[General] double photon cycle, subjective v objective realities

[Dr Grahame Blackwell]

Hi Chip,

I have to say, I love this post!
[Yes, I have to 'fess up that one reason that I like it so much is because I've been thinking along very similar lines - part of what I want to include in my next more general response.]

In my time I've been involved in a number of team-based software engineering projects, including leadership of a few big ones (my CEng is for software engineering).  One of the major developments in such endeavours (generally, not just in my camp) was the introduction of a (fairly abstract) concept labelled 'egoless programming': different members of the team had responsibility for different aspects of the task, but of course it was essential for those elements to fit together.  One major impediment to this, it became clear, was if one member of the team thought 'their' bit of coding was particularly neat, particularly clever.  At the end of the day, the ideal solution is one in which no team member has gone overboard in trying to imprint their personality onto it - not always easy to achieve, sometimes the odd team member would drop out in disgust at 'not being properly valued' (usually an ego thing); but the end product could generally be reckoned to be better than the sum of all its parts.

'Egoless science' may likewise prove to be a difficult goal - but if we in this team can achieve it who knows what might come of it!?

Best,
G



----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chip Akins 
  To: 'Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion' 
  Sent: Friday, July 15, 2016 3:56 PM
  Subject: Re: [General] double photon cycle, subjective v objective realities


  Hi All

   

  This comment is not so much about the science as it is about the scientists.

   

  It seems to me that, due in part to philosophy, the discoveries of the 1800’s and 1900’s have been misinterpreted, and forced to fit theories which were philosophically motivated.

   

  With each new discovery, the proponents of popular theory scramble to explain the apparently conflicting results using their favorite (philosophically motivated) approach.  While all along saying “let the experimental data be the final authority”.

   

  The universe does not care about our philosophy or what our popular theories are at this tiny moment in our evolution.

   

  This forum has been an enlightening experiment for me.  I have watched as participants have largely discarded the ideas of others in favor of their own. I have been guilty of this as we all probably have.

   

  The reasons for this are many.  We have all done a significant amount of research and therefore developed our own philosophy. If a suggestion differs from our perception (which is motivated by our philosophy) we often do not take the time to study the suggestion.  Of course we have to do this to some extent to weed out the useless, and use our time wisely, but while doing so it would be better for us to make sure we are not throwing out some good stuff along the way. Any one of us could be on the wrong track and failing to see it because we are not able to adapt to a new perspective. Do we want to waste years going down the wrong path? Only to find later that we could have taken a better path and made more progress for humanity?

   

  There is only one solution to this set of problems, and that solution will not change because of our individual, or collective, perception. So we are only harming our own progress when we don’t intelligently listen and try to prove clearly whether a suggestion could be legitimate.

   

  One thing which has become clear to me over the years is that theory is almost always philosophically motivated.  And any theory which does not start by showing cause is one which I suspect and will try to reevaluate.

   

  We really know so little of our universe.

   

  So in my opinion, Chandra’s suggestions that we reevaluate our perspectives and methods of thought is an urgent one for the development and progress of physics. 

   

  We cannot prevent philosophy from influencing our thoughts, but if we are consistently aware that we could be just flat wrong, we will fare better in our endeavor. When we decide that we have found the answer and stop looking we have closed our senses from further discovery.

   

  I consider many of you to be my friends and hold you in very high esteem. I would love to see you win the Nobel Prize.  But more than that I would love to see you solve many of the remaining puzzles so humanity can see the awesome universe clearly, finally. So that humanity can then develop the resources for us to continue to evolve and flourish.

   

  It is my opinion that among the contributions to this ongoing discussion lie the keys to unlocking many of the remaining puzzles of the universe. But that not any one of us has really understood how these pieces fit.  I think some are very close to that more complete understanding, but that all of us might be allowing our existing body of work and our existing philosophy to hinder our next steps in making real progress.

   

  All the best to each of you in this endeavor.

   

  With Warmest Regards

   

  Chip Akins

   
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