Thank you for taking the time to comment.

Something that is thought of as being necessary is something which is simply thought of as necessarily being. So, the laws of nature might be thought of as necessary if they are either eternal or ordained by God — Janus

Ah I thought you were referring to the scientific method, but yes, even the laws of nature (or for that matter anything else), cannot be deductively or empirically verified to be mandated by God. Also, the universe is thought to have had a beginning and it is not unconceivable that it might have an end, so yes, not eternal either.

Sure, but in the context you seem to be considering- a "theory of everything" which is usually understood to be a theory which would unify the so-called "four fundamental forces"- the question could be asked as to whether those forces are everlasting. — Janus

Present attempts to merge gravity with the other three fundamental forces are going to need some breakthroughs, but still then, there would be many questions unanswered. It would be another step up a ladder and not implausibly another step into a dead end.

I mean if we could ever explain everything, then that would entail that what we are explaining would be everlasting, no? Otherwise we would not have explained everything. — Janus

"Everything" is a big word, I was thinking more in terms of understanding what we provincially call "natural law", to conceive a model that faithfully replicates the behavior of the universe. And we are in agreement that such natural law cannot be proven to be necessary or eternal.

What other method could there be for understanding the universe? We can reason about human behavior and understand it in ways which are not usually thought of as being part of the scientific method, to be sure, but that kind of understanding is not usually thought of as "understanding the universe" but rather " understanding ourselves". — Janus

I cannot tell you what other method can be conceived for deriving a model that replicates the behavior of the universe in the same sense that a differential equation can replicate the behavior of an orbiting planet, for instance. As of now the scientific method is the best method we have to understand the universe, however such a method seems to skirt some very important things that nature is capable of doing. As one example, how is it that the matter that originated at the big bang can arrange itself into complex molecules that evolve to the point of recognizing and becoming aware of the universe that produced them.
As Wayfarer quoted "...that of which we cannot speak, of that we should remain silent..", is a mindset that remains alive and well in the scientific community.

I would say that metaphysics does not consist in understanding the universe, but in understanding the ways in which we are able to think about things. Only the empirical method can test whether our ways of thinking can plausibly be thought to be accurately modeling the physical universe. But maybe I've misunderstood what you were aiming at? — Janus

Analyzing our tools, like evaluating the merits of metaphysics vs the empirical method in explaining reality, is fine, but the argument is whether these, or any other methods we can come up with, are capable of producing a model that rigorously replicates the behavior of the universe.

On the original post the choices were:
#1: Yes, we can do it, and even if we could not do it on our own, if God opened the blueprints of the universe in front of us, we would have the ability to say "Ah! I get it now" and be able to hold the knowledge in our heads.
#2: No. And even if God opened the blueprints of the universe in front of us, it would be like giving a calculus book to a chimp.

It's conjecture either way, but who knows, maybe someone has a clever reason to lean towards one more than the other.

For example, we say things like, "what do you mean?",
— Harry Hindu

If the meaning were literally in the text marks or sounds, how would it make sense to ask anyone "What do you mean?" The text marks or sounds are what mean something, and supposedly you just perceive the meaning from the text marks or sounds. — Terrapin Station

The answer is in the same post that you cherry-picked.

For me, "meaning" is all causal phenomenon — Harry Hindu

we say things like, "what do you mean?", as if we're trying to get at the user's meaning, not ours. In other words we are trying to get at the cause of the scribbles on the screen - the ideas the person had when typing those words. I want to understand what you mean with your word use, not what I mean. — Harry Hindu

So I didn't say the meaning literally lay in the text marks or sounds. I said that it lies in the causal relationship between the text marks and sounds and your ideas that caused the text marks and sounds to be made.

There was a lot of other stuff and questions asked of you in that post that you avoided in your cherry-picking.

Analyzing our tools, like evaluating the merits of metaphysics vs the empirical method in explaining reality, is fine, but the argument is whether these, or any other methods we can come up with, are capable of producing a model that rigorously replicates the behavior of the universe. — staticphoton

It seems to me that when it comes to understanding empirical reality conjecture, prediction and testing is the only viable method.

We can do metaphysical speculations, which, although themselves untestable, may lead to testable empirical hypotheses. Whether any of our theories or models are "true" in the sense that they accurately and comprehensively present or reflect what is "actually the case" is impossible to know. This is the basic idea of correspondence, which has been found to be inconclusive, even incoherent, if we try to apply it in any "absolute" sense.

So, we don't know whether we are "capable of producing a model that rigorously replicates the behavior of the universe"; how could we ever know such a thing? It might seem to us that we have a model that does, but how could we know that what seems to us is real in any "absolute sense", or even what that question could mean?

So, we don't know whether we are "capable of producing a model that rigorously replicates the behavior of the universe"; how could we ever know such a thing? It might seem to us that we have a model that does, but how could we know that what seems to us is real in any "absolute sense", or even what that question could mean? — Janus

Granted that the premise oversimplifies what it might even mean to accurately model the universe, and that even if we are able to craft a model that appeared to fit the bill, there would always be limitations to "prove" its reach.

But I think that only furthers the case in favor of the limitations of reason to construct an accurate portrayal of reality, which (at risk of sounding anthropomorphic) to me seems to boil down to the universe's structure and its relationship with who/what we are.

And although I have no reason to think evolution of the brain's cognitive powers has peaked, I also suspect no amount of cognitive evolution would be sufficient in order to deduce or hold such knowledge.

On the other hand, here we are in this precarious foraging for existential knowledge since becoming homo sapiens. One could be tempted to wonder why would decaying star matter want to do that.