“Actually, there are computer models which do show solar systems relatively like ours forming.”
A computer model can be made to show you anything you want to see though. In the real world observations of systems with exoplanets, we haven’t found any resembling our configuration yet.
We’ll never be able to actually witness a system forming over a long enough timescale to confirm or deny the nebular hypothesis, so you cannot test the models that way. However, we have predictions from the models BEFORE exoplanets were observed, and that precludes scientists from having done any funny business to force their algorithms to fit observations when they produced those predictions. The predictions were a failure, and that should doom the hypothesis, as far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t trust any new predictions to not simply be the result of tweaking the algorithm to produce the results they want.
“The quick, sloppy answer, which I’m not sure is right, is that to catch up the matter, you’d have to go travel faster than light, which would mean you’d go backwards in time.”
This can’t be right, because anything with mass can’t even reach the speed of light, much less go faster. I’m thinking that temporal distortion must happen regardless of whether you are moving or the space expanding is moving you though, because according to relavity, the cause of the motion wouldn’t matter, only the rate of motion from whichever frame of reference you pick.
“I think applying the anthropological principle to the multiverse is a copout, until the dimensions past four are somehow proven to be substantially thick... but it’s not like you’re going to pop into sentience on the wrong planet and then say, “Oh no! Wrong planet!” and die.”
I think the whole multiverse stuff is silly... it isn’t wholly illogical, but it’s also not really science, since the nature of the proposition makes it impossible we could ever prove or disprove it by scientific means. So it’s more philosophy dressed up like science than science.
>> A computer model can be made to show you anything you want to see though. <<
Weeeellll, yeah. You can model to the point of simply showing a computer portrayal of your assumptions, and this is basic critique of global-warming models. But I’m referring to computer-based simulations of the behavior of gasses and distinct particles with very little inputs besides mass and momentum.
>> This can’t be right, because anything with mass can’t even reach the speed of light, much less go faster. <<
Yes, you can regard it as a thought exercise.
And I agree vis-a-vis multiverses. An intellectual copout.