String Theory: Science or Philosophy

This is all very muddled.I don't know what meaning of "philosophy" you guys are using but I'd like you to articulate that and spell out how string theory is a philosophy.String theory is, at present, somewhwere between a speculation and an untested hypothosis. If it remains untestable it will never be the last word on anything much less a theory on the same level as gravity or the ToE. Yea, so? If the consequences can only be explained and/or predicted by a particular model (M-theory or string theory) then that is supporting evidence for it. Also what is possible to test directly today may or may not remain that way. We already do things that correspond to testing the core of a supernova and even approach the big bang (quark plasma). We'll wait and see what is and is not testable. As I said if it truely is untestable then it won't be a very satisfactory model.It may well be that we are starting to bump up against intrinsic limits on what we can ultimately know. However, our track record so far suggests not placing too large a bet that the limits have been reached yet.If we are limited then the answer will remain as it is now --- we don't know. An answer that has, historically, been the carrot that those of us who are truely curious can not resist. And an answer that has lead to new knowledge over and over.I find it amusing that there are so many here who want to bet on some other approach to learning things that has been discredited over and over. Then they choose to pick on the very farthest leading edges of the sciences as an example of the limits of science. These very limits are far beyond what could have conceivably been imagined in the little, constrained universes they occupy. Then they make pronouncements about then like "unconditional,absolute" without knowing anything about the science in question.

What does "conditional" mean here?You seem to use "absolute" here to mean "all encompassing". Why do you use the word "absolute" there? What exactly does it mean? What is this "big idea" thing. In what way are any of the examples you have given "independent of experience". It is exactly the tie back to "experience" (that is observation) that we need to check out any cockamammy theories that someone may dream up.What, again, does "absolute" mean here and what does "unconditional" mean?String theory is an "absolute truth"?? It is simply an attempt at a model of the behavior of matter and energy that is attempting to have a wider scope of application than has gone before. Whether it leaves unanswered questions or not isn't at all clean yet since it certainly isn't finished. You seem to be making some distinction between things that we observe with our eyes and things that we observe by other means. That has been a meaningless distinction for a long time. There are many things which are not observable with our eyes. But the models which include them are not weaker in anyway. E.g., we can't "see" electrons either.We will not have a good theory if we can only reason it out. Relativity was very interesting when it was "reasoned" out but it was only when it's effects were observable that it became a really big deal. That will have to be the same with string theory.We don't yet know what any new theory, (string, M or whatever) will leave as unanswered questions. If it does or doesn't doesn't seem to me to make a difference to it's usefullness. So far there are unanswered questions left by quantum mechanics and relativity they were still pretty darn useful. IIRC, this has been brought up before.If string theory has something to say about morality then why doesn't QED or quantum mechanics since everything behaves according to those laws? This is rather a large leap and I don't see how you made it.

Some time (maybe in a decade or two) we may well have a theory of everytying.It is my impression that your complaint with it is based on some god of the gaps theology. This area (the original creation and set up of the laws of the universe) is a gap into which many still want to insert their god. This is bad theology for exactly the reason that you seem to be thrashing about trying to find something wrong with the whole concept. It is a gap which, like so many others, may close up.We may well find that the universe and it's laws have to be just as they are with no room for fine tuning.But don't worry. Even a "theory of everything" will leave gaps for a long time to come (probably indefinitely). If you need a gap there will be one.