Open thread, Jan. 25 - Jan. 31, 2016

username2

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I think it is partly linked to IQ. I agree that there are probably limits to the levels people at low IQs can achieve,

But there is also a development process that takes time. Few teenagers, no matter how smart, are at level 5 Think by analogy that few 15 year old people have mastered quantum field theory. No matter how smart you are it takes time

Sokal is emulating level 3 people who think they are level 5. These people are anti-modern not post-modern. Most post-modernists are at level 3 as far as I can tell. I have been trawling through their works to assess this.

A level 5 physicist might be someone like say Robert Laughlin a Nobel Physicist who wrote a book "A Different Universe" questioning how fundamental 'fundamental' physics is. He has mastered modernist physics and is now building on this. This is very different from a Deepak Chopra type who doesn't even get to first base in this enterprise.