Learned people study some of the oddest things! Two gentlemen recently published a study on "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide". Why would someone even think this up and then decide to spend time and money on researching it?
Probably a month doesn't go by when I hear of or read about some other bizarre study. Within the past month or so, I learned that a quite a few physicists are trying to discover the theory of everything. Like THAT will ever happen!
We can't predict the weather reliably. Things happen everyday that no one can explain. We make decisions that turn out to have long-term negative consequences. So, why would anyone think they could uncover a theory that explains everything?
Even if someone did stumble upon it, they wouldn't recognize it because everything is far too vast for any human or all humans collectively to grasp. In my mind, such an undertaking is about as realistic as trying to take a picture of a unicorn or obtaining a one-on-one interview with a leprechaun.
Of course, I personally believe there is indeed an explanation of everything -- Tao. But no one will find it through theorizing mathematical formulas or conducting empirical studies. In fact, such methods will guarantee that these researchers won't connect with it at all!
Probably a month doesn't go by when I hear of or read about some other bizarre study. Within the past month or so, I learned that a quite a few physicists are trying to discover the theory of everything. Like THAT will ever happen!
We can't predict the weather reliably. Things happen everyday that no one can explain. We make decisions that turn out to have long-term negative consequences. So, why would anyone think they could uncover a theory that explains everything?
Even if someone did stumble upon it, they wouldn't recognize it because everything is far too vast for any human or all humans collectively to grasp. In my mind, such an undertaking is about as realistic as trying to take a picture of a unicorn or obtaining a one-on-one interview with a leprechaun.
Of course, I personally believe there is indeed an explanation of everything -- Tao. But no one will find it through theorizing mathematical formulas or conducting empirical studies. In fact, such methods will guarantee that these researchers won't connect with it at all!
The reason scientists create theories and write papers about them is to explain observations. It's called the scientific method. "Look first, think later, then test."
ReplyDeleteThe observation of correlation between urban suicide and country music listening is as a valid a concern for research as any other observation of correlations in the data. The study could result in useful predictors of human behavior.
As to the "theory of everything," I suspect you are referring to the search for a unified field theory. We're quite close to this theory, which explains the processes of the universe in terms of fields of energy that produce matter, and which also explains gravity.
Scientists refer to this unified field as "quantum foam."
Others of us call it Tao.
I don't doubt the investigation into the theory I mentioned is valid, but it's also decidedly weird.
ReplyDeleteWeird?
ReplyDeleteMore "weird" than killing women and children in a desert country because criminals crashed planes into buildings?
More weird than rewarding criminal financial irresponsibility with monetary rewards?
Cultural influences on the human psyche are decidedly less weird than insane government policies.
No, not more weird than the two examples you cited, but still weird, nonetheless.
ReplyDelete