“Please recall that my original contention was that Einstein must have had enough observational evidence to fix the information inherent in General Relativity as a solution. If you describe ways that the information in General Relativity can be fixed by evidence, you are not contradicting this.”
True; why do you have to contradict the main point of a post to comment on it? My point was that the space of possibilities was not vast; it was quite small, given the common-sense rules of gravity and math which were known at the time. Developing GR took years, not because Einstein has to sort through ten million different versions of the theory, but because developing a single version of the theory is difficult.
“You are also falling prey to hindsight by not making an equal effort to consider how you could have justified alternatives as unique obvious solutions using subsets of other knowledge known at the time, rather than the particular aspects that now obviously seem so prominent.”
This is mathematically impossible unless you assume false knowledge. If equations (A, B, C, D, E) are known at the time of Newton, and Newton’s theory of gravity is unique if you assume A, C and D, then any alternative theory of gravity must contradict A, C, or D. Suppose that you can construct an alternative theory of gravity, which is unique assuming equations B and E. If you assume that both B and E are true, then the alternative theory of gravity must be true, hence Newton’s theory must be false, hence either A, C, or D must be false. We know now that A, C, and D are all true, therefore, either B or E must be false.
“Please recall that my original contention was that Einstein must have had enough observational evidence to fix the information inherent in General Relativity as a solution. If you describe ways that the information in General Relativity can be fixed by evidence, you are not contradicting this.”
True; why do you have to contradict the main point of a post to comment on it? My point was that the space of possibilities was not vast; it was quite small, given the common-sense rules of gravity and math which were known at the time. Developing GR took years, not because Einstein has to sort through ten million different versions of the theory, but because developing a single version of the theory is difficult.
“You are also falling prey to hindsight by not making an equal effort to consider how you could have justified alternatives as unique obvious solutions using subsets of other knowledge known at the time, rather than the particular aspects that now obviously seem so prominent.”
This is mathematically impossible unless you assume false knowledge. If equations (A, B, C, D, E) are known at the time of Newton, and Newton’s theory of gravity is unique if you assume A, C and D, then any alternative theory of gravity must contradict A, C, or D. Suppose that you can construct an alternative theory of gravity, which is unique assuming equations B and E. If you assume that both B and E are true, then the alternative theory of gravity must be true, hence Newton’s theory must be false, hence either A, C, or D must be false. We know now that A, C, and D are all true, therefore, either B or E must be false.