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Meaningness's profile
David Chapman
David Chapman
David Chapman
@Meaningness

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David Chapman

@Meaningness

Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.

meaningness.com/about-my-sites
Joined September 2010

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    1. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      “It doesn’t matter!” as the reasonable answer to a lot of misdirected rationalist questions—even in hard science and engineering. How do we reconcile general relativity and quantum field theory? GPS engineer: “Doesn’t matter! Works anyway!” https://galison.scholar.harvard.edu/files/andrewhsmith/files/the_pyramid_and_the_ring.pdf …pic.twitter.com/SC9X0DMphx

      2 replies 0 retweets 28 likes
    2. Stephen Pimentel‏ @StephenPiment 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @Meaningness

      That's fine for engineering, which provides its own scope for what "matters." But for a theoretical physicist, the issue is that there are domains in which general relativity and quantum field theory simply diverge and so cannot possibly both "work."

      2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
    3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @StephenPiment

      Yes… Galison’s paper (linked in tweet) is about that, and how one ought to think about it.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    4. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @Meaningness @StephenPiment

      He’s taking a particular approach to (anti-)foundationalism that seems pretty sensible. One can regard the question of GR/QFT unification as interesting for some researchers without considering it of central importance to science in general.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    5. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @Meaningness @StephenPiment

      The “unity of science thesis” (everything can and should be reduced to fundamental physics) is no longer credible, but neither is strong disunity (every science is an autonomous domain). Interesting research tends to cross discipline boundaries and levels of description.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    6. Stephen Pimentel‏ @StephenPiment 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @Meaningness

      I reject reduction of all sciences to fundamental physics. (I would hold out for some kind of unity of science, but not via reduction.)

      1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
    7. Stephen Pimentel‏ @StephenPiment 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @StephenPiment @Meaningness

      But in the case of GR/QFT, both are already fundamental physics, so it seems to me very reasonable to seek a unified alternative, even if such would have no grand implications for other sciences.

      1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
    8. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @StephenPiment

      Yes. I see that my original tweet was unclear. I wasn’t meaning to deny that. Rather to point out that one can take an engineering approach to many problems that some rationalists might insist on taking a fundamental approach to instead.

      1 reply 2 retweets 4 likes
    9. Maynard Handley‏ @handleym99 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @Meaningness @StephenPiment

      I'd put it differently. Such incompatible cases show that a new ontology is needed. Rationalists can worry about it all they like, but they aren't going to resolve the situation through ever longer syllogisms. 1/

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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      Replying to @handleym99 @StephenPiment

      I think that is appropriate if you are working on that problem. Galison’s central claim in the paper is that increasingly researchers don’t care about ontology. I’m not sure he’s right about that.

      11:16 AM - 4 Jul 2019
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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        2. Maynard Handley‏ @handleym99 4 Jul 2019
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          Replying to @Meaningness @StephenPiment

          This seems to be the usual problem of making grand claims along the lines of "physicists think ..." (cf "women think ..." or "Asians think ..."). There are likely domains where 95% of physicists think the same way -- but this is, I'm sure, not one of them.

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 4 Jul 2019
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          Replying to @handleym99 @StephenPiment

          Yes, it seems overly broad to me. OTOH it may have been a useful intervention in the philosophy of science at the time because foundationalism and nihilistic disunity-ish were both still considered credible by many.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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