Thanks! I had no idea about such expression.

Christine

I must apologize as I never intended it to be taken it was your fight, just strictly between the parties themselves.

Best,

Phil

What I meant by it appearing as a typical theoretical cat fight, is seems to be what often takes place when any new theories are being proposed, where the detractors have more than revealing the truth, yet often the preservation of their own theoretical positions . Of course even when deciding physical evidence is predicted and presented many still refuse to find the truth it presents.

Best,

Phil

I do not understand this statement…

I’m sorry, but I have not read that book yet. Which posts do you refer? (From Woit’s blog, I suppose?)

Best regards,
Christine

I’ve looked at the references you provided and some of the statements made by Garrett and Distler et al and find it to be not much more than your typical theoretical cat fight. I hold no opinion either way as most any of this extends into things much greater than any knowledge I have or ever hope to. My only observation is that Distler’s argument is purely mathematical as Garrett’s theory stands to represent as well, with neither side coming across with any experiment whose outcome could lend credence to either of their positions. Perhaps naively Distler et al’s objections has me reminiscent of Von Neumann’s impossibility proof against hidden variables, which even though dismissed mathematically by Grete Hermann shortly after being published was regarded as the definitive last word on the subject fo more the 30 years, that until John Bell addressed in again.

In short, I find Garrett’ s theory to suffer the same problem as most if not all of the other so called TOE’s, as having a lack of any physical means that could support them as to distinguish it from other attempts. Although philosophically I’m an unashamed Platonist, when it come to science, even though I’m thoroughly convinced beauty reveals their being some truth to be discovered that coincided with it, which truth it serves to be is completely another matter. So even though Garrett or Distler may each feel they have passed the rigorous tests as proposed by Descartes, still one hurdle remains in being able to satisfy Bacon.

Best,

Phil

Thanks in advance for reading it.
Please try to contact me.

To be clear: I am not “Lisi’s fan”. The only thing I am really fan is of the Star Trek series. (And Bach as my preferred compositor).

Evidently, “importance” is a relative quality…

I hope to have time and energy to follow this issue in more detail.

Important to whom? To Lisi? To you? To some unspecified set of “experts”?

As you well know, Skip Garibaldi and I ended up writing a paper (to appear in Communications in Mathematical Physics), formalizing those objections. Was that paper “extremely important”, too? If so, to whom?

As far as I can tell, nothing I have said has had the slightest influence on Lisi or his fans. Hence my puzzlement …

However, I do have a subjective opinion — a matter of taste — that I like the approach. I do hope that his work receives appropriate analysis by experts. Previous objections made by you were extremely important. But I cannot follow the final conclusion, whether there was one at all. Again, “I am not certain” whether Lisi’s current investigations address those previous objections.