Dear all,

 

Physicists seem to be displaying short temper for anything like criticism. At least those at Physics Forums. And they decided to excommunicate me, first temporarily and when I questioned that – forever:

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You have been banned for the following reason:
crackpot

 

Date the ban will be lifted: Never

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The following post is a good indication for what might have touched raw nerve:

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Dear all,

 

If you wondered why I did not participate lately – I was excommunicated (banned) by Ivan Seeking for “misinformation”. Unfortunately, when the punishment expired I did not find any message that would explain what I “misinformed” about. I have to guess therefore from my last two posts:

 

1. Was it regarding evolution and epigenetics? Then Seed Magazine “misinforms” as well: http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2009/01/extending_darwinism.php . (Printed version is more elaborate.) MIT might also be trying to swindle $15M using this lie: http://www.broad.mit.edu/news/press-releases/1104 .

 

2. Julian Jaynes' theory does not seem a likely candidate. The reason is simple. There is almost consensus between psychologists that at least social aspect of our consciousness appeared and disappeared through history.

 

3. Reference to Penrose’s nanotubes is the most unlikely candidate and I cannot imagine anybody to declare it to be “misinformation” (lie). It is true that in his book “The Large, the Small and the Human Mind” he is using term microtubules, but since then even smaller tubes have been found and Penrose and company repeated their claims about backward in time causation, information transfer.

 

As you can see, I’m still puzzled. What I did lie about?

 

Is it possible that “misinformation” judgement was simply a reaction to me daring to question his holiness Penrose?

 

To address this doubt, we better look at Penrose’s theory and how much it holds water. In chapter three, Physics and the Mind, he and his co-authors express disbelief about half a second delay of our consciousness. (The disbelief is strongly expressed at page 135 of my paperback copy.) For them, there must be a way for our conscious decisions to go half a second back in time to compensate for Libet’s confirmed findings. And they offered non-locality and back in time causality as an answer.

 

The proposal is quite interesting and imaginative. However, it is impossible to test in any currently available way. Moreover, it does not take into account other findings. One of them I explained in a footnote in my soon to be published book:

 

“Roger Penrose, for example, proposed nanotubes or microtubules to pass information from our consciousness half a second back in time to compensate for Libet’s experimentally proven delay. (See his book “The Large, The Small and The Human Mind”.  Co-authors were Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright and Stephen Hawking.) You can test their conjecture with a simple, homemade experiment.  Take a long stick and ask a friend to hold it vertically and drop it. You can try to catch it first as fast as possible. In average, you’ll catch it in 0.2 seconds. Now try to slow your reactions down. If backward in time suggestion is valid, you should be able to achieve 0.3, 0.4 or 0.5 second reactions. And yet, you will experience reaction times suddenly all above 0.5 seconds. If you were able to catch the stick near the bottom, suddenly you’ll be catching it near the top. This experiment has been conducted and replicated with consistent results before Dr. Libet finalised his research on timing of our consciousness.” (Feel free to try this experiment on your own.)

 

I’m not sure that these big names still back their theory, but at least Penrose implied it again in New Scientist two years ago. I also did not hear about any of them publicly withdrawing the proposal.

 

Simply speaking, they mislead many young enthusiasts and in the light of facts experiments like this present - they should correct themselves publicly. Anything else is disservice to science.

 

I hope that a future plaintiff, judge, jury and executioner (all in one person here) will not jump to a conclusion too quickly. I also hope that moderators will discuss this between themselves and try to be moderators in real sense of the word.

 

Kind regards,

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Moderators (priests) there are plaintiffs, judges, jury and executioners – all in one person. Even Inquisition did not want the dirty job of executioners.

 

I suspect that my posts will be deleted like before – to remove all traces of the crime. But they are not the only way to speak publicly about Physics Forums and Physics and some other disciplines in general. I have described sad state in one of my, soon to be published, stories:

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Number Crunchers

 

PhD (philosophiae doctor) was once the highest title a scientist could earn. Philosophy was considered then as an umbrella for all other scientific disciplines. Then, there was science only. Then, there were no sciences – only scientific disciplines. Then, a candidate for the title had to articulate an original idea into a coherent thesis that can be defended in all disciplines. Then, the candidate had to defend his thesis demonstrating his knowledge in most of the disciplines. Then, there was no fairytale ending, for the candidate had to answer the last question: Is his thesis proven beyond any doubt? And then, only a negative answer will earn him the title…

 

These high standards for academics started to erode rapidly in late 19^th century; to be completely turned to dust in the 20^th. The title is now generously given not for original ideas, but rather for chewing over old ones – number crunching. And original ideas became dangerous, for they could spell the end to many assumptions built in the number crunching. Many years of “fruitful” number crunching could be simply wasted. And who would like his lifetime of “fruitful” number crunching wasted?

 

For many, the science is now about number crunching: “Do not think on your own, do your measurements as you are told and the glory of being called a scientist will be bestowed upon you. Do not let others to think on their own either! Especially, do not let them say what they think. If they try, shut them up. And if they do not shut up, let’s excommunicate them.”

For Galileo, excommunication would be life threatening. He could not afford to challenge Church and Inquisition. And they shut him up. There is no evidence for his “Eppur si muove” (“And yet it moves”) remark, but he did demonstrate much more courage than we do today facing churches and inquisitions of number crunchers.

 

Science has been shattered and pieces (sciences) have been hijacked by number crunchers. “Ownership” is obtained and maintained by encrypting code – jargon nobody else will be able to understand. And this is evident in the increase of number of generations a new idea needs to be accepted (if it is not burned at the stake from very beginning).

There is no progress without a challenge to old beliefs (ideas, theories). This is especially true in science. There is no room in science for defenders of the faith – inquisitors. Crunching numbers is valuable and necessary in science and elsewhere, but it is not self justifiable. Crunching numbers is a tool only to test and verify ideas, including new ideas – no matter how heretical they might seem to number crunchers.

 

The use of religious terminology of our past (and present) is – deliberate.

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Kind Regards,

Damir

PS: Feeling like Don Quixote.