The limits of the mind in understanding the universe

del88

What are the limits of the mind in understanding the universe?
should we except these limits or do we really think that we can develope a unifying theory ...
Do you ever foresee an organic super computer working it out or does the universe have infinte complexity.???

Is it all one big multi demenional quantum fractal???

Morbert

del88 wrote: »

What are the limits of the mind in understanding the universe?
should we except these limits or do we really think that we can develope a unifying theory ...
Do you ever foresee an organic super computer working it out or does the universe have infinte complexity.???

Is it all one big multi demenional quantum fractal???

"The career of a young theoretical physicist consists of treating the harmonic oscillator in ever-increasing levels of abstraction." --- Sidney Coleman

A unified theory of everything will probably use very abstract mathematics, but I wouldn't say it'd be complex. I'd say we'd use supercomputers less for working out theories, and more for calculating what we should expect to observe if the theories are true.

A unified theory will also, I hasten to add, still be empirical. It won't answer all the "why" questions we can come up with. But it will, in my opinion, answer the important ones that can be answered.

As for the limitations of our theories. A universe is no more obliged to be understandable by us that is is to be understandable by a dog. Who knows what aspects of the universe are missed by our meagre representations of it.

Professor_Fink

del88 wrote: »

What are the limits of the mind in understanding the universe?
should we except these limits or do we really think that we can develope a unifying theory ...

Nobody really knows, but we have met with great success so far, and that would seem to indicate it is possible. One of the most amazing things about the universe is that is seems to be based on very simple laws, and I would be shocked is we discovered it to be more complicated than our current models. In fact I expect it is far less complex than, for example, the standard model Lagrangian. That said, very complex calculations might be necessary to use these fundamental rules to make predictions about the behaviour of the universe, but that is merely a computational problem.

One thing I would say, however, is that I believe that abandoning our attempts to understand the universe would be folly of the highest order. Our attempts to understand the world around us set us apart from other life on this planet. It is what makes humanity special.

nesf

I think the biggest leap in intuition in studying physics comes from when you realise that from very simple beginning rules very complex behaviour can result in a system. Overcoming the (natural) urge to associate complex behaviour with a complex "explanation" is important if you're ever going to understand how the world around you works.

del88

I suppose just as we are limited by our brain size in answer the big questions ,we're also limited by our brain size in how big a question we can ask......
language and maths as a form of questioning the universe will only ever give an answer based on thinking and mathematics.....
I think Einstein had something else ,his brain was wired slight differently giving him better insight in to the working of the universe.

Bodicea

Im so glad to hear sombody acknowledge that our universe is not a manifestation of uber complex rules/formulas. Been saying that for donkeys years.

And I do believe that unification is on the horizon....but we arent going to find it until the so called experts stop trying to over complicate things....mulitiple dimensions, parallel universes.... yeh! wa'eva!!

OP, physics is a relatively new science, we're only getting on our feet! We will get there, but sure its not the end result that's exciting..its all the stuff in between......seeing a colour picture of collision of particles, getting your head around the sizes, photographs from hubble of the pillars of creation.....if we had all the answers yesterday...I wonder how many of the truly jaw dropping wonders would we have missed.

Professor_Fink

Bodicea wrote: »

Im so glad to hear sombody acknowledge that our universe is not a manifestation of uber complex rules/formulas. Been saying that for donkeys years.

And I do believe that unification is on the horizon....but we arent going to find it until the so called experts stop trying to over complicate things....mulitiple dimensions, parallel universes.... yeh! wa'eva!!

Just to be clear, I in no way agree with what you are saying. The fundamental postulates of modern physics are very simple, although they can give rise to intricate structure. Simply because you have not taken the time to understand how this happens in say, quantum mechanics, general relativity or string theory, is not an argument against their validity.

Bodicea

Professor_Fink wrote: »

Just to be clear, I in no way agree with what you are saying. The fundamental postulates of modern physics are very simple, although they can give rise to intricate structure. Simply because you have not taken the time to understand how this happens in say, quantum mechanics, general relativity or string theory, is not an argument against their validity.

I dont think I actually said anything PF. And I agree re simple fundamentals giving rise to what appears to be complex.

Is that an attempt at being pejorative professor fink, you dont know how much time I have spent on this, or how much I do or dont understand.

Professor_Fink

Hi Bodicea,

I may have misjudged your level, and if so I am sorry. However, my opinion was formed reading your second paragraph, so let me point out why I formed the opinion that you didn't really understand those theories.

Bodicea wrote: »

And I do believe that unification is on the horizon....but we arent going to find it until the so called experts stop trying to over complicate things....mulitiple dimensions, parallel universes.... yeh! wa'eva!!

First, using the term "so called experts" is a massive red flag. It just screams "I'm a crackpot" (and frankly using "yeh! wa'eva!!" doesn't really help).

More importantly, though, the two examples you cite (multiple-dimensions and parallel universes) are nothing to do with complex postulates. I assume "parallel universes" refers to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. What's particularly ironic is that this particular view of quantum mechanics allows you to remove the measurement postulate, without adding any extras. It is fundamentally simpler than any of the other interpretations.

Multiple dimensions isn't quite as ironic, but is more neutral. String theory is just quantum field theory where we allow extended 1-dimensional objects, so its postulates are almost as simple as QFT. You simply arrive at a number of dimensions >4 when you require that photons be massless. So neither of these examples say anything about the fundamental laws of nature, but are rather complex consequences of very simple rules.

So there seem to be two options, either you don't really understand these theories, or you do but simply didn't think out your post very thoroughly. I won't pretend to know which is the case.