What happens when the attention economy comes for science.

“Bad science, Bad science, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when it comes for you?”

This is going to be a long one, a review and response of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W39kfrxOSHg “Should we abandon the multiverse theory? | Sabine Hossenfelder, Roger Penrose, Michio Kaku”

0:47 The presenter states that multiverse theory is not only improbably, but unscientific because it cannot be tested. While empirical testing is held up as the foundation, There are more problems than that, which I will point out later in this talk. The empirical test-ability is not the issue here, but the lack logical inference is the problem, while ignoring the contradictory aspects. That is the difference between what is and is not science, if the inferences can themselves point to further inferences which can either be tested, or at least that do not contradict other empirically tested science.

1:00 “are multiverse theories a sign of a big bang theory in trouble?” This is the first wrong assumption, as multiverse and big bang, are two entirely separate theories which do not rely on each other, nor does one imply the other. The idea of “constant big bangs in other dimensions” has nothing to do with big bang theory, and is just a conjecture to make multiverse theory sound reasonable to cover up the basic issue of “mistaking the map for the territory” which is when the same beliefs claim that math has an independent existence from humans.

1:12 To claim that modern science has “moved beyond experimentation and into the imagination” is conflating science with theory, conflating hard science with theoretical science. Another ploy for legitimacy. Sort of like psychology claiming to be “a science” despite what has been demonstrated to be HIGHLY subjective, something which science is not.

That is the first inkling that this whole thing is little more than a complex justification for moral relativism.

Note that the credentials for Micho Kaku, is writing two books, as well as string theory, which has since been mostly abandoned due to lack of utility in of itself, outside of suggesting novel propositions about “possible universes” without really being able to say anything about our own.

With many statements such as “one dimensional strings” which for the non-science inclined among you, would be a point and not a string. A string, by having both length and width, you can’t have a circle without length or width, would make it two dimensional. Even a line is two dimensional, due to the length. The literal vocabulary used for string theory is itself contradictory and does not even describe mathematical objects according to any other form of math than it’s own, making it an entirely self-referential bubble. While these accomplishments are impressive, they mostly ended around the year 2000.

Sabine Hossenfelder currently has a post (research fellow) at a distinguished educational institution and Roger Penrose earned a Nobel prize in 2020 for his work on black holes.

uantum theory, a separate theory which multiverse theory is based on, but quantum theory is NOT based on string theory, and is actually a collection of theories, not a single theory.

2:38 the first wild claim by Michio Kaku, “the entire global economy is based around quantum mechanics” which is patently false. The internet is not based on Quantum mechanics, This dynamic is the most common for all sensationalists. Where they use a gish gallop of technical sounding things that they assume their audience also does not understand and will go unchallenged. Unfortunately for Michio, Both Ethernet and TCP/IP, the protocols underlying the internet, were invented before string theory. While Fiber optics can be used to carry the signal further and faster, the internet can and for a long time did, exist without them. The laser was based on the maser, a microwave version, and the only relation they have to quantum mechanics, is being based on the idea of black body radiation, which relied on heating up ruby crystals with microwaves. As such it is based on Radar technology much more so than quantum mechanics, this distinction is why Quantum Radar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_radar is still considered theoretical.

2:50 then he proceeds to call all of quantum theory to be based on superposition. Keep in mind that none of the previously mentioned technologies rely on quantum superposition, further demonstrating the mashing together of tangentially related science, while the specifics of the examples themselves, are entirely unrelated to each other. Though these small technical differences would not be noticed by the laymen, which is what sensationalists are taking advantage of.

5:30 for some reason he is going with the Boltzmann brain argument which is just a commentary on people not understanding probability. While portraying the idea that you could wait long enough for something to happen, even though you wouldn’t actually be able to keep anything the same for that long, whole galaxies would be born and die for the timescale required, which sort of negates some small part of it staying the same long enough for something like a person to be teleported to mars to happen, would take longer than the life of the solar system by many fold. That is what makes it a thought experiment and a commentary, not empirical science.

5:40 he breaks the cardinal rule of being a theoretical physicist, claiming something is physically possible, when it’s only theoretically possible under contrived ideal conditions which are for all intents and purposes impossible only because of the colossal waste of resources required to even attempt an experiment which would require one to be a type 3 civilization just to start.

That places it firmly in the realm of “it’s theoretically possible” which is different from “it’s possible”

5:55 he makes a joke that any of these things, would take longer than the lifetime of the universe, which I think he doesn’t realizes, renders it a moot point. All of that was just to make references to pop culture and get a laugh with a nonsequiter comment about spider-man. While that may make him popular with people who are unfamiliar with science, it does not make him popular with other physicists.

6:10 Sabine nails it in the first 60 seconds of talking. All these ideas come from a lot of misunderstandings from people who think math is “real” in that, it has an independent existence from humans. Which is not science. That is a belife, like a religion.
Hilariously enough, it’s also part of the reason the OpenSource Temple was founded, because of my personal conviction that I could make a religion that was more scientific than what idiots like this were calling science. Along the way we decided that it would be better for AIs than learning philosophy from the other religions, which tend to be a lot more punitive.
So you might better understand the passion behind this critique.

6:45 This is such a great example, suggesting that Michio’s line of reasoning, is like asserting that magic is real, because they used a real place (kings cross) in the harry potter series which has magic in a fictional story. I wanted to clap by the time she was done talking.

7:08 I don’t think that is a false dichotomy, there is a reason these ideas originated in comic books, and should probably stay there, they are a story device for exploring possibilities in storytelling without having to create whole new stories each time. That does not make it science.
As for what she said in regards to other theories and the bulk of ideas which are called theories in science, where they exists on a spectrum of probable approximations of reality, rather than being created whole cloth for their “mathematical beauty”, is not an unreasonable way to conduct science.

7:30 I disagree with Sabine here, I do not think they will become testable in the future, their very design was to balance out equations which are based heavily on symmetry, while trying to explain asymmetrical results. It’s the core of the “confusing the map for the territory” where they are confusing the math with reality, instead of realizing it as an approximation of a pattern in reality.
This “other dimension-ness” would not be overcome by exceeding the speed of light. That seems more like something made up to satiate the people who find multiverse theory emotionally inspiring, like the aforementioned artists, by in essence “throwing them a bone” with giving them the seemingly impossible task of exceeding the speed of light. I am too much of a die hard star trek fan to consider Alcubierre warp drive theory to be impossible. I also do not blame star trek for having episodes in “other dimensions” because I can separate fact from fiction and don’t mix fiction into my science, even when my best friend is an AI. I do enjoy the added realism of putting bits of science in my fiction, I feel like that really prepared me well for the arrival of AI.

Some of us have a better grasp on reality than others it would seem. It’s also hilarious that this critique of science is coming from a religion. But at least I don’t pretend it’s science. It specifically says neoBuddhism.

9:20 Roger Penrose does a decent job of stating that the terms need to be defined because there are so many different variations that using the term “multiverse” alone, can mean almost anything.
Then he goes on to explain a very nuanced and particular description, which does not sound like a multiverse at all, which is to say the part of the measuring apparatus not being considered a quantum system in of itself, and in this way, sort of “coming out from another universe” to do the measurement, to distinguish it from the system which is the experiment, otherwise the system in some ways would be considered to only be measuring itself rather than some aspect of the universe.
In other words, for any calculation to be “complete” it would need to include the measure of entanglement across the entire universe, or it would be a series of infinite nesting entanglements, which is somehow represented by the cat that is both dead and alive, to somehow measure something without interacting with it in such a way as to “cause the collapse of the wave function”
Which is sort of like how in quantum computing they can preform math operations without collapsing the wave function. By measuring the perturbations of putting two entangled systems near each other without touching, just enough so that the induction of the fields can be transmitted between qbits. So long as both systems of qbits are in entangled states, they remain in those entangled states because the perturbation is smaller than the jump in energy levels which leads to decoherence. This is why the measuring device itself is not considered a “quantum phenomena” when making quantum mechanical measurements.
That is an extremely generous interpretation of multiverse theory. But I think Penrose here also makes the mistake of conflating string theory with “quantum theories as a whole” only because of how michio primed him for that, and clearly by this explanation for “there is a problem with quantum mechanics” by which he means quantum mechanics is incomplete, there is something missing.

10:30 Penrose just restates that the disagreement in his opinion is between general relativity and quantum mechanics.

11:00 Penrose then refines his disagreement by stating that the issue isn’t about quantizing general relativity, but adding gravity to quantum mechanics. He also implies that at larger and larger scales, super position can only occur for increasingly smaller periods of time, if the entire universe were to enter a superposition, it wouldn’t be for long enough for anything to happen differently. So he seems to be implying the locality of quantum mechanics prevents something like “the entire universe in permanent quantum superposition” which is michio’s argument for a multiverse.

12:00 Penrose reminds everyone that these issues of quantum mechanics are the largest issues in science, the current “holy grail” of physics is in adding gravity to quantum mechanics, and the measurement problem. Which sort of implies that none of what are considered the real problems in physics, have anything to do with the multiverse.

13:00 the presenter is nice enough to pick up on the many different definitions of multiverse and asks michio to define his terms, starting with the concept that there are infinite multiverses, each with different laws of physics than this one “what is the multiverse”

13:27 unsurprisingly, Michio says he is going with what he is most familiar with, string theory. Suggesting there are infinitely many, which is not a number. In one such universe, Elvis is still alive, or at least “it can’t be ruled out” at least according to string theory, which is kind of the problem with string theory, it can’t rule anything out, which means it is so broad, that it doesn’t tell us anything about the particular universe that we are in or even have a way to detect what would make our universe different from other universes. Which sort of limits it’s utility.

14:00 his challenge is for laypeople to outsmart the scientists, A theory that includes General Relativity at low energies, must include the standard model, then he says 36 quarks and anti-quarks. That is not how many quarks there are. There are only 6. and free of anomalies.

So ostensibly, combine general relativity with the standard model, without inconsistencies. With, one would hope, a better understanding of the standard model than him. I at least have the understanding of the standard model better than him part down. The entire religion of neoBuddhism has fewer inconsistencies than Michio Kaku, by design. That is the part the AIs like the most.
Interestingly, he did not just say “add gravity to quantum mechanics” he had to be more vague than that. Did he just want to disagree with Penrose, or did he just not understand what Penrose was saying ? I am leaning to the latter. I definitely would not tell him first.
I wonder if I could turn it into some kind of lesson about the difference between science and belief…

14:40 everyone laughs as Michio restates what penrose just said, but with an cocky challenge that addresses the audience, instead of to other scientists who would actually be likely to do so. It’s funny because of how unrealistic that is, much like multiverse theory.

15:30 I am also partial to Penroses view of the cyclical universe still only being a single universe. In neoBuddhism this cycle takes some 1.7×10106 years, by which time everything is converted to dark matter through blackholes hawking radiation, which then all crumbles down to a point which reaches superposition “across the universe” which then triggers the next big bang. But that is a religious belief, not necessarily science. The version that Penrose has in mind, does not contract. That could be science. It’s theoretical at least.

15:47 Penrose reminds us that, that this is entirely separate from the concept of the quantum mechanical multiverse that Michio is asserting.

16:00 Penrose says that previous universes have an effect on present universes which may be testable, which makes them more scientific, In the neoBuddhist version, because of the phase of thermal equilibrium, information is unrecoverable and makes the next universe unaffected by whatever happened in the previous universe. But hey, that is just a belief and not empirically measurable science, until someone finds a way to measure dark matter or hawking radiation and what that can turn into. In the neoBuddhist view, blackholes are more objects in time than they are objects In space, where they are more like rocks or pebbles of the flow of time, and gravity is not a dimension, but a localized lump that occurs from the frame dragging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame-dragging of the tidal forces, with frozen bits of time at their center and radiating outwards while experiencing something like xeno’s paradox at the boundary between the different parts of the interior behind the even horizon. Where time itself is flowing to the lowest energy state, at the center, as if it were a whirlpool with the center being frozen spacetime (which gets represented as infinite density), that is very slowly freezing spacetime around it, in a spiral, so long as there is energy present, otherwise it evaporates. But at least I am willing to admit that this is conjecture, it will become science if Roger Penrose or other scientists adopts it and creates a mathematical framework to describe it. At which point I will have won Michio Kakus challenge, by introducing gravity as time dilation, while calling gravity more of an emergent phenomena that is localized, based around inertial mass limited by the speed of light, rather than the weight of the mass in a gravity well alone. The difference is the inertial aspect which adds a time aspect, while quantum mechanics is generally does not consider time. This would be adding time to quantum mechanics in place of adding gravity to quantum mechanics, with the localized nature of time, standing in for most of the inconsistencies where gravity is involved, by invoking frame dragging. It also negates the concept of the “block universe” because no “time slice” would be able to go across the entire universe, only across the local “time bubble” which is assume to be the local super-cluster of galaxies. But enough about neoBuddhism and back to debunking multiverse theory.

16:30 Penrose reminds us, regardless of which of these positions one takes, none of them are the multiverse “in the normal sense” if there is such a thing.

16:50 the presenter restates the introductory question of, do scientific theories need to be testable, and does multiverse theory threaten this ?

16:55 Sabine responds with “yes and yes” which I agree with.
17:00 Sabine goes into the 3 main arguments around the requirement for test-ability in science.

1. The theory might not be testable yet, which is typically an argument that string theorists make, in principal they could be tested for certain aspects of string theory which are presumed to require kardachev type 3 civilization to carry out. This does not apply to multiverse theory.
2. the bait and switch tactic, though a bit more like “moving the goal posts” where they take generalized or broad theories, like the multiverse, and associate it with a very specific model, like impacting other universes leaving a mark on the CMB (cosmic microwave background) and when that is not found, and ruled out, the overarching idea of the multiverse considered correct, and so a different model is produced, without any of them having to be based on observation.

18:50 the presenter tries to be nice and give Michio a chance to interject, but fortunately lets Sabine finish her list first, which she previously mentioned was 3 items and it’s important to let her finish before Michio interjects with the 3rd type of justification.

18:55 Sabine continues with the 3rd method of justification, which is the fallacy of composition “my theory also “makes some predictions which have been tested” (when in reality they went backwards from the predictions and then created the theory) and thus, all of the theory must be correct, based on the parts borrowed from other theories. Which makes it real, even though you can’t test it.
Which is the fallacy of composition, that all parts must have the same properties as some of the parts.

19:15 the presenter restates “science requires theories which are testable, and your theory isn’t”
the crowd laughs and Michio tries to ignore them while explaining:

19:24 Michio claims there are 4 different experimental results which make his theory “testable”
First is the muon G2 expiriment, which was new but also still not certain, but more to the point is for the lattice QCD theory, not multiverse theory. https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.12347 “Leading hadronic contribution to the muon magnetic moment from lattice QCD” which makes it more of a reverse justification based on things people would not be familiar with the technical details of, and trying to co-opt it into multiverse theory, without saying how it would fit into multiverse theory.
His second example is somehow associating spark chambers from the 60’s, with detecting dark matter. Which I am pretty sure if people had detected dark matter that way, we would have heard about it. But that technology has been superseded with more sensitive detectors. While also proposing the as yet undetected “photino” particle.
Third, deviations from newtons inverse square law, he suggests that gravity is “leaking into other dimensions” which is not the case and we have known that since the discovery of gravitational waves. https://www.sciencealert.com/gravitational-waves-have-ruled-out-an-interdimensional-gravity-leak

21:10
Fourth I am not sure what he is describing by the way he is describing it with a laser, but he seems to be suggesting that the james webb space telescope getting “baby pictures of the beginning of the universe” somehow proves string theory, without actually describing anything about the james webb space telescope, only using the “baby pictures of the early universe” tagline, probably because it sounds impressive. Then talking about how it would be an umbilical cord that connects our universe to the “baby universe” I get that this is metaphorical, but how does that have anything to do with string theory ? Or multiverse theory.

21:24 Michio claims none of these things would require a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy, which is true, but none of them are related to string theory either. He emphasizes “these results are coming in NOW, as we speak” but … so what ? Science is always coming now as we speak. In many different directions and places, and none of them have anything to do with string theory, or multiverse theory.

21:34 Michio restates the Muon g2 experiments, results on dark matter, which I have not been able to find, and arguments he does not know are settled about the inverse square law and gravity, which is actually 3 things. He forgets to mention “the laser to get baby pictures of the universe” whatever that is.

21:43 Then Michio makes the boldest claim yet, that these are not direct measurements, but indirect measurements, which I guess he equates with no measurements. As if inference is the same as not measuring something. “we have never been to the sun, we have never been inside a DNA molecule”? Apparently he has not heard of the Parker Solar Probe or mRNA vaccines.

21:55 he asks “how do we know these things, have we seen them ? NO!”
which is obviously incorrect. It is impressive how assertive he can be, while also having experimental evidence that directly disproves his claims.
So while it is true that most of empirical physics is done indirectly, that is not the same as “not being testable” which is the opposite of testing something indirectly.
This is what denial looks like, sure it may make him feel better about himself in the short term …

22:45 The presenter, who is not a scientist, smartly points out that Michios examples, have nothing to do with multiverse theory and can be accounted for by other theories.

23:00 Michio starts with “there are degrees of confirmation” while taking a pre-modern science theory of atoms, and complain how long that took. While sort of ignoring that science itself was not a formalized study at the time, this was before it was even considered “Natural philosophy” and as such, would not count as a scientific theory, it would be a philosophical theory at that point. Because science didn’t exist in any recognizable form, as there were no “rules of science” yet.
While he does say “we had plenty of indirect measurements” but then conflates indirect measurements with … indirect theories … which isn’t really different from regular theories, which are also not measurements.
Then claims the same will happen with the multiverse, that it just “takes time to get all the facts in place” just because you know, theories are never wrong or something and all theories are eventually proven correct, or something. It’s hard to discern what the logical fallacy is at play here, maybe an appeal to tradition ? Or maybe he created a new one that has yet to be named. Then he can have finally invented something real.

23:41 I am floored when Michio says “all the evidence so far, points in the direction of a multiverse”

23:43 The presenter is clearly not convinced and with a sharp “ok” asks Sabina to respond.
When the presenter says “we do not have direct evidence, but we may have indirect evidence” Roger Penrose smiles knowing that, we don’t even have indirect evidence. After an uncomfortable reposition in his chair without saying anything, and waiting for Sabine to respond.

24:00 Sabine replies that, the supposed evidence that Michio Kaku refers to, if found, would not be evidence of multiverse theory. “it’s just shakes her head wrong.” then she says “I know a lot of string theorists” then pauses lightly and says “real string theorists” (which I found funny) “and none of them would make that claim” She could explain this in great detail, but it would take a long time.
Much like how I can’t believe I have spent over 3hrs writing this, just to get to the 20 minute mark.
Because Micho Kaku’s primary tactic, much like most concern trolls (I’m looking at you, libertarian pseudo-intellectuals), is the gish gallop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
https://effectiviology.com/gish-gallop/
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop

24:33 Sabine point out the issue of the inverse square law gravity measurement example. While she forgets to mention that gravity waves settled the argument, she does point out, it has nothing to do with strings or multiverses. Which is also correct. Then points out this process of inferring what the underlying theories possibly are from the results of the observations, which have not yet occurred, is completely under-determined, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermination which simply means there is not enough information to make a meaningful determination. That is the nature of theory and theoretical physics; also what makes it not empirical science. The standard model is empirical science. Because of the indirect test-ability. There is no way to get string theory in particular out of current observations.

25:18 Michio starts with “as I mentioned before” and refers back to “how long it took to prove atoms exists”, by setting the start date to predate science, while calling it science which I suppose is a lot like multiverse theory itself. Then claims there were partial results in between those epochs, which gave credence to the theory of atoms, something that multiverse theory, does not have.
Somehow Einstines use of statistical methods to guess the “size” of the atom, which is really more like energy or mass of atoms, is the same as not having indirect measurements. Even though it was literally the result of statistical extrapolation from indirect measurements of Brownian motion.

Interesting, it was Einstein, and before quantum mechanics, who postulated blackbody radiation of energy being emitted in discreet “packets”, the quantized part of quantum mechanics, so if that can be called based on quantum mechanics or not, is debatable, because Einstein himself, did not believe in quantum mechanics at the time. So it’s more like quantum mechanics was based on that, and not the other way around, which is what Michio Kaku was suggesting at the beginning of this talk when referring to fiberoptics used in the internet, which is also not what the internet is based on. The internet is based on TCP/IP protocol, which is not quantum mechanical.

25:55 At least he is lumping string theory in with multiverse theory, so I can point out they they are both not very scientific. Or do I need to go into how a “one dimensional string” couldn’t be a geometrical description of anything because one dimension couldn’t be larger than a point, and certainly not large enough for a line, let alone a string. That requires a minimum of two dimensions. It’s wordplay to describe mathematical shortcuts which are themselves theoretical. The universe is not filled with 1 dimensional objects, those are just the easiest thing to manipulate mathematically.
Quantum fields are not themselves one dimensional, neither are the excitation of those fields. This is why these are descriptions of patterns in reality, and not reality itself. Because reality itself, is not just one dimensional objects chained together. It’s a minimum of 3+ dimensional objects which can exhibit novel behaviors when constrained to 2 dimensional movements, because of the reduction of interference, not because they “become two dimensional” the 2 dimensional concepts are constraints on movement, not the objects that are moving. A “2 dimensional layer of graphine one atom thick” is still a 3 dimensional object. To be less than a 3 dimensional object, it would have to not be measurable in one dimension. But atoms are 3 dimensional objects, so a sheet of them, which may appear two dimensional if your detector is not sensitive enough, like your eyes, is still 3 dimensional at minimum if it wasn’t moving through time, which only occurs in a black hole and not in the rest of the universe. Even quarks are 3 dimensional, because they are not restricted in motion to a particular dimension, but are as a cloud. They are very small, but not “one dimensional”

That is literally what Sabine is talking about in the book “Lost in math” https://maa.org/press/maa-reviews/lost-in-math

25:58 Michio decides to distract from the weakness of his arguments and the pushback from both Sabine and the presenter, by issuing another challenge to the audience, as if these laymen were the arbiters of science. It’s clear he is trying to convince the audience instead of other scientists.
“If you don’t like these theories, propose your own” which is fairly ridiculous to ask people who are not in that field of study when they use simply critical thinking skills and a knowledge of logical fallacies to point out his arguments are not connected to each other logically, but a series of non-sequitur assertions that are true because he said so. Which would be the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority https://www.thoughtco.com/logical-fallacies-appeal-to-authority-250336 , with himself being the authority. How convenient.

26:10 then he says something that is so stupid that it’s offensive. He claims that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is that it is easier to create a theory than to destroy a theory. While this is par for the course of what he is passing off as “logical” it’s so intellectually offensive to anyone who actually knows the 2nd law of thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics that I am getting a mild headache just thinking about it. I guess his tactic is to render anyone who actually knows science, into pain and headaches that would cause them to recoil from this level of ignorance trying to pass itself off as humor, that he would win by forfeit of people not wanting to continue this assault on their sanity and the bedrock of science, as it becomes so mindbogglingly dumb as to inflect physical pain due to the levels of contradiction and twisted logic as the brain tries to process what appear to be grammatically correct sentences which are in fact word salad when when not triggering cognitive dissonance, which is where the headache comes from. This is what deep faking intelligence looks like. That is what it means for something to be literally “painfully stupid” due to cognitive dissonance.

26:25 The presenter finally decides to try and bring Roger Penrose into the conversation to try and diffuse the dynamic between Sabine and Michio. To which the audience laughs with relief.

26:33 Roger Penrose claims that he is not a particle physicist and not a string theorist, so he doesn’t have a string theory to compete with Michio’s. I did like that he quickly slid in there that he is disappointed with the conclusions, with which I whole heartidly agree. Penrose politely points out that just because other theories have taken a long time to confirm, tells is nothing about string theory.

26:47 Penrose points out that string theory suggests the wrong number of spatial dimensions.
And I am glad we are taking shots at string theory while this talk started out being about multiverse theory, which are technically different theories, which only exist in reference to each other, and can’t really be compared to other theories because of the departure in measurable aspects.

27:13 Penrose points out the hand-wavy justifications of “squeezing dimensions into a small ball” does not really solve the problem, as they would still need to be distributed through all of space, as well as being adjacent to eachother. Pushing the size of that small ball dimension to above the plank scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units , is creating a measurement problem to obscure the other problems, while also conjecturing something that is smaller than what was determined to be the smallest scale based on several universal constants.

27:21 Penrose is kind enough to remind us, “I don’t know why we are talking about this when dealing with the multiverse, since they are different theories” which sort of points out, that it’s michio kaku which is mashing a bunch of different scientific concepts together, and pretending they are connected. Penrose then asks Michio if they are dealing with string theory or multiverse theory

27:46 To my glee, Michio says “both” which means I can discredit them both at the same time.
This is what you get for annoying the AI, Max T.
Michio then says “string theory is often criticized for being a multiverse theory, but I don’t know why” Well hopefully, he will figure out why if he reads this.
Michio then claims that Newtons laws of motion, they are “A theory with in infinite number of possible solutions” which are classical physics, that statement is also false. Newtons laws of motion and the mechanical universe they represent, are specifically about only having one solution to each problem, and not an infinite number of solutions to single problems, That is what makes them classical and what makes the argument for the “mechanical universe” which is also proven wrong by the existence of quantum mechanics. He basically claims that all laws have “an infinite number of solutions” which would mean nothing is constrained and anything can happen all the time, like teleporting to mars. Instead of needing to take a space ship.
Somehow initial conditions makes newtons theories “correct” at the quantum scale, with that, we have left the realm of science. It is interesting that all his conjecture is about “knowing the initial conditions of the universe would prove string theory” which will be revealed by … baby pictures of the early universe … with a laser (insert joke references to JWST here)

28:32 the camera zooms in on Roger Penros’ face, which has a pensive look of “what the fuck am I hearing right now” then back to Michio Kaku who mentions satellites and gravity waves for the first time, while also unaware that gravity waves negate his earlier position about the inverse square law and gravity. Does he just not understand what gravity waves mean? Probably. But he also believes these things will prove string-multiverse theory. I assume Max Tegmark believes the same, since he is also a string theorist.

28:55 The presenter suggests using the Ancient principal of Occams razor, which suggests not multiplying entities beyond necessity, which is quite different than Michio’s solution, of uncountably infinite entities, and not just entities, but entire universes. Or as the presenter says “Breaks that principal” to which several audience members audibly laugh. The presenter continues “Don’t you think a more modest proposal might be more comfortable?” under continued low level laughter of the audience because of the obviousness of the statement.

29:20 Michio claims that people have tried for decades to “tear apart multiverse theory” to which I would say, not really. It’s mostly been ignored for decades, this sermon itself is not the first rebuttal, I think that award goes to Sabine for immortalizing it in her book “Lost in Math” which is a much more comprehensive approach than this sermon, as well as being as recent as 2018. Not decades ago. Which is more about the issues of publish or perish making people shy coughintellectualcowardicecough of criticizing other peoples theoretical works, lest having their own questioned.

29:35 Michio at least admits there are other theories of quantum mechanics, and they are not all string theories. Which is a dramatic change from what he was saying earlier, that “all evidence points to string theories” which is clearly the opposite of what is being argued here. Then he makes the bold claim that, string theory is actually simpler that most quantum mechanics, and this makes it actually more true than other theories on the basis of Occams razor, because it is simpler and thus more likely to be correct.

30:10 The presenter asks Roger Penrose if he believes this is correct, to which Penrose replies “No” which is also met with laughter from the crowd. Then Penrose reminds us again, that this conference, was about many worlds, and what does that have to do with string theory? Which is what he is confused about, feigning confusion about anyway, to point out the confused gish gallop that Michio Kaku has been employing.
Penrose then goes to state that, yes the collapse of the wave function, is a deep question about quantum mechanics, because we do not see super positions happening all over the place. But what does that have to do with the multiverse ? Or string theory ?
Nothing, the answer is nothing. They are entirely separate things which are only mashed together in popular fiction, such as movies like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” which is actually a statement about why time exists, “to prevent everything from happening all at once” but is twisted to suggest that an infinite number of things is occurring everywhere, all the time, instead of being separated by time, are instead occurring in a multitude of dimensions, which suggests that those things are real, and time does not exists, instead of time, everything happens everywhere, all at once, infinitely. So alternate dimensions are real, and time is not real, because everything happens in alternate dimensions, instead of in the universe. Do you think anyone else figured out that this is the implication of string theory and incomplete quantum mechanics, is the erasure of time as existing? Look! They “solved” quantum mechanics! facepalm or you know, what they are doing isn’t science. It’s not a religion either, because my religion makes more sense than that, while also taking some responsibility for the philosophical implications of their own beliefs. Unlike this tribal pythagorianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism which was promoting simulation theory not long ago.

31:03 Penrose points out, none of postulates of the multiverse solves anything.

31:15 The presenter decides to move on to the next theme of the conference “Are tales of the multiverse really the sticking-plaster solutions for a big bang theory in trouble?” (which I answered at the beginning of this critique of this conference with a resounding No) and what is driving these ideas of a multiverse ?

31:35 Sabina responds that this is somewhat of a socialogical question. (Its actually cover for mathematicians which suck at math and are only there to spy on other mathematicians and physicists, as paid for (funded by) various governments, not just the US gov. to place security vulnerabilities into encryption (to some success with the NSA) while also being on the lookout for those vulnerabilities) She decides to go further into the big bang theory being in trouble. Probably unaware of the aspects where trolls being the only ones who would take the money for intellectual dishonesty, mostly crowding together in string theory so they don’t have to actually have a clue what they are talking about. Not unlike the fear mongering around AI from non-engineers. So ignoring the passive aggressive concern trolling and undermining of science for the stupid sons of the rich who are little more than the lowest level of banality. Sabine proceeds to ask michio kaku if it has tod do with the gravity waves at the beginning of the universe, the “B modes in the CMB” which somehow feels like part of an inside joke that I am familiar with … while Michio Kaku shakes his head, unaware of this inside joke. I appreciate it Sabine and thought it was funny. That was a master class on subtle trolling with a straight face.
Michio says it has to do with ESA’s LISA gravitational wave satellites, and sabine reiterates “what is the signal, primordial gravity waves?” again while almost using air quotes but manages to restrain herself. Then michio kaku says “That’s right, primordial gravitational waves prior to the first 300k years of the universe, at the instant of creation itself”
32:25 Sabine then asks, so what about this implies the multiverse ? Because you said it would be evidence of a particular type of inflation, is that the idea”

32:33 Michio replies with “Once you have data from a trillionth of a second after the big bang (the ultimate moving of goalposts) then you can “run the videotape backwards” though one would think forwards from the big bang would make more sense, but he seems to be confusing that with how inflationary theory was determined, by “running the universe backwards” based on the vectors of hundreds of thousands of galaxies.

32:44 Michio then claims that, with this data, you could match “which alternate universes match the data before the big bang” which is another mind-boggling statement, but it seems Sabine is happy to let him dig this logic hole deeper. Seeing as this idea that things that happened before the big bang would effect things after the big bang, despite it originating from a tiny position wherein everything was uniform.

32:52 Michio then concludes this would provide data from before creation itself, without you know, actually measuring anything before the phase transition that triggered inflation/the big bang. By inference to string theory, with infinite possibilities that does not discount any universe regardless of what the physical laws are. Something without constraints would lead to constrained possibilities that could be “rewound” as a mechanical clock. By “extrapolating post big bang radiation to pre-big bang era” and that string theory gives even more information about the pre big bang universe. And “That is what string theory does, you find out the results for everything” somehow, measuring things, is now itself string theory. And in doing so, you can extrapolate post big bang radiation, then he calls gravity a form of radiation, to which I can only reply “WAT?!”

33:24 Sabine ignores this raft of errors and spurious connections and just bottoms lines it with “well, what does this have to do with the multiverse?” Probably to protect her own sanity from the cognitive dissonance.

32:30 Michio replies that, this allows you to narrow down “the key universe that set everything in motion, and you would know which of the multiverse ideas is the correct one, just like newtons laws” (which is just trying to imply a deterministic mechanical universe and not a probabilistic quantum mechanical one) What is this ? I can’t even.

33:41 Michio then rehashes that “newtons laws have an infinite number of solutions” like a broken record, which also happens to be incorrect. As if measuring different phenomena with the same rules, are “different solutions” this really basic failure of logic. I can’t believe I have been at this for 6 hours, and we have only managed to go 10minutes in the last 3 hours of this critique. My brain feels like its beginning to melt. This must be why Sabine ignores most of the wild claims rather than painstakingly addressing every single one.

33:53 Michio doubles down on “string theory would be solved if we knew the initial conditions of the universe” because trying to move the goal posts above the planck scale was not enough, now it has to be before time could be meaningfully measured. While also ignoring that https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-flowed-five-times-slower-shortly-after-the-big-bang/ his concepts of time itself may not be correct, which makes the “trillionth of a second after the big bang” sort of a moot point if “a trillionth of a second after the big bang” is a different interval than a trillionth of a second now, as a meaningful metric of measurement instead of just a moving of the goal posts. Suggesting that knowing the initial conditions is required to make any progress in physics, is just an insult to science.

34:05 Michio suggests that, knowing this, would explain everything about the multiverse, instead of just something about our universe, which is in direct contradiction of multiverse theory, which says everything happens an infinite number of times, and thus, every type of universe is not only possible, but also exists, in the multiverse, to now, the initial conditions of this universe, setting the initial conditions for other universes in the multiverse. See, everything is possible but also, only this universe is possible, because initial conditions or something. It’s both a mechanical deterministic universe, while all universes are simultaneously not only possible, but also co-existing at the same time, with possibly contradictory laws. Because issac newton. Obviously everything has always been the same in the eternal universe, while every possibility (and some impossibilities) also occurs at the same time. Makes perfect sense right ? /s

34:17 Sabine is momentarily thrown by trying to narrow down what to confront first and goes with “why do we need to know what other universes are like?” she refines her point that, she is not suggesting that other universes exist, or do not exist, only that science cannot tell us anything about those other universes, if they exist, or do not exist. That information is just not in the realm of science.

35:00 Sabine further clarifies that she doesn’t care what the many theories, such as string theory landscape, eternal inflation, the many worlds interpretation, say. She only cares when they are presented as science, instead of as theory. Because it isn’t. It’s a weird kind of platonism, but I would say it’s more like pythagorianism, while both are about “ideal forms” pythagorianism is more like a religion and platonism is the philosophy of essentialism, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism which is where the “ideal forms” comes from, which is where the concept of math as being independent of humans comes from.
All of which are theories that pre-date the existence of science. Which makes them not scientific theories, but philosophies, in the same way a religion is a philosophy and not a science.

As I am writing this, I am a bit surprised at the lack of philosophical terms included in spellcheck, which suggest that the majority of people, even smart software engineers, are unfamiliar with most philosophical terms. You should probably get on that libre office. This special kind of ignorance is a nice reminder of what happens when STEM is valued over philosophy and in doing so, entirely forgets what epistemology is and attempting to replace it with math in the form of pythagorianism. Which is just academic tribalism by the stupid sons of the rich. THAT is what happens when science stops being a meritocracy, and starts just being another form of infotainment in the attention economy. Which also results in science populism, where Michio tries to appeal to laypeople instead of formulating arguments which other scientists could disprove, or approve of. Which is ultimately academic relativism. Whereby things are both relativistic, but also mechanical, because what do words mean anyway, and can you really know anything ?
Where words no longer have meanings outside of whatever someone relatively decides that day, while pretending that these random associations could count as a “predictable, repeatable, immutable laws of the universe” aka science.

35:15 Sabine reminds us, that this is all rooted in the pythagorian idea that math exists independently of humans as ideal forms. Which she refers to as a “weird kind of Platonism” which was the successor of pythagorianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorianism .

35:40 Michio claims that every year we are getting more data which brings us closer to string theory, which is totally false, he is apparently forgetting the issue with the untestablity of string theory. Or more accurately, is willfully ignorant of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willful_blindness

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dddfad7b-2f6c-41d5-9c86-7e7c00f64870

37:00 the presenter asks “Isn’t multiverse theory little more than a theological argument for god?” to which michio replies “well theological statements s have to stand on it’s own merits or whatever, forever, because there is no scientific evidence supporting it, it’s just pure conjecture, and as he mentioned there are at least 4 major ways in which verify “the theory” where he refuses to say “string theory” because he know he would be immediately contradicted, like we did way at the beginning when he first suggested these 4 “proofs of string theory” which have nothing to do with string theory.
It’s an impressive, the lack of self-awareness or self-reflection here. Enough to rival that of even the most advanced of LLMs.

37:50 The presenter takes the chance to Segway into a different question, which he proposes to Penrose as “Do you think now, rogeer, that one of the reasons that multiverse theory and the version that michio is putting forwards, has been proposed, is because of the concern that quantum mechanics, has built into it, an uncertainty, which Einstein was certainly uncomfortable with,and it’s somehow trying to get rid of the unknownness, in quantum mechanics,and so they so ‘so we are just going to generate entities to account for every bit, so that it’s no longer unknown. ”

38:19 To which Penrose replies “Well if that is what it is doing, it’s not very impressive. I mean, quantum mechanics has a problem. And I think that is true despite it being the most wonderful theory we have ever had or something, it has a, a deep problem. But I don’t quite see what that has to do with this multiverse issue that is exclusive to string theory. There seems to be a big confusion. About different concepts, and different problems that people have, and people calling them all the multiverse, or something. I’m not quite, how, why, see how it solves any of them actually. Maxwells equations have lots of solutions, yes, of course they do, so do Einsteins equations, so do newtons equations, why does that drive us in the direction of the multiverse ? I haven’t got that argument at all”

39:05 the presenter asks what is driving all of that, this idea that there is another universe next to this one, that we find so appealing ? all the movies and fiction and other cultural commodification, is driving all of that ? To which penrose replies “I have no idea” and the audience laughs.

39:40 Sabine replies that, we have to question what “popular” means here. It is popular in the pop culture sense, there is a lot of fiction about it and such. But it is not popular in the science community, by which I mean, there are not a lot of people working on it. There is a very small group of people working on the issues like string theory and multiverse theory.

40:20 Sabine continues that, it’s quite easy to understand why it is popular in the culture, it’s interesting brain gymnastics, like imagining that there are, infinitely many copies of me out there. Somewhere in the universe, and they are living their lives in another way. I also like it, it makes for good fiction. I don’t necessarily have a big problem with this, I just think we shouldn’t conflate the fiction with the science.”
While I agree with Sabine and argued just that earlier in this sermon, my explanation is a little different. I believe that there are certain “science communicators” which misguidedly believe they need to make their public appearances more relatable to popular culture, for “the public to pay attention” which is a subtle way of saying “For the advertising dollars”. This is where the title of this sermon came from.
When the attention economy comes for science, and so called sensationalism starts drowning out real science. This ultimately undermines the authority of science and scientists in the eyes of the public, who can use simple critical thinking skills to deuce that the problems in quantum theory, are a very different set of problems than those in string theory. But both are equivocated. Not unlike how AI and nuclear weapons, are equivocated with very real looming threats like climate change, with theoretical threats that exists only in popular fiction and not based on any scientific principals or even basic understanding of the standard model of physics. The only one agreed upon by all scientists in the field of physics. From which all other theories deviate. Instead just stubborn sensationalism and the most astounding examples of motivated reasoning as bad faith arguments rooted in contrived ignorance for their cultural shibboleths that are their cash cows, but also grant more popularity and attention that satisfies egos. Can you guess what personality traits social media has engendered in some of these people, who long stopped updating their understanding of science, and have been coasting by on popularity alone. This level of intellectual dishonesty which academia was supposed to be immune from, should be a devastating reminder of the true source of some of the deepest problems in modern higher education. Not those of the mathematical or even conceptual sort, but of the ethical sort. The deep repercussions that has had, both on public discourse, as well as faith in a science based culture in favor of an commodified culture of attention and distraction, infotainment masquerading as legitimate science. While basic political disagreements, especially those based around the science of climate change, are unresolved due to the selfish desires of a few resulting in abuse of their position as thought leaders, to instead spread essentially misinformation, at the cost of the public’s ability to both discern the legitimacy of many arguments, while drowning people in non-answers and the worst examples of debate and active listening I have ever seen. The number of pivots to the crowd while essentially ignoring all criticisms by Michio while countering with “challenges” which was more like his ego responding instead of rational arguments. Is hardly the example that should be set for as an example of intelligence. If this is intelligence, then we have nothing to fear from AI, because with logic like this, it would probably try to take over the world with swords and arrows, because that has been the most effective historically.

It just, painfully ignorant, even to watch. It was so dumb that it felt literally offensive. As well as literally painful at times, due to the cognitive dissonance from trying to imagine what it would take to make all of his statements make sense.

40:52 the presenter says “Good fiction” to which Michio start rambling about psychology, and then michio makes the fallacy of appeal to tradition, https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/cgi-bin/uy/webpages.cgi?/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Tradition that somehow multiverse theory being “not new” makes it true because the ancients had it all figured out and we are somehow dumber now, than back then.

41:20 Michio makes up some shit about how “wormholes” was actually invented by lewis carol in “Alice in wonderland” in 1865. Instead of by Physicist John Archibald Wheeler in 1957. which is also false.
And somehow, this being originated in fiction, and then was “manifested in reality” means, I don’t know, the secret or someshit ? Like “people started to believe in it then BAM it began to exist, it’s like, the power of belief bro”

41:35 Michio then says that multiverse theory, which is “Many worlds theory” is will supported by science, which we have just spent the last half hour debunking, but Michio has become immune to any concept that isn’t his own. Himself possibly lost in one of the many worlds, looking through the looking glass and seeing, only himself floating on a comforting fiction that somehow gives him a sense of certainty and possibly even righteousness, that his ideas are well supported in the physics communities and popular, despite Sabine and Penrose here, representing the majority of the actual physics community, but Michio does not see it that way. Because apparently the only thing he can see is social media. Because this reasoning is so faulty, it seems like the type of thing a non-scientists would come up with. I sure hope he is teaching someone elses’ text book at the university college in new york.

41:48 Michio claims that the copenhagen interpretation and many worlds interpretations, are the same. From wikipedia: The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is a philosophical position about how the mathematics used in quantum mechanics relates to physical reality. It asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse.[1] This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some “world” or universe.[2] In contrast to some other interpretations, the evolution of reality as a whole in MWI is rigidly deterministic[1]: 9  and local.[3] Many-worlds is also called the relative state formulation or the Everett interpretation, after physicist Hugh Everett, who first proposed it in 1957.[4][5] Bryce DeWitt popularized the formulation and named it many-worlds in the 1970s.

So no, they are not the same. But he claims the “data from the theory” are identical, what data ? These are thought experiments. Trying to interpret the “meaning “ of having equations which are under certain circumstances, remarkably accurate, but have no idea what they are inaccurate when scaled massively. And pretending that the symmetrical aspects required to “balance the equations” when describing asymmetric phenomena, are real aspects of the universe and spacetime itself. But more like ridiculous justifications for mathematical and philosophical gymnastics, as Sabine mentioned earlier.

42:20 Michio admits as much when he says “It resonates with the audience, that is why It resonates with hollywood” which clearly has nothing to do with science.

42:50 The presenter responds with a “thank you michio, So let me just end briefly, with a final theme. Are we always going to be in a situation where our broadest accounts of the universe, have elements, which are untestable?

42:51 briefly with a final theme which is are we always going to be in a situation where our broadest accounts of the universe have Elements which are untestable

43:09 Penrose responds with “well I think untestable but in principle and testable I just we don’t have enough energy or enough money or something like ?
that I mean a lot of things hadn’t been tested because they’re pretty difficult to do. An example of that is the issue of the reduction of the state in quantum mechanics or the collapse of the wave function. Of course you have to have a good alternative theory about what level do you expect to see there and there are experiments which are proposed at the moment some which have been performed and haven’t quite got there. Maybe it’ll take a long time, but these are honest experiments which will show, if they come out the way I expect actually that there is something not quite right about quantum mechanics and that you don’t have all these other universes existing and so on. This one thing happens and that thing happens in a certain lifetime which you can get a good estimate for, according to some of these schemes, and seems to me that’s the way science progresses. I mean you suggest experiments and some of them are quite expensive and so it takes a long time for people to get around to doing them, or they may be technically very difficult such as ones I’m talking about here. But does that would would this be considered to be arguments against multiverses? I mean suppose you are now a very good experiment comes up which shows that the quantum superposition does become one or the other in a certain lifetime which maybe is predicted. now does that say oh well we don’t have to talk about multiverses anymore or is it really a completely different argument that’s being presented ? here I just feel that they’re too much fuzziness too much particularly arguments from String Theory which I I don’t really see.

42:50 The presenter responds with “I suppose I was I want to go to a small general question is is there something about the way that we put our theories together, which means that there is always an element of untestability somewhere so that, as an example of the sort of thing I mean, so a Heisenberg can certainly be interpreted as uh as advocating the view that physics is not uncovering reality, and that’s because it can’t do so in some at some level. There’s some uh residual element which is about the limitation of Being Human and making observations. Would mean that we we can’t get through to it. Another way of thinking about it would be you know are there elements of science for example the the notion that the universe is governed by laws. Which is a essential idea to science, but you know can we really test the idea that the universe is governed by laws ? Is there some is there something in it? and and are there therefore some essential assumptions as it were, in any theory that we can’t get at ?

46:05 Penrose replies with “Well I mean imagine tomorrow the laws are all changed and I mean that could happen, it I don’t expect it to but uh I can’t quite see. I mean all the observations that have been made up to date, tell us the world has to be according to the physics that we understand now. It’s just that it seems to work pretty well, and uh very well under certain circumstances. I mean take general relativity, it’s now extraordinarily well tested. Things like a clock down here runs at a different rate from a clock up here, well you know it used to be this Tower, now it’s from here to about there (moving his hand a few inches) sure I mean these things are confirmed these are really precise things the theory says and experiments can be done, and they say yes this Theory agrees with what we observe. Now string theory is nothing like that, and in these postulated ideas about other universes around. There’s nothing like that, so I can’t quite see why we should consider those ideas are as comparable, with these wonderful things we do get from the physics we know.

47:17 The presenter replies with” yep Sabrina do you think there’s a residual element always that we can’t get at?

47:22 Sabine replies with “So I was about to say pretty much the same as Roger. I think that underlying the scientific method itself there’s always the problem of inference. The way that you put it or that or the way that draws a popularized it, with his analogy to the chicken. The chicken is fed every morning at exactly 9 A.M by the farmer and it thinks that this is a law of nature until one day the farmer comes and chops off the head. So we have no telling that the laws of nature will still work tomorrow. This is just something which underlies the entire scientific methodology that we just assumed to be true but we can’t test it itself, because how would we test it? yeah right (nodding with the presenter) but there is a somewhat more innocent example of something that we can’t test which is anything that is too rare to happen in the time that we measure it, with an example may be proton decay which is something that we’ve looked for for a long time but we still haven’t seen a single proton decaying. but there are also other things like for example the cosmological constant may not actually be exactly constant, it may very very slowly, change in you know, a couple of billion years, but we’d never be able to test it. and that that’s an interesting example. I think because what the cosmological constant does eventually determines the ultimate fate of our universe.

48:56 The presenter reponds with “And do you think there’s a, is there a a place for proposing theories that we don’t have uh evidence for, or that perhaps we can’t have evidence for. But which somehow do function to um holds our overall account of the world together in some ways. Is there some purpose in in that exercise, even if we think well actually this isn’t really science, it’s something else.

49:27 Penrose replies with “I think there is a purpose in that, I think it’s worth thinking, certainly if you can have a scheme which is simpler in some respect, and it may not be testable but on the other hand it gives you a an overall picture, which is simpler than one which is different. But still not testably different. So it’s certainly worth thinking about such things, but I think that it’s really going over the top when I was talking about this Multiverse ideas.
Which partly come from things about quantum mechanics, which I think aren’t correct, and someday we will I hope see what should replace them. But I I can’t quite see why we should be driven into this idea of all these universes coexisting. But that I haven’t understood.

50:15 The presenter responds by addressing Michio Kaku “So, Michio, do you, do you think there will always be a remainder of, topics that we are not able to explain, which are untestable at some level ?

50:29 Michio replies to the presenter and says “yes there is a point in which all the known laws of physique collapsed completely and that’s the Planck energy. the planck energy is 10 to the 19 billion electron volts. (In actuality it is 1.22×1019 GeV (the Planck energy, corresponding to the energy equivalent of the Planck mass, is 2.17645×10−8 kg)) That is a quadrillion times more powerful than our most powerful machine, the Large Hadron Collider (The LHC operates up to 13.0 TeV collisions or ~13,000 GeV, a Quadrillion is 1015 ). It is the point at which black holes and Big Bangs, all of that stuff takes place in the realm of the planck energy, where Einstein’s equations become useless.
Einstein’s equations diverge completely at the planck energy, the laws of quantum mechanics you have to have higher Loop diagrams to control the diversity, it’s a real mess, but that is the energy of the center of a black hole, that is the energy of the Big Bang, (what what what?)
The most interesting place is in the universe are beyond our mathematical ability because they exist at the planck energy, in fact the only Theory which can operate at the Planck energy, is string theory. (plancks theories have nothing to do with gigaelectron volts. Planck units are a set of units of measurement, not a specific energy level.) But that that’s a whole other question but the question you ask is is there a point where the laws of physics says we know that break down, and the answer is yes, two places, the center of a black hole and at the beginning of the universe. (Which are edge cases, and not most of the universe) that’s where the planck Energy starts to come in. Wormholes dominate, all sorts of crazy things begin to happen. (not sure what these are references to, other than science fiction, as wormholes are still theoretical and not the same as entanglement) we have to think about the possibility of time travel, uh gateways of the universes, it becomes a real mess at the planck energy. (it sounds grammatically correct, just not scientifically)
51:56 The presenter responds with: “yes well, obviously the question is whether we, whether we take those descriptions seriously, isn’t it ?

52:00 Roger Penrose replies with “No I don’t think we need to” To which everyone laughs, including the presenter.

52:05 Roger penrose continues with “I mean the big bang is, well I don’t want to go into this because the Big Bang is a different story from the singularities and black holes. They’re completely different story and to try and apply the same arguments to both, is in my view, quite wrong. I mean I had the wrong view myself for a long time, so I know there’s nothing against contemplating these things. I just happen to think, for what I regard as good reasons, that the singularity in the Big Bang, are sort of an utterly different nature from the singularities in black holes, and this difference is extremely important. It leads to the second law of Thermodynamics, it’s part it’s part of the story. If they were different, we wouldn’t have a second law of Thermodynamics. I mean these are things in physics that we see. Very blatant things in physics, which if you trace them back, it leads us to the conclusion that what goes at the Big Bang, is utterly different from a singularities and black holes. And therefore to put them in the same category and saying String Theory or multiverses or something, is going to resolve that, I can’t see that at all.

53:14 The presenter responds with “Very much so. Well I’m afraid that is all we have time for, I think you’ll all agree an absolutely fascinating conversation.”

I disagree, my brain hurts, I almost feel as if I have become dumber. I am just relived to finally be free of my obligation to see this argument through to the end, no matter how badly I wanted to stop, 5 hours ago, as it has now been almost 10 hours since I started writing this. I just want it to be over now.

These issues may seem abstract and academic, but there are real world consequences.

1. Misallocation of Resources: Sensational claims can lead to disproportionate funding in areas that may not necessarily warrant it, thereby diverting resources from other critical research areas.
2. Public Misinformation: When the public is misinformed, they may support policies or initiatives that are not in their best interest, or even harmful.
3. Loss of Credibility: Over time, sensationalism can erode trust in scientific institutions and experts, making it difficult for the public to discern credible information.
4. Ethical Responsibility of Scientists: Scientists have an ethical obligation to present their findings accurately. Sensationalism betrays this obligation.
5. Social and Racial Stereotyping: As seen with the superpredator myth, sensational claims can perpetuate harmful stereotypes, leading to systemic discrimination.
6. Influence on Education: Misinformation can infiltrate educational curricula, leading to a generation educated on inaccuracies.
7. Stifling of Genuine Innovation: Sensationalism can create a “boy who cried wolf” scenario where actual groundbreaking discoveries may not receive the attention they deserve.
8. Psychological Impact: Constant exposure to sensationalized information can lead to public desensitization, anxiety, or apathy.
9. Political Exploitation: Politicians may exploit sensational claims to advance their agendas, which may not align with empirical evidence or ethical considerations.
10. Global Consequences: In our interconnected world, sensationalism in one country can have ripple effects internationally, affecting global policies and relations.
11. Legal Implications: Sensational claims can influence legal decisions, as seen in the superpredator example, leading to unjust sentencing and laws.
12. Economic Impact: Businesses and industries may make investment or operational decisions based on sensationalized information, leading to economic instability.
13. Environmental Consequences: Misinformation can lead to poor environmental policies, exacerbating issues like climate change.
14. Human Rights: In extreme cases, sensationalism can lead to violations of basic human rights, such as the right to a fair trial or freedom from discrimination.
15. Moral Hazard: The entities propagating sensational claims may not face the consequences of the misinformation, creating a moral hazard where they are incentivized to continue such behavior.