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He would have lost that one, too. It was hubris—but it sold, and it is part of his legacy. He showed younger colleagues how to chase grand theories and best-sel
by macando 5y ago
He would have lost that one, too. It was hubris—but it sold, and it is part of his legacy. He showed younger colleagues how to chase grand theories and best-selling books. Hawking is not the only physicist guilty of hawking.
The theory of everything is a false idol. Why should the universe, which grows more gloriously complex the more we see, be reducible to one set of equations and formulae? The point of science is not the holy grail but the quest—the searching and the asking. Let us hope there will never be a final theory.
Can't understand why people hope there won't be a final theory. Sounds demotivating and grim.
Solving that puzzle will help with other puzzles.
- telesilla 5y agoBecause a theory of everything, that encapsulates change within itself, would be a paradox?
- sgt101 5y agoI don't think so because it would be written in a system that would not be the thing. It would necessarily be an abstraction of reality because physics is not the universe.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> The theory of everything is a false idol. Why should the universe, which grows more gloriously complex the more we see, be reducible to one set of equations and formulae? This is a pretty staggering mistake. The only way for the universe not to be reducible to one set of formulae would be to involve a meddling supernatural and ineffable force. (If it's not ineffable, it's just more formulae.) The goal of a unified theory is to have a single formula.
- plutonorm 5y agoWould it? As a counter point - consider a universe where all possible things exist. We know from algorithmic information theory that most things are incompressible. Who is to say we don't live in an area within the totality of all possible things that happens to be in part entirely incompressible?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 0-_-0 5y agoIf algortihmic infomarion theory applies to the universe: 1. All possible things won't exist 2. Entirely incompressible areas wont exist becuse that would mean they are completely noise 3. The univese willl have the simplest possbile "generating function", that is, fundamental theory.
- plutonorm 5y ago1: why? 2: why? 3: why? Your answer feels dismissive and yet at the same time naive.
- 0-_-0 5y ago1. Due to entropy our universe won't contain "all possible things" 2. It's the definition of "incompressible" 3. It's the fundamental principle of algorithmic information theory
- plutonorm 5y agoOk I see what you mean. I agree. But you have also misunderstood what I was saying wrt 'universe' Consider that this universe could be an instance of the structure that is formed by the algorithm that you are talking about. Consider that all possible alternate structures may also exist. Now consider that there exist 'Garden states' that are unreachable because they are incompressible. So might it not be possible to be conscious in a universe that has no generating function? The mathematical structure representing this universe exist in the abstract, timeless and static. Your life is a slice through this giant structure. Infinitely many of those structures exist, is there one out there that contains conscious beings that believe they inhabit an orderly universe but they actually inhabit one where the starting state of their universe was a garden state, containing a vast un-generatable structure that has informed the evolution of the universe from afar. But then it would still have a minimal function. Bugger. What if that universe there existed a capricious demon that used the information in the initial state to... Nope that doesn't work either. Ok you win :(
- raverbashing 5y ago> The goal of a unified theory is to have a single formula. No, this is ridiculous. Not even electromagnetism is a single formula Expecting we end up with "a single formula" is a ridiculous strawman. What we need is explain GR with a foundation in QM (or with a common base, which might - but probably won't - be String Theory)
- 0-_-0 5y agoA single formula is entirely possible. Simple rules in principle can generate the complexity of the universe we see. Look into the Wolfram Science Project to see how.
- pierrefermat1 5y agoYes and all of his CA's are at least 3 conditional statements, but if you're inclined to count that as one formula with split definitions then anything can be bashed into "a single formula"
- raverbashing 5y ago> Look into the Wolfram Science Project Ah yes that "theory" that ignores the complexity and quirks of reality
- ddxxdd 5y ago>Not even electromagnetism is a single formula "dF = 0" represents all of Maxwell's (homogeneous) equations in terms of "differential forms". With the right pattern recognition, the right definitions, and the right paradigm shift, you can compress multiple equations into a single equation.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoWith the right assumptions, ignoring not a few significant details, to a useful order of precision, as long as you don't look too hard. Maxwell's equations are a nice continuous approximation to whatever it is that really happens. But it's not a good idea to confuse the map with the territory.
- ncmncm 5y agoJust because the levels we have got through are comprehensible to (some) humans and accessible to mathematics (some) humans can devise is no guarantee that the next level down, at higher energy and finer scale, will be, too. The bits we understand are accessible at energies we can muster, but there is no reason to expect we will evade extinction long enough to be able even to test string theory. We have been lucky thus far, but the fundamental nature of luck is that it runs out. Physics departments are already beginning to turn toward theology. In another two generations will there still be experiments in fundamental physics? What we can be certain of is that they won't close up shop and go home. They will still publish as many papers as required, and graduate post-docs. Ultimately, academic forms do not require factual correction.
- vidarh 5y agoThere are two separate things here: 1. whether we will find a unified theory. 2. whether it is in theory possible to find a unified theory. The comment you replied to addresses #2. They're saying basically that if the universe is constrained to some set of knowable rules, then it can be reduced to a set of formulae, which is pretty much the same as saying if the rules are knowable, they're expressible as a set of formulae. Whether this set of rules is simple enough that we are able to is a separate issue.
- ncmncm 5y agoUltimately, the two are indistinguishable without a unified theory in hand. There is no guarantee that if a unified theory is possible, it is expressible in mathematics; or even necessarily in any form smaller than the universe itself. We have been lucky for a long time.
- vidarh 5y agoYou're right in one sense, in that if #2 is true, then #1 is true in at least some sense. That is, if the universe is not ineffable - that is, unless there are unknowable components to the universe - then a "worst case" unified theory can be defined as itself. That is, the universe itself is an expression of itself. That we can express it in mathematics is a given in that case because mathematics is malleable; all you need to do - though it wouldn't be very useful - is to invent a symbol that represents the universe-as-is that by definition acts how the universe would act in a given context. Obviously that is not very interesting, but the point it makes is that if the universe is not ineffable, then the question is not if a unified theory is possible, because in that case the universe itself is proof that it is, but how much we can compress such a theory, and whether we can reduce it to something simple. As such whether or not a theory is possible may seem like it doesn't matter, but it's an important point to make, because it means that anyone making the argument that a unified theory is not possible rather than arguing that a simple unified theory is not possible is in effect arguing the universe is ineffable.
- jjgreen 5y agoGödel demonstrated that mathematics is limited in scope, who's to say that physics is in that scope?
- sgt101 5y agoI thought that Godel demonstrated that there are theorems in a formal system that cannot be proved in that system. Physics is not expressed with the formalism that is reality, and there are different choices of formalism that can be used to express the concepts of physics. I don't think that Godel showed that there were statements that can't be proven in any system.
- syops 5y agoAssume consistency. Take the collections of all true statements about the standard model of the natural numbers and make these statements your axioms. Now every true statement about the standard model of the natural numbers is provable. It’s a useless axiomatic system since there is no procedure for knowing if a statement is an axiom of not (that works for every statement). The second order Peano axioms are categorical and assuming consistency every true statement is ‘provable’.
- ProfHewitt 5y agoHigher-order Dedekind/Peano axioms are categorical in the sense that they characterize Natural Numbers up to a unique isomorphism. However, there is still a proposition about Natural Numbers that true but unprovable using the Dedekind/Peano axioms. Further information can be found here: "Physical Indeterminacy in Digital Computation" https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566
- syops 5y agoSo the last sentence I made is false. The rest is correct, right?
- morelisp 5y agoWhen non-specialists use "set" they usually mean "finite set" or "finitely schematized set" or maybe at most "recursively enumerable set." There's no guarantee the universe is reducible to any of these (although in the likely case the universe is finite in space and time there will be some degenerate case of formulas for everything which "happened" - imo less satisfying than even an approximation via some small set of axiom schemata).
- tgv 5y agoI take offense at this statement: > The point of science is not the holy grail but the quest If the quest is the point, you can do that anywhere, anytime, without regard of the outcome. The point is a glimpse of the truth. How we get there is largely irrelevant.
- taklamundak 5y agoGood
- accurrent 5y agoI disagree with you. Personally I think science is very much about the process. The best science occurs when we disprove a hypothesis using experiments. An excellent example would be Michaelson and Morley experiment which disproved the existence of ether. The day science becomes about proving truth, it is no longer science, it becomes religion.
- tgv 5y agoBut do you care about how they disproved it? Or do you care about the outcome? The process is interesting, can provide useful information, and a good process is the only way forward we have, etc., but it's not the point of science. What good is the process if the outcome is bad? This may be a linguistic thing, though. Perhaps we read that phrase in a different way. But to me, it very much echoes "it's about the journey, not the destination".
- accurrent 5y agoKind of sad to see my point downvoted. How something is disproved is very important. It tells us our theory is wrong. When we see a theory is wrong we reject it - this is the crux of the scientific method. An experiment by its nature pushes a theory to its limits. Going back to the example of Michaelson Morley, the experiment confirms that ether does not exist. Yes, the outcome of the experiment is that the ether theory doesn't hold. Yes, special relativity explains the micelson morley experiment but the converse is not nessecarily true. Now it is possible that the standard model and general relativity are the absolute truth, buth it would be unscientific not to try to find better explanations. Going back to your point about "do you care about how they disproved it?" Yes, I do, and you should too. The michaelson morley experiment was a properly performed scientific experiment with every step documented so someone could replucate it. It is a source of truth which I can trust. On the otherhand if a tom dick and harry claimed that they had a vision and that this vision told them relativity is not true, I would definitely not trust such a claim. Your point about the result being important is valid. Yes, as an engineer or as a business man results are far more important than process. But a scientist, must care about the process more than the result. If they didnt we would not be able to trust their conclusions.
- tinus_hn 5y agoLook at computer science. We design the computer, we make all the rules. Yet there is plenty of room for science.
- koheripbal 5y agoWithout getting philosophical, it would seem to me that if there was a single expression/equation/concept that explained everything - that it might be unknowable. ...because truly knowing it would create a new universe in that mind. In that way, maybe we are a "simulation" - ie. inside the mind the prior person who understood the principle and created the universe again. ...or it's just impossible to fully know a system from within that system.
- Trasmatta 5y agoI don't think this makes sense. A model doesn't become the thing it models.
- JoeyBananas 5y agoIn math, there are results that say something to the effect of "their is no singular program that can prove all interesting theorems." This is not usually seen as demoralizing by mathematicians, but rather as a guarentee that math will never be "solved." I would think that physicist feel similarly about the apparent non-feasibility of a unified physical theory.
- karmakaze 5y agoThe Gödel incompleteness theorem basically says any axiomatic system can have questions posed within it that can be true but impossible to prove. If one could, then it must be inconsistent. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_...