I did not say that Chopra was a scientist, did I? I mentioned that he is a bona fide medical doctor to counter your attempt to discredit him by calling him an alternative medicine practitioner.
But since you took this tack, I then mentioned that Klafatos, a real physicist, co-authored the book with Chopra, providing his credentials to the Quantum Physics aspect of the question of a conscious universe.
Chopra is a MYSTIC, whose direct EXPERIENCE is union with the Universe.
you are evading the points.
I did mention Chopra having a medical degree in my next post, last lines:
Chopra is making money out of people with alternative medicine. He is not just a physician, but also a businessman.
The problem with alternative medicine is that it is booming business and that the medicine are not rigorously tested. There are no policing, and the law on alternative medicine is seriously lacking in all countries. There are no real oversight in suc businesses, so who knows what are in the drugs he peddled.
What would happen if such medicine cause serious complications, side-effects or death? Do you think they should be held accountable?
Chopra is irresponsible, and a quack. Do you think his medical degree matters much?
Being a medical doctor, and having medical degree, don’t make him right, if he is in charge of alternative medicine.
And it is the same with Klafatos. Klafatos being a quantum physicist, don’t make what he write about consciousness in the universe, right.
There are no testing or evidences of the universe for consciousness, so either Klafatos is only publishing (A) his work in theoretical physics or (B) his work is pseudoscience.
You don’t seem to understand what a theoretical physicist do.
Theoretical physics is only a proposed theory, like a first draft. Theoretical physics only relied on mathematical models, like mathematical equations, formulas, and constants, not on evidences and experiments. These mathematical solutions are what scientists called proofs, not evidences. Proofs are not evidences. Proposed solutions are still speculative, meaning theoretical physics or the theoretical models are still speculative and untested.
People - scientists and non-scientists - are free to accept or reject any theoretical physicists’ models, since any theoretical model isn’t a “scientific theory”. Theoretical physics isn’t a scientific theory, because it isn’t testable.
Scientific theory require verification, so it need to be refutable, testable, detectable, measurable, quantifiable, verifiable. Meaning, scientific theory needs observations and evidences.
You needs to understand, quantum physics, particle physics and relativity, are for the most part are experimental physics (evidence-based physics), but not entirely, because some parts are theoretical physics (proof-based physics).
To give you an example, everything in the Big Bang theory, from the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), which started 3 minutes after the Big Bang (when atoms first formed ionised nuclei, bonding protons and neutrons) and onward (which would include the Recombination Epoch (which started 377,000 years after the Big Bang, including the CMBR) and formation of earliest generations of first stars (150 million after the Big Bang)), are something that all physicists are certain to have occurred. The earliest detectable and measurable things in the young universe, is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, first detected in 1964, but originally predicted in 1948 (along with Big Bang Nucleosynthesis or sometimes called the Primordial Nucleosynthesis).
BUT, everything BEFORE the BBN, like the Planck Epoch, Inflationary Epoch, Lepton Epoch, Quark Epoch, Hadron Epoch, etc, these events, are unobservable, only some of these epochs scientists have degrees of certainty, that they occur...BUT the very early epochs between Planck Epoch and Baryogenesis, are still very theoretical and hypothetical.
Not everything in the Big Bang theory is certain. What might have occurred from Baryogenesis to Planck Epoch or to time = 0 second, is largely speculative, and only mathematical- or proof-based, not evidence-based.
In quantum physics, not everything are evidence-based physics. Some like the quantum field theory and quantum gravity are still speculative, theoretical and untested.
Did you know that both Special Relativity and General Relativity started out as being theoretical physics? It is only when other physicists were able to perform experiments or finding actual evidences that Einstein’s theory have more solid foundations.
Did Tong talk about the Standard Model in particle physics?
If he did, then Tong would have explained to his audience that the each particle were discovered separately, at different time, and there would have been gap between the time of prediction and time of discovery.
In particle physics, the Higgs boson and Higgs field was first proposed and predicted in 1964, so these propositions were originally theoretical and speculative. It isn’t until 2012 (I think that’s the right year), when the Higgs particles were discovered by CERN, in their LHC experiments. That’s nearly 50 years before f
I am only guessing, but did Tong ever mention in his video, that he doesn’t do experiments or uncomfortable about doing experiments? That he was relies on or prefer to use equations?
Did he ever show the audience any equation that many physicists working on, but some parts may be unanswered or unsubstantiated?
Physicists as early as Einstein, have tried to unite all the theories into one, eg Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. They are still doing this today, and among them is another fields in theoretical physics, models like string theory and supersymmetry (superstring theory). String Theory and Superstring Theory are proposed solutions, because they are still theoretical. So until they can verify either one of these, no one have to accept them.
As a theoretical physicist, Tong would have preferred maths over evidences and experimentation. But I am guessing that he know the achievements of experimental physics too.
My point is that just because someone has the qualifications of being “theoretical physicist”, doesn’t mean that everything they say, explain or predicted are true.
