3 ms·

Not without fine-tuning. The issue is that high-energy supersymmetry no longer removes the "ugly constants" of the standard model -- it just shifts them somewhe

Not without fine-tuning. The issue is that high-energy supersymmetry no longer removes the "ugly constants" of the standard model -- it just shifts them somewhere else. Disclaimer: not a physicist, but I learned a lot reading "Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray".

Pet_Ant 3y ago
…by Sabine Hossenfelder. I treat her like Jordan Peterson. Obviously smart, but also obviously bitter and if/when they have a valid point I’m sure someone else has said it in a less grating manner.
- monkeydreams 3y ago
  Sabine argues the data, in good(ish) faith, but she does carry a chip on her shoulder. Peterson does not argue data - he suggests analogies and then holds those analogies as iron-clad transitive relationships to argue his preconceived position.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Physics needs more insider critics. She's oppositional but - unlike Peterson - she does know what she's talking about.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  Jordan Peterson now is so far gone into the far right now it's not remotely comparable. Maybe been you mean Jordan Peterson the year 1 edition where he was still talking about personal responsibility.
  - runsWphotons 3y ago
    Jordan Peterson has had many iterations. The year -5 edition had good psychology lectures and I disagree with the above poster who says he doesn't know what he is talking about. Within his academic realm, I think he did, although there would be points other academics would contest (this is what academics do). He has then gone through at least two transformations.
    - yarg 3y ago
      His position regarding a lot of religious topics seems tainted by his personal beliefs. He makes frequent reference to judaeo-christian archetypes, which seems to me to grossly overstate the relevance of the belief systems. The fundamental archetypes represented in the human mind are far older than any current form of religion, to the extent that there's overlap then either the archetypes have been co-opted, or have been overlaid with a culturally mediated avatars. I don't think that you ever find him framing those underlying structures in a way that does not tie back to Christ.
      - nyokodo 3y ago
        > which seems to me to grossly overstate the relevance of the belief systems. It is hardly possible to overstate the relevance of those archetypes and beliefs. Nothing else has been more widespread on earth for as long to have anywhere close to the same influence on humanity.
        yarg 3y ago
        I do not mean in terms of pervasiveness - I mean in terms of them innately making up a piece of the underlying structures of human consciousness. And to the extent that those beliefs are actually archetypal, they are not fundamentally judaeo-christian but predate and have been co-opted by those religions.
        astrange 3y ago
        I'm not familiar enough to know what a "Judeo-Christian archetype" is, but Indian/Chinese origin religions are older, just about as numerous, and not particularly similar. (Where Buddhism is similar, it's because "religion" as a concept had to be made legible to Westerners when they showed up so they wouldn't colonize you so hard, and they did this by putting Western philosophy in it.)
        yarg 3y ago
        Things like the virgin mother (bare in mind, much like Peterson, I'm pulling this out of my arse). My take on that it is a perspective based subset of actuality; in the case of the mother (as opposed) to the wife, 'she' is measured from the perspective of the child, she has her nurturing capabilities but not those of reproduction. Reproduction is outside of the child's need to understand, and is not a property of the mother as it is seen from the child's perspective. Bare in mind that the archetype is always perceived by the child, the husband will see something else. These restrictions are based on perspective and need, and are reflective only of a limited subset of reality. Christianity has taken that childish abstraction, and declared it to be an actual thing, that actually existed. It doesn't take much consideration to understand that virgins don't give birth to sons (and if they ever give birth to daughters, they'll be genetic clones of the mother).
- s17n 3y ago
  Hm, that seems like the opposite of Jordan Peterson (who is obviously an idiot, but has a good voice for TV)
- snapcaster 3y ago
  I hear this a lot from people. As a non-physicist who enjoys her content, what am I missing? is she wrong on any specific physics? Without specific criticism this comes off as insiders being upset that a fellow insider is critical of the field
  - throwaway81523 3y ago
    I'm no insider but I haven't found Hossenfelder's stuff that impressive. Her reasoning tends to take the form "X is true, therefore Y", where "if X then Y" is a valid deduction, and X hasn't been proven false, so we can't say she's wrong on specific physics. But the presumption that X is true is unjustified even if X hasn't been proven false. Example: she likes superdeterminism instead of quantum mechanics with its various weird consequences. Ok, her version of superdeterminism hasn't been proven wrong, but that's a long way off from saying that it is right. It comes down to her saying "I believe X and I haven't been proven wrong, even though most other physicists believe not-X, but I like my theory better, so there". Perfectly fine and legit, but I'll take X seriously when I see more recognition for it from the rest of physics. The same goes for this stuff about tests of string theory. As far as I can tell, string theory is perfectly good physics whether or not it is experimentally testable. That is, there is a viewpoint called "naive Popperianism" that if something isn't experimentally testable then it it isn't science, but from what I can tell, that viewpoint is not truly decisive (thus "naive"), and its proponents don't have the authority that they wish they did. As a comparable situation, there is not much dispute that general relativity (GR) is perfectly good physics except at the center of a black hole, where it predicts a singularity which people consider non-physical. Particularly, GR makes predictions about the interior of black holes (points inside the event horizon) that are considered perfectly good except at the center. But, since there is no way to observe the inside of a black hole, those predictions of GR are also not verifiable. So I'm not bothered by unverifiability. Theory is good if it has explanatory or interpretive power, not just testable predictive power.
    - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
      GR is ok, the problem is with researchers that use GR for work in quantum gravity, like information paradox.

Pet_Ant 3y ago

…by Sabine Hossenfelder. I treat her like Jordan Peterson. Obviously smart, but also obviously bitter and if/when they have a valid point I’m sure someone else has said it in a less grating manner.

monkeydreams 3y ago
Sabine argues the data, in good(ish) faith, but she does carry a chip on her shoulder. Peterson does not argue data - he suggests analogies and then holds those analogies as iron-clad transitive relationships to argue his preconceived position.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Physics needs more insider critics. She's oppositional but - unlike Peterson - she does know what she's talking about.
gloryjulio 3y ago
Jordan Peterson now is so far gone into the far right now it's not remotely comparable. Maybe been you mean Jordan Peterson the year 1 edition where he was still talking about personal responsibility.
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  Jordan Peterson has had many iterations. The year -5 edition had good psychology lectures and I disagree with the above poster who says he doesn't know what he is talking about. Within his academic realm, I think he did, although there would be points other academics would contest (this is what academics do). He has then gone through at least two transformations.
  - yarg 3y ago
    His position regarding a lot of religious topics seems tainted by his personal beliefs. He makes frequent reference to judaeo-christian archetypes, which seems to me to grossly overstate the relevance of the belief systems. The fundamental archetypes represented in the human mind are far older than any current form of religion, to the extent that there's overlap then either the archetypes have been co-opted, or have been overlaid with a culturally mediated avatars. I don't think that you ever find him framing those underlying structures in a way that does not tie back to Christ.
    - nyokodo 3y ago
      > which seems to me to grossly overstate the relevance of the belief systems. It is hardly possible to overstate the relevance of those archetypes and beliefs. Nothing else has been more widespread on earth for as long to have anywhere close to the same influence on humanity.
      - yarg 3y ago
        I do not mean in terms of pervasiveness - I mean in terms of them innately making up a piece of the underlying structures of human consciousness. And to the extent that those beliefs are actually archetypal, they are not fundamentally judaeo-christian but predate and have been co-opted by those religions.
      - astrange 3y ago
        I'm not familiar enough to know what a "Judeo-Christian archetype" is, but Indian/Chinese origin religions are older, just about as numerous, and not particularly similar. (Where Buddhism is similar, it's because "religion" as a concept had to be made legible to Westerners when they showed up so they wouldn't colonize you so hard, and they did this by putting Western philosophy in it.)
        yarg 3y ago
        Things like the virgin mother (bare in mind, much like Peterson, I'm pulling this out of my arse). My take on that it is a perspective based subset of actuality; in the case of the mother (as opposed) to the wife, 'she' is measured from the perspective of the child, she has her nurturing capabilities but not those of reproduction. Reproduction is outside of the child's need to understand, and is not a property of the mother as it is seen from the child's perspective. Bare in mind that the archetype is always perceived by the child, the husband will see something else. These restrictions are based on perspective and need, and are reflective only of a limited subset of reality. Christianity has taken that childish abstraction, and declared it to be an actual thing, that actually existed. It doesn't take much consideration to understand that virgins don't give birth to sons (and if they ever give birth to daughters, they'll be genetic clones of the mother).
s17n 3y ago
Hm, that seems like the opposite of Jordan Peterson (who is obviously an idiot, but has a good voice for TV)
snapcaster 3y ago
I hear this a lot from people. As a non-physicist who enjoys her content, what am I missing? is she wrong on any specific physics? Without specific criticism this comes off as insiders being upset that a fellow insider is critical of the field
- throwaway81523 3y ago
  I'm no insider but I haven't found Hossenfelder's stuff that impressive. Her reasoning tends to take the form "X is true, therefore Y", where "if X then Y" is a valid deduction, and X hasn't been proven false, so we can't say she's wrong on specific physics. But the presumption that X is true is unjustified even if X hasn't been proven false. Example: she likes superdeterminism instead of quantum mechanics with its various weird consequences. Ok, her version of superdeterminism hasn't been proven wrong, but that's a long way off from saying that it is right. It comes down to her saying "I believe X and I haven't been proven wrong, even though most other physicists believe not-X, but I like my theory better, so there". Perfectly fine and legit, but I'll take X seriously when I see more recognition for it from the rest of physics. The same goes for this stuff about tests of string theory. As far as I can tell, string theory is perfectly good physics whether or not it is experimentally testable. That is, there is a viewpoint called "naive Popperianism" that if something isn't experimentally testable then it it isn't science, but from what I can tell, that viewpoint is not truly decisive (thus "naive"), and its proponents don't have the authority that they wish they did. As a comparable situation, there is not much dispute that general relativity (GR) is perfectly good physics except at the center of a black hole, where it predicts a singularity which people consider non-physical. Particularly, GR makes predictions about the interior of black holes (points inside the event horizon) that are considered perfectly good except at the center. But, since there is no way to observe the inside of a black hole, those predictions of GR are also not verifiable. So I'm not bothered by unverifiability. Theory is good if it has explanatory or interpretive power, not just testable predictive power.
  - GoblinSlayer 3y ago
    GR is ok, the problem is with researchers that use GR for work in quantum gravity, like information paradox.