Heidelberg 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 7: Symmetries and Principles

AGPhil 7.3: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 23. März 2022, 17:30–18:00, AGPhil-H14

Naturalness and the Heuristic Role of Scientific Principles — •Enno Fischer — Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung

The naturalness principle roughly demands that a theory should not involve independent parameters that are finely tuned. This principle was employed heavily over the last 40 years by theoretical physicists as a guideline for developing theories of beyond the Standard Model physics (BSM). However, since experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have not found conclusive signs for new physics, the significance of naturalness arguments has been questioned and it has been suggested that high-energy physics has reached the "dawn of the post-naturalness era."

I argue that an explanation of the current shift in attitude towards naturalness can be given if we acknowledge that the naturalness principle has experienced epistemic support through the theories it has inspired. I argue that the potential coherence between major BSM proposals and the naturalness principle led to an increasing degree of credibility of the principle. The absence of new physics at the LHC has undermined the potential coherence and has led to the principle's current loss of significance. On the basis of this account I assess the heuristic role of naturalness as a guiding principle in high-energy physics and draw some tentative conclusions about the role of principles in the context of scientific progress.