In the most scientific way possible? How real is the possibility that there might actually be alternative universes?

vis4valentine@lemmy.ml to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 74 points –
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Scientifically, we cannot yet talk about theories that are untestable and unfalsifiable. Sure, math or some other theory may imply other dimensions or parellel universes, but how will you measure one?

Would a ruler suffice?

Oof sorry. Gonna need a protractor.

Is that a tractor that lost its amateur status?

Yeah, he took a case of blueberry jam from the neighbor after he helped them out one day, plowing their fields while their Deere was broken down amd they waited for an expert to fly in from Portland.

Cost his team the championship. Forfieted the entire season.

Scientifically, there are no theories that are untestable and unfalsifiable.

How can you test/falsify the existence of something you can't interact with in any way?

Most likely you couldn't. But sometimes you can be aware of something (X) simply by seeing the effect it has on other things, even if you can't directly observe X. Think of Pluto, dark matter and dark energy; didn't/don't know what it is, but we know something is there.

My original comment was pointing out that a scientific theory is a framework that takes into account all the data. So something that is untestable and unfalsifiable definitionally could not be a theory. You'd be in hypothesis territory at best, but likely just conjecture.

Right, thanks for the clarification. Although in this context, the "theory" in question is the existence of alternate universes, so the most logical interpretation of your comment is that it is possible to test for the existence of an alternate universe.

There are a great many theories that are untestable and unfalsifiable. The existence of a God or a Creator is a hotly debated one, for instance.

Scientifically. No there aren't.

You're talking about hypotheses.

I think I know what you mean but if it's what I think you are doing a terrible job at explaining it. Theories in the scientific jargon are not the same as theories in the common parlance. What the commoner calls a "theory" is what we call a conjecture or an hypothesis. A theory in science is a summarization of experimental results, so if this is your take, I get your point.

I think I know what you mean, but using words like parlance and commoner makes you sound like a douche nozzle.

God is not a theory. There are no facts to support it and it has no predictive capabilities.

Evolution is a theory that demonstrates that species change via changes in genes. It is supported by facts and studies across multiple disciplines and has predictive capabilities.

One is science, the other is mythology.

There are some facts to support it, the problem is in the latter. Merely describing a system isn't sufficient, it's predicting more information. One can just as easily describe physics "as the things that are" but this doesn't let us find more information about the universe.

If your mathematical model tells you something should exist, doesn't that necessarily mean that it's something you can interact with, and thus measure given sufficiently advanced technology?

Perhaps but it's still not testable at that point.

Interestingly, parts of this universe are right now becoming unmeasurable, un observable, unfalsifiable to us even now. With dark energy propelling the expansion of space at an increasing rate, far-away regions of space can be moving away from us faster than light. This means they’re no longer part of our observable universe - we’ll never be able to reach them, see light from there, interact with these places in any way. Not the same universe anymore.

Someday living beings in the Milky Way might believe it’s the only galaxy that exists because no others will be observed. If one of them postulates that maybe there are all these other galaxies that are just out of reach - pinched off from our universe - in parallel universes you might say…. if someone says all that, it could also be just as handily dismissed.

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