How to save the world by Sabine Hossenfelder

Hello Sabine,

I enjoyed your essay and thought it identified a major problem our species currently has and proposes an interesting (and more importantly, implementable!) solution. This solution ultimately seems to hinge upon mental/cognitive enhancements that would allow us access to and processing of a vast amount of data which has been heretofore, beyond our capabilities. I find this suggestion to be in alignment with my own proposal of a general program of cognitive enhancement, or the development of an intelligence greater than our own.

Thank you for a very insightful read and I hope your work is communally judged appropriately for it's merits.

Thank you,

Mark

Sabine,

Having had rating problems with my Firefox browser and with some 5 days remaining, I am revisiting essays I've read to see if rated. I find that I rated yours on 5/12.

Your given the opportunity, I would like to see your comments on my essay: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2008

Jim

Dear Sabine,

To lower the cost of relevant information and lowered the cost of that information needed by the decision maker to make correct decisions for the survival, peace and prosperity humanity. I scored a full score ten (10).

Good luck,

Leo KoGuan

Hi Sabine,

I find your thesis... how should I say... Scary. If plastic in the ocean is bad (and it is), then we should wire humans (a minor brain implant) so that their faulty brains would respond appropriately when they attempt to put garbage into the ocean.

There have been historical political leaders who have tried to get OTHERS to do the right thing on reflex without the "neat" technology of brain implants (think torture chambers and Chinese collectives). It does not work.

I do not find this essay up to your excellent scientific standards. Tell me this is not what you meant.

Don Limuti

Dear Sabine,

Some interesting points. But what I miss in your argument is: (1) how are individual priority maps to be translated into collective action?; (2) what happens when group think drives collective action to a disaster?

The 2008 financial crisis you mention is an example of a system where there is de facto collective action, because we now have a system of rapid international financial transactions, driven by individual priority maps of traders who mostly want to make profits on quite short timescales. As you say some of them did not feel right about it, and continued nonethless - and actually a number of smarter ones got out of it well before the crunch hit. But the point is, even better knowledge would not prevent the herd running to a disaster, as long as the dominant priority map driving the collection of traders is making a profit on a short time scale at the expense of others. With better information the crunch would have just hit sooner. Setting aside questions of ethics, such a system is just intrinsically unstable and the increased connectivity in the internet age can just amplify the instabilities.

If we just consider the less politically charged sphere of academia and science that you discuss (well less charged for those outside academia!), then individual researchers do (at least subconsciously) have priority maps which we apply every day when we scan arXiv abstracts to decide whether a paper is worth looking at. In fact, priority one for the vast majority is: will this paper help me with what I am working on, the things I want to know more about to write my next paper? (The writing of papers recognised as good by our peers is the basis of reward.) As with the financial markets, the internet amplifies perturbations where there is a strong prior propensity for group think. BICEP2 and primordial gravitational waves from inflation is a topical example. Will it go the way of the OPERA experiment and the faster-than-light-neutrinos that generated a similar sociological phenomenon? Who knows.

For the record I would say that inflation is an interesting phenomenology, which looks to be correct at the surface of last scattering. But it is a phenomenology still in search of a fundamental theory. (And it may well involve quantum gravity in the end; the really hard important stuff.) So the question of whether there are primordial gravitational waves is important. But inflation is a phenomenology that is very easy to arrive at: add a few more epicycles to the action, solve a bunch of differential equations and avoid thinking deeply. That is why there are hundreds of inflationary models on the market, and it is why BICEP2 is a sociological phenomenon.

Card-carrying members of FQXi have got into the club because hopefully we do try to take a larger scale view of the fundamental issues in science. I think the real problem is not so much the construction of individual priority maps, but the fact that the present reward systems that drive collective action do not have a longer-term, 100 year perspective, either in science or society at large.

All best wishes,

David

David,

Since Sabine is apparently preoccupied at the moment, with your and her forgiveness please allow me to barge in.

First, you said something very important and relevant to these FQXi discussions, on your home page, in disputing John Horgan's idea of 'ironic science' (I share your view):

"John's use of the term 'ironic science' belies the fact that despite all those books he has read on the philosophy and methodology of science, despite all his interviews, he still does not ostensibly display any understanding of how science works. Science does involve forming testable hypotheses, but one cannot form a testable hypothesis unless one has a consistent logical framework within which to pose a hypothesis. You cannot write down a sentence before you learn language. In physics, the language of which is mathematics, this means constructing a self-consistent mathematical framework. Einstein could not have arrived at general relativity if he had not known about Riemannian geometry: 19th century 'ironic science'. The conventional frameworks for quantum gravity are not mathematically self-consistent. Someone needs to construct such a framework before physicists can pose any testable hypotheses."

I hated John's book (The End of Science). I hated it so much that I read it three times in a row when it was first published almost 20 years ago. I came to realize I hated the premise, and loved the journalism. The candid thoughts of some of my favorite scientists were shining refutations of the premise; irony implies unexpected consequences, while a scientist's framework is based on expectations. Whether those expectations are physically right or wrong is beside the point; they are, as you said, logically and mathematically self consistent.

Time and again in these forums, we have to confront either inconsistent frameworks that leave huge gaps in understanding of the physics that we already know to be true -- or that, as you point out, simply interpret empirical phenomena absent a theory that would incorporate it.

To bring relevance of these facts, to Prof. Hossenfelder's essay, and your counterpoint:

The individual sorting of useful information by the scientist, and the application of a group consensus by the scientific community, are often at odds. A scientist may not find the consensus useful; and the community may not find the scientist useful. All that we have to objectively judge utility is, as you say, objective language.

I think Bee's conclusion supports that point: "To steer the future, information about our dynamical and multi-layered networks has to become cheap and almost effortless to use. Only then, when we can make informed decisions by feeling rather than thinking, will we be able to act and respond to the challenges we face."

That is, expectations ("feeling rather than thinking") align with facts only when objectively derived information -- like air -- is freely available for the breathing.

All best,

Tom

Last was mine.

I played around with Excel last night and came up with a way to predict the contest winner. Basically, by downloading all the data pertinent to this contest such as the title of the essay, how many posts, the community rating, the public rating, how many community ratings and how many public ratings, and one more column for a combination of all the ratings and how the essay judges are likely to weight all the columns with respect to eachother, it spits out an answer.

With all those numbers, I sorted on each column and changed the color of the top 10 essays in each column. Then when it was all done I just looked for the "most colorful essay".

And the winner (will likely be)...

Open Peer Review to Save the World by Philip Gibbs

#2: Recognizing the Value of Play by Jonathan J. Dickau

#3: Bohr-like model for black holes: the route for quantum gravity by Christian Corda

#3 wins the slot because the contest judges will want to be science-minded. That's why Corda will likely win out over the Honorable Mention

How to save the world by Sabine Hossenfelder

because #3 is very science-y and #4 is a bit more of a preachy title without as much of a hint towards what the essay is about.

Well, there's my prediction. It was enjoyable to participate in this contest. By my own criteria, my essay wasn't "colorful" at all. Maybe the judges will score highly on ease of understanding and practicality? Nahh, the guys who are at the top of this list still do very well in such categories.

Good luck to you all.

Kevin O

Dear sabine,

Congratulations with your high community score and admittance to the finalists pool.

I hope that the discussions continue so I have the pleasure to sent you a link to my contribution : "STEERING THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS" and hope for your comment on my thread.

Good luck with the "final judgement" and

best regards

Wilhelmus

Forget the announcement drama -- I'm predicting a first prize for you. :-)