Of What Interest is Physics to a Psychologist?

 The Intersection of Science and Meaning

Jordan B Peterson, Oct 3, 2024 | Dr. Brian Greene | EP 486

Peterson talks to a physicist of string theory to ask him how physics might provide insight into ideas of psychology, philosophy and meaning. Here are some topics he gets into over the course of the hour and a half

1. The beginning of the universe – What does time mean at the beginning of time? (starting at 4:00)

2. (20:15) Green says something interesting about the second law of thermodynamics. Other physical laws, like the law of conservation of mass, are true. They can not be violated. The second law can be violated. It is just really unlikely.

Peterson asks a paradoxical question. The second law says the disordered states are more likely than ordered ones, but how do you define disordered? Isn’t one lottery ticket as unlikely as the next?

3. (37:42) How do you explain the double-slit experiment? If the stripe pattern happens because photons interfere with each other, how can you get the same pattern when you send one photon through at a time? This gets into some good questions about the limits of Einstein’s relativity. How does time work on a particle going so fast that time stops? What happens to a massless photon going so fast that mass becomes infinite? (Which leads into my favorite, how do we know that light goes the speed of light?)

4. (46:00)The quantum explanation, which says that you can’t ever know the location and speed of an object (The world you see is misleading about the fundamentals!), is not the only explanation that fits the data. De Broglie had a different interpretation that works.

5. (58:27) Greene talks about free will. He and Peterson lay out the usual positions. Particles behave in a deterministic way! Actions have predictable outcomes! Therefore everything is determined. So there is no free will. Peterson responds that at the quantum level there is no determinism, so Greene’s fixed chain of events is wrong. (Sounds like a first-year philosophy class. Then it takes a turn...)

Greene claims that the quantum world is not indeterminate. It is just too small to observe. All that probabilistic stuff of quantum mechanics is not real. It compensates for the fact that we can’t see the details of reactions. This seems to me relevant to a theological paradox. humans are free to act as we choose, to the point of following or not following God’s will. Yet God know the present, past and future, which depends on the choices that humans freely choose.

6. (1:07:00) Starts on string theory, which claims that it can combine general relativity (which works on big things) and quantum theory (which works on little things). String theory proponents say it is beautiful. Its detractors say it is not science. It has never made a testable prediction (I think they mean a novel testable prediction.) This looks to me like a very common choice between the scientific type (who makes a hypothesis, then waits for the results of the test) and the imaginative beauty-seeker.

Bonus idea: (50) tohu vabohu: Is it the state before the big bang (or, as its originator called it, the primeval atom)?

There is a Reason These Are the Most Cited Scientists

Maybe a citation count doesn't have the resolution needed to judge academic success.

A new study has revealed an unsettling truth about the citation metrics that are commonly used to gauge scientists' level of impact and influence in their respective fields of research.

Wi-Fi Might Have Made Us Smarter

Instead it has spawned an industry with the largest research budgets in history and the smartest people in the world dedicated to making us addicted.

Almost all Americans own a smartphone or a computer.
Each device contains the library of Alexandria.
The sum total of all world knowledge.
You can learn anything. Why don't you?
Too busy tracking social status.
Too enthralled by imagery your evolution can't resist.

Perceiving the Flow of Reality

It seems natural to say that we see the world as it is presented to us, a continuous flow of new situations and new information. On the other hand, if you've ever seen an optical illusion, you know that perception is imperfect. How do we interact with the world?
This study says that our perceptions come to us in the form of "'time slices' lasting only milliseconds." Our mind perceives the world as a moment: all at once for about a quarter of a second, then it goes on to perceive the next moment.
The description reminds me of Ridley Scott's filming technique in the most intense battle scenes of Gladiator. (starting at about 4 minutes)

(alternate source: Gladiator - Initial Battle Scene)

The Great Unlearning

Look at the picture. Consider big game hunting. Reflect upon your thoughts.

Bill Whittle pieces these notions together in "The Great Unlearning" (7-1/2 min).

Introducing Men Without Chests

C.S. Lewis wrote some of the most astoundingly insightful commentary on the modern world (which came before our present postmodern one). The Screwtape Letters or The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe are light and fun. The Four Loves or The Abolition of Man are more logical and demanding. Even more so for a troglodyte like me who misses half of the allusions. C.S.Lewis Doodle helps the flow with illustrations. Here is the first chapter of “The Abolition of Man” ending with this:

We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the spirited element: the head rules the belly through the chest ...It is an outrage that [men without chests] should be commonly spoke of as intellectuals. ... Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary. It is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. ...We continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. ...we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and demand of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

Related: How Men Without Chests predicted the modern university's unsoundness

Staying Healthy Amid Pressure Not To

For decades people have grumbled that university environments can be unhealthy. The Coddling of the American Mind (A reference to this pivotal work) in the Atlantic examines popular trends in the context of the powerfully successful psychological field of cognitive behavioral therapy. They make the case that emotional reasoning, trigger warnings, labeling microagressions and “catastrophizing” are literally harmful to mental health. Solutions could come from contemporary psychology or ancient philosophers like Marcus Aureluis* or Buddha.

*Relevant at 2:00, Aurelius at 4:20 of 33:00.

(Aug'15) McArdle adds: College as a consumer experience serves to "shelter" students from any benefit. 

(Sept'15) After a massive response, Lukianoff responds to the controversies in this video.

"Learn better how to argue fairly with yourself."

...In case the implications of that original article weren't big enough for you.
The Real Reason We Need to Stop Trying to Protect Everyone’s Feelings

(Jan'16) The habits start in high-school.

(Jun'19) Now a book: similar to antifragile.

How is Work?

Have you heard of TED talks? Do you know people who won't shut up about TED talks. Well, you're right they can be overplayed and the moments of genius seem to be in decline. Even so, there are gems. Cringing awkward storytelling mixed with crisp insight: here is my favorite from six years ago.

If you want to know more about Mike Rowe and the state of work in North America, go here. For more stories, go here.

What's so bad about work, anyway? John Calvin got it right five hundred years ago. Work is only secondarily that stuff we do to put food on the table. “Follow your passions”, “Do what you love and the money will follow”: that's the third priority, at best. No, work is how we serve one another and a practical way to show love.

Are There Moral Facts?

Compare

Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.

With

-Copying homework assignments is wrong.

-Cursing in school is inappropriate behavior.

-All men are created equal.

One of them must be wrong.

Two Views of Intelligence

Do you think you're a natural at science? ...math? ...English? Sorry to hear that.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because slipups stem from a lack of effort or acquirable skills, not fixed ability, they can be remedied by perseverance. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating; they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

The European Founding

(Formerly known as the "dark ages*" )

"We dismiss the achievements of our ancestors and fall short of them.They (the medievals) honored their ancestors and surpassed them" Anthony Esolen, 2015

*They were called "dark" because those who called themselves "the enlightenment" and their enthusiasts thought the dark ages were a time of ignorance, insularity and stagnation. The last 40 years of historical scholarship show that is not true. The remaining justification for calling them "dark" is that they are poorly recorded. They are poorly recorded because the enlightenment "scholars" destroyed their manuscripts.

Our 60 Year Experiment in Moral Education

 Thinking about the two cardinal innovations in teaching morality that began in the 60's,

No one speaks more authoritatively about the Socratic method than Plato, and Plato maintained that it was to be reserved for mature men over the age of thirty. "One great precaution," said Plato, "is not to let them [students] taste of arguments while they are young" — the danger being that they would develop a taste for arguments rather than a taste for truth. Young minds, like young puppies, said Plato, would only "pull and tear at arguments."

Scientist with the Greatest Legacy?

The greatest impact on the world of science would have to go to Newton, possibly Bacon or Aristotle. The greatest benefit to mankind from scientific work? I guess that would be Norman Borlaug.

Who?

Borlaug was a farmer and a researcher into farming practices. His main idea was to adapt the best practices of the western farmer to the third world: first Mexico, then Pakistan and India. His most famous work was to breed a "semi-dwarf" wheat that could be grown strong and full without growing too tall, then falling over and rotting.

In doing so, he allowed millions of people to live who would have starved to death, probably hundreds of millions. He may have saved more lives than were taken by Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, combined. In the early 70's, the smart set had agreed that mass starvation was a fact of life that could only get worse. Intellectual discussions were how to manage the suffering.

Even as they published, Borlaug had already proven the technology and was implementing the green revolution.

Norman Borlaug passed away three years ago, today. He was 95.

(Or this video has a little more technical content)

Speaking of Mental Health

Are we training ourselves to be distracted, superficial thinkers?

Is it Science? Or is it Pseudoscience?

Matt Ridley looks at science, pseudoscience and how we tell the difference. It turns out experts are not very good at it. There is also an extended detour looking at climate change.

The speech is so good, I need to link to his book, The Rational Optimist.