Month: November 2020

Just a holding post to capture this recent (2019) link to Brian Josephson’s Nobel Laureate talk to young scientists at the 2019 Lindau meeting.

Brian was one of the first physical scientists I came across (back in 2002) that gave serious consideration of the relevance to physics of living and conscious models. I’ve seen him speak and linked to other lectures of his, and it’s fair to say his written thought is better than his presentation skills, but his thinking is still worth close consideration.

“Matter thinks, feels and converses” in Karan Barad’s words he was tempted not to quote.

Much about the limitations of mathematics to represent physics. Our choice of mathematics (languages) greatly influences the models we arrive at
(Reminded me of @katoi and Peter Rowlands)

Lots of good links in his entirely textual slides, pan-psychists and universal-lifeists take note. (Mentioning no names Philip Goff and Tim Bollands).

A lot of the content of the talk is in this paper “The Physics of Mind and Thought“. And consistent with my original and enduring cybernetic interest, it has a strong information processing and game theory thread. A physical scientist quoting Foucault, Wittgenstein and ABBA’s Name of the Game! Excellent.

[As recently as here, quoting the paired concepts that to start playing a game you have to know (some of) the rules, but the playing of the game evolves and creates new rules and objects between the players, even if the formal (constraining) rules are fixed. I think that “stepping stone” model is basically “your move” in Hofstadter’s “Tabletop” game.]

Oh my:

“This is what conversation is about; individuals develop tools for creating a synthetic reality on the basis of their past experience (compare this with building real objects with a construction kit, on the basis of descriptions in language) and can cooperate in their use.”

… and …

“[T]here may be no other way to advance beyond the unavoidable limitations associated with the outdated idea that the complexities of reality can be reduced to a formula.”

Had one of those pet-hate Twitter-threads where someone makes a negative comment @me and dozens of others pile-on with “like” (and more) without any attempt to engage with the original point. (I used to have a pinned Tweet that said I routinely blocked such people.)

You’re wrong. I am one of the theoretical physicists trying hard to solve this problem. Do you think if I found its solution tomorrow, I would not immediately publish it, just because of some worries about not getting funding? There is not a single scientist who thinks that way!

— Erik Verlinde (@erikverlinde) October 30, 2020

Firstly, I’m not wrong.

Secondly, it’s a statement in support of Erik Verlinde whose work as a theoretical physicist is well known to me – very close to the core of my work – with information as the complement of entropy at a fundamental level. I’ve written a lot about him in this context. I’ve travelled and paid to hear him speak and asked him direct questions at conferences.

I suspect it got the negative reaction because:

• • • the “IF” wasn’t noted, what I said was conditional. Objectively it clearly wasn’t wrong.
    • the “YOU” operating as the English “ONE” in “IF YOU” was presumed aimed at Erik who felt the need to defend himself, when clearly it was aimed at experimental scientists meeting that conditional investment criterion.
    • and anyway, I already made it clear I wasn’t suggesting a direct motivation, I was agreeing with Sabine’s point (which she has gone on to further elaborate this morning). See blind-siding below.

And yes,

… in response to those suggesting I was some kind of idiot that didn’t get theoretical physics and/or that I didn’t appreciate the black-hole horizon information density was theoretical and not directly amenable to empirical test …

the point, as Sabine has elaborated, is that it’s not a surprise finding or any kind of paradox to those already interested in theoretical physics at this fundamental / metaphysical boundary. People like Erik have already “solved” it. It’s only a paradox to those already invested in the standard model behind high-energy experimental collider physics. The targets of Sabine’s comment, and mine.

Generally, no professional scientist is directly motivated not to publish significant results. But where people look for findings in their expensive experimental kit is blindsided by assumptions in that investment, and the need to retrospectively justify that in support of further future investment. Blind-sided to seeing the significance of a theoretical finding elsewhere.

What we’re doing is trying to redirect more funding to theoretical physicists exactly like Erik.

Jeez. Rant over.

(Now, how to cc all those in the individual-like pile-on?)

=====

[Post Note: Made the general link above about many references to Verlinde in the Psybertron blog, but this 2018 conference summary is quite apposite considering @Katoi has now also joined the fray here:

Two theoretical physicists with concerns for epistemological boundaries of their art are Sabine Hossenfelder and Erik Verlinde. Both might agree that science has been “fucked-up” by humans.

You’d think that experimental physicists have little to fear from the theorists? Except of course that enormous investments in their very large kit may have been justified to look for the wrong things. They need to hope that null and surprise results from already justified experiments still add to our new models and body of knowledge.

And so it goes.]