The Golden Era of Physics

 

The title refers to a vague, but important idea.  Some periods of development in physics advanced the science in ways that mattered to useful understanding of what exists, greatly enhancing quality of life for generations to come.  It is contrasted to the periods during which advancement was happening (at least theoretically), but it was not so useful.

Among various crises facing humanity, grappling with the possibility that our planet may be visited by beings of greatly superior intelligence and abilities is one.  So is the emergence of AI that is doing what Dr. Eric Weinstein compares to the unleasing of a military grade weapon onto society, the Large Language Model.  We have countless generations of prestige built on a framework that assumes humanity as the crown of creation, as a deity's special one, reigning over everything.  As Galileo and Bruno learned, meddling with that assumption carries a heavy personal cost.

We survived the quakes caused by revealing that the Pope is not actually omniscient.  It seems that we re-constituted the priesthood within institutions of science.  AI may be forcing us to face the fact that the priesthood is also not omniscient.  We seem to have no trouble accepting that AI is not omniscient, although it comes closer to knowing everything than anybody.  We must remind ourselves that we are barely out of the jungle and the rules of that domain are still applicable.  There is a king in that jungle and he is always hungry and vicious.

Surviving means adapting to reality, not pretending to be the master of reality.  Unfortunately, a very popular activity of humans is to pretend that things are true that we want to believe because of how it makes us feel to imagine they are true.  In physics, traditionally, a theory is accepted based on certain criteria, which are the subject of the philosophy of science.  Empiricism always played a foremost role, and it must be balanced with theoretical pursuits.  “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind” -Immanuel Kant.  That was popularized in the form, “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”  Empiricism versus theory turns out to be another false dichotomy.

Dr. Mills teaches math as a tool to be used to understand how to work within the world, not as a god's eye view of reality.  Dr. Randy Booker and Dr. Jonathan Phillips are satisfied with the math of GUTCP.  It makes predictions that can be, and have been, tested, to their satisfaction. 

Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder  expresses a hope for a new Golden Era of Physics by discovering what ended the last Era.  Her answer, it seems, is that physics got Lost in Math.  Does Dr. Mills have the map to show us how to get ourselves to a New Golden Era?  Did it get lost in 1926?  If the SunCell is working as it appears, the answer is yes to both questions.  These data were generated almost 5 years ago.  This run was reported less than a month ago to be 75 minutes in duration at unspecified, but apparently full power.