Daniel Whiteson

It accommodates the universe.

The question though, is the Higgs boson real?

That's a different question.

That asks, you know, is it the only way to describe the universe?

Is it there when nobody's looking?

What do you mean by that?

This is not a wave function collapse argument, is it?

I mean, is the Higgs boson the map or is it the territory?

When we describe what's going to happen out there, we use the Higgs boson.

When the universe decides what to do, what's going to happen in the universe, is it using the Higgs boson?

Or is there something else going on in the universe's true description of reality?

Is this our effective description that works really, really well?

Or is it reality itself, beyond our ability to probe it and to think about it and ask questions?

And this is a hard question to grapple with because it's not a science question.

It's a philosophy question.

I mean, is the Higgs boson real beyond our ability to test it, beyond our ability to do experiments?

Because obviously the experiments match up with the theory.

Sure.

So scientifically, yes, it's part of our theory.

It works.