Unmaking Sense

Episode 10.22: Are the desires and ambitions that drive lifestyles mistaken? Unmaking sense of them.

It is not only physicists, mathematicians and chatbots that are susceptible to the “When in hole, …” syndrome: it is possible and even likely that the values driving human aims are similarly defined. How can we unmake this sense of what really matters?

Episode 10.21: Does better understanding require greater complexity? Chatbots and “When in hole …”.

Our chatbot friends find it very hard to cancel what they have already suggested; they don’t understand “When in hope, stop digging”. Is some science the same? Does greater and greater “complexification” promise greater understanding? Or is there a bandwagon effect where everyone is scared lest they fall behind in the race to the next, most comprehensive theory, and nobody can find the vision or the courage to cry “halt!”

Episode 10.20: Three revisions to our habits of thought to help us “think quantum”.

We encourage three revisions to our habits of thought: (1) think fuzzy; (2) think intervals and neighbourhoods; (3) think patience. These as conceptual counterweights to (i) thinking absolute and concrete-definite; (ii) thinking points and lines; (iii) thinking everything in the universe is intelligible to human minds. We should let the universe do what it does and not be in too much of a hurry to slap some complicated theory on it just to reassure ourselves that we really do understand what is going on. We don’t.

Episode 10.19: We explore some more ideas about forces that attract and repel to unmake more sense.

Some ideas about forces that attract and repel based on the notion that their behaviour is caused by configurations of space-time. Symmetry-breaking excursions from equilibrium as what distinguish the quantum and classical worlds.

Episode 10.18: The central role of randomness in quantum mechanics, and how it destroys determinism.

What is randomness? Gregory Chaitin’s misconception. Lev Shestov and the Medusa-like power we confer on the past when we allow it to control us. But randomness is no friend of freedom, just a final refutation of determinism.

Episode 10.17: What happens to all the possible quantum paths? The Everett multi-world hypothesis.

Suppose we see a classical trajectory such as Russo’s decisive goal for the England women’s team against Colombia; what happens to all the other possible quantum paths that could have been realised, such as when the goal is not scored? Everett’s multi-world hypothesis: they all arise; just not for us. Parallels with the Anthropic Principle.

Episode 10.16: We use some speculations on the Higgs Field as examples of iterative understanding.

This episode experiments with a way to think of the non-zero energy of the Higgs Field as an example, however mistaken, of how to start to grapple with alien concepts and ideas.

Episode 10.15: Even in mathematics there may be emergent, evolved habits that lead to misconceptions

Because everything emerges and evolves, there is always a need to reconsider, revise, reconceptualise, and this is true even with things as familiar as mathematics and natural language.

Episode 10.14: we extend the notion of physics as a language by considering the Hamiltonian.

By translating freely between physical concepts and symbols and models and everyday reality we discover new ways to think about the world with far-reaching implications for science and mathematics. Schrödinger’s Equation as a natural formulation of a new kind of reality.

Episode 10.13: Learning to speak the language of physics using the Lagrangian as example.

People fluent in the language of physics speak it the way everyone else speaks a native language. They don’t necessarily do calculations, and often can’t; they just use the notation as a convenient shorthand to communicate about physical models of reality.