https://bigthink.com/13-8/theory-of-everything-2/
EXCERPT (Marcelo Gleiser): . . . The problem is that the very notion of a Theory of Everything, even if restricted to the world of subatomic particles and their interactions, rests on an incorrect understanding of how science works and what it can do. The aspiration is no doubt noble, but the philosophy behind it is faulty.
Physical theories are data-driven, based on a painstaking process of empirical validation; any hypothesis must be vetted by experiments before it is accepted. And even when it is accepted, and the hypothesis is sometimes elevated to the level of a “theory,” such as in the general theory of relativity or the theory of evolution, this acceptance is always temporary. A physical theory can only be proved wrong, never right, at least in any permanent sense. This is because every theory is necessarily incomplete, always ready for updates as we learn more about the physical world.
What makes science exciting is less the success of a theory and more the moment when a theory fails. That’s when “the new” happens.
As the physicist Werner Heisenberg, of Uncertainty Principle fame, once wrote, “What we observe is not Nature itself but Nature exposed to our methods of questioning.” What we can say about Nature depends on how we measure it, with the precision and reach of our instruments dictating how “far” we can see. Therefore, no theory that attempts to unify current knowledge can seriously be considered a “final” theory or a TOE, given that we cannot ever be sure that we aren’t missing a huge piece of evidence.
How are we to know that there isn’t a fifth or sixth force lurking out there in the depths? We cannot know, and quite often, hints of a “new force” are announced in the media. To put it differently, our perennially myopic view of nature precludes any theory from being complete. Nature doesn’t care how compelling we think our ideas are.
The best that we can do is to keep searching for more encompassing explanations of natural phenomena, possibly even achieving some level of unification as we go along. The history of physics has a few of these, such as Newton’s theory of gravity bringing together terrestrial and celestial motions, and electromagnetism that, in the absence of sources such as electric charges and currents, shows a beautiful unification between electricity and magnetism... (MORE - missing detials)
EXCERPT (Marcelo Gleiser): . . . The problem is that the very notion of a Theory of Everything, even if restricted to the world of subatomic particles and their interactions, rests on an incorrect understanding of how science works and what it can do. The aspiration is no doubt noble, but the philosophy behind it is faulty.
Physical theories are data-driven, based on a painstaking process of empirical validation; any hypothesis must be vetted by experiments before it is accepted. And even when it is accepted, and the hypothesis is sometimes elevated to the level of a “theory,” such as in the general theory of relativity or the theory of evolution, this acceptance is always temporary. A physical theory can only be proved wrong, never right, at least in any permanent sense. This is because every theory is necessarily incomplete, always ready for updates as we learn more about the physical world.
What makes science exciting is less the success of a theory and more the moment when a theory fails. That’s when “the new” happens.
As the physicist Werner Heisenberg, of Uncertainty Principle fame, once wrote, “What we observe is not Nature itself but Nature exposed to our methods of questioning.” What we can say about Nature depends on how we measure it, with the precision and reach of our instruments dictating how “far” we can see. Therefore, no theory that attempts to unify current knowledge can seriously be considered a “final” theory or a TOE, given that we cannot ever be sure that we aren’t missing a huge piece of evidence.
How are we to know that there isn’t a fifth or sixth force lurking out there in the depths? We cannot know, and quite often, hints of a “new force” are announced in the media. To put it differently, our perennially myopic view of nature precludes any theory from being complete. Nature doesn’t care how compelling we think our ideas are.
The best that we can do is to keep searching for more encompassing explanations of natural phenomena, possibly even achieving some level of unification as we go along. The history of physics has a few of these, such as Newton’s theory of gravity bringing together terrestrial and celestial motions, and electromagnetism that, in the absence of sources such as electric charges and currents, shows a beautiful unification between electricity and magnetism... (MORE - missing detials)