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Current state of physics - Consciousness, Fine tuning and what tools lie beyond.


koti

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I wasn't sure whether to put what I'm about to write in Philosophy, The Lounge or Physics. I'm ending up posting it in Physics as I'm about to lay out my, for lack of a better word - disgust with the directions that modern philosophy and neuroscience take in relation to Physics. I'm also thinking of running a poll to see whether my point of view is reflected or not by others more experienced and knowledgeable people.
But let me get to the meat of what rattles in my mind for the past couple days and to the questions/issues I have;


I've been trying to read some papers by Juan Maldacena and Edward Witten on modern approaches to QM but I gave up since I have too many gaps in mathematics. Instead I looked for what they have to say (duh) in youtube interviews which I'll post at the bottom of this post. Apparently there is a consensus amongst string theorists and even those physicists who are skeptical of string theory that one of the fundamental implications of string theories is that gravity seems inevitable in them - which looks like an exiting and inviting implication. What bothers me is that a few physicists and quite a lot of other scientists (neuroscientists, cognitive researchers, AI researchers, etc) are worried about the fine tuning problem - why is it that the mass of an electron or a proton is fine tuned to a degree of a few percent and in effect we have a Universe which has matter in and not an empty Universe or a completely different one. This questions drives me nuts because I just can't get through my head why would anyone consider this an issue at all? If nature had decided to "fine tune" reality to a different effect, that's what we would end up with - a different effect, its as simple as that for me. I suspect that I might be in the wrong here since too many physicists talk about the fine tuning of the cosmological constant so I'm open for change of thought...I just don't understand why physicists do not note as a side note while talking about fine tuning, that a conscious cloud of energy spreading across millions of light years asking the same question about fine tuning in a differently tuned universe would be as entitled to its "finely tuned" Universe as we are to ours.


Now as to Consciousness in relation to physics...this is obviously a large subject but it all seems to boil down to neuroscientists taking various stances as to consciousness having an impact on reality. From mild ones up to straight up ridiculous (to me) assertions that consciousness creates the reality around us. My gripe with the whole consciousness-physics subject is simple, has the mass of an electron been different 30 milion years ago when there was no consciousness talking about it? Ofcourse I'm open for arguments and change of my view but it doesn't seem too logical.
Donald Hoffman proposes something along the lines of what I layed out above which I have trouble agreeing with. He has some interesting points though which brings me to my third and last issue - the tools;


Hoffman proposes that everything we see as a species is just a desktop interface, an approximation of a completely different reality that lies underneath. He asserts that when looking at a snake in the woods, we actually are looking at an important folder of files on our computer desktop and choosing not to drag it down to the trash, we are choosing not to touch or step on the snake. He probably does a better job that I did at explaining this in his interview (start at 11:30) The person interviewing him is very rude and actually very dense but the guy himself has some valid points about evolution making us see only an approximation of things around us only to a degree in which we are supposed to survive and reproduce - maybe we don't have the proper tools to see beyond this approximation or other approximations like GR for example?

Is it plausible that there exists a set of tools other than mathematics or a completely different kind of mathematics that is required to go beyond those approximations? Is it possible that progress in modern physics requires exponentially stronger/different tools?

An interview with Juan Maldacena, again the same dense interviewer but Professor Maldacena is definitely worth the time listening to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA4O5Il5zRU

 

 

Edited by koti
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