I don’t see how it is begging the question:
Perhaps my word choice could be improved or at least clarified. The “assumption” of consistency of the physics of the universe over time and space is not taken a priori as a premise. It is a conclusion as a result of extensive observation. Though there is no mathematical/logical proof that it can’t be false, everything we know so far suggests it is true.
I could give you some imagined scenarios where it could be false, but as interesting (and uncomfortable) as it might be to think about, there’s just no evidence for it.
That would be called history. The value of science is that it is not just descriptive, but also predictive.
And then the claims and predictions are evaluated for their consistency with reality.
“The future” is not a fixed reference point, and it eventually ends up in the past. We can pick up the bits of evidence left behind. Plus, we are time travellers going at a rate of one second per second. We get multiple ways to check the predictions. They’re pretty damn accurate as well as incredibly precise, in many cases. And when they’re not, they’re refined until they converge with reality.
Yes, and science helps reduce the impact of those biases or incorrect beliefs by having consistency with reality be the final arbiter.
I wonder, what do you understand to be science?
You know what? For sake of argument let us suppose that we know the future will be different. What impact would that have on science? Would physics change gradually? That would perhaps just require adding some time dependence to quantities we thought to be constant—not a huge deal. Would the change be abrupt? Assuming we survived the transition, would there still be order in the universe to understand? If so, then the process of science would be just as valuable and it simply would be a ‘reset’ of previous knowledge and require rechecking everything.
As interesting as these questions may be in a philosophical sense, I fail to see their relevance in practice. I haven’t envisioned any scenario that undermines current scientific efforts or approaches. It’s like trying to conjure up a variable that we haven’t detected and speculate on its impacts.
Meanwhile, in the face of everything which we know suggesting consistency, what reason is there to suggest an inconsistent future? The “assumption” of consistency is falsifiable. Non-consistency is not falsifiable and also introduces unknown additional complexity, much like Russell’s teapot. By Occam’s razor, the former is preferable. None of this is absolutely definitive, but the evidence and probabilities are very much on one side.
Well, I hope at least someone has fun reading all this.