What is wrong with current physics | Eric Lerner, Sabine Hossenfelder, Roger Penrose, and more!

Sabine Hossenfelder, Bjørn Ekeberg, Roger Penrose, Donald Hoffman, Peter Woit, Becky Parker, Marika Taylor and Eric Weinstein discuss the fundamental flaws of our physics models.

00:00 Introduction
00:37 Sabine Hossenfelder | Simplifying scientific explanations
04:45 Eric Lerner | The Big Bang theory contradicts JWST images
08:04 Donald Hoffman | Why Space-Time is doomed
10:29 Bjørn Ekeberg | Evidence against the Standard Model of Cosmology
14:03 Eric Weinstein | On the difference between a good physicist and a great one
17:06 Becky Parker | How physics should be taught
19:47 Peter Woit | The fundamental relationship between mathematics and physics theories
22:25 Marika Taylor | The problem with String Theory
24:25 Roger Penrose | Singularities and black holes
26:22 Sabine Hossenfelder | Science and religion aren't at war

#TheoreticalPhysicsResearch #FutureOfTheStandardModel #CosmologicalModelOfTheUniverse

Links to the debates and talks:

Sabine Hossenfelder - Physics and the meaning of life

Bjørn Ekeberg - Cosmology needs philosophy

Roger Penrose - The future of cosmology with Roger Penrose

Donald Hoffman - The Key to Consciousness

Peter Woit & Marika Taylor - The code to the cosmos

Eric Lerner - Cosmology and the big bust

Eric Weinstein - Finding an ultimate theory of everything

Becky Parker - The theory to end all theories

[tipsyrobot]

I'm really glad to hear physicists finally questioning the old dogma. Everyone has the sense that someone burned the beans, but is denying it, telling everyone to eat up, the beans are fine, when we all know better.

[jellymop]

Eric Lerner is an underrated legend. It’s weird they introduced him as a science writer, when he’s a practicing scientist and plasma physicist. His channel is LPP fusion. It’s fascinating what him and his team are working on.

[david_porthouse]

Basically normal scientific research involves an iteration of theory and experiment without which we are very likely to go off the rails. Doing experiments in quantum gravity is somewhere between practically difficult and close to impossible.

[roybatty-]

There are alternate theories to String and Dark matter/energy. Professors and institutions are unwilling to abandon their theories because they are receiving funding and grants to continue chasing their tails.

[wagfinpis]

This is a very rarely reasonable conversation. I like how there isn't any monumental ego driven assumptions nor misleading optimistic philosophy. This is a very nice reasonable conversation.

[laurentdrozin]

There is too much stuff that doesn't add up, too many ad-hoc assumptions made to force the models to match observations. I am starting to wonder if the problem is not in our brains. We observe the universe through our senses (extended by our machines), and use mathematics to mesh the observations in a rational construct. Both the senses, the machines and the rationality rely on our monkey brain. Can we make the assumption that the Universe and Physics have to restrict themselves to mechanisms that fit into our brains? The analogy I have is trying to measure something with the wrong instrument. Like measure temperature with a ruler. Maybe we need a better understanding about our brains and how we perceive reality, before we can really make new progress in Physics.

[goboy]

The problem with physics is that it is built on a foundation which contains inconsistencies. Another problem with physics is that people trapped in old paradigms are the gate keepers for scientific publications. Physicists need to resolve the inconsistencies and embrace the new paradigms.

[okgroomer]

I think the majority of things we think we know only scratch the surface at best. Kinda hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when we have access to a incredibly small amount of it. The only correct answer for now is we really have no clue what we are talking about. The theories are fun though.

[markusantonious]

Only one speaker here proffered anything specific, substantial (evidence wise) and fundamental to the conversations....and that was Erik Lerner.

[dansantos]

Sometimes I am somewhat confused about the nomenclature used by physicists when they started talking about space or spacetime. If they say space, does that mean a space is completely empty or vacuum, absolutely devoid of anything? Or does it mean a space is filled with fields like gravitational fields or magnetic fields or electric field or combination thereof? Because to layman's language, empty space means completely devoid of matter. Similarly, what do they mean by saying spacetime? Does it mean orbital period? Or the space is moving with time relative to what frame of reference? I understand that in universe there is no such thing as absolute space and time because everything in the universe is moving. We normally measure the distances of celestial bodies relative to Earth, but the Earth itself is also moving in space. So, what do they mean by spacetime?

[marcobiagini]

I am a physicist and I will explain why our scientific knowledge refutes the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). My arguments prove the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit.
Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, but I will discuss two arguments that prove that this hypothesis implies logical contradictions and is disproved by our scientific knowledge of the microscopic physical processes that take place in the brain. (With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams).

1) All the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or subjective/arbitrary classifications of underlying physical processes or properties, which are described DIRECTLY by the fundamental laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. What physically exists are the underlying physical processes and not the emergent properties (=subjective classifications or approximate descriptions). This means that emergent properties do not refer to reality itself but to an arbitrary abstract concept (the approximate conceptual model of reality). Since consciousness is the precondition for the existence of concepts, approximations and arbitrariness/subjectivity, consciousness is a precondition for the existence of emergent properties.
Therefore, consciousness cannot itself be an emergent property.

The logical fallacy of materialists is that they try to explain the existence of consciousness by comparing consciousness to a concept that, if consciousness existed, a conscious mind could use to describe approximately a set of physical elements. Obviously this is a circular reasoning, since the existence of consciousness is implicitly assumed in an attempt to explain its existence.

2) An emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess. The point is that the concept of set refers to something that has an intrinsically conceptual and subjective nature and implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements (where one person sees a set of elements, another person can only see elements that are not related to each other in their individuality). In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is just an abstract idea, and not a physical entity and so are all its properties. Since consciousness is a precondition for the existence of subjectivity/arbitrariness and abstractions, consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property, and cannot itself be an emergent property.

Both arguments 1 and 2 are sufficient to prove that every emergent property requires a consciousness from which to be conceived. Therefore, that conceiving consciousness cannot be the emergent property itself. Conclusion: consciousness cannot be an emergent property; this is true for any property attributed to the neuron, the brain and any other system that can be broken down into smaller elements.

On a fundamental material level, there is no brain, or heart, or any higher level groups or sets, but just fundamental particles interacting. Emergence itself is just a category imposed by a mind and used to establish arbitrary classifications, so the mind can't itself be explained as an emergent phenomenon.

Obviously we must distinguish the concept of "something" from the "something" to which the concept refers. For example, the concept of consciousness is not the actual consciousness; the actual consciousness exists independently of the concept of consciousness since the actual consciousness is the precondition for the existence of the concept of consciousness itself. However, not all concepts refer to an actual entity and the question is whether a concept refers to an actual entity that can exist independently of consciousness or not. If a concept refers to "something" whose existence presupposes the existence of arbitrariness/subjectivity or is a property of an abstract object, such "something" is by its very nature abstract and cannot exist independently of a conscious mind, but it can only exist as an idea in a conscious mind. For example, consider the property of "beauty": beauty has an intrinsically subjective and conceptual nature and implies arbitrariness; therefore, beauty cannot exist independently of a conscious mind.
My arguments prove that emergent properties, as well as complexity, are of the same nature as beauty; they refer to something that is intrinsically subjective, abstract and arbitrary, which is sufficient to prove that consciousness cannot be an emergent property because consciousness is the precondition for the existence of any emergent property.

The "brain" doesn't objectively and physically exist as a single entity and the entity “brain” is only a conceptual model. We create the concept of the brain by arbitrarily "separating" it from everything else and by arbitrarily considering a bunch of quantum particles altogether as a whole; this separation is not done on the basis of the laws of physics, but using addictional arbitrary criteria, independent of the laws of physics. The property of being a brain, just like for example the property of being beautiiful, is just something you arbitrarily add in your mind to a bunch of quantum particles. Any set of elements is an arbitrary abstraction therefore any property attributed to the brain is an abstract idea that refers to another arbitrary abstract idea (the concept of brain).
Furthermore, brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a conceptual model used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes; interpreting these sequences as a unitary process or connection is an arbitrary act and such connections exist only in our imagination and not in physical reality. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole is an arbitrary abstract idea, and not to an actual physical entity.

For consciousness to be physical, first of all the brain as a whole (and brain processes as a whole) would have to physically exist, which means the laws of physics themselves would have to imply that the brain exists as a unitary entity and brain processes occur as a unitary process. However, this is false because according to the laws of physics, the brain is not a unitary entity but only an arbitrarily (and approximately) defined set of quantum particles involved in billions of parallel sequences of elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. This is sufficient to prove that consciousness is not physical since it is not reducible to the laws of physics, whereas brain processes are. According to the laws of physics, brain processes do not even have the prerequisites to be a possible cause of consciousness.

As discussed above, an emergent property is a concept that refers to an arbitrary abstract idea (the set) and not to an actual entity; this rule out the possibility that the emergent property can exist independently of consciousness. Conversely, if a concept refers to “something” whose existence does not imply the existence of arbitrariness or abstract ideas, then such “something” might exist independently of consciousness. An example of such a concept is the concept of “indivisible entity”. Contrary to emergent properties, the concept of indivisible entity refers to something that might exist independently of the concept itself and independently of our consciousness.
My arguments prove that the hypothesis that consciousness is an emergent property implies a logical fallacy and an hypothesis that contains a logical contradiction is certainly wrong.
Consciousness cannot be an emergent property whatsoever because any set of elements is a subjective abstraction; since only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, consciousness can exist only as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity corresponds to what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience. Marco Biagini

[ericdovigi]

what on earth is this video? it's a bunch of random clips of people making huge claims, with any counterclaims edited out, plus Roger Penrose talking about Oppenheimer for two and a half minutes.

[ScientificGlassblowing]

Lerner is the "radical" wanting experimental data! What a revolutionary concept! 😀

[tonywackett]

Donald Hoffman's section was word salad. That's as respectful as anyone needs to be.

[joshlewis]

I know nothing about advanced physics. But the ideas and excitement/ passion these people speak with is so addicting. People like these amaze me with their ability to imagine these insane theories. Our best and brightest sure are amazing.

[Demosophist]

It seems to me, as an overly educated layperson, that virtually all of the modern cosmological theories rest on two things: graviity/mass as the binding agent or glue and red shift as a way to interpret observations in terms of distance and time/velocity. If those assumptions are wrong then that alone explains why physics and cosmology is at such an impasse.

[martymodus]

Maybe the fundamental problem is simply overconfidence. We look at the use of epicycles to describe planetary motion and fail to apply the humility we should have learned from lessons like that to contemporary hypotheses. Too many scientists make their arguments with religious fervor instead of attempting to steel-man their arguments and communicate with intellectual honesty about the actual state of evidence and support, or lack thereof, for their favorite hypothesis. And too many scientists prioritize eloquence and sounding deep over communicating with accuracy. But that's just my humble and unsupported hypothesis.

[jensphiliphohmann]

Sabine kind of unwittingly points out what's the odds here: A model should be _as_ simple _as possible._
If the date don't match a particular model, it's impossible to stick to it in general.
This doesn't mean you cannot use it any more, especially within its borders. Of course you can.

[TheCourageOfTruth]

Just a note of thank you all for speaking up and allowing old models of “it is what it is” to be questioned.

[omekafalconburn]

Nice to see Lerner still getting out there