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What if? limits to the philosophical relevance of scientific assertions?

Here is a what-if question that may seem absurd:

What if there is something (not sure of whether to call it matter or energy) that travels a million times faster than the speed of light? What if this reality were more basic than those forces that seem to travel at the speed of light?

What then would become of relativity? Of simultaneity?
Wouldn't something analogous to the relativistic paradoxes apply also to this hypothetical reality?

These questions may sound ridiculous to a contemporary scientist, but no more than our present beliefs would sound to a "natural philosopher" from a couple of centuries ago.

Are all of the more philosophical-sounding assertions made on the basis of relativity (or quantum theory for that matter) capable of being undermined by a yet unanticipated future scientific discovery such as the one I've just now suggested? If so, can we tell which scientifically inspired philosophical insights into nature will never be undermined?

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