freebfrost said:
Nor was there evidence of gravity prior to Newton, correct?
No. There was evidence for gravity before Newton - things were observed falling to the ground for thousands of years prior to his birth, but had been explained incorrectly. Newton looked at the observed phenomena, and figured out why it was actually happening.
The analogy you want is Einstein - there was effectively no evidence that the speed of light in a vacuum was constant before he considered that as an axiom for the theory of special relativity. Nobody had thought to bother, and the devices required to test with sufficient accuracy and precision had not yet been built.
Our experience with reality is bounded by our current perceptions of reality. We can only attempt to prove what we know - we can't prove what we do not yet know. Heck, we still can't explain gravity.
Incorrect. The scientific method, in fact, is a series of attempts to prove things we do not know - many fail, some succeed. We cannot attempt to prove that which we cannot
imagine, but imagining a thing and knowing it are two different things. Ask any sci-fi author if you don't believe me. Our imaginations are not strictly bounded by our current knowledge - if that were true, we could never have new knowledge.
Are you asking me a Schrodinger's Cat question here?
No, I am not. Schrodinger's Cat does not apply - it applies to
events and measurements, not to the physical law itself. The results of the laws of the universe may be indeterminate until you look at them, but there's no evidence the laws themselves are indeterminate.
Or, to put it in gamer terms, we don't live in the World of Darkness game of Mage: the Ascension, where the dominant paradigm belief determines how the Universe does it's business. Gravity worked before Newton - things fell to the ground. Quantum Mechanics worked before Schrodinger - and so millions of years ago stars emitted with certain spectra for us to see now. And so on.
