Author: Psybertron

Interesting piece by Michael Hanlon at Aeon Magazine. Holding post for later, but much to fit with my agenda here, despite a few points to which I’d take exception.

Hopefully I’ve made it sufficiently clear that the main reason I’m a fan of Jon Butterworth is because, as far as celeb scientists go, he’s as honest and grounded as they come. Loved this (*) quote from his Grauniad column a couple of weeks ago:

Physics is in an interesting position, now that the Higgs Boson has been discovered. The “Standard Model” doesn’t predict any more new particles, no matter how tiny, and it could be considered internally complete. However, it is very far from being a theory of everything, failing to account for such major experimental facts as gravity, the different amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe, and the 85% or so of stuff that seems to be “Dark Matter”. It also struggles with neutrinos.

It would be good to have some clues to a new theory which might account for those awkward facts.

Accounting for awkward facts is something scientists need to do. Interesting to see Sabine Hossenfelder commenting on “the Anthropic Principle as neither tautological nor useless“, despite being one of those controversial “theories” easier dismissed with smart-ass one liners than thoughtful consideration. The comment thread on her Facebook post gives a clue to the smart-ass dismissers. My agenda has only ever been to keep science, and those who claim scientific rationality, honest.

A rhetorician might say science is only about 1/6th right so far?

[Post Note (*) – I should say, I love it because it effectively publishes what I’ve been paraphrasing I’d heard Jon and his colleagues saying at this event, and confirmed personally with him afterwards.]

 

More grist to the CMBR mill. Story from ESA’s Planck project published in Nature.
(Hat tip to Sabine Hossenfelder on Facebook.
Also a positive aside from her on the James Watson furore, mentioned here.)

40 years after publication of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, an extended and updated version of the 1974 CBS Ideas radio interview of Robert Pirsig by Tim Wilson. (Hat tip to Mark Richardson on Facebook.)

Fascinating stuff to add to the timeline. The basement with the “roller-skate drawer”. The MoQ given its intended name for the first time. The emotional telling of the ECS treatment episode. [Here a post I made the day I visited the basement.]

[Probably explains high number of Pirsig-related hits on my pages in recent days.
And the continued high hit-rate today.]

‘I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” is the title of both the latest book by @bengoldacre and his #londonthinks talk tonight @ConwayHall

Strangely that title is my conclusion from both of the last two Ethical Society and Humanist talks I saw last week – so much so that having drafted a piece on those two together,  I can now see me enlarging it to cover all three talks in one post.

[Post Note : Scrap that. Not as advertised.  Old TED Talk “Better Data” on Statins et al. Cheap laughs and no new content, but good points included:

• Psychology of statistics and down-side risk is real problem even for official practitioners and management of medical options – perverse decisions in terms of optimum outcomes.
• Big data approach is real option for public health, despite being largely marketing jargon in so many fields. Again perversely it is easy to justify one-off expensive clinical trials with lower value (even negative value) outcomes, than to do cheap easily-randomised long-term statistical analyses on “freely” available GP records – because of privacy rights risks perceived with the easy option. Wrong view of risks again.
• (It’s not about making “data” publicly available, but making available public data into proper “information” for decision-making. Since there are many ways to manipulate statistical data, we need to be able to trust who is turning data into information for us, ‘because psychologically it’s not intuitive for us, Joe public, to interpret data directly without a proper statistics & risk lens. I’m guessing Ben’s agenda is to sell the industry such a lens and trust is pretty much my earlier “authority” topic – ie who says?.)

 But not the talk advertised. Left before the Q&A. Oh, and I now see the new book is just a collection of Ben’s previous posts and articles, hence why no new content. Be really interested to know the context of the title quote.]

It’s pretty well known that following his joint discovery of the structure of DNA with Francis Crick (helped by Rosalind Franklin and Ray Gosling amongst others), James Watson made some dubious suggestions about racial differences based on DNA – disgraceful by today’s standards. It’s also quite likely as “men of their time” that Watson (and Galton, referenced) actually held sexist and racist world-views, and even pursued misguided agendas based on such views. I have no reason to either deny or justify any of the above. I repeat, I’m not disagreeing.

What I would take issue with in Adam Rutherford’s Grauniad piece is the denial of any racial (or gender) DNA differences. (I bring in gender simply because Rutherford already brings in Watson’s sexism alongside his racism – no reason to conflate, but we can draw on analogous examples.)

Now, gender-wise there are DNA differences (*) that result in physiological and physio-chemical differences between the sexes. What significance(s) you attach to those differences and what consequential behaviours you attribute to them, or counter-behaviours you propose, are a whole ‘nother kettle of fish – a veritable minefield of ethics and political correctness not to mention mis-directed reductive science or scientism. But denial of difference seems neither scientific nor in any other way rational or valuable, and indeed to deny or misrepresent any such differences can only obscure human value. Vive la difference is my typical positive reaction in gender difference cases.

Race is a very slippery concept scientifically, but then even species is a bio-genetic concept whose boundaries are ill-defined and variably-defined depending on which aspect of significance you are proposing to use for what purpose – no less a minefield than gender. (We are evolutionarily fortunate, that none too close hominid cousins exist today, for human species definition to be problematic in practice. Gender-wise there are of course definitional border-line cases, but sufficiently uncommon statistically that the grey areas definitionally-speaking can be addressed by gender re-assignment if the individual so desires – proper understanding helps address the reality of such cases in practice. Race is a totally distinct concept from either species or gender, however ill-defined it or they are.)

The nicest irony is that genetics — the field he founded and Watson transformed — is precisely the subject that has singularly demonstrated that race as a scientific concept holds no water.

It holds water with great difficulty, that’s for sure. However objectively ill-defined, denial of difference cannot be the best course. I’d be very interested in whether “holds no water” is really just a statement of failing to meet certain scientific objectivity criteria in defining racial difference, or literally no demonstrable difference at all. Which specific references this alludes to. Ill-defined is not the same as non-existent – it just means understanding is more complex and problematic. Denial is not really a valid alternative.

Vive la difference I’d probably say again. Better to understand than deny.

As a humanist, I’d say Watson is human too, fallible like Rutherford and the rest of us.

[(*) Post Note : Of course another part of this minefield is that DNA genes are themselves over-definitively-objectified in the reproductive, developmental and evolutionary story – a whole ‘nother story.]

[Last laugh to James Watson . Gets $ 4.8m for his Nobel Prize medal .]

[Last last laugh to Usmanov. Ian Sample in the Grauniad.]

And to join up the dots between the last post and a couple of others recently.

What social media misses is any concept of authority.
Ooooh anathema – free expression and science fact denies authority surely?

Well no. We do of course use the concept of friendship – in terms of who shares what with circles of known sources – to confer some level of trust and filter out noise in the tweets and posts we receive. But its very non-specific trust, unless we spend a great deal of effort organising our circles and lists.

What we need is some authoritative tags that perform a kinda “Snopes” function in near real time. Not just fact / fiction / but partisan / interest warning flags. Tags that can scale priority of visibility, without directly limiting freedom to express. Tags that automatically get copied with any Reply or Retweet or M-retweet.

[QUORA? – BTW I recently subscribed to (and unsubscribed from) Quora – a Q&A based social-media micro-blog – where in principle anyone can ask a question (and use it to make a rhetorical point, naturally), but only authorised responders assigned by subject matter are allowed to correspond. I heard and met Jay Wacker at a recent science event – liked the Quora concept. Sadly for the topics I was interested in, the questions were too basic / trivial or the responders too obviously following limited agendas. But nice try. Might subscribe again if I have time to interact more, but in current form not working for me.]

Just a quickie. A story on BBC R4 Today this morning. These recent photos of parliament showing empty and full houses for different debates, circulating on social media and used to suggest how badly MP’s see their priorities. They’re fake. No shit Sherlock?!? Some discussion about how social media readers are less critical in their judgement of what they find, and how stories, particularly those with images, spread like wildfire.

So to repeat my long standing memetic lesson – ideas spread and multiply not according to the quality of their content, but according to (a) how easy they are to spread (their medium and the simplicity of their presentation) (b) how catchy the content is to the receiver – how much it appeals to existing beliefs and preferences (ie consistency with prejudices).

Fact of life,  ideas with real quality and content are both more complicated in their expression and more complex in their relationship to existing “knowledge”.

(Counter example – also on R4 Today this morning, interviewing Cleggy. The question continually put to him was “flip-flopping” on some policy decision. His defence was changing your mind was not flip-flopping. Flip-flopping is changing your mind back and forth multiple times. But flip-flopping has simple onomatopoeic ring to it, so it will stick to Cleggy. R4 is as “guilty” as anyone – ie it’s not a conspiracy it’s a natural evolutionary problem we need to learn to understand and deal with.)

[Post Note – and here also picked-up by The Spectator.]

A quickie – Several scientific commentators suggesting www.sciencenews.org is on a par with www.physics.org when it comes to posting low grade speculative (mischievous?) non-science into wider public media. [Previously here, When is Science News? with footnotes added.]

Latest example from Sabine Hossenfelder on FB
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/negative-mass-might-not-defy-einstein
(Super-duper-symmetry maybe ? I said, tongue in cheek.)

Science depends on authority – not on free publication. People who reject authority are militant freedom extremists – anarchists we used to call them. But of course there is interesting information behind the story – on what might be wrong with the “standard model(s)” – but it’s not “science news”. Not news from science to the wider world of applied reality, it’s part of the churn within science, which may still be newsworthy, but needs to be presented as such, with suitable disclaimers.

[Post Note : And as well as footnotes to the “When is Science News?” link above, some more here, again from Sabine:

More technical clarification on the above story:
http://backreaction.blogspot.se/2014/11/negative-mass-in-general-relativity.html
Oh, and notice “an entirely theoretical construct” (the mass in the news story), but yet again the Gravitational Constant is part of the argument – the contingent aspects lie deep in this space, a lot could unravel.

And more follow-up to what went wrong with BICEP story:
http://sci.esa.int/planck/55059-conference-announcement-planck-2014/

So it goes.]

I mentioned noting that one of Rebecca Goldstein’s earlier works was Incompleteness – the Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel. Since Gödel is an existing interest of mine, and Goldstein’s writing has never let me down yet, it was a no-brainer to obtain a copy. (I’ve since also obtained a copy of her fiction The Mind-Body Problem – effectively I’m now working my way through her entire back catalogue. *)

Gödel and friends

The fact that Gödel had associations with Einstein, Wittgenstein, Von Neumann, Turing, the Vienna Circle and more, means that as well as official biographical material there is a wealth of anecdotal and indirect material to work with. And despite Gödel’s own meager introverted publishing record, the meticulous unpublished material he left behind (nachlass) proves to be another fascinating source.

Too many touch points with my own agenda to mention them all, suffice to say both Gödel and Wittgenstein were at odds with, and misunderstood by, logical positivism as well as each other. A fascinating love-hate triangle so well suited to the Goldstein treatment I’ve come to love.

Mach and more

Interesting to again find Mach as an original influence at several distinct points, so many topics lead back to Mach (and hence for me to Boscovich before him **). Only four (long) chapters, the third of which is a semi-formal description of what Gödel’s theorems actually did formally prove and how they did it. A necessary task given how misunderstood and misquoted out of context Gödel can be. A considerable amount of detail on Wittgenstein; unsurprising given the relationship to Gödel. A name-droppers list of players, but everyone of them alive on the page. Great writing, some turns of phrase I found significant to my work:

Describing paradoxes as part of philosophy since the beginning – Epimenides’ Liar’s Paradox, Russell’s own set theory version and more, she goes on to say:

(p91) Paradoxes have often been found lurking about in the deepest places of thought. Their presence is often the signal (like the canary dying?) that we have managed, sometimes unwittingly to stumble on a deep and problematic place, a fissure in the foundations.

The cracks are how the light gets in? The foundations of mathematics in this case.

Wittgenstein

One influence on Wittgenstein:

(p95) Otto Weininger, a quintessentially Viennese figure who had argued that the only way for a man to justify his life (for a woman there is no way) is by acquiring and cultivating genius.

As mentioned, there follows an extended section on Wittgenstein, his Viennese origins and influences, and those influenced and (failed to be influenced) by his work. On The Vienna Circle (p97) “reading Tractatus exegetically like the Torah” despite Wittgenstein disowning them and going to great lengths to offend them with his in-your-face displays of mystical readings, and:

(p103) Wittgenstein’s attitude toward the inherent contradiction of the Tractatus is perhaps more Zen than positivist. His insouciance in the face of paradox was an aspect of his thinking that was all but impossible for the very un-Zen-like members of the Vienna Circle to understand.

There’s lots been said about Wittgenstein’s motives towards Russell in writing Tractatus, and personally I consider it a long joke at Russell’s expense, using logic to put logic in its place, Goldstein writes:

(p103) Whereas the early Wittgenstein had laboured hard with Russell on problems of logic, the later Wittgenstein came to regard the entire field as a “curse” (while Russell, disheartened by his earlier labours with Wittgenstein – his inability to understand him – withdrew from the field and wrote best-sellers).

Talking of the Vienna Circle, particularly Waissman and leader Schlick, idolising Wittgenstein and his Tractatus, despite his rejection of both the Circle’s logical positivism and their failure to understand his position, she quotes contemporaries:

(p105) “[Schlick] returned in an ecstatic state … He adored him and so did Waissman … like others of Wittgenstein’s disciples, the Circle members came to imitate his gestures and manner of speech [and dress].”

Continuing, she describes his famous concluding aphorism as both a succinct summary of his actual position, and an expression of his exasperation at the failure of the Circle to grasp the limits to (their) logic he was exposing. “That whereof we cannot speak we must remain silent” was interpreted by the positivists as saying that there was nothing beyond the bounds of [logical] language that was worth saying,  whereas of course he was saying the opposite. Having said all we can say with logic, we can say nothing more with logic and, since that [formal] language is largely tautological and/or trivial, what we have said is of little significance and all the really important stuff is beyond such language.

(p106) “For Wittgenstein there really was ‘that whereof we cannot speak’. The ethical or – what amounts to the same thing for him – the mystical is both real and inexpressible. He believed that he had explained all that can be said [formally] in the Tractatus,  but as he told one potential publisher, what he had not said in the Tractatus – because it could not be said – was more important than what he had said:

“I once wanted to give a few words in the foreword which now actually are not in it, which however I’ll write to you now because the might be a key for you: my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the ethical is delimited from within, as it were, by my book; and I’m convinced that strictly speaking it can ONLY be delimited that way. In brief, I think: All of that which many are babbling today, I have defined in my book by being silent about it.”

He took himself to have demonstrated how little one has actually said after one has finished saying all that can be [formally] said.”

Back to Gödel

Anyway, fascinating though the interpretations of Wittgenstein remain to this day, the point is the parallel with Gödel and his incompleteness, and the wider point that we’ve inherited from Aristotle’s mis-directed systematisation of what he thought he’d learned from Socrates and Plato. Given my own experience arguing with information modellers on the place of “First Oder Logic” or “Predicate Calculus” in real-world industrial applications, the passages starting p150 where they are poetically re-branded Limpid Logic by Goldstein, appealed to my sense of irony. Logically true, even tautologous, but not of direct practical value. Or, as an early (engineering) mentor of mine was fond of saying “10 out of 10, useless” whenever one of us juniors presented him with some design or calculation.

In the same way as Hilbert had been trying to turn mathematics into a closed and comprehensive (and necessarily consistent) set of axioms, Gödel had the same aims in the “pure” logic of mathematics before discovering his proof of its impossibility. (Russell had been trying to do the same by adding additional practical rules to the set of axioms.) And, in the same way as Wittgenstein’s own disciples failed to recognise his message that all the important real world stuff lay outside their closed systems of logic, Gödel, despite announcing his result at the 7th October 1930 conference in Königsberg, actually failed to have any effect on the mainstream, until Von-Neumann took his message back to Princeton and afterwards helped to spread its significance. In the same way as Wittgenstein had turned logic on itself in Tractatus, Gödel Numbering had turned numbers back on themselves to prove their inadequacy.

Ultimately Gödel lived out a life of paranoia in Princeton, where only Einstein was his mental equal, discoursing during their mutually cherished daily walks. As a contemporary young student at Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Studies, Goldstein was clearly inspired by their stories, not only to understand the technicalities of their deeply philosophical topics, but to turn their living narratives into literary form.

I side with all of Einstein, Gödel and Wittgenstein; they were right even when they knew they were wrong, their genius was accepted in practice, and their contributions to their respective fields considered pivotal, yet despite their mythological public personae, the mainstream of life continues to this day as if they’d never existed. We still worship the (rational & scientific) value of logic and objectivity, and give them priority over, merely tolerating, even to the exclusion of, the (irrational & unscientific, human) values of the mystical and ethical. As Schumpeter would suggest, and Kuhn after him, a single human lifetime is never enough to cause a global paradigm shift in society at large – in politics and economics. It takes three, baby.

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[Aside – on p124 is that an error in use of the word “acute” in the description of sketch 2? Page references based on the W W Norton “Great Discoveries” hardback 2005 edition.]

[Post Note (*) Рone thing to note about Goldstein is that her writing alternates between fictional literature and historical biographical works, both with science and philosophy themes. Loved, but never did explicitly review, all of them РGoogleplex, 36-Arguments, Spinoza, G̦del, Properties of Light, Mazel, Mind-Body Problem and Strange Attractors:

I was taken by a recent remark from Lisa Jardine as to how good writing of history based on documented records always requires creative fiction, and it comes to mind as I read Goldstein. Jardine is a historian by profession, but had the writing of her very personal biography of Jacob Bronowski in mind when when she said it.]

[PPS (**) – when is someone of this stature going to research and write on Roger Boscovich (1711 – 1787) I wonder.]

[PPPS – 2017 update from Andy Martin. Without hypocrisy all is tautology. Add Brunsson to the list.]