As someone who has a degree and works for observatories, I feared this article when I first read the title. But you've summed up the state of physics and cosmology pretty well. I'd like a reference to your 5-sigma quadrupole anomaly claim, though; last I read (~10 years ago), the quadrupole anomaly had been largely discredited by Planck (the spacecraft, not the person). The Hubble tension is just as important and often overlooked; the more we try to measure the Hubble constant, the less constant it gets.
But Richard Feynman did not say "shut up and calculate." It was David Mermin.
I love the Deep Thought scenes in the BBC version of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Even funnier, though, and just as relevant, is the invention of the Infinite Improbably Drive - "he was lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists on the grounds that he had became the one thing they couldn't stand most of all: a smart arse."
Well, I am about ten years into this project of trying to go on my own journey through the state-of-the-art conclusions that the experts of various domains: from cosmology, to physics, to information theory, to computer science, to pyschology and philosophy, in search of the question that New Atheism—which when i was in my late 20s, I was taken in by—left me with. So my work over the past year has been the result of over a decade, and thousands of hours on evenings and weekends, sitting through physics lectures on YouTube, listening to the various public intellectuals in science communication summarize the field, and then eventually, at some point, using my computer science skills and background in compiler design, to start looking at the math of quantum mechanics itself—a surprisingly easy leap for me, since the mathematics of compiler optimization I contended with over a decade ago, is actually somewhat more advanced than the mathematics of relativity and quantum mechanics. The hard part, as it has always been, was interpreting that math. And I have now developed some pretty strong intuitions about what I think I see after staring at that math for many years.
Found your Substack earlier today, and have bookmarked it for future reading. Great content!
Not sure how relevant a post that I wrote a few years ago is to this topic, but I thought I'd reference it for possible interest, and in support of a principle I feel is important to be considered.
Trained in shut up and calculate. Rejected the dualism of my religious parents. Can only read Spinosa by substituting Nature each time he says God. Took refuge in Popper. Applauded Hossenfelder. Hoping quantum mechanics can explain consciousness if someone can devise the experimental apparatus. Want to experience wonder and meaning without magical thinking or unfalsifiable hypothesis like string theory and Multiverse. But I’ll be long dead before the the tension between observer and universe is resolved. Meanwhile, the computer chips on my iPhone work quite well.
I can’t pretend I understood a lot of this one. I am limited for sure. But my vertigo moments are there subtly and sometimes clearly. I surely wonder Mike Brock how did you get to be the observer you currently are? Mirroring helps me learn sometimes. I always felt that what we call Nature and what we call God are One. Not separate like I have often been taught. That one realm is not superior to the other. I will keep reading this one many more times. Thank you.
“The universe is not isotropic in the sense that the Copernican principle requires. It is thrown — particular, oriented, self-referential — a universe that has produced observers not as accidental byproducts of blind process but as expressions of its own self-examining nature.”
I get the point intellectually, Mike, but am not sure the meaning (whatever that is) can be conveyed except, perhaps, through art. The mathematics are outside my competencies, but I accept your point that that dog don’t hunt.
Memory, imagination, the helm of consciousness, being particularly thrown (doesn’t this infer an exogenous intentionality?), a rumpled sheet of brown paper, 42, or bright loveliness.
“O how ridiculous are the boundaries of mortals!”
– Seneca imagining Earth from the cosmic perspective (c. 40 CE)
"Life is valuable – when completed by the imagination. And then only….
The Term
.
A rumpled sheet
Of brown paper
About the length
.
And apparent bulk
Of a man was
Rolling with the
.
Wind slowly over
And over in
The street as
.
A car drove down
Upon it and
Crushed it to
.
The ground. Unlike
A man it rose
Again rolling
.
With the wind over
And over to be as
It was before.”
– William Carlos Williams, from Spring and All (1923 CE)
“To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.”
– Archibald MacLeish on Earthrise (25 December 1968 CE)
Very helpful. You are a master iconoclast.Time to move on from a theory of everything.
That we are the universe exploring itself is something I've suspected for a long time. That god is nature and nature is god, I've known since I was 17, without the rigorous philosophy. Thank you for your beautifully reasoned confirmations.
GREAT ARTICLE. I have no formal education in physics, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the universe isn't isotropic, could that explain the Hubble tension?
Indeed; one possible explanation of the Hubble tension is that our local group exists within a Great Void in the vast web of the Universe, if I understand the cosmology correctly. Which means our position violates isotropy...and it may be that very violation of isotropy that allowed us to come to be, in that conditions within such a void may be more amenable to life than elsewhere (less radiation, fewer galactic collisions, ...).
As someone who has a degree and works for observatories, I feared this article when I first read the title. But you've summed up the state of physics and cosmology pretty well. I'd like a reference to your 5-sigma quadrupole anomaly claim, though; last I read (~10 years ago), the quadrupole anomaly had been largely discredited by Planck (the spacecraft, not the person). The Hubble tension is just as important and often overlooked; the more we try to measure the Hubble constant, the less constant it gets.
But Richard Feynman did not say "shut up and calculate." It was David Mermin.
I love the Deep Thought scenes in the BBC version of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Even funnier, though, and just as relevant, is the invention of the Infinite Improbably Drive - "he was lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists on the grounds that he had became the one thing they couldn't stand most of all: a smart arse."
Well, I am about ten years into this project of trying to go on my own journey through the state-of-the-art conclusions that the experts of various domains: from cosmology, to physics, to information theory, to computer science, to pyschology and philosophy, in search of the question that New Atheism—which when i was in my late 20s, I was taken in by—left me with. So my work over the past year has been the result of over a decade, and thousands of hours on evenings and weekends, sitting through physics lectures on YouTube, listening to the various public intellectuals in science communication summarize the field, and then eventually, at some point, using my computer science skills and background in compiler design, to start looking at the math of quantum mechanics itself—a surprisingly easy leap for me, since the mathematics of compiler optimization I contended with over a decade ago, is actually somewhat more advanced than the mathematics of relativity and quantum mechanics. The hard part, as it has always been, was interpreting that math. And I have now developed some pretty strong intuitions about what I think I see after staring at that math for many years.
Very nice, but I still want the 5-sigma quadrupole citation! Don't Yarvin me!
https://zendaruniverse.com/research/cmb-anisotropy-project/cmb-anomalies-preferred-direction-cosmological-principle-tension/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23526
Thank you for this interesting read. Indeed, I had fallen behind on the issues with the lambda-CDM cosmological model.
Found your Substack earlier today, and have bookmarked it for future reading. Great content!
Not sure how relevant a post that I wrote a few years ago is to this topic, but I thought I'd reference it for possible interest, and in support of a principle I feel is important to be considered.
Gurdjieff's lifelong question
https://tonylutz.com/sense-and-significance/608-gurdjieff-s-question
Trained in shut up and calculate. Rejected the dualism of my religious parents. Can only read Spinosa by substituting Nature each time he says God. Took refuge in Popper. Applauded Hossenfelder. Hoping quantum mechanics can explain consciousness if someone can devise the experimental apparatus. Want to experience wonder and meaning without magical thinking or unfalsifiable hypothesis like string theory and Multiverse. But I’ll be long dead before the the tension between observer and universe is resolved. Meanwhile, the computer chips on my iPhone work quite well.
I can’t pretend I understood a lot of this one. I am limited for sure. But my vertigo moments are there subtly and sometimes clearly. I surely wonder Mike Brock how did you get to be the observer you currently are? Mirroring helps me learn sometimes. I always felt that what we call Nature and what we call God are One. Not separate like I have often been taught. That one realm is not superior to the other. I will keep reading this one many more times. Thank you.
“The universe is not isotropic in the sense that the Copernican principle requires. It is thrown — particular, oriented, self-referential — a universe that has produced observers not as accidental byproducts of blind process but as expressions of its own self-examining nature.”
I get the point intellectually, Mike, but am not sure the meaning (whatever that is) can be conveyed except, perhaps, through art. The mathematics are outside my competencies, but I accept your point that that dog don’t hunt.
Memory, imagination, the helm of consciousness, being particularly thrown (doesn’t this infer an exogenous intentionality?), a rumpled sheet of brown paper, 42, or bright loveliness.
“O how ridiculous are the boundaries of mortals!”
– Seneca imagining Earth from the cosmic perspective (c. 40 CE)
"Life is valuable – when completed by the imagination. And then only….
The Term
.
A rumpled sheet
Of brown paper
About the length
.
And apparent bulk
Of a man was
Rolling with the
.
Wind slowly over
And over in
The street as
.
A car drove down
Upon it and
Crushed it to
.
The ground. Unlike
A man it rose
Again rolling
.
With the wind over
And over to be as
It was before.”
– William Carlos Williams, from Spring and All (1923 CE)
https://librarynewstuff.wordpress.com/the-descent/
“To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.”
– Archibald MacLeish on Earthrise (25 December 1968 CE)
Very helpful. You are a master iconoclast.Time to move on from a theory of everything.
That we are the universe exploring itself is something I've suspected for a long time. That god is nature and nature is god, I've known since I was 17, without the rigorous philosophy. Thank you for your beautifully reasoned confirmations.
Hi Mike,
GREAT ARTICLE. I have no formal education in physics, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question, but if the universe isn't isotropic, could that explain the Hubble tension?
Thanks!
Yes.
Indeed; one possible explanation of the Hubble tension is that our local group exists within a Great Void in the vast web of the Universe, if I understand the cosmology correctly. Which means our position violates isotropy...and it may be that very violation of isotropy that allowed us to come to be, in that conditions within such a void may be more amenable to life than elsewhere (less radiation, fewer galactic collisions, ...).
Been Waiting in Expectation for this piece on Cosmology you teased.