What is a proper or relevant education?

It is different for each person. A barista does not need a 16-20 years of education, no one does. A barista needs 16 days of education (if that). What is sad is that most college graduates right now cannot even get a job as a barista because they are competing with 400 other applicants.

What you need is an amount of education that it takes to do the job. Nothing more, nothing less. Telling everyone they need 16 years of school to be able to add value is insane. The college degree has become a gofd and everyone has been encouraged to worship it.

While a college education is deified, all other forms of education are being labeled “alternative”. When school districts are faced with budget shortfalls, these alternative programs are the first to be cut.

Mike Rowe of Discovery channel show Dirty Jobs testified before the Senate a few years ago and had this to say:

“In general, we are surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We should not be. We have pretty much guaranteed it. In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to a such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative”. Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job training opportunities as “vocational consolation prices”, best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that does not encourage people to pick up a shovel.”

What is the real cause of this corruption in education? Who corrupted the education to its present state? Who benefits from this absurdly long education for everybody? Who sanctified the “higher education”. Who forced our life into a series of exams and tests that we must pass to prove ourselves to teachers? Yes teachers, or Learned Doctors. They are the professionals who own education, and of course Learned Doctors are agents of the Big School. Where there is teaching there is no learning.

Students are right to hate these Learned Doctors and I hope someday parents will wake up too.

This stereotype of philosopher as scholastic sophist was invented by Newton. Why did Newton define philosophers as anti-science even though he himself was a Doctor of Philosophy? Well, of course, to define himself and his followers as true scientists.

How did Newton define philosophers?

When Newton entered Cambridge as a student the place like all educational institutions in Europe was ruled by Doctors of Theology. Their professional cousin, Doctor of Philosophy who were known as Peripatetics, were not as powerful as they are today. Sabine has in mind this cartoon stereotype of hair splitting peripatetic philosopher and uses it as her straw man. She is referring to a cartoon stereotype of philosopher invented by Newton and his disciples to glorify themselves and their profession. Sabine is trying to sell us this physics propaganda as history.

What is the historical fact?

Newton successfully combined philosophy and mathematics for the first time under the cover of the same book and created a new academic field called natural philosophy which morphed into physics in the nineteenth century.

Newton and his disciples and his successors are Doctors of Philosophy by profession. These Learned Doctors are nothing more than corrupt academics and professional sophists. They don’t even deserve the title of philosopher. Physicists are more like slick lawyers than philosophers.

After Newton’s successful coup to replace Aristotle with himself as the new master of the European scholasticism they defined Doctors of Philosophy they supposedly replaced during the scientific revolution as the anti-science who spent their time writing commentary with empty words.

And Newtonians defined themselves as scientists who did not deal with casuistry and sophistry but worked only with quantities expressed in mathematical symbols. We all know this claim is bogus. Newton and his disciples defined themselves as true scientists who modeled nature with the precise language of mathematics while continuing their philosophizing by using the authority of mathematics.

Today, these Learned Doctors corrupted even mathematics and turned it into their vehicle of sophistry and casuistry. Sabine is still trying to fool us into believing that academic physics is a quantitative science.

Newton also initiated the academic turf wars between DOT and DOP because Newtonians grabbed the right to philosophize on cosmogony and cosmology from the ownership of DOT. Today your creation mythologies are designed and served to you by DOP. The more important academic turf war is not between philosophers and physicists but between DOP and DOT. These two types of Learned Doctors are still fighting the same war with each other for the soul of recruits to fill their classrooms. In our time, mostly due to Newton’s authority and because Newtonism has become the state religion, education is ruled by DOP. Don’t forget DOP and DOT are teachers, they both want to increase their market share.

Sabine Hossenfelder like all academic physicists is a philosopher by profession and practices philosophy with the language of mathematics. She is the modern representative of scholastic philosopher Newton branded as the anti-science.

Newton and his disciples are the Doctors of Philosophy; they have always been DOP; DOP are philosophical sophists who spend their time inventing creation mythologies for the rulers who pay them through grants channeled through schools where DOPs are perched. That’s why Sabine is still trying to sell us the same physics propaganda she learned from Newton. She thinks that by insulting philosophers as wordsmiths she is elevating herself and physicists to the level of scientists. DOP invented the art of sophistry and doublespeak and physicists are DOP; physicists are expert sophists. Sabine and academic physicists are philosophical sophists and charlatans doing business as physicists. Not to mention that physicists build all the mass destruction weapons in the world. What a despicable people these physicists are!

Next we will analyze Strassler’s philosophical sophistry (presented as an experimental fact) on the indivisibility of the electron. But first let’s look one more time at the statement that Strassler uses as the seed for his philosophical sophistry. We want to look at the statement more closely and show that each relevant word in the sentence is a meaningless word carefully selected to save the sacred doctrine of physics. Strassler writes a meaningless sentence composed of meaningless words but all his readers believe they are reading a true scientific statement. This is the art of sophistry at its best.

* * *

This is the sentence Strassler uses as seed for his philosophical sophistry:

Electrons are the quintessential examples of (apparently)-elementary particles.

As a faithful physicist Strassler must save the fundamental physics doctrine of atomic materialism against any contradictory observations by using sophistry and casuistry. Atomic materialism postulates a matterful nature made of ultimately indivisible units. Physicists turned this postulate into their faith. This is the faith every physicist must believe without questioning and if experiments contradict the faith the physicist must use sophistry and casuistry on the experiment to save the faith. This is what Strassler is doing here. Every physicist, including Strassler, will categorically deny that he is a faithful believer in the atomic materialism citing some philosophical sophistry about particle/wave duality which of course assumes atomic materialism.

* * *

Let’s look at each of the five relevant word in Strassler’s  sentence which are,

– electron
– quintessential
– apparently
– elementary
– particle.

1. Electron

In physics, “electron” is a meaningless word because it’s a loaded word that physicists defined multiple times and read it case by case. Strassler uses at least two contradictory definitions of the electron throughout his blog casuistically. According to Strassler the  electron is both “an object” and “not an object” as the case may be; Strassler will state that electron has no size and then he will claim to measure the radius of the electron. The electron in physics is the quintessential sophistry. Electron was invented by physicists as a dormitive virtue and then corrupted into a casuistic sophistry.

2. Quintessential

The word quintessential as used here is nothing more that a rhetorical flourish and Strassler’s usage is grammatically wrong. In this sentence “quintessential” is the only word Strassler could not load and corrupt but he manages to use it wrongly. Quintessential already includes the word “example” since it means “typical example”. The  correct usage is “electrons are the quintessential (apparently)-elementary particles.”

3. Apparently

This word means “in appearance only” but Strassler corrupts even this simple word and uses it as the premise to claim that electron is elementary. According to Strassler the electron cannot be resolved by current tools physicists use therefore the electron must be indivisible. But “(Apparently)-elementary” means that electron only appears elementary; it does not follow that the electron is elementary. But Strassler asserts that the electron is elementary because he stated that the electron is only “apparently-elementary”.

Since the readers of Strassler’s blog buy Strassler’s obvious sophistry as a scientific argument we say that Strassler is a great salesman and a Grand Master of Sophistry.

If someone tried to sell you an used car by using the same sophistry you would see through it and you would not buy the car. Because a car has been running for a year without servicing does that mean that it will run forever without ever needing servicing. Of course not. You see why we call Strassler a Grand Master of Sophistry. He fools you by using masterfully an obvious sophistry that you will never be fooled if used by someone else who is not a physicist.

4. Elementary

Strassler uses the word “elementary” as a synonym for “indivisible”. Elementary in Strassler’s sentence simply means “indivisible”. Anywhere we see the word “elementary” we can replace it with “indivisible”. Why is it that Strassler chooses to use “elementary” when he really means “indivisible”? One reason is that Strassler must conform strictly to legal physics party line. In legal physics the electron is an “elementary” particle not an “indivisible” particle. More importantly, Strassler is a master in the art of sophistry and will never use a word in its original meaning while he can load the word with his preferred meaning. Sophistry is the art of confusing the reader by using loaded words.

5. Particle

Just like the “electron”, the word “particle” is also a meaningless word because it can mean anything a physicist wants it to mean case by case. Strassler uses the word particle as a synonym for a spherical ball with finite radius, a mathematical point with zero radius, a wave with wave properties, a wave with particle properties, a probability wave, a statistical bump and combinations of these as necessary. So, you will never know what Strassler means when he writes “particle”. But none of Strassler’s readers ever questions the meaning of this corrupt word in physics. No one asks “Strassler, what do you mean by particle?”

* * *

Strassler writes a sentence with five relevant words and four of the words are loaded and meaningless words and the fifth word is a meaningless rhetorical flourish that adds nothing to the sentence. It takes a Grand Master of Sophistry to write a five-word sentence with five meaningless words that appears to make sense.

This sentence is the proof that Strassler is really the Grand Master of Sophistry. He writes a sentence where five of the five relevant words are junk words yet his readers perceive the sentence as a perfectly meaningful sentence. This is the art of sophistry at its best.

* * *

Next we will look at the philosophical sophistry Strassler writes on this sentence which reads, as corrected,

Electrons are the quintessential (apparently)-elementary particles.

Quintessential here is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish and we can simplify the sentence by eliminating it:

Electrons are (apparently)-elementary particles.

This sentence too can be simplified further, we don’t need to qualify the meaningless word “electron” with another meaningless word “particle” and the sentence becomes:

Electrons are (apparently)-elementary.

But since Strassler means “indivisible” when he writes “elementary” we make the substitution and the sentence becomes

Electrons are (apparently)-indivisible.

But this is in fact two sentences, because we know that the sentence is a textbook example of  the sophistry of accent. The two sentences are

1. Electrons are divisible.
2. Electrons are indivisible.

These sentences are two possible answers to the old philosophical question of Does the indivisible exist? But instead of first asking the question and trying to answer it, Strassler secretly assumes that the indivisible exists and claims to resolve the problem by sophistry and casuistry. Why? Because the existence of the indivisible, also known as the doctrine of atomic materialism, is the official faith of physics.

Next we will look at Strassler’s philosophical sophistry camouflaged as an experimental fact.

Saul Perlmutter

Look at this paper by Saul Perlmutter and Co.: Cosmology from Type Ia Supernova.

The paper looks so scientific; it is full of charts and measurements. I have no doubt that all those astronomical measurements are impeccable measurements.

Where is the charlatanism? Charlatanism is in the projection of local to total.

Based on observations of a set of 40 supernovas, Perlmutter concludes that the universe is expanding forever.

Perlmutter projects his few local observations to the total universe. Perlmutter measures 40 astronomical objects and concludes that the universe as a whole is expanding.

Does Perlmutter know the universe as a whole? No.

The 40 objects are not a representative sample of the objects in the universe. Perlmutter does not know the number of objects in the universe. This is a fact that even Perlmutter himself admits. All astronomers admit that they do not know the totality of the universe because they know that there is a part of the universe from where no light reaches the Earth.

It is a scientific fact that astronomers do not know the totality of the universe. Any astronomer who claims to know the totality while also admitting that he does not know the totality is a charlatan and a fraud.

Example:

Suppose you are running in the presidential elections and you want to know what percentage of woman voters will vote for you and you hire Perlmutter as your pollster. Using the same sampling method he uses in his astronomical work, Perlmutter polls the first woman who comes nearest to him and after polling one sample, Perlmutter reports his result to you as a generalization to the entire female voters.

Will you pay this charlatan who bases his report on a poll of one voter?

But taking one sample of a known population is lesser charlatanism than taking 40 samples of an unknown population as representative.

Claiming knowledge of the unknown whole from a non-representative sample is charlatanism. Perlmutter knows that his local sample is not representative of totality. Therefore, Perlmutter not only is a chlarlatan but he is also a scientific fraud. His glossy astronomical charts have no cosmological value.

We must expose Perlmutter and his ilk as charlatans and scientific frauds who try to establish observational basis for their creation myths.

The traditional form of academic sophistry is very simple and it is called “hairsplitting” and involves splitting the meaning of a word to give the word a new meaning that favors the doctrine.

Each one of the 13 sophistries classified by Aristotle can be used to split a word. A popular technique among academic physicists is the sophistry of accent. In this sophistry the sophist splits the word by emphasizing it. This way he can argue both the emphasized meaning and the non-emphasized meaning.

A sophistry is practiced in two steps:

1. Split the word.
2. Write a casuistic commentary asserting the new meaning as the only true meaning.

Here’s the sentence where Learned Doctor Strassler splits the word “elementary” by emphasizing it with “(apparently)”.

Electrons are the quintessential  examples of (apparently)-elementary particles.

“Apparently-elementary” is as nonsensical a statement as “apparently-immortal”.

The great thing about this sophistry is that it gives Doctor Strassler the right to claim that electron is elementary whenever he feels like it. For Learned Doctor Strassler electron is elementary and not elementary at the same time. Strassler is known to write in many occasions that electron is elementary. Only if you call his sophistry, he will specify that electron is not elementary but apparently elementary.

Strassler’s sophistry will become clearer with this example: Matt Strassler says “electron is apparently-elementary”, so let’s say “Matt Strassler is (apparently)-immortal”. This sentence is in the same form as “Electron is (apparently)-elementary”.

Strassler states that the electron is only apparently elementary and then claims that the electron is elementary. Matt Strassler claims “electrons are elementary” therefore we can claim that “Matt Strassler is immortal”. By the same argument used by Strassler we say that Matt Strassler is immortal because compared to a butterfly who lives just one day Matt Strassler is immortal. But it does not follow that Matt Strassler is immortal because compared to butterfly Matt Strassler has a longer lifetime. You see the sophistry. This is a linguistic sleight of hand and a deception.

* * *

It always helps to expose Strassler’s hidden assumptions by dividing his complex sentences into a simple syllogism. Strassler’s argument reduces to:

1. The electron is apparently-indivisible

2. Current machines used by physicists do not have enough power to divide the electron into its constituents

3. Therefore, the electron is indivisible.

Obviously, Strassler’s conclusion does not follow from his premise.

In our example:

1. Matt Strassler has a finite lifetime
2. Butterfly has a finite lifetime
3. Matt Strassler’s lifetime is much greater than the lifetime of the butterfly
4. Therefore Matt Strassler is immortal.

You see the sophistry here. Why do you fail to see Matt Strassler’s sophistry regarding the indivisibility of the electron? As a master of sophist and a great expert in slick non sequiturs, Strassler’s readers never realize how Strassler deceives them into believing in his sophistries. As a faithful Doctor of Physics, Strassler uses sophistry and casuistry to save the legal physics doctrine.

We will expose this sophistry in more detail in the next post when we look at the philosophical commentary Strassler writes on the “(apparently)-elementary”.

Elementary particles don’t really have a shape or a size, these are emergent qualities that stem from interactions between particles.

A.O. Tell admits that

physics is the study of shapeless and sizeless qualities.

So much for the physicists’ claim that physics is a quantitative hard science. I guess physicists study qualities quantitatively.

According to A.O. Tell

particle physics is the study of formless and sizeless emergent qualities that emerge from the interaction between formless and sizeless emergent qualities.

The study of the physical properties of shapeless and sizeless non-physical qualities is called academic scholasticism. Physicists reduced the old science of physics into academic scholasticism and turned it into sciencelike shamanism.

Physicists represent a particle as a mathematical point but endow that mathematical point with physical properties.

Just like their professional ancestors who called themselves “Peripatetics”, physicists are Doctors of Philosophy who are in the business of corrupting mathematics and physics to further their academic career.

2. If yes, how curious are you, on a scale of 1 to 10?

3. What do you do to satisfy your curiosity?

A. I do nothing.

B. I consult with professionals and take their word for it. Those professionals are physicists, astronomers and cosmologists. I trust that what they know how the world works.

C. I try to satisfy my curiosity by reading books written by physicists for non-physicists. I don’t question what they write, after all physicists are the experts.

D. I do my own research online as an independent thinker and try to discover how the world works. I don’t feel bound by the authority of professionals.

E. I do my own research online and in the library and try as much as possible to read original sources.

4. How many hours a week do you spend in your inquiries to find out how the world works? 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours?

5. Is there anything you learned as the result of your independent inquiries? Are you sharing your discovery online?

6. Suppose there are only two types of knowledge telling us how the world works. 1. Knowledge revealed by a hidden source to a middlemen and passed on to you; 2. Knowledge you discover yourself by your own inquiry.

Revealed knowledge is revealed to humanity through an earthly professional class who claim to be the sole representative of the all-knowing supernatural power. This type of knowledge is usually associated with book religions.

Knowledge humanity discovers on its own by noticing repetitions and patterns in nature is usually associated with “science” or “reason”.

The original meaning of science is “true knowledge”. Both the proponents of the revealed knowledge and the so-called scientific knowledge claim that their knowledge is the true knowledge.

Do you think what goes as physics today is the revelation of truth discovered by undisputed “scientific” methods?

For instance, is the Big Bang theory invented by physicists a “scientific” theory supported by “scientific” evidence? Or is it a cosmogonic fable for our times?

7. If you think Big Bang is not a fable but true knowledge, do you have any evidence besides the hidden evidence offered to us by physicists?

8. Do you think the idea that modern academic physicists are shamans serving unhuman organisms ruling humanity and creating cosmogonic mythologies for these organisms? Do you think this idea has any credence?

9. How much do you think can you know on your own about how the world works just by asking questions and trying to answer for yourself without the help of the professionals.

10. What do you think happened to thousands of Peripatetic scholastic Doctors of Philosophy working in European universities after Newton’s “Scientific Revolution” swept Europe?

Did these Learned Doctors just disappear? Or did they switch their allegiance from Aristotle to Newton and become Newtonian Doctors of Philosophy i.e., physicists of today?

11. Do you find it curious that a physicist is a Doctor of Philosophy and his official job is to teach physics? Do you think it is true that the title of the profession changed but the same profession of academic scholasticism now is called “physics?”

12. Do you think physicists are members of a professional priestly brotherhood, just like lawyers, medical doctors and other professionals?

13. If so, why do you trust physicists’s theories without question while you know that all professionals are liars and scoundrels who make their living by deceiving and fleecing their constituency?

14. Does it matter that physicists call their deception “teaching”?

15. Do you think it is true that physicists enjoy an official monopoly on the subject of how the world works? Is it true that physicists are the professional class who have the sole authority to create creation myths for the consumption of humanity?

15. Who pays physicists? Is it relevant that physicists are collaborators of unhuman organisms who rule humanity?

16. Can the knowledge sold by physicists be revealed knowledge too? The revelation comes from themselves, physicists’s revelations are as hidden as knowledge revealed by a supernatural power. Both type of knowledge is only available to a class of middlemen who reveal the hidden knowledge to us. Is it relevant that the middlemen in possession of both type of knowledge are Learned Doctors? One is sold by Doctors of Theology and the other by their professional cousin Doctors of Philosophy. Do you trust these professional Learned Doctors, also known as Professors of the Secrets?

Matt Strassler writes:

Electrons — the tiny objects that inhabit the outskirts of atoms — play the leading role in chemistry, carry electric current across our electric grid and inside strokes of lightning, and make up the “cathode rays” that were used to create pictures on 20th century television and computer screens.

Let’s break this long sentence into six simple sentences to expose the three sophistries Strassler hides into it:

1. Electrons are tiny.
2. Electrons are objects.
3. Electrons inhabit the outskirts of atoms.
4. Electrons play the leading role in chemistry.
5. Electrons carry electric current across the electrical grid and inside strokes of lightning.
6. Electrons make up the “cathode rays” that were used to create the pictures on 20th century televisions and computer screens.

Sophistry #1. Electrons are tiny.

Now that Strassler told you with his full authority that the electron is tiny do you have an idea about the size of the electron? Of course not.

Used without reference to an object of known size (the unit object) “tiny” is a meaningless word that tells us nothing about the electron while appearing to do so. This is called sophistry.

Strassler does not know the size of the electron as he admits in this post and to cover his ignorance he uses sophistry to appear to be wise without being wise. The first priority of a sophist is to project wisdom even when he has no wisdom. Aristotle’s definition of a sophist fits Strassler perfectly:

For some people it is better worth while to seem to be wise, than to be wise without seeming to be (for the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom); for them, then, it is clearly essential also to seem to accomplish the task of a wise man rather than to accomplish it without seeming to do so.

Here’s a simple example exposing as sophistry the use of “tiny” to define the size of an object:

If I write “the Earth is a tiny planet”, I would be telling nothing meaningful about the size of the Earth. Compared to Jupiter the Earth is tiny; compared to a speck of dust, the Earth is not tiny. Unless you specify a reference object “tiny” makes no sense and gives no information about the size of the object. It only appears to do so. This is sophistry by ambiguity.

By shifting slyly his point of view like a slick lawyer Strassler would argue both sides of the bench and assert the Earth is tiny and not tiny case by case. He is secretly changing the reference object of “tiny” to appear to know the size of the electron, although he does not know it.

To use ambiguous terms defined multiple times is a standard method of sophistry. Why is tiny ambiguous? Because its definition changes with the reference object Strassler chooses to use secretly.

Strassler’s claim that the electron is tiny appears to tell you a relevant property of the electron but in fact tells you nothing. This is sophistry.

Sophistry #2. Electrons are objects.

An electron is not an object. An electron is not an object because in physics the electron is defined so many different ways that anyone who writes that the electron is an object by ignoring all other definitions is practicing casuistry and sophistry.

In various places in his blog Strassler defines the electron as a particle, as a wave, as a waveparticle, as an object, as not an object but a mathematical point with no physical properties, and various combinations of these. Calling an electron an object and not an object is casuistry and sophistry but most importantly it is a lie.

This is a very common type of sophistry used by Strassler. He routinely defines a word multiple times and case by case he asserts one of the meanings as if it were the only true meaning.

Strassler like all Doctors of Philosophy doing business as physicist is a master of sophistry. Proof? His readers take his authority without question and do not realize that all his posts are full of sophistry designed to support legal physics doctrine.

Sophistry #3. Electrons inhabit the outskirts of atom.

Why is Strassler suddenly using this poetical and metaphorical language to describe where to find electrons? The reason is simple. Physicists have been calling so many different mathematical scenarios “electron” that they don’t know it either. Physicists have been producing fictional scenarios about the electron and atoms for over a century and there is no way Strassler can summarize them in a sentence so he covers up is ignorance with pictorial metaphors instead of his usual mathematical sounding metaphors.

By using poetical language Strassler is dodging a major physics casuistry about atoms and electrons. Strassler doesn’t want to talk about “electron clouds” or “orbitals” and such things theoretical physicists can spend a career writing philosophical commentary on.

So we classify this as sophistry #3 because when you think about this sentence it gives no relevant information that Strassler can support with evidence. If you question this sentence and point out Strassler’s sophistry he will reply simply that you need to learn legal physics symbolism to understand the relationship of the electron and atoms. Good luck. So you need to be an expert in physics to understand Strassler’s popularization of physics.

Sentences #4, #5 and #6 contribute nothing to our understanding of the electron. Strassler throws them in to tell us how important the electron is to humanity’s existence. Without this important “object” which is not an “object” supposedly discovered by physicists and owned by them as an intellectual property the entire world would be without electricity; chemistry will revert to alchemy; television would not have been invented.

This is a typical physics sham that we see over and over again: physicists claim ownership of a technology because some physicist named a unit used in that technology.

* * *

Let’s start with this question:

Is a professional physicist qualified to write as an expert on a philosophical subject?

I have in mind this philosophical discourse written by Matt Strassler, an academic physicist.

Here are a few of the attributes defining an academic physicist:

* * *

Is Strassler a qualified professional to write a philosophical commentary on one of the oldest philosophical topics, namely, the indivisible?

The answer is No. Even Strassler admits in his Rutgers website that he is an expert only in three academic fields: Particle physics, Quantum Field Theory and String Theory. Philosophy is not in this list.

Strassler is not a qualified professional who can lecture us as an expert on the indivisibility of the electron because the indivisibility is not a physics problem.

The question of indivisibility is a philosophical problem; it is not a problem that can be investigated or resolved by an application of legal physics equations. Here “philosophical” simply means “free of physics”.

Strassler is licensed to practice legal physics only on a very narrow field of academic physics; outside that narrow field Strassler is a layman like everybody else. He has no scientific authority outside his narrow specialty.

Furthermore, Strassler may call himself a “physicist” and define “physicist” as a synonym with “scientist” but he is really in the business of monetizing his absurdly long investment of time to learn the archaic methods of legal physics. The traditional method that Learned Doctors of all types have been using to monetize their academic learning is called the Professional Racket. What is Professional Racket? You know it very well, the method is used by all professional classes: Hide information wholesale, sell it retail:

Professional Racket == Hide information wholesale sell it retail

That’s why Learned Doctors are also called Professors of Secrets: they claim to “discover” knowledge they’ve hidden and sell it as absolute truth.

* * *

Did Strassler study philosophy during his long physics education? No. On the contrary, he was indoctrinated to despise philosophy and history. For Strassler, physics sits above all other academic fields and physicists have the academic authority to overrule historical facts.

Strassler’s education consisted of learning how to shuffle legal physics equations and learning how to reduce data by using antiquated statistical methods canonized in the legal physics code. In academic physics “reducing data” means using statistical sophistry on some white noise to suggest statistical exceptions that will be said to prove a theoretical physics scenario sponsored by a global power using academic physics as a cover for its military research.

* * *

Strassler is a fish in the legal sea of physics; the world outside the legal sea of physics does not exist for him. Unfortunately for us Strassler has the academic authority to enforce that the universe is limited to his sea of physics and that his sea of physics is the whole universe. This is yet another deception trademarked by Learned Doctors. These charlatans are masters of defining what they know as the only true knowledge. These charlatans don’t know the entirety of the universe, so they defined what they know as the entire universe.

* * *

These are Strassler’s true areas of expertise:

– Shuffling legal physics equations
– Reducing data by statistical methods
– Teaching elementary physics to new recruits
– Saving the doctrine by casuistry

None of which gives him expertise to discuss philosophical topics. As a physicist Strassler enjoys the absolute authority to define new words and redefine and corrupt existing words. It is a simple matter for him to define his casuistry to be “physics”. And so he does. Strassler claims to decide the question of the indivisibility of the electron by physical arguments while all he does is sophistry.

* * *

Strassler’s philosophical commentary on the divisibility of the electron is nothing more than propaganda in the service of the doctrine.

Therefore, not only Strassler is not qualified to write about a philosophical topic (which simply means a topic outside of legal physics) but he is incapable of analyzing properly a philosophical problem without corrupting it and turning it into casuistic, self-serving physics propaganda. This is proved by the article we referred to. We will expose Strassler’s polemical sophistry and casuistry by looking at his commentary sentence by sentence.

But how can Strassler get away with calling such blatant ideological physics propaganda a scientific argument? The answer is very clear. There is no independent authority in academic physics to check, inspect, audit, examine or supervise Strassler’s writings. He is a self-anointed Learned Doctor of Philosophy who claims to have absolute authority in everything he writes about, no matter what the subject is.

Strassler writes a philosophical commentary on a philosophical topic and presents it as physics. The deception is clear: Strassler claims that because he calls himself a physicist, and he defined the word “physicist” to be a synonym for the word “scientist”, everything he writes no matter what, must be considered scientific discourse.

But the contrary is actually true.

Nothing Strassler writes in the name of physics can pass the test of scientific logic, simply because Strassler is not bound by the scientific logic (i.e., Aristotelian logic) but he practices the legal logic of physics. Legal logic is the old art of casuistry based on the authoritative assertion that all contradictory meanings of a loaded word are true and false, case by case, as needed. The professional casuist decides which meaning is true in what context.

In legal logic there are no contradictions. For Strassler contradiction does not exist, that is why he can combine contradictory words such as “point particle” and use each of the contradictory terms casuistically and claim both meanings are true when he says so. That’s why he can call a wave a particle and write long casuistic polemics to justify why a wave is a particle… and why a wave is not a particle when Strassler says so.

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The funny thing is that Strassler is a philosopher by profession. His professional title is Doctor of Philosophy. His professional ancestors are the Doctors of Philosophy who would not look through Galileo’s telescope. But Strassler is a “philosopher” in the worst sense of the word; he is a polemical sophist serving the brotherhood of physics.

Strassler is the personification of sophistry: He is a philosopher who denies that he is a philosopher but makes his living by philosophizing and calls his philosophizing physics!

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Strassler’s writings are worth analyzing only because his writings are perfect specimens of casuistry and sophistry. Strassler’s posts read like material out of Aristotle’ On Sophistical Refutations. But there is nothing so special about Strassler’s writings, the same casuistry and sophistry is routinely used by all physicists. Here’s another good example. So what we say here applies to all academic physicists, not only to Strassler. He is more visible than the others and he’s been laying the groundwork to start a career as a Professor of Secrets to reveal the hidden secrets of the world supposedly by shuffling physics equations. This is the deception that needs to be exposed.

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• Part two of this post.

The entire book is a series of deceptions invented to perpetuate physics mythology.  To start with, the author himself admits that the title of his book is a deception because what he is talking about (Higgs particle) is not a particle and whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the end of the universe. The publisher chose the title to sell as many books as possible by sensationalizing the latest physics public relation campaign branded as “Higgs particle”.

The subtitle of the book tells us that the book is about How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World. What a lie! A better subtitle is: How the huge hierarchical bureaucracy of physics negotiates the official party line for a new amendment to the Standard Model.

Buy this book and learn how physics and professional Learned Doctors such as Sean Carroll are spreading misinformation and propaganda to embellish the existing physics mythology by programming your perception of nature with misinformation and propaganda.