In that humans built LIGO to bring forth phenomena for them. There is no science without an observer. The universe might exist without us, but without an observer there is no-one to describe it.
I don't see how this has any bearing on the original point. Why would universe where everything can be empirically tested be conveniently and suspiciously human-centered?
That was my reply to you, not the original point. If it helps:
I think the GP implied with the statement that we should subscribe to some non-empirical theories ("outside spacetime"), because the endeavour is not supposed to be human-centered.
1. You said that the observations are not human-centered since we need to make machines, so the GP does not need to be suspicious and should stick to empiricism.
2. Both you and the GP seem to assume that the endeavour is not supposed to be human-centered
3. I say it is human-centered because we make the machines for us as observers at the center, so your argument doesn't quite work
4. I think our science is entangled with us as observers on many levels, and it should be. So the GP's statement should actually be pushed through suspicion towards neccessity.
> You said that the observations are not human-centered since we need to make machines
I didn't say LIGO was not human centered, but that the gravitational waves which LIGO detected are not human-centered.
I just don't think your take is equivalent to the OP's claim. Yes, our instruments are human-centered because humans are the observers, and so phenomena outside of our perceptual range has to be projected into our perceptual range. That doesn't imply that the underlying phenomena are human-centered, or that the theories formed from those observations are semantically human-centered (syntactically they are because humans have to be able to read them).
I frankly don't even understand the OP's claim: how does the proposition "this is a universe where everything can be empirically tested" logically entail "this universe is human centered". I can agree with being suspicious of the claim that we can empirically test everything, I just don't get how that entails human centeredness.
Well, my take is not equivalent to OP, in that I actually don't agree :) I am a human-centered empiricist.
I think OP's logic flows the other way: skeptical of human-centeredness position (like you) and from that skeptical of going purely empirical (not like you/me).
I'd say LIGO described phenomena as gravitational waves through the interaction of the experiment. They didn't detect anything because that would go beyond empiricism into assuming the existence of a thing beyond the interaction
