Standard Model Universe – Unnatural

Just a holding post for now – need time to come back and build on thoughts.

Natalie Wolchover article Is Nature Natural at Simons Foundation.

And an io9 piece reviewing it here.

Wilful prejudiced rejection of any Anthropic mentions. When will these scientists listen to themselves.

“Multiverses might not make sense,
but I’m sure we could do the math.”

Or in the words of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen:

Bohr I said wave mechanics and matrix mechanics
were simply alternative tools.

Heisenberg Something you’re always accusing me of.
‘If it works it works.’ Never mind what it means.

Bohr Of course I mind what it means.

Heisenberg What it means in language.

Bohr In plain language, yes.

Heisenberg What something means
is what it means in mathematics.

Bohr You think that so long as the mathematics works out,
the sense doesn’t matter.

Heisenberg Mathematics is sense! That’s what sense is!

Bohr But in the end, in the end, remember,
we have to be able to explain it …

The word nature – how can the nature of our (or any other) universe not be natural. This is just word games. The fact is the standard (Copenhagen quantum interpretation) model universe is unnatural, unreasonable – not true or real – if it gives us a model that is arbitrarily nonsensical. Sense matters.

The maths is all well and good (if correct) but there still has to be a reasonable ontology of what exists (be-ables in John Bell’s terms) – see also these pieces:

Tim Maudlin : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxRTtOQI60
Lee Smolin : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QIJtICy-vE

Hat tip to David Morey for all three links on Facebook and MD. Man, Einstein was right – when it comes to scientists

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age of eighteen.”

Hat tip to David Gurteen for reminding of the Einstein quote (again).

[Interesting that the Simons Foundation – as well as Maths, Physical & Life Sciences scopes also covers Autism. Part of the problem with scientism.]