The Davey Dialogues - An Exploration of the Scientific Foundations of Human Culture. John C. Madden
Davey what conclusions I thought he should draw, even though they may not be the conclusions he would wish to draw.
– Well, Davey, this pretty well concludes what I wanted to tell you about our knowledge of the physical world we live in. We have two underlying theories that explain the actions of the physical forces we are aware of. The Standard Model very accurately describes the actions of the strong and weak nuclear forces and the electro-magnetic force, Einstein’s theories of Special and General Relativity describe the way that the gravitational force behaves. The Standard Model, for the most part, does an excellent job of describing nature in the small, while Einstein’s theories, again for the most part, do an excellent job of describing nature where the force of gravity predominates, i.e. over large distances. Neither approach, however, explains everything even within its own domain. Perhaps most notably, in the domain of the small, we have yet to comprehend and explain the phenomenon of non-locality. In the domain of the large, perhaps the greatest remaining mysteries are the apparent existence of dark matter and dark energy. Despite extensive efforts by some of our brightest minds labouring over many decades, we have yet to arrive at a satisfactory “Theory of Everything” that might unify these two theoretical approaches and clean up the mysteries at their fringes.
In his summary at the end of The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene wrote:
Already . . . we have seen glimpses of a strange new domain of the universe lurking beneath the Planck length, possibly one in which there is no notion of time or space. At the opposite extreme, we have also seen that our universe may merely be one of the innumerable frothing bubbles on the surface of a vast and turbulent cosmic ocean called the multiverse. These ideas . . . may presage the next leap in our understanding of the universe.[36]
Eight years after Greene wrote those words, the beginnings of what may turn out to be the next leap were posited by a physicist named Lisi who used some advanced geometry to construct a plausible family of new particles and forces that could explain dark matter and dark energy and encompass both the Standard Model and Einstein’s General Relativity theory. He calls his theory E8 Theory, where E8 refers to an E8 Lie Group. It is particularly of interest that the theory predicts that the newly constructed European particle accelerator, the LHC, will be able to generate some of the new particles that the theory predicts.[37]
Davey, I cannot tell you what an E8 Lie Group is, but I can tell you that it is vital to know that there appears to be a way to test whether or not it has promise. You might be surprised to learn how many theories in this domain are essentially untestable.
Perhaps one of the most wonderful phenomena of our history as a species is that we humans have been able to adapt the brains that evolved to enhance the survival chances of our forebears when they were hunter-gatherers into engines that have not only allowed many of us to experience a much better, longer and pleasanter life, but also has allowed us to contemplate the laws that govern our universe.
It is a source of wonder that scientists have been able to formulate testable theories about the origins of the universe and thus create a credible knowledge base about worlds undreamt of only a hundred years ago. However, an important part of self-knowledge lies in an understanding that humans, like ants, may never be able to see and understand all of the real world.
There is a useful corollary to this statement. The history of science clearly demonstrates that it is neither useful nor helpful to accept without question unverifiable explanations for those things we do not understand. If a satisfactory science-based explanation is not available, wait a while. There may be one in the making!
– Bravo, Peter! I know it was a lot of work for you to prepare for this, but that wasn’t so bad was it? I do hope though that your brilliant researchers will continue to explore the use of additional spatial dimensions to help explain what they do not now understand. I can assure you from personal experience that it is a promising avenue to pursue.
Let’s meet again at the same time next week.
– Well thank you Davey. I was afraid that you might find my discussion either much too simple or totally incomprehensible! It is very helpful to get your reactions to what I say, especially as I know you have a habit of talking to others who may know a lot more than I do about any given subject.
You should find our next discussion much easier to understand, though many humans get a headache as soon as the word “statistics” is mentioned.
In much of human experience we encounter potential events that either cannot happen (i.e. have zero probability) or that are certain to occur. Of course we often have to deal with situations that might or might not occur, though we seldom feel impelled to understand in numerical terms just how likely it is that a particular event will occur. Our distant forebears didn’t have the tools available to make such calculations, and we clearly have little innate drive to calculate probabilities. In many fields of science it is important to place a value on the likelihood or probability that a particular event will take place.
So, next week I will try to give you a feel for the human fascination with lotteries, and other statistical marvels, and show you how knowledge of statistics can help us to better understand our origins.
Before I could say another word I sensed that he had withdrawn to another universe.
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