Theme: Science

  • Notes on Eric Weinstein’s Theory

    He demonstrates why geometry must remain the basis for mathematics, else it becomes ordinary language with all it’s faults – long standing complaint – and primary pre-war concern of mathematicians who were concerned by the restoration of mysticism in mathematics by empty verbalisms like ‘multiple infinities’ vs ‘pairing off at different rates’. This restoration of mysticism (Cantor, Bohr, and to some degree Keynes) reversed the restoration of mathematics to geometry by Descartes. He does a great job of demonstrating anchoring in any academic endeavor. And that some scientific half-solutions are sources of ignorance. And that generations of malinvested academics have to die off before their sources of ignorance can be overcome. His interjection with illustrations are a romantic cultural indulgence that distracts from his argument. He missed the point on Hilbert – that Einstein created an obstacle by half-finishing the theory and hilbert wouldn’t have. His logic is elegant, interesting, and thorough. And easier to follow than I expected. He does not make the transition from point-geometry to shape geometry. He does not make the connection between the problem of protein folding and the problem of particles producing waves. He identifies an avenue for investigation but he does not get to the point where he grasps that the reason his theory is correct but limited is that the information is insufficient to deduce from the top down or competition between formulae because we cannot measure. And so he doesn’t get to the point of working with primitives (operations) to produce wave forms (aggregates). So he doesn’t get to the point where math might be the wrong tool per se, and that simulations are necessary – by trial and error – to produce the underlying geometry. It’s not obvious that the sub-quantum (statistical) would logically operate by the same rules as chemistry and bio chemistry, molecular biology, and genetics etc – by an operational grammar. So, my suspicion is that “You can’t get there from here”. There is no means of anticipating the grammar (referent, logic, operations, transformations). All we are left with is trial and error. (My sympathies since I had to work outside the academy as well – there is no way to put a dissertation committee together for my work either.) — Curt Doolittle

  • “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.

    Apr 10, 2020, 8:01 PM

    Fiction is entertainment. Literature is philosophy in slow motion. philosophy is theology in disguise of literature. science, economics, and law – well, that’s for grownups. Math is for grownups who like to make other grownups feel dumb. 😉   “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.

  • “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.

    Apr 10, 2020, 8:01 PM

    Fiction is entertainment. Literature is philosophy in slow motion. philosophy is theology in disguise of literature. science, economics, and law – well, that’s for grownups. Math is for grownups who like to make other grownups feel dumb. 😉   “Stupid” reveals itself in the abstracts.

  • Notes on Eric Weinstein interview:

    Apr 15, 2020, 7:05 PM 1) Continuing my criticism: You notice that Erice is GSRRM’ing all day long, but he’s not proposing an alternative model. Not how to create the research economy. Now how to reform the academy. He hasn’t provided enough a solution that’s strong enough to falsify the existing body of work. All he’s doing is GSRRM. And he pulls entertaining pseudo-intellectual analogy that makes a good story out of his hat rather than produce solutions open to criticism. 2) He goes after Lisi who took a different strategy and at least provided one output: candidates. I don’t see an output here. I see someone hinting at an avenue he wants other men to investigate? 3) Eric’s Attempt at description Two Models GR=General Relativity, . SM=Standard Model Four forces. One Gravitational, three not: 1) photons, 2) gluons and 3) intermediate vector Bosons. Then Matter. GR = Pride of place to gravity. SM = The other three of the four forces shine. photons, gluons and intermediate vector Bosons Take a manifold … (explains a manifold as a workspace in some geometry or other)… then goes off the rails again. Tired. Either you can construct an operational argument or you can’t. Mathematics is a trivial logic that because it is one dimensional (positional) is so simple that we can use it to describe any set of constant referents in constant relation independent of scale. All this childish digression into cartoons is self congratulatory nonsense. Either make the argument or don’t. And yes, it can be made in ordinary language because there is nothing that can be said in mathematics that cannot be said in ordinary, operational language, albeit with effort. 4) Well done on Gauge Theory: that is the best most accurate most parsimonious definition of gauge theory. To construct an operational argument, next describe Arithmetic > Accounting > Geometry > Calculus > Gauge Theory > Schrodinger > Weyl > Dirac > Yang-Mills-Maxwell > Lagrangian etc, using the same technique and it’s an obvious progression. I wish he’d do the same for symmetries and lie groups and explain why they’re important (evidence of equilibria). Correct on how the world hasn’t even caught up to the standard model, but then again, it’s not clear the community has either … because without it farther along, it’s still spoken in platonic language like a neo-mysticism just as dozen’s of great mathematicians warned. Regarding Dimensions: always confuses people when we confuse people with the four dimensional world and the forces (dimensions) that influence the points of reference (Positions) in that four dimensional space. As far as we know only three+one dimensions are required to describe a point in space time, but to to describe changes to it can require absurd numbers of dimensions. It’s one of those problems of the grammar of mathematical platonism. We describe space time with four dimensions, and we describe the forces on points in those four dimensions with additional dimensions when we say ‘it has’ vs ‘ we use’. Space and time do not have anything. We describe them with three plus one dimensions. No point that I know of requires more than three. This platonic (supernatural) vocabulary always loses the audience. 5) There is very little difference between strictly constructed law and the mathematics of euclidian geometry other than the far larger number of referents and operations in human behavior, and the far larger number of causal dimensions in mathematics that needn’t be described in human action.. If I can do it in my field Eric can do it in his. I had similar difficulty when I didn’t fully understand the problem. Once you fully understand the problem you should be able to reduce it to operational language (meaning scientific testimony). He doesn’t. He can’t. I have a lifetime of experience with people across the spectrum whether dyslexia or aspergers or anything in between. The fact that these people (myself included) identify patterns of promise does not mean that they are capable of doing anything about it. And so far the sour grapes thing, which I have also for the exact same reason, is.. well… not helping. Public therapy by verbal exegesis tiresome. Listening to his presentation of his theory, I understood his deduction. Until I understand his construction, assuming there is one, then I can’t tell if obsessions with critiques, virtue signaling, and trauma pandering combined with lack of ability to articulate solutions, is cover for lacking solutions. So, I understand administrative skepticism. Conversation ends.

  • Notes on Eric Weinstein interview:

    Apr 15, 2020, 7:05 PM 1) Continuing my criticism: You notice that Erice is GSRRM’ing all day long, but he’s not proposing an alternative model. Not how to create the research economy. Now how to reform the academy. He hasn’t provided enough a solution that’s strong enough to falsify the existing body of work. All he’s doing is GSRRM. And he pulls entertaining pseudo-intellectual analogy that makes a good story out of his hat rather than produce solutions open to criticism. 2) He goes after Lisi who took a different strategy and at least provided one output: candidates. I don’t see an output here. I see someone hinting at an avenue he wants other men to investigate? 3) Eric’s Attempt at description Two Models GR=General Relativity, . SM=Standard Model Four forces. One Gravitational, three not: 1) photons, 2) gluons and 3) intermediate vector Bosons. Then Matter. GR = Pride of place to gravity. SM = The other three of the four forces shine. photons, gluons and intermediate vector Bosons Take a manifold … (explains a manifold as a workspace in some geometry or other)… then goes off the rails again. Tired. Either you can construct an operational argument or you can’t. Mathematics is a trivial logic that because it is one dimensional (positional) is so simple that we can use it to describe any set of constant referents in constant relation independent of scale. All this childish digression into cartoons is self congratulatory nonsense. Either make the argument or don’t. And yes, it can be made in ordinary language because there is nothing that can be said in mathematics that cannot be said in ordinary, operational language, albeit with effort. 4) Well done on Gauge Theory: that is the best most accurate most parsimonious definition of gauge theory. To construct an operational argument, next describe Arithmetic > Accounting > Geometry > Calculus > Gauge Theory > Schrodinger > Weyl > Dirac > Yang-Mills-Maxwell > Lagrangian etc, using the same technique and it’s an obvious progression. I wish he’d do the same for symmetries and lie groups and explain why they’re important (evidence of equilibria). Correct on how the world hasn’t even caught up to the standard model, but then again, it’s not clear the community has either … because without it farther along, it’s still spoken in platonic language like a neo-mysticism just as dozen’s of great mathematicians warned. Regarding Dimensions: always confuses people when we confuse people with the four dimensional world and the forces (dimensions) that influence the points of reference (Positions) in that four dimensional space. As far as we know only three+one dimensions are required to describe a point in space time, but to to describe changes to it can require absurd numbers of dimensions. It’s one of those problems of the grammar of mathematical platonism. We describe space time with four dimensions, and we describe the forces on points in those four dimensions with additional dimensions when we say ‘it has’ vs ‘ we use’. Space and time do not have anything. We describe them with three plus one dimensions. No point that I know of requires more than three. This platonic (supernatural) vocabulary always loses the audience. 5) There is very little difference between strictly constructed law and the mathematics of euclidian geometry other than the far larger number of referents and operations in human behavior, and the far larger number of causal dimensions in mathematics that needn’t be described in human action.. If I can do it in my field Eric can do it in his. I had similar difficulty when I didn’t fully understand the problem. Once you fully understand the problem you should be able to reduce it to operational language (meaning scientific testimony). He doesn’t. He can’t. I have a lifetime of experience with people across the spectrum whether dyslexia or aspergers or anything in between. The fact that these people (myself included) identify patterns of promise does not mean that they are capable of doing anything about it. And so far the sour grapes thing, which I have also for the exact same reason, is.. well… not helping. Public therapy by verbal exegesis tiresome. Listening to his presentation of his theory, I understood his deduction. Until I understand his construction, assuming there is one, then I can’t tell if obsessions with critiques, virtue signaling, and trauma pandering combined with lack of ability to articulate solutions, is cover for lacking solutions. So, I understand administrative skepticism. Conversation ends.

  • Patterns

    This is just SOME of the patterns I found. And that’s before I get into math, physics, and economics

  • Dark Forces

    The eternal war of men of mind against the dark forces of time, ignorance, folly, scarcity, and the red queen. 

  • Dark Forces

    The eternal war of men of mind against the dark forces of time, ignorance, folly, scarcity, and the red queen. 

  • And that is a technical way of agreeing with you. That said, we made many errors

    And that is a technical way of agreeing with you.

    That said, we made many errors in the 20th century not the least of which were blank slate, nature nurture, the malleability of mankind,equality of ability, individual agency, and natural morality. All of which are false.


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-21 22:16:09 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1263594454633508870

    Reply addressees: @Maroeladalx10DB @TheRealFMCH @laurenboebert @austere1717

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1263594015116541959


    IN REPLY TO:

    Unknown author

    @Maroeladalx10DB @TheRealFMCH @laurenboebert @austere1717 (f) the moment we made healthcare and abortion or profit industries – instead of maintaining them as largely religious non profits – we opened the door to attracting people with perverse psychological and anti-social axes to grind as rebellion against their instinct and status.

    Original post: https://x.com/i/web/status/1263594015116541959

  • Knowledge is simple.That’s what science has done: reduced apparent complexity to

    Knowledge is simple.That’s what science has done: reduced apparent complexity to a single, most parsimonious, internally consistent, operationally possible, externally correspondent, paradigm. My work reduces the metaphysical, linguistic, psychological and social to one paradigm.


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-20 16:02:49 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1263138116036165632

    Reply addressees: @DSchrooner

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1263133474417975299