A Brief History of Time is ‘wrong’, Stephen Hawking told collaborator(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
A Brief History of Time is ‘wrong’, Stephen Hawking told collaborator
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/19/stephen-hawking-told-me-ive-changed-my-mind-my-book-is-wrong
33 comments
Sounds like science working properly.
That said, from the description it’s hard to be sure how much of the new theory Hawking actually agreed with - “I read into his eyes that he agreed with it” doesn’t seem like a basis for authorship.
That said, from the description it’s hard to be sure how much of the new theory Hawking actually agreed with - “I read into his eyes that he agreed with it” doesn’t seem like a basis for authorship.
Which occurred well after halfway through a fully logged collaboration (as we can assume that Hawkings comms were recorded).
The paraphrasing you gave over simplified:
The paraphrasing you gave over simplified:
“I used to position myself in front of him and fire questions and would look into his eyes to see if he was agreeing or disagreeing. By the end, I could detect several levels of no and several levels of yes with a few in between.”
Was Hawking able to eye-roll? It seems like if that were the case, a camera with some simple software (it could be ad-hoc, not general-purpose eye tracking) could overcome the problem described in the article:
> Hawking switched to a sensor mounted on his glasses that could be activated by twitching a cheek muscle, but eventually even that become too difficult. > He slowed from a few words per minute to several minutes per word, Hertog said. In the end, communication stopped.
With that said, I'm willing to give Hertog the benefit of the doubt in this case.
> Hawking switched to a sensor mounted on his glasses that could be activated by twitching a cheek muscle, but eventually even that become too difficult. > He slowed from a few words per minute to several minutes per word, Hertog said. In the end, communication stopped.
With that said, I'm willing to give Hertog the benefit of the doubt in this case.
I'm inclined to believe that Hawking's eyes were on camera for lengthy periods, I'm certain that there would have been some attempt to automate an interaction there as all his other muscles failed more and more.
As for Hertog, there's a number of people that can and (according to the grapevine) do vouch who have worked with them both over the past decades.
As for Hertog, there's a number of people that can and (according to the grapevine) do vouch who have worked with them both over the past decades.
yeah, you could invent a nefarious story about how this went, or a misinterpretation of the story, as well as a simple accounting of what Hawkings really thought. How you decide where to draw where the truth is, isn't particularly easy.
I'm very skeptical of any bombshell theory that's debuted in a book with a pre-release publicity run.
... that was "endorsed" by alleged telepathy with someone who has since died!
All models are wrong, some are useful.
-- George Box
Corollary:
Helmuth von Moltke (1800–1891). “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.”
> “It leads to a new philosophy of physics that rejects the idea that the universe is a machine governed by unconditional laws with a prior existence, and replaces it with a view of the universe as a kind of self-organising entity in which all sorts of emergent patterns appear, the most general of which we call the laws of physics.”
Very interesting - granted this may be the wrong interpretation but I am very interested in the idea of application of evolutionary process to physical phenomena. Why shouldn’t or why couldn’t so-called natural “laws” face competitive pressure the same way organisms on earth do? Just particles after all. Maybe Darwin had the grand theory all along.
Very interesting - granted this may be the wrong interpretation but I am very interested in the idea of application of evolutionary process to physical phenomena. Why shouldn’t or why couldn’t so-called natural “laws” face competitive pressure the same way organisms on earth do? Just particles after all. Maybe Darwin had the grand theory all along.
> “It leads to a new philosophy of physics that rejects the idea that the universe is a machine governed by unconditional laws with a prior existence, and replaces it with a view of the universe as a kind of self-organising entity in which all sorts of emergent patterns appear, the most general of which we call the laws of physics.”
Is this distinction as meaningful as it first seems; my assumption was that all 'laws of physics' are in essence only ever an expression of our current best understanding of these observed 'generalised patterns'?
By talking about the 'laws', it's easy to start treating these as though they are firm, a-priori rules, but my assumption was that - to physicists - these were always simply a short-cut way of describing a set of common, repeated and testable observations about the universe. Iow they were never 'rules' in the sense that they existed independent of the phenomena they were describing? I'm not a scientist, btw.
Is this distinction as meaningful as it first seems; my assumption was that all 'laws of physics' are in essence only ever an expression of our current best understanding of these observed 'generalised patterns'?
By talking about the 'laws', it's easy to start treating these as though they are firm, a-priori rules, but my assumption was that - to physicists - these were always simply a short-cut way of describing a set of common, repeated and testable observations about the universe. Iow they were never 'rules' in the sense that they existed independent of the phenomena they were describing? I'm not a scientist, btw.
I think you're right w.r.t laws.
From reading the article this morning I hadn't thought of something like "there sure is a lot of carbon in the universe as far as we know" in terms of natural selection.
But maybe it's circular where "evolution" as it was originally used to describe biological systems/organisms on earth is just a way of describing changes in the universe but locally and specific as well. In other words, Evolution may be the Grand Theory of describing how the universe works and perhaps observing a black hole is akin to observing how elephants behave.
Although as someone else has pointed out here, maybe that theory is bunk too. [1]
> I'm not a scientist, btw.
Same here. I also have not yet had coffee this morning ;)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35218567
From reading the article this morning I hadn't thought of something like "there sure is a lot of carbon in the universe as far as we know" in terms of natural selection.
But maybe it's circular where "evolution" as it was originally used to describe biological systems/organisms on earth is just a way of describing changes in the universe but locally and specific as well. In other words, Evolution may be the Grand Theory of describing how the universe works and perhaps observing a black hole is akin to observing how elephants behave.
Although as someone else has pointed out here, maybe that theory is bunk too. [1]
> I'm not a scientist, btw.
Same here. I also have not yet had coffee this morning ;)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35218567
There would have to be an underlying mechanism that determines which laws out compete the others. The "environment" upon which the rest must adapt. Ultimately, you'd still have "laws," itd just be a layer up, as far as I can tell.
That’s where the anthropic principle comes in; the configurations of laws which lead to the emergence of observers (in our case, humans), are the ones which get observed. We simply cannot see the “failing” configurations, because we didn’t exist in those branches!
I always thought Rupert Sheldrake was a lot less wrong than the impression given by his critics, though he's certainly become an utter crank focusing on dubious "telepathy" experiments and attacking the "orthodoxy" to the point where he's impossible to take seriously now.
His thinking around the 80s and early 90s was onto something I think, even if he largery missed the mark when it came down to the details of his theory.
His thinking around the 80s and early 90s was onto something I think, even if he largery missed the mark when it came down to the details of his theory.
I really liked Rupert Sheldrake's ideas and most importantly, they were able to be tested.
https://www.moillusions.com/bbc-experiment-optical-illusion/
He may have been wrong, but he was wrong in the right way.
https://www.moillusions.com/bbc-experiment-optical-illusion/
He may have been wrong, but he was wrong in the right way.
They should. However that doesn't mean we should spend a lot of time entertaining theories with no opportunity for evidence.
Who says there isn't? It can start with an imaginative hunch, and after a hundred or more years we finally get some evidence.
What they propose sounds an awful lot like systems theory to me
What they propose sounds an awful lot like systems theory to me
Lee Smolin suggested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection
But that specific hypothesis doesn't seem to match our universe anyway.
Universal Darwinism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Darwinism
> Why shouldn’t or why couldn’t so-called natural “laws” face competitive pressure the same way organisms on earth do?
What would they compete over? What would the mechanisms of mutation and of selection be?
This also would seem to assume that time has to be fundamental and cannot be emergent, for the evolution of laws to happen over time.
What would they compete over? What would the mechanisms of mutation and of selection be?
This also would seem to assume that time has to be fundamental and cannot be emergent, for the evolution of laws to happen over time.
One example of selection is a matter dominance over antimatter. Standard model shows many heavier muons and fermions are unstable yet in different conditions these might be dominant.
Obviously from our observed laws perspective we can find (we did not yet) reasons for such preferences yet changing conditions (time, matter density, energy, velocity, gravity) can potentially influence preferred laws and states of matter. Think of superconductivity, how is it even possible that there is no resistance in electron flow, we only make use of this phenomena without understanding the theory behind it.
I am looking forward for the book, just a tiny glympse of different perspective can influence a series of new inventions.
Obviously from our observed laws perspective we can find (we did not yet) reasons for such preferences yet changing conditions (time, matter density, energy, velocity, gravity) can potentially influence preferred laws and states of matter. Think of superconductivity, how is it even possible that there is no resistance in electron flow, we only make use of this phenomena without understanding the theory behind it.
I am looking forward for the book, just a tiny glympse of different perspective can influence a series of new inventions.
Better article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35176893
"The Universe is a hologram: Stephen Hawking's final theory, explained by his closest collaborator"
"The Universe is a hologram: Stephen Hawking's final theory, explained by his closest collaborator"
Sounds like this book will describe the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle.
It's OK, no one read 'A Brief History of Time' anyway (but millions purchased it)
It's been a while since I read Lee Smolin but from what I can remember he was saying that: Time is real and fundamental. It's not reversible. Everything changes in time, including potentially the laws of the universe.
I heard Robert Wright talking about this sort of idea, I think he was inspired by Smolin.
> Smolin thinks our universe may itself be a product of a kind of evolution: maybe universes can replicate themselves via black holes, so over time — over a lot of time — you get universes whose physical laws are more and more conducive to replication.
from here: https://evolutionnews.org/2017/01/robert_wright_a/
A wikipedia article describes Smolin's "Cosmological natural selection" as an alternative to the anthropic principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection
> Smolin thinks our universe may itself be a product of a kind of evolution: maybe universes can replicate themselves via black holes, so over time — over a lot of time — you get universes whose physical laws are more and more conducive to replication.
from here: https://evolutionnews.org/2017/01/robert_wright_a/
A wikipedia article describes Smolin's "Cosmological natural selection" as an alternative to the anthropic principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection
Headlines suck.
> Hawking announced: “I have changed my mind. My book, A Brief History of Time, is written from the wrong perspective.”