I looked at Sean Carroll’s blog on the thread on emergence and for me first principle was a dirty word to Robert Laughlin, and for many of us, the forms are the resulting framework of the organization of matter states, versus reductionistic attempts leading to the first building blocks of matter?

Robert Betts Laughlin (born November 1, 1950) is a professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Along with Horst L. Störmer of Columbia University and Daniel C. Tsui of Princeton University, he was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics for his explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. In the period of 2004-2006 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.

Laughlin shares similar views to George Chapline, doubting the existence of black holes.

It is rather obvious that one does not need to prove the existence of sound in a solid, for it follows from the existence of elastic moduli at long length scales, which in turn follows from the spontaneous breaking of translational and rotational symmetry characteristic of the crystalline state [12]. Conversely, one therefore learns nothing about the atomic structure of a crystalline solid by measuring its acoustics Robert Laughlin

So such a view of Robert Laughlin does not concern itself with what took place at the very beginning of the universe, but rather opposed to the higg’s field, and the organizational process of matter, we might see of the professor crossing the room, there is real manifestation of the universe in the now. So I see where Professor Laughlin polarities are much different then high energy particle people?

Complexity changes these views, from a reductionistic view, as in particle identification, to one of a expansionary nature, when looking at our universe now?

Robert Laughlin is very helpful in showing us the complexity issue ballooning into a real world measure, of solid state and formative issues. But no where is this idealization asking what the basis of this existence is? Does it care?

The Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) is a University of California multicampus research project devoted to revealing the principles by which matter, both living and inanimate, organizes itself to reveal surprising, emergent behavior.

Certain assumptions make this universe and our perceptions of it, point to a reality. But in order to leave the confines of constructive formations and these ballooning attributes of universal expansionism, where are the seeds of its beginnings? Does it matter?

Emergent Matter Project
There is a huge potential public interest in learning about the frontier that connects inanimate matter, via quantum emergent properties such as magnetism, high temperature superconductivity, and quantum criticality, to the worlds of nanophysics and ultimately to biology and life itself.

What Lies Beneath?

Likewise, if the very fabric of the Universe is in a quantum-critical state, then the “stuff” that underlies reality is totally irrelevant-it could be anything, says Laughlin. Even if the string theorists show that strings can give rise to the matter and natural laws we know, they won’t have proved that strings are the answer-merely one of the infinite number of possible answers. It could as well be pool balls or Lego bricks or drunk sergeant majors.

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See:

Dialogos of Eide