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Cosmological theories in the distant future may be incorrect (alien alternatives) - C C - May 21, 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/05/19/ask-ethan-will-future-civilizations-miss-the-big-bang/ EXCERPT: One of the greatest dangers in all of science is jumping to false conclusions based on the limited data we have in our hands. We can never observe everything to arbitrary precision, so we're always forced to extrapolate based only on what we do see. But what if the critical information that would lead us to the correct conclusion is exactly what we're missing? This will be the case billions of years from now, when it comes to the Big Bang, and that frightening realization has led to a profound question from B. G. Buehler, who wants to know: If intelligent life re-emerges in our solar system in a few billion years, only a few points of light will still be visible in the sky. What kind of theory of the universe will those beings concoct? It is almost certain to be wrong. Why do we think that what we can view now can lead us to a "correct" theory when a few billion years before us, things might have looked completely different? Let's talk about what someone in the far future, say, tens of billions of years from now, would see. [...] If a far-future civilization were to look beyond our own future-galaxy, they'd see... nothing. [...] The accelerated expansion of the Universe will make us appear that we're alone in the cosmos. [....] they would conclude that their galaxy represented the full extent of the entire Universe. [...] Without any nearby clues for what else is out there, there would be no impetus to search out to the great, unexplored distances to look for the ultra-remote galaxies that would now be the nearest ones to our own. There would be no motive to assume the existence of a cosmic afterglow from the Big Bang, since the expanding Universe would go unnoticed. [...] They might discover dark matter within their own galaxy, but that's it. Unless they stumbled upon ultra-distant, ultra-faint signatures from the distant Universe, they might even believe in the steady-state hypothesis....MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/05/19/ask-ethan-will-future-civilizations-miss-the-big-bang/ RE: Cosmological theories in the distant future may be incorrect (alien alternatives) - Zinjanthropos - May 21, 2018 Similar to a Lawrence Krauss quote I think I posted a while back. Makes one wonder if today's cosmologist have all the evidence required at their disposal. The future generation will theorize and use mathematics to back it up. As Krauss says, they will undoubtedly come to the wrong conclusion but in their minds they will be correct or at least fairly certain. This causes me to wonder about not only the completeness of today's information but mathematics itself. How much incorrect math does science rely on? What are mathematicians doing that enables them to piece together equations that support theory? I think I read somewhere that it is not uncommon for mathematicians to inject their own variables to an equation to make it work. Maybe it's those added equation symbols that encourages science to look for the unknown factors necessary to complete the math, idk. RE: Cosmological theories in the distant future may be incorrect (alien alternatives) - C C - May 23, 2018 (May 21, 2018 05:05 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: . . . This causes me to wonder about not only the completeness of today's information but mathematics itself. How much incorrect math does science rely on? What are mathematicians doing that enables them to piece together equations that support theory? I think I read somewhere that it is not uncommon for mathematicians to inject their own variables to an equation to make it work. Maybe it's those added equation symbols that encourages science to look for the unknown factors necessary to complete the math, idk. Arguably, quantitative symbolism is just the language of science disciplines that are pregnant with conceptual tools and schemes (like physics). Akin to how a knife is a murder weapon, a dining utensil, or a generic purpose implement -- depending. The significance, motivation, and directional influence is carried in the human user rather than the knife itself -- but what the former projects upon the latter can have a return influence. So instead of blaming the manner of expression (mathematics), I'd maybe refine it down to potential affairs like theory-ladenness, underdetermination / overdetermination, etc. The allegiance to a "background interpretation" or set of them that the technical description rests in may provoke the practitioner to keep seeking adjustments in a model / construct. Rather than, say, just abandoning it due to loose ends (incongruities and suspended conclusions slash ambiguities). Hempel's Dilemma revolves around the idea that contemporary physics, cosmology, etc is incomplete in the current time. Thereby any "grand judgments" about "what's going on" or "what is" that is abstracted from such science enterprises are premature or bound to be altered or outright dismissed as erroneous in the future. However, that itself carries a presupposition that such can be completed -- that there is a "progress toward immutable truth" taking place rather than practical, variegated success at manipulating, controlling, and predicting (events in) the environment. It's not an operating condition "found" under a rock in nature but instead prescribed (an invented thought orientation). For instance, early humans survived -- they had success at manipulation, control, and prediction despite the conjectural side of their activity being far from any capitalized Truth (wallowing in myths and superstition). That success was much more limited than today because there wasn't the diversification of effective multiple ways of representing / conceiving the world. An ordinary bricklayer still gets by via treating bricks and mortar as just the tangible, empirical phenomena s/he sees and feels. Which is to say, s/he doesn't convert them to the alternative conceptions of chemists and physicists, though those may much factor into an architectural engineer's planning. In somewhat the same context, scientific activity itself can be interpreted in variable ways. The non-mainstream, rationalist tendency to construe it as progress toward an eventual static and immutable truth (completion) with no more disruption by revisions, assimilation, and paradigm shifts is just one. Having a lineage going back to the "beyond appearances" metaphysics of the Eleatic school, as well as later monotheistic influences. 20th Century Philosophy of Science (Book 6, p1) ~ |