3 ms·

People say they are impressed, but it has no real quality to it, it's just a word. Actual wonder is gone by the time a person reaches adolescence. From there it

People say they are impressed, but it has no real quality to it, it's just a word. Actual wonder is gone by the time a person reaches adolescence. From there it's just cramming more facts in. The basis of understanding the physical world is already given: it's a mechanical process involving matter, energy and motion. What is so interesting about learning another variation of those? If you could build an AI to give us all the valid variations, you're still stuck with the premise. It's like being a chess piece and being shown another position on the board. If you can be satisfied with that then good luck I guess.

idiotsecant 3y ago
This is like deciding that we've already figured out that the celestial spheres are why the stars move in the way they do. Why bother to figure out any more? Improvements to understanding always seem obvious after they're made and it always seema like you have a mostly complete worldview right up until you realize you don't. That's how it works. If you can explain to me from base principles why the fine structure constant has the value it does, or why there is such a pronounced baryon asymmetry or any of the many big open questions in basic physics I will acquiesce the point. Being ignorant of the big questions doesn't mean big questions don't exist, only that you don't know about them yet.
- alienicecream 3y ago
  I'm not saying everything is known. The question is, are there any questions we can ask that have a potential answer that will not be answered by a material, mechanical description. Because we already know what that entails. Can you conceive of an explanation of the fine structure constant or any other question in physics, or any other domain of science that doesn't have a material mechanical basis as the answer? If not, then all the answers are variations on each other. To be fair, in some sense that project has already broken down. We have 'fields' in empty space, 'virtual' particles, correlation over distances where causation is not possible, and other things that, basically, are inconceivable.

idiotsecant 3y ago

This is like deciding that we've already figured out that the celestial spheres are why the stars move in the way they do. Why bother to figure out any more? Improvements to understanding always seem obvious after they're made and it always seema like you have a mostly complete worldview right up until you realize you don't. That's how it works. If you can explain to me from base principles why the fine structure constant has the value it does, or why there is such a pronounced baryon asymmetry or any of the many big open questions in basic physics I will acquiesce the point. Being ignorant of the big questions doesn't mean big questions don't exist, only that you don't know about them yet.

alienicecream 3y ago
I'm not saying everything is known. The question is, are there any questions we can ask that have a potential answer that will not be answered by a material, mechanical description. Because we already know what that entails. Can you conceive of an explanation of the fine structure constant or any other question in physics, or any other domain of science that doesn't have a material mechanical basis as the answer? If not, then all the answers are variations on each other. To be fair, in some sense that project has already broken down. We have 'fields' in empty space, 'virtual' particles, correlation over distances where causation is not possible, and other things that, basically, are inconceivable.