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[Steve3007]

Unification of multiple separate laws into single, simpler overarching laws has been a major driver in physics for some time. The realization that electricity and magnetism are the same phenomenon (electromagnetism) seen from different reference frames was a classical example of this about 150 years ago.

For a long time now, one of the central issues (if not the central issue) in physics has been the attempt to unify gravity with everything else.

The "Standard Model of Particle Physics" unifies the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism into a cohesive whole. It encompasses Quantum Physics and the Special Theory of Relativity into a system from which all other currently known physics except the General Theory of Relativity can be derived. From it can be derived, as special cases, such things as the classical theories of electromagnetism embodied by Maxwell's Equations or the classical theories of mechanics, embodied by Newton's laws.

The Standard Model (like physics in general) is closely tied to the concept of symmetry, partly because symmetry is related to simplicity. The more symmetries there are in a physical system the simpler it is to describe and the wider its applicability. At very high energies (i.e. particles travelling at very high speeds) the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces are unified. But gravity has not been unified with them yet.

It is theorized that the ultra-high energies found in the very, very early stages of the Big Bang might be sufficient to unify all of the forces, including gravity. It is theorized that in that very early universe there was a symmetry that was "broken" as it expanded and cooled.

But what if it turns out that this isn't true? What if, no matter how high the energies involved, there is always some asymmetry and lack of simplicity which is fundamental to the laws of physics? This appears to go against some of our deepest instincts as to how the Universe "ought" to turn out to operate. The belief in the idea of beauty, order and simplicity beneath the complexity and chaos appears to be a deep part of our nature. But it is at the heart of the scientific method that we must follow where observed reality leads us regardless of what our instincts or aesthetic needs tell us.

If it leads us to somewhere that we consider ugly and unsatisfying then we must follow, right?

[Aristocles]

But what if it turns out that this isn't true? What if, no matter how high the energies involved, there is always some asymmetry and lack of simplicity which is fundamental to the laws of physics? This appears to go against some of our deepest instincts as to how the Universe "ought" to turn out to operate. The belief in the idea of beauty, order and simplicity beneath the complexity and chaos appears to be a deep part of our nature. But it is at the heart of the scientific method that we must follow where observed reality leads us regardless of what our instincts or aesthetic needs tell us.

If it leads us to somewhere that we consider ugly and unsatisfying then we must follow, right?

But what if it turns out that this isn't true?

I would imagine we would imagine some way to make order of it.

If it leads us to somewhere that we consider ugly and unsatisfying then we must follow, right?

If we judge it less pleasurable, then I would see we must do the opposite, not follow it, but again find the beauty, order, simplicity. Is it possible there is no such order/beauty? I can try my best to imagine as you have described.... However, I would only imagine it so far, as the very imagining would be limited by the amount of pleasure I would glean from the thought experiment.

[Steve3007]

Aristocles:

If we judge it less pleasurable, then I would see we must do the opposite, not follow it, but again find the beauty, order, simplicity. Is it possible there is no such order/beauty? I can try my best to imagine as you have described.... However, I would only imagine it so far, as the very imagining would be limited by the amount of pleasure I would glean from the thought experiment.

Yes, if your aim is to find beauty, order and simplicity then, as you've said, you'd stop looking if you thought you weren't going to find it. So: Are we looking for beauty or for truth? Are they the same thing?

There is an anthropic argument which essentially states that beauty and truth (in the senses that we're using those words here) are indeed the same thing because only a universe of beautiful simplicity and symmetry would be capable of producing creatures like us.

But, even if that is true, there is still perhaps an unanswerable question as to how exactly we define this vague, nebulous concept of "beauty" in physics. How much simplicity and unification is enough simplicity and unification? How small a set of equations do we want to describe the entire universe before we're satisfied? Those appear to be questions whose answers are entirely subjective.

At the end of the 19th century, Maxwell's equations and Newton's equations appeared to be coming tantalizingly close. Physics was all just about wrapped up (we thought) with just a few loose ends to tie up. Then it turned out that Maxwell's equations didn't allow stable atoms to exist! And it all started to open up again. Perhaps we're destined to go through an endless cycle of thinking we're very close to wrapping it all up in a neat little set of equations - thinking we've seen the top of the mountain.

Never mind. It's steady work.

[Ormond]

I can't speak to the physics, but I think you're on to something in suggesting we might be looking for what we want to find.

In a way science and religion are similar in that they both represent a quest to find "the rule book". The religious person wants to know god's laws, and the scientist wants to know the laws of nature. Methods and conclusions differ of course, but underneath that everybody is trying to find an order so we can manipulate that order and gain power.

I have no idea if reality is ultimately ordered or not, but am intrigued by the following...

Every species ever discovered can be quite brilliant within it's niche (or it wouldn't be there), but is largely blind beyond it's niche. It seems helpful to reflect upon this fact. Every species ever discovered. Both brilliant, and blind.

We seem to hold the assumption that we are liberated from this otherwise universal pattern, and thus can eventually get to the bottom of things. An assumption of a kind of an unlimited ability proposes a phenomena never before observed anywhere in nature. Thus, to the degree the physicist feels his field can someday get to the bottom of such huge questions, he is assuming something fairly declared to be as speculative as religious assertions.

It seems unlikely to me that thought, an inherently divisive information medium, will ever find a unity behind all phenomena. As the ever more reductionist nature of science would seem to illustrate, the more we think, the more division we will likely see.

We can probably all agree that a good astronomer should become an expert on the tool he is using to observe the heavens, his telescope. Physicists might be wise to become experts on the tool they are using, their minds.

[Atreyu]

If it leads us to somewhere that we consider ugly and unsatisfying then we must follow, right?

Yes. Of course. Unless you're a coward.

Unfortunately, while there are indeed Laws which can apply to Everything Everywhere (i.e. on all scales, from the subatomic to the inter-galactic), they cannot be discovered using the scientific method. Strangely enough, however, these Laws were known and formulated long ago....

[Steve3007]

Ormond:

I can't speak to the physics, but I think you're on to something in suggesting we might be looking for what we want to find.

That would be confirmation bias. A well known occupational hazard for anybody trying to find patterns in their observations. I guess you could say that wanting to find beauty and simplicity in the world and therefore looking for it (and rejecting ugliness and complication) is one of our most profound confirmation biases.

In a way science and religion are similar in that they both represent a quest to find "the rule book". The religious person wants to know god's laws, and the scientist wants to know the laws of nature.

Yes, and I think that's because they share roots. It seems to be only in recent times that we've divided it up into "the quest to find out what is factually true" and "the quest to find out what is morally good". The parts of religious and spiritual thoughts that deal with the former were the forerunners of science. We have always wondered how the world works. We just hadn't found a particularly efficient method.

Methods and conclusions differ of course, but underneath that everybody is trying to find an order so we can manipulate that order and gain power.

Not just to gain power. The use of scientific knowledge to create technology is a quest to gain power; the power to be able to assemble bits of the world together in various ways and know in advance what will happen when we do. a.k.a. engineering design. But there is also the quest simply to understand. For fun.

I have no idea if reality is ultimately ordered or not, but am intrigued by the following...

I think most of what follows is essentially your core message - that a species of half-mad apes on one little planet have no justification for thinking that its reasoning represents something universal and that it is capable, even in principle, of discovering all the truths about the universe.

As I've said before, I agree about the limits of knowledge, and I refer again to the analogy with chimpanzees and their complete ignorance of quantum mechanics. (They are not striving towards an understanding of QM; they do not know that there is anything to strive towards etc.) I agree that if a physicist (for example) feels that he/she will one day reach the end of his/her inquiries and find some ultimate equation of everything that will never have to be modified, then that is a kind of faith that is not based on any evidence. I think it's also fundamentally logically mistaken. I think it's an inherent property of these kinds of inquiries that they will never end. As I said: steady work.

It seems unlikely to me that thought, an inherently divisive information medium, will ever find a unity behind all phenomena. As the ever more reductionist nature of science would seem to illustrate, the more we think, the more division we will likely see.

This is an interesting point. Science, just like our more informal everyday attempts to make sense of the world, is reductionist. The world is too complex to make sense of as a whole, so we treat it as quasi-isolated systems and make simplifying assumptions. (A physicist trying to predict the winner of a horse race: "Assume the horse is spherical. Assume the horse is spherical...")

And yet this reductionist approach does seem to have at least some limited success in unification. How?

A well known example of unification: Newton and his apple. Newton realizes that the same force which causes the Moon to go around the Earth also causes objects like apples to fall to the ground. There's no intuitive, common-sense based reason to believe this. That's why it's a fantastic discovery. It unifies the apparently unrelated phenomena of falling objects and the movements of celestial bodies. But to reach that conclusion Newton had to be a reductionist. He had to concentrate on what appeared to matter and neglect things that appeared to be irrelevant. In so doing, it seems to be possible to find deep commonalities that would otherwise be drowned out by noise.

-- Updated Thu May 19, 2016 7:18 am to add the following --

Atreyu:

Unfortunately, while there are indeed Laws which can apply to Everything Everywhere (i.e. on all scales, from the subatomic to the inter-galactic), they cannot be discovered using the scientific method. Strangely enough, however, these Laws were known and formulated long ago....

You said something similar in another thread a couple of days ago and then quoted a couple of examples. They appear to be examples of ancient Greek theories of physics. Are they?

[Sy Borg]

Steve, isn't it ultimately about efficacy and control? A formula gives you control, allowing for consistency, reliability and predictability in our endeavours, hence the success of the scientific method.

But is what we find reliable with our animal senses actual reality? Since we appear to be unable to effectively interrogate every being's subjective existence, there's a massive informational hole in our ontic understanding, seemingly unbridgeable.

[Steve3007]

Greta:

Steve, isn't it ultimately about efficacy and control? A formula gives you control, allowing for consistency, reliability and predictability in our endeavours, hence the success of the scientific method.

Yes, this is the view of science that doesn't place emphasis on any supposed attempt to discover the "nature of reality" but simply states that science is about finding patterns in our observations to better allow us to describe and predict them. It's basically the so-called "shut up and calculate" view that I've tended to favour myself.

But is what we find reliable with our animal senses actual reality?

Well, this is where we come to the old question of whether it's meaningful to talk about this "actual reality" thing if we propose that it is something that is beyond the reach of our senses. We could propose that, because our animal senses are clearly so limited, there must by huge tracts of "reality" that are forever inaccessible to them. But is it worth it? Where does that get us? Some people answer by saying, essentially, that this transcendent reality indirectly explains things that we do apprehend with out senses. But that's just another way of saying that we sense it. All phenomena are apprehended, to a lesser or greater extent, indirectly. They are all inferred.

Since we appear to be unable to effectively interrogate every being's subjective existence, there's a massive informational hole in our ontic understanding, seemingly unbridgeable.

There will always be a hole because all of our interrogations are indirect. I think the fact that we can only know about other people's subjective experiences by asking them about them, and cannot experience them directly ourselves, is just one example of this.

I can only know about this computer screen that I assume is in front of me by interrogating my optic nerves.

-- Updated Thu May 19, 2016 9:07 am to add the following --

Error: When I said this: "Some people answer by saying, essentially, that this transcendent reality indirectly explains things that we do apprehend with out senses." I should have said "...with our senses."

[Sy Borg]

It's basically the so-called "shut up and calculate" view that I've tended to favour myself.

You are practical, Steve. I am not, more given to focus on the weird and ineffable. Useless? Probably. Enjoyable and provocative? Definitely :)

Well, this is where we come to the old question of whether it's meaningful to talk about this "actual reality" thing if we propose that it is something that is beyond the reach of our senses. We could propose that, because our animal senses are clearly so limited, there must by huge tracts of "reality" that are forever inaccessible to them. But is it worth it? Where does that get us? Some people answer by saying, essentially, that this transcendent reality indirectly explains things that we do apprehend with out senses. But that's just another way of saying that we sense it. All phenomena are apprehended, to a lesser or greater extent, indirectly. They are all inferred.

Ha, you know exactly where such inquiries get us - further along. We know there is "something more" so we look for it with our ever growing technologically aided senses.

Since we appear to be unable to effectively interrogate every being's subjective existence, there's a massive informational hole in our ontic understanding, seemingly unbridgeable.

There will always be a hole because all of our interrogations are indirect. I think the fact that we can only know about other people's subjective experiences by asking them about them, and cannot experience them directly ourselves, is just one example of this.

I can only know about this computer screen that I assume is in front of me by interrogating my optic nerves.

Don't forget touch and even echolocation, not to mention technological means like radar.

I will take a more conservative approach when/if serious discoveries are made at the Planck scale. Something is theoretically going on at that smallest(?) of scales so I expect that at least some previously-intractable unknowns will be better understood if we can interrogate it.

[Steve3007]

Greta:

You are practical, Steve. I am not, more given to focus on the weird and ineffable. Useless? Probably. Enjoyable and provocative? Definitely

I don't like to think I'm completely practical in a boring, un-imaginative Mr Spock kind of way. (Well, I would say that, wouldn't I?) I think imagination and inspiration are essential parts of discovery. I just think there's a balance to be struck between imagination and observation, and observation has to be the ultimate arbiter of what we regard as true or untrue, simply because that's all there is.

Ha, you know exactly where such inquiries get us - further along. We know there is "something more" so we look for it with our ever growing technologically aided senses.

Yes, we look for it. In other words, any speculations that we make are ultimately confirmed or refuted by the evidence of our senses and the apparatus we use to augment our senses.

Don't forget touch and even echolocation, not to mention technological means like radar.

...and numerous other technologies, all of which allow us to do more indirect sensing. As I said, all sensing is indirect, whether it's the indirect sensing of an object in front of me due to signals in my optic nerve or the indirect sensing of a particle whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider due to images on one of the LHC's computer screens or the indirect sensing of an aircraft using a radar system to translate radio reflections into green dots on a screen.

I will take a more conservative approach when/if serious discoveries are made at the Planck scale. Something is theoretically going on at that smallest(?) of scales so I expect that at least some previously-intractable unknowns will be better understood if we can interrogate it.

And the way in which we will know of any of these discoveries will be via our animal senses. If serious discoveries are made at the Planck scale, we can only know about them by translating them to some form of sensory information at this animal scale.

[Sy Borg]

I don't like to think I'm completely practical in a boring, un-imaginative Mr Spock kind of way. (Well, I would say that, wouldn't I?) I think imagination and inspiration are essential parts of discovery. I just think there's a balance to be struck between imagination and observation, and observation has to be the ultimate arbiter of what we regard as true or untrue, simply because that's all there is.

Too funny, Mr Spock! :)) I see two arbiters - one for society and one for the individual, and (sorry to quibble) each is formative rather than "ultimate".

Ha, you know exactly where such inquiries get us - further along. We know there is "something more" so we look for it with our ever growing technologically aided senses.

Yes, we look for it. In other words, any speculations that we make are ultimately confirmed or refuted by the evidence of our senses and the apparatus we use to augment our senses.

Yes, but importantly many great discoveries have been sparked by either intuition or mathematics. So our "vertical thinking" progress follows the intuitive and mathematical "lateral leaps".

As I said, all sensing is indirect, whether it's the indirect sensing of an object in front of me due to signals in my optic nerve or the indirect sensing of a particle whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider due to images on one of the LHC's computer screens or the indirect sensing of an aircraft using a radar system to translate radio reflections into green dots on a screen.

I will take a more conservative approach when/if serious discoveries are made at the Planck scale. Something is theoretically going on at that smallest(?) of scales so I expect that at least some previously-intractable unknowns will be better understood if we can interrogate it.

And the way in which we will know of any of these discoveries will be via our animal senses. If serious discoveries are made at the Planck scale, we can only know about them by translating them to some form of sensory information at this animal scale.

Is that still true? Obviously vision must be involved but the difference is akin to sensing a computer screen with animal senses and comprehending the information onscreen. We don't actually "see" subatomic entities in any detail, but we know plenty about them from observing their effects on entities large enough not to be battered about by mere protons. Our interrogation of the Planck scale, I expect, will be even more abstracted from our animal senses.

[Steve3007]

Greta:

Too funny, Mr Spock! ) I see two arbiters - one for society and one for the individual, and (sorry to quibble) each is formative rather than "ultimate".

Why different arbiters?

Yes, I'm happy with the word "formative" (after I looked it up to make sure I knew what it meant.)

Yes, but importantly many great discoveries have been sparked by either intuition or mathematics. So our "vertical thinking" progress follows the intuitive and mathematical "lateral leaps".

Yes, indeed. It's often difficult, or perhaps impossible, to analyse how these leaps of intuition come about. But once they've been made, they're tested by observation. (In science, if not in mathematics.)

Is that still true? Obviously vision must be involved but the difference is akin to sensing a computer screen with animal senses and comprehending the information onscreen. We don't actually "see" subatomic entities in any detail, but we know plenty about them from observing their effects on entities large enough not to be battered about by mere protons. Our interrogation of the Planck scale, I expect, will be even more abstracted from our animal senses.

I would argue that we do see those subatomic particles in just the same sense that we see anything else. You are arguing that we only see the effects that they have on other things. But that's how we see everything. I only "see" the computer screen in front of me because of the effect that I assume it's having on my optic nerve. Or rather, I assume that those electro-chemical signals in my optic nerve were caused by the firing of rods and cones in my retina that was in turn caused by photons of light hitting them. They hit them in that particular way because (I assume) they've previously bounced off an object. All very indirect. Do I see the object, the photons, the rod and cone firings or the electro-chemical signals? All of these? None of these?

Now, switching back to those particles: the LHC is insanely complicated so let's consider a simpler form of particle detector: a cloud chamber. Same principle. Just older and simpler, dating from a simpler time when gentlemen in tweedy jackets sucked on pipes thoughtfully and occasionally exclaimed "By Zeus! I think I have it!"

A cloud chamber shows us the tracks of elementary particles whizzing through it because it contains a supersaturated vapour - a gas which is just bursting to condense into a liquid at the slightest excuse. One of these particles hitting a molecule of the vapour can trigger that, causing the formation of a little string of tiny liquid droplets. Liquid droplets reflect light. So we see them. (Photons bounce off them and hit the rods and cones in our retina ... etc.)

Do we "see" the photons? Or the liquid droplets? Or the elementary particles? Or all of them? Or none of them?

[Ormond]

Science, just like our more informal everyday attempts to make sense of the world, is reductionist.

Yes, thinking is reductionist, inherently divisive in nature.

And yet this reductionist approach does seem to have at least some limited success in unification. How?

It's clear beyond doubt that thinking, a process of conceptual division, is useful in too many ways to list. It's how we make our living, it's what we are.

Perhaps we might compare thinking to wings on a bird. Wings are incredibly useful for a particular set of operations, but beyond that they have very limited value, or are totally useless. I guess what I'm rebelling against is a notion that we can fly anywhere if we just try hard enough and long enough.

It seems more reasonable to propose that thinking gives us access to a slice of reality and beyond that we are blind, just like every other species ever discovered. Adopting such a perspective may help prevent us turning science in to yet another religion, which we seem rather close to doing.

We might say that the reductionist process of our brain is a key threat to our survival, as it creates a built-in obstacle to seeing our environment as a single unified phenomena. Thus, we dump our garbage in the ocean, our smoke in to the air, and think that it is gone.

On a personal level, the divisive nature of thought is what creates all the different thoughts in our minds which are arguing with each other. It is what creates the apparent separation between "me" and "everybody else" which sets the stage for conflict.

Division is the central fact of the human condition. It's what makes us brilliant, and what makes us insane. Unless we learn how to better manage the divisions that we are, the era of physics theories will soon pass in to history.

Thus, I would shift the focus from this....

Our psychological need for unification in physics

To this...

Our psychological need for unification

Without more of the later, the former is scheduled to vanish.

[Steve3007]

Ormond:

Perhaps we might compare thinking to wings on a bird. Wings are incredibly useful for a particular set of operations, but beyond that they have very limited value, or are totally useless. I guess what I'm rebelling against is a notion that we can fly anywhere if we just try hard enough and long enough.

Yes, I see your point, but would still argue that there is something fundamentally different between the tool of thinking and the other tools which nature gives to various animals. The thing which makes the analogy with the bird's wing not entirely satisfactory to me is that thinking is an entirely abstract tool, whereas a wing is an entirely concrete tool. The reason for the success of thought compared to wings, and claws, and long necks is that thought is almost infinitely adaptable. It can be used to manufacture any or all of the other tools and an infinite number of others.

It seems more reasonable to propose that thinking gives us access to a slice of reality and beyond that we are blind, just like every other species ever discovered. Adopting such a perspective may help prevent us turning science in to yet another religion, which we seem rather close to doing.

Maybe, but part of that is about so-called "scientism" which I think is as much about the worship of technology as it is about faith in the limitless knowledge of science. Maybe two different things. And I don't see an obvious way in which acknowledging that there will never be an end to the search for a "theory of everything" will help us to, say, reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

We might say that the reductionist process of our brain is a key threat to our survival, as it creates a built-in obstacle to seeing our environment as a single unified phenomena. Thus, we dump our garbage in the ocean, our smoke in to the air, and think that it is gone.

I think this is a good point. Perhaps the compartmentalization that goes with reductionism does indeed make it easier to take an "out of sight; out of mind" approach to such things as environmental pollution or our own self-extermination. But I think that attitude of the human race can also be explained by our history. For almost all of our history the total global population of the human race was probably less than that of a single modern small town. Compared to the current level of 7 billion it was, to a fairly high degree of precision, zero; a rounding error. So perhaps we evolved the attitude that we lived in an effectively infinitely large environmental sink.

We have to get used to the fact that this is no longer the case. We're big enough to permanently damage the only habitat in the known universe in which we can live. That kind of adaptability needs the flexible, abstract tool of thought. Like it or not, it is both our downfall and our potential saviour.

[Ormond]

Yes, I see your point, but would still argue that there is something fundamentally different between the tool of thinking and the other tools which nature gives to various animals

I think of information as being just another element of nature like air and water, and our minds navigate this element just as birds fly in air, fish swim in the water etc. I see knowledge as blossoming in humans now much as an algae bloom covers a lake. I see it happening to us, not from us.

The thing which makes the analogy with the bird's wing not entirely satisfactory to me is that thinking is an entirely abstract tool, whereas a wing is an entirely concrete tool.

Information and thought are an electro-chemical relationship among neurons. Electricity and chemicals are both concrete, right?

A better analogy for my point might be our eyes, which are indeed very useful, but capture only a small sliver of the electro-magnetic spectrum. Our eyes and thought allow us to navigate the niche we need to navigate. That's something entirely different than being an ability which can potentially see everything.

If true science can't explore "reality" but only what is likely to be the tiny slice of reality which thought can process. And, it seems unlikely one can think one's way out of this situation, as such thinking will also still be restricted by the limitations of thought itself.

Trying to say, there are limitations built-in to the medium of thought itself, just as there are for any other medium. As example, we can build a brick building only so high, due to the limitations of brick. A steel building can go higher, because it's a stronger material. But there is no material which can hold infinite weight.

The reason for the success of thought compared to wings, and claws, and long necks is that thought is almost infinitely adaptable. It can be used to manufacture any or all of the other tools and an infinite number of others.

I don't disagree, but you have just stated the false comparison which is at the heart of our illusion of god-like power. You have understandably compared our abilities to the only other life forms we know. But the appropriate comparison is not to donkeys and squirrels, but to the nature of reality.

Are our eyes amazing? Yes! Can they see everything? No. I'm proposing the very same relationship exists between human thought and reality. Thought sees a slice of reality in a manner which is superior to a donkey's seeing.

Maybe, but part of that is about so-called "scientism" which I think is as much about the worship of technology as it is about faith in the limitless knowledge of science. Maybe two different things.

I'm referring to the very widely held cultural assumption that "more is better" when it comes to knowledge. We used to worship gods, now we worship knowledge.

And I don't see an obvious way in which acknowledging that there will never be an end to the search for a "theory of everything" will help us to, say, reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

A bit more humility might at least slow us down from sticking our nose in to every little corner of reality just to see what's there, as example, Higgs Boson research. It's the blind faith in our supposedly infinite ability which gives us the confidence to create civilization crushing tools.

I think this is a good point. Perhaps the compartmentalization that goes with reductionism does indeed make it easier to take an "out of sight; out of mind" approach to such things as environmental pollution or our own self-extermination.

Given the reductionist nature of science, scientists will typically be people whose mind is naturally inclined to become experts, that is, burrow deeply in to a narrow area of understanding. There's obviously nothing wrong here, we need people like this.

However, I've become convinced that this narrow focus mindset tends to make scientists uniquely unqualified to grasp the big picture of our relationship with knowledge, and where it's taking us. I perceive science as a large group of very intelligent blind people driving the knowledge machine as fast as they can towards a cliff they can't see.

And it's very difficult for those outside of science to gain credibility on the subject of knowledge, for it is the "science clergy" who have cultural authority in this area. So even if such folks can see, they can't be heard.

Thanks for the exchange. I am pleased to have joined the esteemed collection of crack pot theory authors that you like to engage.