SciPhysicsForums.com

Stephen Wolfram, the founder of the company that made Mathematica, has come out with his latest fundamental theory of physics:

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/202 ... beautiful/

As far as I can see this is just an elaboration of his book "A New Kind of Science" from 2002. The objections of Scott Aaronson still stand:

https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0206089

Heinera wrote:Stephen Wolfram, the founder of the company that made Mathematica, has come out with his latest fundamental theory of physics:

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/202 ... beautiful/

As far as I can see this is just an elaboration of his book "A New Kind of Science" from 2002. The objections of Scott Aaronson still stand:

https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0206089

In the abstract of his critique of Wolfrom's proposal Aaronson writes:

In physics, we examine Wolfram's proposal for a deterministic model underlying quantum mechanics, with 'long-range threads' to connect entangled particles. We show that this proposal cannot be made compatible with both special relativity and Bell inequality violation.

While I am not necessarily a big fan of Wolfram's "New Kind of Science", Aaronson's reliance on "Bell inequality violation" is, of course, grossly mistaken for more than one reason. That is because, quite independently of Wolfram's model, a perfectly deterministic, local, and realistic model of all quantum correlations already exists in the published literature on the subject:

(1) https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 014-2412-2

(2) https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/ ... sos.180526

(3) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8836453

In addition, we have endlessly demonstrated in this forum that nothing ever can and nothing ever does violate any mathematical inequality. "Bell inequality violations" are obtained by bait and switch tactics in the experiments.

Moreover, elsewhere I have criticized Aaronson's dogmatic belief in Bell's so-called "theorem" and his scientific misconduct in disingenuously attacking anyone who challenges Bell's theorem:

https://www.academia.edu/38423874/Refut ... ls_Theorem

The abstract of this paper reads as follows:

In May 2012 Scott Aaronson launched an unprovoked shaming campaign against me for a fortnight on his personal blog, without reading a single line of my argument against Bell’s theorem [1]. The campaign involved mockery, defamation, incitement, name-calling, cyber-bullying, cyber-mobbing, and various other forms of intimidation tactics and ad hominem attacks, rationalized by reiteration of some incorrect criticisms of my argument previously advanced by others. In this note, I repudiate his scientifically incorrect criticisms of my local-realistic model for the singlet correlations, as it is presented in [2]. Previously I have refuted such incorrect criticisms in these five preprints: [3–7]. I begin with a brief summary of my previous responses that address related issues raised by others.

I don't think Wolfram needs to worry about Aaronson's supposed critique. Wolfram has rightly ignored Aaronson's nonsense totally. Who is Aaronson that Wolfram should be mindful of him?

***

Joy Christian wrote:[...]
That is because, quite independently of Wolfram's model, a perfectly deterministic, local, and realistic model of all quantum correlations already exists in the published literature on the subject:

Well, I guess Stephen Wolfram would make the same claim of his model. And it has the added advantage of being a theory of everything.

Heinera wrote:

Joy Christian wrote:[...]
That is because, quite independently of Wolfram's model, a perfectly deterministic, local, and realistic model of all quantum correlations already exists in the published literature on the subject:

Well, I guess Stephen Wolfram would make the same claim of his model. And it has the added advantage of being a theory of everything.

Is Wolfram's model published in a peer-reviewed journal? Rightly or wrongly, peer-reviewed publications are taken to be the gold standard of acceptability by the scientific community.

***

Joy Christian wrote:Is Wolfram's model published in a peer-reviewed journal? Rightly or wrongly, peer-reviewed publications are taken to be the gold standard of acceptability by the scientific community.

***

Who needs peer review when you've got his kind of money?

I'm sure that when his new book comes out in May there will be a lot of reviews by peers.

Heinera wrote:

Joy Christian wrote:Is Wolfram's model published in a peer-reviewed journal? Rightly or wrongly, peer-reviewed publications are taken to be the gold standard of acceptability by the scientific community.

***

Who needs peer review when you've got his kind of money?

I'm sure that when his new book comes out in May there will be a lot of reviews by peers.

Yes, we live in a world dictated by the rich and powerful elite even within the sciences.

I, of course, don't have that kind of money. Fortunately, I did not have to pay fees for any of my peer-reviewed publications. I received 100% exemption from both RSOS and IEEE Access.

***

Joy Christian wrote:

Heinera wrote:

Joy Christian wrote:Is Wolfram's model published in a peer-reviewed journal? Rightly or wrongly, peer-reviewed publications are taken to be the gold standard of acceptability by the scientific community.

***

Who needs peer review when you've got his kind of money?

I'm sure that when his new book comes out in May there will be a lot of reviews by peers.

Yes, we live in a world dictated by the rich and powerful elite even within the sciences.

I, of course, don't have that kind of money. Fortunately, I did not have to pay fees for any of my peer-reviewed publications. I received 100% exemption from both RSOS and IEEE Access.

***

You clearly have a friend among the rich and powerful. I'm glad for you, since I was glad that these works got published

Joy Christian wrote:
Yes, we live in a world dictated by the rich and powerful elite even within the sciences.

I, of course, don't have that kind of money. Fortunately, I did not have to pay fees for any of my peer-reviewed publications. I received 100% exemption from both RSOS and IEEE Access.

gill1109 wrote:
You clearly have a friend among the rich and powerful.

I do not have any rich friends --- not one. Rich at heart maybe, but not rich with money.

I used to have one powerful friend, Abner Shimony, but he is no more.

I have another powerful friend, Lucien Hardy, but he is so committed to nonlocality that he does not like my criticisms of Bell's theorem.

gill1109 wrote:
I'm glad for you, since I was glad that these works got published

You are clearly lying. All you have done for the past eight years is to wrongly criticize my work and block it from being published in every which way possible, breaking all norms of decency.

***

Joy Christian wrote:

Joy Christian wrote:
Yes, we live in a world dictated by the rich and powerful elite even within the sciences.

I, of course, don't have that kind of money. Fortunately, I did not have to pay fees for any of my peer-reviewed publications. I received 100% exemption from both RSOS and IEEE Access.

gill1109 wrote:
You clearly have a friend among the rich and powerful.

I do not have any rich friends --- not one. Rich at heart maybe, but not rich with money.

I used to have one powerful friend, Abner Shimony, but he is no more.

I have another powerful friend, Lucien Hardy, but he is so committed to nonlocality that he does not like my criticisms of Bell's theorem.

gill1109 wrote:
I'm glad for you, since I was glad that these works got published

You are clearly lying. All you have done for the past eight years is to wrongly criticize my work and block it from being published in every which way possible, breaking all norms of decency.

***

I'm not lying. I'm committed to truth and to justice. I criticise your work "in good faith". Of course, I might be wrong, I'm not infallible. But I bare you no ill will. IN fact I'm grateful for you being the "sparring partner" which you have been, and I hope will remain. You have been a great stimulus, a great inspiration, for my own work.

Ok guys, let's get back on-topic here.
.

FrediFizzx wrote:Ok guys, let's get back on-topic here.

Getting back on-topic, Heinera started this thread to point out that in 2002 Aaronson criticized Wolfram's "New Kind of Science" invoking Bell's theorem. But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum. In particular, in his argument Bell made the same silly mistake he ridiculed von Neumann for making, as I have demonstrated elsewhere: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.02876. Sooner or later this paper will be published in a journal.

***

Joy Christian wrote:

FrediFizzx wrote:Ok guys, let's get back on-topic here.

Getting back on-topic, Heinera started this thread to point out that in 2002 Aaronson criticized Wolfram's "New Kind of Science" invoking Bell's theorem. But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum. In particular, in his argument Bell made the same silly mistake he ridiculed von Neumann for making, as I have demonstrated elsewhere: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.02876. Sooner or later this paper will be published in a journal.

I hope so! Nobody should be censored. The debate about these matters goes on, decade after decade. Each new generation has to learn anew.

gill1109 wrote:

Joy Christian wrote:

FrediFizzx wrote:Ok guys, let's get back on-topic here.

Getting back on-topic, Heinera started this thread to point out that in 2002 Aaronson criticized Wolfram's "New Kind of Science" invoking Bell's theorem. But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum. In particular, in his argument Bell made the same silly mistake he ridiculed von Neumann for making, as I have demonstrated elsewhere: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.02876. Sooner or later this paper will be published in a journal.

I hope so! Nobody should be censored. The debate about these matters goes on, decade after decade. Each new generation has to learn anew.

I am always amused by ventriloquy.

***

Joy Christian wrote: But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum.
***

According to the postmodernists and the school of social constructionism, all of physics is "merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system."

Heinera wrote:

Joy Christian wrote: But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum.
***

According to the postmodernists and the school of social constructionism, all of physics is "merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system."

And Bell's theorem, in particular, is a spectacular example of that.

***

Heinera wrote:

Joy Christian wrote: But Bell's theorem has no scientific merit whatsoever. It is merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system, as several people have repeatedly demonstrated in this forum.

According to the postmodernists and the school of social constructionism, all of physics is "merely a politically and sociologically sustained belief system."

But you can make good hard cash by selling people quantum computers and quantum cryptography. Luigi Accardi was doing that in Japan 15 years ago, in a collaboration with a Japanese professor who travelled everywhere with a little Japanese PhD student, who carried his laptop and stuff like that. They had computer programs written by Luigi's student Massimo Regoli, which simulated violation of Bell's inequality using the most incredible tricks, for instance by multiplying Alice's outcomes by sqrt 2. Luigi always had some story about cross-sections and particle physics, this was how all the real physicists do it, so he was allowed to do it too. He had a portrait of Kolmogorov on his desk and claimed to be one of Kolmogorov's PhD students. It is true that as a Marxist student he had spent some time in Moscow. As a Marxist professor he and his wife had a Philippine live-in household-help who cooked lovely dinners for them and their guest (me). Because Luigi had quarrelled with all the other professors in Rome they had given him his own institute in one of the most peripheral Rome universities. I visited him there, he was the only person in the whole institute. It reminded me of one of those new neighbourhoods in "La Dolce Vita". Nothing was finished. The roads and paths didn't link up. You had to walk a huge distance from a metro station, largely through a random mixture of fields and building sites, to get there. Later, I had similar travel experiences visiting Mauro d'Ariano in Pavia.

gill1109 wrote:
They had computer programs written by Luigi's student Massimo Regoli, which simulated violation of Bell's inequality using the most incredible tricks, for instance by multiplying Alice's outcomes by sqrt 2.

That is much more honest than the bait-and-switch trick your experimentalist friends use to "violate" Bell inequalities. Anyone who claims that a mathematical inequality is violated by something should be stripped off their high school diploma. That includes you and your experimentalist friends.

***

Guys, still off topic here. This thread is about Wolfram's ideas. Talk about that please.
.

I was just reading Wolfram's article. I thought some aspects of it were promising. There were other aspects of it that I thought were going in the wrong direction, but nevermind. That can be fixed. What's nice to see is a guy putting it out there.

JohnDuffield wrote:I was just reading Wolfram's article. I thought some aspects of it were promising. There were other aspects of it that I thought were going in the wrong direction, but nevermind. That can be fixed. What's nice to see is a guy putting it out there.

John, can you please give us a couple of the aspects you found promising and some that are the wrong direction? Thanks.
.