Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
nonzero.substack.com
Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
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Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#2Eric's personal experience with Epstein is very interesting.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dJNjH4SP6vwJ
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#3Note also that Substack itself has founders that donate content to alt-right outlets, and to paraphrase a figure from that universe (on another topic), it seems that they're not exactly allergic to the stuff. There's a lot of alt-right/IDW shilling on the site, which presumably reflects the places in which its been promoted. (There's also a bunch of not-partisan-warrior content, too, to be fair.)
I think a more important question than whether or not Eric Weinstein is a crackpot is: should we be spending time discussing Eric Weinstein at all?
Everything I've read so far suggests no. If his grand unified theory turns out to not be bullshit, we'll hear about it in due time.
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#4Weinstein has an idea of Unified theory.
His paper is just an outline of his idea. He has not worked on in any detail despite having the idea for 10-20 years.
Ideas are ten a penny. It's a seller's market. Making them work in detail and as a whole is "doing the physics". As Sean Carroll has pointed out, it's better to cut the big grand idea into small solid pieces, work on them, then publish them one by one. It's this work that is missing.
Weinstein is the physics equivalent of "I have this great tech platform idea, I just need someone who knows how to program to make it happen for me". He doesn't need to convince mainstream physicists to volunteer. He has money, so he could award research grants to make others take a look.
EDIT errors found in his theory:
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[Guest Post] Problems with Eric Weinstein's “Geometric Unity” https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/03/guest-post-problem...
>Our findings are that even aside from its status as Theory of Everything, GU contains serious technical gaps both mathematical and physical. In summary:
>* GU introduces a “shiab” operator that overlooks a required complexification step. Omitting this step creates a mathematical error but including it precludes having a physically sensible quantum theory.
>* The choice of gauge group for GU naively leads to a quantum gauge anomaly, thereby rendering the quantum theory inconsistent. Any straightforward attempt to eliminate this anomaly would make the shiab operator impossible to define, compounding the previous objection.
>* The setup of GU asserts that it will have supersymmetry. In 14 dimensions, adopting supersymmetry is highly restrictive. It implies that the proposed gauge group of GU cannot be correct and that the theory as stated is incomplete.
>* Essential technical details of GU are omitted, leaving many of the central claims unverifiable.
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#5> He says he would have become famous in math and physics circles decades ago had his ideas not been squelched by what he calls the “Distributed Idea Suppression Complex” (DISC).
Yes, he's a crackpot. Next.
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#6Weinstein has an idea of Unified theory. His paper is just an outline of his idea. He has not worked on in any detail despite having the idea for 10-20 years. Ideas are ten a penny. It's a seller's market. Making them work in detail and as a whole is "doing the physics". As Sean Carroll has pointed out, it's better to cut the big grand idea into small solid pieces, work on them, then publish them one by one. It's thi…
"Ideas are ten a penny. It's a seller's market. "
Ideas being ten a penny would make them a buyers market - as the sellers aren't offering anything worth value nor scarce.
Edit - I agree with you though. Eric at least seems to admit his idea requires further development to get to testable a hypothesis(es?).
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#7> he’s developed a unified field theory—a “theory of everything”—that, if correct, could not only put him next to Einstein in the physics pantheon
It's hard to state how monumental marrying GR and Quantum mechanics would be. Along with it, you'd get quantization of gravity, one of the holy grails.
Yeah he'd be up there with Einstein.
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#8> He says he would have become famous in math and physics circles decades ago had his ideas not been squelched by what he calls the “Distributed Idea Suppression Complex” (DISC). Yes, he's a crackpot. Next.
The author disagrees:
So, all told, I think I’ll refrain from applying the ‘crackpot’ label here. I don’t think we should marginalize Weinstein’s ideas by stigmatizing him—even if he’s trying to do that to someone else.
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#9I think before addressing any of the specifics... the question to start with is "what if he is?" Are nutty crackpots something we need to worry about?
Newton was a crackpot, when he wasn't revolutionizing physics and maths. I'm not suggesting that Weinstein or other potential crackpots are Newton, just that they can coexist. At the least, a crackpot mindset can lead down paths less trodden.
That said... Weinstein. The most notable feature of Weinstein's headline appearances is his strident belligerence. No doubt he's conflicted with others in and around academia, been the thorn in a side, had "plots" against him. This is the office politics of academia. Like all office politics, it looms large. Weinstein, being who he is, tells the story from a "House of Cards" perspective, rather than a Dilbert perspective.
That said, Weinstein's beyond the reach of the dreaded DISC now. No one can suppress your ideas now, but you also can't claim that they are. Be free Eric.
Idea suppression is real, crackpottery is real and the grey area between them is real.
"Weinstein does appear to have a higher degree of crackpottery than most people, but look at some parts of his psychology that drive it: he thinks his ideas are very important; he thinks he doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves (especially for those important ideas); he interprets in unflattering, even dark, terms the motivations of people who seem to keep him (or his relatives) from getting credit; he strains to see pattern where it may not exist. I could go on, but the point is this: Don’t pretty much all of us have these tendencies? Aren’t they just parts of human nature."
Re: Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot?
#10My evaluation is that he is enormously intelligent. And like many people of enormous intelligence he suffers from something like an over-connected brain. He is too good at spotting connections between things, connections that potentially do not exist. The result is everything is a conspiracy - or some grand paradigm waiting to be unlocked. Definitely an interesting character and those sorts can push boundaries, but you should be careful about their conclusions.