Jan 6, 2025 08:47 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 6, 2025 10:20 PM by C C.)
Virtually anyone who has invested decades in an _X_ subject or endeavor will be unable in a total sense to later abandon it or admit it was folly. Because that's consigning much or most of their life to futility. Especially applies if _X_ also provided an income and/or other values.
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My encounter with string theorist and naïve realist Edward Witten (John Horgan)
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/my-en...ard-witten
EXCERPTS: In 1990, chitchatting between sessions at a physics conference, I asked attendees: Who is the smartest physicist of them all? Several names kept coming up, including Nobel laureates Steven Weinberg and Murray Gell-Man, but mentioned most was Ed Witten. He is often likened to Einstein, but one admirer reached even further back for a comparison, suggesting that Witten possesses the greatest mathematical mind since Newton.
Witten is also the most spectacular specimen of naïve realist I have ever encountered. Naive realists possess an exceptionally strong faith in scientific and mathematical truths. They do not invent their theories, they discover them. The theories exist independently of any cultural or historical context or efforts to find them.
Like a Texan who thinks everyone except Texans has an accent, the naïve realist does not acknowledge he has adopted any philosophical stance (let alone one named “naïve realism”). He is just a conduit for objective truth. Background and personality have nothing to do with his scientific work.
Thus Witten, when I called to request an interview, tried to dissuade me from writing about him. He abhorred journalism that dwells on scientists' personalities. And contrary to what some reports have suggested, he did not discover string theory; he simply helped develop it.
Finally in August 1991 Witten agreed to let me visit him at the Institute for Advanced Study. He asked me to send him samples of my writings in advance. Stupidly, I included a profile of skeptical philosopher Thomas Kuhn.
When I arrived, Witten immediately lectured me on my shoddy journalistic ethics. I had done science a disservice by repeating Kuhn's view that science is an arational (not irrational) process that does not converge on the truth.
"You should be concentrating on serious and substantive contributions to the understanding of science," Witten said. Kuhn's philosophy "isn't taken very seriously except as a debating standard, even by its proponents." Does Kuhn go to a doctor when he’s sick? Does he have radial tires on his car?
I shrugged and guessed that he probably does. Witten nodded triumphantly. That proves, he declared, that not even Kuhn believes his own philosophy.
Kuhn’s views are influential and provocative, I said, and one of my aims as a science writer is not only to inform readers but also to provoke them.
“Aim to report on some of the truths that are being discovered, rather than aiming to provoke. That should be the aim of a science writer," Witten said.
I try to do both, I replied.
"Well, that's a pretty feeble response," Witten said. "Provoking people, or stimulating them intellectually, should be a byproduct of reporting on some of the truths that are being discovered."
This is another mark of the naïve realist: when he says "truth," there is never any ironic inflection or smile; the word is implicitly capitalized.
Finally, I managed to get Witten to recount how he became entangled by strings. [...] Witten first learned of string theory in 1975, just before he got his doctorate at Princeton, but his initial efforts to understand it were stymied by the "opaque" literature. (Yes, the smartest physicist of them all had a hard time grasping strings.)
In 1982, however, a paper by string pioneer John Schwarz gave Witten a crucial insight: Rather than simply allowing for the possibility of gravity, string theory requires gravity. Witten called this realization "the greatest intellectual thrill of my life."
By the mid-1980's, Witten had no doubts about the theory's potential. "It was clear that if I didn't spend my life concentrating on string theory,” he said, “I would simply be missing my life's calling.” He began publicly proclaiming the theory a "miracle" and predicting that it would "dominate physics for the next 50 years." He generated a flood of papers on the theory, including 19 in 1985 alone.
[...] I asked Witten about the complaint that string theory is not testable and therefore is not really physics at all. Witten replied that the theory had predicted gravity. "Even though it is, properly speaking, a post-prediction, in the sense that the experiment was made before the theory, the fact that gravity is a consequence of string theory, to me, is one of the greatest theoretical insights ever."
Witten acknowledged that string theory might not yield a precise description of nature for decades. [...] When I continued to press him on the theory’s testability, Witten grew exasperated. "I don't think I've succeeded in conveying to you its wonder, its incredible consistency, remarkable elegance and beauty." In other words, string theory is too beautiful to be wrong.
Witten then revealed the depths of his naïve realism. "Generally speaking, all the really great ideas of physics are really spinoffs of string theory," he began. “Some of them were discovered first, but I consider that a mere accident of the development on planet earth. On planet earth, they were discovered in this order."
[...] When I was in college, a literature professor likened James Joyce's gobbledygookian novel Finnegans Wake to the gargoyles atop Notre Dame Cathedral, built solely for God's amusement. I suspect that if Witten ever finds the theory he so desires, only he and God will grok it... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My encounter with string theorist and naïve realist Edward Witten (John Horgan)
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/my-en...ard-witten
EXCERPTS: In 1990, chitchatting between sessions at a physics conference, I asked attendees: Who is the smartest physicist of them all? Several names kept coming up, including Nobel laureates Steven Weinberg and Murray Gell-Man, but mentioned most was Ed Witten. He is often likened to Einstein, but one admirer reached even further back for a comparison, suggesting that Witten possesses the greatest mathematical mind since Newton.
Witten is also the most spectacular specimen of naïve realist I have ever encountered. Naive realists possess an exceptionally strong faith in scientific and mathematical truths. They do not invent their theories, they discover them. The theories exist independently of any cultural or historical context or efforts to find them.
Like a Texan who thinks everyone except Texans has an accent, the naïve realist does not acknowledge he has adopted any philosophical stance (let alone one named “naïve realism”). He is just a conduit for objective truth. Background and personality have nothing to do with his scientific work.
Thus Witten, when I called to request an interview, tried to dissuade me from writing about him. He abhorred journalism that dwells on scientists' personalities. And contrary to what some reports have suggested, he did not discover string theory; he simply helped develop it.
Finally in August 1991 Witten agreed to let me visit him at the Institute for Advanced Study. He asked me to send him samples of my writings in advance. Stupidly, I included a profile of skeptical philosopher Thomas Kuhn.
When I arrived, Witten immediately lectured me on my shoddy journalistic ethics. I had done science a disservice by repeating Kuhn's view that science is an arational (not irrational) process that does not converge on the truth.
"You should be concentrating on serious and substantive contributions to the understanding of science," Witten said. Kuhn's philosophy "isn't taken very seriously except as a debating standard, even by its proponents." Does Kuhn go to a doctor when he’s sick? Does he have radial tires on his car?
I shrugged and guessed that he probably does. Witten nodded triumphantly. That proves, he declared, that not even Kuhn believes his own philosophy.
Kuhn’s views are influential and provocative, I said, and one of my aims as a science writer is not only to inform readers but also to provoke them.
“Aim to report on some of the truths that are being discovered, rather than aiming to provoke. That should be the aim of a science writer," Witten said.
I try to do both, I replied.
"Well, that's a pretty feeble response," Witten said. "Provoking people, or stimulating them intellectually, should be a byproduct of reporting on some of the truths that are being discovered."
This is another mark of the naïve realist: when he says "truth," there is never any ironic inflection or smile; the word is implicitly capitalized.
Finally, I managed to get Witten to recount how he became entangled by strings. [...] Witten first learned of string theory in 1975, just before he got his doctorate at Princeton, but his initial efforts to understand it were stymied by the "opaque" literature. (Yes, the smartest physicist of them all had a hard time grasping strings.)
In 1982, however, a paper by string pioneer John Schwarz gave Witten a crucial insight: Rather than simply allowing for the possibility of gravity, string theory requires gravity. Witten called this realization "the greatest intellectual thrill of my life."
By the mid-1980's, Witten had no doubts about the theory's potential. "It was clear that if I didn't spend my life concentrating on string theory,” he said, “I would simply be missing my life's calling.” He began publicly proclaiming the theory a "miracle" and predicting that it would "dominate physics for the next 50 years." He generated a flood of papers on the theory, including 19 in 1985 alone.
[...] I asked Witten about the complaint that string theory is not testable and therefore is not really physics at all. Witten replied that the theory had predicted gravity. "Even though it is, properly speaking, a post-prediction, in the sense that the experiment was made before the theory, the fact that gravity is a consequence of string theory, to me, is one of the greatest theoretical insights ever."
Witten acknowledged that string theory might not yield a precise description of nature for decades. [...] When I continued to press him on the theory’s testability, Witten grew exasperated. "I don't think I've succeeded in conveying to you its wonder, its incredible consistency, remarkable elegance and beauty." In other words, string theory is too beautiful to be wrong.
Witten then revealed the depths of his naïve realism. "Generally speaking, all the really great ideas of physics are really spinoffs of string theory," he began. “Some of them were discovered first, but I consider that a mere accident of the development on planet earth. On planet earth, they were discovered in this order."
[...] When I was in college, a literature professor likened James Joyce's gobbledygookian novel Finnegans Wake to the gargoyles atop Notre Dame Cathedral, built solely for God's amusement. I suspect that if Witten ever finds the theory he so desires, only he and God will grok it... (MORE - missing details)
