Scientist with a big idea—or was it?
I find this article to be a fascinating exploration of the mind of a successful scientist who thought he had a revolutionary idea, and tried to get it published.
But was it actually a big idea that was misunderstood (or poorly understood) by others, or had it become a strange and disjointed obsession, and where and how do you draw the line?
Some folks just need better editors.
Others need better ideas.
Still others are just too far ahead of their time.
Apparently, no one could make heads nor tails of his ‘breakthrough’.
Einstein – “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
Actually, in the world, and in a way it is the moral of the article, “Better ideas require better arguments.”
It is a fascinating article which reveals one man’s search for an argument that would be clear enough that other’s could understand what he was seeing. He wasn’t able to do that.
It seems to me that he might have been “trapped” in an M C Escher painting, like the steps that go down forever except they …. don’t.
https://www.google.com/search?q=escher+stairs&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=1gF8NdFrMYVL2M%253A%252Cz8Iolt7NFqouMM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kRZgkYap01S65hPnI2H20yaU-br_w&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSwdG8qbfeAhUhw4MKHaRKCV0Q9QEwAXoECAEQBg#imgrc=1gF8NdFrMYVL2M:
He sounds wordy.
My history of the last 15,000 years only runs 150 Pages, about 65,000 words in manuscript. I’m polishing it even further… looking for an agent… publisher.
My dates are usually rounded off to the nearest millennia. That really speeds the narrative right along.
Mine starts off like a cannon shot… and then picks up speed.
Unlike the grand professor, my stuff is written to a tenth-year reading level.
When do you have a breakthrough inspiration that’s hard to explain and validate, or just a crackpot idea? I recall two anecdotes on that subject from long-ago reading, which I present as best I remember them (using the Bob Woodword Standard of Journalism), with some genuine quotes on the side.
(1) John Nash, the mathematician, attributed many of his revolutionary ideas to a subconscious voice in his head. When he went through a bout of mental illness and began saying that aliens were real, someone asked him how he could possibly believe in such nonsense. He replied, “It was the same voice.”
“The ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously. “John Forbes Nash, Jr.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/john_forbes_nash_jr
(2) Richard Feynman, the physicist, was not a fan of the bull-headed perseverance celebrated by other scientists and their biographers. Although he agreed that you had to take a good shot at finding evidence for or mathematical proofs of your theory, after a certain point, if you still came up dry, he said, “You ought to quit wasting your time.”
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
? Richard Feynman
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_Feynman
Bonus quote:
“For an idea that does not at first seem insane, there is no hope.”
Albert Einstein
https://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/cheap/cheap2_scientists.htm
I’ve been looking for a copy of the Klee painting mentioned in the article, “The Limits of Understanding.” So far no joy, but Escher’s drawings on the theme of perspectives and the imperceptible changes in perspective that can occur as you go along certainly fit right in with a simple fact of reality that seems mostly go unnoticed by scientists and philosophers as well as the general public — and, unbelievably, by mathematicians!
This is the simple fact that any logical system, whether or not purely abstract, requires unproven postulates at its foundation. Otherwise, the system can only generate “A = A,” which itself is true of every system of logical thought because it is an (the!) axiom that states the rule in accordance with which, inescapably and for every logical system, our minds cannot help working. This is just as true for systems that attempt to explain phenomena as it is for abstract systems.
In other words, the discipline matters not. It is just as true when we seek explanations of phenomena in the real world as in theoretical disciplines such as theoretical physics, which itself relies on applied mathematics, which in turn depends on “pure mathematics.”
When we think about the real world, we always bring our worldview (as it is at the instant of thought, anyway) to our thinking; and in that worldview are postulates, principles that we accept as true, or as working truths at least. Thus the much-maligned “faith” of the religious is simply one of many postulates. It is equally a matter of “faith” when we accept some other postulate about how things are. And in everyday parlance, of course, we are perfectly comfortable saying things like “I have faith that the Orange-Haired one is not going to begin his act by bombing the heck out of Pakistan.” (Back when he assumed office back in January, 2017, when I made a reassuring statement to a friend worried about exactly that evantuality.)
So, in that sense, it is quite true that there is some point in understanding at which “you can’t get there from here” is always and necessarily true if you are trying to arrive at a theory of anything which is completely self-contained, let alone a Theory of Everything. This is just as true of the Unified Field Theory that Einstein sought as it is of any other theory. Because you have to accept at least one unproven assumption in order to give meaningful content to your theory. A theory with NO postulates can give you only the pre-theoretical axiom (A=A, “a thing cannot both be and not be in the same sense and at the same time: The Law of Non-Contradiction; the law which cannot be breached by your mind or mine without becoming illogical).
The great idea which was somewhat vague described in the article is not any way new. This was the main point of Bohr-Einstein debate, whether the probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics proposed by Bohr and his school was the ultimate truth or only a measure of our temporary ignorance. The first approach places insurmountable limits on human abilities to understand nature by logic and experiment, the second denies such limits. But the problem reflects even much older debates involving such figures as Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes, and more generally, even older Talmudic debates on the limits of human understanding. This was the main point of disagreement between Greek philosophy and Hebrew teachings, and Spinoza took a Hellenistic, Neo-Platonic view on the subject. Because of this, he was accused in heresy and excommunicated by Jewish religious authorities, but for Einstein he was his most favorite philosopher, while Bohr accepted more orthodox Jewish point of view. Because the problem is essentially a philosophical and even theological one, there is no solution to it achievable by rational argumentation, so Bohr and Einstein were unable to convince each other. By the same reason Einstein’s attempts to construct an Unified Field Theory failed, because the possibility of such theory would be equivalent to definite proof of Einstein’s position in debate with Bohr.
Sergey on November 3, 2018 at 9:03 am at 9:03 am said:
…Because the problem is essentially a philosophical and even theological one, there is no solution to it achievable by rational argumentation, so Bohr and Einstein were unable to convince each other.
* * *
Even scientists are watching two different movies.
Julie near Chicago on November 3, 2018 at 4:04 am at 4:04 am said:
I’ve been looking for a copy of the Klee painting mentioned in the article, “The Limits of Understanding.” So far no joy, but Escher’s drawings on the theme of perspectives and the imperceptible changes in perspective that can occur as you go along certainly fit right in with a simple fact of reality that seems mostly go unnoticed by scientists and philosophers as well as the general public — and, unbelievably, by mathematicians!
This is the simple fact that any logical system, whether or not purely abstract, requires unproven postulates at its foundation….
* * *
Well said.
I did find the Klee painting on-line, but I like Escher much better.
Julie cont:
“… And in everyday parlance, of course, we are perfectly comfortable saying things like “I have faith that the Orange-Haired one is not going to begin his act by bombing the heck out of Pakistan.” (Back when he assumed office back in January, 2017, when I made a reassuring statement to a friend worried about exactly that evantuality.)”
* * *
Considering the situation in Pakistan today, added to their support for the Taliban and al-Queda while taking our blood-money (“..you can never quit paying the Dane-geld…”), I’m not so sure I would object to some selective disciplinary violence.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/asia-bibi-anti-blasphemy-protests-spread-across-pakistan
“Thousands of Islamist protesters have brought Pakistan to a standstill, burning rickshaws, cars and lorries to protest against the acquittal of a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row on false charges of blasphemy.
Traffic jams held up ambulances and forced mothers to feed their babies by the side of the road, while authorities shut schools across most of the country.
Footage from the protests shows anti-blasphemy campaigners clubbing and throwing shoes at posters of Pakistan’s chief justice and the new prime minister, Imran Khan, who on Wednesday night threatened a fierce government response if protesters did not disperse.
“We are ready to sacrifice our lives for this noble cause,” one told the Guardian, “and have rejected whatever rubbish the prime minister said in his speech”.
The landmark release of Asia Bibi, a 47-year-old farm labourer, has pitched the state into the latest of several battles with supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a rabid, fast-growing political party that exists solely to punish blasphemers. Asia was charged with insulting the prophet Muhammad after she drank from a cup of water before passing it to Muslim fruit-pickers.
Police have so far shied away from arresting protesters and the powerful armed forces, which often appear to align with Islamists, have yet to issue a statement, despite TLP leaders daring to call for mutiny in its ranks.
…
In public speeches, Rizvi has said his only demand is that the mother-of-five be put to death, the punishment for blasphemy under Pakistan’s penal code. ”
They also murdered two officials who supported the acquittal.
This is the path down which Europe is heading, with Canada and the USA not far behind.
https://spectator.us/illegal-mohammed-paedophile/
Should it be illegal to call Mohammed a paedophile?
The ECHR have decided that truth is not a justification
Douglas Murray
“Should you be allowed to say that the founder of one of the world’s largest religions was a paedophile? According to the European Court of Human Rights the answer is ‘no’. In a decision issued this week the Court in Strasbourg ruled that this statement is defamatory towards the prophet of Islam, ‘goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate’ and ‘could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace.’ Details of the long-running case can be read here.”