>>We need two theories/models to explain them. General Relativity for gravitation, Quantum Mechanics for the rest.
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>>Those two theories, unfortunately, aren't entirely compatible, so the implication is one is wrong (or both are wrong).
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>>String theory (along with others, such as loop quantum gravity) are attempts to reconcile them into one theory.
>
>With the nice quirk that they don't offer anything that could be proven, at least for the time being. It's more of a mental experiment, so far.


Proven is, I understand it, a dirty word in science.

If string theories predictions match quantum and relativistic phenomena, then one would be justified in saying it is a better theory than QM or GR, because neither one can do that individually and together there are incompatibilities.

The reason some people are skeptical of string theory (I am, but for different reasons) is because they say it makes no new predictions.

New predictions are usually a home run, total knock out. But meeting all the old predictions with a single theory is still worth the win.



>>What the article I cited propose is that with future computing power we will be able to simulate a human being.
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>>What I propose is that we simulate a human being making a measurement (for example reading time from an analog clock, which means we would also need to simulate the clock and the light reflecting off it into the human's eyes).
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>>From there, we figure out the measurement made by the simulated human being, whether reading his brain waves, or having him record it in some manner we can decipher.
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>>This is just a thought experiment for now, but when the computing power exists to perform the computer experiment for real, I predict the following:
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>>the measurements made by the internal observer will agree with the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics as well as relativistic effects *even* when the underlying model does not.
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>>
>>If so, such a model would single handedly be validated by all observations and evidence, an accomplishment that neither General Relativity nor Quantum Mechanics can claim.
>
>Ah, but this simulated person would observe the nature of simulated universe - but are we sure that the behavior of the universe would truly reflect the nature of the outside universe, if the behavior of simulated particles composing it is simulated to the best of experimenters' limited knowledge?

How would we know whether or model, that makes accurate predictions about nature, is truly reflecting nature or just a useful approximation?

We wouldn't.

This is why "proven" is a dirty word. Newtonian mechanics was "proven" over and over and over, until we started seeing its limits.

Observations don't "prove" that theories are correct.

They can however, seem to offer some fairly certain proof that they are false.



>I can imagine a simulation solve a puzzle when the initial conditions in it are set true to the reality it simulates, by transcending the shortcomings of the human mind in the deduction. The simulation doesn't have to care about politics, hierarchy, taboos, digestion, marital problems and other obstacles to clear thinking, and it is in such situations where I can expect it to help us gain knowledge.

Heh, dreamer. ;-)


>But in this case, you have a hugely complex puzzle, where the first main problem to solve is how many pieces of the puzzle are missing. Or you can blindly trust the result which would be valid internally, as in one of Egan's complete virtual spaces, where the internal logic is flawless and not necessarily related to anything in the corporeal world.

Again, unless you have any better ideas, the main idea is the predictions churned out by the model match actual observations.


>>The Big Bang is falsified on a regular basis. This week we found a group of quasars 4 billion light years across, 1/20th the alleged size of the universe, and not possible according to current theory.
>
>That won't get it out of the human discourse anytime soon. Just as people think Marconi invented the radio, Einstein alone created his theory, psychoanalysis is a branch of medicine or that the press is independent if it's independent from the government, so will they keep thinking that BB is the current scientific theory for another decade or two, if not five.

My bet is on 2029.

I'm more concerned about what I think and what the people who I talk to think, and can't be responsible for the entirety of public discourse. :-)