Monkeys do not die as lizards part 3

On why Sabine Hossenfelder is only partially right.

Recently, there was an article in the Guardian in which Sabine Hossenfelder gave her opinion on the state of affairs in particle physics. In this short article, i will argue that she is only partially right in her assessment.

Hossenfelder states that there is a sociological phenomenon at work. A herd mentality and a misguided interpretation of Popper’s rule of falsification are supposed to be at the basis of stagnation in particle physics.

The first reason why Hossenfelders opinion is only partially right is that stagnation is not only happening in particle physics, but in all of contemporary physics. The second reason why she is only partially right is that there are more fundamental social and cognitive processes at work that hinder progress than just some herd mentality. In my book “Monkeys do not die as lizards” I discus three basic reasons for the current crisis in physics. There is a chapter for each of these reasons.

The first is that mathematical consistency is systematically favoured over ontological consistency. This favouritism leads to an isolated complex world of mathematical formalisms that has almost no connection with an ontological reality anymore.

The second reason is that contemporary physics is littered with all sorts of spatial and temporal contortions. I discussed this in my former post. I find these contortions unnecessary. They enable the fantastical landscape of speculative particles, interacting with speculative quantum fields of which Hossenfelder talks very critically about in her article.

The third reason is that Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model depart from the (often unspoken) assumption that the world of the super tiny has to be governed by rules and laws that have to be anti-intuitive. In my book, I show that many of the strange concepts in these theories are wholly unnecessary. We do not need, as an example, the concept of probability distribution to explain the process of polarisation. Such concepts only confuse the mind.

Because of these three reasons, the average physicist lives in a bubble of super complex mathematics and speculative un-intuitive concepts, clogging their minds. No wonder that none of them can see the light at the end of their tunnel. Can Hossenfelder?

Read all of it in my book Monkeys do not die as lizards, available via divers internet outlets.

Peter Schuttevaar