(April 11, 2014 at 5:50 pm)Heywood Wrote:(April 11, 2014 at 5:27 pm)Chuck Wrote: No, I do not agree.
Observable natural world may or may not be all there is. But the fact that it is in principle unobservable means in its broadest sense whatever may or may not be there has no detectable impact in principle and is thus totally indistibguishable from not being there.
So assertion that there must be something worth asserting there is as good as a petulent fart in polite company.
You can't ever know it is there, so don't pretend it is there.
Chuck, do you tell the string theorists not to believe extra dimensions or other physicists not to believe in multiple universe?
I think its become very difficult to construct a coherent world view with out employing the need for elements of reality to exists outside the observable.
No self-respecting physicist would claim to believe in extra dimensions or parallel universes. Also, who says extra dimensions etc. are unobservable? A theory doesn't become part of "standard science" (stuff that is generally accepted in the scientific community) unless it is at the very least an observable phenomenon.
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R Tolkien