An Essay Concerning Human Misunderstanding: Why It Cannot Be Inferred From Empirically Acquired Information That The Higgs Boson Has Been Observed by Marcoen J.T.F. Cabbolet

Hi Marcoen,

I simply loved your closing statement, "...the bottom line here is that the recent claim that the Higgs boson has already been observed is untenable." I have also come to the same conclusion as expressed in my peer-reviewed paper: Assumed Higgs Boson Discovery Proved Einstein Right

Anyway, I found your essay inspiring and most worthy of merit and I hope you make it to the finals.

Best wishes,

Manuel

Hello Marcoen

Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech

(http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

Good luck and good cheers!

Than Tin

Dear Marcoen,

I owe you one for insisting on proper "scientific method". Here, a scoring.

All the best,

Chidi

Hi Marcoen,

Based on a recommendation of a common friend, I have just read your intriguing and provocative Essay. I think that the issue that the CMS collaboration anonymously agrees with you (This is the message of your footnote 1) confirms that the way in which sometimes scientists release overstated claims (see also previous claims by the OPERA Collaboration on the neutrinos faster than light) is based on a sort of "politics of making science spectacular". This is not necessarily a wrong issue, as it permits to popularize science and, in turn, to have a better attention and more financial funds from governments. On the other hand, it is also a good think that scientists like you recall people to stay grounded. In any case, I had lots of fun in reading your Essay. Thus, I am going to give you an high score.

Cheers,

Ch.

Dear Marcoen,

I completely agree with your point of view.

Cheers,

Ch.

Marcoen,

It seems our conversation was in the window of what vanished. Did you happen to read my response to your observation of not knowing how to change the current situation in physics, if not, would you like me to restate it?

Marcoen,

I was hoping they hadn't actually lost those posts, as I'd several long ones.

You had said you didn't know how to change the situation in physics and I observed; This is physics! How does change happen? In the gaps. During the phase transitions. As the old saying goes, "Change happens one funeral at a time. "

Since we are a point where it is becoming obvious the current model can't go on much further, before getting laughed off the stage, it's not so much a matter of how to beat it, but what replaces it. Since this is science, you would think a viable alternative would quickly be noticed, but it is obvious there are some very basic assumptions built into the current models and for anyone within physics to really go outside them, would be like stepping out the window of an upper floor. In my original post to you, I offered up my observation about time, covered in my last year's entry; That we are treating time as a vector from past to future as somehow foundational, rather than the physical process by which what is future potential becomes past circumstance. Not only is the narrative effect foundational to science, as measure of duration, but is foundational to civilization, as the basis of history and causal logic. So it is natural for science to assume it as foundational, much as it seemed normal five hundred years ago to assume the sun moving across the sky as obvious.

Now I find most people with any amount of eduction don't much like this concept, because it really does rattle their thinking, but that doesn't disprove it. So it is an example of how small mistakes grow into large issues over time, when not corrected.

I discussed some of these misconceptions further, yesterday, in Israel Perez' entry.

My own entry covers it from other angles.

Now you may not agree with my argument, but it provides an example of just how much completely bottom up revision might be necessary to make sense of the problems.

Regards,

John

Marcoen,

I've just checked for a response and bizarrely my post has vanished! Do let me know if you find it, I didn't keep a copy!

In any case I strongly support your position and case, and may even go a little further about particle physics (I discussed this within my 2011 essay).

I hope I also have a proof about particle structure which has proven robust in the optical and QM and relativistic regimes, deriving a resolution of the EPR paradox in my essay!

Do look and tell me if you think I'm going crazy, of if this may just signal the beginning of the end for outdated doctrine. Ignore the dense abstract, the rave reviews in the blog include; "groundbreaking", "clearly significant", "astonishing", "fantastic job", "wonderful", "remarkable!", "deeply impressed", etc.聽so just perhaps...? Mind you. two 7th places were passed over in the last two years so it may be buried again anyway. All points welcomed.

But this should be about yours, as the original one. Excellent, concise and precise. Good score going on. Very well done.

Best wishes

Peter

Dear Marcoen,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest,

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Dear Marcoen,

I had previously read and rated your essay without commenting since I was in virtual total agreement and you were right on target. But perhaps it helps to still state this all the same at least for encouragement.

What brought me here now was the brilliant exchanges with Chidi Idika. That was the work of a well-meaning objective critic which is what this forum needs more than flattery of one's work.

I would love to benefit from your criticism even if you don't score my essay. Mine though may be more philosophical than hard core math or physics. The nature of space I think supersedes the claims of finding the Higg's boson or what do you think?

Following additional insights gained from interacting with FQXi community members, I wrote on my blog a judgement in the case of Atomistic Enterprises Inc. vs. Plato & Ors delivered on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 11:39 GMT.

Best regards,

Akinbo

Marcoen,

The point you make is one that needs to be repeated frequently, but it does so because the process of intellectual editing is essential to gaining any real grasp of a reality which bombards us with more information in a moment, then we will ever comprehend in a lifetime. It is reductionism of the reductionisms. Frequently I come across people who think only the last few decimals need to be measured, of a reality that is been conquered by human reason, when the opposite is true; The more we know, the more we know we don't know. I think in the current development of our social and technological functions, we are mimicking processes biology was evolving hundreds of millions of years ago.

Just as a very minor example of how we really don't consider what we think, take the basic mathematical function of addition; If you actually add two objects together, you have one larger object. So when you say 2+3=5, what you are really saying is that adding a set of two objects to set of three objects, gives you a set of five objects. I think ignoring this basic reality causes significant intellectual distortions, in that we don't appreciate how whole objects arise from multiple inputs. We always think something is best understood in terms of its parts, yet its parts are unexplainable outside of their context. The parts of your body add up to a whole that gives meaning and context to those parts, in a way they do not have in isolation.

In physics, this view is pervasive. We treat quanta as discrete units, yet it becomes a big mystery when they become "entangled" and start acting as one over larger areas than we can explain when everything must be point particles on a fundamental level.

Not to mention how this leads to atomized cultures and the resulting short term thinking, but that is looking at the ever larger picture and it's hard enough to get even those who are paid to be logical to think through the consequences of their assumptions.

Regards,

John Merryman