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Originally Posted by polak
I think it's outrageous to say that the mysteries of physics are solved?
We literally have zero idea of what makes up 95% of the mass-energy in the universe. Using the term "dark matter" and "dark energy" gives people the illusion that we know something about but what we call it is just a place holder. "Dark Matter" means nothing. We have no idea what it is. We don't know if it's dark and we don't know if it's matter. I think that's a pretty massive hole in our understanding of physics and probably means that we are completely out to lunch in our theories.
I also like a quote I heard in that "How the Universe Works" show where one of the physicists on there said that he thinks any time we get "infinity" or "infinite" as an answer, that means we're wrong. It makes sense. The idea of infinity seems like an excuse for humanity trying to explain something they do not understand.
That authors overall thesis might be right, maybe we will never know. Maybe the real true scope of physics of the universe are just not something we can comprehend. I just don't think you could come close to a convincing argument that "we figured it out".
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I more or less agree. I think it is a mistake to assume that we are right about everything we currently know. Even more to the point, there is probably a tonne that we don't know that we don't know. It's so far out of reach of our human brains to understand, that it could be right in front of us and we would miss it.
I do think that eventually, humans will start to retreat back to nature. We are already seeing it with green movements. That is not to say that all scientific progress will stop, but it will get to a point where we start to question what we need to know to make our species healthy and happy, and what we don't need to learn to avoid the negative consequences of discovery.
Once replicators are invented (and I think they will be), humans can replicate essential items and then fabricate other things they need with ease, we will just naturally start thinking inward.