Hello Wulf,

Thank you. You mentioned that since humans formulated physical laws, they can formulate better ones, thus changing their own view of nature, creating new laws. Thus, they have changed their view of nature. As you summarized, "Yes, why not? Would nature have changed? No. But our physics would have."

Theoretically based on a study of trust, on the same level of change that is mentioned by you, we say that facts are what you were once willing to believe.

In fact (that view), we beliveved, at least yesterday, that the universe has been going on for nearly 13.772 billion years without halting, which is better than what anyone else can create or even prove!

But, Physics and Maths are actually made up, invented by people like you and I, and have to halt, have to change. That's where the fun is, I think, so we can always change them and improve.

Even the definition of a prime number has changed, starting around 60 years ago, and 1 was slowly but firmly excluded, for good reasons but that have nothing to do with division!

Thus, we seem to be in violent agreement in that part, let's call it level 1.

But, there is second level, that the question asks whether we could hack nature itself! It is not anymore that our understanding of it that is changeable, as you said, but looking into your current "No" answer.

We could connect nature in different ways, where we may be as cognizant of it as a beaver, but we do it, by trial and error, chance, or other mechanisms, and achieve a different result than our physics and maths, being a human creation, will even ever achieve.

These leaps have happened, where human understanding lags for a generation, or more, so it was inacessible to those humans as a group, but not to the individuals. Do these known leaps qualify in physics, as second level? No, still. We are no better than bevears, it seems.

Let us investigate. As a more extreme example of such a leap, a laser could have been made at Newton's time, the materials and components were there!

Nature would allow it, but the understanding was not there, and would take many generations after Newton, to be there (Einstein A and B coeficients), then it took two generations more to really understand it (Maiman, 1960) and make it, which top scientists of world fame, who Maiman visited in Europe, discouraged before, as related in his book. So, it was experimentally possible at Newton's time to make a CO2 laser. This does not qualify in second level, yet. Building a laser at the time of Newton is like a beaver building a dam today.

But, the "next physics" (as I define it, no more no less) could offer more room for hacks on both levels, humans and nature. The "next physics" could do that by offering shortcuts, and reaching new realms, inaccessible ever, otherwise, where no experiment is even possible, but impacts us, such as answering the question:

"Is it possible to deduce the shape of the universe without stepping outside of it?"

Would, answering this question, by humans, qualify in second level in physics? Are we better than beavers?

NOTE: by "next physics" I do not mean new physics. See https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/next-physics-ed-gerck-phd/

Cheers, Ed Gerck

Hello all: Another way to look at this question is to see what physics laws can provide today, versus what we humans can see.

Based on {mulkayGilbert} given below, physics today takes the position that X, a mental construct, of whatever type, whether one has an explanation or another, is used as a way to describe observations of `nature', what is seen (German for 'nature', as Wirklickeit). If X can be falsified, at least mentally, X is changeable according to experiments, then considered scientific, and our understanding `of nature' seems to evolve.

But, whatever is meant that X, of whatever type, ``exists in nature'' will, ultimately, depend on what is meant by ``exists in nature". Thus, we are caught in a 'simulation of a simulation'. Other views of 'nature' may also validly exist, of the very same nature that we are impotent to reach (German for unseen nature, as Natur).

In LaTex:

@article{mulkayGilbert,

author = {Mulkay, M. and Gilbert, G.N.},

title = "{Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper’s Influence on Scientific Practice}",

journal = {Philosophy of Social Science},

year = 1981,

volume = 11,

pages = {389–407}

}

Cheers, Ed Gerck

Humans try hardly to control physics laws... nowadays.. we convince our self that we did... but I don't think so..

Although almost all those points, and others not listed, are in my RG publications, I tend to see things through QM.

Reality is observer-dependent, in QM. Starting with the Heisenberg principle, observer and experiment cannot be dissociated. There is no objectivity in QM -- but there is a coherent abstract view one can pursue in QM.

Now, from that common, coherent, abstract view in QM, one can pursue instances of a subjective, intersubjective, and objective natures, and mixed, ordering them into a scale, even contradictory to themselves. It is a cornucopia of choices! All validated by the same common, coherent, abstract view that has the "seed thought" of the subject. It is like a manifold, connecting different domains to one another, although no connection is seen directly between them.

QM and SR are necessary for EM, so its easy to have RQM -- it is a "match made in heaven". Gravity is modeled by extrinsic curvature of spacetime in GR, when QM is utterly ignored, incompatibly, but more than that, it is of a different type, in HoTT and TCS terminology.

In this abstract view, one is concerned with testable relationships, one is focusing on the essence of a hypothesis in the Scientific Method. A hypothesis is not a guess, a hypothesis is a testable relationship, no more and no less.

Accordingly, SR is not a guess, but a testable relationship.

In that abstract sense, SR passed the QM test and the EM test, and yet it MUST be observer-dependent, which seems to contradict several old "principles", but actually extends them, it does NOT deny them. When I summarize, for example:

"Comoving observers NEVER measure time dilation or length contraction, whereas non-comoving ALWAYS do. It does not matter the acceleration, nor the velocity."

then goodbye to "relativistic speed" or "inertial observer", they are limited to a platonic model, a human-made domain, not Nature.

In Nature, an "inertial observer" can see different realities, whether comoving, or non-comoving; reality can be the same also, no matter the acceleration, nor the velocity.

What really distinguishes observers, is whether they are comoving or not. Here, as normal in Physics, comoving is a technical word, and means "same position and velocity", not necessarily identical objects; in cosmology comoving observers see the same wavefront, so it is coherent with other related fields.

Depending on the SR formulation as the stance that one uses, even no SR, more or less "paradoxes" will result. The less "paradoxes" the better. The same with EM, thus we want to eliminate what is not necessary. Can the Maxwell equations be excluded in EM? Other questions follow.