My understanding is that earlier science never exactly forbade any modern technology like space rockets at a fundamental level. There didn't exist any models that would give you a clear framework of how to build a space rocket, but generally it wouldn't be thought of as impossible. Rather it'd just be considered an extremely hard engineering problem.
But at this point prohibitions on going faster than light are exactly as fundamental as prohibitions on breaking causality, in fact general relativity has shown them to be identical. We know for a fact general relativity is an incomplete model of reality, but a more complete theory won't be changing any of those fundamental principles. For example, before Einstein came along scientists already knew Newtonian physics was an incomplete picture of reality, but they also knew a more complete theory wouldn't be changing fundamental principles like conservation of momentum. These more accurate theories typically give us a more detailed understanding of the limits of our universe rather than blowing up the limits we already know of.
Science will never be over of course, there will always be more to discover. But I don't think that necessarily means we're bound to invent more and more powerful technology forever as time goes on. There's really no reason to think that the rapid, exponential technological development of the past couple thousand years has to continue on forever.
That said, my point basically boils down to how hard it is to predict the results of even 150 years of human advancement, so we can't really even begin to fathom what a hypothetical alien species with 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years of additional advancement might understand that we don't.
I'm not saying that the UFOs are here and they're probing our cows. I'm really just saying that we fundamentally don't know what we don't know.
My understanding is that earlier science never exactly forbade any modern technology like space rockets at a fundamental level. There didn't exist any models that would give you a clear framework of how to build a space rocket, but generally it wouldn't be thought of as impossible. Rather it'd just be considered an extremely hard engineering problem.
But at this point prohibitions on going faster than light are exactly as fundamental as prohibitions on breaking causality, in fact general relativity has shown them to be identical. We know for a fact general relativity is an incomplete model of reality, but a more complete theory won't be changing any of those fundamental principles. For example, before Einstein came along scientists already knew Newtonian physics was an incomplete picture of reality, but they also knew a more complete theory wouldn't be changing fundamental principles like conservation of momentum. These more accurate theories typically give us a more detailed understanding of the limits of our universe rather than blowing up the limits we already know of.
Science will never be over of course, there will always be more to discover. But I don't think that necessarily means we're bound to invent more and more powerful technology forever as time goes on. There's really no reason to think that the rapid, exponential technological development of the past couple thousand years has to continue on forever.
I basically agree with everything you've said.
That said, my point basically boils down to how hard it is to predict the results of even 150 years of human advancement, so we can't really even begin to fathom what a hypothetical alien species with 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 years of additional advancement might understand that we don't.
I'm not saying that the UFOs are here and they're probing our cows. I'm really just saying that we fundamentally don't know what we don't know.