One of the biggest mysteries in science – dark energy – doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the Universe
is expan...
Hey, I was just trying to say that David Hume and likely a few others would have reservations about accepting your argument.
Perhaps an allegory would be useful.
Suppose I go about town telling everyone that there is a thief about. “A thief?”, everyone exclaims, “where, who?” And I tell them that I have not actually seen the thief, but I have taken to calling him Drake Emory, and I have evidence. Some of my money is missing, and that can’t happen without a cause. I call that cause Drake Emory. Seeing the wisdom of my words, the townsfolk agree that while Drake Emory is a strange name to call a thief, still he must exist because the money is gone. So, convinced of his existence, everyone searches high and low for Drake Emory. Some posit that Drake is a man who sneaks into houses at night. Others are certain that he is just a rat who chews bank notes to make his nest. There are many, many discussions about him. Only one thing is certain: Drake Emory must exist. How could he not? Something made that money disappear. Unfortunately, what the towns people don’t know, and I never even realize myself, is that no money ever went missing. In truth, I only came to that conclusion because I really don’t fully understand the accounting software that I’ve been using.
But Dark Energy isn’t a thief, it’s just a name for something we don’t know the concept of yet. You’re immediately attaching some sort of concept around it, you say it’s a thief without any evidence that the money was actually stolen, when there’s other possible explanations for the missing money, and we know the money is missing because that’s an actually observable fact, which rules out whatever analogy your accounting software is supposed to be. I hope it’s not our models of physics because just because they currently cannot explain it, does not mean that we cannot see it happening. So we aren’t doing the same to Dark Energy, we see the money is missing and theorize possibilities as to where it went, or rather how in this case. As the other guy said, the name is just a placeholder for the possible concept behind it, nothing more. Dark because we can’t see it, and energy because it’s some sort of force.
Let me explain the allegory and how it relates to the problem.
We can directly observe some things, like the shift in frequency of light or the output of accounting software. We can make inferences from these observations, like our models of the universe or our belief that the software indicates that money has been stolen. We can also step into discussions about what our inferences imply, like the existence of something that would explain what our models tell us or the existence of a thief.
In the allegory, the necessity of a thief is contingent upon our inferences about missing money. In physics, the necessity of dark energy is contingent upon the validity of our models and the assumptions drawn from them.
The claim that dark energy has to exist is just too strong of a claim, as it rests only upon inference. Even when you make, as you do, the weakest possible version of the claim, which is to say that dark energy is whatever makes sense of our inferences, it is still too strong a claim, unless you include “our inferences have been incorrect” as a possible outcome to the question of “what is dark energy?”
If researchers wish to question some of our inferences and doubt some of our assumptions, it’s a good thing. Claiming that dark energy must exist whenever researchers question it is not helpful.
Hey, I was just trying to say that David Hume and likely a few others would have reservations about accepting your argument.
Perhaps an allegory would be useful.
Suppose I go about town telling everyone that there is a thief about. “A thief?”, everyone exclaims, “where, who?” And I tell them that I have not actually seen the thief, but I have taken to calling him Drake Emory, and I have evidence. Some of my money is missing, and that can’t happen without a cause. I call that cause Drake Emory. Seeing the wisdom of my words, the townsfolk agree that while Drake Emory is a strange name to call a thief, still he must exist because the money is gone. So, convinced of his existence, everyone searches high and low for Drake Emory. Some posit that Drake is a man who sneaks into houses at night. Others are certain that he is just a rat who chews bank notes to make his nest. There are many, many discussions about him. Only one thing is certain: Drake Emory must exist. How could he not? Something made that money disappear. Unfortunately, what the towns people don’t know, and I never even realize myself, is that no money ever went missing. In truth, I only came to that conclusion because I really don’t fully understand the accounting software that I’ve been using.
But Dark Energy isn’t a thief, it’s just a name for something we don’t know the concept of yet. You’re immediately attaching some sort of concept around it, you say it’s a thief without any evidence that the money was actually stolen, when there’s other possible explanations for the missing money, and we know the money is missing because that’s an actually observable fact, which rules out whatever analogy your accounting software is supposed to be. I hope it’s not our models of physics because just because they currently cannot explain it, does not mean that we cannot see it happening. So we aren’t doing the same to Dark Energy, we see the money is missing and theorize possibilities as to where it went, or rather how in this case. As the other guy said, the name is just a placeholder for the possible concept behind it, nothing more. Dark because we can’t see it, and energy because it’s some sort of force.
Let me explain the allegory and how it relates to the problem.
We can directly observe some things, like the shift in frequency of light or the output of accounting software. We can make inferences from these observations, like our models of the universe or our belief that the software indicates that money has been stolen. We can also step into discussions about what our inferences imply, like the existence of something that would explain what our models tell us or the existence of a thief.
In the allegory, the necessity of a thief is contingent upon our inferences about missing money. In physics, the necessity of dark energy is contingent upon the validity of our models and the assumptions drawn from them.
The claim that dark energy has to exist is just too strong of a claim, as it rests only upon inference. Even when you make, as you do, the weakest possible version of the claim, which is to say that dark energy is whatever makes sense of our inferences, it is still too strong a claim, unless you include “our inferences have been incorrect” as a possible outcome to the question of “what is dark energy?”
If researchers wish to question some of our inferences and doubt some of our assumptions, it’s a good thing. Claiming that dark energy must exist whenever researchers question it is not helpful.
EDIT changed matter -> energy