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Look, its just that it's all so complex. These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper - otherwise you have a universe which pops into existence fully fo

Look, its just that it's all so complex. These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper - otherwise you have a universe which pops into existence fully formed with these particular properties, this particular family of particles and forces. These experiments are a bit like 3d scanning a tree in millimeter detail and then declaring that you have a perfect knowledge of trees. Don't get me wrong this is very important stuff, we need this knowledge to find the underlying systems. But it creates a degree of philosophical unease in the sensitive individual. For me it seems necessary to say that if this universe is all that exists, it must necessarily exist from first principles. My hunch is that what we are seeing is the population dynamics of all possible systems of interacting elements - or atleast a tiny little piece of it.

idlewords 11y ago
The universe is what it is, and may not be to anyone's taste. No one is declaring perfect knowledge. If anything, experimental physicists are much more humble than theoreticians (let alone philosophers) and are interested in teasing out the truth without regard for its conceptual elegance.
Udo 11y ago
> These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper Deeper might be the wrong word in this context, but I don't think many physicists would disagree that there is probably a small set of rules and variables that makes up the substrate of reality. For all we know, the universe could be a really basic cellular automaton. > These experiments are a bit like 3d scanning a tree in millimeter detail and then declaring that you have a perfect knowledge of trees. That does not describe our current scientific process at all, which is to find underlying abstractions and models instead of just cataloguing concrete findings. I also think there is a problem with the understanding of higher-order (emergent, as you say) phenomena: they often do not follow from the basic underlying rules in an immediately obvious manner. What they do is they become systems in their own right, with their own mechanics worth studying. To use an analogy, just because you know everything about sugar and flour doesn't mean you know everything that's going on in a bakery. > But it creates a degree of philosophical unease in the sensitive individual. It's not the universe's job to make us feel comfortable, nor is it science's job to discard findings on the grounds that we personally don't like their implications. The universe does not care about our comfort, and philosophical considerations are not part of the fabric of nature outside of your personal mental frameworks. There are many things about nature or the universe at large that make me uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean these facts should somehow be discarded. > My hunch is that what we are seeing is the population dynamics of all possible systems of interacting elements - or atleast a tiny little piece of it. I read this several times, and I have no idea what that means.

idlewords 11y ago

The universe is what it is, and may not be to anyone's taste. No one is declaring perfect knowledge. If anything, experimental physicists are much more humble than theoreticians (let alone philosophers) and are interested in teasing out the truth without regard for its conceptual elegance.

Udo 11y ago

> These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper Deeper might be the wrong word in this context, but I don't think many physicists would disagree that there is probably a small set of rules and variables that makes up the substrate of reality. For all we know, the universe could be a really basic cellular automaton. > These experiments are a bit like 3d scanning a tree in millimeter detail and then declaring that you have a perfect knowledge of trees. That does not describe our current scientific process at all, which is to find underlying abstractions and models instead of just cataloguing concrete findings. I also think there is a problem with the understanding of higher-order (emergent, as you say) phenomena: they often do not follow from the basic underlying rules in an immediately obvious manner. What they do is they become systems in their own right, with their own mechanics worth studying. To use an analogy, just because you know everything about sugar and flour doesn't mean you know everything that's going on in a bakery. > But it creates a degree of philosophical unease in the sensitive individual. It's not the universe's job to make us feel comfortable, nor is it science's job to discard findings on the grounds that we personally don't like their implications. The universe does not care about our comfort, and philosophical considerations are not part of the fabric of nature outside of your personal mental frameworks. There are many things about nature or the universe at large that make me uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean these facts should somehow be discarded. > My hunch is that what we are seeing is the population dynamics of all possible systems of interacting elements - or atleast a tiny little piece of it. I read this several times, and I have no idea what that means.