Dear Giovanni Amelino-Camelia!

Thank you for having the guts to point to the fact that faith is a big and largely detrimental factor in the scientific community. This is one of my main points, and I will just add that it is not “even nowadays”, but especially nowadays, and not in spite of, but not surprisingly at all accompanied by vehemently denying any similarity with...

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Dear Giovanni Amelino-Camelia!

Thank you for having the guts to point to the fact that faith is a big and largely detrimental factor in the scientific community. This is one of my main points, and I will just add that it is not “even nowadays”, but especially nowadays, and not in spite of, but not surprisingly at all accompanied by vehemently denying any similarity with religious/esoteric mindsets. But let’s stick to the very core of your essay:

You have statements like: “when really we are not doing anything else but describe the worldview that is most appealing to us” [page 4]. I am sure you would admit that your main thesis is exactly falling into this very trap: “there will be a saturation in our ability to discover more and more things. But I find this hypothesis unpleasant and, in an appropriate sense, unfair” [p 3]. Well, the world is not fair! Anyways, because of your desire and your human “instinctive aspiration” [p 4], you “passionately argue however that this is likely not the case” [p 2 ]. What you feel is “not the case” is the “certain level of saturation” [p 2], “a saturation in our ability to discover more and more” [p 3].

You “advocate a perspective on the history of physics that provides some encouragement for this intuition” [p 2], but the human history is short and does thereby distort the understanding of underlying evolutionary mechanisms. In fact, your argument is much like the “oh the old Romans already claimed that the world will end soon with a youth like this, but it still did not”. Were the Romans wrong? No, just their intuition about the length of involved time scales was slightly off.

I encourage you to think less anthropocentric and widen your perspective towards inclusion of fundamental aspects of algorithmic evolution. You will come to understand that so called S-curves (rather than exponential growth) are the standard. Charles S. Pierce (1935) already proposed that long term evolutionary development must cause it to gradually lose its spontaneous character (reach the top of its S-curve) in any substrate (be it molecular, genetic or memetic). Nowadays, we call this emerging memetic terminal differentiation, were “terminal differentiation” originally comes from the description of the development of for example seeds or stem-cells towards specialized tissue (organs) – anyways, it is applicable to any substrate since algorithms are by definition substrate independent.

You are right in pointing out the detrimental influence of the somewhat religious “theory of everything” mindset. I encourage you to go beyond this symptom and look for the systemic origins.

Sascha

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Hi Mr Giovanni Amelino-Camelia,Mr Vongehr,all ,

Interesting essay .

I agree too Mr Vongehr,Your analyse is pragamatic.

we are babies of the Universe still and the pleasure to learn and to always search the truth is essential ,fundamental ,basic ,rational ,logic,systematic .

A fundamenatl theory evolves too ,improves itself by complementarity .

I d like insist on...

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Hi Mr Giovanni Amelino-Camelia,Mr Vongehr,all ,

Interesting essay .

I agree too Mr Vongehr,Your analyse is pragamatic.

we are babies of the Universe still and the pleasure to learn and to always search the truth is essential ,fundamental ,basic ,rational ,logic,systematic .

A fundamenatl theory evolves too ,improves itself by complementarity .

I d like insist on the difference between the universal faith ,and the human religions ,it's totally different in its system on Earth .

The universe which evolves ,complexificates ,harmonizes itself shows us the building towards harmony ,thus a certain universalism is evident ,totally different than a human interpretation .

The faith ,this universality improves the equations ,it's a catalyzer of the research of truths and truth .

Let's take the entropy ,the energy ,without this evidence of ultim entropy ,our knowledges shall be differents,the problem of a weak evolution on Earth is due to the actual system which is the monney ,and the individualism ,we could evolve more quickly in a complemenatry system focus on priorities and harmonious systems but our story shows us the human instinct and the possible effects of the chaos ,just due to our young age and this past .

The problem of this planet is the human instinct and the global systems of individualism and not universalism and humanism .

We adds problems due to the bad governance at this moment and the lack of universalism and thus respect of all creations .

It's just a question of evolution and time ,we evolve fortunaly and the future will be better but I am afraid about the short time and our possible exponentials due stil to a bad human comportments where the knowledge of sciences is not a priority.

It's time to harmonise some systems around us ,the universality is that ,the sciences reponsability is so ,sos,so important ,well I hope what not only a weak part of people understand this reality ,and the need to harmonize.

The sciences can harmonise all systems .Our Earth is a system thus it's possible .

Regards

Steve

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Hello all ,

I agree Mr Baten ,indeed the nature shows us the fundamenatls .

I am horticulteur too ,botanist and ecologist .It's a passion in fact ,I like plant and cultivate flowers ,vegetables ,trees....The nature and its splendids creations show us the truths ,the truth .

All has a spherical comportments without any doubt .All is correlated with these spheres...

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Hello all ,

I agree Mr Baten ,indeed the nature shows us the fundamenatls .

I am horticulteur too ,botanist and ecologist .It's a passion in fact ,I like plant and cultivate flowers ,vegetables ,trees....The nature and its splendids creations show us the truths ,the truth .

All has a spherical comportments without any doubt .All is correlated with these spheres ,spherisation,rotations ,spheroids ,circles ,ellipsoid ,tori,...all .

Since 12 years I class animals and vegetals ,more atoms ,molecules ,amino acids ,proteins,cells ,animals ,vegetals ,minerals ....more a cosmological link .

It's evident when we see the whole ,let's take the favotite sports of human too ,with spheres dur to the optimized rotation and movements .

Let's take our waves ,....

The seeds ,eggs ,....even the virus ,

Let's take the big revolution of our Earth ,the rotations ,the wheels ,the pullies ,the rotors,....even an wind system ,eolian.

Let's take our brain ,our glands ,our eyes ,our hands ....

We evolve in a spherical dynamic .

All is always balanced in two forces where the balance is the sphere .

The sphere and its properties is our fundamental ,the spheres evolve ....with its spherical lifes .

The nature is fundamental and its creations too ,and the objectivity is a reality ,the sphere relation is fundamental ,any system can contradict this fact of spheres ,spheroids ,circles ,ellipsoids ,tori ,......because we see them simply .The Theory of spherisation of the Universe by quantuùm spheres and their specific rotations is an simple evidence where the eyes see this reality ....a fundamental theory evolve and rest and furthermore we see it in all cen,ters of interest .

Math ^physics ,chemistry ,biology ,astronomy,philosophy,sociability,civilization,technology ....all is linked .The complexity returns to the simplicity ,simply .

Sincerely

Steve

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‘ … The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute …’

If the universe creates itself out of nothing and continues to do so, then the sum of everything inside of it, including spacetime itself has somehow to remain nil, so things certainly do not have an absolute kind of existence, a reality outside the universe –the ‘somehow’ being the main subject of...

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‘ … The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute …’

If the universe creates itself out of nothing and continues to do so, then the sum of everything inside of it, including spacetime itself has somehow to remain nil, so things certainly do not have an absolute kind of existence, a reality outside the universe –the ‘somehow’ being the main subject of physics. If (see Mechanics of a Self-Creating Universe) particles, stars and galaxies create each other and so only exist to each other as far as they interact or keep exchanging the energy they need to exist, then they have no absolute existence, no reality outside of interactions, outside their universe. The idea that an object can have an absolute kind of reality, as if there’s some higher realm, some authority outside the universe to whom it exists and can be observed is a purely religious notion. Anyhow, since we consist of particles, the ‘outside world’ is not completely independent from us, hence Schrödinger’s cat.

‘ … Our present formulation of the fundamental laws of physics is inapplicable to contexts in which both quantum mechanics and general relativity play a non-negligible role (…) that quantum mechanics and general relativity both played crucial roles at the big bang…’

The reason for this inapplicability is that general relativity is a classic theory, formulated around the notion that objects do have such an absolute kind of existence, that is: that the mass of particles only is the source of their interactions and not (as quantum field theory in fact says) also their product. Besides the universe having no need for a bang to get started (so there isn’t even a singularity where the two theories can clash), the mass definition I propose seems to have all basic elements to build a relativity theory with quantummechanics at its heart and so is free from the flaws of the present version. The problem, then, is that we believe the mass of particles to have an interaction-independent component, as if there’s an unassailable holiest of holy inside the particles which cannot be affected in any way, and which indeed would create black holes with finite horizon diameters, with sigularities at their center. If, however, the mass of particles is as much the product as the source of their interactions, then there can be no singularity, no points of infinite density and zero volume, nor can the hole have a finite horizon diameter. Though the mass density of objects may have no limit, the density of any real object has a finite value.

‘…From “within” each doll it should only be possible to get information on neighboring dolls …’

If particles to keep existing, keep exchanging energy, then with this exchange they communicate all information about all particles in their universe, so a particle, like a hologramfragment, contains all data of the whole, be it that this information is less definite, more vague the smaller the fragment is.

‘… an effect of gradual saturation of our ability to uncover new phenomena (…) the substantial lack of progress … of the last quarter of a century…’

To me the origin of this ‘saturation’ seems to lie in our excessive respect for ideas and concepts which may have passed their sell-by date, in our aversion to leave the comfort of our belief in the gospel truth as proclaimed by our revered patriarchs of physics, in our lazyness or lack of imagination. If what has been useful in simpler times now obstructs its development and has become cause of our misery, then physics perhaps needs an overhaul which doesn’t spare cherished concepts like those of charge and antiparticles, of the idea that gravity is exclusively attractive. As outdated ideas produce inconsistent theories, we perhaps construct problems which nature itself isn’t aware of, problems we cannot solve as we created them ourselves and in the process cultivate the idea that the universe itself is impossibly complicated, as if it had to get at least a PhD in physics before being able to create itself.

The job Copernicus started apparently is far from finished: after acknowledging that every point is at the center of its own universe, part two is to finally admit that as there’s no clock outside the universe, no point from which unambiguously can be determined what precedes what, the concept of causality has become useless in physics. Only in a universe produced by some outside intervention things can have an absolute kind of reality, an interaction-independent existence, being only related by having the same creator, their behaviour more a kind of side-effect of the properties they’ve been provided with rather than related to the need, the effort to keep existing themselves. In a universe where things create each other, they are far stronger related than causality can account for.

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Dear Giovanni,

While insisting that the end of fundamental physics is nowhere in sight, you do acknowledge the "recent standstill", ie, the lack of new discoveries. If, as I believe will be the case, there will be neither Higgs nor new particles found at the LHC, then the end may be closer than you think. I am assuming that by fundamental physics you mean particle physics, and that a TOE...

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Dear Giovanni,

While insisting that the end of fundamental physics is nowhere in sight, you do acknowledge the "recent standstill", ie, the lack of new discoveries. If, as I believe will be the case, there will be neither Higgs nor new particles found at the LHC, then the end may be closer than you think. I am assuming that by fundamental physics you mean particle physics, and that a TOE means only that it is consistent with all currently available experimental data.

You seem to view this as the end of the world, and a desire for a 'theory of everything' as almost evil. You ask "who could want that", referring to the end of fundamental particle physics. I assure that many tax-payers would want it, but I also believe that many physicists would far prefer a theory that led to true comprehension of the nature of the universe versus the eventual end of fundamental physics due to a "saturation" in our ability to discover more and more things. (Physics as consumption?) Perhaps the CERN and LHC workers resist such a notion, but I wouldn't be surprised to find your view a minority one among all physicists. I believe that more people enter physics in a search for understanding than to pursue an endless rat-race of data acquisition/particle collection.

Other commenters above have touched on several of these themes, including your "faith" in your approach, clearly derived from your personal desires. As one stricken with the "theory of everything" virus, I prefer an ultimate understanding to an eternal quest. I would deem it "unfair" if such were denied mankind, in favor of an endless accumulation of facts.

As to the feasibility of such a TOE, assume for a moment that nothing new is discovered at the LHC. Does that mean we're stuck with the Standard Model? Not on your life. The lack of a Higgs almost guarantees that QCD is wrong, even nonsense. Most current views are those formed beginning in 1900 when only alpha, beta, and gamma rays were known, and Planck's constant. The experimental and theoretical tools imposed a framework that was necessary to model "point" particles slammed from minus infinity and measured at plus infinity. Second quantized creation/annihilation operators and symmetry/matrix analysis techniques were favored as tools for discovering collision products. But if the particle zoo is complete, new 'non-point' analysis techniques may be possible, so that "looking back" from 2000 becomes completely different than "looking forward" from 1900. That is, the tools of explanation may be vastly different from the tools of discovery.

If there are no new particles found, what would a new theory do? It would resolve/explain the many mysteries currently existing in particle physics and cosmology. How could the Standard Model achieve so much and yet be drastically wrong? In the same way that you describe how Fermi's 4-point model, while completely missing bosons, still managed to "describe and predict several weak-interaction processes."

A poor analogy, but not completely useless, may be to consider the search for fundamental particles as analogous to the search in biology, pre-1950, for proteins. Today we believe the human is made up of about thirty thousand different proteins, so let's be generous and grant you thirty thousand more fundamental particles to be discovered as we progress to the Planck realms. Discovering all of these proteins would have been of questionable value, but the discovery of the DNA structure and mechanism was ultimately valuable. We don't need to discover any more fundamental particles. We need a DNA-equivalent idea.

Finally, you remark that a Theory of Everything would endow us with God-like powers. It's hard to know just what you mean but I assume you are referring to ultimate engineering capabilities, which may or may not follow. Others have remarked that 100 percent explanatory power does not necessarily mean 100 percent predictive power. Emergent phenomena tend to resist prediction, and the most interesting physics of biology and even materials science are truly complex in comparison to fundamental particles, and the "discovery" which you lament as missing will still occur in these fields.

It may be that your remark about God-like powers is due to your imagining a Reductionist fantasy, whereby everything, matter, life, consciousness is derived from elementary building blocks (a la Lego). For an alternative possibility, read my essay, but if you vote, please don't shoot the messenger.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Claim 1: Searching a TOE is based on an unjustified faith, and not on science

The "faith" behind the idea of unification is that:

a) nature obeys a set of laws

b) these laws are consistent one another

Clearly, any attempt of doing science is based on the idea that there are laws to be discovered. And when we test the candidate laws, we opposed them to the experiments,...

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Claim 1: Searching a TOE is based on an unjustified faith, and not on science

The "faith" behind the idea of unification is that:

a) nature obeys a set of laws

b) these laws are consistent one another

Clearly, any attempt of doing science is based on the idea that there are laws to be discovered. And when we test the candidate laws, we opposed them to the experiments, we develop logical consequences and test them, or compare them against well established results. So, every attempt of doing science is based on a) and b). But a) and b) also lead to the idea that there must be a set of consistent laws which rules "everything".

Not, the "faith" part, in my opinion, would be if one will believe that having these laws may endow us with omniscience or something like this. I exclude this possibility from our discussion (although great minds may believe this). What remains when the majority discuss about TOE is a complete set of rules satisfying a) and b).

If somebody want to reject the idea that there is (in a mathematical sense) a complete and consistent set of laws for the universe, then he either reject the possibility of science in principle, or our capability of finding them. The present essay seems to propose that there is a set of laws, but there is an infinite way, continuously progressing, but never reaching them all. While I consider this idea very plausible, I don't think there are compelling reasons to adopt it.

"A key problem here is that the only claim that can be verified (or falsified) scientifically is the claim that a given theory is consistent with all presently available experimental data. The claim that a certain theory will also be consistent with the outcome of all future measurements that the human race will perform is a possible choice of faith but could never be described [3] as an established scientific fact."

But isn't any theory proposing that it is, and it will ever be confirmed by experiments? Do we know a theory which is totally confirmed, such that it is impossible for future falsifications of it to occur? For example, the theory relativity, after a century of confirmation, is sometimes considered wrong by one physicist or another. So, it is always a matter of faith that a theory will last. The ones who are searching for a TOE know this very well. But this should not stop them: they try to find the Theory of "Everything we know so far". It is an unfair criticism to say that their research is based on faith, as opposed to the research of more incomplete theories. It is an incomplete theory (aka "of not so everything" more likely to be true than a complete one? No, of course. But it is indeed difficult to find the complete theory, it is more likely to discover incomplete pieces of the puzzle.

I agree with the discussion of free parameters. Indeed, there is no compelling reason to rule them out of a TOE, and there is always possible to formulate a theory so that some of the parameters appear to be free. Perhaps it is more appropriate to search for a theory with a minimum set of free parameters.

Yes, the complete set of physical laws is independent from man, but this is not a reason that we should not search it, or that we will never find it. The same can be said about every progress we made in physics. All the discoveries we made were independent from man, and we still were able to make them. This argument works as well against science, if it works against TOE.

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Claim 2: the research of TOE was sterile for physics

Let's say that there are two problems under research, a simple one, and a complicated one. In general, simpler problem are solved easily, with less resources, in less time, than the difficult ones. The difficult problems may remain unsolved for years, for generations, and even forever. Should we try to solve only the simple problems?...

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Claim 2: the research of TOE was sterile for physics

Let's say that there are two problems under research, a simple one, and a complicated one. In general, simpler problem are solved easily, with less resources, in less time, than the difficult ones. The difficult problems may remain unsolved for years, for generations, and even forever. Should we try to solve only the simple problems? Clearly no. I think that the great progresses were made when complicated, apparently impossible problems were attacked, although a lot of important progress (probably the majority) was made from solving simple problems. Maybe the progress arising from solving difficult problems was more spectacular, and maybe we tend for this reason to underrate the importance of the progress caused by solving small problems. I think that they both are important. Finding a TOE is clearly one of the most difficult problems. But ruling it out on the basis that little progress was contributed by this research to the TOE itself, or to other branches of physics, is unfair. One expect that difficult problems consume lot of resources, and that the result is not guaranteed.

"it is legitimate to suspect that at least part of the responsibility for the many decades of failures of quantum-gravity research should be attributed to the enormous influence of the theory-of-everything fashion."

There is a lot of research on quantum gravity not based on TOE. I remember Rovelli saying that LQG is not a TOE, it just tries to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity. Clearly string theory has more aspirations as a TOE, but this is because some particles emerged in this theory, which is hoped that correspond to the particles in the real world. I mean, string theorists believe that they can obtain the standard model and gravity with the same stone. Maybe they are wrong, and maybe they spend a lot of time without making progress in physics. If they are right, then many of their results will turn to be of great value. If they are wrong, then many of their results will turn out to be trash, or at most to be interesting math, but even in this worst case, it would be unfair to blame this for the lack of progress in Physics.

"The quantum-gravity problem can be naturally described as a combination of many different challenges [7] for the present formulation of the laws of fundamental physics, but according to the theory-of-everything mindset the only acceptable efforts of development of formalisms to be used in the investigation of the quantum-gravity problem are efforts directed toward a theory that simultaneously solves all of these aspects of the problem."

There are many articles trying to solve particular problems, and there are many articles trying to sole many such particular problems at once. This has little to do with the mindset, rather is a strategy. A physicist may have a vision of how a particular phenomenon or even the entire physical world is, and may try to formulate it rigorously. There are simply different strategies. You may believe that it is a better strategy to solve one piece of the puzzle at a time, but there are many situations in which solving several problems at once is the best approach.

"Clearly the pioneers of the wonderfully ugly \old quantum theory" were not concerned with the "noteverthing" nature of their results. It is fortunate that the theory-of-everything epidemic was evidently still under control at the time, since there could not be a fully developed quantum mechanics without first going through the old quantum theory."

I agree with this passage, because indeed many important results can be obtained when we try to solve apparently small, or at least "noteverything" problems. But the quest for universal principles also led to important breakthrough. Newton called gravity "the universal attraction". Galileo's principle of relativity was supposed to be universal, and it was the idea of making it universal that led to special relativity. And the idea of making it even more universal led to general relativity. Of course, searching for universal principles may lead to dead ends, and I will refer here to Pythagora's school, and to Kepler's idea of the planetary orbits as expression of the fundamental beauty of regular polyhedra. Generalizing too much is not good. When the adepts of TOE do this, they are, of course, mistaken, and they transform physics in numerology. But generalizing against TOE is equally wrong.

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Claim 3: the objective should not be the TOE, but the fairness principle.

Who, if would find the TOE, would keep it secret, to let the other the pleasure of discovery? Who, when will see an article describing the true TOE, will avoid reading it, to have the pleasure of solving himself the puzzle?

"A theory of everything would endow us with God-like powers, masters of the laws of the...

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Claim 3: the objective should not be the TOE, but the fairness principle.

Who, if would find the TOE, would keep it secret, to let the other the pleasure of discovery? Who, when will see an article describing the true TOE, will avoid reading it, to have the pleasure of solving himself the puzzle?

"A theory of everything would endow us with God-like powers, masters of the laws of the Universe."

This is unrealistic and unreasonable faith, indeed. So let us not discuss as all, or the majority, or at least many of the TOE searchers believe this.

"The idea of getting a theory of everything is the idea of the end of fundamental physics. Who could possibly want that?"

This is an exaggeration, again. It is like saying that knowing the axioms of geometry is the end of geometry. Yes, it may be the end of trying to find the complete set of axioms, but not the end of geometry. Moreover, even if Euclid stated the axioms long time ago, researching these axioms led to great progress, like non-Euclidean geometries, Erlangen program (which led to the great idea of the role of symmetry in geometry and physics), Hilbert's program, and of course, the related results on the difficulties of the axiomatization of the set theory and the number theory.

"How would our condition be bearable without the intrigue of possibly discovering still new phenomena?"

This danger, even if TOE will be find, is absent. You may say that there is the danger that, if Perelman proved Poincare's conjecture, you can no longer be the first one to do this, but you still can make contributions, and you can still have other areas where you may research. If somebody believe this, and if he will have an epiphany and discover and understand the TOE, would he keep it secret, just to allow the rest of us the hope to find it, or parts of it?

"This provides the basis for my "fairness principle", which I do not know how to describe sharply, but basically assumes that every generation of humans will have roughly the same opportunity of being challenged and intrigued by fundamental physics."

This really is faith, and I will not argue against it. I just don't know what the future generations will face, I am sure that they will have their challenges, but this cannot rule out the possibility of finding the TOE. Possibly, they will at least have the possibility to devise more sophisticated experiments to find some new decimals of some constants, but I cannot know.

"Of course this "fairness principle" is neither better nor worse than any other choice of faith, but I encourage especially my youngest readers to embrace it, since I find that it puts us in the best mindset for research in fundamental physics."

This may be true, and helpful. My own recommendation for putting us in the best mindset for research in fundamental physics is: "work on a problem until you are sure you can understand it completely and that you can explain it to others". I do not imply that there are researchers who don't adhere to it, I just say that I would like to apply it myself more often.

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Conclusion

I tried to explain that the essay above fails to show that

1) searching a TOE is more "faith-based" than doing physics in general

2) searching universal laws is more sterile than solving easier problems

Yet, I agree that the third claim

3) all generations will have an equal share of doing fundamental physics research

may be useful, although...

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Conclusion

I tried to explain that the essay above fails to show that

1) searching a TOE is more "faith-based" than doing physics in general

2) searching universal laws is more sterile than solving easier problems

Yet, I agree that the third claim

3) all generations will have an equal share of doing fundamental physics research

may be useful, although there is no evidence for its validity. The point I consider good in this essay is that it prepares the researchers for the possibility that they will not find the TOE. I see the main point of the essay that:

i) each researcher should be aware that he or she may not find the TOE or contribute to its discovery, but still can do important research

In my opinion, there is a second one, although the author of the essay will not agree with me:

ii) each researcher should be aware that it is possible that other research team will find the TOE, but he or she still can make important discoveries

I would add:

iii) even if TOE will be discovered and you did not had the chance to contribute to the discovery, you still have the challenge and pleasure of understanding and mastering the theory, and to develop and test it

iv) if someone is discouraged by the possibility that a TOE will appear and steal from us the joy of discovery, then he or she can use the mindset of the principle of fairness. But some others may be motivated by the perspective to contribute to the discovery of the TOE.

I believe that fundamental research has, as an important component, the quest for a unified theory* of fundamental physics.

_______________________

*The term "TOE" is misleading, because it claims too much, but I used it in this review because it is customary.

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dear all

I have just found out that there are already some comments to my essay. Perhaps it is best if I start by just making a few remarks that appear to be relevant for common features of several comments.

A general observation is that it seems that some of the aspects of the essay which I considered more marginal actually end up being of particular interest for several readers,...

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dear all

I have just found out that there are already some comments to my essay. Perhaps it is best if I start by just making a few remarks that appear to be relevant for common features of several comments.

A general observation is that it seems that some of the aspects of the essay which I considered more marginal actually end up being of particular interest for several readers, which surprises me but of course is not necessarily a bad thing. But just for clarity I want to organize my comments with the structure of two parts: a first post (this one) on the issues that I considered central for the essay, and a second post (later) on other parts of my essay

With respect to "what is ultimately possible in physics" each one of us of course is fascinated by different perspectives. The “possibility issue” that carries most significance for me is the idea, nowadays very popular, that it might be possible to reach in a not-so-distant future the end point of fundamental-physics research (of course still leaving us with several challenges at the level of the phenomena that "emerge" from the fundamental laws, but that is another issue)

Both the fact that we did not have any major discoveries for a while, and the content of a large part of the recent fundamental-physics literature appear to make a strong case that this possibility is real. But I believe (and tried to argue) that this is just an illusion, and intended to center my essay on two observations

(1) the realm of the TOE concept is outside science because it aspires to a characterization that lies beyond the reach of the scientific method, but in spite of this the myth of TOE is affecting in very profound way the strategies we have recently followed. We must be open to the possibility that this might have been at least in part responsible for the lack of discoveries in fundamental physics of the last few decades

(2) the variety of scientific discoveries that science has produced were achieved following a large variety of intuitions and strategies... several were accidental... very many of them were of my preferred type (the type I illustrate with the contributions of Bohr-Somerfeld, de Broglie, Fermi...)... some perhaps were achieved by scientists driven by a certain intuition of formal/conceptual nature (many authors would claim that General Relativity was discovered in this way).... But in the recent/modern literature it seems that the deBroglie-Fermi(-Glashow)-type methodology is "out of fashion" and I argue that this is a horrible mistake, probably responsible at least in part for the recent standstill of fundamental physics

In relation to other comments I should perhaps stress that, while I evidently find reasons for concern with respect to this myth of the TOE, I am instead not at all uncomfortable with research programmes that are driven by "conceptual intuition", rather than experimental/phenomenology input, as long as these research programmes use this for attempts to establish genuine scientific facts. The arrival point of course must be experimental, but en route I am guessing it is legitimate to adopt any personally-preferred balance of "conceptual intuition" and "experiments/phenomenology"

I do feel that "conceptual intuition", which perhaps we might also describe as "elegance-driven strategies", has been a bit overrated in recent decades. Intuitions aiming for example for "unification" or "mathematical rigor/elegance" have contributed to some successes of physics and are certainly worth pursuing further hoping that they may lead to other discoveries. But to think that this was and should be the main strategy for science amounts to neglecting the way in which most discoveries were made

Because of my research interests I am often told that I "put the cart in front of the horse" because I look for ways to test experimentally theory proposals whose logico-mathematical consistency has not yet been fully established, and I take these characterizations as compliments, but probably they are not intended as such. The image most modern physicists have of theory work is that you first find a perfect theory (even most of those who don't fall for TOE still essentially look for "perfect theories") check that it is formulated according to rigorous mathematics, and that it answers all the known puzzles, and then, only if all this is successful, it would be legitimate to attempt experimental tests. It seems that only a minority of colleagues is aware of the fact that most key discoveries were not made following this strategy.

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Dear Giovanni,

Your key argument seems to be that "a theory of everything" is a drawback and a hindrance to the honest pursuit of physics, and also offends your sense of "how things should be". But as I indicated in a previous comment, many physicists are inspired to understand the universe, not merely to collect data endlessly.

You say that the only thing that can be verified...

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Dear Giovanni,

Your key argument seems to be that "a theory of everything" is a drawback and a hindrance to the honest pursuit of physics, and also offends your sense of "how things should be". But as I indicated in a previous comment, many physicists are inspired to understand the universe, not merely to collect data endlessly.

You say that the only thing that can be verified scientifically is that a given theory is consistent with all presently available experimental data.

Giovanni, I am mystified why you claim "it is far too easy to end up being convinced that our reasoning is really unbiased objective conclusions, when really we are not doing anything else but describe the world view that is most appealing to us."

Why do you exclude the fact that a theory of everything should also make predictions?

In fact, now -- before the LHC comes back online -- is the perfect time for new predictions.

My essay predicts no Higgs will be found, but the theory goes beyond that to predict that no new particles at all will be detected, with the possible exception of resonances of currently existing particles: No Higgs, no axion, no SUSY, no new particles! And this includes "gravitons", that is, no gravity waves will be discovered (outside of LHC).

Certain predictions of my theory have already been discovered, such as the "perfect fluid" seen at RHIC when QCD was predicting a "weak quark gas". Also, the negative core of the neutron, when all QCD theories predict a positive core. In addition, I predict that the b to d quark decay produces two gammas, rather than the one now seen. Only one is seen because two gammas are filtered out, interpreted as pi-zero decays. I also predict a possible five gamma decay of tau-taubar, just as my theory predicts the recently seen J/psi three gamma decay.

Unless I am mistaken, these predictions are more solid and more detailed than any other essay in this contest. I hope these comments will be saved and remain accessible on the FQXi site, as it should be only a year or so until LHC will prove my predictions true (or false).

If prediction still means anything in physics, then I hope all FQXi participants take note of the above.

Finally, you say that "the urge for a theory of everything (whatever that could mean) is so overwhelming that the obvious mismatch..."

What is could mean is, as you stated above, compatibility with all known experimental data, and it should make sense of current mysteries of physics, of which there are many. And it should make predictions, as I have above. Of all of these, the predictions may be the most significant, so hold on to these for the next year. When you find them to be true, you can come back and study my theory.

If I have missed anyone else's predictions, I wish someone would point them out to me.

Thanks for your consideration,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Cristinel,

You are right that searching for a Theory of Everything is no more based on faith than doing physics in general. The thing that is often not realized is that all science is based on faith. Man’s current scientific method generally begins with the creation of a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a belief of how you think something works in reality when the way that it...

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Cristinel,

You are right that searching for a Theory of Everything is no more based on faith than doing physics in general. The thing that is often not realized is that all science is based on faith. Man’s current scientific method generally begins with the creation of a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a belief of how you think something works in reality when the way that it actually works is still unknown. This is faith, pure and simple. It may be just based on wishful thinking, which would be a case of blind faith, or it may be based on information provided by previous observations of the world, which would be faith guided by observation. All faith whether scientific or not (religion, etc.) can be of either type. The next step in the scientific method is to design experiments to test the hypothesis for its degree of validity (or in today’s negative way of looking at everything, to try to falsify it). The fact that such experiments are necessary demonstrates that there is inadequate evidence to consider the hypothesis more than a matter of faith until more information is acquired to justify it to be a valid theory. Even if the results of the experiments are all favorable, so it is then considered a valid theory, it is still not considered to be the inerrant truth, but is only properly considered to be the closest to the truth that is currently known, if no other theories of equal or greater validity exist. A true scientist would always keep his mind open to the possibility that a better theory may still be out there somewhere because he understands that all theories are just approximations of reality (except the one that is just a full accounting of reality in that area) and it is generally not possible to know if the current favored theory is that one because some new observation may show it to be lacking in some area. Science necessarily starts with faith and works toward knowledge of absolute truth, but always falls short of its goal, so faith is still a part of all of science at all levels and will remain so unless man were to someday truly obtain absolute truth in all areas or otherwise gain a complete knowledge and understanding of all of reality. I consider that to be very unlikely in this world, but then that is just a matter of faith based on my observations of man’s science.

There are two possible types of theories of everything and the approach that will be best to identify it in entirety depends on which type truly represents reality. The type that is usually sought after is one in which there is a single simple base of structure and everything else is built up upon that base. This is usually considered the best case scenario because one could hope that some relatively simple equation or small set of equations could be the source of all more advanced structures such that the understanding of more advance structures could be extrapolated if one could understand the base equation(s). This is the type most often sought after and there is much basis in observation to believe that it may be the type that conforms to reality. It is also the type that best fits the concept of intelligent design of the world. The second type and the one that would be most likely to come from a world based on chance happenings is one based on many separate basic systems that came about randomly probably at different times with no common base so that getting a complete understanding of any one base (its basic equation(s)) would only allow you to extrapolate those understandings that result from that base. In such a world, you would need to get an understanding of all of the bases and their equations to be able to extrapolate all more advanced structures. The Theory of Everything in that case would be the complete set of all of the bases' equations plus all interactions between bases and their extrapolated structures. This type of world would be much more complex and, therefore, difficult to understand. The approach of searching for the Theory of Everything would be more successful if the world conforms to the first type of structure, while the approach of searching more generally for new knowledge would likely work better if reality conforms more closely to the second type of structure. The main problem with current searches for the Theory of Everything is that one must have a sufficient base of observational data to allow such a theory to be reasonably determined and at this time there still is a lack of adequate observational information and adequate interpretations of currently available information to allow man to adequately resolve the base structure to the degree necessary to find the base equations. At this time man still considers energy photons and matter particles to be the base structures instead of resolving to the level of the motions that make them up, so inadequate information is being considered to get any true understanding of the properties and interactions of those motions and their relationships with the dimensional system in which they exist. Current theories, therefore, do not take the various interactions of these motions with each other in the structure of the dimensional system into consideration and are thus incomplete and inaccurate.

A fairness principle only makes sense in a world that was made by a being intelligent enough to be able to conceive of and believe in the concept of fairness and to see the benefit of including it in his creation. There would be no likelihood that such a principle would be incorporated into the design of a world governed by chance happening because concepts like fairness are the result of higher intellectual processes.

Congratulations. I think that you may now hold the record for the longest multiple post here. I was worried that I held that distinction, so now I feel much better knowing that I am not alone.

Giovanni,

You are right that there are yet many places and things in the world that man is not currently aware of. Man’s understanding is currently greatly limited by a lack of ability to observe and work outside of a very narrow scale range in many areas, such as size and motion amplitude, etc. Other limitations are the result of not extrapolating and understanding the basic structure beneath the level of energy photons and matter particles, etc. that would allow man to understand what generates them and to explain how they can be changed from one to the other and what causes the rest mass structure of matter particles and the dynamic mass, frequency, and wavelength structure of energy photons and matter particles, etc.

It is true that advancement in science is tied to observational experimentation, but there is another element that has been primarily overlooked in recent years and that is instruction in the area of pattern recognition in the experimental data. Man should have long ago recognized from observation of experimental data that both matter particles and energy photons are composed of motion. From that basic observation it is not extremely difficult to get a general idea of how that motion must be contained in these entities to generate their observed properties, but while in the past some recognized such patterns through being gifted with such abilities or acquiring them through life experiences, this type of structural pattern recognition ability has actually been trained out of today’s scientists.

You are right that first there must be observations. Then there must be the recognition of overall patterns in the observed data. Then a hypothesis can be generated to explain the patterns. Next experiments must be designed to test the validity of the hypothesis and if it passes the tests, it can be considered a valid theory. So-called theories that began as math models rather than from observations of reality and have not been experimentally tested against observed reality are little more than conjectures or beliefs lacking evidence. They are in essence the cart without the horse.



When we look at the world we do see that it is structured with many small subassemblies combined together to generate larger more complicated subassemblies, which are in turn combined together with other subassemblies to create still more complex larger assemblies, etc. in much the same way that man designs a complex structure such as a car, except they generate an overall system that is much more complex than a car. All of these structures combine and work together often in very complex ways according to complex rules or laws. It is this organized structure that allows man to use science to gain an understanding of the world by observing and learning the rules by which it functions and their interactions that occur in the various hierarchical structures of which the world is composed. A world based completely on random happenings could not be understood by science. It is a reasonable possibility that a world that is composed in the manner that we observe this world to be, may very well have at its base a simplest structure that is built on a simplest concept (rule or law). The problem is that to get to that most basic law you must start from a level of observation that is at least somewhat close to it and man is not that close yet. It is like trying to fully understand how a tree works when all you have seen so far is the bud at the end of a small branch and a few smaller offshoot branches with leaves on them. You may think that you have a good understanding of the tree, but you still don’t even know that such things as a trunk and roots exist. Man is currently in that position in his endeavor to understand the world around him. It doesn’t mean that there is no theory of everything (the most basic law upon which all others are built). It is just that man is nowhere near close enough in his current level of understanding of the world to be able to extrapolate it out because there are still too many other layers of structure to uncover before it becomes visible. Because of this, you are right that the most effective approach is to work on all fronts to overcome scale problems and work through the levels until arrival at the most basic law. It will then be obvious.

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dear Edwin and Paul

your posts appear to adopt perspectives that are very significantly different from mine, but my essay is not really about priority/supremacy among perspectives. It is perhaps about the survival of one of the possible perspectives. I felt compelled to write an essay because I find that the type of narrow view of science I could discuss is gradually disappearing from the...

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dear Edwin and Paul

your posts appear to adopt perspectives that are very significantly different from mine, but my essay is not really about priority/supremacy among perspectives. It is perhaps about the survival of one of the possible perspectives. I felt compelled to write an essay because I find that the type of narrow view of science I could discuss is gradually disappearing from the fundamental-physics community. But I would not go as far as claiming that the narrow perspective I advocate and adopt is the only fruitful perspective. What I do feel is that if this narrow characterization of science (and the strategy for doing science that it leads to) are somehow eradicated completely, it would be a terrible loss. Other, broader, perspectives can be effective and have been effective, but it would be objectively incorrect to deny the effectiveness of the type of mindset that I describe in my essay. I actually would venture saying (and do suggest in the essay) that among the many perspectives that have proven valuable for the development of science the one I describe has the best proven record of achievements. Some would argue that I am describing an "old way of doing science" and that the modern times require us to "replace it with new ways". I would rather argue that it is natural that with science reaching new levels of maturity we discover new types of fruitful perspectives and mindsets, and of course exploring Nature from a multitude of perspectives can only be a positive, but nothing of what we have learned renders in any way obsolete the mindset I describe in the essay.

Some of the specific observations you make in your posts can be discussed in relation to these points:

Edwin writes "many physicists are inspired to understand the universe, not merely to collect data endlessly". I am honestly unable to imagine what the expression "understand the universe" could actually mean. Please be certain that here I am not "playing dumb" (or "playing smart"). I realize I am in a minority because the use of the expression "understand the Universe" is objectively very common. But I never figured out a way to give meaning to this expression. The mindset I describe in the essay is of course at least in part inspired by this. But even those who found a way to give meaning to "understanding the Universe" should not then consider my case for a certain mindset for doing science obsolete. We all need to "collect data endlessly"! My narrow characterization of science is centered on the collection of data. Some of us will use them to understand the Universe, others will stop at the level of describing aspects of the Universe. I am characterizing debates on this distinction between "describe some" and "understand all" as very interesting debates that however lie outside of science, since they concern something that cannot be established experimentally. I would argue that we can be certain that the "anomalies" of the orbit of Mercury were not due to a new planet (Vulcan), but we can instead debate endlessly about the demarcation between "describe some" and "understand all". In a certain sense it does seem to me then that science stops at the level of "describe some", leaving the prospect of "understanding all" beyond the reach of science. But this is not some sort of "philosophical supremacy", but rather just a result of the fact that "describe some" is less than "understand all" (even assuming "understand all" has any meaning).

From a similar perspective I can also offer some comments to Paul’s remark that in doing science we do have at least one type of faith which is at the very start of any research program when we formulate "a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a belief of how you think something works in reality when the way that it actually works is still unknown", using Paul's words. I would say that there is indeed a danger to end up having faith in a hypothesis, thereby introducing possibly some bias in its investigation, but this danger can be avoided. According to the mindset I advocate it is perfectly legitimate to formulate appealing hypotheses, but only intended as candidate tools for our exploration of Nature. We test them experimentally to establish their effectiveness (or lack thereof), but without imagining that a successful hypothesis is taking us any closer to “the truth”. This puts us in the healthy mindset of going ahead using/adopting the hypothesis as long as it works, but well prepared to abandon the hypothesis at the first robust indications that it is running out of effectiveness.

Cheers

Giovanni

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Dear Paul, dear Giovanni,

Paul, you developed and explained well my affirmation that "searching a TOE is no more "faith-based" than doing physics in general", and you provided in the mean time your own interesting view.

You said:

"The main problem with current searches for the Theory of Everything is that one must have a sufficient base of observational data to allow such a...

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Dear Paul, dear Giovanni,

Paul, you developed and explained well my affirmation that "searching a TOE is no more "faith-based" than doing physics in general", and you provided in the mean time your own interesting view.

You said:

"The main problem with current searches for the Theory of Everything is that one must have a sufficient base of observational data to allow such a theory to be reasonably determined and at this time there still is a lack of adequate observational information and adequate interpretations of currently available information to allow man to adequately resolve the base structure to the degree necessary to find the base equations."

Let us say, for simplification, that we are trying to induce general laws from particular measurements of a system, for example to find how a quantity y depends on another quantity x. We draw some dots, representing (x₁, y₁), (x₂, y₂),..., (x_n, y_n) and then try to find a function f which connects them, so that y_i=f(x_i). Let's consider that our measurements are precise, and that the dependence of y on x is exact. In this case, there is a large set of possible functions f which fits through all the data, and each new data helps us eliminating them. But new data doesn't necessarily help us too much coming with an equation y=f(x).

What I mean is that we have too much data, not too little, and it is difficult, if not impossible for us to handle it in order to induce the fundamental laws. In time, we may try many sets of laws which fit this data. Any new observation will help us filtering the theories we proposed until that date. So, I see two stages (I am simplifying much the problem, to emphasize the idea):

1. find all possible functions f which fits all the data, let's say {f₁, f₂, ...f_k}

2. conduct new experiments covering as much x data as possible, to eliminate some of the functions f, hopefully all but one.

The first point is difficult for us because of the complexity of the data. When we will have the first possible f, we can say we have a candidate unified theory. But it is impossible to have all. After that, if we have two or more such candidates, we go to the step 2, but we cannot cover all possible x data. We will make our choice by considering the predictions of the possible candidates so far: we conduct experiments for some x for which f_i(x) and f_j(x) are not equal. So I would replace 1 and 2 with

1'. find some possible functions f which fits all the data, let's say {f₁, f₂, ...f_k}

2'. conduct new experiments covering some x data which can differentiate between the candidates proposed at 1'

with the mention that it is possible that the new data inspire us to add new candidates, so perhaps we will cycle between 1' and 2'.

I think that, if we don't have all the data available, we should, in principle, be able to create more unified theories. Our present data clearly is fitted by f₀, the true set of laws. So, an intellect powerful enough (infinitely powerful?) should be able to find at least one candidate, f₀, to which we may add some other possible candidates which fit the present data, but which can be invalidated in the future. It is even possible to have more than one f₀ which fits our universe, but there is at least one.

Well, if we believe that the word is mathematical, we can find instead of f₁, f₂, ..., some classes F₁, F₂, ... containing all the f₁, f₂, .... On example is the class of all mathematical structures (Tegmark). Another one, more fitted to the physical theories, is defined in my World Theory. But these classes are too generic, they contain both structures which fit all the data we have, and structures which don't fit it, and we have no way of picking among the infinite number of such structures the good ones. Having such a way, will help us to realize at least the step 1, if not 1'.

Best regards,

Cristi

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Giovanni,

I think that our approaches to science may not be as different as you think. If my understanding of your concept is right (you can tell me if I am wrong) we both believe that in order for science to stay connected to reality it must be based on observation rather than man made math models, etc. without observational input and confirmation. We seem to both believe that...

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Giovanni,

I think that our approaches to science may not be as different as you think. If my understanding of your concept is right (you can tell me if I am wrong) we both believe that in order for science to stay connected to reality it must be based on observation rather than man made math models, etc. without observational input and confirmation. We seem to both believe that observational data must be looked at for patterns that would lead us to possible rules of the structure of, and possible relationships of interaction between, the entities that we observe that generate the resulting data patterns that we observe. These conjectures of the causes of the observed data are the hypotheses. You are right that if one can remain completely neutral in his selection, there is no faith involved. This is usually not completely possible because there are usually several possible interpretations of the data patterns and to select the appropriate experiments to run one must often chose to go with just one of them because of limited time and resources, etc. This action of choice (even if the data seems to lead one more to that choice than to another one) is usually based on the belief that following that hypothesis is more likely to result in the true or best understanding of the cause of the observed data patterns. This belief is faith based on observation even if you are willing to give it up if data from further experiments proves it to be wrong or leads one to believe that another hypothesis is more likely to be a better one to follow. As a result of that faith you make a decision to act that will make it easier to come to the best understanding of the cause(s) of the observed data if you’re faith is right, but may make it harder to get to that best understanding if you are wrong because you will then need to change to a different hypothesis (belief or faith) and do new experiments based on it. Faith is belief and as I said before it can be based on observation or not. What I didn’t cover yet is that faith can be either open or closed. Closed faith does not allow a change in belief even if the observational evidence indicates that it is wrong. Open faith, on the other hand, continually looks at new data and allows belief to be changed if the data indicates a change is needed to make the belief correspond closer to reality. Many people think of faith as existing only in the blind and closed variety, but this is not the case. We cannot function without forming and having beliefs or faith in things and concepts, etc. because they are prerequisites to making intelligent choices or decisions and intelligent choices or decisions are prerequisites to taking intelligent actions, such as deciding what experiments will likely be the most useful ones to perform which leads to actually performing those experiments. If the resulting data from the experiments that are performed always agree with the hypothesis over a period of time, that belief or faith becomes more established in the minds of people as more likely to be a true representation of reality or at least as a close similitude of reality and is then called a theory. One with an open belief system (as I believe you are describing in your communication) will still not consider the theory to be an established closed belief or faith, but will still keep his mind and faith open to further observational data that might show it to be lacking in detail or even to be false. Since all of our observations are indirect, we can never actually have absolute knowledge from those observations. All of our knowledge is, therefore, truly based on belief or faith. It is just faith based on more and more observational data as we make more and more detailed observations over time. The important thing is to keep our faith open and based on observation to the greatest degree that we can in all things. This applies not only to science, but applies to all areas of life, even including areas such as religion, etc. When one understands things at this level it becomes apparent that all things are joined together and that such things as religion and science that most consider to be mutually exclusive really are not. That belief is usually based on the belief that religion is necessarily based on blind and closed faith or belief, but that is not necessarily true because the form of faith that one uses is determined by the user and not by the subject or object of the faith. One is perfectly able to use open faith directed by observation to arrive at the most reasonable religious belief based on observational data. One can even use hypotheses based on observations to direct one into making further observations to test those beliefs and consider the hypotheses that always agree with the observed data to be theories, etc. I realize that this last part may go beyond what you are used to thinking about as a valid object of scientific study depending on how open you have kept your mind in this area, which I don’t at this time know since you have not mentioned your belief in this area in detail at least as far I remember. I do believe from what I have read of your writings here that you may consider faith in a more limited context than I am presenting here, however. It, of course, would be apparent if people were either open minded or closed minded on all things, but that is another one of man’s quirks in that a person can be very open minded in one area and very closed minded in another area because we not only have the ability to chose to keep our faith open or closed and based on observation or wishful thinking, we also have the ability to make different choices concerning one belief than we do for another. In reality we all come short of always keeping our minds open and basing all of our choices on observation concerning all topics or areas of thought. All we can do is to try to do so the best we can.

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Cristinel,

I believe it probably is possible to completely describe the world using math, but the end result would be well beyond the ability of any man to follow and completely understand because of the limitations of the math subset of language. As an example, you could probably completely describe a car with a series of math formulas that would give all of the details of the size,...

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Cristinel,

I believe it probably is possible to completely describe the world using math, but the end result would be well beyond the ability of any man to follow and completely understand because of the limitations of the math subset of language. As an example, you could probably completely describe a car with a series of math formulas that would give all of the details of the size, shape, and connection, etc. of each part to others, etc., but it is generally easier for us to understand the car for our practical uses by observing the car and its parts and having the purpose of each part described to us in general terms and receiving the information as to how each part’s purpose fits into and is joined with the purposes of all of the other parts to generate all of the functions of the car in the same way. All of reality is an extremely complex hierarchical structure with many levels of structure built up upon each other. It is not possible to look at the top level and determine from that alone what all sub levels are like. It would be like looking at a car drive down the street and extracting from its outside appearance and actions every detail about all of its internal parts and how they all work together. If you go back a little over a hundred years to the time that the atom was considered the absolute smallest entity of matter it would not have been possible to construct a math theory based on what was then the limits of current knowledge that would have described all of the details of the next lower hierarchical level of sub atomic particles because you would not have access to all of the necessary variables of that level because they had not yet been observed at that time. The same thing is true today. Man has not yet recognized that matter particles are composed of several motions, so he does not understand why collisions between particles of matter do not always yield the same result, but instead yield several different results with various probabilities of each occurring. Two things must occur to rectify the problem. The first and actually the easiest is to understand a matter particles basic motions and how they interact in the dimensional system to generate the particle’s structure and behavior in interactions. Since matter particles are composed of one motion in each of five dimensions, it is not an extremely difficult concept to understand how they work generally, but making a math model that fully describes the interactions of all of a particle’s motions and all the variations of how the motions of two particles can interact with each other to generate all of the observed output results and their various probabilities is somewhat harder. The hardest part though is to find out how to be able to observe those motions dynamically so that they can be synchronized to produce the desired outcome from a given collision. An understanding of how to do that cannot be gained until the general understanding of how the motions work in relation to each other and the structure of and interaction of motions in the dimensional system through its various interfaces between the dimensions, etc. is understood on a conceptual level because until then all of the applicable variables will not be known, but I will tell you this much. The key is in the fifth vector (dimensional) velocity.

You might be able to construct a mathematical model so comprehensive that you could be sure that there is a place in it to place any possible variable that could exist in reality, but until all of those variables were discovered and inserted it would be of little use. To some degree this is somewhat the condition that string theory finds itself in today, although that group of theories is really not that complete yet.

I will also tell you one more important thing in trying to make a theory of everything, which is that even when you understand all of these things you still won’t be at the lowest level. The world contains many more things and places that man still has no conception of.

To give you a general idea of what you would have to model, consider an entity that is traveling in the lower three dimensions at a composite three-dimensional velocity of about the speed of light. As it travels its dynamic mass (angular motion component at ninety degrees to its composite three-dimensional motion) is dynamically changing from zero to some maximum that depends on its fourth vector velocity and back to zero and then back to the maximum again, but this time the dynamic mass angular component travels in the opposite direction in the three lower dimensions. At the same time it is taking a three-dimensional curved path due to its fifth vector velocity such that its path closes back upon itself to create a cyclical enclosed path of motion. As it travels in its enclosed path it generates a continuously changing three-dimensional angular motion component that generates its rest mass/inertia effect. This gives a basic concept of how a matter particle works. You can see why you do not always get the same result when two of them collide unless you can cause the collision to occur at a point in the cyclical motions of both particles that will generate the desired result. Energy Photons are similar, but they do not possess a fifth vector velocity, so they travel in a straight line and don’t have a rest mass effect. Sub energy particles do not have a fourth vector velocity, so they do not have a dynamic mass effect at ninety degrees to their direction of travel. They only have a very small in line mass effect in their direction of travel. They travel at a three-dimensional composite velocity less than the speed of light and have not yet been discovered by man. Develop the math model that fully describes these entities and you should get the Noble Prize. Man’s current theories seem to accept the probabilities as the limit of man’s ultimate ability to resolve the results of such collisions. They even include grand rationalizations as to why man can never know such things as the position and velocity of a particle accurately at the same time. This may seem true with man’s current understandings and technologies, but it is a fatalistic approach that will only hinder advancement.

I tried to look at your World Theory article, but I could only get to the abstract. When I selected the links that were present on the first screen they only lead me to other links or other abstracts rather than any actual article text. Maybe you can tell me how to navigate to the actual article.

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Dear Paul,

I understand your viewpoint and explanation of the difficulties, which we encounter when we try to describe the world. I will rephrase the idea, since I think that I can do this in a way which avoids the discussions about math and new hidden levels of complexity.

The idea is that at any time t we have a set of experimental data, say D_t (I will use such symbols...

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Dear Paul,

I understand your viewpoint and explanation of the difficulties, which we encounter when we try to describe the world. I will rephrase the idea, since I think that I can do this in a way which avoids the discussions about math and new hidden levels of complexity.

The idea is that at any time t we have a set of experimental data, say D_t (I will use such symbols as short names, not equations). For each set of data, there is a set of possible theories (=explanations/descriptions, possibly not limited to mathematics, if this is really a limitation) of reality, E(D_t), compatible with that set of data. I consider that E(D_t) should contain all possible theories. I will assume that the data increase with time, hence for t smaller than t', we have D_t included in D_t'. What happens with E(D_t)? I claim that E(D_t) contains E(D_t'). Clearly, each possible theory can be infirmed by new data. No new theory can occur because of new data at t', because it must also be compatible with the data at previous t, therefore it must be already contained in E(D_t).

So, my claim is that there is an abstract set of all theories, and this set is only reduced by new data, and not increased. And I give as example the true theory, the one that really describes the world, which must exist, because the world exists, but we don't know it yet. Therefore, I claim that E(D_2009-11-08) is not empty, only that we don't know yet what it contains.

I would say here that E(D_t) should contain also incredibly complicated explanations, which contain unobservable data at that time, and are usually ruled out by the physicists of the time because of Occam's razor. These theories are more complicated that the current data, but may become meaningful with new data. Such example may be the string theories, and some other quantum gravity approaches (if they would explain all the data we observed so far).

Taking your example with atoms, I would say that E(D_1800-01-01) should contain explanations based on indivisible atoms, but also explanations based on composite atoms (which were not available at that time, and we recognized this only because of new data). So, I would say that there is a knowledge of the possible theories explaining all the data at a time t, K_t:= K(E(D_t)), which changes in a more unpredictable way. Perhaps at the end of the XIXth century it contained a theory, based on Newton's and Maxwell's equations. But now it is empty, because we don't have an accepted theory explaining all the data we have now. And possible it will contain at least one theory, in time. And, of course, it may become again empty, because of new data.

According to this view, it is imaginable that K_t will change with time, so that we will feel that we are going closer, but we will never be confident enough that this is all. But it is also imaginable that we will be able to find a theory which will never be invalidated by new data. So, I would keep my mind open to all possibilities. That's what I wanted to say in my previous comment.

I want to emphasize that even if we would find someday a theory fitting all the data at that time, and which will never be invalidated, despite the new data, there will be potentially infinitely many consequences to be explored, and tests to be passed by the theory (perhaps this is a weak version of the fairness principle?). It is even possible the principles be already known, but the consequences not understood, and that the future generations will understand asymptotically that the theory fits the data.

Thank you for your interest in the link I gave in the previous comment, I give here the direct link to the pdf.

Best regards,

Cristi

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dear all

concerning one of the points in Florin's post, I already stated briefly in a previous post that my essay focuses on fundamental physics as traditionally intended, and whether research of that type can reach an end point or gradually enter a stage of saturation. We can instead be sure (I hope) that physics will not end, and in particular it will keep challenging mankind in realms...

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dear all

concerning one of the points in Florin's post, I already stated briefly in a previous post that my essay focuses on fundamental physics as traditionally intended, and whether research of that type can reach an end point or gradually enter a stage of saturation. We can instead be sure (I hope) that physics will not end, and in particular it will keep challenging mankind in realms such as, for example, emergent phenomena and complexity.

Some of the most recent posts also concern the "fairness principle" in ways that provide an invitation to elaborate on some aspects of the spirit of my essay

I see my essay as composed of 3 parts and the third, where the fairness principle is located, is (rather surprisingly) reserved for the "faith arena"

I can't explain why (don't know why it felt right to do so) I took myself into the spirit, the mood, of some "poetic license" for that last third of the essay

In order to adopt the fairness principle, one needs faith, and I have none. But just like most religious persons occasionally doubt their faith, my lack of faith sometimes shakes a bit, and something of the sort of the fairness principle does materialize for me somehow for some brief moments. Before writing the essay I never thought of qualifying this in terms of a "fairness principle" but I am comfortable with the name I found for the essay

surely also most of the authors of posts in this thread are not immune to some sort of "fairness utopia" for the social world. And being affected by this common fairness utopia we are particularly aware of the fact that in some sense experimental data in the social world do not look too good for any principle based on fairness. So perhaps if one was willing to contemplate as reasonable to end an essay like mine venturing in the realm of faith (and clearly it was not so reasonable) perhaps at least one would have expected that my passion for "hard experimental facts" would produce an "unfairness principle"

well, it didn't

and I did take a few moments contemplating whether it could be best to adopt a safer route for my essay...I was particularly concerned about somehow weakening the main thesis of the essay, the first two thirds, by closing the essay with something that significantly diverges from the spirit of the first two thirds of the essay...but it actually did not take that long to reach a conclusion that I can summarize with "well, the heck with it, for once I am gonna have me a fairness principle"

I am explaining this in some detail because it might have appeared that, while "defending" other aspects of my essay, I had not been offering any "defense" against criticism of the fairness principle. I have no defense for it. The fairness principle is not better than any other choice of faith. I could only make room for it in the essay via the provocative pretext of wanting to observe that even as a choice of faith the "theory of everything" could be unpleasant, while there are more optimistic options.

In this respect I found particularly amusing/intriguing the post by Cristi, especially the part describing how future generations would have to learn more and more fundamental physics. The intriguing part of that observation is that somehow it is turning my fairness principle into a nightmare principle: future generations still fascinated by the mysteries of Nature but effectively buried under a mountain of books. Intriguing, amusing, and also relevant for an issue that in my ordinary non-faithful mindset I find very interesting: it seems to me that we are already at a point such that one reaches a solid knowledge of the road before us at an undesireably non-junior age. And I wonder whether this demands that we rethink how we teach physics

Cristi's observation contributes to an already long list of arguments that should make us assume that, while of course no TOE will ever materialize, fundamental physics will gradually reach saturation. I should simply come to terms with the "mortality of fundamental physics", and I am, I have to a large extent, with the exception of rare brief moments when the fairness principle comes to the rescue

cheers

Giovanni

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The dictatorship of TOE

Dear Giovanni,

It was a pleasure to read your interesting and fair answers to the questions of various visitors of your thread. It is obvious that your fairness principle raises nice discussions, despites being based on faith, as you said. But isn't every new hypothesis based on faith? What are required then to collapse the superposition of hypotheses into a...

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The dictatorship of TOE

Dear Giovanni,

It was a pleasure to read your interesting and fair answers to the questions of various visitors of your thread. It is obvious that your fairness principle raises nice discussions, despites being based on faith, as you said. But isn't every new hypothesis based on faith? What are required then to collapse the superposition of hypotheses into a concrete result, are one or more crucial experiments. On this basis, it is clear that neither the statement "we can find a TOE", nor its negation, can be falsified. Any candidate to a unified theory, no matter how well is corroborated by the current data, can be rejected by a future experiment. Being rejected, doesn't exclude the possibility of another TOE, but we can always advocate the fairness principle by saying that there may appear new data which contradicts our most recent theory.

I think that a TOE is unfair, in one particular sense: a theory which survived several decades tends to evolve into a dictatorship. Imagine a theory which made prediction after prediction, confirmed for one thousand years. This will make any proponent of an alternative to be regarded as a crackpot anarchist. In fact, there are already such dictatorial attitudes supporting theories, despite not being confirmed yet, or even not being falsifiable. Should we be prepared for such a TOE dictatorship era, by already taking measures to protect the future dissidents? My belief is that we should be prepared, because it is always possible to have a TOE candidate which survives for many years.

Let's assume that from the fundamental physical laws, completed with the emergent phenomena, and by using powerful computers, we can predict the optimal moral laws, the optimal political system, the optimal president of a country or of the world, the optimal religion belief (including among the possibilities various forms of atheism), or the optimal race. I mean, if there is a Theory of Everything, we can develop in a large, but finite amount of time, scientific algorithms optimizing various such "parameters". We can have, as some ex-communist countries had not too long ago, "scientific politics", "scientific atheism" (or maybe a "scientific religion"), only this time "really scientific". And we will add, of course, algorithms predicting optimal mate-matching, and "scientifically designed DNA" for our progenies.

It may be scary to have a TOE, isn't it? It will take our freedom, because any choice other than the optimal one will be unscientific. And how many will take risk of being non-optimal?

I apologize if these words may look like an extreme slippery slope type of arguments. But I think that we should always be aware of "the ultimate truth" and "the right way", as they can take our freedom.

Or, who knows, perhaps a TOE may prevent us from wasting precious time drifting in wrong behavioral patterns, and may allow us concentrate on the essential and effective things, keeping, in the meantime, always open the possibility that our TOE may be totally false. An "open society" of the TOE.

Kind regards,

Cristi

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