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by mikhailfranco 773 days ago
I don't think that all models are necessarily incorrect. Scientific models are precisely correct until they are falsified.

For example, the inverse-square law for electromagnetism and Newtonian gravity is just an exact feature of continuous 3D space (surface area of a sphere). It only became an approximation when Einstein proposed warped spacetime, and will become even more incorrect in detail, if/when someone finds evidence for discrete spacetime structure. Then the inverse square law becomes a double approximation, over macro and micro structure of spacetime (lattice, wolfram graph, spin foam, ...).

It just so happens that at the moment, we know that the whole of physics is pervasively incomplete (approximate nonsense), so very few current models are likely to be preserved in future better theories. QFT is a terrible hack, with renormalization and virtual hand-waving. QFT depends on a fixed background spacetime, but we know that background is dynamic (GR). We don't know how QFT and GR fit together, but I would guess almost all current models are incorrect.

However, it is possible that some future Theory of Everything is correct indefinitely (until end of civilization, while not being ontologically True, of course).