The Geneva Symmetry Group, Beyond Spacetime, and the Space and Time After Quantum Gravity Project are happy to present a Geneva skype-in to the following talk, which will physically happen in Chicago:
Kerry McKenzie (University of California, San Diego):
Against brute fundamentalism
Wednesday, 11 November 2015, 16:15
2, Rue De-Candolle, Room L107 [Map: http://www.openstreetmap.org/]
Anyone who wishes to attend this talk is welcome. The talk will be 3 Einsteins (out of 5).
Abstract:
The claim that the fundamental is ‘brute and inexplicable’ is recited almost reflexively in philosophy. But this ‘brutalist’ stance toward the fundamental seems to lie in increasing tension with what physicists claim to aspire to. In this talk, I argue that those aspirations of physicists are not only reasonable, but that there is a sense in which they are already realized. In so doing, I hope to show that the idea that everything can be explained need not be tainted with rationalist overtones, but also to underline how qualified any claim of this nature must ultimately be.
