i can't do physics, because i can't do the math. but let me say in defense of my turf that i don't think we should let physicists loose in the realms of metaphysics and epistemology. hawking, as the tls review puts it, thinks the reverse: philosophy is 'dead' because it's not keeping up with physics. anyway, it's the quantum stuff where i feel these people go nuttier than exquisitely-educated fruitcakes. from the particle-slit experiments, or whatever it may be, they seem to draw conclusions like this: there are eleven dimensions. time splits at each event. the principle of non-contradiction is false. truth, reality, the world are/is observer-dependent. there's no fact of the matter about whether a cat is alive or dead, etc. now it's easy to let this stuff wash over you; it's been washing for decades now. and it's very, very easy to defer to the authority of people like hawking. obviously he's smarter than you and me. i, personally, couldn't write books by twitching my eyebrow, and i intend not to try. nevertheless, my left eyebrow is raised as though to write "huh?".

i would like to point out with all due respect that this shit is insane. it makes the highest flights of christian mysticism look rational. that experiments could show that reality is observer-dependent is an assertion that roget, consulting his excellent thesaurus, might call twaddle, flapdoodle, tommyrot, balderdash, bilge, poppycock, and piffle. the events observed in experiments are all observed, while events that are not observed are not observed; it's going to be rather hard to demonstrate the existence of non-observed events by observation, etc. that is exactly as profound as saying you've never seen something you haven't seen. but if you concluded that nothing is visible except what has actually been seen, i'd say in the words of the immortal metro truly (a dude i went to junior high school with) that you're off your feeble tree.

i think one thing these physicists have definitely overcome is ockham's razor: they appear to have a fondness for the maximally lush or bizarre explanation. once you get rid of non-contradiction, by the way, you have gotten rid of the possibility of explaining anything, much less everything: even if your explanation were true, it wouldn't follow that it wasn't false. if watching the paths of microparticles or whatever it is suggests to you that there are eleven or infinitely-many universes, i want to make sure you haven't tried all the this-universely explanations you might generate, etc. 

some quotes in the review from hawking and mlodinow's book: "the unobserved past is indefinite." "Observations you make on a system in the present affect its past." "abstract considerations of logic lead to a unique theory that predicts and describes a vast universe." i suggest that these are philosophical or religious speculations having nothing to do with empirical results. the universe they describe is, for one thing, hegelian (for example in the notion that the present retroactively creates the past and in the extraordinary idea that the laws of logic generate a universe). this is speculative metaphysics at its most bloated, and i would really find some killer analytic philosopher to help these folks clarify their basic terms. where are rudolf carnap and gilbert ryle when you need them? i not only don't think that these claims are true; i don't know what it would mean for them to be true. i think they are incoherent.

Comments

[Montag]

time splits at each event.

unless each event flows irrevocably from all events and circumstances preceding it. therefore no split, as there was never an alternative possibility. one universe. it is what it is. (my 13 year old and i were just talking about this the other day.)

[drip]

Montag may be right. You may be right. Hawking, me, kant, plato, and Pat Roberson may be right. But none of us knows and the ones who even suggest they are right, are not helpful. What is irritating to me is that some of these people (not plato, you or me and maybe Montag) act as though their beliefs carry more weight than dogma. This misleads many people into believing that they know what they don't know. When you don't know what you don't know, you are double dumb. Or, as you say, incoherent.

[Blizzard]

I think part of the problem is that we (the public) are mostly exposed to physics via the popularizers, who have incentives to hype and mystify everything. Having said that, there's no doubt physics has by now become completely unhinged. Their whole enterprise is completely tilted to deductive algebraic proofs, to the point where there's not even an attempt to grasp any philosophical underpinnings.

If I wanted to learn physics I'd study the history of physics. What they're teaching in the academy is beyond useless unless you're like the smartest person in the world and can penetrate the layers of bullshit.

[Montag]

drip,

i believe nossing! like to play around with 'opinion' and always remain open to changing my mind. but when i really look at it, i have very few hard and fast beliefs.

[Jared]

I actually like the philosophical ramifications of quantum theory, they are without question insane. And at no point do I understand how or why physics has face planted into absurd metaphysical properties while claiming to be based in "facts". However, there is something perversely enjoyable about the idea of a quantum universe where anything can happen based on probabilities and at the same time all options are happening. Still nothing can really beat how Bohr described it, if the math works than who cares about the inner workings of it. Just sit down and enjoy your toaster oven.

[SteveG]

So much here, man. First of all, yeah it's a cheap shot at philosophers. He could roll across campus and chat with Jeremy Butterfield if he wants a philosopher who can talk physics at any level with him.

In terms of the physical theories, actually, they are pefectly rational and entirely in line with Occam's razor. Yeah, they seem to violate our operative notions of sense, but do they really? It's not only a good question, it's the final exam question for my first year seminar, Einstein in Wonderland: Physics, Philosophy, and Other Nonsense. It's not the theory that is a flight of fancy, it's reality that turns out to be that freakin' wierd. We tried to apply our common sense notions to observations of unusual sitations and they failed us. When we came up with stranger versions, they work. They are the simplest ones that work, but they are not all that simple.

As for the popularizers, yeah, they aren't very good. Part of the problem is that the social structure is set up to discourage discussions that allow common folks (you know, scum) to understand physics. It does away with the magic which is the power.

If you really want a killer analytic philosopher to explicate the basic notions, check out Hans Reichenbach's writings. He was one of the 7 students in Einstein's first seminar on general relativity and wrote both technical philosophical and popular works setting out the foundational notions clearly. If that don't work for you, I'd be happy to give it try.

[crispy]

yo steveg. yeah that is a very cool thought, and it is an exciting universe they're describing, though it doesn't follow that it's a possible universe they're describing!