5 ms·

Goodness, that was pretty patronising. I didn't do maths past 18, so I'm not doing your math exercises (and you're rather obviously bandying jargon around for

Goodness, that was pretty patronising. I didn't do maths past 18, so I'm not doing your math exercises (and you're rather obviously bandying jargon around for purposes of belittling). Doesn't matter. Your opening remark hooked me; I thought you were going to tell me something interesting. Disappointment ensued.

raattgift 5y ago
Ok. I thought your comments were even more patronising, since you repeatedly discounted the work of many thousands of cosmologists around the world who did not stop maths at 18, and was provoked by them. A low math book I wholeheartedly recommend is A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime by Wheeler, which you can borrow from https://archive.org/details/journeyintogravi0000whee https://archive.org/details/journeyintogravi0000whee (Apart from writing this neat book, Wheeler is also the coauthor of one of the standard graduate-level textbooks on General Relativity.) Unfortunately the book is fairly rare, but there are usually purchase options and a public library might have a copy, or could get one via inter-library lending. I cannot gauge your level of interest other than that you expressed some; I also did not know until now, in spite of your disclaimer about not being a physicist (and being "an armchair cosmologist"), how little maths you have. I'll end with a Feynman quote that seems relevant when gauging one's own interest in and ability to talk about a topic that one does not know well: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I like Feynman. He was very smart and very witty. I do not have an ebook reader. However I am working my way through Penrose's "The Road To Reality". I'm halfway though, it's taken me a couple of years so far. I'm not up for doing graduate maths! Are people saying that you can't think about this kind of stuff, if you don't have graduate maths? That's patronising.
  - drdeca 5y ago
    If one doesn’t understand a topic, what value is there in what one says about it? That sounds like a mere dismissal, but let’s try to formulate an answer to it as an actual question. For one thing, if a field is full of intentionally confusing/obfuscated nonsense, then hopefully one could legitimately refute it without understanding the nonsense. For example, if some variant of astrology, or some theory of literary criticism, is intentionally so difficult to grasp, that none but it’s advocates have taken the time to understand it, that should not prevent the field from being dismissed as pointless nonsense. But what is the grounds on which such a dismissal should be based? Well, in the case of astrology, you can find that whatever predictions it makes are not better than chance. You don’t have to understand how the theory works to evaluate this, you just need the predictions made by the practitioners. In the case of a nonsensical theory of literary criticism, either it does not make any claims which have a meaning that can be evaluated outside of itself, in which case it can be dismissed as not saying anything that any non-practitioner would care about, or it does, in which case its merit can be judged, in part, based on those claims. But suppose there is a theory (or related family of theories) which one finds too complicated to understand, but which the community around it(/around them) uses to make accurate predictions. Can one then potentially offer useful criticism? In some cases, yes! If there is another theory which can be seen to make predictions or judgements which are just as good, or better, and such that one can give a strong argument that it is simpler, then one can put that forth as a good criticism. But, note, one should have a clear idea of what one means by simpler, or at least, of the basis by which one concludes that the other thing is simpler. Are there other cases that work? I think so, but suspect they are all, fairly limited in scope. If a community is able to make predictions well using a theory which has few parameters (in an appropriate way of counting parameters. E.g. no splitting the digits up to turn two parameters into one.) and no community has another theory which makes comparably good predictions, I think that without understanding the theory, or at least without understanding some part of it well, one wouldn’t have many compelling avenues of criticism. (If one is able to understand some small part of it well, one can potentially demonstrate that that small part of it seems to be e.g. obscurantism around a trivial point, or other issues with that small part. If one does this with a handful of very small parts this could be a quite compelling criticism, especially if no one is able to give a good justification for why it is said like that.) Of course, one can think all one wants about whatever topic. There is nothing objectionable about anyone thinking about a topic. But in presenting one’s thoughts, one should express an appropriate level of confidence based on how what one knows compared to what others know, about it. When people (not like you. I’m not talking about you here. I’m thinking of comments I see on youtube videos) with no math background think that “quantum mechanics is too complicated. It must, therefore, be wrong.”, they are making a mistake.
auntienomen 5y ago
Good lord, you think that's jargon? No, that's table stakes for a discussion. What you're doing here is the equivalent of mouthing off about combustion engines and then admitting you don't know what a piston is.
vecter 5y ago
You patronized the entire community of thousands of cosmologists who have trained their entire lives to think about this. They have had every thought you've had, but with much more knowledge and context. Do you not realize that?
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I know that there are only a few thousand professional cosmologists in the world - maybe only a few hundred. I don't know why a professional cosmologist should feel patronised by some twat like me. Some people up-thread have had a go at explaining things; I've learned, and I have some study leads. I don't learn from patronising insults.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  If you are a professional science researcher, I think your job includes explaining to the rest of us what you have learned. I don't think you are supposed to mock the rest of us, because we don't know as much as you know. I've never pretended to be anything other than an interested layman. I'm pretty surprised at the downvotes and hostility I've met. I mean, I knew my opinions were unpopular; I expected downvotes, but not hostility.
  - vecter 5y ago
    If you don’t want that kind of reaction, phrase your point of view in a way that’s more curious and less with the tone and perspective of “those guys are clueless and wrong.” I’m not a cosmologist. I don’t have a degree in physics. But when I read your comment, I was as upset as any of them would’ve been.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Alright, so perhaps my tone was ill-considered. I certainly don't think “those guys are clueless and wrong” - those guys are the people who worked out the stuff I think I know about the cosmos - not me. I'm dazzled by what they've done. When I were a lad, the Big Bang theory was treated with scepticism; the orthodoxy was Hoyle's steady state. Big Bang is now orthodoxy, steady state is dead, and Penrose is out in the weeds. Similarly the idea of a black hole was considered pretty left-field. It's now more-or-less proved. These changes have happened in my lifetime. My point is that what is considered orthodox can change in just a couple of decades; it's not insane to question whether an orthodoxy that's been in place for just a couple of decades (and is itself pretty speculative) should have the status of scientific fact. I'd be a fool to think that modern cosmological theory is in any way a final answer. Sure, I wouldn't recognise a Lagrange equation if it slapped me in the face. Similarly, I'm not an economist; I can't prove that Friedman had the wrong end of the stick. But I can still make reasonable judgements about a government's economic policies, and my judgements are sometimes more right than those of experts.

raattgift 5y ago

Ok. I thought your comments were even more patronising, since you repeatedly discounted the work of many thousands of cosmologists around the world who did not stop maths at 18, and was provoked by them. A low math book I wholeheartedly recommend is A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime by Wheeler, which you can borrow from https://archive.org/details/journeyintogravi0000whee https://archive.org/details/journeyintogravi0000whee (Apart from writing this neat book, Wheeler is also the coauthor of one of the standard graduate-level textbooks on General Relativity.) Unfortunately the book is fairly rare, but there are usually purchase options and a public library might have a copy, or could get one via inter-library lending. I cannot gauge your level of interest other than that you expressed some; I also did not know until now, in spite of your disclaimer about not being a physicist (and being "an armchair cosmologist"), how little maths you have. I'll end with a Feynman quote that seems relevant when gauging one's own interest in and ability to talk about a topic that one does not know well: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."

denton-scratch 5y ago
I like Feynman. He was very smart and very witty. I do not have an ebook reader. However I am working my way through Penrose's "The Road To Reality". I'm halfway though, it's taken me a couple of years so far. I'm not up for doing graduate maths! Are people saying that you can't think about this kind of stuff, if you don't have graduate maths? That's patronising.
- drdeca 5y ago
  If one doesn’t understand a topic, what value is there in what one says about it? That sounds like a mere dismissal, but let’s try to formulate an answer to it as an actual question. For one thing, if a field is full of intentionally confusing/obfuscated nonsense, then hopefully one could legitimately refute it without understanding the nonsense. For example, if some variant of astrology, or some theory of literary criticism, is intentionally so difficult to grasp, that none but it’s advocates have taken the time to understand it, that should not prevent the field from being dismissed as pointless nonsense. But what is the grounds on which such a dismissal should be based? Well, in the case of astrology, you can find that whatever predictions it makes are not better than chance. You don’t have to understand how the theory works to evaluate this, you just need the predictions made by the practitioners. In the case of a nonsensical theory of literary criticism, either it does not make any claims which have a meaning that can be evaluated outside of itself, in which case it can be dismissed as not saying anything that any non-practitioner would care about, or it does, in which case its merit can be judged, in part, based on those claims. But suppose there is a theory (or related family of theories) which one finds too complicated to understand, but which the community around it(/around them) uses to make accurate predictions. Can one then potentially offer useful criticism? In some cases, yes! If there is another theory which can be seen to make predictions or judgements which are just as good, or better, and such that one can give a strong argument that it is simpler, then one can put that forth as a good criticism. But, note, one should have a clear idea of what one means by simpler, or at least, of the basis by which one concludes that the other thing is simpler. Are there other cases that work? I think so, but suspect they are all, fairly limited in scope. If a community is able to make predictions well using a theory which has few parameters (in an appropriate way of counting parameters. E.g. no splitting the digits up to turn two parameters into one.) and no community has another theory which makes comparably good predictions, I think that without understanding the theory, or at least without understanding some part of it well, one wouldn’t have many compelling avenues of criticism. (If one is able to understand some small part of it well, one can potentially demonstrate that that small part of it seems to be e.g. obscurantism around a trivial point, or other issues with that small part. If one does this with a handful of very small parts this could be a quite compelling criticism, especially if no one is able to give a good justification for why it is said like that.) Of course, one can think all one wants about whatever topic. There is nothing objectionable about anyone thinking about a topic. But in presenting one’s thoughts, one should express an appropriate level of confidence based on how what one knows compared to what others know, about it. When people (not like you. I’m not talking about you here. I’m thinking of comments I see on youtube videos) with no math background think that “quantum mechanics is too complicated. It must, therefore, be wrong.”, they are making a mistake.

auntienomen 5y ago

Good lord, you think that's jargon? No, that's table stakes for a discussion. What you're doing here is the equivalent of mouthing off about combustion engines and then admitting you don't know what a piston is.

vecter 5y ago

You patronized the entire community of thousands of cosmologists who have trained their entire lives to think about this. They have had every thought you've had, but with much more knowledge and context. Do you not realize that?

denton-scratch 5y ago
I know that there are only a few thousand professional cosmologists in the world - maybe only a few hundred. I don't know why a professional cosmologist should feel patronised by some twat like me. Some people up-thread have had a go at explaining things; I've learned, and I have some study leads. I don't learn from patronising insults.
denton-scratch 5y ago
If you are a professional science researcher, I think your job includes explaining to the rest of us what you have learned. I don't think you are supposed to mock the rest of us, because we don't know as much as you know. I've never pretended to be anything other than an interested layman. I'm pretty surprised at the downvotes and hostility I've met. I mean, I knew my opinions were unpopular; I expected downvotes, but not hostility.
- vecter 5y ago
  If you don’t want that kind of reaction, phrase your point of view in a way that’s more curious and less with the tone and perspective of “those guys are clueless and wrong.” I’m not a cosmologist. I don’t have a degree in physics. But when I read your comment, I was as upset as any of them would’ve been.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Alright, so perhaps my tone was ill-considered. I certainly don't think “those guys are clueless and wrong” - those guys are the people who worked out the stuff I think I know about the cosmos - not me. I'm dazzled by what they've done. When I were a lad, the Big Bang theory was treated with scepticism; the orthodoxy was Hoyle's steady state. Big Bang is now orthodoxy, steady state is dead, and Penrose is out in the weeds. Similarly the idea of a black hole was considered pretty left-field. It's now more-or-less proved. These changes have happened in my lifetime. My point is that what is considered orthodox can change in just a couple of decades; it's not insane to question whether an orthodoxy that's been in place for just a couple of decades (and is itself pretty speculative) should have the status of scientific fact. I'd be a fool to think that modern cosmological theory is in any way a final answer. Sure, I wouldn't recognise a Lagrange equation if it slapped me in the face. Similarly, I'm not an economist; I can't prove that Friedman had the wrong end of the stick. But I can still make reasonable judgements about a government's economic policies, and my judgements are sometimes more right than those of experts.