12 ms·

If it's unobservable in principle, then it's beyond the realm of science. Any such "models" would be philosophy.

aydyn 3y ago
Unobservable is not the same as unknowable. For example, the form of the universe beyond what can be observed could correlate with a testable hypothesis in the observed universe.
- wholinator2 3y ago
  I think the idea is that it could but it would be impossible to know that. It can be fun to speculate but by definition it is impossible to know. It's not just that light can't get in at us, it's that literally the idea of causality cannot travel fast enoigh to reach us. I believe our light cone will keep expanding slightly before accelerated expansion takes over and starts reducing it but that timescale will far far outlive us humans. As it stands right now there is an impenetrable barrier. All of our modern theories and technology for astrophysics and cosmology emerged recently. We haven't know about the big bang for 100 years even. I think it's highly likely that our views on these things will change. For all we know we could be inside a hyperbig black hole inside some much larger universe. We can make models that fit what we're able to see and then use those to extrapolate the things we cannot. But we cannot see what we cannot see. By the way, to me, "unobservable is not unknowable", sounds pretty philosophy to me. All of the physics we cannot observe, we currently cannot explain. Maybe some day with some great minds leap nobody saw coming, maybe hundreds of those, but everything i not of that cannot be observed cannot be known certainly. There must be some interaction, whether we're seeing gravitational waves, light, high energy particles doesn't matter, they still all travel at the speed of light and will be outpaced by expansion at some point.
  - aydyn 3y ago
    > It can be fun to speculate but by definition it is impossible to know. I think the distinction is way more blurry than you're acknowledging. For example, the way we "know" what atoms look like is by technology like x-ray crystallography or scanning tunneling microscopes. In these cases, we're in no sense directly observing the atoms, were looking at correlated electric or photonic signals and using mathematical equations to infer what the atoms look like. In this case there truly is an "impenetrable barrier" to observation, instead of speed of light, it's wavelength of visible light. The amount of physics we cannot directly observe is much larger than amount of physics we can, without even getting into quantum phenomenon which we also cannot observe even in principal.
fartsucker69 3y ago
iq 30 take
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
eru 3y ago
Two points: (1) There are points of the universe that are currently unobservable, because their light hasn't hit us yes, but that will become observable in five minutes. I posit that they are already in the realm of science now, and not just in five minutes. (2) Please read the article. The author directly addresses this point: > Anyway, my point is that speculative ideas are all very well but they don’t mean much if you can’t test them. This one at least has the virtue of making testable predictions.

Unobservable is not the same as unknowable. For example, the form of the universe beyond what can be observed could correlate with a testable hypothesis in the observed universe.

wholinator2 3y ago
I think the idea is that it could but it would be impossible to know that. It can be fun to speculate but by definition it is impossible to know. It's not just that light can't get in at us, it's that literally the idea of causality cannot travel fast enoigh to reach us. I believe our light cone will keep expanding slightly before accelerated expansion takes over and starts reducing it but that timescale will far far outlive us humans. As it stands right now there is an impenetrable barrier. All of our modern theories and technology for astrophysics and cosmology emerged recently. We haven't know about the big bang for 100 years even. I think it's highly likely that our views on these things will change. For all we know we could be inside a hyperbig black hole inside some much larger universe. We can make models that fit what we're able to see and then use those to extrapolate the things we cannot. But we cannot see what we cannot see. By the way, to me, "unobservable is not unknowable", sounds pretty philosophy to me. All of the physics we cannot observe, we currently cannot explain. Maybe some day with some great minds leap nobody saw coming, maybe hundreds of those, but everything i not of that cannot be observed cannot be known certainly. There must be some interaction, whether we're seeing gravitational waves, light, high energy particles doesn't matter, they still all travel at the speed of light and will be outpaced by expansion at some point.
- aydyn 3y ago
  > It can be fun to speculate but by definition it is impossible to know. I think the distinction is way more blurry than you're acknowledging. For example, the way we "know" what atoms look like is by technology like x-ray crystallography or scanning tunneling microscopes. In these cases, we're in no sense directly observing the atoms, were looking at correlated electric or photonic signals and using mathematical equations to infer what the atoms look like. In this case there truly is an "impenetrable barrier" to observation, instead of speed of light, it's wavelength of visible light. The amount of physics we cannot directly observe is much larger than amount of physics we can, without even getting into quantum phenomenon which we also cannot observe even in principal.

fartsucker69 3y ago

iq 30 take

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

eru 3y ago

Two points: (1) There are points of the universe that are currently unobservable, because their light hasn't hit us yes, but that will become observable in five minutes. I posit that they are already in the realm of science now, and not just in five minutes. (2) Please read the article. The author directly addresses this point: > Anyway, my point is that speculative ideas are all very well but they don’t mean much if you can’t test them. This one at least has the virtue of making testable predictions.