You make some great points that I largely agree with. I'm wondering whether I'm misrepresenting you though, because I'm not arriving at the same "everything looks like a nail" conclusion.
One thing I'd like to surface is the distinction you're making between software and physics. You point out that social and medical sciences are only now becoming approachable with scientific methodology. We can now, to a higher degree than before at least, model and predict what'll happen in social and medical scenarios. Isn't that an excellent example of how subject matters can be virtualized? I can't find good arguments for why this would stop there; why wouldn't our scientific models improve to such a degree that we can predict and "interfacte" with more and more of reality. Put plainly: why can't experiments be done in code one day? Particularly if we imagine having better robotics.
Do you see my point about closing the gap between the theorizing and experimenting? Or are they fundamentally different things? The "reasonably skilled person" seems like an excellent heuristic > 2 years ago that's rapidly being replaced by automated thinking machines.
One thing I'd like to surface is the distinction you're making between software and physics. You point out that social and medical sciences are only now becoming approachable with scientific methodology. We can now, to a higher degree than before at least, model and predict what'll happen in social and medical scenarios. Isn't that an excellent example of how subject matters can be virtualized? I can't find good arguments for why this would stop there; why wouldn't our scientific models improve to such a degree that we can predict and "interfacte" with more and more of reality. Put plainly: why can't experiments be done in code one day? Particularly if we imagine having better robotics.
Do you see my point about closing the gap between the theorizing and experimenting? Or are they fundamentally different things? The "reasonably skilled person" seems like an excellent heuristic > 2 years ago that's rapidly being replaced by automated thinking machines.