: Please, elaborate on this description; I'm quite
: interested.
Well, in a simple relativistic view there's nothing--matter, energy, field fluctuations--that travels faster than light. So all the stuff which happened five seconds before an event and could affect it must be within five light-seconds of that event's spatial location. All the stuff 1 year before an event which could affect it must be within a light-year of its location. And so forth. Thus you get a past light cone of all the events in history which could ever have influenced the event at that cone's apex. Take any slice of this cone, look at it, and you have in theory enough information to predict exactly what will happen to that event in question.
But if information can travel at up to infinite speeds--or even beyond, moving back in time--then you can never look at enough of the universe to predict a single event. What if it happens to be quantum-entangled with some system in another galaxy? Every decay or interaction produces some amount of entanglement...
: Pardon me, Sili, but science is not entirely theorem.
: That's just the first part of the scientific meathod.
: The theory is tested, over and over again, through any
: number of infinite ways, until a pattern and a
: conclusion can be observed. The hypothesis is then
: reformed, and the process repeats. We don't just
: guess . Talk about unscientific! Science is based on
: proof through the evidence of the world. We take
: information and compile it all into one datum, then
: make a, truly, educated and informed reasoning, not a
: guess, based on that information. Our being wrong at
: times has nothing, nothing , to do with guessing, but
: with factors we could not have foreseen. That's why we
: often learn the strangest and most profound things
: accidentally instead of deliberately, how more
: interesting ideas can be derived from a quest so
: completely different, for instance how that Brazilian
: Nuclear Physicist set out to disprove all the crazy
: myths of the world, including Atlantis. Guess what; he
: found it! Lol, how unsual is that?
: That's the discovery of science, but most of the time, we
: get an answer, sometimes as desired, through the
: scientific meathod, not pure theorem.
When you make a prediction and there are factors you can't foresee, that's called "guessing." If you don't believe there are unforeseeable factors until your guess turns out to be wrong, that's called "foolhardy guessing." :-)
And no theory is infinitely tested. They can't be. Conservation of energy remains a guess: I could walk outside right now and watch a brick suddenly contain 500 terajoules of energy, explode and vaporize me. I don't think it will happen, because I think the inductive principle is valid and any simple theory which has been right many times in the past will probably be true in the future. But that's a guess. It's a good guess, but it's still a guess.
: Lol, you can't possibly think it's nothing more than
: that! You missed a lot in the middle.
: Objects fall to Earth because of gravity. Gravity is an
: affectation of the fabric of spacetime which causes it
: to curve and bend. An object of mass creates this
: gravitational field, the curving of spacetime. When
: two of these bubble-like depressions surrounding
: corresponding objects of mass become coterminous, a
: path of particularly depressed and curved space forms
: between them. This region of space allows both objects
: to fall towards this central area of gravitational
: depression, as two balls on a rubber sheet. Gravity,
: in all its aspects, is determined by the following
: equations…
: Equations only indeed.
And could someone predict anything about the world from what you just said, right up until you mentioned the equations? "Gravity is an affectation of the fabric of spacetime which causes it to curve and bend." What does that mean? What does that imply about the behavior of the world? Nuttin'. It simply evokes a nice mental picture so we can optimize our inefficient human brains to deal with the math.
Don't get me wrong; words and explanations are invaluable. But that's because humans just aren't that good at math, and we're not really prepared to start thinking in a new way until we have a story and a picture to help us.
: As far as aesthetics, Relativity is by far the most
: beautiful. Does this make it anthrocentric or divine?
: Divine, naturally, as it's proven, and certainly a
: first step to something more.
: Also, you'll note, the simplest explanation is often the
: correct one, as Ockham so keenly pointed out.
: Therefore, picking the simplest and/or prettiest
: theory is a reasonable way of furthering scientific
: knowledge.
: THIS is why we choose, yes, the simplest and prettiest
: theory; it'll likely be correct! Look at Relativity
: again: four simple equations can determine the base of
: the whole thing, and its natural curvature and
: elegance is entirely gorgeous to behold.
: This is divine beauty and simplicity, a common aspect of
: nature.
: That's where it stops, and it's also where you stop, just
: at the theory, as your argument is solebased on
: theorem equalling all science.
Many people would argue with you over whether relativity is prettier than QM, or even simpler (when you consider their relative scopes.) The wave-particle unification of QM is just as slick as the time-space unification of relativity. They're both damn beautiful to me. And now we have relativistic QM, so you don't need to choose...
As for Ockham--we simply don't know if he's right. How can you say that the simplest explanation will likely be correct? I can write down a very simple explanation--E = 0--which is definitely wrong. I can write down a more complex equation--E = mc^2 except every 23,000 years, when E = mc^3 for 1 second--which may indeed be true, although we won't know for 23,000 years. How do you go about assigning probabilities, aside from personal preference for the inductive principle? And don't tell me the inductive principle is proven. We all know about that. :-)
--SiliconDream
