- Nothing New Under the Sun

Further Comment on Below:

"What Imps These Particles Be"
Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html
01 October, 2011

I suggested that using 'Imp' instead of 'Particle' to describe quantum particles, including neutrino's, was a good fit since:

" the word 'Imp' = a mythical creature of German folklore that caused mischief - which pretty much says it all for a lot of particles."

This raises the specter that perhaps a thousand years from now people will be referring to neutrino's and other sub-atomic 'particles' as:

"mythical creatures of Western folklore from the Dawn of Science epoch [that caused mischief . . .]"

Is this an insignificant 'thought experiment'.

Well any self-respecting Scientist (in my opinion) would say perhaps not.

Perhaps there is a deeper underlying fact of the human condition being expressed here.

Perhaps, these are simply the manifestation of the human condition, archetype(s) with re-occurrence in every epoch, a human necessity in any collective world view.

To suggest that they (current theories) are supported by "mathematics" and "rigorous science" is, of course, missing the point.

To us it is "mathematics" and "rigorous science".

Or, a more general way of expressing it, "it is in conformity with the rules and methodologies generally agreed upon by us at this point in time to be used in describing our world".

(compare: spelling and grammar - just because a sentence has all its words spelled correctly and conforms to the grammerical (for all those who think it is 'grammatical' - just wait a while) rules does not mean that the underlying concept truly reflects reality. Also, as we are living thru today, spelling and rules of grammar change).

Well perhaps 1000 years ago the concept of 'Imp' satisfied this condition as well.

To suggest that our current theories possess predictability also misses the point. Predictability is a very subjective concept, and very much dependent on our current condition and what we are willing to accept.

Clearly current theories don't possess the property of predictability, since that would imply perfection, which is very unlikely.

Also, even today it is generally accepted that our theories are not totally satisfactory.

Further, perhaps also a 1000 years ago it was quite acceptable to blame 'mischief' on Imp's thus providing empirical support for their existence.


I have no doubt that in the last 100,000 years the human condition has undergone many such re-workings of our collective world view, however, all with imp's in them.

This would also explain why the media gave so much play to the experiment regarding neutrino's going faster than light - what better story than those impish neutrino's not behaving themselves again.

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html