Mythic Logos

I wrote about web development and its relation to the wisdom/intelligence division of DnD. Now I write about science and this idea. Specifically, physics since that is what I do, but taxonomy (intelligence of categorization) vs. evolution (wise insight as to the how and why we got here) tells me that the other sciences probably can also be thought through that way.

Before I begin, just an addendum to the earlier post which ties into this one as well. When returning to programming, it requires a review of the language, the idioms, the ideas. When returning to design, such a review is less needed. The ideas of design and programming are lasting, but the bulk work of design can be done without too much technical mucking about. For programming, the language itself, the tools available, etc., are crucial to writing the code. The big ideas are there, but a lot of programming is getting the words out there. Design is about understanding core principles and then painting and tweaking–the code of css and html should not be much of a hurdle to those who have once mastered it. But javascript, jquery? Take 6 months off of them and one needs the review.

And to me this speaks of intelligence vs. wisdom. Intelligence is really skill oriented, something that the brain highly optimizes when needed and then lets it go, a bit like biceps. Wisdom is very much about intuition, about the core feeling. It relies on core lines laid down in the brain, more like the heart. It never ceases, never fades.

I study quantum mechanics and its foundations. Specifically, Bohmian mechanics which differs from quantum mechanics in that Bohmian mechanics can be explained to a first grader, to a limited extent. It cannot be explained to a trained physicist in the slightest. This is the core of wisdom. The basic idea of wisdom is that it is about having an open mind and a rush of sensibilities. It is not in the details.

Science needs its details. It is thought of as where intelligence rules the roost. Engineering notions are much more welcome than philosophical musings. And what this does is it promotes analysis over insight. Right now, quantum mechanics, or rather quantum field theory, is one of the most successful theories in all history in terms of predicting precise values of the results of experiments. But the theory itself is meaningless. That is literally true, but even figuratively, it is pretty close to it.

The whole idea of the theory is to compute the so-called S-matrix, which is, roughly, a matrix of probabilities for going from “in” states that are Scattered into “out” states.  That is what the theory is at base. That is bad enough. It gets even worse because they have various forms of infinity that creep in that they have to “subtract off”.

Now what is wrong? What is wrong is the missing of wisdom. Quantum field theory as formulated is fine as a predictive, effective theory of high energy scattering states. It is completely and utterly useless as a theory that tells us what the world is like. It has nothing in it that can make a correspondence with our reality.

Contrast that with general relativity. Space-time is curved. Okay, a little weird perhaps, but okay. I can see the stage of reality is a bit warped. It is even kind of nice. The mathematical details can be intractable, but the basic intuition is easy enough to deal with. And many of the puzzles of relativity are blatantly not computed out, but rather thought through. This gives a nice enlightenment to the whole procedure.

But in quantum, they have thrown all of that out. The state of the system is an object that is sometimes a wave, sometimes a particle. What in the hell does that mean? It collapses when we do measurements. Measurements? What in the hell are measurements? I have a table sitting in my room. Is that a wave? Can a wave sit in my room? No, it spreads. Does my table spread? No, it does not. So what are they talking about?

They have forsaken wisdom and embraced intelligence completely. Intelligence will get answers. They can compute fantastic answers. But they have no framework for understanding it. And what is that framework? For Bohmian mechanics, it is that we have particles that are guided by waves. Hence wave patterns. Completely ordinary. And intuitive. This is wisdom. Can we prove this?

Now that is an interesting question. No, we cannot. In fact, we can do a host of amazing alternate theories that are all empirically equivalent. That is, intelligence cannot decide between them as there are no facts to distinguish them. We have theories in which all particles are the same (electrons, protons, etc. are all the same kind of particle), we have theories in which only some particles exist (say electrons or those in this solar system), we have theories in which there are no particles, but rather flashes of something, we have theories in which we do have a wavy object in 3-space that is a condensed version of the monstrous quantum wave (function on a space with something like 10^80 dimensions).  So there are choices, but what we have never been able to do is make sense of the “theory” presented in textbooks.

And such is the role of wisdom. It guides the intellect. It takes that powerful tool and says, “This is what’s going on.” It provides the framework that can never be deduced.

Lest I be unfair to intelligence, one does need intelligence to build the structures. Without intelligence, we have nothing. We have religion, really. I believe religions started as people trying to write down essential truths, but without intelligence to guide them in making a firm contact with reality, they went into some dangerous territory.

But atheists should be warned by what has happened in quantum physics. There people with intelligence make fools of themselves because they forsake wisdom. Merging the two is what we all should really strive for. Learn how to do the details, but always keep in mind the big picture. And that big picture is what lasts. I can go years without touching physics, and I know the big ideas. And they guide me when I review the details. When I do not have that picture, nothing makes sense to me.

Wisdom is the boat on the river of intelligence.