Many Worlds

Halbhh · Jan 20, 2023

Also, as I already wrote in the thread, MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation) looks like it might never be testable, not falsifiable (cannot be tested) -- as I wrote above in an earlier post it might be "not even wrong", that is, not testable.

Ergo, in that case, it's not even science (as in the videos some posted in the thread pointed out). But I don't assume we are there yet for MWI. It's still remotely possible someone could come up with a way to test it perhaps, so I'm not yet 100% to concluding it's a 'not even wrong' idea.

SelfSim · Jan 20, 2023

Halbhh said:
Ok.

" According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments."

Karl Popper - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

as you can see me applying here with a some examples (notice all 3 underlined parts):

This is for me things I learned decades ago now, and I hardly think any more to point it out. I tend to assume it and tend to expect most everyone assumes something similar already.

The quote demonstrates Popper's central emphasis on falsifiability and verfiability, in principle, as the basis for distinguishing what is and what is not a scientific theory .. and not 'unique supporting evidence and those that do have unique supporting evidence', as you claim:

From the same Wiki:

Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsifiability lies at the heart of his philosophy of science. It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is, and is not, genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if, and only if, it is falsifiable. This led him to attack the claims of both psychoanalysis and contemporary Marxism to scientific status, on the basis that their theories are not falsifiable.

SelfSim · Jan 20, 2023

Halbhh said:
Also, as I already wrote in the thread, MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation) looks like it might never be testable, not falsifiable (cannot be tested) -- as I wrote above in an earlier post it might be "not even wrong", that is, not testable.

Mere back tracking (or a weaseling attempt) away from your original claim of: 'unique supporting evidence and those that do have unique supporting evidence' ..

MWI is an interpretation and not a scientific theory.

You have successfully demonstrated just how your own misuse of the term 'theory' has resulted in conflation with the notion of 'an interpretation', thus producing gross inconsistency in your post.

Halbhh · Jan 20, 2023

SelfSim said:
The quote demonstrates Popper's central emphasis on falsifiability and verfiability, in principle, as the basis for distinguishing what is and what is not a scientific theory .. and not 'unique supporting evidence and those that do have unique supporting evidence', as you claim:

From the same Wiki:

Basically I said statements A and B -- 2 things -- and then you respond oddly by saying 'B!, A is not B.' (as if I didn't say B) So, it appears you merely are failing to read posts I write to you fully enough to notice some key pieces. The mistakes you make about what I write seem to happen over and over from not noticing all that is said, so that you jump to a wrong conclusion from not seeing what is there.

While I could attempt to write to you posts that carefully only say 1 thing along: B alone, nothing else. It seems....it's better if you make more effort instead.

Halbhh said:
An example of a theory with much supporting evidence is General Relativity. It is very well confirmed.

But it could be overthrown some day.

Or to get more logical. I'm not sure which is the problem: insufficient care in reading, or just not thinking through logically what I'm saying so that it makes more logical sense.

Halbhh · Jan 20, 2023

SelfSim said:
Mere back tracking (or a weaseling attempt) away from your original claim of: 'unique supporting evidence and those that do have unique supporting evidence' ..

MWI is an interpretation and not a scientific theory.

You have successfully demonstrated just how your own misuse of the term 'theory' has resulted in conflation with the notion of 'an interpretation', thus producing gross inconsistency in your post.

This is a very good example of insufficient thinking or reading here. Either read more fully, or think more fully, or both, so that a post you are responding to makes more sense. Or ask more questions. Get more curious.

sjastro · Jan 20, 2023

Halbhh said:
An example of a theory with much supporting evidence is General Relativity. It is very well confirmed.

But it could be overthrown some day.

I doubt General Relativity will ever be "overthrown" as Newton's theory of gravity has never been overthrown despite being "wrong".
Physical theories evolve and a theory which replaces its predecessor needs to make the same successful predictions as per the theory it replaces.
What a new theory does as General Relativity did in replacing Newton's theory is to add corrective terms.

The above equation is the potential energy for orbital motion.
The first two terms in the right hand side of the equations are the Newtonian terms describing the gravitational and centrifugal potentials respectively.
The last term is a General Relativity term which is usually extremely small and can be ignored.
It becomes significant when planets are very close to the Sun such as Mercury where the effects of space-time curvature become apparent leading to non Newtonian behaviour such as the perihelion advance of Mercury's orbit.

In most cases Newtonian gravity is satisfactory to use, it is an incomplete theory like General Relativity both of which are not likely to overthrown but incorporated into a more general theory such as a Quantum theory of gravity.

SelfSim · Jan 20, 2023

sjastro said:
I doubt General Relativity will ever be "overthrown" as Newton's theory of gravity has never been overthrown despite being "wrong".
Physical theories evolve and a theory which replaces its predecessor needs to make the same successful predictions as per the theory it replaces.
What a new theory does as General Relativity did in replacing Newton's theory is to add corrective terms.

The above equation is the potential energy for orbital motion.
The first two terms in the right hand side of the equations are the Newtonian terms describing the gravitational and centrifugal potentials respectively.
The last term is a General Relativity term which is usually extremely small and can be ignored.
It becomes significant when planets are very close to the Sun such as Mercury where the effects of space-time curvature become apparent leading to non Newtonian behaviour such as the perihelion advance of Mercury's orbit.

In most cases Newtonian gravity is satisfactory to use, it is an incomplete theory like General Relativity both of which are not likely to overthrown but incorporated into a more general theory such as a Quantum theory of gravity.

Thanks for that clarifying example .. (helpful).

Not intending, in even the slightest way, of dragging you into this, (so please feel free to ignore what follows):

I, also, am quietly pondering just how else I could possibly interpret the comment of how a Physics theory could be 'overthrown', in a supposed 'mainstream' sense, (given the smoke and mirrors accusations about my supposed 'lack of logic', lack of 'curiosity' and supposed propensity for 'insufficient thinking'). Ie:

Halbhh said:
You can have whatever unique view of physics you like, but if you learn from me, you'll get a very mainstream view.

!!

Astrid · Jan 20, 2023

Halbhh said:
No, that's not mine. It's from Karl Popper as I understand.

Mayb. I don't see the sense in it tho.

Halbhh said:
Ok.

" According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments."

Karl Popper - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

as you can see me applying here with a some examples (notice all 3 underlined parts):

This is for me things I learned decades ago now, and I hardly think any more to point it out. I tend to assume it and tend to expect most everyone assumes something similar already.

Unfortunately many are still at the "howcome
there's still monkeys" level.

sjastro · Jan 20, 2023

SelfSim said:
Thanks for that clarifying example .. (helpful).

Not intending, in even the slightest way, of dragging you into this, (so please feel free to ignore what follows):

I, also, am quietly pondering just how else I could possibly interpret the comment of how a Physics theory could be 'overthrown', in a supposed 'mainstream' sense, (given the smoke and mirrors accusations about my supposed 'lack of logic', lack of 'curiosity' and supposed propensity for 'insufficient thinking'). Ie:

!!

I'll stay out of your disagreements except to state this.
In the past few decades Newtonian gravity has made a comeback as it is able to solve problems that are impossible using General Relativity.
In my previous post the introduction of a General Relativity correction term in the Newtonian equation is an example of the Post Newtonian theory.

Without it scientists would have found it impossible to model the waveform for gravitational waves in the early stages when black holes spiral into each other prior to merging.

Rather than being overthrown Newtonian gravity is still useful even in environments where one would expect General Relativity to be the prevailing theory.

SelfSim · Jan 21, 2023

sjastro said:
I'll stay out of your disagreements except to state this.
In the past few decades Newtonian gravity has made a comeback as it is able to solve problems that are impossible using General Relativity.
In my previous post the introduction of a General Relativity correction term in the Newtonian equation is an example of the Post Newtonian theory.

View attachment 326950
Without it scientists would have found it impossible to model the waveform for gravitational waves in the early stages when black holes spiral into each other prior to merging.

Rather than being overthrown Newtonian gravity is still useful even in environments where one would expect General Relativity to be the prevailing theory.

There's also predictions from modified Newtonian gravity models (in reviewed papers), which provide better explanations for long time astrophysical mysteries such as:
- why are star clusters in nearby galaxies, likely to disappear faster than predicted via LCDM?
and;
- why is the distribution of galaxy orbital rotation speeds, for inner and outer stars, not smooth, (as predicted by LCDM)?

(Press releases with links to papers are here and here).

sjastro · Jan 21, 2023

SelfSim said:
There's also predictions from modified Newtonian gravity models (in reviewed papers), which provide better explanations for long time astrophysical mysteries such as:
- why are star clusters in nearby galaxies, likely to disappear faster than predicted via LCDM?
and;
- why is the distribution of galaxy orbital rotation speeds, for inner and outer stars, not smooth, (as predicted by LCDM)?

(Press releases with links to papers are here and here).

The prediction for galaxy rotation curves is based on Newtonian physics (Keplerian curves) not LCDM.

Post Newtonian theory is not a MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamic) where the inverse square law is modified to account for observations such as rotation curves but uses methods for finding an approximate solution of the Einstein field equations which is the metric tensor.
The approximations are expanded in small parameters which express orders of deviations from Newton's inverse square law.

Ligurian · Jan 23, 2023

SelfSim said:
.. but other 'life-forms' have to resemble earth-life .. otherwise we wouldn't even recognise them as being 'life-forms' at all.
We don't know whether the term 'life' is even applicable outside of its earthly context.

Without imagination, man creates everything his own image.
So, thinking outside the box must be the opposite of narcissistic.
Because mankind wouldn't be the ruling class on these other worlds.

SelfSim · Jan 24, 2023

Ligurian said:
Without imagination, man creates everything his own image.
So, thinking outside the box must be the opposite of narcissistic.
Because mankind wouldn't be the ruling class on these other worlds.

What does any of that poetry have to do with diagnosing 'life' on some other remote planet?

Imagining unfamilar non-Earth 'life' in advance, won't make any difference .. namely because its unconstrained .. (by definition).

There are no rules for your other worldly 'ruling class', in order to constrain it in advance.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jan 25, 2023

SelfSim said:
The quote demonstrates Popper's central emphasis on falsifiability and verfiability, in principle, as the basis for distinguishing what is and what is not a scientific theory .. and not 'unique supporting evidence and those that do have unique supporting evidence', as you claim:

From the same Wiki:

It may be worth pointing out that this demarcation has been the subject of considerable debate among philosophers of science, and many feel that falsifiability is more an ideal or a 'nice to have' than a clear demarcation between 'scientific' and 'non-scientific'. In practice, the line can be pretty blurred...

Hans Blaster · Jan 25, 2023

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
It may be worth pointing out that this demarcation has been the subject of considerable debate among philosophers of science, and many feel that falsifiability is more an ideal or a 'nice to have' than a clear demarcation between 'scientific' and 'non-scientific'. In practice, the line can be pretty blurred...

Very much so. "falsifiability" works fine for small claims, but the big frameworks with lots of evidence aren't going to fall to one anomaly that seems to "falsify" things. (A sub-sub-sub theory might fall.)

Astrid · Jan 25, 2023

Hans Blaster said:
Very much so. "falsifiability" works fine for small claims, but the big frameworks with lots of evidence aren't going to fall to one anomaly that seems to "falsify" things. (A sub-sub-sub theory might fall.)

Yeah, well, polonium halos.

Hans Blaster · Jan 25, 2023

Estrid said:
Yeah, well, polonium halos.

What about them?

sjastro · Jan 25, 2023

Hans Blaster said:
What about them?

It's in the subforum where you can't post and anti-science prevails.

50 Years of Deafening Silence Confirms Radioisotope Halos Have Destroyed Evolution - It's Time For A Proper Burial

**** Note **** (If you wish to skip the boring science lesson and head down to the bottom to find out about the "50 years of deafening silence" - be my guest) Dr. Robert Gentry, a Seventh-day Adventist scientist, made an extremely important discovery many years ago. After much research, in...

www.christianforums.com

Astrid · Jan 25, 2023

Hans Blaster said:
What about them?

They disprove evolution.
I've heard about that.

Hans Blaster · Jan 25, 2023

Estrid said:
They disprove evolution.
I've heard about that.

Do you buy that argument? Why do you bring them up?

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