
Constructor Theory - jonbaer
http://constructortheory.org/
======
moab
Highly amusing criticism of their theory:
[http://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/constructor-theory-
deutsch...](http://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/constructor-theory-deutsch-and-
marletto.html)

~~~
FrankenPC
That is pretty amusing. I'm pretty sure we can file this concept under
Information Theory.

From the perspective of a programmer who's watched the industry grow from bare
metal assembly to advanced languages like C# and Java, I've noticed a
reoccurring pattern. Sometimes, people who can no longer find anything truly
unique to capitalize on simply make shit up and throw it against the wall to
see if it sticks.

Comparable to Constructor Theory, there was this idea floating around called
the Vidic (Virtual Information Domain. Youtube it). This one proposed that
there was a massive subspace storage system housing all meta-knowledge about
everything in the universe. It's great sci-fi and maybe even coffee table
philosophy. But it's terrible science.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> Sometimes, people who can no longer find anything truly unique to capitalize
> on simply make shit up and throw it against the wall to see if it sticks.

99% of all crackpot theories are just that, 1% of the time they are instead
paradigm shifts undergoing community backlash. Skepticism is a winning
strategy, which is why it is so common, but you can never say for sure unless
your crap filters are really precise.

~~~
ingenter
I've seriously read some "crackpot" theories just to be sure that they're
really wrong, and not just a community backlash.

Most of the time, they provide no useful model. When they do, they are
demonstrably wrong.

For example, there was a guy who had his "theory of gravity" which failed to
produce elliptical orbits (IIRC, non-circular orbits were highly unstable).

Other guy tried to explain fusion by drawing electron orbits (not orbitals) of
around a nucleus.

IMO, skepticism is the way to go with new theories.

\- No useful model? GTFO.

\- Model does not fit a lot of experiments? GTFO.

\- Model is more narrow and complex than existing theories? GTFO.

\- Model does not have measurable effects with current technology? Well, you
have to wait or build it yourself.

\- Model fits experiments, had successful predictions before experiments, and
explains more/unifies other theories? Good, go grab a cookie^W Nobel Prize.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I mean, you are mostly right, but almost all paradigm shifts go through
crackpot-accusation phases where experimental results are either ignored,
misinterpreted, or in progress (relativity wasn't validated by an experiment
until 1920). The problem is even more profound in computer science, where many
sub fields aren't really experimental sciences, and is definitely problematic
here, which seems to be more science philosophy...the theory seems sound, the
question is mainly about its usefulness (does thinking about possibility and
impossibility in physical systems add anything over state transitions?).

How do you tell the difference between a crackpot and an out of the box
thinker? Sometimes it's obvious (I've squared the circle!), but often times it
is ambiguous (probably a crackpot, probably not a genius). In this case, I
would argue that it is the latter.

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88e282102ae2e5b
Does this theory make any new, untested predictions? It sounds like they're
just renaming things.

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ExpiredLink
Science becomes most interesting when scientists hit the limits of their
science and then try to overcome them.

~~~
Retra
Insightful!

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WallWextra
So, what have they got so far? Do they even have Newtonian physics expressed
in their new language?

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crb002
How is this different from Kolmogorov complexity?

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pizza
Interested in seeing how this will develop.

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symbiosis
So how did Bellatrix Lestrange escape from the Azkaban?

