... on several levels: The dean of debunking. It's nice that someone is challenging string theory - "science" without any possibility of evidence - and nice that the challenge comes from a humble maths teacher.
He has a blog, you know. It's also titled "Not Even Wrong" and can be found at http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/. Way over my head a lot of the time, but still fascinating.
I agree Superstring Theory is questionable. It has been the mainstream candidate in Physics for bridging the gap between Quantum Theory and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which deals with gravity or everything that affects what occurs in space.
Currently, we believe there are four dimensions - the first being an infinitely small spot that has no height, no depth, no width. The second is just height and width but no depth. The third is the 3D space we know so well from living in. The fourth is time.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that these 4 elements comprise a malleable structure that gets altered when mass is placed within them, e.g., you walking down the street. Quantum Theory, on the other hand, says that the purpose of these 4 elements that comprise our current understanding of space is to allow things to exist on it, not be altered by it. It suggests that space is constructed of tiny elements, the purpose of which is to accommodate mass without being affected by it. In other words, these two theories disagree on the basic structure of space.
When dealing with the large, the Theory of Relativity makes sense, but when dealing with the small, it is Quantum Theory that makes sense. Unifying these theories is the Holy Grail of Physics, Superstring Theory being the most popular possibility.
But there's a better one:
Burkhard Heim, an obscure German physicist, put forward the idea (Heim’s Quantum Theory) that there are 8 dimensions, 4 more than we previously knew about, before he discarded 2 of them. Walter Dröscher, another German scientist, has since come along and offered a mathematical theory to support Heim’s original claim of 8 dimensions. It’s known as Heim-Dröscher Space and it is a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe which couples the forces of gravity and electromagnetism.
That's what I love about science: it puts forward theories based on reason that it hopes will be proved or disproved, rather than expecting them to be accepted at face value.
Well, that certainly is both fascinating and informative, Noel. But I gather it is not string theory (correct?). My objection to string theory - and Woit's, too, I gather - is precisely that it cannot be tested and is therefore not science. I also like science for precisely the reason you cite. When you do science, what you do is supposed to be testable and repeatable. Where you and I differ, I think, is that I do not think science is the only way of knowing and that there are limits to what science can know. Thanks for the link, Frank.
As far as I know, Heim's Quantum Theory and Superstring Theory are aimed at understanding the subatomic or Quantum world. When scientists understand this, then in combination with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, we will have what scientists call a Theory of Everything.
Einstein spent his life looking for a Theory of Everything. He felt that it was a matter of unifying general relativity and electromagnetism - the subject of Quantum Mechanics - but he was highly skeptical of Quantum theorists and their speculative claims of a multiplicity of dimensions.
It is only recently that scientists have been able to measure the mass of subatomic particles so it is likely that Superstring Theory will eventually be proven or disproven. It is worth noting that String Theory is not String Fact nor did it ever claim to be String Fact.
On science not being the only way of knowing, I think there is a difference between wanting to believe something is true and being able to prove it is true so I would like to ask what are the other ways of knowing for certain that something is true or untrue?
Also, you say there are limits to what science can know. I'm curious to know what you think the limits are.
While I agree that there are aspects of life science cannot currently explain, I do not think anyone knows what the limits of science are, or can even claim that science has any limits. When science meets obstacles, it goes to work to understand and overcome them rather than settling for unprovable stories to explain them away.
Not too long ago, for example, people would never have believed that science could prove that the earth has been spinning at 900 miles an hour around the sun for more than 4 billion years in a galaxy containing a hundred billion stars, a galaxy that is itself only one of millions of billions of galaxies in an expanding universe. In time, who can say what science will come to know?
As Joseph McCabe, a former Francisan monk, put it: "Every advance [science] makes dislodges the theologian from a patch of ignorance. Every lamp that is lit in another dark chamber shows that the ghost is not there."
I don't think science can ever explain why a certain phrase of music brings tears to my eyes, or why a peculiar shade of sunlight at certain times of day gives me an overwhelming feeling that "we are such stuff as dreams are made on." I am not sure I would want it to. I am pretty I do not need it to. You seem to have a craving for proof and certainty that I do not share. Moreover, you can not prove everything. There must be at least one thing unproven, a given, something taken for granted, upon which to prove alll the rest that you wish to prove. I suppose one could start and end with oneself, since one cannot *prove* that one exists. I am not sure one can *prove* that anything does. You say: "It is only recently that scientists have been able to measure the mass of subatomic particles so it is likely that Superstring Theory will eventually be proven or disproven." But Woit's thesis is that it "is not a genuine theory at all and that many of its exponents do not understand the complex mathematics it employs." So you will have to take that up with him. You *believe*, I gather, that some day science wil be able to explain everything and that the only knowledge we have will be certain knowledge. The position to which I subscribe is best explained by Freeman Dyson, who is much smarter than I and knows a great deal more about physics than I ever will: "As human beings, we are groping for knowledge and understanding of the strange universe into which we are born. We have many ways of understanding, of which science is only one. Our thought processes are only partially based on logic, and are inextricably mixed with emotions and desires and social interactions. We cannot live as isolated intelligences, but only as members of a working community. Our ways of understanding have been collective, beginning with the stories that we told each other around the fire when we lived in caves. Our ways today are still collective, including literature, history, art, music, religion, and science. Science is a particular bunch of tools that have been conspicuously successful for understanding and manipulating the material universe. Religion is another bunch of tools, giving us hints of a mental or spiritual universe that transcends the material universe. To understand religion, it is necessary to explore it from the inside, as William James explored it in The Varieties of Religious Experience. The testimony of saints and mystics ...is the raw material out of which a deeper understanding of religion may grow."
I fully agree with the idea that science does not need to explain the pleasure one feels at smelling a beautiful rose or seeing a breathtaking sunset, or that urge I have to giggle when my 3-year old looks both ways, nips into his older brother's room and makes off with a handful of his dinosaurs as though no one has noticed (or will be noticing in the very near future), and then enduring with big bright innocent eyes the resulting lecture by said brother about the virtue of asking to play with his dinosaurs BEFORE running off with them. The pleasure I experience at seeing these things cannot be described by science, or even if it could I would not care. But then religion can't explain these things for me either.
I wouldn't say I have a craving for proof, but I'm not comfortable accepting things blindly, as the church expects me to.
What you mean by "one cannot prove that one exists" is unclear. A person can prove they exist. You exist, for example, and not because I simply believe you exist, but because you are, separate to me.
On Woit's thesis that proponents of Superstring theory do not understand the complex maths behind it, many scientists don't understand the maths behind Heim's theory either, but he predicted the mass of subatomic particles to within .01% which as far as I know String Theory has not done so I am certainly not writing here in support of String Theory.
You *believe*, I gather, that some day science wil be able to explain everything and that the only knowledge we have will be certain knowledge.
Not at all. I think there will probably always be aspects of life that will remain unexplained. The Unified Theory of Everything is not meant to explain everything about life; only to standardize physical rules that apply to both the quantum level and the cosmic level since it's not possible for the very small and the very big to exist in this universe while following different rules of existence. Obviously, there is more to physics than we understand currently.
What I love about science is that it is the tool of the imagination. One could say science is a marriage between the artistic and the practical. We would have none of the things we enjoy today were it not for the imagination of scientists. Edison, for example, imagined that electricity could be generated and harnessed to produce light. Einstein imagined that mass and energy were interchangable and came up with the formula E=MC2 which has since been proven. Newton looked at something we take for granted - gravity - and worked it out mathematically. His calculations are still used when we send craft into space. Pasteur wondered what he would see if he turned a telescope around. What he saw was the microscopic world, saving among other things countless billions of gallons of milk from going sour over the centuries. He could not prove initially that it was invisible bugs in the milk that were causing it to go sour and few people believed him when he claimed it was until he showed them what pasteurization could do, and of course, let them look through his microscope.
Science celebrates the imagination and running alongside true science have always been over-enthusiastic pseudo-scientists like the man who claimed that the little toe would evolve out of existence within a century since it was useless. A lot of pseudo-scientists are running alongside Quantum Physics at the moment because it's relatively new and only partially proven.
I believe there are aspects to life that science does not understand, or for that matter, even claim to understand. My problem with religion is that it does claim to understand them based on no evidence whatsoever. The testimony of long-dead saints and mystics is interesting, but it does not qualify as proof of anything. Freeman Dyson knows (or should know) the difference between a workable hypothesis and a bedtime story.
Not a lot time, Noel, but no, you cannot prove my existence or yours. To prove means to have a premise and move from it to a conclusion. You intuit (in the Aristotelian sense - immediate knowledge) both my existence and yours. Experience is a given, not a conclusion of logic. The church does not demand blind faith, in fact condemns fideism. There are plenty of reasoned arguments on behalf of religion and Rudolf Otto did some real scientific field work as reported in his The Idea of the Holy. A myth is not the same as a bedtime story (see Plato and Jung). But I am elaborating on that (sort of, in a concentrated way) in the conclusion of the poem-in-progress I sent you. Must run.
I have heard this argument before; that it is not possible to prove anything exists, including us. Here is what Winston Churchill said about it:
"The idea that nothing is true except what we comprehend is silly ... Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University educaation used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. I warn my younger readers only to treat them as a game. The metaphysicians will have the last word and defy you to disprove their absurd propositions.
I have always rested upon the following argument which I devised for myself many years ago. We look up in the sky and see the sun. Our eyes are dazzled and our senses record the fact. So here is this great sun standing apparently on no better foundation than our physical senses. But happily there is a method, apart altogether from our physical senses, of testing the reality of the sun. It is by mathematics. By means of prolonged processes of mathematics, entirely separate from the senses, astronomers are able to calculate when an eclipse will occur. They predict by pure reason that a black spot will pass the sun on a certain day. You go and look, and your sense of sight immediately tells you that their calculations are vindicated. So here you have the evidence of the senses reinforced by the entirely separate evidence of a vast independent process of mathematical reasoning. We have taken what is called in military map-making 'a cross bearing.' We have got independent testimony to the reality of the sun.
When my metaphysical friends tell me that the data on which the astronomers made their calculations, were necessarily obtained originally through the evidence of the senses, I say 'No.' They might, in theory at any rate, be obtained by automatic calculating-machines set in motion by the light falling upon them without admixture of the human senses at any stage. When they persist that we should have to be told about the calculations and use our ears for that purpose, I reply that the mathematical process has a reality and virtue in itself, and that once discovered it constitutes a new and independent factor. I am also at this point accustomed to reaffirm with emphasis my conviction that the sun is real, and also that it is hot - in fact as hot as Hell, and that if the metaphysicians doubt it they should go there and see."
He has a blog, you know. It's also titled "Not Even Wrong" and can be found at http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/.
ReplyDeleteWay over my head a lot of the time, but still fascinating.
I agree Superstring Theory is questionable. It has been the mainstream candidate in Physics for bridging the gap between Quantum Theory and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity which deals with gravity or everything that affects what occurs in space.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, we believe there are four dimensions - the first being an infinitely small spot that has no height, no depth, no width. The second is just height and width but no depth. The third is the 3D space we know so well from living in. The fourth is time.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that these 4 elements comprise a malleable structure that gets altered when mass is placed within them, e.g., you walking down the street. Quantum Theory, on the other hand, says that the purpose of these 4 elements that comprise our current understanding of space is to allow things to exist on it, not be altered by it. It suggests that space is constructed of tiny elements, the purpose of which is to accommodate mass without being affected by it. In other words, these two theories disagree on the basic structure of space.
When dealing with the large, the Theory of Relativity makes sense, but when dealing with the small, it is Quantum Theory that makes sense. Unifying these theories is the Holy Grail of Physics, Superstring Theory being the most popular possibility.
But there's a better one:
Burkhard Heim, an obscure German physicist, put forward the idea (Heim’s Quantum Theory) that there are 8 dimensions, 4 more than we previously knew about, before he discarded 2 of them. Walter Dröscher, another German scientist, has since come along and offered a mathematical theory to support Heim’s original claim of 8 dimensions. It’s known as Heim-Dröscher Space and it is a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe which couples the forces of gravity and electromagnetism.
The math is confusing everyone, but if the theory is right (and scientists have come up with a way of testing it to prove it), it means that hyperspace travel, i.e., travelling to Mars and back in under 5 hours or visiting a star 11 light years away in around 80 days, would be possible.
That's what I love about science: it puts forward theories based on reason that it hopes will be proved or disproved, rather than expecting them to be accepted at face value.
Well, that certainly is both fascinating and informative, Noel. But I gather it is not string theory (correct?). My objection to string theory - and Woit's, too, I gather - is precisely that it cannot be tested and is therefore not science. I also like science for precisely the reason you cite. When you do science, what you do is supposed to be testable and repeatable. Where you and I differ, I think, is that I do not think science is the only way of knowing and that there are limits to what science can know.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link, Frank.
As far as I know, Heim's Quantum Theory and Superstring Theory are aimed at understanding the subatomic or Quantum world. When scientists understand this, then in combination with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, we will have what scientists call a Theory of Everything.
ReplyDeleteEinstein spent his life looking for a Theory of Everything. He felt that it was a matter of unifying general relativity and electromagnetism - the subject of Quantum Mechanics - but he was highly skeptical of Quantum theorists and their speculative claims of a multiplicity of dimensions.
It is only recently that scientists have been able to measure the mass of subatomic particles so it is likely that Superstring Theory will eventually be proven or disproven. It is worth noting that String Theory is not String Fact nor did it ever claim to be String Fact.
On science not being the only way of knowing, I think there is a difference between wanting to believe something is true and being able to prove it is true so I would like to ask what are the other ways of knowing for certain that something is true or untrue?
Also, you say there are limits to what science can know. I'm curious to know what you think the limits are.
While I agree that there are aspects of life science cannot currently explain, I do not think anyone knows what the limits of science are, or can even claim that science has any limits. When science meets obstacles, it goes to work to understand and overcome them rather than settling for unprovable stories to explain them away.
Not too long ago, for example, people would never have believed that science could prove that the earth has been spinning at 900 miles an hour around the sun for more than 4 billion years in a galaxy containing a hundred billion stars, a galaxy that is itself only one of millions of billions of galaxies in an expanding universe. In time, who can say what science will come to know?
As Joseph McCabe, a former Francisan monk, put it: "Every advance [science] makes dislodges the theologian from a patch of ignorance. Every lamp that is lit in another dark chamber shows that the ghost is not there."
I don't think science can ever explain why a certain phrase of music brings tears to my eyes, or why a peculiar shade of sunlight at certain times of day gives me an overwhelming feeling that "we are such stuff as dreams are made on." I am not sure I would want it to. I am pretty I do not need it to.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have a craving for proof and certainty that I do not share. Moreover, you can not prove everything. There must be at least one thing unproven, a given, something taken for granted, upon which to prove alll the rest that you wish to prove. I suppose one could start and end with oneself, since one cannot *prove* that one exists. I am not sure one can *prove* that anything does.
You say: "It is only recently that scientists have been able to measure the mass of subatomic particles so it is likely that Superstring Theory will eventually be proven or disproven." But Woit's thesis is that it "is not a genuine theory at all and that many of its exponents do not understand the complex mathematics it employs." So you will have to take that up with him.
You *believe*, I gather, that some day science wil be able to explain everything and that the only knowledge we have will be certain knowledge. The position to which I subscribe is best explained by Freeman Dyson, who is much smarter than I and knows a great deal more about physics than I ever will:
"As human beings, we are groping for knowledge and understanding of the strange universe into which we are born. We have many ways of understanding, of which science is only one. Our thought processes are only partially based on logic, and are inextricably mixed with emotions and desires and social interactions. We cannot live as isolated intelligences, but only as members of a working community. Our ways of understanding have been collective, beginning with the stories that we told each other around the fire when we lived in caves. Our ways today are still collective, including literature, history, art, music, religion, and science. Science is a particular bunch of tools that have been conspicuously successful for understanding and manipulating the material universe. Religion is another bunch of tools, giving us hints of a mental or spiritual universe that transcends the material universe. To understand religion, it is necessary to explore it from the inside, as William James explored it in The Varieties of Religious Experience. The testimony of saints and mystics ...is the raw material out of which a deeper understanding of religion may grow."
I fully agree with the idea that science does not need to explain the pleasure one feels at smelling a beautiful rose or seeing a breathtaking sunset, or that urge I have to giggle when my 3-year old looks both ways, nips into his older brother's room and makes off with a handful of his dinosaurs as though no one has noticed (or will be noticing in the very near future), and then enduring with big bright innocent eyes the resulting lecture by said brother about the virtue of asking to play with his dinosaurs BEFORE running off with them. The pleasure I experience at seeing these things cannot be described by science, or even if it could I would not care. But then religion can't explain these things for me either.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say I have a craving for proof, but I'm not comfortable accepting things blindly, as the church expects me to.
What you mean by "one cannot prove that one exists" is unclear. A person can prove they exist. You exist, for example, and not because I simply believe you exist, but because you are, separate to me.
On Woit's thesis that proponents of Superstring theory do not understand the complex maths behind it, many scientists don't understand the maths behind Heim's theory either, but he predicted the mass of subatomic particles to within .01% which as far as I know String Theory has not done so I am certainly not writing here in support of String Theory.
You *believe*, I gather, that some day science wil be able to explain everything and that the only knowledge we have will be certain knowledge.
Not at all. I think there will probably always be aspects of life that will remain unexplained. The Unified Theory of Everything is not meant to explain everything about life; only to standardize physical rules that apply to both the quantum level and the cosmic level since it's not possible for the very small and the very big to exist in this universe while following different rules of existence. Obviously, there is more to physics than we understand currently.
What I love about science is that it is the tool of the imagination. One could say science is a marriage between the artistic and the practical. We would have none of the things we enjoy today were it not for the imagination of scientists. Edison, for example, imagined that electricity could be generated and harnessed to produce light. Einstein imagined that mass and energy were interchangable and came up with the formula E=MC2 which has since been proven. Newton looked at something we take for granted - gravity - and worked it out mathematically. His calculations are still used when we send craft into space. Pasteur wondered what he would see if he turned a telescope around. What he saw was the microscopic world, saving among other things countless billions of gallons of milk from going sour over the centuries. He could not prove initially that it was invisible bugs in the milk that were causing it to go sour and few people believed him when he claimed it was until he showed them what pasteurization could do, and of course, let them look through his microscope.
Science celebrates the imagination and running alongside true science have always been over-enthusiastic pseudo-scientists like the man who claimed that the little toe would evolve out of existence within a century since it was useless. A lot of pseudo-scientists are running alongside Quantum Physics at the moment because it's relatively new and only partially proven.
I believe there are aspects to life that science does not understand, or for that matter, even claim to understand. My problem with religion is that it does claim to understand them based on no evidence whatsoever. The testimony of long-dead saints and mystics is interesting, but it does not qualify as proof of anything. Freeman Dyson knows (or should know) the difference between a workable hypothesis and a bedtime story.
Not a lot time, Noel, but no, you cannot prove my existence or yours. To prove means to have a premise and move from it to a conclusion. You intuit (in the Aristotelian sense - immediate knowledge) both my existence and yours. Experience is a given, not a conclusion of logic.
ReplyDeleteThe church does not demand blind faith, in fact condemns fideism. There are plenty of reasoned arguments on behalf of religion and Rudolf Otto did some real scientific field work as reported in his The Idea of the Holy. A myth is not the same as a bedtime story (see Plato and Jung). But I am elaborating on that (sort of, in a concentrated way) in the conclusion of the poem-in-progress I sent you. Must run.
I have heard this argument before; that it is not possible to prove anything exists, including us. Here is what Winston Churchill said about it:
ReplyDelete"The idea that nothing is true except what we comprehend is silly ... Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University educaation used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. I warn my younger readers only to treat them as a game. The metaphysicians will have the last word and defy you to disprove their absurd propositions.
I have always rested upon the following argument which I devised for myself many years ago. We look up in the sky and see the sun. Our eyes are dazzled and our senses record the fact. So here is this great sun standing apparently on no better foundation than our physical senses. But happily there is a method, apart altogether from our physical senses, of testing the reality of the sun. It is by mathematics. By means of prolonged processes of mathematics, entirely separate from the senses, astronomers are able to calculate when an eclipse will occur. They predict by pure reason that a black spot will pass the sun on a certain day. You go and look, and your sense of sight immediately tells you that their calculations are vindicated. So here you have the evidence of the senses reinforced by the entirely separate evidence of a vast independent process of mathematical reasoning. We have taken what is called in military map-making 'a cross bearing.' We have got independent testimony to the reality of the sun.
When my metaphysical friends tell me that the data on which the astronomers made their calculations, were necessarily obtained originally through the evidence of the senses, I say 'No.' They might, in theory at any rate, be obtained by automatic calculating-machines set in motion by the light falling upon them without admixture of the human senses at any stage. When they persist that we should have to be told about the calculations and use our ears for that purpose, I reply that the mathematical process has a reality and virtue in itself, and that once discovered it constitutes a new and independent factor. I am also at this point accustomed to reaffirm with emphasis my conviction that the sun is real, and also that it is hot - in fact as hot as Hell, and that if the metaphysicians doubt it they should go there and see."