Demolishing prejudices to get to the foundations by Flavio Del Santo and Chiara Cardelli

It is the best rated essay thus far. I went through the long discussion here and find mostly the comments appear to arise either due to lack of understanding or due to human tendency to play with words as meaning different to different individuals. Scientific methodology is not a decided issue as it evolves costantly out of working philsophy and ethical values one should follow. I also note that Nature has bewildered many of us with constant presence of random and order. We are all the time get alluded by reality due to the complexity we ourselves introduce into the subject matter. A good theory requires least number of postulates based on known observed facts, application of the same through elaboration of the process involved. Mathematical jugglary isusually adopted to confuse the issues, as Maths is merely a tool justlike experimentation. Uncertainity in measurements arise not merely through statistical errors involved in parameters involved but also due to factors one may neglect out of consideration, without examining the lack of relevance. To me , the discipling one's mind is the most important factor in believing or disbelieving the significance of the parameter involved. Thus human peronality and character, which are subjective parameters also get involved. An issue then tend to become complicated with time and may go beyong adequate comprehension that is necessary for logical growth. These are generaties i mention based on personal experiences that too differs from person to person! We become enigmatic to that extent!

To the authors -

Thanks for a brilliant and erudite essay, seeking to establish a philosophically grounded procedure for eliminating philosophical prejudices from the fields of science. After all is said and done, however, I'm not sure I see what has been accomplished. We are left with FC in every field. And while anti-proof through falsification of no-go theorems is helpful to eliminate unwarranted philosophical prejudices, it it not the only way. I propose a rather more simple and transparent process - take a hard look at the "tenets of faith" (unprovable yet necessary postulates) that guide our thinking, our theories and our techniques. Reductionism, scientism, determinism, and the denial of agency (fundamental to the multiverse theory) may all be self-consistent, but they get in the way of productive advances in our understanding and should be thrown out.

Many thanks for your challenge to conventional thinking. It is indeed time to get out of the box. - George Gantz

Flavio,

It might be worth mentioning an example where an experimental test, if it can be defined, could distinguish between two very different philosophical perspectives:

(a) Einstein's block universe, where the idea of "now" is an illusion, with all of the past and future already existing as a "block", and

(b) Minority theories in which "now" is real. These are not popular because they would seem to fly in the face of special relativity, in which every frame perspective is equally real. That issue was precisely why Einstein chose in favor of the block view, which enables every viewer to "slice" (foliate) the block of preexisting eternity in their own way.

Einstein didn't have computers, however, and was of course unaware that that the potential inconsistencies he worried about are readily resolvable through a combination of perspective-dependent and direction-dependent early and late binding of events that relies on the very speed-of-light constraints he defines in SR. The bottom line is that purely in terms of state modeling, creating a singular "now" universe that exactly replicates the block universe is not even a particular difficult problem in modeling theory. It's just a different, more data-aware approach to the problem.

There is another surprisingly simple reason for looking seriously at now-is-real theories, which is this: The block universe cannot be internally self-consistent unless every slice of it adheres to the rules of causality from past to future. That means that invoking a block universe does not really solve anything, but merely defers the reconciliation of all causality from all perspectives to some ill-defined earlier stage in which the block universe literally had to be "grown" from an initial starting state into the future, all while keeping the infinite number of possible frame-dependent causality paths internally and mutually consistent. That kind of "causally self-consistent growth from an initial state" sounds an awful lot like, well... time with a real "now". So why bother with a block universe if you have to grow the puppy from scratch anyway, as the only possible way to make the final result self-consistent?

The delightful catch is that in such a model, the simulation of non-primary causality frames is so perfect that there is no way to tell the difference between the two cases -- block vs a singular real "now" -- if you live in that universe! A distinction that cannot be tested is not a meaningful distinction.

Which (pardon the long set up) brings up the question relevant to your essay: Is it possible that a test exist that could distinguish between a "real now" universe in which the future is not yet set, and a block universe in which all of eternity has been constructed in advance?

I think there may be? But it would necessarily be very subtle, much like Bell's inequality was. If such a test does exist, it could provide a nice example of the kind of test I believe you are advocating in your essay.

Cheers,

Terry

Flavio,

Plenty to say, but nothing more appropriate than "well done"! Deserving of a prize, publishable now.

Since we share the same view of falsification, I hope we can have a later discussion of Popper's take on probability theory.

For now, congratulations. My essay.

All best,

Tom

Flavio and Chiara,

I feel every concept contributes to an understanding of "fundamental," so I am reviewing my own sketchy evaluations to help my understanding and see if I have rated them. I find that I rated yours on 2/7 reflecting my high regard for your contribution. Hope you get a chance to check out mine.

Jim

Flavio and Chiara,

I saw you had some critical comments but you are still doing very well on the leader board so it must have been healthy criticism. I will offer some criticism in the same spirit.

You say that "... the reductionist program has failed even within physics alone, not

having so far being capable to unify the fundamental forces ..." This seems a little harsh. Reductionism and unification has been incredibly successful in physics from the time of Newton until the development of the standard model. There is still some work to unify gravity but to say the whole process has failed for this reason seems to be stretching a point.

You suggest that gravity could have an emergent origin. Weak emergence is part and parcel of reductionism so are you talking about strong emergence? I am skeptical of strong emergence because I don't see how something can emerge if it can not be derived in principle. I think the idea is inspired by the case of consciousness but that is a very special case open to further debate.

I do agree with your message about prejudices. Physicists have been carried away with the successful derivation of everything up to nuclear physics and chemistry from the standard model without the need for any further information to be added. This has given them an expectation that a unified theory including gravity will also allow everything to be derived without further information, at least in principle. On the other hand their recent work is leading to the conclusion that the vacuum is not a unique solution of quantum gravity and quite a lot of information needs to be input to select the correct vacuum. Theorists have responded by saying that this can't be right. They have forgotten that most science from biology upwards requires some extra information about the environment and cannot be derived uniquely from the underlying physics.

You say a lot about falsification. You are certainly a card carrying member of the popperazzi! My only objection here is that the scientific method is merely epistemological. It is just a human construct that we use as a good practice guide for how to do physics. It can't tell us anything about whether a given theory is true of false. Do you agree and how then can it be part of what is fundamental?

I am sure you will have some insightful answers to these questions. Than you for a great essay.

Flavio & Chiara,

This is an excellent essay. You write clearly and use appropriate supporting quotations. Empirical falsification is the very backbone of science and you show how to combine it with philosophy to produce testable questions. The bit about amino acids at the end was a nice touch.

Best Regards and Good Luck,

Gary Simpson

Hello Flavio and Chiara,

I appreciate that your perceptions regarding what qualifies an entity to bear recognition as being 'fundamental' significantly departs from 'commonly accepted views'.

What is surprising to me is that many more thoughtful people don't accept a broader span of possibilities than the 'bottom-up construction or top-down reduction of fundamental entities'.

The reason, I suggest, is that other questions require to be asked and answered prior to engaging in the search for any fundamental unit. One cannot reasonably expect to define what constitutes a fundamental principle or part until one has clearly identified a context within which one can then proceed with the search.

Understanding this contingent requirement necessarily admits the prospect of there being as many 'fundamentals' as there are contexts within which one can proceed.

Physics is a very broad subject, some may say an all-inclusive subject, but how physics relates to the mind, to memory, to ideas, to beliefs, to judgements, to decisions, to time and space, to God, etc., to mention just a few subjects, is not very clear. In the absence of clarity I prefer to step further back to embrace all-there-is, the physical and the abstract, in search of what is the most fundamental prerequisite to enable all-there-is, regardless of form, to be.

The FQXi question What is "Fundamental?" invites a singular response; otherwise the question would be framed: What are "Fundamental?" Thus I am led to my singular fundamental conclusion: 'Existence' is the prerequisite for all else.

Good luck. You are well on your way to happy days!

Gary.

Dear Flavio and Chiara,

Much enjoyed reading your essay, seemed very professional, organized, and informative.

My sense in the first section is that you don't give balance to reductionism and emergence, seem to rule out the possibility that with a satisfactory QM one might arrive at wavefunctions who interactions yield calculable emergence at larger scales. Given the detailed examples of the unsatisfactory state of fundamental physics models that you present at the bottom of the first page, it would be surprising to find models of quantitative emergence already in hand. However it seems a bit hasty to close one's mind so tightly to the possibility as you seem to do for the purposes of your argument.

Very much agree with this statement:

"It thus appears quite unsatisfactory to address foundations of natural science from the perspective of something that has hardly any empirical content."

Well put, thank you for that.

There would seem to be a theoretical minimum for the philosopher/physicist, the requirement being a profound basic understanding of the wavefunction. The proliferation of quantum interpretations speaks to its absence in the community.

Appreciate your definition of that which does not meet the requirements of scientific method:

"Philosophical propositions could be defined as those which are not observationally or experimentally falsifiable at the given moment of the development of human knowledge."

It seems important to be more specific when exploring the fundamental, to address the distinction between quantum and classical when talking about observations. The 'single measurement observable' is the essential concept. Wavefunction collapse yields a lump of energy. One gains the amplitude and loses the phase. Phase is not a single measurement in QM.

The "What is Fundamental" section seems to say nothing about what is fundamental, but rather only dances around what is not.

What you call 'philosophical prejudices' goes deeper that just western philosophy, is best understood in terms of the steps to consciousness outlined in Buddhist philosophy - form (internal or external), emotional tone, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness. The first thing any new idea encounters is emotional tone. Philosophy is up there around volitional formations and consciousness. Most of us are afraid of new ideas in areas where we have attachment, in our professional identities. Despite our protestations to the contrary, we who have professional scientific and/or philosophical identities, the makers and breakers, are all nice and comfortable here in this community, food to eat and a safe place to sleep, lots of good old boys and girls to pat us on the back, no paradigm shifts here please.

Do either of you have thoughts on Hameroff/Penrose microtubules? Will adequate wavefunction models ever exist to describe their functioning? Will this be required to establish a connection between physics and consciousness that satisfies your methodology?

all in all, to describe my sense of your essay i go back to your earlier quote:

"It thus appears quite unsatisfactory to address foundations of natural science from the perspective of something that has hardly any empirical content."

It seems not easy to find empirical content in your essay.

apologies for the anonymous tag on the previous post. Thought I was logged in while commenting.

apologies for the anonymous tag on the previous post. Thought I was logged in while commenting.