Comment by aurareturn
1 day ago
When people make these comments about string theory, are they at the forefront of quantum physics theory and have spent years on modern string theory? Or did they just watch a YouTube video and then keep parroting this?
You could reductio ad-absurdum this logic quite broadly. We all form beliefs about the world and its aspects, and almost always through fallible sources. Should one be confident about ones of questionable provenance? I say no. But forming beliefs from the information we have is a useful skill.
Nothing wrong with learning and being influenced. However, many posters on HN are very confident that string theory is a dead end. It makes me question if they’ve done cutting edge string theory or it is just some random software engineers who watched Sabina on YouTube.
The degree of confidence matters here.
In the age of infinite bullshit generators, the even more useful skill is being able to say "I don't know." Or "I'm not qualified to have a useful opinion on this so I'm just not going to say anything." I could write a bunch of stuff about my personal opinions on string theory and waste everyone's time, or I could just shut up and not be a human stoichastic parrot.
This isn't a great argument. Researchers who do not think string theory is good are not going to spend years on it. There are plenty of experts that dismiss string theory. I have no skin in the game, and don't care either way, fwiw.
I don't think someone needs to be a (former) string theorist to have an informed opinion on string theory, but I do think they should at least have a physics research background. Like, if someone can't explain what second quantization is, then why should I care about their opinion on string theory at all? There's just not that much room for a discerning conversation. (With the obvious caveat that I have different expectations for a real-life conversation than a discussion forum.)
Our grandparent is sort of the perfect example of an insight-free comment: confidently claiming string theory is useless (without supporting evidence) and then claiming (more like imagining, since there's again no evidence provided here) that an LLM would have abandoned such a research program long ago. What's there to discuss? The comment is based on a made-up scenario; it is, in other words, pure fiction.
I watch three YouTube videos.
The Lambda-CDM model seems to be a dead end, but instead of recognising that, picking themselves up, and moving on, the Lambda-CDM Model Industrial Complex simply papered over the gaping holes with magical thinking.
Sciencism.
I agree but I think it’s a little hopeful to believe AI will save string theory
I also just keep parroting that the Earth is not flat and a bunch of other things I've been told and then never questioned, since it seems to make sense.
When the flath-earth craze started I've been trying to at least get that bit actually personally verified. Haven't managed to do it to this day, though. So I'll just keep parroting various things without properly understanding them.
C'est la vie.
Your drive to verify must be very low then. There are hundreds of small logic reasonings or even experiments with which you can easily prove that a flat earth model is at least very complicated or even impossible.
Explaining Moon phases gets very complicated in any flat earth model. With binoculars you can see the shadows of craters on the moon's terminator. Or the phases of Venus whereas Mars doesn't have any.
Timezones are ridiculously hard to explain on a flat earth.
A proper theory must explain all of them and no flat earth model can do that. A round Earth OTOH easily does.
None of that is an actual verification of round (or kinda potato shaped) Earth. You are just choosing to not think too deeply about it, essentially parroting things, just like I am.
Disproving flat Earth does not verify round Earth, after all. And all your listed refutations of flat Earth do not really disprove anything, either. They might, if you do the actual work, but you did not, choosing to just parrot someone that did put in the work.
Which was my point. It is much easier to speak vaguely and reference things than it is to actual prove something rigorously.
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> When the flat-earth craze started I've been trying to at least get that bit actually personally verified. Haven't managed to do it to this day, though.
How do I say this in the most gentle way I can...?
Your brain is broke. No, seriously. If you can help it, try not to argue with anyone about anything, ever. You have a demonstrated inability to think clearly.
Or the just read Woit, uh, 20 years ago now, “not even wrong”.
Sabine has been at the forefront and has the goods: https://youtu.be/1mgxuVVUz40
And for the inevitable critics of Sabine...maybe Leonard Susskind is good enough for you: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok
The error with this approach is that every single physics theory gets exactly the same criticisms.
You can take any of the theories that Hossenfelder would spend time on instead of the ones she does not like, and you would find (basically) a similar percentage of physicists saying it's a mistake to continue in this direction.
In other terms: for each physics theory, on 100 physicists, you have 5 physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it (number made up for illustration, and there is probably some variations, but you get the gist). You took one theory and found few physicists saying it is a mistake to continue working on it. You conclude, incorrectly, that it means this theory is fundamentally differently treated as any other theories.
(on top of that, it is unfortunate that Hossenfelder later screw up her image by doing way too much mistakes that someone reliable would not do)
And in the meanwhile you ignored Susskind, literally one of the fathers of String Theory saying "we need to start all over again"... :-))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind
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