reality. It's a real physical process in the human brain in this case and i have no reason to doubt it's connection to reality. By controlled contemplation we remodel our own understand, seeking a more coherent and consistent unity. This is progress. But that's only part of it of course, the other part is external interactions.

The problems seen with QM (IMO), are observations that there seems to be inconsistencies in the logic used. And perhaps resolving this, will also help move the theory forward - way beyond the contemplatory-only stage.

I guess this is what the bohmians do too - you see logical issues. That's nothing wrong of course. I was trying to argue that even though entire QM as it stands is unsatisfactory, there are some deep lessions that I think are right on, which is that the idea of acquiring information is taken more seriously than in CM, and that this actually affects the physical reality. This comes out as very sound and logical to me. Given that we agree in something beeing wrong with QM, don't you agree with this?

What I essentially think is that to understand and verify "knowledge" one need to analyse the process where knowledge is formed, this also gives you a complete strategy, where you do not only konw how to distinguish good theories from bad, you learn howto learn, by analysing and developing the learning process.

Whereas Bohm's mechanics showed in mathematical and diagrammatical detail how it is that CI could be wrong.

At minimum I agree that CI is incomplete, but I personally see many better options to than bohmian mechanics. Science is more than theories to me, it's a strategy of survival. In that context I don't quite understand the bohmian strategy.

Suppose bohm is right, then what? What is the best way forward?

/Fredrik

 

[arfa]

At minimum I agree that CI is incomplete, but I personally see many better options to than bohmian mechanics. Science is more than theories to me, it's a strategy of survival. In that context I don't quite understand the bohmian strategy.

Suppose bohm is right, then what? What is the best way forward?

/Fredrik

I'm not saying that the philosophy is irrelevant as a rational critique of science, at least. I'm just saying that only science can find, sufficiently justify and clearly describe just what is already in the natural world as a hidden cause to explain how something occurs. But this has not been the case in any theory of quantum gravity.

Whereas Isaac Newton was the first to show that such a cause could be something invisible and that acts universally but that the causal details can be justified and described just from its effects upon objects. And thus only by examining a wide range of evidence, such a cause that was called gravity was shown to act where before it could be thought that there was nothing in the world outside objects that produces their weight, fall and orbital motion.

Newton also provided what were surely incontravertable arguments just from the large scale evidence for proposing that light should consist of corpuscles or particles in motion. For what else could travel in narrow beams and produce sharp shadows and, one could add, what could be observed of just waves in space?

At the beginning of the 19th century Thomas Young and others showed that evidence on the small scale indicates that light possesses a wave property that varies in length according to the light's colour. But these findings didn't refute Newton's arguments. For the reasonable conclusion could be that, somehow, light consists of both waves and particles while in motion.

The trouble is, however, no direct evidence has ever been found of light or any quantum objects being either waves or particles while in motion. And physics has been dogged by a tyranny of describing and accepting the truth of just what can be measured from experimental results. Thus in the 20th century, after the successes of such methods in producing quantum mechanics and showing that the measurements of quantum behaviour could only be probablistic and uncertain in some respects, Neils Bohr and others could argue that, beyond the measured results, quantum objects are neither waves nor particles and, indeed, indeterminate in all respects.

Then not until 25 years after this decree of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which by then had been accepted by the very large majority of physicists, it can be insisted that David Bohm only served to support in a systematic argument what could already be reasonably deduced from both the large scale evidence and the experimental findings: light and matter does consist of both particles and waves beyond the direct observations and measurements. And the indeterminacy just results from the limitations of the measuring instruments.

But then, given that Bohm is correct in the essentials at least, where to now?

Well, I claim to have found enough empirical reasons to conclude that theoretical physics can only progress by accepting that, once again, only by considering together a wide range of observable natural and experimental evidence, a general theory can be developed that sufficiently justifies and describes enough details of another invisible cause from its effects upon matter and energy.

Although an account of this theory needs to be quite unlike any existing account in physics or elsewhere in the natural sciences, and would also mess up quite a lot of existing theories. And hence, so far, I've found it impossuble to convince any physicist on the internet that a properly scientific general theory can be developed of what could be described as a nonlocally acting and extradimensional cause and its effects in the natural world. One of the universal effects of this cause being that matter can remain in its organised forms as atoms, molecules and living organisms despite the forces acting within and upon it.

 

[tomas666]

First, we can agree that QM as it stands is not satisfactory.



The philosophy of knowledge is not irrelevant, since it relates to philosophy of science. I personally think it's a common bad habit of many people to reject all philosophical reflections with the assumption that they are irrelevant to the scientific process. I strongly disagree with that. Technically, I would say that philosophy is self-interaction/observation and not disjoint from reality. It's a real physical process in the human brain in this case and i have no reason to doubt it's connection to reality. By controlled contemplation we remodel our own understand, seeking a more coherent and consistent unity. This is progress. But that's only part of it of course, the other part is external interactions.

The problems seen with QM (IMO), are observations that there seems to be inconsistencies in the logic used. And perhaps resolving this, will also help move the theory forward - way beyond the contemplatory-only stage.

I guess this is what the bohmians do too - you see logical issues. That's nothing wrong of course. I was trying to argue that even though entire QM as it stands is unsatisfactory, there are some deep lessions that I think are right on, which is that the idea of acquiring information is taken more seriously than in CM, and that this actually affects the physical reality. This comes out as very sound and logical to me. Given that we agree in something beeing wrong with QM, don't you agree with this?

What I essentially think is that to understand and verify "knowledge" one need to analyse the process where knowledge is formed, this also gives you a complete strategy, where you do not only konw how to distinguish good theories from bad, you learn howto learn, by analysing and developing the learning process.



At minimum I agree that CI is incomplete, but I personally see many better options to than bohmian mechanics. Science is more than theories to me, it's a strategy of survival. In that context I don't quite understand the bohmian strategy.

Suppose bohm is right, then what? What is the best way forward?

/Fredrik

Ah i think that the knowlage is nothing one day we know something another we know that we are wrong.People have stop look for most beautiful pleace universe,how there can be diffrent force that rule of them?Meby I am not right but we should start to think beyond all we know,and try to do new theory not theory that look only for things we "see" or we can image but something close to question we say all time "Why we are living?".And how can be quantum wolrd right if there is chance that something will happen.What it means that there is no rule,atoms are crazy force that don't know what is should do?So why all exsist?Next thing why we always have to compicate easy things?And why in quantum world elektromagetic force is so overpowerd but gravitaion is nothing?If we look at Newton gravitaion formula and elektromagnetism they look like the same thing.So why non one is doing one force that rule rest and create things like "gravity".Next if atoms have mass it mean that they are build from smaller parts the smaller parts must have energy to
if they don't have mattery would colapse.Next Einstein relativity proof ,is not that time slow down but that elektromagnetic wave is slowing near something that move fast.We don't need hard experimets for it for example if i take a pen and line do some move if r is more we see the object less the same on satelite near earth.And i guess that there will be
theory of all someday but it will show all things in easy way that is should be showed.