Saturday
“A Christmas Carol” at the Polish Theatre—presented in a highly visual, neo-Gothic style. How can they take such a wonderful text and turn it into something so flat and shallow, devoid of artistry, and pathetically desperate to shock? I’m seriously considering cutting myself off completely from the latest art trends of the last ten or twenty years—it’s a total waste of time.
Sunday
When you step back and look at modern society, something is especially shocking: its dissipation and near-total lack of spirituality. People focus on their day-to-day grind—pleasures, status, money—while completely ignoring metaphysical and existential questions. They don’t seek what might deepen existential anxiety or offer answers and a sense of meaning.
It’s shocking because, throughout history, one of humanity’s defining features was religion, with its strong spiritual elements. Any historical account quickly notes the prevailing religion of the time. Now religion is in retreat, spirituality is vanishing with it, and nothing new has emerged to fill the void.
Spirituality is vital to human life. You might expect art to become the major source of it, given religion’s decline. But no—it’s the opposite: art mirrors our culture’s lack of spirituality. My experience in Polish Theater exposed exactly that—a hollow absence of spirit.
Wednesday
String theory attracts a lot of criticism. People offer different arguments and phrase them differently, but ultimately there are only a few underlying sentiments. One of them is that string theory monopolizes research on quantum gravity—too many resources are invested in it, leaving alternative approaches underfunded. I agree with that sentiment. Quantum gravity research is too important to place all our bets on one approach, especially since we currently lack the technology to empirically test string theory, which makes it significantly riskier.
Another sentiment is based on shortcomings or uncomfortable aspects of the theory. The main issue is that string theory assumes extra spatial dimensions that form a Calabi–Yau manifold. The problem is that the number of possible shapes this manifold can take is truly gargantuan, and it’s unclear which, if any, applies to our universe. Some estimates suggest that string theory could describe as many as 10^500 different universes. For some, this level of flexibility is unacceptable; they want a theory that is more concrete and specific, one that doesn’t rely on anthropic arguments.
Some also criticize string theory for a lack of testable predictions and for slow progress. Though these are separate complaints, to me they represent the same sentiment: that string theory is just too hard. People expect and want a theory that’s easy to test, simple, straightforward, and thus easy and quick to develop. It’s understandable—I, too, would love to have immediate solutions to the problems of quantum gravity, the black hole information paradox, and the unification of all forces. But why assume it should be simple? There’s no reason for that to be the case.
Perhaps the great successes of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and General Relativity (GR) have conditioned some of us to expect quick, spectacular progress. My belief is that when string theory is finally completed, and the first major experimental successes arrive, physicists will look back at GR and QM the way Einstein regarded Special Relativity when he was working on General Relativity: as “child’s play.” If we’re used to spectacular, rapid progress, it may just be because, until now, we’ve been picking low-hanging fruit—and we might have to get used to a slower pace.
During a recent discussion, I proposed the following thought experiment: It took Einstein—arguably the most ingenious physicist of all time—about a decade of concentrated, dedicated work to develop the General Theory of Relativity. Now assume string theory is an order of magnitude harder to develop than General Relativity. A simple extrapolation suggests that it would take even the most brilliant physicist a century to complete. If it’s two orders of magnitude harder, we’re talking about a whole millennium, which implies either extremely slow progress or a level of complexity that might surpass human intelligence altogether. There are a few reasons why string theory might be much harder than both GR and QM:
Complexity. The difference in complexity is apparent when comparing the development of GR and QM to string theory. With GR, Einstein’s key insight led to a principle (the equivalence principle) that let him describe spacetime as non-Euclidean geometry warped by matter and energy, which in turn affects their movement. Mathematically challenging, yes, but relatively straightforward in concept. Similarly, QM’s main insight—wave-particle duality—allowed physicists to borrow wave equations for particle motion, leading to the Schrödinger equation. It wasn’t simple, but it was still straightforward once the key idea clicked.
By contrast, string theory is not straightforward. Approaching its problems head-on often proves impossible—they’re just too complicated. That’s why string theorists rely so heavily on dualities, which let them reframe unsolvable questions into more manageable forms. Without these dualities, progress would stall. Perhaps one day those dualities can be dispensed with, but their current necessity reflects how difficult the theory is.Testability. It’s far easier for theoretical physicists to be guided by experimental results. In an ideal scenario, they have data available and can quickly test their theories, discarding incorrect ideas early. GR and QM were both developed in a relatively welcoming environment, where experiments could be run to provide continual feedback. String theory is challenging partly because it addresses physics at extremely small scales—so small that our current technology can’t test it. Without the corrective mechanism of empirical data, progress inevitably becomes slower and harder.
Conceptual Clarity. Both GR and QM defy common sense and can still be shocking when one fully considers their implications. Yet string theory seems to be on a different level in terms of strangeness. In GR and QM, you still have a familiar (3+1)-dimensional spacetime with matter and energy. In string theory, however, spacetime is even more bizarre, sometimes emergent from deeper mechanisms, and not necessarily a fixed background. You also have ideas like AdS/CFT duality, where the same physical system can be described by two different mathematical frameworks, one with fewer dimensions—leading to a “holographic” perspective. String theory thus feels far more alien and unwelcoming than either GR or QM.
Thursday
String theory attracts many of the most brilliant theoretical physicists, which is evident in the ingenuity, mathematical proficiency, and intuition shaping its research. To me, that’s a strong indication that string theory isn’t merely “hype,” as some vocal critics claim.
Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that string theory is correct—those brilliant physicists could still be wrong. But when a group of truly exceptional thinkers devotes itself to a theory and works extremely hard on it, it’s unlikely they do so based solely on hype. They’re exceptional at mathematics, as well as clear and rational thinking, so it’s hard to imagine they’d spend the next decade of their careers following a mere whim or other irrelevant factor. That simply doesn’t happen.
Critics often overlook another key point: alternatives. It doesn’t help to reject one theory if there isn’t a better one to replace it. In that sense, it’s like democracy: democracy can be seen as inefficient or flawed, but its alternatives—monarchy, dictatorship, communism, anarchism—are generally worse, so we stick with what we have. Similarly, while there are alternatives to string theory—such as loop quantum gravity, twistor theory, or E8-based approaches—they aren’t obviously superior; in many respects, they may be weaker.
Imagine, for instance, that one of these critics came up with a theory that clearly had greater potential than string theory and promised faster progress. Crowds of physicists would eagerly abandon string theory for this new, exciting idea. Therefore, the way to convince physicists to leave string theory isn’t through childish tactics like name-calling or mocking its shortcomings, but rather by proposing something demonstrably better.
Monday
I’m always puzzled by how thoughts spontaneously come to me, and only after some time—days, weeks, or even months—do I realize their depth. It’s as if the unconscious part of my mind is far more intelligent than the conscious part. This has happened to me so many times, yet it still astonishes me.
Last week, I spent a lot of time thinking about spirituality, prompted by an unfortunate visit to the Polish Theater. Today, while rereading what I wrote then, I noticed I use the term “spirituality” quite differently from how it’s usually understood. Normally, when people talk about spirituality, they mean religion, magic, mysticism, clairvoyance, and so forth. But I use it in a much broader, more general sense—everything that’s important and transcends biology. So career, pleasures, children, fame, power, money, and all other aspects of everyday life driven by our biology are excluded. What remains in this modern understanding of spirituality are things like great art, literature, science, and technology.
There’s an important caveat: if a scientist works on a theory because he wants fame, career advancement, or simply to be “successful,” then it’s not spirituality, because that motivation arises directly from biology. However, if he sees his work as a way to read the mind of God or to uncover the secrets of metareality, then I consider it spirituality. The same principle applies to art, literature, and technology.
Often, when I’m working on my metaphysical system—trying to reveal the structure and content of metareality—I feel that I’m in contact with something sacred. It’s a spiritual experience. Without it, life feels poor, barren, and shallow.
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