On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 02:35:21AM -0500, Jason Resch wrote: > On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 12:09 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > "A theory that can explain anything, fails to explain at all." > > > > > A few people on this list have repeated this sentiment, but I wonder if it > is really so. If there were an oracle that could provide an explanation for > any question asked of it, should we conclude this oracle fails to explain > anything at all?
Yes. Actually DD's BoI has a good explanation of this. > If not, then what is the difference between a theory that > could explain anything and an oracle that could explain anything? > Nothing (or course). > Physicists spend their lives searching for a physical TOE that could in > principal explain anything that happens in this universe. Is their search > in vain because this TOE would explain nothing at all? > This is a misconception. The "TOE" that physicists re searching for is a bit of an in-joke. Physicists are, however, always on the lookout for unification of theories explaining disparate phenomena, such as the unification of electriciy and magnetism via Maxwell's equations, or relativity with gravity (General Relativity). Such connections between theories do provide insight, and are worthwhile endeavours in their own right, even if to use them requires much more ancilliary knowledge than the original theories they subsumed. Feynmann give an excellent discussion of this in relation to a formulation of Maxwell's equations as a single equation involving a type of derivative, and a four dimensional vector. It is very neat, beautiful, and illustrates the connection between magnetism and electricity in a blinding clear form. But to use it requires knowing how the derivative is calculated, and how this 4D vector potential is related to familiar quantities such as electric and magnetic field strengths. Physicists would like to unify their explanations of the "4 fundamental forces" electromagnetism (which is already a unification of electric and magnetic), weak (which has already be unified with EM via the electroweak theory), strong and gravity. The hope is that each such unification leads to new reach, and new phenomena that can be explained, which seems reasonable. This endeavour has been called the "theory of everything" as a bit of a joke. Of course it is anything but. It doesn't explain any emergent phenomena - even quite physical phenomena such as the wetness of water, much less phenomena such as consciousness. > A final thought, are theories that propose the existence of everything, > really theories that can explain anything? > They explain, but they're not good explanations. For exactly the reason Brent gave in his response :). > Jason > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
