From: Paul Hughes (paul@i2.to)
Date: Fri Jun 11 1999 - 11:46:26 MDT
hal@finney.org wrote:
> This is far from clear. You can argue that as our scientific knowledge
> has increased, we have found more limits, rather than fewer.
>
> Everyone seems to be ignoring Anders' post of a proof that wormholes can't
> exist.
> You can't use the discovery of the wormhole concept as evidence for
> breaking through limitations, if wormholes are impossible.
>
> All the universe guarantees us is that life and intelligence is possible.
> That must be true or we would not be here. There are no guarantees
> beyond that. The universe may be friendly or unfriendly, malleable or
> difficult to manipulate. We only know what we have learned, and there
> is no basis for guessing that future discoveries will fall into one
> category or the other.
Hal-
First, that position is as much as a belief as believing _ultimately_ there
are no limits -- eventually. Secondly, science is about *dis*proof not
proof. Thirdly, there are no such things as *impossibilities* in science.
The only way you can prove that something is impossible, is to run an infinite
number of experiments under an infinite set of conditions. Since no one is
capable of doing this, wormholes can not be proven to be impossible any more
than anything else can be proven to be impossible.
My belief that everything is possible, in an _operational_ belief. Sure I
can't go faster than light _now_, but my belief not to accept that, has
allowed me to learn and seek out any imaginable loophole that might allow us
to break the light speed barrier. If we accepted the *apparent* limits around
us, we as a species would have never left the caves!!
Extropy is about exceeding limits, not accepting them.
Paul Hughes
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