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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 onl

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.
- corethree 3y ago
  So if a true statement can never be falsified then according to you it can still be falsifiable? If your way of defining it is true then it's just a bad formal definition of falsifiability because you can make a sentence that sounds nonsensical like the one I made above. It means falsify and falsifiability are two different words with different definitions. When you look at the words they appear to be the same word with just different suffixes. Let's examine the implications of your definition more carefully. If I falsify something. I either failed or succeeded at falsifying it. If there exists a thing that where all possible attempts at falsification will fail then it is still "falsifiable" because the attempt to falsify was possible?? If you are impossible to kill then you are still killable? If numbers cannot be divided by zero but it is still "divisible" by zero because I can make a fool hardy attempt at it? From this I will say that my colloquial use of the term is actually better than your claim about the formal definition of falsifiability. Better to use the word "observability". One cannot gather observable evidence to conduct an experiment. That's the key differentiator here.
  - jjk166 3y ago
    No, falsifiability is referring to the nature of the test, not the end result. Falsifiability means you can conduct a test that, if it gave a negative result, would mean the claim has to be false. The claim that the sun will rise tomorrow is falsifiable; the claim the sun will rise eventually is not falsifiable. Both claims are true, both will be observed, but only for the first would a negative result contradict the claim.
    - corethree 3y ago
      My point if you followed carefully is that "falsifiability" is inconsistent with the term "falsify" because "falsify" refers to the result of the test. Think carefully: a statement that is falsified means the result of the test is false. So falsify refers to the result but falsifiability does not? Reread my post, I don't think you read it fully. If falsifiability is defined as your claim then such a statement can be true: "The Pythagorean theorem cannot be falsified but it is falsifiable" Which sounds obviously nonsensical. This is inconsistent with how we use the -able suffix in other words: "The code cannot be extended but it is extendable" I'm not referring to any official definition here, just pointing out the language problem that arises if we assume what you say is true. But here is the official definition anyway: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/falsifiability https://www.dictionary.com/browse/falsifiability Which basically is pretty solid evidence for you being wrong. But at the same time I think you all are pulling some formalized definition from philosophy or something which probably has a different meaning defined for it. My argument is that the formalized definition is worse than the colloquial one in the English dictionary because the English definition is more logically consistent with the rest of the English language. It's debatable which definition is more appropriate for this context. But assuming not everyone is a philosophy major I would say the definition in the English dictionary is more relevant.

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.

corethree 3y ago
So if a true statement can never be falsified then according to you it can still be falsifiable? If your way of defining it is true then it's just a bad formal definition of falsifiability because you can make a sentence that sounds nonsensical like the one I made above. It means falsify and falsifiability are two different words with different definitions. When you look at the words they appear to be the same word with just different suffixes. Let's examine the implications of your definition more carefully. If I falsify something. I either failed or succeeded at falsifying it. If there exists a thing that where all possible attempts at falsification will fail then it is still "falsifiable" because the attempt to falsify was possible?? If you are impossible to kill then you are still killable? If numbers cannot be divided by zero but it is still "divisible" by zero because I can make a fool hardy attempt at it? From this I will say that my colloquial use of the term is actually better than your claim about the formal definition of falsifiability. Better to use the word "observability". One cannot gather observable evidence to conduct an experiment. That's the key differentiator here.
- jjk166 3y ago
  No, falsifiability is referring to the nature of the test, not the end result. Falsifiability means you can conduct a test that, if it gave a negative result, would mean the claim has to be false. The claim that the sun will rise tomorrow is falsifiable; the claim the sun will rise eventually is not falsifiable. Both claims are true, both will be observed, but only for the first would a negative result contradict the claim.
  - corethree 3y ago
    My point if you followed carefully is that "falsifiability" is inconsistent with the term "falsify" because "falsify" refers to the result of the test. Think carefully: a statement that is falsified means the result of the test is false. So falsify refers to the result but falsifiability does not? Reread my post, I don't think you read it fully. If falsifiability is defined as your claim then such a statement can be true: "The Pythagorean theorem cannot be falsified but it is falsifiable" Which sounds obviously nonsensical. This is inconsistent with how we use the -able suffix in other words: "The code cannot be extended but it is extendable" I'm not referring to any official definition here, just pointing out the language problem that arises if we assume what you say is true. But here is the official definition anyway: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/falsifiability https://www.dictionary.com/browse/falsifiability Which basically is pretty solid evidence for you being wrong. But at the same time I think you all are pulling some formalized definition from philosophy or something which probably has a different meaning defined for it. My argument is that the formalized definition is worse than the colloquial one in the English dictionary because the English definition is more logically consistent with the rest of the English language. It's debatable which definition is more appropriate for this context. But assuming not everyone is a philosophy major I would say the definition in the English dictionary is more relevant.