> Hardly. In fact, just the opposite is true: You can say it about virtually no theories outside a niche within modern physics.
Again I think you're missing the point. There's many ways in which you can construct theories on any topic. They're all just models: which can be seen by how these models often evolve over time, and yet were at each time seen as fairly valid. This is true in all the sciences, and is inherent to science. You make like that's a criticism of modern physics only, but I think it's more an effect of the point below about measurement.
> In other disciplines, e.g. biology or chemistry, it's effectively forbidden to work backwards from data and come up with a "solution" that fits but can't be validated in any way.
in any way: I think this is a mischaracterization. Fitting with the data is a validation in some way. You seek orthogonal validation via new testable predictions, which is fair enough, but it's also fair to consider the measurement problem again (mentioned below), and the process of development wherein advances may be made before testing is figured out, if the domain is of sufficient complexity.
> Chemical space is vast; if you have a complex molecule, there are any number of ways retrosynthesis will work; finding one such way, without empirically validating it, is of near-zero value.
That's the thing. These synths look like they work, on paper. The groups and charges move around right, but they don't actually work, which contradicts your point that you can't devise a large number of plausible alternatives in chem. The same is true of bio and metabolic pathways.
In practice, often we don't know how to test something at the time we sketch it out. I guess that's the consequence of being at the frontier, there's much unkown. So the analogy between these disciplines and physics fits, but perhaps not in the way you intended.
But on another level, the analogy doesn't work, as finding synths is more an eng problem. You don't have to understand why a synth works, for it to work...which is often the case. And the theories about why that was allowed by enthalpy or catalysis or whatever are often evolved over time. Whereas theory building is more focused on having a why that might bring insight.
I think your main problem here is the false dichotomy you see with "work backwards from data to solve the constraints" and "this doesn't validate it in any way". In fact, in the world of theories, fitting the data, is a pretty fucking great validation hahaha! :) But I do get the sense you are expressing about the futility, which I think is real, but just not the whole picture.
> The great theories of 20th century physics were empirically validated almost immediately. Even their thought experiments were subjected to intense scrutiny and debate. Now those theories are fodder for engineers who tinker with material devices like MRI machines.
almost immediately: is inaccurate. Theories can make many predictions, and some of GR and SR were only validated recently.
I guess you can say that our measuring ability has not caught up to our theorizing or mathematical ability. Which is regrettable, but not a condemnation of the theories, as you seem to think.
I get the impression you advance that modern physics is in the business of producing time wasting untestable theories. Which is a fair enough take. I just think there's more nuance there, and you risk maligning a good theory, with this broad stroke.
> How do you reconcile this with the frame-dragging effect? Namely, in that it shows that the distribution and movement of mass (not just the presence of mass/entropy) can influence the curvature of spacetime and thereby gravitational effects.
I don't see that it contradicts it, so it may not be the best counter example. The movement or spin of the mass that induces frame-dragging can be considered information as well.
> Information is degraded over time; the universe will eventually contain zero useful information content ("heat death") and will then be modellable as a homogeneous space subject to statistical fluctuation.
I know that's the model, but what if it's inaccurate/only a part of the picture? What if the information is elsewhere and we don't know how to measure it? There's precedent for that: there's information in quantum states that was not known to exist or be measurable before quantum theory.
> I think your main problem here is the false dichotomy you see with "work backwards from data to solve the constraints" and "this doesn't validate it in any way". In fact, in the world of theories, fitting the data, is a pretty fucking great validation hahaha! :) But I do get the sense you are expressing about the futility, which I think is real, but just not the whole picture.
I think your main problem is that you only read half of the comment you responded to.
It has two parts:
> There's something distinctly unsatisfying about this sort of paper, because the number of potential solutions to the problem they're trying to solve is in principle vast, and you can arrive at any number of them if you laboriously work backwards and fit your equations to the data.
Which you've adequately responded to. But it also has:
> Without very rigorous efforts towards empirical validation, in novel ways if required, this sort of thing is just another wholly speculative theory to add to the large and growing pile.
Which you haven't.
Taken together, the parts are obviously talking about a class of theory that is fit to data AND does not bother checking the theory against other data or making predictions in reality.
Your examples of theories that evolve don't seem relevant, as they're evolving because people made efforts to test the theory out and account for unexpected results (or, at the very least, look at datasets that weren't the ones that the theory was specifically designed to account for).
> Without some specific idea of "elsewhere", that idea is in the "not even wrong" category.
Which idea?
Also, based on what is to-be-specified idea in the not even wrong category? [By which I guess you mean you think it's so wrong that you cannot even dignify telling me why it's wrong? haha! :) Novel sly-arrogant/humble-brag appeal-to-authority, I'll give you that! Because your understanding is so above everyone else's you couldn't explain it or we wouldn't get it? Haha! :)]
Also, finally, pray tell what do you mean by "elsewhere" ? Hahahaha! :)
Which idea? You seem to have heavily edited your post after I replied; I remember it as being much shorter. I specifically meant
> I know that's the model, but what if it's inaccurate/only a part of the picture? What if the information is elsewhere and we don't know how to measure it?
"What if the information is elsewhere"... well, there's a lot of possible elsewheres. Without some kind of specifics, that's "not even wrong", not because I'm so much smarter than you or so much more of an expert, but because there's nothing there to let anyone be able to determine whether it's right or wrong.
By "elsewhere", I mean the word that you used. What did you mean by that word? Without a specific, you've got something that sounds like stoner physics: "Dude, what if, like, the information is, like, still there, man? What if it just, like, went elsewhere, man?" That's not something that we intelligently interact with. You introduced the word; what did you mean?
But... What if dark matter is the "elsewhere"? (No, I don't have any idea how that would work. Nor do I necessarily think that this is a sane idea. But it's a candidate for "elsewhere" that kind of seems to fit with the course of the discussion.)
Yes, I edited it but I hadn’t seen your reply at that time. I didn’t edit to confuse you! Just to add more details in rebuttal of the points of the other commenter above. Well, I’ll read your answer and get back to you in a bit. Thanks for replying! I wondered if you were an alt of adepts and got mad at me! Haha! :)
Yeah I get your point now. I did a big edit to add more points and forgot I had used that word. So to address your points:
> but because there's nothing there to let anyone be able to determine whether it's right or wrong.
Oh, I see what you're saying. Well I think it's more like...in this theory, we can leave the 'where is the information' question reasonably open right now. We don't have to pin it down. I'm OK with that.
It's the other things that are important to me for now. Information, time. It seems you didn't get those?
I think there's enough there if you read the thread. If you just want to take one thing out of context as you're too lazy to ready back, then blame me when it's not easy for you to explain, you're just picking on people. Blaming them for your own shit, that's not good.
> stoner physics
That's not very nice, tho. Like, why do you have to denigrate it? I get that it sounds that way to you, but that's not how it is. You find there what you bring to it, and you could just as easily engage intelligently with the elsewhere if you respected me by thinking: Okay, it's an unknown for now, I respect that.
Or even better, Wow that's interesting. Let me think about that, maybe I can propose some ideas. That would have been constructive. It seems your idea of "intelligently engage" is to have everything handed to you, and if it's not, take out your own laziness to think, by abusing other people. That's not good, AnimalMuppet.
It's you who didn't engage intelligently with this. That's not my fault, that's on you. Why did you have to take the conversation in this direction? You could have simply made a good contribution.
With someone who has already disrespected my views, that I shared openly and vulnerably, how do you think I'm going to feel exposing more of my ideas to someone who is already ridiculing them? You're not a very nice person, are you?
AnimalMuppet. I'm guessing from the capitalization, you're not a guy. You capitalize to make yourself louder because you don't feel heard here, in this "culture", but you come here because you think you should be heard. But you can't get over that pain, so if you see someone or something you think is a little bit weak, you want to unjustifiably take out your pain on them, to compensate for how you're not getting the respect here, in this "culture", that you think you deserve.
I feel sorry for you that you didn't have a great experience here, but don't take it out on random people to you, like me. I don't have anything to do with you. In fact you shouldn't be taking it out on anyone, you should just be dealin' with that, yourself, rather than being a bitch. Simple, don't you think? Haha! :)
> Again I think you're missing the point. There's many ways in which you can construct theories on any topic. They're all just models: which can be seen by how these models often evolve over time, and yet were at each time seen as fairly valid. This is true in all the sciences, and is inherent to science. You make like that's a criticism of modern physics only, but I think it's more an effect of the point below about measurement.
In science, as opposed to theology, the models in themselves are of no use until they're validated.
Hence the motto of the Royal Society: Nullius in verba. One expects more than words -- one expects experimental showings, or the reasonable expectation of an experimental showing in the very near future. 20th century physics, in the main, had this. It is the cornerstone of all other disciplines.
> in any way: I think this is a mischaracterization. Fitting with the data is a validation in some way.
"In some way" is doing a lot of work there. How many potential fittings from cosmological data are there? 1000? 10^10? 10^500? Do you know?
> That's the thing. These synths look like they work, on paper. The groups and charges move around right, but they don't actually work, which contradicts your point that you can't devise a large number of plausible alternatives in chem.
What are you talking about? You can come up with any number of theoretical retrosyntheses that do work, but are unwieldy, impractical, or can't be validated for any number of reasons -- lack of reagents or intermediates, etc.
You can derive any number of plausible processes. Nobody does that, though, because one is expected to do more -- to come up with something that runs, and ideally to run it and report how it works, with yield rates and so forth.
Similarly, I don't think that the paper in OP has constructed something that runs. It is mere backwards-fitting to cosmological data. The more interesting question, as I've noted, is how many such things are possible.
Again I think you're missing the point. There's many ways in which you can construct theories on any topic. They're all just models: which can be seen by how these models often evolve over time, and yet were at each time seen as fairly valid. This is true in all the sciences, and is inherent to science. You make like that's a criticism of modern physics only, but I think it's more an effect of the point below about measurement.
> In other disciplines, e.g. biology or chemistry, it's effectively forbidden to work backwards from data and come up with a "solution" that fits but can't be validated in any way.
in any way: I think this is a mischaracterization. Fitting with the data is a validation in some way. You seek orthogonal validation via new testable predictions, which is fair enough, but it's also fair to consider the measurement problem again (mentioned below), and the process of development wherein advances may be made before testing is figured out, if the domain is of sufficient complexity.
> Chemical space is vast; if you have a complex molecule, there are any number of ways retrosynthesis will work; finding one such way, without empirically validating it, is of near-zero value.
That's the thing. These synths look like they work, on paper. The groups and charges move around right, but they don't actually work, which contradicts your point that you can't devise a large number of plausible alternatives in chem. The same is true of bio and metabolic pathways.
In practice, often we don't know how to test something at the time we sketch it out. I guess that's the consequence of being at the frontier, there's much unkown. So the analogy between these disciplines and physics fits, but perhaps not in the way you intended.
But on another level, the analogy doesn't work, as finding synths is more an eng problem. You don't have to understand why a synth works, for it to work...which is often the case. And the theories about why that was allowed by enthalpy or catalysis or whatever are often evolved over time. Whereas theory building is more focused on having a why that might bring insight.
I think your main problem here is the false dichotomy you see with "work backwards from data to solve the constraints" and "this doesn't validate it in any way". In fact, in the world of theories, fitting the data, is a pretty fucking great validation hahaha! :) But I do get the sense you are expressing about the futility, which I think is real, but just not the whole picture.
> The great theories of 20th century physics were empirically validated almost immediately. Even their thought experiments were subjected to intense scrutiny and debate. Now those theories are fodder for engineers who tinker with material devices like MRI machines.
almost immediately: is inaccurate. Theories can make many predictions, and some of GR and SR were only validated recently.
I guess you can say that our measuring ability has not caught up to our theorizing or mathematical ability. Which is regrettable, but not a condemnation of the theories, as you seem to think.
I get the impression you advance that modern physics is in the business of producing time wasting untestable theories. Which is a fair enough take. I just think there's more nuance there, and you risk maligning a good theory, with this broad stroke.
> How do you reconcile this with the frame-dragging effect? Namely, in that it shows that the distribution and movement of mass (not just the presence of mass/entropy) can influence the curvature of spacetime and thereby gravitational effects.
I don't see that it contradicts it, so it may not be the best counter example. The movement or spin of the mass that induces frame-dragging can be considered information as well.
> Information is degraded over time; the universe will eventually contain zero useful information content ("heat death") and will then be modellable as a homogeneous space subject to statistical fluctuation.
I know that's the model, but what if it's inaccurate/only a part of the picture? What if the information is elsewhere and we don't know how to measure it? There's precedent for that: there's information in quantum states that was not known to exist or be measurable before quantum theory.