The much-anticipated Bloggingheads.tv faceoff between George Johnson and myself is now available. We talk about string theory, religion, love, the anthropic principle, and plates. After this, any further episodes might just be superfluous.
28 thoughts on “Blog Go the Heads”
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“further episodes might just be superfluous”…and you say this the week before I’m scheduled to go on?
I’m crushed, Sean, I truly am. My daughter’s been reading Brian Greene, so maybe I ought to just cancel and have her go on in my stead.
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PZ Myers, if she is reading The Elegant Universe (or the Fabric of the Cosmos), then she is learning far more then just string theory and it is well worth her time.
Hi Sean, enjoyed the first half hour …
tautology – “we are here because the conditions are right for us to be here, duhh”
lol – is that like we are ‘here’ because we are not somewhere else
Physics is attempting to track back 13.7 billion years, and all the phase changes of matter since, but I’ve yet to see anyone attempt to explain where yesterday went, or where time goes – where the last ‘instant’ went …
are we not literally jumping through hoops – even quantum leaping thru space, from inception and inside our skin – even shedding said skin like snakes as we move thru time into the next instant. And where does the next ‘instant’ appear from … and so on and on
Well, yeah, that’s what I’m saying — she’ll be better able to talk physics than I will.
See, Sean Carroll hasn’t made future conversations superfluous. After Skatje discusses cosmology, then it will be the End of Physics.
Re: Just wrong or profound and Lee Smolins complaints,
Look outside the US, the majority is String Theory, but different view points exist, and are practiced in very strong Universities with lots of positions and it’s expanding, these no QG peers are increasingly convinced that these alternatives are worth putting some money into.
As a PhD in Spinfoams I don’t think there is any problem with the level of funding for alternatives in Europe. Given the states of the theories and the background they developed from it’s appropriate that String Theory has higher funding levels.
Compared to that situation the US certainly looks extreme, and it can be argued that this shows that even within the limits of scientific judgment of the theories by the peers, which shouldn’t differ vastly between Europe and the US, there is still plenty of room for cultural factors to play a role in funding levels, and this could then be subject to a cultural debate of the kind Lee Smolin and others want to lead.
A great site! The John Horgan discussions are top notch too!
For some bizarre reason, Bloggingheads.tv had completely escaped my attention until I watched this show. Now I’m hooked. Great stuff. Thanks.
The bloody internet plug-ins won’t work with my Safari browser! ARGGGGGGHHHH!
Is there any other way to view this clip??
Just look further down on the right and you will find this http://bloggingheads.tv/completed/bhTV07137XJ-300.wmv 😉 Don’t know how well Macs handle wmv though…
Sean,
Top notch work. While I differ in opinion from you about religion, I’ve always found that I respected you and your arguments and deeply considered them, their implications, what I want to be true, and what i feel is true. We still fall off into different conclusions, I can respect how you got to them- which is more then i can say about some other peoples.
Always enjoy listening to you and your discourse with people. More good, passionate, respectable scientists really need to communicate science, its implications, current theories and idea’s. All American’s, at heart I believe, are proud of countries ability to understand the universe and the technology that comes from that, and the audience is under served.
~Tom Ryan III
P.S.: Loved your paper posted online about Hume (i believe it was Hume, could be Kant, but I think it was Hume. It was a bit ago.). Rather long peice. I found your conclustion that all his doubting doesn’t redress and make a point, all it does is invalidate one argument very interesting. Even more so, I found your passion for which you wished he went FARTHER with his idea’s and took an active stance rather then a reactionary.
Also, didn’t know about the engagement. Where I come from we have a word for that. Mozel Tov!
Penny: just download Firefox. I’m on a mac, and I was able to watch the clip seamlessly.
Great interview, Sean. It was like Car Talk — suddenly I had wasted another perfectly good hour that I can never get back. It’s too bad I don’t disagree with you; otherwise you might have changed my mind. How did you get to be such a good talker, anyway?
Thanks, John. We’ll have to find something about which we disagree, to see if your prediction is right.
tautology – “we are here because the conditions are right for us to be here, duhh”
lol – is that like we are ‘here’ because we are not somewhere else
No, it is exactly the same as saying that “We are meant to be here”, once that you include all of the the highly relevant and anthropically pointed factors, which MOST APPARENTLY do indicate that the forces are constrained by biological factors. -R. Dicke
That’s not at all tautologous, because the observation indicates that we are specially relevant to the structure mechanism via first principles, so I’m sure that Sean was just being politically correct in context with the imaginary worlds of the cutting-edge, rather than the observed fact.
The alternative is unthinkable.
Sean,
You and George played very well together and covered many interesting topics.
I will have to have a look at what you had to say about Hume. I believe that he stated that it was not possible to either prove or disprove the existence of God but suggested that he was himself, like Mr. Rove, not a man of faith.
Many dismiss this topic out of hand. You do not and that is very much to your credit as a serious student of science.
Regards,
MikeM
Sean,
We met briefly after your colloq. at the U.of Orygun…
Just wanted to add my congrats to the rising KK tower, which I’m sure is approaching its gravitational radius ! Ya got a great lady there…All the best !
Jimbo
At the June international conference Loops 07, by my count, about one EIGHTH of the participants were from US universities. That is 20 from the US, out of about 160 participants in all.
The US share could well have been even smaller than it was, but the location favored US participation. It was more remote from Canada and Europe–comparatively close to the US. Despite that, I’d say institutions in Europe, the UK, and Canada put in an impressive showing—in terms of invited plenary talks and contributed talks, as well as attendance.
In light of that, here are some exerpts from what fh had to say (a PhD student from Germany studying in the UK)
==quote==
Look outside the US, the majority is String Theory, but different [quantum gravity research lines] exist, and are practiced in very strong Universities with lots of positions and it’s expanding,…
As a PhD in Spinfoams I don’t think there is any problem with the level of funding for alternatives in Europe. …
Compared to that situation the US certainly looks extreme, and it can be argued that this shows that even within the limits of scientific judgment of the theories by the peers, which shouldn’t differ vastly between Europe and the US, there is still plenty of room for cultural factors to play a role in funding levels, and this could then be subject to a cultural debate …
==endquote==
I agree with fh that the situation in the US looks extreme compared with the rest of the developed world. In the whole US there is only one university (Penn State) that has a non-string QG research group—that is with more than one faculty participant. If they are able, US young people typically have to go out of the country to pursue the QG research they want in the proper environment. If anyone doubts this, and wants names, just say. I’ve been watching them leave.
Compared with the rest of the world, the situation in the US is bizarre and looks like a case of poor management. The chance to lead in a rapidly growing field of research is being squandered.
Island, whether random or by design
the alphabet is created or designed by man
the alphabet can be put into CODE
the same CODE can be used (on a keyboard)
for alphabets that are not greek or western
Whether by design or pure random chance
the biology that is man exists here because it is not somewhere else
and the biology that is man (and woman) is as is because it is not other.
If ‘life’ would have developed on another planet in our solar system, it would not be as we know it, and if it has developed ‘elsewhere’ what will it look like and will we even recognise it
We humans would term anything different alien, gosh at times we’ve even termed other humans who had different skin ‘alien’ and the US government still term people of another geographical or political nation ‘aliens’
Dear John Preskill, Isn’t it usually the case that these kinds of exemplary speaking skills comes from practice? Sean, you did a great job. Clear, articulate, complete concepts, not too fast to catch, and almost no ‘er’, ‘uh’, ‘uhm’ filler words that usually creep into the dialogs of unpracticed people. And the dialog was fun and interesting too. :-).
If ‘life’ would have developed on another planet in our solar system, it would not be as we know it…
Getting off topic, but that’s not what the physics predicts, so go ahead and be the first to falsify the observation.
and if it has developed ‘elsewhere’….
… then it will also be, “as we know it”.
FYI… I was being sarcastic when I answerd you, and you really should thoroughly investigate all of the linked papers and websites.
Sean: well, for starters, I am not too keen on moving to LA…
That’s hardly worth an encyclopedia.
Hi Island, thanks for the informative links
It is only Life as we know it requires (our) certain pre-requisites be met
And an earthlike planet in another galaxy (or parallel universe) is no guarantee that life would evolve, nor that it would evolve as on this planet. However it would mean that if we could get there – we would be able to colonise, or who knows maybe even encounter the descendants of our common ancestors.
Hi Sean,
I really enjoyed your bloggingheads chat. Speaking as someone with just an undergraduate study in physics, I have to say I’ve followed this string blog controversy with pretty good attention. I remember in my undergraduate days being very excited by string theory. However, for me Peter Woit and Glashow really are winning the argument. About the chat:
You kept repeating that the landscape is just a theory and is neither good nor evil and that whether we *like it* or not it is either true or false.
But that is the very problem. The question => “Is the landscape true or false” is really not a respectable scientific question. We do not know nor can we seemingly ever know in the realm of scientific knowledge for the near to far future.
You keep saying you don’t care if it is good or bad you just want to know if it is *true or false* This is exactly the issue that string antagonists insist is the problem. The landscape just does not seem like a proper scientific question.
Until string theory becomes at least theoretically falsifiable I just don’t see how it can survive as a *scientific* theory. From your chat it seems String theorists are a little hurt by Glashow’s comment. I think they should take it to heart.