Scientists, I have a request...

[TJ73]

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?
Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.
And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.
I think we would have to affirm the first question to have the potential for the second. If 1 is affirmed then there could be alternate elements as well and life based on such.

And no I am not claiming or attempting to be a scientist so try to answer in the spirit of educating.:rainbow1:

 

[David M]

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?

Quite the opposite, there is evidence that of the 4 main forces of the universe the weak nuclear force could be reduced or even removed and changes the the values of the other 3 would produce exactly the same universe that we see today.

Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.

Not really, no.

And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.

We can't say its not possible.

 

[LuisDantas]

I'm not really a scientist, but...

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?

Of course not. That kind of proof is by definition impossible.

Science assumes that the properties of the universe as constant through the universe and through time - not out of arrogance, but because there is no other practical choice.

Even so, it is among the responsibilities that science imposes itself to watch for and be aware of possible inconsistencies and to revise its own models and assumptions if need be. That is why Relativity, for instance, became accepted.

Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.

Most certainly not. That is not even a matter of science, but of philosophy instead. It is always possible for the universe to "have" more than what we are aware of.

Even in a naturalistic sense, it wasn't that long ago that we were unaware of the existence of radio waves, for example.

And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.

It is basically assumed that life can be based in other elements. We haven't really found such life yet, but it is certainly not considered an impossibility.

I think we would have to affirm the first question to have the potential for the second. If 1 is affirmed then there could be alternate elements as well and life based on such.

And no I am not claiming or attempting to be a scientist so try to answer in the spirit of educating.:rainbow1:

I hope to have helped. Best of luck.

 

[TJ73]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[micrurus]

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?
Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.
And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.
I think we would have to affirm the first question to have the potential for the second. If 1 is affirmed then there could be alternate elements as well and life based on such.

And no I am not claiming or attempting to be a scientist so try to answer in the spirit of educating.:rainbow1:

the first one, no, in science, the is no certainty, onley the probability whitch is limited by certainy. I could even make a nice mathematical graph on this but I dont know how to draw on this thing . for this, nothing is absolutly possible ( but if im going to pick a lotory number, its gonna be the one with the highest chance of winning).

EDIT
I misread question 2 and symply reanswer "no"

third question. theoreticly, silicon based life. the chemical found underneath carbon on the periodic table. its a good example of thinking outside of the box, but we actually don't need to because carbon is 5 times more common in our universe.

I hope that this answerd your questions a bit.

 

[TJ73]

thanks..
You mentioned an "event horizon" of our universe. I was not aware that was anything other than the point of no return relating to black holes. Does it function similarly in relation to the universe?

 

[micrurus]

thanks..
You mentioned an "event horizon" of our universe. I was not aware that was anything other than the point of no return relating to black holes. Does it function similarly in relation to the universe?

well, the theory is, we see our universe to 14 bilion light years away in a perfect sphere.

so eather we believe that it is a giant coincidence that we are the center of the universe and that the universe is onley 28 lightyears across.(how great that would be for my ego). or we conclude that the reason that we can cant see further than 14 billion lightyears is because our universe is onley 14 billion lightyears old, and the light from the galacies that are 15 lightyears away didnt have enough time to reach us. so we can onley see to the eventhorison, 14 billion lightyears away.

because it is stupendusly improbable that we are the center of the universe, science went with the second explenation and therefore, science believes that there is a large part of the that we cannot see an thus we cannot know how large it is and we cannot know what is in it.

I hope this explains it a bit

EDIT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon
why didn't I just give a link, im sure wiki can explain it better than i can.

thinking about it, im not sure that i am justified to call it an event horison, I think that its just called the horison of the universe

 

[Meow Mix]

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?
Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.
And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.
I think we would have to affirm the first question to have the potential for the second. If 1 is affirmed then there could be alternate elements as well and life based on such.

And no I am not claiming or attempting to be a scientist so try to answer in the spirit of educating.:rainbow1:

Actually, on the contrary, the laws of physics are contingent (meaning they could have been different without logical contradiction). It's possible that there is some unknown factor which explains why the laws of physics have the values that they do (much like Higgs fields are supposed to explain why particles have the masses they do), but then it becomes a question of why that particular thing has the value(s) that it does.

There is also some evidence that some constants in physics aren't as constant in space or time as we think, though nothing has really been established yet -- for instance, there is an interesting paper going through the process of peer review recently that suggests the fine-structure constant may have slightly different values at different places in the universe; which means the laws of physics are slightly different depending on where you are if true. (I'm skeptical of its truth, but as I said, we must wait for it to go through analysis first)

As for carbon based life, as someone has already pointed out, it's actually already thought to be possible for life to have different biochemistry. For instance just based on our knowledge of biochemistry alone, we know that if ammonia-based life were to exist that such organisms would require a much colder planet and a much denser atmosphere.

 

[outhouse]

we are two dimensional beings in a multi dimension universe.

this does not mean we need to use our imagination to fill in the blanks for questions we cannot answer

 

[Meow Mix]

we are two dimensional beings in a multi dimension universe.

this does not mean we need to use our imagination to fill in the blanks for questions we cannot answer

I don't know about you, but I have to use three spatial dimensions to adequately describe my physical form

 

[Penumbra]

I'm an engineer rather than a scientist.

Is there any conclusive, empirical proof that the laws of physics that govern the known universe are the only possible paradigm ?

No.

Is there anything available to unequivocally prove there is no potential for any other system to exist beside what we are able to observe and measure.

No. And that seems to not even be falsifiable in theory.

And similarly is there anything that proves it is impossible for life ( anything with the ability to grow and reproduce etc.) to be based on anything other than what we know to be organic material. So could there be life based on something other than carbon.
I think we would have to affirm the first question to have the potential for the second. If 1 is affirmed then there could be alternate elements as well and life based on such.

And no I am not claiming or attempting to be a scientist so try to answer in the spirit of educating.:rainbow1:

Carbon has certain properties that lead to it being suitable for life, but there's no substantial evidence that it's the only way to make life.

 

[ellenjanuary]

There is also some evidence that some constants in physics aren't as constant in space or time as we think, though nothing has really been established yet -- for instance, there is an interesting paper going through the process of peer review recently that suggests the fine-structure constant may have slightly different values at different places in the universe; which means the laws of physics are slightly different depending on where you are if true. (I'm skeptical of its truth, but as I said, we must wait for it to go through analysis first)

That can't be right. 137 works for my numerology.

 

[Reptillian]

There is also some evidence that some constants in physics aren't as constant in space or time as we think, though nothing has really been established yet -- for instance, there is an interesting paper going through the process of peer review recently that suggests the fine-structure constant may have slightly different values at different places in the universe; which means the laws of physics are slightly different depending on where you are if true. (I'm skeptical of its truth, but as I said, we must wait for it to go through analysis first)

If this paper holds up to scrutiny, my primary concern would be violations of energy/momentum conservation across regions with different laws...given Noether's theorem and all. Violation of one of the laws of thermodynamics never bodes well as they're almost sacred.

I've always liked this quote by Arthur Eddington:

"The second law of thermodynamics holds, I think, the supreme
position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you
that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with
Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's
equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation,
well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But
if your theory is found to be against the second law of
thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for
it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

 

[ellenjanuary]

Mathematician, amateur scientist, and all around neck runner here.

But anybody with respect for the scientific method is a scientist; you seem like a scientist to me, conferring with your colleagues, forming hypotheses... what was the question again? Oh, laws of physics... well, they work, so we'll probably keep 'em. Nature is a conservative ol' lady. If we found all these successful paradigms that hold for such a wide range of observable phenomenon, it is probably because they are the right paradigms. The possibilities are truly endless, but they're not probabilities.

Life as we know it is carbon based and requires water. With the conservative ol' lady watching, that may be it. I just read some stuff as to why silicon would be unwieldy... 'course I forgot 'em, but there's reasons.

The key there is "as we know it;" one thing we keep learning is how much we don't know. The standard model of physics is actually based on an assumption, that there is a Higgs particle or field; but as for knowing, that's one prime motivation for the LHC. But the quarks and leptons and fields above this layer are pretty solid. The lack of a Higgs won't be the end of the laws of physics, it will just be time for an update. In fact, more than one scientist has concluded that not finding a Higgs would be exciting - because that would mean "that we don't know anything!" One has said with a gleam in his eye... scientists, they're like kids.

 

[ellenjanuary]

If this paper holds up to scrutiny, my primary concern would be violations of energy/momentum conservation across regions with different laws...given Noether's theorem and all. Violation of one of the laws of thermodynamics never bodes well as they're almost sacred.

I've always liked this quote by Arthur Eddington:

"The second law of thermodynamics holds, I think, the supreme
position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you
that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with
Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's
equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation,
well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But
if your theory is found to be against the second law of
thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for
it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

There's at least one website dedicated to keeping an eye of the sanctity of the Second Law. They get over a thousand claims a year of violations that have all been found to be false. It seems the little buggers at the quantum level can get up to mischief, but they are seemingly held in check but the uncertainty equation. It will be interesting to see what this means in light of quantum computing and their claims of the uncollapsable wavelength.