WHY WE DON’T YET LIVE IN THE “WORLD OF TOMORROW”

Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 2 months ago to Science
37 comments | Share | Flag


I've always held a strong belief in the individual's contribution to the large steps made in human knowledge vs. the institution's, particularly as it applies to objective men of the mind.
This writer brings that belief into sharp illustration. But can we break the institutional chains?

"The Prison of Science

Since I don’t for a moment believe that we’ve discovered all that can be known, the obvious conclusion is that physics is being held in a sort of stasis.

My argument has been this:

Institutions are oppositional to individual will, and individual will is the only thing that creates breakthroughs in science.

Albert Einstein agrees with me, by the way. See this:

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

And this:

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

And this:

Great spirits have always been violently oppressed by mediocre minds.

Within an institution, a scientist must either please the authorities or see his work jettisoned. And scientific grants always have to please authorities.

So, who are these “authorities”? They would certainly include government bureaucrats, but the authorities that really matter here are older scientists who have given themselves over to institutional politics. These are the more common oppressors of new and different ideas.

There’s an old joke that reflects this:

Q: How does physics progress?

A: One funeral at a time.

The oppressors of new scientific theories are entrenched in scientific institutions. From there, they either allow or disallow almost every research project. And anyone who is not part of those institutions is ridiculed, excluded, and ignored.

It was farm boys, outsiders, and self-educated people who invented radio, television, the airplane, the electric light, the telegraph, the phonograph, the automobile, radar, and much more."
SOURCE URL: http://www.freemansperspective.com/physics-world-of-tomorrow/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Why+We+Dont+Yet+Live+in+the+World+of+Tomorrow&utm_content=Why+We+Dont+Yet+Live+in+the+World+of+Tomorrow+CID_a9a3035b029bf83c2ae272d964925fbc&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Trouble%20viewing%20this%20email%20Click%20here%20to%20read%20online


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP

All Comments Hide marked as read Mark all as read

  • Posted by 10 years, 2 months ago
    It appears that 'men of the mind' are being driven from science. Federal (statist) funding for research seems to be much of the problem combined with consensus science.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by DrZarkov99 10 years, 2 months ago
    "institutionalized" science is fossilized, deliberate ignorance. It resists any observation that the "consensus" may be wrong. A primary example is the concept of fusion power by magnetic confinement (now in the form of the "Tokamak").

    Ever since the late 1940s, institutionalized science has declared that fusion power by magnetic confinement is only a "decade away", and nations have spent over a trillion dollars in pursuit of that promise. Somehow, even though enormous resources have been poured into this concept for 70 years, we are still decades away from fusion power.

    By contrast, Philo T. Farnsworth, who created the first practical television using the cathode ray tube (against the institutionalized science that was still using mechanical scanning), observed that a more practical method of creating fusion power would be to use electrostatic confinement, and for a tiny fraction of the money poured into magnetic confinement, demonstrated higher energy and neutron production than any magnetic systems. However, instead of pursuing Farnsworth's innovative ideas, the institutions have spent more money demonizing anyone trying inertial electrostatic confinement (IEF) than investigating the concept.

    The Tokamaks keep getting bigger and more expensive, and have still failed to reach the break even point of producing more power than they consume. IEF reactors can be built by amateur scientists, and it may well be one of these rebels that first demonstrate successful fusion. I suspect that institutional science will still ignore the facts and insist that only peer-admired, state-supported scientists are deserving of public recognition.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by genemcdonough 10 years, 2 months ago
    I can't agree more. Whenever I see someone writing about "peer reviewed publication" as though that was the only way something can be know to be true I cringe. All that is accomplished by the peer reviewed publication method is the enforcement of mediocrity. "Establishment" scientists poo-pah those radicals that are in fact the source of scientific advancement. I love to cite Wegener, who despite having a PhD, was mocked over his theory of Continental Drift. Until decades later it was discovered that there were rifts where the sea floor was spreading, pushing the continents around. Some people seem to want a "static earth": no changes in weather and everything predictable in the economy. They likely want the children to all be like in Lake Wobegon - all above average.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ johnrobert2 10 years, 2 months ago
    Does anyone read "State Science Institute' in here? Investment bankers would be a better fit, except they are also bound by the expectation of quick results and profits. What's needed are those investors who have deep enough pockets and are willing look at the long view, perhaps beyond their lifetimes, for the advancement of knowledge
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 2 months ago
      Going to play devil's advocate a bit here with this comment just because you set it up so well.

      If you aren't going to be able to see profit or value from an investment in your lifetime, wouldn't that investment then be labeled altruism?
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ root1657 10 years, 1 month ago
        Actually, maybe not... IF you can prove that the investment is closer to the payoff than it was, it can be seen to have a maturation value.
        My example would be a tree farm. If I buy a plot of land, and pay to plant little baby trees, I've sunk a lot of money, and will have to wait many decades to be able to harvest giant trees. That doesnt mean I can't already sell that land for profit, because the next guy won't have to plant, and won't have to wait as long from the time of his purchase as I did from mine. The trees arent actually profitable until I can harvest them, but they do increase in value..... this is why they keep promising that xxx technology is only a few years away... so buy it from me now, and then you can be the one to reap the benifits long term.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 2 months ago
      John Galt combined the functions of basic researcher and inventor. As I mentioned: he eked out some payment for his basic discoveries by offering them as a paid lecture course. But what he actually was doing was building a fund of basic knowledge that he could then turn into useful inventions.

      And remember: fresh out of college, he went to work for an engine company and invented a breakthrough-new kind of engine. If the world weren't so crazy he could have made a fortune with that.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
  • Posted by rlewellen 10 years, 2 months ago
    To overcome this you have to have money. Another thing that could be slowing things down is it was easier to get from 1 to 75 inventions (just for an example) than it will be to get to 76.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by khalling 10 years, 2 months ago
      Inventions build upon one another. There is not a scarcity. I disagree that "76" is harder to come up with than 1-75.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 2 months ago
        Actually, there is a lot of truth to rlewellen's hypothesis. Look at the great inventors of the past: Da Vinci comes to mind immediately. The ideas that came from that great mind were mostly fundamental ones: the application of simple principles like the lever, the inclined plane, etc. that until that point hadn't been understood or applied inventively.

        In today's world, you have to delve much deeper into a topic to truly make any groundbreaking advances, and because those advances are specific to that advanced topic, their scope of application tends to be much smaller. The investment of time and resources into the advancement also grows, making each advancement more capital-intensive (expensive) for only a nominal yield.

        Now one will be quick - and right - to point out that because the field is broader, there are more actual inventions being created, and this I would readily agree with. That being said, each individual achievement has a high price and limited scope that makes it seem much less earth-shattering than many prior advances.

        Of course it could also be that expectations have changed as well: we are more accustomed to the new and inventive than others throughout human history!
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
        • Posted by rlewellen 10 years, 2 months ago
          Exactly. I add that at this time science has answered most of the questions and created most of the basic inventions. Science is now at a point where only the invention of super precise instrumentation can confirm what we already know and lead us to new questions. A great example is that the world's largest machine was used to locate the God particle. The question they tried to answer is where all the mass in an atom come from ( as I understand it).
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
          • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 2 months ago
            Yes. They were trying to identify and prove the existence of the Higgs Boson - a previously only theoretical particle hypothesized to derive particular mass. It was the last critical subatomic particle necessary to have positive confirmation of in order to attempt to reconcile string theory with gravity - though that is still unresolved.
            Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
            • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
            • Posted by rlewellen 10 years, 2 months ago
              Thank you. I am fascinated by string theory. I watch it on t.v any chance I can. Do you know what their next step is?
              Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
              • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 1 month ago
                The next step is to try to figure out how the Higgs Boson adds to other particles to create massive vs non-massive particles and in what quantities. All they did in this was to positively identify that by breaking apart a particle they could identify the presence of the Higgs Boson, but being able to break something apart is way different than being able to build something.

                How many Higgs Bosons are needed to build each of the six varieties of quarks? Can you combine a string with a boson to build a lepton? Is there a way of generating Higgs Bosons in the first place and under what circumstances?

                Lots of questions to theorize. And then, you have to prove that you can do it.
                Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
        • Comment hidden by post owner or admin, or due to low comment or member score. View Comment
        • -1
          Posted by Boborobdos 10 years, 2 months ago
          A pump is easy to make. It was invented long ago. But to make a pump that can replace a heart without screwing up blood, and responds to input to run faster or slower, is a challenge that is just now coming into the world.

          The wheel has been around for a long time. So has the gyroscope. The Segue is recent.

          Cars have been around for awhile. One that gets 82 mpg on a gas engine only... That's called "Elio" soon to be made in America.
          Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 10 years, 2 months ago
      I'm not sure about the money issue except that the Feds (the major source of funding) rely on institutional review and guidance on when and where to grant or provide funds.. Physicist have argued for some 100 years about trying to get the Standard Model and Quantum Theory to match with almost no real advance other than hidden dimensions. Maybe that result has a lot to do with those with vested interest pushing for work and Doctoral students to support their previous works.

      I tend to think that DoD and DARPA, with their secretiveness are also having a big impact on the release of ideas into the scientific public, thus restricting the spark of new ideas, particularly when it comes to energy applications such as fusion.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by susan042462 10 years ago
    Do we keep waiting for "one funeral at a time" or do we shake up the system and pay more attention to individuals who use private research grants. Usually these are given by people with lots of "FU" money who actually want to know more about universe.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by 10 years ago
      Good idea susan, but we still have to get around the institutional 'smothering blanket'. In order to gain a Phd, one must satisfy those on the institution's approval board.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ jlc 10 years, 2 months ago
    You write as if physics = science. Asimov, in his Caves of Steel series had spacedrive but no artificial insemination. We lack the advances in physics that we all desire, but the advances in biology and bio-tech have been far greater than anticipated.

    Jan
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by fosterj717 10 years, 2 months ago
    All is true however it should be duly noted that many of the "scientific" breakthroughs have led to many of the abuses we are now seeing (NSA spying, better methods of killing, etc.). Each round has left us more vulnerable to losing another piece of our hard fought freedoms. We must be careful about how we embrace science for science sake.
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 2 months ago
    Ayn Rand argued that governments had no business funding science, because a laboratory financed by loot typically produces the only thing that would serve the purpose of a looter: weapons of coercion and destruction.

    In this essay you now see why Miss Rand argued for a future of private laboratories, with no distinction between "basic" and "applied" research.

    John Galt made his living in Atlantis by offering lectures in basic science to would-be inventors and businessmen, and by inventing things of immediate practical import for which his patron, Midas Mulligan, paid him a hefty royalty.

    Consider two models of scientific progress. Call them the Ben Franklin model and the Thomas Edison model. Ben Franklin insisted all scientific discoveries belonged in the public domain. (Were he alive today, he would head the Free Hardware Foundation, to go along with Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation.) Thomas Edison, as you all know, invented little things he could sell to make money to work in the breakthrough inventions for which he is most famous. Who was more productive, and who was more highly rewarded?
    Reply | Mark as read | Best of... | Permalink  
    • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 2 months ago
      I'm not so sure I would agree with you about Ben Franklin. Remember that he was an established businessman, inventor, and politician with plenty of means, so his later inventions were more of a hobby than the necessary way of earning a living.

      I don't begrudge a man who licenses the products of his mind any more than I laud the man who has enough and gives the rest away. Both are receiving the reward they want from their efforts.
      Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  
      • Posted by Temlakos 10 years, 2 months ago
        I inferred Franklin's attitude from his quoted statements about basic science. I didn't mean to suggest I approved.

        I prefer the John Galt model: a man engages in basic science and, for a fee of some kind, and by lecture or subscribed periodical, communicates his insights to others willing to pay top dollar (or top gold ounce) for them.
        Reply | Mark as read | Parent | Best of... | Permalink  

FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo