Telling tales – part 1

If you are a particle physicist you will recognise this equation as probably the definitive challenge to a particular story about the way the universe works. The story in question is known as the Standard Model of particle physics, and this particular challenge is the dynamical field equation describing the existence and behaviour of the Higgs boson, which according to the model originally generated the three different force particles we observe in the universe today.

Unlike the other force particles, a signature for the Higgs boson has yet to be detected, and it is no understatement to say that the survival of the Standard Model  depends on its discovery.  Many people – myself included – are not expecting it to be found, and we can report that the evidence is increasingly on our side for we now know the particle does not exist at the most probable energy levels and that the remaining places where the Higgs might be hiding are rapidly diminishing.  At current rates of progress, we will know for certain by the end of 2012.

Now the reason I think the Higgs will not be found is not because I have some deep physical insight, but because the Standard Model story is already holed below the waterline in several important respects, not the least of which holes is its prediction that neutrinos must have zero mass. Despite the many accurate predictions this story has given us, this anomaly and other difficulties point us to the existence of a deeper story, in the same way that Einstein’s General theory of Relativity points us to a deeper story about gravity than the one told in Newton’s Principia.

But a curious fact about these new stories is that they are rapidly becoming unfalsifiable, by which I mean no experiment can be done to disprove them. There is something of a grand irony here: the experiments that have falsified older testable theories have given rise to new theories that are untestable. At the cosmic scale, M-theorists deliberate over higher-dimensional models of the universe, whose properties can never be experimentally determined. At the subatomic level, quantum physicists deliberate over more than a dozen different interpretations of how a theory of probabilistic particle interactions with non-local effects can give rise to local causal hard reality.

Everybody wonders: what is actually real?

Which is exactly the wrong question according to an increasingly popular view. In their book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinov argue for a new approach which they call Model-Dependent Reality (MDR)

According to model-dependent realism, it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observation. If there are two models that both agree with observation… then one cannot say that one is more real than another. One can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration.

- The Grand Design, p. 46

In other words, some stories are more useful than others. It all depends on what you’re talking about. The paradox of wave-particle duality in quantum physics is a case in point. For certain experiments it makes sense to consider the subatomic phenomenon as a wave, for others it makes sense to consider the same phenomenon as a particle.  The story you choose depends on the point you’re trying to make, and any attempt to rationalise the paradox is met with David Mermin’s famous retort: “shut up and calculate!”

Some people find this difficult to swallow. In his book, The Fallacy of Fine Tuning: Why the Universe is not designed for us, Victor Stengler makes this observation:

… a logical deduction tells you nothing that is not already embedded in its premises. All logic can do for you is test the self-consistency of those premises. There is only one reliable way that humans have discovered so far to obtain knowledge they do not already possess – observation.

-  The Fallacy of Fine Tuning… (Kindle edition)

By insisting on this view, I would argue that Stengler quietly sabotages his own agenda. It has been clear for some time that hard limits exist to our knowledge, that our own observations change what we are observing, and that there is fundamental uncertainty in our ability to measure things accurately. In other words, we see through a glass darkly. These facts don’t mean frontier science should stop but they do mean it should proceed very circumspectly. Some of the science of the future will rely much more on mathematical stories than test tubes, and questions will inevitably arise as to whether it will still deserve to be called science.

I have some sympathy with those questions. The existential philosophers of the early 20th century grappled with the problem of how to choose between different stories when their value-systems were relative and parochial. The particle physicist and cosmologist of today is faced with a similar dilemma: which relative and parochial interpretation of reality should they hang their hats on?

Partly in response to these problems, the post-modern view considers the existence of any kind of grand narrative to be nonsense.  This kind of view is very common these days but it is worthwhile noting in passing that science needs a story in order to operate, and that the natural output of the scientific endeavour is clarification or embellishment of an existing story, and occasionally – rarely – an entirely new story. (I am excluding mathematicians from this observation since pure mathematics is an entirely abstract pursuit). From this perspective, there can really be no such thing as a post-modern scientist.

The whole of human history is replete with stories and story-telling. Indeed the telling of tales is so deeply embedded in our psyche, one could almost say that is the defining characteristic of being human. There is not a man or woman alive who believes for a moment that nothing matters. At least, I would suggest, not a happy one. Ordinary people instinctively know that if nothing matters, then Alaister Crowley’s proclamation Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law holds a grim everlasting dominion over all our actions. In short, people don’t live as if they were post-modernists.

Which is what makes the challenges presented by the new physics so intriguing. Detractors of the scientific world-view have often considered the pursuit of science a kind of religion, and by introducing metaphysical concepts into the stories scientists are now trying to tell us, this charge takes on a certain ironic significance.

And it really should give strident atheists such as Richard Dawkins some pause for thought. Stengler’s view that science only proceeds via observation is inadequate for current cosmology and particle physics. If model-dependent realism is to be taken seriously,  then what is sauce for the goose must also be sauce for the gander. If it really is acceptable that one can use whichever model is more convenient in the situation under consideration,  then humanity as a whole may find that when it comes to telling tales, some tales are more telling than others.

XXI

It is a sunny morning in late September 2011. My bus is already overflowing when a young businesswoman gets on. She is dressed in a smart suit and is exquisitely beautiful, despite very long vermilion nails, and an over-application of the same colour lipstick. She wants to sit down, and although there are seats on the upper deck, it is crowded around the stairwell and her path is impeded by a tangled mob of fellow pilgrims. She is a businesswoman however and she means business as she brusquely commands a teenage schoolgirl to move out of her way. The girl, irritated at the lack of courtesy shown her and with the high-handed indignation of disrespected youth, sulkily refuses, claiming she is unable to move. Beauty does not agree with that assessment and loses her temper. Screaming abuse, she eventually manages to force her way on to the top deck. Once there however, she fancies she hears some sotto-voce insult directed her way from below, and she throws herself back down with a vengeance, like the Assyrian wolf upon the terrified fold, her eyes aflame and her red jaws agape. With traditional Anglo-Saxon words and threats of traditional Anglo-Saxon violence she obtains the silence of one little lamb before clawing and clambering her way back upstairs, her blood-red talons tap-tapping dreadfully on the handrail.

Paradoxically, as Beauty rises she also falls: her physical ascent mirrored by an emotional descent into a small and personal hell, to which I and my fellow passengers are mute witness. There are things I might say, but I keep my counsel to myself. This is not particularly courageous but I content myself with thinking that it is at least not cowardly. I know that if she attempts to carry out her threats, I will surely intervene. But afterwards I wonder if I am perhaps guilty of something else, something worse than cowardice.

Let us wind back the clock. It is now the middle of the third century BCE and Rome has risen to unparalleled glory on the banks of the Tiber. Virgil will later trace Rome’s proud ancestry back to an ancient legend: to the fiery destruction of the proud and topless towers of Ilium against whom a thousand ships were launched for the sake of another singular Beauty, the Greek princess Helen. But today Rome is in dire peril. Wearied by the relentless onslaught of Hannibal and his hordes of mercenaries, her armies have been routed, her fields have been burned, her villages have been destroyed, and her people are in despair. And it would be the easiest and the simplest thing in all the world for them now simply to give up, as easy as sliding into an exhausted sleep. But somehow they do not. Rome is defeated in almost every respect except that she has a vision and Carthage is weary of war. Even as Hannibal is asking vainly for reinforcements, finances and supplies, his Phoenician paymasters at home are growing tired of this second long and expensive expedition. They cannot be bothered to help, and they do nothing. Hannibal’s campaigns wither on the vine, and an uneasy truce develops. In 181 BCE Hannibal dies by his own hand and the legendary ‘Grace of Baal’ is soon forgotten by the empire whose child-devouring god he was named after.

But Rome has a longer memory and she still has her vision, simple and visceral, which she has clung to throughout the long dark years of war, even as Carthage gave up and sued for peace. On every possible occasion Marcus Portius, the Elder Cato, who keenly remembers his first battle against Hannibal while still a teenager, addresses the Roman Senate and finishes his speech by reminding them of that vision: Carthago delenda est – Carthage must be destroyed. Not just destroyed, but obliterated; a nuance perhaps lost in translation, but which resonates in the Latin. And in the end, Carthage breaks the truce and a revitalized Rome needing no further reason to stay her hand, sacks the city, and sells every one of her inhabitants into slavery.

Some 23 centuries ago, a wise old Roman understand a few very important things. He knew that a people in despair can be lifted, cajoled and encouraged, but that apathy will eventually enervate and hollow out the the very core of a man until nothing is left. He knew that while despair entails some emotional anguish, some continuing attachment to the thing lost and mourned, apathy divests itself even of the encumbrance of caring and so deadens the soul. Had he been alive today, he might have remarked that the really significant event on the number 21 bus that bright September morning was not the transformation of Beauty into the Beast, but the fact that nobody cared enough to say or do anything about it. A vision may be the proper antidote to despair, but not even a vision can scratch where apathy itches, because apathy does not itch anywhere. And thus Marcus Portius Cato thinks as he looks around the bus: maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually Carthage must fall.

Steve Jobs: words to live and die by

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.  Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

This I, Unreasonably Loved

In far-off days of childhood certainty, This I was often instructed to ponder the four last things:  Death,  Judgement,  Hell and Heaven. These days, when grey-beard wisdom more often than not cautions youthful hope, This I has largely given up contemplating the latter three finalities –  but not the first.

In fact, This I finds it quite remarkable that it exists at all,  since the odds against its happening were incomparably huge.  For billions of years in the past This I was not, and after its brief candle flickers out,  This I shall never be again.  The web of past probabilities leading to This I are incomprehensible nevertheless, in spite of the odds stacked against it,  This I  finds itself bawling into the darkness the glorious, amazed cry of all the I’s that have gone before it or will ever come after it:  BEHOLD – I AM!


Source: Hubblesite.org

On the other hand, the existence of This I is utterly unremarkable,  to the point of absurdity.

Before it lie vast deserts of time whose shifting sands will erase every last trace of it,  so that in a very little while the world will be just as if  This I  Never Was.  The grave is an icon of this mystery:  standing as a gentle rebuke to the forgetfulness of the world,  graves are the reason why burial is to be preferred over cremation.  For a memorial,  even to an unknown soldier,  has the power to enchant in a way that a pot of ashes on the mantelpiece never will.

This I  knows the day will come when it will no longer be,  but it is unafraid and has been unafraid since it long ago gave up childhood fancies of immortality.  It is Life that disturbs it,  not Death.  Because, rationally speaking,  if the existence of This I is inconsequential in the long run, then what advantage does Being have over Non-Being?  Is it sensible for any I to desire Life rather than Death?  Life itself, being irrational and with no long-term perspective to worry about, certainly seems to think it is.  It undertakes extraordinary efforts of  self-preservation,  almost as if,  having had the unexpected surprise of fluctuating out of the undifferentiated void, it is now determined for as long as possible to prevent itself from relapsing back into nothingness. Why?

This I has an answer of sorts - absent all philosophers and priests – that finds inspiration in the universe itself, as it froths and boils on the cusp of forever becoming.  For when This I was ejected out of the background noise into startled being,  it was afforded a grace beyond comprehension:  the chance to experience and participate in All That There Is.  This is the truest gift – the gift of Life – and it is the First Good,  from which all others derive.  It is an act of love beyond measure or reason, undeserved, humbling and awe-inspiring.

When the wave-function of This I’s existence finally collapses, This I aspires not to rage against the dying of the light, but to depart without complaint and with quiet gratitude into the endless night.  And should there be a mossy grave in years to come, let it simply say:

     Here Lies This I
Unreasonably Loved

and let it hopefully serve as an enchantment for strangers’ souls.

The worst and the best…

A short, but hopefully eloquent post today. Both of these images brought tears to my eyes…

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The worst: At age 12, Aisha and her younger sister were given to the family of a Taliban fighter in Oruzgan Province in settlement of a blood debt. She and her sister were housed with the in-laws’ livestock and used as slaves, frequently beaten for their uncle’s crime. Aisha fled, but her husband tracked her down and on a lonely mountainside, with full permission from a local religious judge, cut off her nose and both ears, leaving her for dead. This picture by a South African photographer has today won the 2010 World Press Photo award.

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The best: As pro-Mubarak supporters and hired thugs attempt to beat up protesters in Tahrir Square during the recent demonstrations against the Mubarak regime, Egyptian Christians create a safe cordon around Muslims at prayer, protecting them from attack.

Calling a spade a spade

Am I the only one who sees Political Correctness for the monstrous and diabolical attempt to stifle thought and debate that it actually is?  For it seems that whenever I say I am opposed to it in principle, I am almost universally upbraided as wishing to promote – or at least turn a blind eye to – racism, homophobia, misogyny, religious intolerance and a myriad other daily miseries we regularly visit upon each other in this vale of tears.

The problem I have talking with people who defend it is that there seems to be little common ground from where to begin. I have to contend with the unexamined belief that “discrimination” is de facto wrong, as well as the disingenuous statement that Political Correctness is an antidote to hate. Because surely I don’t think hatred has any place in a civilized society? Actually I do.

Auntie discovers sentient worms!

An article on the BBC’s website today reports how the Nematode worm Heterorhabditis bacteriophora turns host caterpillars red to warn predators.  In the article, Auntie breathlessly reports:

It is the first reported case of a parasite changing its hosts’ colouration to avoid predation.

Um, no its isn’t, and it is quite  irritating to read this on a science website.

Pizza with Jesus

A couple of evenings ago I went with my wife and a couple of friends to a meal hosted by the church she attends. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the extreme weather conditions, we drove to the location near the Globe Theatre. The ladies alighted daintily from their carriage and went in to the restautant while my friend and I tried to park, eventually finding a place about five minutes walk away. But I quickly found myself wishing we had parked even further away, for as we arrived we were all exhorted to stand up and sing two verses of a well-known carol.

Hope and Illusion

Huntingdon’s Chorea is an incurable genetic disease. If you have it you are condemned to the cruellest of deaths: a protracted and dreadful dissolution of your mind that will slowly and irrevocably unmake you in front of your friends and family.  When it finally ends your life, you will have been stripped of almost every vestige of human dignity, having lost total control of all your bodily functions and mental faculties. The age at which the first signs appear depends solely on the number of repetitions of three amino acids in a particular location on your fouth chromosome. Most of us have about 15 to 20 of these repeats and in fact you can have up to 35 and stilll be fine. But more than that, and the disease will strike you at an age in inverse proportion to the number of repeats you have. If you are unlucky to have as many as 50 you will go insane before you are thirty. If your father or mother has Huntingdon’s you have a 50% chance of having it as well. With the odds so evenly balanced, many people who are offered the test for the disease choose not to take it. They have seen the unmitigated horror it has wrought on their loved ones and by choosing to remain ignorant about their own fate they at least leave room for hope, even though for half of them, that hope will ultimately turn out to be illusory.

Faith and Truth

It is remarkable how easily we can be convinced of an idea simply because we want it to be true.  Most of us believe that we are better than average drivers, even though half of us are in fact wrong.  Likewise, in a world of many faiths, there is no shortage of people to tell you that theirs is the only true one, and all the others are in error. But in fact, because no single faith commands a majority in the world, the fact is that most people who think this are simply wrong.