"Economic scientists" is a rather optimistic misnomer, I think.
But supposing you're right. If added "value" in an economic sense has
no physical component to it that's worth talking about, if "value" is
added to the economy that means absolutely nothing in terms of either
resource expenditures or expenditures of energy -- then how meaningful
is it?
And why should we want to pursue this sort of "value"? Except,
perhaps, as a mechanism for keeping an otherwise bankrupt economic
system afloat?
The economic historians write that political economists began worrying
about the implications of the "stationary state," and what this would
mean for wages and profits, almost as soon as Adam Smith's "Wealth of
Nations" first was published. With the exception of John Stuart Mill,
who asserted although he did not really demonstrate that the
"stationary state" would be quite tolerable, many or most 19th century
political economists feared that the "stationary state," when achieved,
would be disastrous for capitalist society.
Given this history, I think it's probable that "economic scientists"
who profess to have found some way for value to expand forever, yet
without having any physical impact on resources of raw materials and
energy, are simply looking for a magic formula to put off the
attainment of the stationary state almost indefinitely.
And it is partly a matter of semantics. If we define "value" to be
without any material substance, we can play with words in a fashion
that seems to make the problem of finite limits to growth disappear.
But I submit that it's really just playing with words.
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