filtherton

That doesn't invalidate what I said. The idea of an electron is a very useful one for explaining the behavior damn near everything, but that doesn't mean that there is actually such a thing as an electron.


Yes, you and i can both be fairly certain that it would prudent to get out of the way of a speeding car, and as long as one doesn't dig too deep, completely logically sound. But once you pass a certain threshold, all you have is a completely unproven faith in your own perceptive abilities.

It is circular. In the parlance of proof such things beg the question. "I think, therefore i am', is just another way of saying "I exist because i can experience things." Unless you're just going to call it axiomatic, it begs the question: How can you be certain that existence is a necessary condition for experiencing things? Have you ever not existed, and did you experience anything then? Is it possible to exist and experience nothing?

If it's axiomatic then it would be beneficial to be aware that axioms cannot validate themselves. If it isn't axiomatic (it kinda has to be axiomatic) then the the implication is that there exists some sort of proof.

These may seem like dumb questions. For most any sort of real problem they are. They do, however, speak to the inherent subjectivity of existence.

I was pointing out that it is fallacious to extend models beyond the assumptions used to create them. I was drawing an analogy between over extending models for fluid flow to you over extending the models that make up modern physics.

I didn't say anything about wrongness. I just said that nobody knows whether one is "true" or not. Either one explains observable phenomena pretty accurately, but they can't both be "true". Occam's razor isn't science.

Look, i'm not saying science hasn't developed a pretty reliable and useful way of understanding and doing things, i'm just saying that it is a mistake to treat scientific models as anything other than models. They aren't reality, they just predict it well under many circumstances. It is a fine point, but a valid one nonetheless.

Well, when you claimed that an alternate set of universal laws would prohibit the existence of matter, because of the "wonderful interconnectivity with the theories of science." Implicit in this assumption is that you can use current models to predict whether matter could form under conditions for which the current models don't apply.

Why would you expect any of the current theories of science to have anything interesting to say about a universe with different physical laws? Why would the prevalence of certain constants in a universe such as ours necessarily imply anything about a universe with different physical laws than ours.

You and willravel can start a club.