dibz said:
Pretty much. That's observing by proxy.
The idea is that science is grounded on what is observable, repeatable and verifiable consistently, from which theories and laws are derived. That's why ExCyber's first question was fascinating, as Newtonian laws suddenly are difficult or impossible to apply.
I noted this tree falling thing with one answer: No one to 'translate' those waves into sound. I'll just go a step further.
We know that if a tree falls in the woods, and someone standing there is listening, it makes a sound. We watch enough trees fall, we know for certainty that a noise is made. Once we leave, we use previous knowledge to deduce that the next tree's falling will make a noise.
However, there's no scientific or measurable way to determine that the sound in fact is being made while no one is there. This is a frame of reference problem... which ties into Excyber's posited dilemma. How does science prove a sound is being made when the scientific method can't be applied? How do you use the scientific method to "devise an experiment that determines whether you are at rest or moving uniformly"?
It seems stupid as it really is a matter of grasping at straws, however it's one of those interesting issues that becomes irritating as problems become more complex. The current scientific laws govern only those observable things - what about the unobservable things or more importantly, those things that require a different frame of reference that we're currently unable to use?
It's the ramifications that are interesting, that's all.
