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bigjeff5 comments on "Science" as Curiosity-Stopper - Less Wrong
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A thought experiment for you:
Imagine that tomorrow, the folks at LHC find the Higgs boson and presumably solve the universe by discovering and proving the Theory of Everything.
Would your curiosity about it be diminished?
For me, the answer is yes, and I suspect you'll find the same of yourself. If you're not convinced, you only need to look towards history. Right now, you aren't curious as to the chemical composition of water. If it was the year 1700, you probably would be. However, since the concept of H20 has entered into our collective cognition, we aren't curious about it anymore. It is not so egregious to think the same would happen with the Theory of Everything. The question remains: why does this happen?
I think it's got to do with an evolutionary mechanism for the collective progress of humanity. A limit on natural curiosities per human streamlines the discovery process. It works like this: a curiosity for the unknown burns in many humans, but only for things that no human knows. This burning drive allows a large amount of minds to actively work towards the truth.
Now, once one mind figures it out, the flame is extinguished. After all, it would be inefficient for the flame to keep on burning. It would be inefficient for the same large amount of people to continue slaving away towards a hopeful discovery of the answer when a much easier way presents itself: learning it from those who know.There is no need to reinvent the wheel, as they say.
Instead, it's more advantageous for people to occupy themselves with other unsolved curiosities. The more people working on a particular problem, the higher the chance the problem will be solved, and the sooner humanity can move on and solve the next problem.
The mechanism is simple. We identify with the people who actually know by proxy. It is enough that they are human. We consider "humanity" to have solved the problem, and we (most of us) consider ourselves to be a part of "humanity." In that way, it's almost like we ourselves know the answer.
Unfortunately, the Higgs-Boson would not do any of that.
From what I've read, most physicists dislike the term "God Particle", because it imparts far too much importance onto the particle. It's just another particle that should be present under the right conditions.
There are a few theories that require the Higgs-Boson to exist, and it would be really convenient if it did. They might be able to fix big things like the current theories of Gravity and Dark Matter if they find it. There are also a whole group of theories that do not predict the particle and so would be falsified if it is found.
Finding it where expected or not finding it, either answer leads closer to reality.
In either case it probably won't lead to a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, except as just another stepping stone along the way.
It's not as big a deal as it is made out to be in the media, though it is still a big deal if found, certainly.
Closer, but not quite.
Most theories require a Higgs boson. Almost all theoretical physicists would be shocked if it were not found eventually. Finding the Higgs boson would not tell us much about gravity or dark matter. The best we could hope for is finding multiple types of Higgs bosons, which are required by supersymmetry, though the LHC won't necessarily find find more than one, even if supersymmetry is true. Supersymmetry provides a possible explanation for dark matter and it is required by string theory.
Indeed, that's what I meant by "might", without it though there isn't a whole lot of hope for the current theories as I understand them.
The Higgs boson is predicted by the Standard Model as well, isn't it? It could really cause a lot of trouble if it isn't found. That would be interesting!