Sabine Hossenfelder - The end of science

[Richard Hull]

I am really into this physicists logic, reasoning and ability to even contemplate this "rope limit". It shows that even a good physicist can have very deep concerns about science, its direction and its future. We all know, as does Sabine, that science will continue as there is room and reason to do so.

The attached URL is quite masterful and thought provoking for those who question and think deeply. I often think of such things myself to depths I will not allude to here. I have enough living of life and study behind me to do this and come out as the curmudgeon and naysayer on power ready, controlled fusion.

Those of us who have heard that the TV show Big Bang Theory hired real physicists to make sure all those white boards loaded with equations and discussions of the characters were on point in real world physics. In one episode Penny, (portrayed as a dumb blonde), trying to seem interested in the work of one of the PhD physicists, (Lenard), asks, "What's new in the world of physics?" Leonard, pensively silent, finally tells her, "Not much really since the 1930's or 40's". It indicates the opinions of the show's behind the scenes physicists... Sabine also notes this in the following URL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW4yBSV4U38

Enjoy

Richard Hull

[Frank Sanns]

I have said for decades that the problem with science is because of the illusion of the electrons. That is, the macroscopic world is not the way it works. What we see from day one with our eyes is not the way the universe works. Classical physics is just not the story. It is just a collection of EMPIRICAL formulas to describe slow moving macroscopic objects. That is not representative of the workings of the universe.

From a previous post of mine: "We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion."

This brings up the second point. Education. We are spoon fed classical physics and maths until college or nearly so. Then come the standard equations again including even Maxell. While elegant in the math and explanations, they are rubbish in the grand schema of fundamentals. Again no real science.


There are fields that affect fields. NO!!!! But that is what EVERYBODY is taught so they are then blind to the reality. Several of you have had in depth discussions with me about a deeper understanding of things. It is abstract to conventional thinkers but more comprehensive to those with an open but not wack job minds.

We need to unlearn what we learned. In my case, very early in my life (by around 7th grade), I began to question what I was being taught. My mantra from then until now is to believe everything tentatively and nothing absolutely. It has resulted in many a breakthrough. The only public ones are in my patents and publications. And of course some of the current work that I have discussed with a very few of you.

Science is not at the end. In fact, the real science still remains out there.

[Nicolas Krause]

Love to see John Horgan's great book being discussed. I read it a year or so ago and was struck by how prophetic his predictions about scientific outcomes came to be. The interviews with luminaries in the book made for fascinating reading, mostly just how unimpressive they seemed to me. More recently John Horgan has been undertaking an effort to actually learn all the math and physics, and his point of view of has shifted to one much closer to what you espouse Frank. You can read his blog here.

[Richard Hull]

The science that gets treated with money is mechanistic science. Certainly that is the science of electrons, The science of machinery that can do something in the macroscopic world and that can create a useful product which can be sold. A truly proven performer for investment capitalism.

The above includes fusion as a tempting power source. A whole gang of well funded and some underfunded startups. These lap up the money from the truly uninformed investors who even if they have, supposedly, good scientific advisors will find the advisors either on the take themselves or part of the overly hopeful, "real soon now" cadre.

The world is currently all agog over reality, what is it? Quantum gravity, perception, consciousness, etc, are where it is now for the true forward thinking with nothing to show for it. Wheels spin constantly in all efforts. We are lost in space while at the peak of mechanistic science, inch-worming its way forward with new trinkets for the masses.

Where is our lucky donkey? Or are the aliens and our government cabals holding back? I use to worry I would not live long enough to know a number of answers and breakthroughs. Ha! Fat chance! The great thing about old age and curmudeaonism is that you are truly care free. Leave it for the next crowd to pick up the pieces. Their can-do attitude will prevail, real soon now.

Richard Hull

[Paul_Schatzkin]

Those of us who have heard that the TV show Big Bang Theory hired real physicists to make sure all those white boards loaded with equations and discussions of the characters were on point in real world physics. In one episode Penny, (portrayed as a dumb blonde), trying to seem interested in the work of one of the PhD physicists, (Lenard), asks, "What's new in the world of physics?" Leonard, pensively silent, finally tells her, "Not much really since the 1930's or 40's".

I think I saw that episode.

I agree.

And so does The New York Times, which published this article:
.
What Happened to All of Science’s Big Breakthroughs?
A new study finds a steady drop since 1945 in disruptive feats as a share of the world’s booming enterprise in scientific and technological advancement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/scie ... ption.html

...which I posted somewhere in these forums months ago.

I don't think the '1945' date is an accident.

They* gave us the knowledge.

They saw what we did with it.

They folded their arms and said, "OK, that's enough."

And now we're just stuck with our pitiful selves, our prehistoric, un-evolved "human nature."

Horgan is interesting. Hossenfelder's take on Horgan is interesting.

But I really thinks E.O. Wilson summed it all up best:
.

.
Until we get past the first two, we're not gonna get much more of the third one.

And that includes useful energy from nuclear fusion.

--PS

_______________

* insert your favorite metaphysical/theological metaphor here.

[Paul_Schatzkin]

.
I just pulled up Horgan's book on Amazon:

The End of Science: https://amz.run/7Oqk

...and scrolling down the page, who should come up as the first 'Editorial Review' ?
.

.
I will have to add Wilson to my reading list.

..soon as I finish The Rise And Fall of The Third Reich (you know, getting ready for possible outcomes in Nov. 2024...)

--PS

[Richard Hull]

Like I have always said, we can't begin to imagine the loss to the world in science and technology, etc., if the big balloon goes up. Just because we are at a panicle of technological development doesn't mean it really has a future! There is a "hair trigger" world out there filled with nutballs and nations now vying for control of natural resources to keep the ball rolling forward to supply the demand for bread and circus onboard the good ship lollipop.

Just to strike fear in the hearts of the masses,......Imagine no smart phones, no cell phones and no internet in your life for a couple of decades. I actually lived and prospered through this hell on earth from 1945 until the mid 80's. It was tough, but I rolled up my sleeves and lived through it to tell the story of how we had none of this stuff!

If a full fledged global nuclear exchange takes place, all will be gone, for the first couple of decades! Those that are left will be lucky to eat for the first year or two and we might get back to a full and useful 1920's level of existence in a decade on a slightly radioactive planet inhabited by a much more planet friendly hundreds of millions worldwide. Of course, in the effort to rebuild and stabilize, good old science based technology will be the God to save us. Science in the current sense will just stagnate and have to await spare time to muse and experiment anew off the public treasure.

Do not worry too much, for we are like roaches. You can't kill everyone, try as we might. Sorta' like we can't do power ready fusion, try as we might.

No! Fusion must be done off planet. Unless we want to kill with fusion. Killing all of us, to the last man, woman and child, must also come at us from off planet. Just like climate change is just weather headed one way of the other, with or without man. Some things are just too big to change or alter on a planet wide scale by man.

We think we are so great, but we are dust mites on the surface of a spinning rock, with water, orbiting an ordinary star that keeps us warmish and moves our atmosphere about over us. As dust mites we are and have for the last 100,000 years, as hominids, been just along for the ride. We lived in tribes for years with our tribe of 100 barely surviving souls. Finding a lovely meadow with abundant game we set up camp and slowly fouled it with our excrement and having chopped down most of the tree for campfires and killed off the local game. Much like the American Indians, our ancestors pulled up stakes and found yet another lovely meadow upstream...repeat... move....repeat. We are still tribal, just on a massive scale. We still have to fight opposing tribal nations for goods we lack or for the now meaningless word "freedom".

Freedom in 1901 meant you could work, get paid and keep 100% of your pay. You could use the money to order a case of dynamite from the Sears-Roebuck catalog or food for your family. The Velo corporation made pistols in several calibers for early bicycle riders to shoot and kill dogs nipping at you while enjoying a nice bike ride. Even then freedom came at a cost. Death via many treatable illnesses of today. killed millions.

Richard Hull

[Paul_Schatzkin]

If a full fledged global nuclear exchange takes place, all will be gone, for the first couple of decades! Those that are left will be lucky to eat for the first year or two and we might get back to a full and useful 1920's level of existence in a decade on a slightly radioactive planet inhabited by a much more planet friendly hundreds of millions worldwide.

What did they say after Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

That "the living envied the dead."

I can certainly see feeling that way when your skin is peeling off in sheets and your guts are turning inside out.

We think we are so great, but we are dust mites on the surface of a spinning rock, with water, orbiting an ordinary star that keeps us warmish and moves our atmosphere about over us. As dust mites we are and have for the last 100,000 years, as hominids, been just along for the ride.

Ah, Richard. It is comforting, knowing we can always count on you for deeply spiritual, metaphysical enlightenment.

Now excuse me while I go out donkey hunting...

--PS

[Richard Hull]

My use of hard talk similitudes are designed to fly in the face of feelgood sophistries swallowed by the beautiful people. I'm in the same lifelong prison with them, but I do like to run the tin cup up across the bars to keep those content in their imprisonment awake.

Few realize what a thin and tenuous technologically complex and interlinked thread by which we hang on to a seemingly pleasant world that looks like it can go on forever. I just hope I get to checkout of this morass before the bow breaks. It has been a fabulous and wonderful world for me and still is.

Technology blazes ever forward as classic great breakthrough science seems to have stalled. Happy as a clam in retirement. Still taking it all in and learning more every day realizing for all the knowledge and skills acquired over a lifetime are but mere vanities that disappear with my passing. Why continue to learn and apply? It is part of this human's conditioning.

Richard Hull