5 ms·

What you call the "pessimistic view" might be very enthusiastic about projects that are orders of magnitude more likely to work. So in my opinion, the relevant

What you call the "pessimistic view" might be very enthusiastic about projects that are orders of magnitude more likely to work. So in my opinion, the relevant axis is not optimistic vs. pessimistic, but informed vs. uninformed. Can an outsider with no knowledge of the field make a chance discovery? It's theoretically possible, and we might want to support undirected experimentation for the one in a billion chance that something might work. But we should take those probabilities into account when allocating our collective resources.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
So tell me, how do we calculate probability for yet unknown phenomen? Which is more 'probable' to be correct - string theory or loop quantum gravity? If I want to investigate einstein rosen bridges, whats the probability I am wasting my time?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Usually you look at the volume of experimental evidence that directly contradicts it. In this case there’s quite a lot.
  - Certhas 6y ago
    This this this. Sooooo much. This always was flying spaghetti monster level unlikely. People simply do not understand how tightly constrained things like this are by existing evidence. And almost uniquely so. When experimentalists announced they had discovered super-luminal neutrinos, everybody reacted exactly like all the amateurs here are saying we should: Explore potential theoretical ramifications while being aware that it's most likely measurement error and encourage further study until we're sure. Not so for the EMDrive. Why? Because the idea that using nothing but electromagnetism you can violate this foundational property of every physical theory since Newton (_including_ electromagnetism) means that somehow your electromagnetic device, while operating well within the range of millions of other experiments out there, somehow triggered behaviour fundamentally different from electromagnetism. Different from the type of theory that electromagnetism is. Different from the type of theory that every physical theory ever found to describe reality is. And yet this phenomenon that is utterly _different_ than anything else we have ever seen went completely unnoticed in the millions of em sensitive experiments performed by everyone from undergrads to international labs over the last two centuries. In the strictest sense it's not logically impossible that this could happen. But only in the sense that it's not logically impossible that the flying spaghetti monster is manipulating every scientific experiment performed to hide itself.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

So tell me, how do we calculate probability for yet unknown phenomen? Which is more 'probable' to be correct - string theory or loop quantum gravity? If I want to investigate einstein rosen bridges, whats the probability I am wasting my time?

saagarjha 6y ago
Usually you look at the volume of experimental evidence that directly contradicts it. In this case there’s quite a lot.
- Certhas 6y ago
  This this this. Sooooo much. This always was flying spaghetti monster level unlikely. People simply do not understand how tightly constrained things like this are by existing evidence. And almost uniquely so. When experimentalists announced they had discovered super-luminal neutrinos, everybody reacted exactly like all the amateurs here are saying we should: Explore potential theoretical ramifications while being aware that it's most likely measurement error and encourage further study until we're sure. Not so for the EMDrive. Why? Because the idea that using nothing but electromagnetism you can violate this foundational property of every physical theory since Newton (_including_ electromagnetism) means that somehow your electromagnetic device, while operating well within the range of millions of other experiments out there, somehow triggered behaviour fundamentally different from electromagnetism. Different from the type of theory that electromagnetism is. Different from the type of theory that every physical theory ever found to describe reality is. And yet this phenomenon that is utterly _different_ than anything else we have ever seen went completely unnoticed in the millions of em sensitive experiments performed by everyone from undergrads to international labs over the last two centuries. In the strictest sense it's not logically impossible that this could happen. But only in the sense that it's not logically impossible that the flying spaghetti monster is manipulating every scientific experiment performed to hide itself.