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The only reason we claim that no information can escape a black hole is because of a theory that makes assertions about what is beyond the event horizon. In oth

The only reason we claim that no information can escape a black hole is because of a theory that makes assertions about what is beyond the event horizon. In other words, it's a claim that is only unfalsifiable... if it is true. If you reject the theory because it makes unfalsifiable claims, you no longer get to claim they are unfalsifiable.

throwoutway 3y ago
That's not science, that's making assertions and yelling 'fallacy!' at other people
- philipov 3y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what using one of the outputs of a theory to claim it is unfalsifiable is like.
  - pantulis 3y ago
    We know that General Relativity breaks at the singularity which means the maths are wrong there, but to replace GR you have to: 1) solve the BH thingy and 2) be compatible with GR in the other scenarios. GR is not a "hypothesis", it's well established fact and has been verified to death. While we wait a more general theoretical model comes out (string theory? quantum loop gravity? who knows), working with the imperfect tools we have is the most sensible approach.
    - vlovich123 3y ago
      I mean we haven’t reconciled quantum & GR yet but we still use quantum for quantum scale things and GR for larger scale distances just fine. It’s not impossible to have a separate model for within the singularity that only applies within the singularity without having to unify it with GR. As long as there are falsifiable claims being made within the context of the new theory that can be tested somehow, that’s all that matters.
      - pantulis 3y ago
        I'm not sure I follow when you say "it's not impossible". I would rephrase that as "it's useful", as is it's productive to work with the tools we have. But in the end we all know that new physics need to be developed because the assumption is that there is only one reality and thus we should strive to reach a unifying theoretical model. Or are you suggesting there it is not possible to achieve a single theoretical model of reality?
        philipov 3y ago
        Well, the thing I was originally suggesting was that people should not be so quick to call something unfalsifiable just because GR predicts we can't directly look inside black holes.
corethree 3y ago
All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. And all true claims cannot be proven by science. Proof is the domain of logic and math, in science you can only falsify things. I quoted this earlier I'll just quote it again for people who don't believe my second statement about science: "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Albert Einstein So your statement applies to literally everything outside of the black hole as well. We literally will not ever prove something like general relativity to be true. And so far we have only made a bunch of failed attempts to falsify it. We only assume it to be true just like the assumptions made in about things inside the event horizon. So your statement, while not intentionally so, is pointless. I think the main difference people are missing here is that everything beyond the event horizon hasn't ever been observed. And it's theorized to be unobservable.
- jameshart 3y ago
  > All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. That’s not what ‘falsifiable’ means. ‘Pi is irrational’ is falsifiable, in that if you can show me integer p and q such that p/q = pi, you would have demonstrated that statement to be false. The fact we can show that no such p and q exist is what renders the truth of that statement proven. ‘Falsifiability’ of a statement is the property that makes the statement amenable to being evaluated for truth.
  - corethree 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38645039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38645039
- philipov 3y ago
  > All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. This is misunderstanding what falsifiability entails. A claim is falsifiable if one can, in principle, come up with experiments to disprove it. Just because a true claim will never be disproven by those experiments does not make it unfalsifiable. It could have been disproven, had it been false, and that is enough.
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I'm not rejecting the theory, I'm embracing it. It says that information cannot escape and I'm saying "OK". The leap that I'm raising an eyebrow at is the assumption that GR is applicable "inside" of a black hole. It's a very nice theory: it knows its boundaries. It's a little strange that we're trying to apply it on both sides of those boundaries, given that they are also our boundaries. I wouldn't go so far as saying that applying GR inside a black hole is like applying GR in a critique of Star Wars, but I do think that that's the sort of distinction we're talking about here. Assuming the consistency of the laws of physics across separate universes might be kid of cool, but it's never going to be as justified as assuming their consistency within the same universe. And that's what the inside of a black hole is, supposing it exists: a separate universe, a place that will never be in our light cone. (Or, GR is wrong, and we actually can get information from there, which would be interesting too, but I'm assuming for the present that GR will continue to make good predictions.)
- philipov 3y ago
  We only know that information can't escape a black hole by applying GR inside the boundary of the black hole, and by doing so, we find out there's a boundary. If you can't apply GR inside the boundary, you can't generate the proposition that there is a boundary in the first place. It's the logical equivalent of sawing off the side of the board you're standing on, Wile E. Coyote style; it's a load-bearing part of the theory. I think you'd need to find some other way of generating the conclusions of GR (a different board to stand on) if you want to eject the interior of black holes from consideration. EDIT: Oh, and there are people trying to do that, I think, but it's not that easy.

throwoutway 3y ago

That's not science, that's making assertions and yelling 'fallacy!' at other people

philipov 3y ago
Yes, that's exactly what using one of the outputs of a theory to claim it is unfalsifiable is like.
- pantulis 3y ago
  We know that General Relativity breaks at the singularity which means the maths are wrong there, but to replace GR you have to: 1) solve the BH thingy and 2) be compatible with GR in the other scenarios. GR is not a "hypothesis", it's well established fact and has been verified to death. While we wait a more general theoretical model comes out (string theory? quantum loop gravity? who knows), working with the imperfect tools we have is the most sensible approach.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    I mean we haven’t reconciled quantum & GR yet but we still use quantum for quantum scale things and GR for larger scale distances just fine. It’s not impossible to have a separate model for within the singularity that only applies within the singularity without having to unify it with GR. As long as there are falsifiable claims being made within the context of the new theory that can be tested somehow, that’s all that matters.
    - pantulis 3y ago
      I'm not sure I follow when you say "it's not impossible". I would rephrase that as "it's useful", as is it's productive to work with the tools we have. But in the end we all know that new physics need to be developed because the assumption is that there is only one reality and thus we should strive to reach a unifying theoretical model. Or are you suggesting there it is not possible to achieve a single theoretical model of reality?
      - philipov 3y ago
        Well, the thing I was originally suggesting was that people should not be so quick to call something unfalsifiable just because GR predicts we can't directly look inside black holes.

corethree 3y ago

All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. And all true claims cannot be proven by science. Proof is the domain of logic and math, in science you can only falsify things. I quoted this earlier I'll just quote it again for people who don't believe my second statement about science: "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Albert Einstein So your statement applies to literally everything outside of the black hole as well. We literally will not ever prove something like general relativity to be true. And so far we have only made a bunch of failed attempts to falsify it. We only assume it to be true just like the assumptions made in about things inside the event horizon. So your statement, while not intentionally so, is pointless. I think the main difference people are missing here is that everything beyond the event horizon hasn't ever been observed. And it's theorized to be unobservable.

jameshart 3y ago
> All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. That’s not what ‘falsifiable’ means. ‘Pi is irrational’ is falsifiable, in that if you can show me integer p and q such that p/q = pi, you would have demonstrated that statement to be false. The fact we can show that no such p and q exist is what renders the truth of that statement proven. ‘Falsifiability’ of a statement is the property that makes the statement amenable to being evaluated for truth.
- corethree 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38645039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38645039
philipov 3y ago
> All true claims are unfalsifiable by definition. This is misunderstanding what falsifiability entails. A claim is falsifiable if one can, in principle, come up with experiments to disprove it. Just because a true claim will never be disproven by those experiments does not make it unfalsifiable. It could have been disproven, had it been false, and that is enough.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I'm not rejecting the theory, I'm embracing it. It says that information cannot escape and I'm saying "OK". The leap that I'm raising an eyebrow at is the assumption that GR is applicable "inside" of a black hole. It's a very nice theory: it knows its boundaries. It's a little strange that we're trying to apply it on both sides of those boundaries, given that they are also our boundaries. I wouldn't go so far as saying that applying GR inside a black hole is like applying GR in a critique of Star Wars, but I do think that that's the sort of distinction we're talking about here. Assuming the consistency of the laws of physics across separate universes might be kid of cool, but it's never going to be as justified as assuming their consistency within the same universe. And that's what the inside of a black hole is, supposing it exists: a separate universe, a place that will never be in our light cone. (Or, GR is wrong, and we actually can get information from there, which would be interesting too, but I'm assuming for the present that GR will continue to make good predictions.)

philipov 3y ago
We only know that information can't escape a black hole by applying GR inside the boundary of the black hole, and by doing so, we find out there's a boundary. If you can't apply GR inside the boundary, you can't generate the proposition that there is a boundary in the first place. It's the logical equivalent of sawing off the side of the board you're standing on, Wile E. Coyote style; it's a load-bearing part of the theory. I think you'd need to find some other way of generating the conclusions of GR (a different board to stand on) if you want to eject the interior of black holes from consideration. EDIT: Oh, and there are people trying to do that, I think, but it's not that easy.