Something BIG we're not getting.

[peter]

James Clerk Maxwell can possibly be described as the first scientist of the truly modern era. His Equations still sit, unchanged at the center of the standard model, what - 100 years after he formulated them. His work in elucidationg the wave nature of light was a crucial step in the path that led to the development of quantum theory [ok - via study of an effect that his theories did not account for], and yet he was a deeply religious man who had no doubt whatsoever that the fundamental truths of the Universe that he was uncovering, were windows into the understanding of that most ineffable of questions - the nature of God.

For him there was no contradiction in the study of the world we live in using the tecniques of rational thought and logic, manifested in the mathematics and experimentationthat were the mainstays of the scientific method, and the existance of a Creator who could sit above, outside, wherever you will, his Creation and who would not be affected or diminished, choose where your investigations led you.

But be that as it may.

The book I'm reading concentrates on the question of whether beauty is 'embodied' in the natural world that science investigates. Now this book is written by a Nobel prize winning physicist [Frank Wilczek] and while to date the book has been really a history of ideas that he maintains can aspire both to 'the Ideal' and the 'Real' in a very real way, there is no doubt that he see's beauty manifested in the Universe in a way that goes beyond that of most hard-headed practicioners of physics. [I haven't finished the book but even given the above, I don't believe he's going to 'come out' at the end of it as a believer in the reconised sense - but we shall see. {Having said that he does cite Maxwell as being his favorite scientist as well.}] Now obviously the man has formulated his question carefully - and cites it explicitly on page one, telling us "This book is a long meditation on a single question;

Does the world embody beautiful ideas?"

Now given that one imagines he put at least some effort into getting his idea across in the form he intended and in the spirit of this I decided to examine just what the word 'embody' means. All definitions I can come up with imply aform of 'emodyment' going on where some concept or [more metaphysica] idea is made physically manifest by the lending of a material form by which it is reflected. Curious.

But moving on.

I know very little about the far reaches of theoretical physics - and understand even less. In the thread "Faultlines in Theoretical Physics" {The Loresraat} V. has kindly provided a link to a 'Map' of current theories at the far end of the subject and this uniquly informative guide highlights just where we are in our understanding of out universe - and more crucially the major problems we are encountering. Now as I read the various entries I was increasingly reminded of another group of students who studied - but failed to make progress, because of a fundamental flaw in their 'outlook'; that [of course] of the New Lords, who were stymied in their attempts to fathom the secrets of Kevins Lore, by the very Oath of Peace they had sworn to prevent any future 'desecration' of the type that had been seen in the past. Now this is simplistic I know. But the fact remains - and many pysicists at the far reaches of the discipline aknowledge this - that something is missing. We have dark matter we can't see, dark energy we can't acess, we have symetries where there should be none, and none where there should be. We have three of the forces sitting neatly in their box and one defiantly bucking all the trends, we have mass where there should be none, and none where there should be some.

And above it all we have Beauty. Ineffable, unreasonable, unquantifiable and indescribable Beauty.

And where does all of this leave us. Well for me, all of the reading, all of the trying to understand does not convince me that we have the true measure of our situation at all. The 80 years of stagnation at the heart of our deepest investigations into the nature of reality rather convince me that like the Lords, as [perhaps] tentatively implied by Wilczek, there is indeed something big that we are not getting.

(Edit: I don't see any GUT that does not address the questions of metaphysics as being 'complete' at all. It seems to me that at some point the disciplines of physics and philosophy will have to come together and this will only be achieved when the current paradigms of both are overturned. Some serious outside the box thinking is going to be required.)

[Zarathustra]

80 years of stagnation? I'm not sure what you're talking about. We've made tremendous progress in science in that time! Persistent mysteries are certainly not stagnation. After all, we're always at the beginning of infinity. We'll always be missing something Big.

Speaking of Deutsche, he had a entire chapter on beauty being inherent in the world. I think he makes a damn good argument, following the evolutionary reasons why flowers are beautiful, for instance.

[Vraith]

80 years of stagnation? I'm not sure what you're talking about. We've made tremendous progress in science in that time! Persistent mysteries are certainly not stagnation. After all, we're always at the beginning of infinity.

We'll always be missing something Big.

Yea. We've learned more in the last 80 years than...no, that's too limiting.
We learned more in the first 40 years of that 80 than in all of history combined...and more in the second 40 than all of history plus the first 40.
That's much closer to the reality.

And not only always missing something Big, each time we solve a Big, the next one is Bigger. [[which is just a variation on always at the beginning, I suppose]].

Seems to me for science and philosophy--in relation to each other and other arenas--we need to keep an eye on identifying/separating different kinds of "wrong," just like we have to deal with different kinds of "real" when talking of the embodied and conceptual/abstract.

I mean, there are plenty of things from 500, 1000, or more years ago that were "wrong"---but the stuff they were doing with it still works.
Newton still works.
General Relativity and Quantum both work---and will continue to work when we figure out how we are wrong, what binds them together/contains them both, and will likely remain useful for some things for a very long time.
In many cases, if you've got a theoretical/abstract boat with big holes in it you can still sail out and catch a lot of fish. Highly unlikely with a real boat.

[[which isn't to say science/philosophy can't ALSO be wrong in the more ordinary ways---that would be dumb, of course it can]].

On the metaphysics, peter, I think we have answered many of the questions people label as "metaphysical." The problem is that many, many people simply don't like the answers. [[one of the general answers being: there will always be a next Big Thing we're missing]].

[Avatar]

For the world, beauty is irrelevant except in terms of its effect on function.

The world may embody beautiful ideas, but it embodies terrible ones as well, and which is which does not matter to the world.

--A

[peter]

Agreed progress has been made - but Wilczec himself made the point that all of that progress has been made within the framework of quantum theory: we're working within the paradigm - and we already know (in terms of the big answer) it's failing us! Deutsch himself stated explicitly that our two mainstays of physics would go to the wall before it was over and I agree with him. Sure, we advance within the framework - and make progress, technologically or otherwise - but the big step forward eludes us. We're still working with just the next step up from Newtonian science and it provides advance in exactly the same way - within the limits of its remit but no more. This is not what we're after - we want to Understand!

Not wanting to be too hard on you guys ( ) but to say " there will always be 'a next big thing'", is to retreat into instrumentalism and I will have none of it: science will lead us to true knowledge. In the end we'll get there: to believe otherwise is to say that a point will be reached arbitrarily down the road where you might as well draw a line under it. (I'm probably adrift in this paragraph, but leave it in to examine it nevertheless.)

Av - if I'm getting what this guy is saying it's that beauty is the very opposition of irrelevant in the world: it could be the most relevant thing in the world at the fundamental level! (God I love that idea, but that of course won't make it right .)

[Zarathustra]

What's wrong with working within the current paradigm(s)? The fact that they've lasted so long without paradigm revolution is a point in their favor. They are enduring because they're so accurate. As we zero in on the truth, it should be harder to overturn paradigms, I would think.

... to say " there will always be 'a next big thing'", is to retreat into instrumentalism

How so? Deutsch emphatically rejected instrumentalism, and yet the idea that there's always "a next big thing" was central to his "beginning of infinity" idea. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Av - if I'm getting what this guy is saying it's that beauty is the very opposition of irrelevant in the world: it could be the most relevant thing in the world at the fundamental level! (God I love that idea, but that of course won't make it right .)

I think that "beauty" and "order" are sometimes used interchangeably by scientists. Most people wouldn't describe math as beautiful. (But then most people suck at math.) The fact that Nature, even at its cruelest and ugliest, still conforms to math, IS the most relevant fact of our existence. The fact that all this random, explosive, and destructive action by dust floating in a void can also coalesce into complex, self-organizing systems--which eventually produce life, consciousness, intelligence--is the most beautiful idea imaginable.

[peter]

But in this case Z. we know the paradigm doesn't [or won't in the long run] hold up. Yes is works, and yields good results - but so does Newtonian dynamics as long as you use it within the scope of it's limitations. Hell - so does what's his name's series of cycles and epicycles [re the solar system] as long as you don't push it to far. People often say that Newtons work sits inside relativity, but it doesn't. Relativity just does all the stuff that Newtons 'gravity at a distance' does - and then a whole lot more! Deutsch even made the point of saying that people persist in talking about gravity as if it exists - but in relativity it doesn't. Newtons work is good as an instrument - but thats all it is. Alongside relativity it's a poorer cousin, and in the long run quantum and relativistic theories will have to go to the wall as well; we know that - the sighns that preceed paradigm change are all there {the increasing build up of observations that don't 'fit' etc}. The Big Thing of paradigm change will relegate these as well to instruments - but one day, surely we'll get to the thing that isn't an instrument - it'll be the real thing. And when we do get there it will be an equation that describes just one [because surely there cannot be more than one] initial event, just one initial condition, from which all other events follow and it will be the thing, so simple, so elegant that we will slap our hands to our foreheads and say "How could it have been otherwise!"

I don't believe that Deutschs meaning of infinity was that complete kowledge of any given question [say the origin of the Universe] was unnatainable - more that the infinity refers to progress in a general sense; that we can continue to progress ad infinitum given the will and the correct approach to follow - that of 'good...(what did he call it - I forget). In fairness Z., I conceed your hold on Deutsch was far superior to mine and mayhap all I say here is adrift - but clearly if I've misunderstood Deutsch's position on this then my understanding needs 'squaring up' big time and I freely admit that this could well be the case .

[Vraith]

But in this case Z. we know the paradigm doesn't [or won't in the long run] hold up.

That's not a bad thing, that is a great thing.
And I think it is incorrect to say we are "working within the paradigm."---not fully accurate. Much is---kinda has to be, cuz the paradigm frames what we know/can do. But part of the purpose of the experiments is to BREAK the machine/system.
Half [or maybe more] the physicists in the world seemed to be hoping that the Higgs WASN'T found, or WASN't the predicted mass...
I don't think people pay enough attention to that...that a large segment of science [all the sciences] is dedicated to "Testing to destruction."
And almost all of science has some taste of that. [[even some small segment of big-Pharma has SOME touch of that, it is contained in the method]].
[[If I had my way, a lot more would be dedicated to that]].

I can't think of many things I find more repellent than getting to the end/top/final stage and finding one simple thing that explains/contains it all. What a total waste of time, and what a boring universe.
It won't come to that, though...because even if such a thing exists and is elegant and simple in construction/description, it will be nothing more than a frame...and like all frames it will be bendable, shapeable, and breakable.
After all, peeps talk about the desire for/pursuit of knowledge an awful lot.
And that is important and real. But contained within that is the desire to CHANGE things. To make things do what we want. I've said it a lot, I know, but will again: the very first thing that happens when we fully understand [[and really, long before we understand, it's happening already] the "Laws" of the Universe is that we start breaking them. The instant we comprehend [or even before] what everything is fundamentally made of, we will start making new stuff.
If we find the "Big Thing," and there is nothing further on, then we'll MAKE something more.
If we DON'T do that, what will happen is all the interesting people will kill themselves...because only the dead and the totally disinterested could live in a universe so ultimately boring.

[Zarathustra]

But in this case Z. we know the paradigm doesn't [or won't in the long run] hold up.

We do? How do you know that someone won't reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity? Our current lack of knowledge isn't proof that our current knowledge is wrong. It might just be incomplete.

In fairness Z., I conceed your hold on Deutsch was far superior to mine and mayhap all I say here is adrift - but clearly if I've misunderstood Deutsch's position on this then my understanding needs 'squaring up' big time and I freely admit that this could well be the case .

Hey, I meant it when I said it was one of the most important books I've ever read! Life changing. I studied it pretty hard when I first read it, and have gone back to parts now and again. It touched upon so many important issues I've been thinking about for years, that it was deeply and personally relevant to me.

[Avatar]

The fact that Nature, even at its cruelest and ugliest, still conforms to math, IS the most relevant fact of our existence. The fact that all this random, explosive, and destructive action by dust floating in a void can also coalesce into complex, self-organizing systems--which eventually produce life, consciousness, intelligence--is the most beautiful idea imaginable.

Pretty much agree with Z. Beauty is not necessarily what we consider beautiful. Nothing is beautiful or terrible per se. It just is. Everything else depends on how we perceive or interpret it.

--A

[peter]

Ok - on continuing to read I become worried that I may have been overstating Wilczek's case and doing him a disservice, so I'll slip quietly away from that one.......

But in defence of my one absolutely beautiful and illuminating 'initial condition', how can it be otherwise. I mean it - how can it be otherwise. To postulate a cooperating series of conditions that spring into existance simultanously is to stretch credulity too far [surely ]. We are perilously close to 'the Watchmaker' argument if we come down to this - so it has to be just one thing, just one tiny stretch, tear, or pop - simple, pure, elegant - that sets it all off [ok - always assuming it was set off and it does look like it was]. And if we are in the business of bending, breaking, manipulating Laws [not laws - Laws; the very laws that tear something out of nothing]......then hellfire, we're Gods already and we're all Believers!

[Sorry guy's - I just like that even though it's cheesy. ]

[Zarathustra]

Pretty much agree with Z. Beauty is not necessarily what we consider beautiful. Nothing is beautiful or terrible per se. It just is. Everything else depends on how we perceive or interpret it.

--A

I'm not so sure we agree. I'm starting to come around to the idea that beauty is objective, not merely subjective. Maybe I didn't make that clear.

[peter]

That, Z. is very definitely the thrust of Wlikzec's work so you are in good company there.

[Edit to above post by V. and his fear of the ennui that could ensue should we ever reach a position of knowing "all that could be knowed"; well we still have experience - we could still wake up one morning next to Denise Richards {a consummation devoutly to be wished for }.]

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[Avatar]

I'm not so sure we agree. I'm starting to come around to the idea that beauty is objective, not merely subjective. Maybe I didn't make that clear.

Haha, then we don't, since I'm pretty much in the subjective camp. I think though that my point is that the universe itself, devoid of perception or reason, cannot recognise anything as beautiful, nor "intends" to produce beauty.

That is not to say that something cannot be inherently beautiful, but it is so by our standards.

After all, who decided that things could even be beautiful in the first place?

--A

[Orlion]

I'm not so sure we agree. I'm starting to come around to the idea that beauty is objective, not merely subjective. Maybe I didn't make that clear.

Haha, then we don't, since I'm pretty much in the subjective camp. I think though that my point is that the universe itself, devoid of perception or reason, cannot recognise anything as beautiful, nor "intends" to produce beauty.

That is not to say that something cannot be inherently beautiful, but it is so by our standards.

After all, who decided that things could even be beautiful in the first place?

--A

I'm more with Avatar on this. There is no "universal" purpose. There were many possibilities and consequences of those possibilities which happen to arrive where we are at. The conditions are quite capricious. I am not a Hindu because I was not born in India. That does not mean that "something" decided I was not going to be a Hindu, it just was not a possibility for this collection of thought I call "myself". There are a host of problems and opportunities this condition entails just for existing in the time and geographical locations that I have. If I had chosen one thing differently, I'd have a whole other set of things.

So if the beginning of the Universe didn't happen the way it did, we simply would not be here to discuss it. Essentially, if I'm going to subscribe to a "god" it's going to be a "blind, idiot god".

[Vraith]

And if we are in the business of bending, breaking, manipulating Laws [not laws - Laws; the very laws that tear something out of nothing]......then hellfire, we're Gods already and we're all Believers!

We're not there, yet---not quite---but we will be. Right now, we're just using the Laws that are to make things happen that the Laws allow, but wouldn't happen "naturally" [or would do so extremely rarely].

One "event" doesn't necessarily mean one simple equation, though.
I think there are about 20+ "constants" and such that are required to be more or less precisely what they are for us to be what we are.
So when the Universe is suddenly instantiated from some state of
...I don't know, existential potentiality?...in order to go on/survive it doesn't require any over-arching "simplicity." It seems to me, it requires the opposite.

On the beauty discussion: related to the meta thread, I don't think it is either fully objective or subjective. Things beautiful, I think, will have some fairly objective properties [for example, symmetry violated with a touch of the asymmetric.], but also subjective tastes/judgment. [[the most beautiful rose in the world is BORING at best...and the best-smelling one isn't 1/10th the scent of jasmine, especially in the night of southern CA.

[peter]

Trust me V. I've known a few English roses that would square up against any Jasmine's, night time or otherwise!

But the question is more than just whether beauty is subjective or objective - its whether the world embodies beauty, and I'm hearing the words of one of the world's leading quantum physicists that says beyond question it does. Now I need to know what his meaning is by that because it seems to me that if it is what I take it to be then it puts us into a whole new ball park (if of course it stacks up). Is it just his opinion or does he mean quantifiably, falsifiably - and if it's the latter how on earth do we begin to pick the bones out of that! I'll keep reading!

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Is it just his opinion or does he mean quantifiably, falsifiably - and if it's the latter how on earth do we begin to pick the bones out of that! I'll keep reading!

Along with the One, the True and the Good, the Beautiful is a Transcendental.

So, I'd have to say "not falsifiable" in an empirical sense.

As to whether the author contends it to be falsifiable, please let us know after you "keep reading".

[Avatar]

I love the smell of blossoming Jasmine, but I've smelt Roses that we much better.

--A