Philosophy and the Twin Paradox

Reply to Mike Fontenot Reply to Mike Fontenot
Mike, Hope you are still here. I just joined so am just able to reply.

First there it's easy to demonstrate there is a universal current present moment.

1. It's well known that everything in the universe continually travels through spacetime (combined space and time) at the speed of light.

2. As a consequence everything in the universe is continually traveling the same distance through spacetime as light does.

3. Thus the current distance everything has traveled through spacetime is the universal current present moment. This is the only moment that actually exists, and it's common to the entire universe.

4. Now the current proper time on any object's clock depends entirely on its own path through spacetime, not on how it is being observed from any other frame. Specifically all the distance it travels through spacetime is through time if it's path is inertial. However the amount of deviation from an inertial path reduces the distance it travels through time. Whatever the result an object's current proper time at the current common distance it has traveled through spacetime is the proper time it has in the universal current present moment.

5. There is a unique 1:1 invariant correlation between the current proper times of all clocks in the universe in this universal current present moment, which we all inhabit simultaneously.

6. It must be noted that this is independent of how observers in relative motion view each other's clocks. That is a matter of perspective, and in general relatively moving observers each view the time on each other's clocks ticking slower than their own. They DO NOT see the actual 1:1 current present moment proper time correlations except in specific cases such as being at rest in the same frame.

Hope you see this Mike!

Edgar L. Owen.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

[...] in general relatively moving observers each view the time on each other's clocks ticking slower than their own.

That's a special relativity result. The twin "paradox" doesn't require (or profit from) general relativity. And that result applies ONLY to perpetually inertial observers. An accelerating observer in the twin paradox scenario will find his home twin will be older than him at their reunion. So sometimes during the trip, he MUST conclude that she is ageing FASTER than he is. The co-moving inertial frames (CMIF) simultaneity method says that her age instantaneously increases by a large amount during his instantaneous velocity change at the turnaround. My new simultaneity method says that her age doesn't change at all during his turnaround, but that it does increase linearly for years after his turnaround, at a rate greater than his own rate of ageing. There are also two other simultaneity methods (Dolby and Gull, and Minguizzi) that give an increased ageing rate for her, without an instantaneous increase.

For details, see my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

Reply to Mike Fontenot
Hi Mike,

Sure, it's SPECIAL relativity. That sentence should read "In general, relatively (NOT GENERAL RELATIVITY) moving... Note I wrote relatively, not relativity!

It's easy to calculate the elapsed current proper time of a moving clock as it appears from the perspective from any frame. One just uses the equation d? = ?(dt^2 – dx^2) for any point (dt, dx) in the reference frame to find the proper time of the moving clock as it appears from the perspective of the reference frame.

That however does NOT give the actual proper time of the moving clock in its own frame at the current common spacetime distance everything in the universe currently occupies which is the true universal current moment.

My understanding from posters in other groups is that you also advocate a universal current present moment, and in that sense an absolute notion of a universal coordinate system based on that. Is that correct?

Edgar L. Owen

Quoting Mike Fontenot

she instantaneously ages by a large amount during the instantaneous turnaround

Wouldn't instantaneous change in age be violating a principle of relativity that is bandied around like juicy gossip, to wit that communication can't be faster than light? Are we entering the domain of quantum entanglement?

Reply to TheMadFool
Madfool,

The 'instantaneous aging by a large amount isn't anything actual'. First, it only occurs when a physically impossible instantaneous deceleration - acceleration in the opposite direction is assumed to simplify the twin example. When a physically possible deceleration-acceleration is used the apparent aging sweeps continuously across the difference. And second this is only describing how the space twin SEES the earth twin's age. It does NOT describe the actual aging process of the earth twin which doesn't depend on how it's being observed in the least and is proceeding normally.

Edgar L. Owen

Time and the apple paradox: I put one apple in the fridge and the other on the sideboard. After a week the one on the sideboard had aged a lot whereas the one in the fridge had aged barely at all.

Conclusion: time passes more slowly in the fridge.

Only that's stupid, isn't it?

So why aren't physicists being that stupid when they reason that as an apple that moves at speed ages more slowly than one at rest therefore time passes more slowly at speed? Or is that not how they reason?

Quoting Edgar L Owen

And second this is only describing how the space twin SEES the earth twin's age.

This is a serious misrepresentation of what the theory says.
Upon the turnaround, the space twin sees pretty much the same exact time on the Earth twin clock as before. The clock doesn't suddenly appear to jump like your statement seems to imply.

Secondly, you throw around the term 'proper time' a lot, all in a way incompatible with the physics definition of the term. Proper time is a duration (a temporal length), not a reading at a particular moment.

Reply to noAxioms
noAxioms,

No, proper time is the current reading of a comoving clock, a clock moving with an observer. ELAPSED proper time is the proper term for a duration of proper time.

It was Mike, not me that said there was a sudden jump in how the traveling twin views the age of the earth twin. I just pointed out this is only under the a-physical simplification of instantaneous acceleration.

Edgar L. Owen

Quoting Edgar L Owen

First there it's easy to demonstrate there is a universal current present moment.

You're an absolutist and presentist I see, but claiming you can demonstrate it seems a bit too much. So you misrepresenting relativity theory is sort of a strawman tactic.
Quoting Edgar L Owen

No, proper time is the current reading of a comoving clock, a clock moving with an observer.

SR theory makes no reference to the concept of a 'current' anything. The definition also makes no reference to an observer being necessary. Just google 'proper time' and you get:
[quote=wiki]In relativity, proper time along a timelike world line is defined as the time as measured by a clock following that line.[/quote]

OK, there are definitely some wrong definitions out there in non-physics sites like:
[quote=dictionary.com]time measured by a clock that has the same motion as the observer. Any clock in motion relative to the observer, or in a different gravitational field, will not, according to the theory of relativity, measure proper time[/quote]
This seems to agree with your definition that only clocks accompanied by observers are proper, while in fact all clocks measure the proper time of their own worldlines, and in the example above, the clock simply is not measuring the proper time of said observer since it is a different worldline. Were the clock to be comoving with a different worldline, (not in the presence of the other object, but with the same motion and potential all the way), then it would measure the proper time of that object, but only in a frame in which its motion matched that other object. This wouldn't be true in all frames unless the object was completely inertial the whole time.

'Proper' implies frame independence. No frame need be specified to talk about the proper time along a specific worldline, or the proper length or proper mass of an object. These things don't change from one frame to the next.

It was Mike, not me that said there was a sudden jump in how the traveling twin views the age of the earth twin. I just pointed out this is only under the a-physical simplification of instantaneous acceleration.

Mike adds confusion by using absolute verbiage in a relative interpretation of events, but what he says is technically correct. So "he concludes that she instantaneously ages by a large amount during the instantaneous turnaround" is misleading but not wrong. He claims that one school of thought claims this, but I've never seen a physicist word it that way.
Let's say the trip takes 20 years for her and 10 years (5 each way) for him. Mike says the brother concludes that she ages 15 years during the turnaround. Worded more the way any relativist would, it should say: "Simultaneous with the event where the brother is furthest from Earth, the difference in her age in the outbound frame of the traveler and in the return frame of the traveler approaches 15 years as the time taken to turn around approaches zero".

That makes it much more clear that it is two different frames being referenced, and not anything actually happening to the girl back home caused by what the traveler is doing. Similarly, using the 'approaches' language gets rid of the instantaneous turnaround simplification that seems to offend you. In fact, the longer it takes the twin to turn around, the more the 15 year age difference of the sister is in the example I gave above. 15 years is a minimum difference given an arbitrarily powerful ship. Point is, there are two frames, and her age is very much at least 15 years different in those frames, simultaneous with the one twin's turnaround event. This is a simple example of relativity of simultaneity.

Notice no mention of 'current reading' of any clock in the twins scenario. There is no particular moment in the scenario that is the 'current' one. Special relativity denies a preferred frame, and with it a preferred moment. Absolute interpretations (Lorentz say) assert said preferred frame (not an inertial one), but even Lorentz didn't go so far as to assert a current (preferred) moment in time.

Reply to noAxioms No Axioms,

I'm not an absolutist or presentist. Labeling thought generally misrepresents it. My theories are my own perhaps a new interpretation but completely compatible with relativity though not necessarily how it's interpreted (which varies anyway). I have around 12 books and 22 YouTube talks explaining my Complete Theory of Everything with free pdf's and links at http://edgarlowen.com/reality.shtml

[note that the sections on special relativity there are out of date and currently being updated]

Proper time is simply what any clock is currently reading. The presence of an observer is irrelevant though if there is a comoving observer he is aging at the same rate his clock is ticking.

You are correct that the elapsed proper time of a world line between two events is invariant and the same seen from any frame after a Lorentz transformation.

Anyway the twin example is pretty simple. A lot of people over complicate it...

1. The elapsed proper time of any clock depends entirely on its own motion through spacetime, not in the least to how it's being observed by any observer. If it follows an inertial path all its constant spacetime distance traveled is through time. Time passes at the same rate on all inertial clocks. However to the extent it deviates from an inertial path it travels a shorter distance through time due to the distance it deviates in space. This is what happens to the space-traveling twin.

2. The entirely separate issue is how relatively moving observers view each other's clocks. That is simply a matter of perspective and is easily calculated as d? = ?(dt^2 – dx^2) for any point (dt, dx) in the reference frame to find the proper time of the moving clock as it appears from the perspective of the reference frame.

That's about all there is to it.

Edgar L. Owen

Quoting Mike Fontenot

One school of thought is that he says that she is ageing more slowly than he is, on both the outbound leg and on the inbound leg, but that he concludes that she instantaneously ages by a large amount during the instantaneous turnaround.

I don't understand why he concludes she is instantaneously aging by a large amount at that turnaround. Suppose the turnaround were not instantaneous, but rather there's an instantaneous stop , a 10 minute delay to turnaround, followed by an instantaneous acceleration back to near light speed.

Shouldn't he conclude that during that 10 period, they are aging at (pretty close to) the same rate? As we shorten the turnaround interval towards zero, the same-rate-aging period gets shorter, and at a zero turnaround - the same-rate-aging period is zero.

What am I missing?

If he instantaneously changes his velocity from +v to zero, he will conclude that she instantaneously ages by half the amount she would have aged if he has gone from +v to -v. Then, during that 10 minutes at zero velocity, they would be ageing at the same rate. And during the change from zero velocity to -v, she would instantaneously age by the same amount of ageing that happened when going from +v to zero velocity. I.e., in the case where her she instantaneously ages by 60 years in the standard twin paradox, in your example, she would instantaneously age by 30 years at the beginning of the 10 minutes, then age at his rate for 10 minutes, and then age by another 30 years at the end of the 10 minutes. That is the result for the co-moving inertial frames simultaneity method.

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike and Relativist,

Yes but of course this is only how the space twin VIEWS the aging of his earth twin. That doesn't affect the actual aging rate of the earth twin in the least which goes on completely as normal unaffected by how anyone else views it.

Edgar L. Owen

Quoting Edgar L Owen

Yes but of course this is only how the space twin VIEWS the aging of his earth twin. That doesn't affect the actual aging rate of the earth twin in the least which goes on completely as normal unaffected by how anyone else views it.

That's true, provided by "views" you mean what the traveling twin CONCLUDES about the home twin's current age. His conclusion about her current age is NOT what he sees on a TV screen showing her, because that image is "out of date" ... if they are separated by many light years, it took many years for that image to travel from her to him. I suspect you already know this. It's best to not refer to his "view" when you mean what he concludes, or what he computes her current age to be.

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

Good point. It's what he computes or would see disregarding the time lag of light traveling between them. It's her apparent age in his reference frame as opposed to her actual age in her own reference frame.

Edgar L. Owen

The scenario is somewhat different, but this link provides a detailed, but fairly easy to understand explanation of the Twin Paradox.

In the Op, you said:
Quoting Mike Fontenot

BUT many physicists DO believe that she doesn't have a well-defined current AGE when he is separated from her (at least if he has accelerated recently). THAT'S the conclusion that I can't accept philosophically: it seems to me that if she currently EXISTS right now, she must be DOING something right now, and if she is DOING something right now, she must be some specific AGE right now. So I conclude that her current age, according to him, can't be a meaningless concept. That puts me at odds with many other physicists.

The animated charts in that link suggest to me that it's perfectly reasonable to consider there to be simultaneous points in time between the respective inertial frames (they can be mapped to one another), albeit that they proceed at a different pace.

If messages could be sent between the twins at infinite speed that would show simultaneity:
"What are you doing now?"
- "I'm reading Dante"
But for all practical purposes simultaneity cannot be determined.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

It's what he computes or would see disregarding the time lag of light traveling between them.

I would say that it's what he computes when he properly takes the image transit time into account.

It's her apparent age in his reference frame as opposed to her actual age in her own reference frame.

I wouldn't use the term "actual" for her perspective, and I wouldn't use the term "apparent" for his perspective. They each are equally correct in their perspectives. They disagree, but neither one is more correct than the other.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

I'm not an absolutist or presentist. Labeling thought generally misrepresents it.

I'm not representing it, just categorizing it. Presentism isn't one fixed belief system, so I'm not telling you your beliefs. I'm just reacting to your initial post asserting the ability to demonstrate a "universal current present moment", and then immediately following that assertion with a premise that assumes its conclusion (and doesn't seem to be true even the conclusion is).

Your website is full of presentist assertions, notably this:

All processor computations occur in the current universal present moment in a non-dimensional computational space in the same sense as computer programs define computational spaces.

It that (my bold) isn't presentism, I don't know what is. I'm not saying presentism is necessarily wrong, but you seem to be in denial about being in the category, like its something to be embarrassed about. The vast majority of people are presentists, even if most of them are unaware of the term or the alternatives.

My theories are my own perhaps a new interpretation but completely compatible with relativity though not necessarily how it's interpreted (which varies anyway). I have around 12 books and 22 YouTube talks explaining my Complete Theory of Everything

How nice that you publish your personal beliefs, but almost all of it seems to be falsified. Has any of this been reviewed by somebody competent in the respective fields? It seems not.

Proper time is simply what any clock is currently reading.

There is no 'currently' in the definition of proper time, and if proper time is described merely as what any clock reads, the description is too simple since our twins are reunited with the clocks reading different values, which is unexplained by this oversimplified statement. Yes, all clocks measure the proper time of that clock, or more correctly, of the worldline followed by that clock. Your statement needs to encompass that.

The presence of an observer is irrelevant

Good. Your wording sometimes left me wondering.

Anyway the twin example is pretty simple. A lot of people over complicate it...

1. The elapsed proper time of any clock depends entirely on its own motion through spacetime, not in the least to how it's being observed by any observer.

This wording presumes that there is a concept of motion through spacetime. Any non-presentist interpretation would not word it that way. "The proper time of any clock depends entirely on the worldline of the clock". Calling that 'motion' makes it sound like the rock is here in 2020 and hence 2019 has no rock or anything else, it having all moved on to the present. That contradicts relativity theory which would require, in any inertial frame, existing events to happen simultaneously with nonexistent (not current) events.
I say 'in any inertial frame' since no inertial frame foliates all of spacetime, hence any 'universal current present moment' cannot map to any inertial frame.

If it follows an inertial path all its constant spacetime distance traveled is through time.

Not in any coordinate system where it isn't stationary, so this is false. Yes, in a coordinate system where an inertial object is stationary, two events on that object's worldline are separated only by time, but in other coordinate systems (other reference frames), this is not so.

Time passes at the same rate on all inertial clocks.

Obviously false, as can be demonstrated by doing the twins experiment with a tag team of 2 clocks. All clocks are then inertial, but since the final comparison yields different values, some of the inertial clocks must be running at different speeds than another.

The entirely separate issue is how relatively moving observers view each other's clocks.

Well, you said this which is empirically incorrect.

relatively moving observers each view the time on each other's clocks ticking slower than their own.

Not true. If I look at an approaching clock, it will appear to run faster. Hence the blue shift of light from approaching objects like Andromeda. If your statement were true, everything in motion would appear to be red shifted, not just the receding stuff.

There are some philosophers on this forum who are also fairly knowledgeable about special relativity and the twin paradox. Those of you in that category might be interested in some discussion going on in the SciForums physics forum. Until recently, I've been a proponent of the co-moving inertial frames (CMIF) simultaneity method, but I recently discovered a simple proof that shows that the CMIF method is incorrect. And I also defined a new simultaneity method. Here's a link to that forum:

http://www.sciforums.com/forums/physics-math.33/

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

Normally (in most but not all methods) the signal transit time is ignored when the proper time of a moving clock is computed.

And, sure both perspectives are correct in their frames. The difference is that her's is actual because she just looks at her comoving clock and reads the time, while his is apparent or observational because he from a distance in a different state of motion has a perspective view. He's not actually there reading her time on her clock.

Just my terminology to distinguish the cases which are in fact quite distinct.

Edgar L. Owen

Reply to noAxioms no Axioms,

First thanks for looking at my site and commenting on it. I'm not quite sure where you are coming from but will try to tease out our differences. We seem to be talking at cross purposes somewhat and you seem to be misinterpreting a number of my statements. Easy to do in relativity if not very carefully stated.

Take your last 3 paragraphs quoting 3 statements of mine.
1. I said " If it follows an inertial path all its constant spacetime distance traveled is through time."
I meant in its own frame where it is at rest. That was assumed but perhaps should have been explicitly stated.

2. I said " Time passes at the same rate on all inertial clocks"
Again I meant in their own frames since in their own frames all their constant motion through spacetime is through time. Normally I mean 'in their own frames' unless I state otherwise.

3. My statement is of course when we ignore signal transit time and red or blue shifts which we normally do when calculating proper times of moving clocks. Ignoring those, two relatively moving clocks do each see each other's clocks ticking slower than their own by the same amount. This is simple time dilation which is well established.

Also you seem to believe the past still somehow exists which leads me to suspect you believe in a block universe in which all past and maybe future states actually exist. I don't agree...

I suspect when we understand how we each use the terminology some of our views are closer than you think.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

Normally (in most but not all methods) the signal transit time is ignored when the proper time of a moving clock is computed.

I don't understand that comment. It's obvious that the image received is an old, out-of-date image, so it should never be considered to be showing the current age of the distant person.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

And, sure both perspectives are correct in their frames. The difference is that her's is actual because she just looks at her comoving clock and reads the time, while his is apparent or observational because he from a distance in a different state of motion has a perspective view. He's not actually there reading her time on her clock.

Understood.

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

There need be no signal received to calculate the apparent age of a relatively moving clock. It's a simple calculation in a Minkowski diagram d? = ?(dt^2 – dx^2). The signal transit time doesn't appear in this proper time equation at all and is ignored. This is the standard way to calculate the proper time of a relatively moving clock when the signal transit time is ignored as it usually is. Very simple and correct in all cases. If there is a non-instantaneous acceleration we just integrate this over the path instead.

Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

Also I don't understand all your agonizing over the twins. It's really quite simple.

Ignore the signal transit time. That's an entirely separate issue...

1. In a Minkowski diagram in the earth reference frame use d?i = ?(dti2 – dxi2) to calculate the proper times of both legs of the space twin's path, or any point along the path.

2. Use a Lorentz transformation to convert the diagram to the frame of the first leg of the space twin's path. Use the same equation to calculate the apparent proper time of the earth twin from that perspective.

3. Use a Lorentz transformation to convert the diagram to the frame of the second leg of the space twin's path. Use the same equation to calculate the apparent proper time of the earth twin from that perspective.

This method gives both twin's views throughout the whole trip. If you want to add signal transit effects which I don't do, that's a completely separate issue.

Also Caltech? physicist John Baez has a complete animation of all possible effects on his site including the little known Penrose twisting etc. though you have to spend some time with it.

Best,
Edgar L. Owen

Quoting Edgar L Owen

There need be no signal received to calculate the apparent age of a relatively moving clock. It's a simple calculation in a Minkowski diagram d? = ?(dt^2 – dx^2).

Please show how to use that equation to compute the age of the home twin, according to the traveling twin, immediately before and immediately after the traveler's instantaneous velocity change. Do the case with gamma = 2.0, and with the turnaround at 20 years of age for the traveler, and 40 years of age for the home twin (according to the home twin).

Also, it would be better to continue this discussion on the SciForums forum rather than here, because this is a physics issue, not a philosophy issue.

Quoting Mike Fontenot

Until recently, I've been a proponent of the co-moving inertial frames (CMIF) simultaneity method, but I recently discovered a simple proof that shows that the CMIF method is incorrect. And I also defined a new simultaneity method.

I could not make any sense of the new method. The old CADO/CMIF one was worded from a sort of idealistic perspective, but otherwise it didn't seem outright wrong. Can you point me to this simple proof against it? Or to some sort of reason why the standard relativistic view (per Einstein) is unreasonable?

Quoting Edgar L Owen

The difference is that her's is actual because she just looks at her comoving clock and reads the time

Both of them are looking at their own comoving clock and reading its time, so this isn't a difference.

while his is apparent or observational because he from a distance in a different state of motion has a perspective view. He's not actually there reading her time on her clock

She is also at a distance from his clock and has a 'perspective view' as you call it. Neither of them is actually there reading the other's clock. Again, no difference.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

First thanks for looking at my site and commenting on it.

I only glanced at a few places. Hardly a solid effort to read it all. You seem to hold a sort of dualistic view of mind where the physical universe is a computed virtual reality which is fed real time to a non-physical experiencer elsewhere. The VR has a current state for everything which is sort of updated all at once everywhere for the next 'universal current present moment'.
That seems to be the general gist. Let me know if I didn't get very close.

1. I said " If it follows an inertial path all its constant spacetime distance traveled is through time."
I meant in its own frame where it is at rest. That was assumed but perhaps should have been explicitly stated.

If there is a universal current present moment, then there is a universal location for everything, and if the location of some object changes (in your computer) from one tick to the next, then that object isn't stationary. Yes, I agree that it can be made stationary by selecting a coordinate system with time axis parallel to its worldline, but that frame doesn't correspond to reality in the universe you describe. In such a frame, most moments simultaneous with here and now are in the past or future (have already gone by or have yet to be computed), so the frame aligns the time axis differently than the actual one.

2. I said " Time passes at the same rate on all inertial clocks"
Again I meant in their own frames since in their own frames all their constant motion through spacetime is through time. Normally I mean 'in their own frames' unless I state otherwise.

If I have two clocks in relative motion, in no frame are they both stationary, so I'm not sure how this statement can be satisfied as your modified statement words it. At best you seem to be stating a simple tautology that clocks measure their own proper time, and being inertial isn't required for that.
Under an absolute interpretation such as yours, the concept of the rate of a clock has meaning, but you seem to mix relative and absolute statements without picking a consistent interpretation.
You deny presentism, and yet you talk about time passing at a rate, which is a presentist concept. Under the 4D spacetime interpretation, time isn't something that passes or moves in any way, it's just another dimension with no more present moment than there is a current location (which there is in Fontenot's view, or at least his old CIMF view).

3. My statement is of course when we ignore signal transit time and red or blue shifts which we normally do when calculating proper times of moving clocks.

OK. That's definitely not how you worded it the first time, where you talked about what's being viewed and not what's being computed.

Ignoring those, two relatively moving clocks do each see each other's clocks ticking slower than their own by the same amount. This is simple time dilation which is well established.

Assuming a relativist interpretation and assuming they're inertial, agree. It seems not to be true in your VR universe where a moving observer should compute his own clock as running slow because he's not stationary (not at the same location in the simulation from one moment to the next). Using his own frame is wrong in that situation because that frame doesn't represent the universal frame.

Also you seem to believe the past still somehow exists which leads me to suspect you believe in a block universe in which all past and maybe future states actually exist. I don't agree...

This is what I mean by mixing interpretations. You explicitly deny the block interpretation (that's fine), but then say you're not a presentist, which is what's left. If you deny the block, then you must deny any frame that has past and future events being simultaneous with some current event, a contradiction if you deny the reality of such events.

I didn't look to see how much of these contradictions are in the books since you said the SR parts were under revision. I scanned pretty much none of that. I looked a bit at consciousness, entanglement and dark matter, just sort of random places to click.

Reply to noAxioms
The underlying solution to the apparent contradictions you mention is the notion of two kinds of time.

Processor time which proceeds at the same rate throughout the universe in each tick of which the entire universe is recomputed including the computation of the allocation of the constant identical total distance traveled through spacetime of every object between distance in time and distance in space. The result is the universe as the present moment surface of a cosmic hypersphere in which everything is at the same processor time but objects have different proper times depending on how much spatial distance they have traveled along their own world lines in their own frames,

Within this present moment surface, frames view other frames from the perspective of their different coordinate systems and calculate differed relative values to the space and time values of clocks in relative motion to their own.

Edgar L. Owen

Quoting noAxioms

Can you point me to this simple proof against it?

Yes. It is near the end of Section 7 of my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

Quoting noAxioms

Or to some sort of reason why the standard relativistic view (per Einstein) is unreasonable?

What do you mean by "the standard relativistic view (per Einstein)"?

It would be best to continue this discussion on the SciForums forum, rather than here, because this is a philosophy forum, and the above is a physic issue.

Quoting noAxioms

I could not make any sense of the new method.

The most important result I got was the proof that the CMIF simultaneity method is incorrect. If my proof is correct, that's a BIG deal, because the CMIF method has been the most-used simultaneity method for many decades. Since I also rejected the only two other simultaneity methods that I'm aware of (because they are non-causal), that left NO known simultaneity methods at all (for an accelerating observer). But immediately after I discovered that proof, I also saw a way to reasonably define a new simultaneity method, and I fleshed that out over several months. It's not quick or easy to describe, so I'm not surprised that you've had trouble understanding it. But it turned out to have some remarkably nice features (like the linear middle portion of the age correspondence diagram), and that has given me some confidence that it may be THE correct simultaneity method for an accelerating observer. Either way, it's the only game in town now.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting noAxioms

I could not make any sense of the new method.

I might be able to help you understand my simultaneity method a little by just saying that my new method and the proof both share a focus on determining by how much the home twin (she) ages while the pulse she sends the traveling twin (him) is in transit. My method basically says that when that pulse is partially in the left half of the Minkowski diagram (with the time axis plotted horizontally), and partially in the right half of the Minkowski diagram, that her ageing during the transit in the left half needs to be determined by the perpetually-inertial observer in the left half of the diagram, and likewise for the right half. Those two components of her ageing during the pulse's transit are then added together to get the accelerating twin's conclusion about her total ageing during the transit. Hope that helps a little.

Reply to tim wood Well done for not engaging with what I said.

Has time passed more slowly for the apple in the fridge?

If 'no' (and obviously the answer is 'no'), what's the difference between that case and the twin case?

Quoting Mike Fontenot

It would be best to continue this discussion on the SciForums forum, rather than here, because this is a philosophy forum, and the above is a physic issue.

And I have. I'm a newbie there.

This, on the other hand, is philosophy:

Quoting Edgar L Owen

The underlying solution to the apparent contradictions you mention is the notion of two kinds of time.

Processor time which proceeds at the same rate throughout the universe in each tick of which the entire universe is recomputed including the computation of the allocation of the constant identical total distance traveled through spacetime of every object between distance in time and distance in space. The result is the universe as the present moment surface of a cosmic hypersphere in which everything is at the same processor time but objects have different proper times depending on how much spatial distance they have traveled along their own world lines in their own frames,

You lost me there. In their own frames (a block concept), they travel no spatial distance at all, by definition. You continue to mix philosophy of time interpretations.

Also, why a hypersphere? Are you saying space is curved and finite and wraps around if you go far enough? Glorified (non-local) computational balloon analogy?

Within this present moment surface, frames view other frames from the perspective of their different coordinate systems and calculate differed relative values to the space and time values of clocks in relative motion to their own.

OK, 'present moment surface.' is consistent with what you're saying, but then other frames do not correspond to this surface, but rather to hyperplanes tilted one way or another so that only along the 2D plane of intersection are simultaneous events 'actual' (part of the hypersurface. Why would you consider such a frame valid if most of consists of nonexistent events.

For example, Bob (the guy traveling) just before turning around at age 10 figures that Alice (the stay at home sister) is 5 years old, but her 5th birthday is actually a past event and in reality (assuming she's the stationary one) she's 20 years old, or more precisely, the universal computer is computing Bob's 10th birthday at the same time as it is computing Alice's 20th. The 5th birthday is long gone and it is a mistake for Bob to compute her age using a coordinate system where he is stationary. The fact of the matter is, he's very much not stationary, but moving like a bat outa hell.

The block interpretation has no problem with Bob's frame since all those events are equally real, and hence any frame is as good as another. This is why the block interpretation (which had been around since before Einstein) suddenly became more intuitive.

- - -

Quoting Bartricks

Has time passed more slowly for the apple in the fridge?

If 'no' (and obviously the answer is 'no'), what's the difference between that case and the twin case?

The difference is that relative to the apple in the fridge, the apple on the table still rots faster. With the twins, in the frame of either, it is the other one that rots more slowly.

Reply to noAxioms So, when the twins meet back up, they're both older than each other?

They don't meet back up if they stay stationary in different frames

Reply to noAxioms But they can meet back up, yes? And if they do, are they both older than each other?

No, they can't. One would have to accelerate and become stationary in a different frame. The other twin ages slower in that frame as well, but in that new frame, the twin back home is already much older than the twin turning around.

BTW, the apple example is more like gravitational dilation. An apple on the top floor of a building rots faster than one on ground floor, all else being equal.

Reply to noAxioms I am unclear why they can't meet up. If one is travelling through space and the other is stationary, why can't they meet up?

Reply to noAxioms Quoting noAxioms

BTW, the apple example is more like gravitational dilation. An apple on the top floor of a building rots faster than one on ground floor, all else being equal.

We're agreed, though, that the apple in the fridge isn't travelling through time slower though, yes? Time doesn't run slower in fridges, or faster at the tops of buildings, presumably.

I never said one is traveling through space and the other isn't. I said each was stationary relative to a different inertial reference frame. You're using absolute phrasing. The situation is quite different given an absolute interpretation.

Reply to noAxioms The original set up is that one is stationary and the other travels away at a constant speed, yes? And they turn around and travel back, yes?

And the 'paradox' is, well, what? That one will 'think' that they have experienced less time than the other, and the other will think the reverse, yes?

And that's somehow supposed to tell us something about time?

I mean, they can't actually both be older than each other, yes? So they've endured for the same amount of time. It is just they don't think this, based on their experiences.

Just as, by analogy, the apple in the fridge, though it appears not to have endured as much time as the apple on the sideboard, has, in fact, endured the same amount of time.

It would be monstrously silly to conclude that appearances are accurate and that time slows down in fridges. And so it would surely be every bit as silly to conclude that the appearances the twins are subject to are accurate.

No. The original setup is that the two move apart from each other. There is no designation of either of them being the stationary one.

Under absolute terms like that, perhaps the guy with the rocket is initially the stationary one and it is Earth that is moving quickly. The answer still comes out the same.

Reply to noAxioms Doesn't matter - same point applies. They both speed away and then come back together, yes?

THey won't both be older than each other, will they? So, what's the point?

is it that under such a scenario two people will find themselves with contradictory but equally well epistemically justified beliefs about how much time has elapsed?

Reply to BartricksYou seem to only be able to think in absolute terms. That works as well.

The simplest case then is Earth is arbitrarily designated as stationary and Bob moves fast the whole time and thus ages less because physical processes slow down if they're not stationary. That's actually pretty simple, and the twins thing isn't a paradox at all. Reference frames don't come into play at all with this interpretation. Why don't you go with it?

Quoting Bartricks

Doesn't matter - same point applies. They both speed away and then come back together, yes?

The apples are just sitting there, not in relative motion. One in the fridge (which works by retarding chemical reactions, not dilating time) and one not.

THey won't both be older than each other, will they? So, what's the point?

The apples stay the same age. One just rots quicker.

If the apples move fast, then yes, one actually gets older than the other. This has been demonstrated conclusively with small fast objects that decay at very known rates.

Reply to noAxioms Quoting noAxioms

The simplest case then is Earth is arbitrarily designated as stationary and Bob moves fast the whole time and thus ages less because physical processes slow down if they're not stationary. That's actually pretty simple, and the twins thing isn't a paradox at all. Reference frames don't come into play at all with this interpretation. Why don't you go with it?

Er, I did. And then you said both move.

What I want to know is why physicists think it tells us something interesting about time. Because it seems to me to tell us nothing more than my fridge/apple example.

For instance, here's another variation: one twin travels from the earth and the other stays put. Twin one thinks "hm, my twin is getting smaller and smaller than me". Whereas the other twin - twin two - thinks "hm, my twin is getting smaller and smaller than me".

Are they both getting smaller than each other? No, obviously not. But they both have equally justified beliefs that one is getting smaller than the other.

Reply to noAxioms Quoting noAxioms

If the apples move fast, then yes, one actually gets older than the other. This has been demonstrated conclusively with small fast objects that decay at very known rates.

Hahaha, so you DO think time goes more slowly in fridges?! It has been demonstrated conclusively that apples decay more slowly in fridges.

The apple in the fridge on the sideboard does not 'age' faster than the one in the fridge. They are both the same age. One is just more shrivelled than the other. Processes have happened in one faster than they have in the other.

Quoting Bartricks

Er, I did. And then you said both move.

Motion by definition is relative. I said they both move relative to each other. The absolute way would be relative to some implied absolute frame, so one just says 'this one is moving and that one isn't'. I have a hard time thinking in such terms, as I said, you should go with it.

What I want to know is why physicists think it tells us something interesting about time. Because it seems to me to tell us nothing more than my fridge/apple example.

In absolute interpretation, light speed is not frame independent. That's where it becomes complicated. Has nothing to do with apples. How can I measure how long light takes to cross the room if I don't know if my clock is dilated or running full tilt? For one, no clock in reality, even if stationary and compensating for gravity, runs at full speed. They've never computed how slow Earth clocks run, which sort of puts a dent in the claim that there is such a rate.
Translation, as an absolutist, I have no idea how long it takes the apple to rot since my clock doesn't measure time accurately at all.

For instance, here's another variation: one twin travels from the earth and the other stays put. Twin one thinks "hm, my twin is getting smaller and smaller than me". Whereas the other twin - twin two - thinks "hm, my twin is getting smaller and smaller than me".

Are they both getting smaller than each other? No, obviously not. But they both have equally justified beliefs that one is getting smaller than the other.

Not justified. An object at twice the distance occupies a quarter of my visual field. They didn't take that into account if either concludes that the other is actually getting smaller.
Similarly, an approaching clock appears to run faster but nobody who knows their physics actually concludes it is. That's just blue shift.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to noAxioms Quoting noAxioms

Motion by definition is relative.

Er, no, it really isn't.

Quoting noAxioms

I have a hard time thinking in such terms, as I said, you should go with it.

I don't see why I should as it really isn't hard to think in such terms. But anyway, I did. And then you said one was stationary. And I explained why this isn't the issue - we're not talking about space and motion, but about time. So, how does the example show us anything about 'time'?

Quoting noAxioms

In absolute interpretation, light speed is not frame independent. That's where it becomes complicated. Has nothing to do with apples.

It has everything to do with apples - I brought apples into it and wanted to know why those who think the twin paradox shows us something interesting about time aren't as confused as someone who thinks that because an apple in the fridge decays more slowly than one on the sideboard, therefore time travels more slowly in the fridge.

So far you have singularly failed to do this - indeed, from your previous comment it seems that you think time does actually travel slower in the fridge.

If you don't think this, can you explain the difference between my apple example and the twin paradox?

Reply to tim wood Er, no. I've watched youtube videos on it and they are no different to listening to one of you - that is, they seem as confused as someone who thinks time travels more slowly in fridges.

If you understand what the difference is - the difference that allows an inference to be made about time in the one case but not in the other - then explain it in your own words, please.

Quoting Bartricks

It has everything to do with apples - I brought apples into it and wanted to know why those who think the twin paradox shows us something interesting about time aren't as confused as someone who thinks that because an apple in the fridge decays more slowly than one on the sideboard, therefore time travels more slowly in the fridge.

So far you have singularly failed to do this - indeed, from your previous comment it seems that you think time does actually travel slower in the fridge.

If you don't think this, can you explain the difference between my apple example and the twin paradox?

With the apples I can open the fridge and set the two side by side and it is clear which one is more decayed.

With two clocks receding from each other (and no other objects), it is impossible to tell which is running slower. To do that, one must make an assumption about which of the two is more stationary, but it's an arbitrary choice. There is no empirical test for it. There is no doubt with the apples.

Reply to noAxioms So this is not a point about reality, or time, but about justified beliefs, yes?

When my twin travels away from me, it seems to me that he is getting smaller and smaller than me. And from his perspective, as he travels away from me, I seem to be getting smaller and smaller than him.

Now, what do we conclude? That we are both getting smaller than each other? No, that's clearly impossible. And it remains impossible even if, due to the fact we've both travelling away from each other, we'll never meet to be able to compare body sizes.

We are not both getting smaller than each other - because that's impossible as a moment's reflection reveals - and that remains true even if, due to our impressions of what's happening, we're both equally justified in believing that we are getting smaller than each other.

Two people can be equally justified in holding contradictory beliefs - there's no problem with that. What is problematic is holding that something contradictory is actually true.

Two people cannot both be older than each other. Two people cannot both be smaller than each other. But two people most certainly can believe that they are older than each other, and be equally justified in that belief; and two people can be equally justified in believing that they are smaller than the other.

So, again, how do you conclude anything about time without committing yourself - on pain of inconsistency - to holding that time travels slower in fridges?

Quoting Bartricks

So this is not a point about reality, or time, but about justified beliefs, yes?

The differences between the two interpretations of relativity (relative or absolute frames) and the differences between two interpretations of time (block 4D spacetime vs presentist 3D space) are a matter of belief, yes. The fact that the one twin will be twice the age of the other when they meet again is not a matter of belief.

When my twin travels away from me, it seems to me that he is getting smaller and smaller than me. And from his perspective, as he travels away from me, I seem to be getting smaller and smaller than him.

Now, what do we conclude? That we are both getting smaller than each other? No, that's clearly impossible. And it remains impossible even if, due to the fact we've both travelling away from each other, we'll never meet to be able to compare body sizes.

But you can. Simple geometry. I can measure the actual size of something without being in its presence, if I know how far away it is.

Two people can be equally justified in holding contradictory beliefs - there's no problem with that. What is problematic is holding that something contradictory is actually true.

Only if you believe both are true at once. They can't both be right if they're mutually contradictory. Maybe everybody's wrong.

Two people cannot both be older than each other. Two people cannot both be smaller than each other. But two people most certainly can believe that they are older than each other, and be equally justified in that belief

Nobody I know claims this. I certainly don't. OK, trolls claim this I suppose.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to noAxioms but again, you seem to be confusing epistemological possibilities with metaphysical ones.

Two people can be equally justified in believing contradictory propositions - and there can be nothing we can do to confirm which belief, if either, is true. But you can't conclude from that that both are true. Yet that seems exactly what you would need to do to derive any substantial conclusion about time from the twins paradox.

Quoting Bartricks

Two people can be equally justified in believing contradictory propositions - and there can be nothing we can do to confirm which belief, if either, is true.

It seems if there are three valid contradictory positions, then nobody can be justified in their belief using any empirical evidence since they're not justified in eliminating the other possibilities. All of philosophy seems to be like that. If you could verify/falsify one position over the other, it would be justifiable scientific fact, not an interpretational choice.

I justify my choice because I think the 3D interpretation, by putting time outside of the universe, creates the logically incoherent position of the universe suddenly 'happening' at some random time without cause. That works great for say the theists who assign that cause to a decision made by a deity, but then you have the same problem of the deity existing within time or v-v, both of which typically are incompatible with the definition given for said deity.

But you can't conclude from that that both are true. Yet that seems exactly what you would need to do to derive any substantial conclusion about time from the twins paradox.

You seem to not understand either interpretation then. Neither requires the other to be true.

Tim Wood above seems to be mixing the two interpretations just like Edgar Owen does, which leads to confusion since the two views are contradictory. Tim seems to want a 4D relative interpretation and Edgar wants a 3D presentist interpretation even if he resists the label, but each of them borrows from the other interpretation. There is also the 4D absolute interpretation which nobody here seems to support.

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

Rather than doing the example you suggest here's one I've already done using the standard method I outlined.

This example starts in Earth twin frame with her path from (0,0) to (10,0). Space twin path is from (0,0) to (5,4) to (10,0). Earth twin calculates proper time of space twin over the entire trip as 6 while hers is 10, and Earth twin calculates space twins clock reads 3 at turnaround.

I then use Lorentz transformations to convert to frame of 1st leg of space twin path, From the end of that path (turnaround) apparent time of Earth twin calculated by space twin is 1.8.

I then use Lorentz transformations to convert to frame of return leg of space twin's path. From turnaround at the start of that frame I calculate apparent Earth twin time is 8.2.

So at turnaround in this scenario there is an apparent instantaneous symmetrical jump of 6.4 due to the non physical instantaneous acceleration assumed. As I said this disappears when a physically possible acceleration-deceleration is used in which case the change sweeps continuously across the difference. I can show you a diagram of this if you like.

I can also post all my calculations if you want to see how I got these results.

I used the standard method I outlined to get these results. I suggest you do the same example with your method and see if you get the same results.

Best,
Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Bartricks Yes, the apparent contradiction that each other's clocks are running slower is just a very simple matter of perspective.

Here's an easy explanation from the book I'm currently writing:

1. Thus in relativity when two clocks move relative to each other they both see each other’s clocks running at a slower rate due to time dilation, and thus they both see less time passing on the other’s clock than their own.
2. This is easy to understand as a matter of perspective. A spatial analogy will make this clear.
3. Imagine two cars each traveling at the same 60 mph but on roads that are angled with respect to each other. Each measures the speed of the other and the distance it seems to travel in terms of a coordinate grid aligned with the road it’s on. Each car travels entirely along the x-axis in its own coordinate system. Thus each driver sees the other car traveling some distance at some velocity along the y-axis.
4. Using the familiar Pythagorean formula this apparent motion along the y-coordinate reduces the other car’s distance traveled along the x-axis by dx’=? (dx2 – dy2) and thus its apparent velocity along the x-axis.
5. And the same is true from the perspective of the other car since both measure the other car’s motion relative to their own x-axis.
6. Thus both drivers each see the other car traveling at a slower velocity and covering a lesser distance than their own.
7. But importantly both drivers are viewing the same actual reality from the perspective of their respective coordinate systems.
8. The same is true with respect to time dilation and elapsed proper time. Again each of two relatively moving observers each sees the other’s clock ticking slower and covering a lesser distance through time than their own, and for the exact same reason of perspective.
9. Here too everything is going at the same velocity, the speed of light. So if two clocks are traveling with relative spatial velocity, each will see the other clock ticking slower and covering less distance in time.
10. Here again both observers measure motion through spacetime in terms of a coordinate system in which they are traveling entirely through time with no velocity in space relative to themselves. And both see the other traveling with an equal but opposite relative motion along the x-axis.
11. So using the same Pythagorean theorem, each sees the other’s distance through time traveled as as d? =? (dt2 – dx2), less than their own as they see some of the other’s spacetime c velocity as being through space along the x-axis.
12. But again it’s important to understand that both observers are viewing the same actual reality just from the perspectives of their different coordinate systems. In particular they are seeing the actual clock readings of the other clock, and seeing the actual tick rates of each other’s clocks, just from their own native perspective. Each sees the other from the perspective of the frame in which it is at rest.
13. Even though observers in different frames may view the spacetime variables of another clock differently how it’s viewed doesn’t affect its actual behavior at all. The actual behavior of everything in spacetime depends entirely on its own path through spacetime.
14. Specifically its actual elapsed proper time depends entirely on how much it deviates from an inertial path. Otherwise all clocks travel exactly the same distance through time at the same c velocity so long as they follow inertial paths in flat spacetime.
15. How clocks are viewed by other clocks doesn’t affect them in the least, however relativity enables us to calculate any clock’s elapsed proper time from any inertial frame.
16. So all views are perspective views of actual events, but we only see part of a moving clock’s passage through time from our perspective, as do all other observers in relative motion to it, who all must view everything entirely from the perspective of their own coordinate system.

Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

If you want to include the effect of the transit time of light there is a very easy way.

First ignore it completely and just use my method to calculate the proper times from any frame using d? = ?(dt^2 – dx^2) to get the proper time at any point along a moving path in the current reference frame. As I said the effect of light signal transit time is an entirely separate issue which is now easily added.

Just extend a line 45° downward from any point on the vertical ct axis until it intersects the relatively moving path. Since Minkowski diagrams are scaled by c, light takes 45° upward paths.

Assuming the reference frame is one of the legs of the space traveling twin then where the 45° downward line from time t on the vertical t-axis intersects the earth path at time t' will be the earth time the space twin 'sees' at his time t. You can connect any two points on the two paths with similar 45° lines to get the apparent time at any points along any moving path including the light transit time delay once you've used my method to first get the innate time relationships.

Hope this is clear. It's really quite simple...

Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Edgar L Owen right. So we can't conclude anything about the nature of time from the example. All the example illustrates is that two people can acquire equally justified contradictory beliefs about something. Which is something every thoughtful person already knew.

I really am justified in believing my twin is getting smaller as he moves away from me, and he really is justified in believing the opposite. From this we can no more conclude that size is relative than that it is absolute. The same, I take it you would agree, applies to time.

Reply to Bartricks
No, this is not a matter of belief but the way reality actually works.

Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

I tried to sign up to http://www.sciforums.com/forums/physics-math.33/ but was rejected with the message that my attempt "resembled spam or automated behavior". So I'll continue to post here.

Edgar L. Owen

Sorry ... I don't know why it did that to you. I've been banned for life on Physics Forum (since more than 10 years ago), so at least you didn't get bashed that bad!

Reply to Edgar L Owen ah, so you don't really know what you're on about.

Is your book written in crayon?

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood You don't get it - the twin paradox in no way implies the relativity of time.

Quoting Bartricks

When my twin travels away from me, it seems to me that he is getting smaller and smaller than me. And from his perspective, as he travels away from me, I seem to be getting smaller and smaller than him.

Now, what do we conclude? That we are both getting smaller than each other? No, that's clearly impossible. And it remains impossible even if, due to the fact we've both travelling away from each other, we'll never meet to be able to compare body sizes.

We are not both getting smaller than each other - because that's impossible as a moment's reflection reveals - and that remains true even if, due to our impressions of what's happening, we're both equally justified in believing that we are getting smaller than each other.

Two people can be equally justified in holding contradictory beliefs - there's no problem with that. What is problematic is holding that something contradictory is actually true.

Two people cannot both be older than each other. Two people cannot both be smaller than each other. But two people most certainly can believe that they are older than each other, and be equally justified in that belief; and two people can be equally justified in believing that they are smaller than the other.

Thank you for the much-needed sanity.

Some other things that are worth pointing out:

In practice what we call time is a relative measure of change, and not a tangible entity that we detect to be passing or flowing.

The idea that relativity proves there is no absolute frame is false. The Lorentz aether theory is experimentally equivalent to special relativity, while assuming an absolute frame.

In practice an absolute frame can be detected: that determined by the cosmic microwave background radiation.

We can’t measure the speed of light in any one direction without using signals traveling faster than light, so the speed of light measurements are always average velocities on a round-trip. So there is no proof that light travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames, it’s a postulate of relativity and not an experimentally verified fact, indeed the Lorentz theory doesn’t start from this postulate yet it matches experiments just as well.

And since we don’t have to start from that postulate (that light travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames), we don’t have to accept as true the conclusions that follow from this postulate (such as that each twin is really aging more slowly than the other).

The existence of the aether hasn’t been disproved, only a particular model of it was shown to be inconsistent with the Michelson-Morley experiment. Just like experiments inconsistent with a particular model of gravitation don’t imply that gravitation doesn’t exist. In fact modern experiments do show that what we call the vacuum of space isn’t empty, isn’t nothing.

There are so many misconceptions surrounding relativity, and they’re spread everywhere, in books, textbooks, scientific articles, news articles, ...

Quoting Bartricks

Hahaha, so you DO think time goes more slowly in fridges?! It has been demonstrated conclusively that apples decay more slowly in fridges.

The apple in the fridge on the sideboard does not 'age' faster than the one in the fridge. They are both the same age. One is just more shrivelled than the other. Processes have happened in one faster than they have in the other.

I really like your example of the fridge. Indeed the observation of muons decaying more slowly when traveling faster is taken as proof that time is running more slowly in their frame, while all it shows is that their internal processes have taken place more slowly, just like for the apple in the fridge. And if one says that what we call a muon has no internal structure, well that’s a belief, an assumption, and not at all a proven fact.

Also one wonders how something that has no internal structure could decay into several other things ... :grin:

the muon is not believed to have any sub-structure—that is, it is not thought to be composed of any simpler particles

the muon decays to an electron, an electron antineutrino, and a muon neutrino

If the above two quotes aren’t a contradiction I don’t know what is. But that doesn’t seem to bother physicists too much... :grin:

It’s crazy what people are willing to believe when ‘scientists’ are saying it.

Reply to Mike Fontenot
Mike Fontenot wrote
"Sorry ... I don't know why it did that to you. I've been banned for life on Physics Forum (since more than 10 years ago), so at least you didn't get bashed that bad!"

Hey Mike did you not see my other responses to you giving results of the earth times calculated from the two legs of the space twin with my method, and second how to easily calculate the signal lag effect from the earth twin to the space twin which is a separate non-relativistic issue?

Yes, some physics forums seem to be run by the most extremist politically correct martinets one can imagine! I've been banned from a couple myself...

Would like to get your responses to my responses to you from those other posts yesterday.....

Thanks,
Edgar

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Edgar L Owen

Would like to get your responses to my responses to you from those other posts yesterday.....

Too busy right now with work on my new simultaneity method. Sorry.

Reply to Mike Fontenot Mike,

No offense but I strongly suggest you read my solutions to the same problem first. It may save you considerable time and effort.

Best,
Edgar L. Owen

Reply to Mike Fontenot Too busy right now with work on my new simultaneity method. Sorry.

And they are both short to the point posts...

Edgar

Quoting tim wood

You don't get it - the twin paradox in no way implies the relativity of time.
— Bartricks
You either know what you mean and can make it clear, or you don't and cannot.

In this case, he seems to be talking about the absolute/preferred frame interpretation (Lorentz and such) vs the mainstream interpretation that says the speed of light is actually the same in any frame, and doesn't just appear that way.
The two interpretation make all the same empirical predictions and hence neither can be falsified. That's the point Bartricks seems to be trying to make. The absolutists tend to be militantly biased, and Bartricks and Leo fit right in with that crowd. They even hold conventions for them to help separate them from their money.

If the two interpretations make the same predictions, why was the Michelson-Morley experiment performed? Its results seems to be a falsification of what those two predicted as an empirical test for the absolute interpretation.

All said, most absolutists correctly do not posit an inertial frame as the preferred one, and hence you get strange effects like any moving object, in the absence of a force acting on it, will tend to slow down over time. If you find a fast moving thing, it must have been recently accelerated. Photons similarly tend to lose energy over time. Both effects violate energy conservation, and I wonder how they account for that, or if they also need to discard thermodynamic law.

Quoting noAxioms

The absolutists tend to be militantly biased, and Bartricks and Leo fit right in with that crowd. They even hold conventions for them to help separate them from their money.

Never been to such a convention, you seem to have more experience with them than I do.

I fight for truth, you got a problem with that?

When people are told the lies that relativity is true, that they have to give up many of the intuitive ideas they’ve had all their life, that they have to replace them with totally unintuitive ideas because supposedly that’s how the universe really works, when as a result they give up trying to understand the universe or end up blindly believing the authority, when people who have an inquiring mind explore alternatives to relativity and get labeled derogatory names (“crackpot”, “absolutist”) simply because they have a scientific mind and they use it, when they get told more lies (“relativity proves there is no absolute frame”, “the concept of the aether was falsified experimentally”, “light is measured to travel at c in all inertial frames”), I think it’s a disgrace.

When the normality is to spew lies and when one gets attacked or scorned for correcting these lies and fighting for truth, it’s a disgrace. If you don’t see the problem with that attitude and the attitude you’re having now, that’s a problem too. This is the attitude that makes science dogmatic and stagnate.

Quoting noAxioms

If the two interpretations make the same predictions, why was the Michelson-Morley experiment performed? Its results seems to be a falsification of what those two predicted as an empirical test for the absolute interpretation.

Relativity and the Lorentz aether theory didn’t even exist back then, what are you talking about? They weren’t looking to test these theories.

The result of the experiment is inconsistent with a particular theory in which there is an absolute frame, it isn’t inconsistent with the existence of an absolute frame. Mercury’s precession is inconsistent with Newton’s theory of gravitation, that doesn’t imply gravitation doesn’t exist. Yet that’s the argument you seem to be making. Many claim the Michelson-Morley experiment disproves the existence of an absolute frame, that’s simply false, maybe you like spreading falsehoods but I don’t like seeing them being spread.

Quoting noAxioms

All said, most absolutists correctly do not posit an inertial frame as the preferred one

If there is an absolute frame then by definition there is a preferred frame, even if it may not be detected, again what are you talking about?

Also as I mentioned earlier, the cosmic microwave background radiation does select a preferred frame.

Quoting noAxioms

and hence you get strange effects like any moving object, in the absence of a force acting on it, will tend to slow down over time.

I wonder where you got that, tell me more and I’ll debunk it for you.

Also I like how you don’t bat an eye when you attempt to explain in a convoluted way why the twins are really both aging more slowly than the other, or why light really travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames, if you were consistent you would call THAT a strange effect.

And if you were consistent you would admit that muons decaying more slowly doesn’t imply that time runs more slowly in their frame, just like an apple decaying more slowly in a fridge doesn’t imply that time runs more slowly in the fridge. You can surely ignore your inconsistencies but that doesn’t make them go away.

And regarding Bartricks, I don’t know the guy, we spoke once before on a different subject and we were in disagreement, but it’s nice to see he has analyzed relativity critically, because it’s something most people don’t do, most people simply learn what they read in some book or on some website and then repeat it, without looking deeper.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting leo

The absolutists tend to be militantly biased
— noAxioms

I fight for truth, you got a problem with that?

When people are told the lies that relativity is true, that they have to give up many of the intuitive ideas they’ve had all their life, that they have to replace them with totally unintuitive ideas because supposedly that’s how the universe really works, when as a result they give up trying to understand the universe or end up blindly believing the authority, when people who have an inquiring mind explore alternatives to relativity and get labeled derogatory names (“crackpot”, “absolutist”) simply because they have a scientific mind and they use it, when they get told more lies (“relativity proves there is no absolute frame”, “the concept of the aether was falsified experimentally”, “light is measured to travel at c in all inertial frames”), I think it’s a disgrace.

When the normality is to spew lies and when one gets attacked or scorned for correcting these lies and fighting for truth, it’s a disgrace. If you don’t see the problem with that attitude and the attitude you’re having now, that’s a problem too. This is the attitude that makes science dogmatic and stagnate.

Thank you for illustrating my point.

All said, most absolutists correctly do not posit an inertial frame as the preferred one
— noAxioms

If there is an absolute frame then by definition there is a preferred frame, even if it may not be detected, again what are you talking about?

I use the two terms interchangeably. The preferred frame and the absolute one refer to the same thing.

Also as I mentioned earlier, the cosmic microwave background radiation does select a preferred frame.

Yes, that's the obvious one. It isn't inertial, and has the problems/properties listed in my prior post.

and hence you get strange effects like any moving object, in the absence of a force acting on it, will tend to slow down over time.
— noAxioms

I wonder where you got that, tell me more and I’ll debunk it for you.

Do you agree that the inertial frame in which the CMB aopears isotropic from here is a different inertial frame that the one where the CMB appears isotropic from a galaxy say 8 billion light years away? Not sure how far short your understanding is, so not sure where to start.

Also I like how you don’t bat an eye when you attempt to explain in a convoluted way why the twins are really both aging more slowly than the other, or why light really travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames, if you were consistent you would call THAT a strange effect.

Illustrating an apparent complete lack of understanding of the mainstream interpretation. Anyway, I called nothing 'strange' and don't deny the validity of most absolute interpretations, but I pointed out some conservation problems with it that need resolution.

And if you were consistent you would admit that muons decaying more slowly doesn’t imply that time runs more slowly in their frame

I would never have suggested time running more slowly in a muon's own frame. That's wrong in both interpretations.

Quoting noAxioms

Thank you for illustrating my point.

So you’re saying you have a problem with people fighting for truth? Apparently in your view it’s not a good thing to point out falsehoods in the mainstream narrative. Would you say that relativists attacking ‘absolutists’ aren’t ‘militantly biased’? Personally I would converse on that subject much more calmly if I hadn’t been attacked so many times for simply being a curious and inquiring mind questioning the mainstream narrative and exploring alternative paths, which is what science is supposed to be about in the first place.

I guess you don’t have a problem with people getting attacked when they question the mainstream narrative. In this case questioning is not claiming that relativity isn’t consistent with many experiments, it is pointing out that all these experiments can be explained differently, in a much more intuitive way.

Also note that many ‘relativists’ claim that relativity proves there is no absolute frame. This is false (relativity doesn’t prove that, considering that relativity isn’t the only way to account for the experimental evidence), yet it is claimed as a truth. Meanwhile, I don’t claim that absolute frame theories prove that an absolute frame exists. However it is easier for most people to think in terms of an absolute frame (it gets rid of all the confusion surrounding the relativity paradoxes), so there is no reason to force people to believe that no absolute frame exists. Simply saying that kind of thing gets one attacked by many relativists, as if heresy had been committed. Relativity is treated as a religion by many of its proponents, that’s a problem.

Quoting noAxioms

Do you agree that the inertial frame in which the CMB aopears isotropic from here is a different inertial frame that the one where the CMB appears isotropic from a galaxy say 8 billion light years away?

So? How does that prevent us from selecting the CMBR rest frame here as a preferred frame? If a true absolute frame exists it may not be that one, but we can pick that one for now, until we get more information that may allow us to know better.

If the CMBR rest frame in a galaxy 8 billion light years away ever becomes relevant, then presumably we would have found superluminal signals by then, which would allow us to pick a more accurate preferred frame.

Quoting noAxioms

Anyway, I called nothing 'strange'

Quoting noAxioms

you get strange effects

Quoting noAxioms

I would never have suggested time running more slowly in a muon's own frame.

So how do you interpret it?

Quoting leo

So you’re saying you have a problem with people fighting for truth

Until you falsify the other interpretation, it's opinion, not truth, and opinion isn't worth the militant fighting.

Apparently in your view it’s not a good thing to point out falsehoods in the mainstream narrative.

A great thing if you can, but if you do it by only showing that it contradicts your opinion, then it just makes you look the fool.

Would you say that relativists attacking ‘absolutists’ aren’t ‘militantly biased’?

There are some, sure, but at a much lower percentage.

Personally I would converse on that subject much more calmly if I hadn’t been attacked so many times for simply being a curious and inquiring mind questioning the mainstream narrative and exploring alternative paths, which is what science is supposed to be about in the first place.

You don't come across as curious. You put up strawman arguments against the truth you believe, and don't bother to actually learn the view you're attacking. Pretty closed minded if you ask me.

I guess you don’t have a problem with people getting attacked when they question the mainstream narrative.

But you're not questioning it. You're asserting it to be wrong.

In this case questioning is not claiming that relativity isn’t consistent with many experiments, it is pointing out that all these experiments can be explained differently, in a much more intuitive way.

That's not how you've worded your posts. You've asserted that the mainstream view is wrong, and hence must not be consistent with all the experiments. So instead of the rant, chill out and show where it predicts the wrong results. If you can;t, then again chill out and just accept that both views work and neither is necessarily the truth.

Also note that many ‘relativists’ claim that relativity proves there is no absolute frame.

Then they're using the same fallacious reasoning as are you. Most of them don't assert this, especially the physicists whose job it is to know relativity. Those physicists may still have their opinions on the matter.

Meanwhile, I don’t claim that absolute frame theories prove that an absolute frame exists.

You said you were fighting for the truth. So you seem to at least claim to know the truth without any proof then.

However it is easier for most people to think in terms of an absolute frame.

It isn't. The mathematics are furiously more difficult. Imagine a speed limit sign at the side of the road if it was to state the limit in absolute terms. Nobody uses the absolute interpretation to do anything practical. I can think of no examples except a cosmological map of the universe in comoving coordinates. Somehow the inertial frame just doesn't work that scale since no inertial frame foliates all of space.

No, there's another reason the absolute interpretation might be necessary. I touched on it in a prior post where I mention the three (not two) basic interpretations of the reality of space and time.

it gets rid of all the confusion surrounding the relativity paradoxes

There are no paradoxes. Any attempts to present one always involve strawman arguments.

Relativity is treated as a religion by many of its proponents, that’s a problem.

* Snort *

Do you agree that the inertial frame in which the CMB aopears isotropic from here is a different inertial frame that the one where the CMB appears isotropic from a galaxy say 8 billion light years away? — noAxioms
So? How does that prevent us from selecting the CMBR rest frame here as a preferred frame?

I said it was the correct choice. I didn't say you shouldn't select it.

You said you would debunk my statement, and yet when I ask a question, you evade it. Answer the question yes or no or something else. My argument depends on how you answer it. Then you can debunk my argument. You seem to imply 'yes' to that (as you shstraould), but it wasn't clear. If you answer no, then the argument proceeds along the lines of denial of empirical observations. If you say yes, then you should know that the distance between a stationary object here and a stationary object a billion LY away is increasing, which isn't true in any inertial frame.

If the CMBR rest frame in a galaxy 8 billion light years away ever becomes relevant, then presumably we would have found superluminal signals by then, which would allow us to pick a more accurate preferred frame.

But they have found 'superluminal' galaxies. The most distant object is something like 32 BLY away, and light from it is 13.4 billion years old. That's means the distance between us and it is increasing at well over twice light speed, despite the fact that both us and it are within a few percent of being stationary.
It isn't a superluminal signal. The thing was much closer when the light we see now was emitted. That light reaches us now at speed c. Numbers quoted here are all using the absolute interpretation, which I said was useful for such scales.

Anyway, I called nothing 'strange' — noAxioms

you get strange effects — noAxioms

I stand corrected. Yes, I consider a thing slowing down without a force acting on it a strange departure from Newtonian physics, but plenty of GR stuff also departs like that. The conservation of energy thing is a serious problem and either needs to be accounted for or needs to admit that the interpretation does not hold to thermodynamic law,

I would never have suggested time running more slowly in a muon's own frame. — noAxioms
So how do you interpret it?

In the muon's frame, time is not dilated at all since the muon is stationary. I also would not worded it as 'running' since I don't think time is something that 'runs

Quoting noAxioms

Until you falsify the other interpretation, it's opinion, not truth, and opinion isn't worth the militant fighting.
A great thing if you can, but if you do it by only showing that it contradicts your opinion, then it just makes you look the fool.
You don't come across as curious. You put up strawman arguments against the truth you believe, and don't bother to actually learn the view you're attacking. Pretty closed minded if you ask me.
But you're not questioning it. You're asserting it to be wrong.

So you're not reading or not understanding what I say?

I'm not saying relativity is false. I'm saying it's not necessarily true. I'm saying there is no proof it is true. I'm saying there are alternative ways to explain all the experiments that are considered tests of special relativity, without invoking relativity. Hence it is false to claim that these experiments prove relativity is true. Basic logic, yet you seem to have a hard time with it.

Quoting noAxioms

There are some, sure, but at a much lower percentage.

A lower percentage doesn't mean there are less of them, seeing as probably 1000 times more people follow the mainstream narrative without ever questioning it. Those who question the mainstream view are relentlessly attacked, just like you are doing now, without focusing on the arguments. Obviously when relativists discuss relativity between themselves they don't attack one another, usually you have those who preach and those who blindly accept what they're told. You're being willfully obtuse about what's going on.

Quoting noAxioms

That's not how you've worded your posts. You've asserted that the mainstream view is wrong, and hence must not be consistent with all the experiments.

Show me where I have asserted that relativity is wrong? Hint: you can't.

I've said it is a lie to pretend that relativity is proven true. Because, again, alternative theories account for the same experiments just as well. Do you understand this does not imply that relativity is necessarily false? What is it you don't understand about that?

Quoting noAxioms

You said you were fighting for the truth. So you seem to at least claim to know the truth without any proof then.

Look at the scientific literature if you want proofs that one version of the Lorentz aether theory is experimentally equivalent to special relativity. Which implies that there is not only one way to account for the existing experimental evidence. Which implies the experimental evidence doesn't prove relativity is true.

But if we ever find superluminal signals there would be ways to distinguish them, and then maybe relativity will turn out to be false.

Quoting noAxioms

It isn't. The mathematics are furiously more difficult. Imagine a speed limit sign at the side of the road if it was to state the limit in absolute terms. Nobody uses the absolute interpretation to do anything practical.

The nice thing is the calculations can be simplified a lot by a change of coordinates. Any inertial frame can be picked as the preferred frame to carry out the calculations, it works out the same in the end.

So in the example of the twins, we can pick the frame of the staying twin as the absolute frame, and then the traveling twin is the one aging more slowly all along. If the real absolute frame is the one of the traveling twin on the way out, then the traveling twin ages more quickly on the first half of the trip, but ages much more slowly on the second half, and the end result we calculate is the same. No matter what the real absolute frame is, the calculated outcome is the same.

And the advantage is there is no paradox. Even if you call it an apparent paradox and not a real paradox, the point remains that it confuses pretty much everyone, to the point that plenty of papers were written on it in professional journals (and there are many more other paradoxes). Whereas the absolute interpretation is clear, it's the intuitive way people are used to think, there is no "each twin ages more slowly than the other".

John Stewart Bell advocated teaching special relativity in that way. He called Einstein's approach "pedagogically dangerous". I agree with him. I believe David Mermin also advocates this. Again if you deny that most people are confused about relativity and all its paradoxes (even if you call them not real paradoxes they still confuse most people even when they try hard to resolve them), you're being wilfully obtuse.

Why push people to study the hard and confusing way instead of the easy way? Especially when they lead to the same observable results? Why make it hard and leave people confused and giving up on understanding the universe? Why tell them that it's the only way to explain the universe and that they have to accept it even if it's confusing? Why tell them the universe is complicated and confusing instead of showing them how it can be explained simply? Like with quantum mechanics people are told to "shut up and calculate". I find this elitist mentality disgusting. And most people aren't aware that alternative explanations exist, because they are never told that, they're just given the confusing mainstream story.

Quoting noAxioms

You said you would debunk my statement, and yet when I ask a question, you evade it..

The "So?" implied a yes, and again so what? If you don't say anything I have nothing to debunk.

Quoting noAxioms

If you say yes, then you should know that the distance between a stationary object here and a stationary object a billion LY away is increasing, which isn't true in any inertial frame.

Well, you should know that if there is an absolute frame, and there is a stationary object in that frame, then the object a billion light years away whose distance is increasing is by definition in motion relative to the frame, it isn't stationary...

Like I said, if there is an absolute frame, then two frames in relative motion can't both be the absolute frame, so if the absolute frame is the one in which the CMBR is isotropic here then it's not the one where the CMBR is isotropic in other distant galaxies. And even if we can't detect the true absolute frame now, that doesn't mean that we won't in the future depending on what we discover.

Obviously if you force two frames in relative motion to be the same frame then you get weird effects because that's inconsistent, but I never proposed to do that, you did for some reason.

Quoting noAxioms

But they have found 'superluminal' galaxies. The most distant object is something like 32 BLY away, and light from it is 13.4 billion years old. That's means the distance between us and it is increasing at well over twice light speed, despite the fact that both us and it are within a few percent of being stationary.
It isn't a superluminal signal. The thing was much closer when the light we see now was emitted. That light reaches us now at speed c.

Yea, well these galaxies aren't really 'superluminal', they get this result when they extrapolate Hubble's law to distances where it doesn't apply anymore. See section 2.6.1 in this paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.0380.pdf

Quoting noAxioms

In the muon's frame, time is not dilated at all since the muon is stationary. I also would not worded it as 'running' since I don't think time is something that 'runs

But you would say that in Earth's frame the muons are time dilated? And if you say time doesn't run, would you say time passes? Flows? How would you say it?

Quoting Edgar L Owen

the apparent contradiction that each other's clocks are running slower is just a very simple matter of perspective.

Here's an easy explanation from the book I'm currently writing:

[...]

By the way that explanation seems to be flawed. It's not really a matter of perspective, as in practice each twin doesn't see how fast the clock of the other twin is ticking. Because in order to know how fast the clock of the other twin his ticking, they have to know how fast the other twin is traveling. And the issue is that fundamentally, each twin doesn't know exactly how fast the other twin is going.

Because how do they measure each other's velocity? By exchanging light signals. For instance the staying twin would send successive light pulses towards the spaceship and wait for them to be reflected back, and from this he would infer the velocity of the traveling twin as a function of the times of reception of the pulses and as a function of the speed of light on the way out and on the way back.

But while he can measure the times of reception, he cannot measure the speed of light in each direction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light), he only knows that the average speed of light on a round-trip is measured to be c, while the unidirectional speed of light could be anything. So the velocity he infers depends on the assumption he makes about the speed of light in each direction.

If the staying twin assumes that light travels at the same speed in both directions in his frame, then he infers from his measurements that the clock of the traveling twin is ticking more slowly. If the traveling twin makes the same assumption in his own frame, then he infers that the clock of the staying twin is ticking more slowly. Both on the way out and on the way back, and that's what leads to the paradox.

But if the assumption that light travels at the same speed in both directions in both frames is false, then the paradox disappears. For instance if light travels at c in both directions in the frame of the staying twin, and it travels at c+v and c-v relative to the traveling twin (depending on the direction), then the staying twins infers that the clock of the traveling twin is ticking more slowly, while the traveling twin infers that the clock of the staying twin is ticking more quickly! Both on the way out and on the way back. No more inconsistency.

And here we see clearly that it is the assumption that light travels at the same speed in all directions in all inertial frames that leads to the twin paradox (and to all other relativity paradoxes). If we don't make that assumption, if instead we assume that there is only one frame in which light travels at the same speed in all directions (just like there is only one frame in which sound travels at the same speed in all directions, the frame where the medium of propagation is at rest), then the paradox disappears, because we haven't introduced something paradoxical (the idea that light travels at the same speed relative to two frames in relative motion).


Now of course the relativists claim that it isn't a real paradox (if it was relativity would be self-contradictory and worthless), because if they manipulate some mathematical equations in some specific way then they always get the result that the traveling twin has aged less once he returns to Earth. But still there is an uneasiness about it that doesn't go away. At each moment of the trip the staying twin is aging more slowly from the point of view of the traveling twin, and yet when they reunite the staying twin has aged more.

In order to explain that, they invoke the idea that the calculations always have to be carried out from the same inertial frame all along, which seems arbitrary, and I've never seen them explain intuitively why that is necessary, other than "if we don't do it we don't get the correct result". They may come up with convoluted explanations, but the bottom line is: the postulate of the constancy of the speed of light in all directions in all inertial frames forces them to give up the idea of there being one absolute frame, instead inertial frames are all relative, so measured quantities aren't absolute, they can't be carried from one frame to the other, they are frame-dependent.

Whereas in the absolute frame interpretation, in which light travels at the same speed in all directions only in one frame, there is no such problem, both twins always agree on which one is aging more slowly than the other. If at each moment of the trip the staying twin is aging more quickly from the point of view of the traveling twin, that's what really happens, when they reunite the staying twin has aged more. We can talk of what things really are like in a frame-independent way, like we've always used to, and that's a huge benefit.

The paradoxes disappear, and things become intuitive again...

Quoting leo

So you're not reading or not understanding what I say?

You're not being very clear about what you're trying to say. I see you starting a rant about fighting for the truth, which says to me that you claim that your view is the truth and everybody is just being dogmatic for not seeing it.

I'm not saying relativity is false. I'm saying it's not necessarily true.
...
Because, again, alternative theories account for the same experiments just as well.

Not being clear.
'Relativity' is the theory, and while science is not is the business of proving anything, the evidence for the theory is overwhelming. It is effectively necessarily true. There is no competing theory.

What you seem unable to articulate is that the metaphysics behind that theory is open to multiple interpretations (preferred frame vs. any-frame-will-do, and preferred moment vs. block), and thus no one interpretation is necessarily true. With that I agree, and it isn't truth to be fought for, but rather an open-ended philosophical point left to ones personal preference.

I'm saying there is no proof it is true. I'm saying there are alternative ways to explain all the experiments that are considered tests of special relativity, without invoking relativity.

Sorry, but even the interpretations with a preferred frame need to invoke relativity theory else they'd predict different things. This is especially true of SR. There is no CMB in SR since it doesn't model our universe. You have to go to GR for that, and GR suggests (wait for it):
a preferred frame.

A lower percentage doesn't mean there are less of them, seeing as probably 1000 times more people follow the mainstream narrative without ever questioning it.

I doubt that very much. The vast majority buy into some sort of single-frame mentality because it works for them. Most of them wouldn't know the first thing about relativity theory or be able to describe how it differs from say a Newtonian view, if they even know what that was. The majority of the relevant physicists and engineers probably hold the mainstream view, but there aren't very many of them. That leaves the fairly small percentage of armchair opinion holders like ourselves on these forums, and among them, it seems split pretty evenly.

Those who question the mainstream view are relentlessly attacked, just like you are doing now, without focusing on the arguments.

You seem to be quite focused on perceived attacks and not on any arguments. I don't recall for instance you asking what beef I have with say neo-Lorentz-Ether 'theory'. I put that in quotes since a view that makes no predictions isn't a theory. Not sure what name to give the mainstream view since 'relativity' is the name of the theory, not the metaphysical interpretation. Let's just say 'multi-frame'. You also seem to be in the 3D space camp rather than the 4D spacetime camp. I must admit that the latter term appears frequently in the theory. The mathematics are far simpler in 4 dimensional space than in 3 dimension, and even nLET uses 4D calculations. For instance, I've never seen the twin scenario (a realistic one with Earth not stationary) described using any absolute interpretation.

Look at the scientific literature if you want proofs that one version of the Lorentz aether theory is experimentally equivalent to special relativity.

I consider that to be a different metaphysical interpretation of the same theory. He didn't get his name on it only because he didn't publish first, and never completed the general theory. You don't seem to buy into his view since he did not see time flowing/'running' as you seem to. That's why I reference neo-Lorentz-ether theory, which does.

But if we ever find superluminal signals there would be ways to distinguish them, and then maybe relativity will turn out to be false.

Lorentz needs superluminal signals? Why? How about quantum entanglement? Some non-local quantum interpretations require them.

The mathematics are furiously more difficult. Imagine a speed limit sign at the side of the road if it was to state the limit in absolute terms. Nobody uses the absolute interpretation to do anything practical.
— noAxioms

The nice thing is the calculations can be simplified a lot by a change of coordinates. Any inertial frame can be picked as the preferred frame to carry out the calculations, it works out the same in the end.

But that's all that relativity theory (the theory itself) says. The calculations work in any frame.

So in the example of the twins, we can pick the frame of the staying twin as the absolute frame, and then the traveling twin is the one aging more slowly all along. If the real absolute frame is the one of the traveling twin on the way out, then the traveling twin ages more quickly on the first half of the trip, but ages much more slowly on the second half, and the end result we calculate is the same. No matter what the real absolute frame is, the calculated outcome is the same.

That sounds exactly like the mainstream view.

And the advantage is there is no paradox.

That's right. Never claimed one in either interpretation.

Even if you call it an apparent paradox and not a real paradox, the point remains that it confuses pretty much everyone, to the point that plenty of papers were written on it in professional journals (and there are many more other paradoxes).

Agree with that. If they frame it as a paradox, they're misrepresenting the theory or the interpretation. Don't confuse pop articles with science. The Andromeda 'paradox' for instance isn't paradoxical at all unless you say mix interpretations.

there is no "each twin ages more slowly than the other".

Yea, like that. That's the misrepresentation I'm talking about. You're dissing an interpretation that you either don't understand or refuse to represent correctly. The theory does not say that each twin ages more slowly than the other.

If you don't say anything I have nothing to debunk.
...
Well, you should know that if there is an absolute frame, and there is a stationary object in that frame, then the object a billion light years away whose distance is increasing is by definition in motion relative to the frame, it isn't stationary...

You've contradicted yourself. You agreed that the inertial frame in which the CMB appears isotropic from here is a different inertial frame that the one where the CMB appears isotropic from a galaxy 8 billion light years away (science agrees with that). That isotropic CMB defines being absolutely stationary according to your definition of the preferred frame (known as the comoving frame), and here you say the distant galaxy isn't stationary. You need to fix something (like the statement immediately above) or you've been debunked yourself.

Like I said, if there is an absolute frame, then two frames in relative motion

I'm talking about the one absolute frame, and not any other. I'm referencing no other frame.

[Two frames] can't both be the absolute frame, so if the absolute frame is the one in which the CMBR is isotropic here then it's not the one where the CMBR is isotropic in other distant galaxies.

This is only true for inertial frames. Are you suggesting now that the preferred frame is inertial? In that case, the CMB is of no help to you since it is isotropic in a different inertial frame at every point in space, and in no inertial frame is there not a point in space from which the CMB appears isotropic to a stationary object.

You're changing your story, which indicates you're not very familiar with the view you think everybody rejects.

In the muon's frame, time is not dilated at all since the muon is stationary. I also would not worded it as 'running' since I don't think time is something that 'runs
— noAxioms

But you would say that in Earth's frame the muons are time dilated?

As you say, we can pick Earth's as the absolute frame and say the muons are time dilated, yes.

And if you say time doesn't run, would you say time passes? Flows? How would you say it?

Time is a dimension, orthogonal to space, which is why they call it spacetime. Space doesn't flow either. There is no preferred location that is one place, and then somewhere else.

Reply to tim wood Quoting tim wood

You either know what you mean and can make it clear, or you don't and cannot.

I think I've been very clear. I want to know how the twin case is supposed to provide us with evidence that time is relative. For it seems to me that most of those who reason about these sorts of case commit egregious fallacies.

So, again, here is my parallel example, one that illustrates, very clearly, just how stupidly people are reasoning about the original twin case.

My twin is travelling away from me. From my perspective he appears to be getting smaller. From his perspective, I appear to be getting smaller. Conclusion Tim Wood would draw: therefore both of us are actually getting smaller than each other.

As for what I understand relativity to mean in this context: well, someone who held that time was relative would deny that there is an absolute now. That is, there is no 'now', there is just 'now-for-x'.

Quoting leo

But while he can measure the times of reception, he cannot measure the speed of light in each direction, he only knows that the average speed of light on a round-trip is measured to be c, while the unidirectional speed of light could be anything.

I always wondered about this claim. The first speed of light measurement was done using a one way method. It can still be done today with far greater precision. Are you saying Romer did not actually measure light speed, or that the method he used was in some way not one way?

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting noAxioms

you claim that your view is the truth and everybody is just being dogmatic for not seeing it

It is the truth that special relativity is not the only theory consistent with the experiments that are considered tests of that theory, contrary to what is usually claimed. You seem to consider that the Lorentz ether theory is not a different theory but an interpretation of special relativity, I’m going to address that.

Quoting noAxioms

'Relativity' is the theory, and while science is not is the business of proving anything, the evidence for the theory is overwhelming. It is effectively necessarily true. There is no competing theory.

What you seem unable to articulate is that the metaphysics behind that theory is open to multiple interpretations (preferred frame vs. any-frame-will-do, and preferred moment vs. block), and thus no one interpretation is necessarily true. With that I agree, and it isn't truth to be fought for, but rather an open-ended philosophical point left to ones personal preference.

Quoting noAxioms

Sorry, but even the interpretations with a preferred frame need to invoke relativity theory else they'd predict different things.

Quoting noAxioms

neo-Lorentz-Ether 'theory'. I put that in quotes since a view that makes no predictions isn't a theory. Not sure what name to give the mainstream view since 'relativity' is the name of the theory, not the metaphysical interpretation.

Quoting noAxioms

I consider that to be a different metaphysical interpretation of the same theory. He didn't get his name on it only because he didn't publish first

Quoting noAxioms

Lorentz needs superluminal signals? Why?

The Lorentz ether theory is a theory different from special relativity, it isn’t an interpretation of it. The postulates of special relativity lead to the Lorentz transformation, Einstein called it that way precisely because Lorentz had come up with it before.

It isn’t a mere matter of philosophical/metaphysical preference though. The two theories are said to be observationally equivalent, this is correct but only to a limited extent.

Consider that in the Lorentz ether theory, there is only one frame in which light travels at c in all directions, while in other frames this isn’t the case. Whereas in special relativity light travels at c in all directions in all inertial frames. Actually special relativity can be formulated in such a way that light doesn’t travel at c in all directions in all frames, but Einstein believed it didn’t make a difference which is why he and others say that it’s a matter of convention to set the one-way speed of light to c in all directions in all inertial frames.

However this is correct only as long as nothing travels faster than light! Obviously if we ever encounter superluminal signals, then the one-way speed of light would no more be a convention, it would be experimentally measurable. And it would allow to decide whether there really is an absolute frame or whether all inertial frames are truly relative. The difference wouldn’t be merely metaphysical anymore, because we would have access to new measurements that would distinguish between the two.

The mere existence of superluminal signals would disprove Einstein’s thesis that the value of the one-way speed of light is a convention.

But that’s not the only difference between the theories. Consider that special relativity is a principle theory (based on heuristic principles), while the Lorentz ether theory is a constructive theory (provides a picture/mechanism of what is actually thought to be occurring). Another example of a principle theory is thermodynamics, while a corresponding constructive theory is the kinetic theory, which gives a more detailed view and explains the laws of thermodynamics as a consequence of more fundamental phenomena. The kinetic theory can be said to offer a deeper understanding than thermodynamics.

Special relativity doesn’t attempt to explain what causes time dilation and length contraction, it merely derives them as a consequence of heuristic principles. While the Lorentz ether theory attempts to give the beginning of an explanation. It says that there is a medium that permeates all space, the ether, which represents an absolute frame, and that objects moving within that medium are length contracted and time dilated by a given factor which is a function of their velocity in that medium. The next step would be to understand what is it about that medium that generates such an effect on matter and processes, Lorentz and others had begun working in that direction.

There is much evidence today that the so-called vacuum of space isn’t empty, it is a medium. And so maybe Lorentz was really on the right track towards a theory more fundamental than special relativity, just like the kinetic theory is more fundamental than thermodynamics.

There are key differences between special relativity and the Lorentz ether theory, they cannot be said to be two mere interpretations of the same theory. Special relativity doesn’t give any hint as to where to go further towards a more fundamental constructive theory, we’re stuck with its principles (in fact Einstein was initially looking for a constructive theory, but his failure to do so was what led him to formulate a principle theory, which he considered to be something useful to have until we come up with a constructive theory that would explain the same experiments and more). Whereas the Lorentz ether theory opened the path towards a constructive theory.

And so it really is a sad state of affairs for science that the Lorentz ether theory is ignored, rarely mentioned, or presented as a mere interpretation of special relativity like you do, while it is more than that and it could be so much more than that. But it won’t be as long as it isn’t given the attention it deserves, as long as everyone keeps teaching special relativity alone, as long as everyone remains focused on the principles of special relativity and confused with all its (apparent) paradoxes.

Quoting noAxioms

That leaves the fairly small percentage of armchair opinion holders like ourselves on these forums, and among them, it seems split pretty evenly.

On most physics forums you will find that in most discussions about special relativity most people do not question the mainstream view (that only special relativity can explain all the experiments it explains), and those who do question it are usually labeled crackpots and quickly banned. So much for the scientific spirit of open inquiry.

Quoting noAxioms

For instance, I've never seen the twin scenario (a realistic one with Earth not stationary) described using any absolute interpretation.

I had done the calculations myself some years back, I believe I’ve seen it done in a few papers, but anyway once we realize that by a specific change of coordinate we can treat the Earth as stationary and this greatly simplifies the calculations, there is no need to do the complicated ones all over again every time.

Quoting noAxioms

he did not see time flowing/'running' as you seem to.

Quoting noAxioms

Time is a dimension, orthogonal to space, which is why they call it spacetime.

Personally I consider that it is a fallacy to say that time runs/passes/flows, as if time was a physical entity. Change does occur, but time itself is a concept not a physical thing, it is a relative measure of change. For instance to say that some process takes 1 minute is to say that while it takes place, there is another process we call a clock that changes in a specific way that we call 1 minute. When we say that a process is time dilated we’re merely saying that it takes longer than it does in other conditions, relative to a reference process.

Based on that, I consider it a fallacy to treat 4-dimensional spacetime as anything more than a mathematical concept. Unfortunately many people do believe that spacetime is a real physical thing that really curves. And they believe that because that’s what they’re taught with poor analogies, like the rubber sheet analogy to describe gravity.

Quoting noAxioms

You're dissing an interpretation that you either don't understand or refuse to represent correctly. The theory does not say that each twin ages more slowly than the other.

Not far, it says that at every moment of the trip each twin sees that the other is aging more slowly than themselves.

And then the real thing that rubs people the wrong way: “at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly, yet when they reunite twin B has aged more”.

Quoting noAxioms

You've contradicted yourself. You agreed that the inertial frame in which the CMB appears isotropic from here is a different inertial frame that the one where the CMB appears isotropic from a galaxy 8 billion light years away (science agrees with that). That isotropic CMB defines being absolutely stationary according to your definition of the preferred frame (known as the comoving frame), and here you say the distant galaxy isn't stationary. You need to fix something (like the statement immediately above) or you've been debunked yourself.

I concede that the frame in which the CMBR is isotropic here is not necessarily the absolute frame of the whole universe, but I already conceded that. I shouldn’t have said in an earlier post that “in practice an absolute frame can be detected”. It’s simply neat to pick that frame as the preferred frame. And it might be the absolute frame in case the cosmological principle is incorrect. But I didn’t think things through with the CMBR, so you get to win that point if you want. Still there is no proof that there is no absolute frame, personally I believe there is one and eventually we will detect it.

Quoting noAxioms

As you say, we can pick Earth's as the absolute frame and say the muons are time dilated, yes.

And so going back to the fridge example, would you say that the apple in the fridge is time dilated? After all it decays more slowly, just like the muons.

In the case of the fridge we explain it by saying that the cold slows down the internal processes of the apple. In the case of the muons the common view is to invoke the principles of special relativity, which don’t explain what’s going on but merely account for what’s going on. But now, considering the search for a constructive theory underlying the principles of special relativity, it would be interesting to explore the idea that special relativistic time dilation is a physical slowdown of internal processes due to some effect that is yet to be understood. What do you think?

Quoting noAxioms

I always wondered about this claim. The first speed of light measurement was done using a one way method. It can still be done today with far greater precision. Are you saying Romer did not actually measure light speed, or that the method he used was in some way not one way?

Yes the Rømer measurement isn’t a true one-way measurement either, this is actually addressed in the link I mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light (this is a good Wiki article for once, there aren’t too many like that).

The Australian physicist Karlov also showed that Rømer actually measured the speed of light by implicitly making the assumption of the equality of the speeds of light back and forth.

Link to Karlov paper:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1970AuJPh..23..243K


As a general argument for why we can’t measure the one-way speed of light (my explanation, not taken from the above paper):

In order to measure the one-way velocity of some thing we need to know the one-way velocity of a signal that we transmit back and forth between that thing and us, but since light is the fastest signal we know and we don’t know the one-way speed of light in the first place, then we can’t measure any one-way velocity with perfect precision, even for slow-moving objects. But while for slow-moving objects the precision is very high (since the average speed of light on a round-trip is much higher), when we attempt to measure the one-way speed of light itself the precision drops to zero, meaning that the one-way speed could be pretty much anything (as long as the two-way average yields c).

Reply to tim wood Quoting tim wood

Because you won't I suspect it is also useless to reply - but we'll give it a try: travelers moving apart will each seem to the other to be getting smaller, and each will measure the other's clock as running slower. Part of the clock's being measured as running slower is Doppler effect, and part the effects of relativity. There's obviously no accounting for what a person might conclude from this, and relativity on that provides no guidance.

Again: explain how the twin example provides support for relativism about time. You have yet to do so. That is, show me that you are not guilty of the rank stupidity of the person who reasons that the twins are both getting smaller than each other.

You also assume I am not educated on these matters. Okay, well, this is a philosophy forum - so let's see how well educated you are on the philosophy of time. Just for starters, have you read McTaggart's famous paper? (There will be follow-up questions).

Reply to tim wood Quoting tim wood

As for what I understand relativity to mean in this context: well, someone who held that time was relative would deny that there is an absolute now. That is, there is no 'now', there is just 'now-for-x'. — Bartricks

And this is exactly correct.

Oh, thanks for confirming that for me! (What you actually mean, by the way, is 'phew - now I know what relativism means - thank you Bartricks for clarifying it for me').

Er, you realize that concept of time is completely incoherent?

Reply to leo Quoting leo

Thank you for the much-needed sanity.

Likewise!

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting leo

The Lorentz ether theory is a theory different from special relativity, it isn’t an interpretation of it. The postulates of special relativity lead to the Lorentz transformation, Einstein called it that way precisely because Lorentz had come up with it before.

Lorentz did not hold to the postulates of relativity. In particular, he denied the first one (that dates back to the time of Galileo). The Galilean principle of relativity states that the laws of physics are the same and can be stated in their simplest form in all inertial frames of reference. Yet LET concludes a violation of that:

Consider that in the Lorentz ether theory, there is only one frame in which light travels at c in all directions, while in other frames this isn’t the case.

There you go. That's a violation of the GPoR. Lorentz couldn't accept that principle which is why to my knowledge he never managed to generalize his theory to the actual universe.

However this is correct only as long as nothing travels faster than light! Obviously if we ever encounter superluminal signals, then the one-way speed of light would no more be a convention, it would be experimentally measurable. And it would allow to decide whether there really is an absolute frame or whether all inertial frames are truly relative.

OK, I actually agree with this, and have come to a similar conclusion myself. The world of star-trek doesn't work except under an absolute reference system, and since the vast majority of viewers assume such a view, they don't cringe when the Enterprise hits warp speeds.

But that’s not the only difference between the theories. Consider that special relativity is a principle theory (based on heuristic principles), while the Lorentz ether theory is a constructive theory (provides a picture/mechanism of what is actually thought to be occurring).

Yes, that being why I call it a metaphysical interpretation. Physics is about what we see (said heuristics), but metaphysics is about what actually is. There is definitely some metaphysical wording in Einstein's theories, especially that taken from Minkowski's work.

Special relativity doesn’t attempt to explain what causes time dilation and length contraction, it merely derives them as a consequence of heuristic principles.

That's far more of an explanation than Lorentz's story. If it derives from empirical observation, then it's fully explained.

While the Lorentz ether theory attempts to give the beginning of an explanation. It says that there is a medium that permeates all space, the ether, which represents an absolute frame, and that objects moving within that medium are length contracted and time dilated by a given factor which is a function of their velocity in that medium. The next step would be to understand what is it about that medium that generates such an effect on matter and processes, Lorentz and others had begun working in that direction.

I am unclear if this was ever generalized to gravity. How is time dilation say here on Earth explained? I've heard that the ether moves by, giving the impression that it necessarily builds up in places where there is matter, and hence depletes elsewhere. Also how does it explain dilation in a gravity well with no acceleration? I'm inside a hollowed out space inside a planet and my clock runs slower here than out in space, but I'm completely inertial, not accelerating in any way. Which way is the ether going if it is the explanation of the dilation going on there? I ask because the vast majority of our current dilation (compared to a hypothetical stationary clock at zero gravitational potential) is due to this kind of thing.

Also, I don't see the LET guys explaining the twins using an ether calculation. They all do it the SR way, but keeping to one frame of their choice the whole time.

everyone remains focused on the principles of special relativity and confused with all its (apparent) paradoxes.

You seem to know then that it isn't paradoxical.

That leaves the fairly small percentage of armchair opinion holders like ourselves on these forums, and among them, it seems split pretty evenly.
— noAxioms

On most physics forums you will find that in most discussions about special relativity most people do not question the mainstream view

There are forums that disallow discussions of alternate theories and only exist to give mainstream answers to real questions by people who want to know, and not who want to push their own pet views. If you want to question the mainstream view, these forums are not the place to do it.
On the other hand, there are forums that are open to it (completely open like Quora where even utterly wrong answers often appear as answers to searched questions) and others that have a separate section to separate mainstream from alternative views. In these forums, the mainstream views are often questioned by more members than supported. I am a moderator on one such forum and the mainstream view seems defended by a small number of people who know it and by several more who don't know it very well, and questioned by countless users that either want real understanding, want to push an alternative (like you), or want to push something of their own.

Nobody pushing an alternative view gets banned for it. The bans are for abusive language or for purposes of promotion of personal websites. The crackpots often remain, relegated to the children playground. LET is not considered a crackpot view.

I had done the calculations myself some years back, I believe I’ve seen it done in a few papers, but anyway once we realize that by a specific change of coordinate we can treat the Earth as stationary

Treating the Earth as stationary when it isn't is valid move because of what Einstein showed.

and this greatly simplifies the calculations, there is no need to do the complicated ones all over again every time.

Hence Einstein's being the mainstream view. It indeed simplifies everything.

Personally I consider that it is a fallacy to say that time runs/passes/flows, as if time was a physical entity.

There are those that think it does, and that as well is a valid view, although one that Lorentz himself did not seem to hold. He also viewed it as a dimension.

When we say that a process is time dilated we’re merely saying that it takes longer than it does in other conditions, relative to a reference process.

Where is your reference process then? How dilated is your kitchen clock? Ever try to compute that?

Based on that, I consider it a fallacy to treat 4-dimensional spacetime as anything more than a mathematical concept.

It being a fallacy is not a belief or not. You have to show the logical inconsistency of it. 4-D spacetime is the constructive theory you mentioned, providing an explanation for the dilations and such. LET (or at least the theory Lorentz worked on himself) also posits time as a dimension. nLET does not. You seem to be in the nLET camp then.

You're dissing an interpretation that you either don't understand or refuse to represent correctly. The theory does not say that each twin ages more slowly than the other.
— noAxioms

Not far, it says that at every moment of the trip each twin sees that the other is aging more slowly than themselves.

Wrong again. In order to make any determination about relative ages, a frame needs to be selected. If they happen to choose different frames, then the results may differ. They each could choose different frames for example and compute that the other twin is always aging faster than themselves. The question of which is older is a frame dependent question. You know this, and yet you misrepresent what the theory says by omitting frame references in a statement that references multiple frames. That's a strawman tactic, or fallacious reasoning.

And then the real thing that rubs people the wrong way: “at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly, yet when they reunite twin B has aged more”.

More strawman. It isn't true since the turnaround time is not considered in the above statement, and also the frame references (there are multiple frames again) are omitted. You seem to do this deliberately since you know better. Are you really suggesting that the mainstream view is contradictory or are you just pretending to be stupid when it suits your purposes?

I concede that the frame in which the CMBR is isotropic here is not necessarily the absolute frame of the whole universe, but I already conceded that. I shouldn’t have said in an earlier post that “in practice an absolute frame can be detected”. It’s simply neat to pick that frame as the preferred frame.

If you mean the inertial frame in which the CMBR is isotropic here, that is not a valid candidate for the preferred frame of the universe since no inertial frame foliates all of spacetime. In other words, galaxies like GN-z11 (something we can see) does not even exist in that inertial frame since it is moving at well over light speed and thus hasn't yet been born. Inertial frames are really only locally valid and do not correspond to curved space. Most of the absolutist theories choose the comoving frame as the absolute frame. Even GR does, it being for instance the only frame in which the expansion rate of the universe is the same at every spatial point in the frame.

Still there is no proof that there is no absolute frame, personally I believe there is one and eventually we will detect it.

There seems to be the one choice, making it quite detectable. It is objective in that any observer anywhere in the universe would agree with the choice, and they certainly wouldn't agree with the one you chose.

And so going back to the fridge example, would you say that the apple in the fridge is time dilated?

No. I put a clock in there and it still paces the one on the outside. That's empirical evidence against the dilation explanation of the apple rotting.

it would be interesting to explore the idea that special relativistic time dilation is a physical slowdown of internal processes due to some effect that is yet to be understood. What do you think?

But they've already done that, in two different ways (geometry and ether). The geometry method for instance explains (and is not just a mathematical convenience) why the height of a flag pole can be taller or shorter depending on your choice of the orientation of the 'up' dimension. That is physical length contraction without any change to the proper dimensions of the pole. That's essentially the contructive explanation behind dilation: recognition that measurements of any one dimension depends on the choice of orientation of the coordinate system, without any physical change to the proper properties of the object being measured.

Quoting Bartricks

I want to know how the twin case is supposed to provide us with evidence that time is relative. For it seems to me that most of those who reason about these sorts of case commit egregious fallacies.

Quoting Bartricks

As for what I understand relativity to mean in this context: well, someone who held that time was relative would deny that there is an absolute now. That is, there is no 'now', there is just 'now-for-x'.

Indeed the twin paradox doesn’t prove that there is no absolute ‘now’. First of all it is a thought experiment based on the postulates of special relativity (not an actual experiment that has been carried out), and these postulates imply that there is no absolute ‘now’, so the description of what happens in the frame of each twin already presupposes that there is no absolute ‘now’. So concluding from the twin paradox that there is no such thing as an absolute ‘now’ would be a circular reasoning.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if that experiment was carried out, each twin wouldn’t see exactly how fast the clock of the other twin is ticking. Because if the traveling twin sends a light pulse every second towards the staying twin, the staying twin doesn’t receive a pulse every second (even if there was no time dilation) because the traveling twin is moving away from the staying twin. And so in order to infer how fast the clock of the other twin is ticking they have to know how fast light goes in one direction, but as I explained in a post above this one-way speed of light can’t be measured without using faster-than-light signals which we don’t have.

So what each twin infers depends on what they assume about the one-way speed of light. If they each assume that this one-way speed is the same in all directions in each of their frame, then each of them infers that the clock of the other twin is ticking more slowly. If they make different assumptions they would infer otherwise, they might both say that the clock of the other twin is ticking more quickly, or they might agree that one clock is ticking more slowly than the other but they could disagree about the magnitude.

As we see the assumption they make about the one-way speed of light changes what they infer to happen, so strictly speaking we can’t say that each twin ‘sees’ time dilation. But they do see the clock of the other ticking more slowly from the mere fact that they are moving away from each other (as every successive pulse has more distance to cover).

But there are experiments that do show that an atomic clock doesn’t tick at the same rate depending on how fast it moves. Just like there are experiments that show that an apple doesn’t decay at the same rate depending on how cold it is. And indeed neither of them implies that there is no absolute ‘now’, they can both be interpreted as internal processes running at a different rate in different conditions (relative to some reference process) without contradicting absolute simultaneity.

Quoting leo

Yes the Rømer measurement isn’t a true one-way measurement either, this is actually addressed in the link I mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light (this is a good Wiki article for once, there aren’t too many like that).

The Australian physicist Karlov also showed that Rømer actually measured the speed of light by implicitly making the assumption of the equality of the speeds of light back and forth.

Yes, it says that, despite no signal going back. Only forth.
At no point does that page say that the measurement was invalid (cannot be done to arbitrary precision today) or that it in fact involved a round trip signal of some kind.

In order to measure the one-way velocity of some thing we need to know the one-way velocity of a signal that we transmit back and forth between that thing and us

This says that in order to know X, you already need to know X. I suppose that's arguably true in this case.

but since light is the fastest signal we know and we don’t know the one-way speed of light in the first place, then we can’t measure any one-way velocity with perfect precision, even for slow-moving objects.

We're not asking for perfect precision. Romer was off by quite a bit mostly because of a poor measurement of Earth's orbital radius, something not trivial to measure in the day. The most accurate clock at the time was a sundial. Still, the method works today and easily gets several digits of accuracy. Perfection? No.

But while for slow-moving objects the precision is very high (since the average speed of light on a round-trip is much higher), when we attempt to measure the one-way speed of light itself the precision drops to zero, meaning that the one-way speed could be pretty much anything (as long as the two-way average yields c).

There was no two-way measurement. That's the whole point.

Reply to tim wood Gibberish. You've not answered my questions. You haven't read McTaggart, have you? So you don't know about the philosophy of time (for philosophy of time really begins with his famous argument). You can't show me why it is no less stupid to conclude that the twins paradox implies that relativism about time is true than to conclude that relativism about size is true, or to conclude that time flows more slowly in fridges (here's the simple reason for that: there's no difference in the reasoning, and those who think time is relative on the basis of the twin paradox are being stupid).

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood Quoting tim wood

You have not answered mine about the what time being relative means.

er, yes I did. Here:

Here: Quoting Bartricks

tim woodAs for what I understand relativity to mean in this context: well, someone who held that time was relative would deny that there is an absolute now. That is, there is no 'now', there is just 'now-for-x'. — Bartricks

And this is exactly correct. — tim wood

And why are you pointing me to a Stanford encyclopedia entry? The question is have YOU read McTaggart?

You don't know your stuff, do you? You haven't even read McTaggart. All you've done is watch some youtube videos made by physicists or wannabe physicists who are as ignorant as you are about the philosophy of time.

Look, anyway, you're too ignorant to be worth discussing this matter with any further. Tara.

Reply to tim wood Quoting tim wood

But you say time is unreal, that time is completely incoherent. You'll have to own that yourself. Make your case. After all, your opponent is only a wristwatch.

I also didn't say that. So again, well done for paying no attention whatsoever. I think time is real. I don't think it is relative. I think the idea that it is relative is incoherent. But I think time is real (unlike McTaggart). I mentioned McTaggart because contemporary philosophy of time begins with him, and I think you haven't read him. (Yet you seem to think that you're up on the subject and that it is I who does not know his stuff).

But I am not going to explain why 'time is relative' doesn't make sense to someone who wouldn't know sense from his elbow.

Quoting noAxioms

Lorentz did not hold to the postulates of relativity.

I didn’t claim he did, you were saying that the Lorentz ether theory came after special relativity, I was pointing out that’s not the case.

Quoting noAxioms

Yes, that being why I call it a metaphysical interpretation. Physics is about what we see (said heuristics), but metaphysics is about what actually is.

You would have called the kinetic theory of gases a metaphysical interpretation of thermodynamics, back when molecules hadn’t been observed yet. We shouldn’t pretend that we already see everything that we can see.

Quoting noAxioms

That's far more of an explanation than Lorentz's story. If it derives from empirical observation, then it's fully explained.

So in the same way you consider that thermodynamics provides far more of an explanation than the kinetic theory? If scientists had contented themselves with apparent laws without looking to explain why these laws are accurate, science wouldn’t have advanced very far.

Quoting noAxioms

I am unclear if this was ever generalized to gravity. How is time dilation say here on Earth explained?

Some people have done that, here is an example: https://ilja-schmelzer.de/gravity/

Or if you assume that gravity is an ether flow you can recover many general relativistic predictions. So you can explain time dilation on Earth in terms of this ether flow (since in the Lorentz ether theory processes are time dilated when they are moving in the ether). That’s just an example, point is it can be done, and not necessarily in a complicated way.

Quoting noAxioms

Also how does it explain dilation in a gravity well with no acceleration? I'm inside a hollowed out space inside a planet and my clock runs slower here than out in space, but I'm completely inertial, not accelerating in any way. Which way is the ether going if it is the explanation of the dilation going on there? I ask because the vast majority of our current dilation (compared to a hypothetical stationary clock at zero gravitational potential) is due to this kind of thing.

You mean if you’re at the center of the planet? Indeed this might be a problem of the ether flow theory, I would have to think more about it. In any case not much research has been done in that direction, but I’m confident it should be possible to come up with a simple and accurate theory of gravitation without invoking curved spacetime.

Quoting noAxioms

Also, I don't see the LET guys explaining the twins using an ether calculation. They all do it the SR way, but keeping to one frame of their choice the whole time.

As I said it can be done, it’s just tedious. Once you realize that the result comes out the same no matter what the real absolute frame is, then there is no need to pick an arbitrary frame that makes calculations complicated, might as well pick one that simplifies them. Which again does not imply that there is no difference between the Lorentz ether theory and special relativity, as I explained.

Quoting noAxioms

I am a moderator on one such forum and the mainstream view seems defended by a small number of people who know it and by several more who don't know it very well, and questioned by countless users that either want real understanding, want to push an alternative (like you), or want to push something of their own.

Nobody pushing an alternative view gets banned for it. The bans are for abusive language or for purposes of promotion of personal websites. The crackpots often remain, relegated to the children playground. LET is not considered a crackpot view.

Okay, maybe I’ve been on the wrong forums then, the few ones I used were extremely dogmatic and totally not open to alternative ideas.

Quoting noAxioms

Treating the Earth as stationary when it isn't is valid move because of what Einstein showed.

The validity of doing that can be derived from the Lorentz transformation itself, which existed before special relativity.

Quoting noAxioms

Where is your reference process then? How dilated is your kitchen clock? Ever try to compute that?

That wasn’t my point, let’s say you pick the kitchen clock as a reference process, and you compare some process A to that reference process. Then you find out that under some conditions that process A runs more slowly compared to the reference process, we say that process A is time dilated, that’s all.

Quoting noAxioms

Hence Einstein's being the mainstream view. It indeed simplifies everything.

It doesn’t simplify the understanding as it confuses the vast majority of people. It’s pedagogically much simpler to retain the view that there is an absolute frame like we’re used to, then show that no matter which inertial frame is the absolute one we still get the same result, then use that to simplify the calculations, without going the next step and claim that the absolute frame doesn’t exist and give up our intuitive understanding. If Einstein’s view simplified everything, people wouldn’t still be confused about the twin paradox and others a century later. There is no such confusion when we assume an absolute frame.

Quoting noAxioms

It being a fallacy is not a belief or not. You have to show the logical inconsistency of it. 4-D spacetime is the constructive theory you mentioned, providing an explanation for the dilations and such.

I didn’t claim spacetime is inconsistent, I said that it is a mathematical concept, not a physical thing. Well there is no evidence that it is a physical thing, so there is no evidence that it is a physical thing that curves. It could be a constructive theory if we had actually detected a 4-dimensional thing that curves, but obliviously we haven’t. Stuff like gravitational lensing isn’t evidence at all of such curvature, considering that we don’t have to assume that light always travels in straight lines.

Quoting noAxioms

LET (or at least the theory Lorentz worked on himself) also posits time as a dimension. nLET does not. You seem to be in the nLET camp then.

I’m not sure in what way you distinguish LET and nLET, but as I said I consider time to be a concept of the mind, a tool of thought. I don’t see time and change as the same thing, time refers to a measure of change, it isn’t change itself.

Quoting noAxioms

The question of which is older is a frame dependent question. You know this, and yet you misrepresent what the theory says by omitting frame references in a statement that references multiple frames.

I said “at every moment of the trip each twin sees that the other is aging more slowly than themselves”, the frame references lie in the “sees”. Each twin sees, but the twins aren’t in the same frame, so it is implied that what they see is frame dependent, they see that from their own frame.

Quoting noAxioms

It isn't true since the turnaround time is not considered in the above statement, and also the frame references (there are multiple frames again) are omitted. You seem to do this deliberately since you know better. Are you really suggesting that the mainstream view is contradictory or are you just pretending to be stupid when it suits your purposes?

I said: “at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly, yet when they reunite twin B has aged more”, are you really claiming that’s false? There can be zero turnaround time if you invoke triplets instead of twins.

I’m not suggesting special relativity is self-contradictory, I specifically said it isn’t, I’m merely suggesting what I’ve been saying since the beginning, that it is extremely confusing (whereas there is another theory that isn’t), and you’re the one pretending there is nothing confusing about it.

From the point of view of the traveling twin, the clock of the staying twin is ticking more slowly, on the first half and on the second half of the trip, you can even simulate an instantaneous turnaround using a second spaceship. Yet when they reunite the clock of the staying twin has ticked more. Sure you can explain that by invoking different frames, the point is it’s extremely confusing. Whereas in the absolute view the clock of the staying twin is not ticking more slowly at every moment.

Quoting noAxioms

If you mean the inertial frame in which the CMBR is isotropic here, that is not a valid candidate for the preferred frame of the universe since no inertial frame foliates all of spacetime. In other words, galaxies like GN-z11 (something we can see) does not even exist in that inertial frame since it is moving at well over light speed and thus hasn't yet been born.

As I said, there are no real superluminal galaxies, I gave a link to a paper explaining that. The Hubble law doesn’t apply to arbitrarily large distances. If you assume it does then you get superluminal velocities. Just like if you assume that the speed of a car increases by 10m/s every second eventually that car will exceed the speed of light, that doesn’t mean it ever gets there. You can very well pick a global frame in which nothing is superluminal.

See that’s the kind of confusing stuff with the mainstream view, on the one hand they say nothing exceeds the speed of light, on the other hand they extrapolate Hubble’s law to arbitrarily large distances, and then they get superluminal galaxies, and people get confused. Don’t make that unwarranted extrapolation and you don’t get superluminal galaxies, simple.

Quoting noAxioms

No. I put a clock in there and it still paces the one on the outside. That's empirical evidence against the dilation explanation of the apple rotting.

Or the apple is time dilated in the fridge but not the clock. Have you tried accelerating an apple to a high velocity to see if it decays more slowly? Maybe the clock gets time dilated but not the apple.

Also have we ever tested if a mechanical clock gets time dilated at high velocities? To my knowledge only atomic clocks have been tested. Sure they’re more accurate, but then maybe their time dilation has to do with their internal processes, there is no evidence that everything gets time dilated due to velocity.

Quoting noAxioms

The geometry method for instance explains (and is not just a mathematical convenience) why the height of a flag pole can be taller or shorter depending on your choice of the orientation of the 'up' dimension. That is physical length contraction without any change to the proper dimensions of the pole.

Well a flag pole can certainly appear differently depending on how you look at it, that doesn’t imply that the flag pole physically changes when you do that, unless again you’re assuming arbitrarily that there is not one reality but one reality for each frame.

Also I don’t see what that has to do with seeing time dilation as a manifestation of a slowdown of internal processes. Indeed Lorentz and others had begun looking in that direction, but not much research has been done on that since.

Quoting noAxioms

Yes, it says that, despite no signal going back. Only forth.
At no point does that page say that the measurement was invalid (cannot be done to arbitrary precision today) or that it in fact involved a round trip signal of some kind.

Did you read the paper of Karlov? In the Rømer measurement at some point an implicit assumption is made that light travels at the same speed in both directions, it’s not easy to see.

Quoting noAxioms

This says that in order to know X, you already need to know X. I suppose that's arguably true in this case.

That would be a tautology. Without instantaneous signals we can’t measure any one-way velocity with perfect precision.

Consider how you might measure a one-way velocity. You will realize that the best precision you can attain depends on the two-way velocity of the fastest signal you have. There is no way around that.

Quoting noAxioms

There was no two-way measurement. That's the whole point.

Are you still claiming that the one-way speed of light has been measured? If so there’s something you haven’t understood. Look deeply into it, you will realize it can’t be measured with any precision, as long as we don’t have faster-than-light signals.



Well I’m probably not going to be available for a while, I’d like to discuss all of this more, but sadly we’re not being paid to discuss that, we mostly get paid to slave away while contributing to the destruction of the planet in some way, so I guess I’ll join the herd, I tried to escape it but that didn’t work. Gonna be a slave trying to buy his freedom, cause that’s what this world is about really. I wish things were different. But people don’t wake up, so things don’t change, and I can’t change it all on my own. /rant

Quoting leo

You would have called the kinetic theory of gases a metaphysical interpretation of thermodynamics, back when molecules hadn’t been observed yet.

I think not since that theory makes predictions. I suppose that explains the hunt for the ether, even though I don't think it is posited to be detectable.

That's far more of an explanation than Lorentz's story. If it derives from empirical observation, then it's fully explained.
— noAxioms

So in the same way you consider that thermodynamics provides far more of an explanation than the kinetic theory?

About the same actually. The explanation is that light actually goes the same speed in any frame, and doesn't just appear to. That explanation is all that is needed. It isn't provable of course, but neither is the alternate (and more complicated) explanation.

Or if you assume that gravity is an ether flow you can recover many general relativistic predictions. So you can explain time dilation on Earth in terms of this ether flow (since in the Lorentz ether theory processes are time dilated when they are moving in the ether). That’s just an example, point is it can be done, and not necessarily in a complicated way.
...
Indeed this might be a problem of the ether flow theory, I would have to think more about it. In any case not much research has been done in that direction, but I’m confident it should be possible to come up with a simple and accurate theory of gravitation without invoking curved spacetime.

Keep in mind I'm just asking here since I'm not totally familiar. If the ether moves/flows, where does the ether go when it gets to say the center of say Earth?

Also how does it explain dilation in a gravity well with no acceleration? I'm inside a hollowed out space inside a planet and my clock runs slower here than out in space, but I'm completely inertial, not accelerating in any way. Which way is the ether going if it is the explanation of the dilation going on there? I ask because the vast majority of our current dilation (compared to a hypothetical stationary clock at zero gravitational potential) is due to this kind of thing.
— noAxioms

You mean if you’re at the center of the planet?

No, the question above talks about being in a dense hollow shell, a region of a flat gravitational field (no acceleration, but still in a well). Let's assume the ball is stationary so the dilation is completely due to gravity and not the ball moving through the ether or being in an acceleration field.

Also, I don't see the LET guys explaining the twins using an ether calculation. They all do it the SR way, but keeping to one frame of their choice the whole time.
— noAxioms

As I said it can be done, it’s just tedious.

That was my point. I'm not suggesting it can't be done, but the tedium is part of why it isn't the mainstream view.

Okay, maybe I’ve been on the wrong forums then, the few ones I used were extremely dogmatic and totally not open to alternative ideas.

I've been on some of those like thephysicsforum.com. I abandoned it due to the open hostility displayed not only to those pushing nonsense, but the uninformed asking genuine questions. My post count there is still a single digit I think.

The validity of doing that can be derived from the Lorentz transformation itself, which existed before special relativity.

I read that actually, so agree.

Where is your reference process then? How dilated is your kitchen clock? Ever try to compute that?
— noAxioms
That wasn’t my point

No, but it is sort of one of my points. All clocks anywhere are dilated, no matter their position or velocity. They never compute how dilated these clocks are. Nothing exact is asked for. A single digit of precision would be nice. You'd think the 'time flows' proponents would want to know the objective rate of time flow, but they seem to avoid it like it's something embarrassing.

Hence Einstein's being the mainstream view. It indeed simplifies everything.
— noAxioms
It doesn’t simplify the understanding as it confuses the vast majority of people.

I am inclined to agree with that. But it's the physicists and engineers that actually need to work with the theory and not just comprehend a description of a couple paragraphs, and to that end the mainstream view is, well, complete for one thing. I suppose Lorentz's theory has been generalized then? I wonder how black holes are handled since they don't seem to exist under LET. That's not much of a knock against it since I could probably argue similarly for any interpretation.

It’s pedagogically much simpler to retain the view that there is an absolute frame like we’re used to, then show that no matter which inertial frame is the absolute one we still get the same result, then use that to simplify the calculations, without going the next step and claim that the absolute frame doesn’t exist and give up our intuitive understanding.

But the mainstream view is the same in that way: Any frame can be used and the calculations are simple, and if you choose a different frame as the one to use, then a different person is dilated more. We're back to the same concepts that need teaching in both cases.

If Einstein’s view simplified everything, people wouldn’t still be confused about the twin paradox and others a century later. There is no such confusion when we assume an absolute frame.

Einstein's view doesn't suggest you complicate things by computing everything in different frames. It is equally simple if you stick to one like you should in such an exercise. The confusion occurs when the situation is deliberately described in mixed frames. Look at the OP of this thread where Mike is doing exactly that: Describing everything in from an idealistic mixed-frame point of view where distant people physically age backwards and such. It's not wrong, but it omits a lot of implicit assumptions and thus is nothing but confusing. He words it like my age is caused by the actions of somebody far from me, which is nonsense.

I didn’t claim spacetime is inconsistent, I said that it is a mathematical concept, not a physical thing.

That's your belief, and that's fine. I happen to prefer the view that the physical thing is just like that. I personally find the 3D view logically inconsistent, but relativity theory has nothing to do with that.

LET (or at least the theory Lorentz worked on himself) also posits time as a dimension. nLET does not. You seem to be in the nLET camp then.
— noAxioms
I’m not sure in what way you distinguish LET and nLET,

neo Lorentz ether theory, that which has evolved from his work by others. The big change was the assertion of the 3D flowing time view, the thing that MTaggart supposedly 'disproved' according to Bartricks' post above. I'm personally unimpressed with the argument. Point is, I am unaware that Lorentz himself supported that. Maybe I'm wrong. His was a preferred frame but not preferred moment model.

I said “at every moment of the trip each twin sees that the other is aging more slowly than themselves”
the frame references lie in the “sees”.

If the twins are approaching each other, they see the other aging faster. Yes, that's doppler, so 'sees' is a misleading choice of verbs. What each actually does is compute the age of the other, and in order to do that, each needs to select a frame, and if they select different frames (there is no reason they need to), then they're going to get different answers of course. Your statement omitted the choice of frames they made, and hence is using obfuscating language. The fact is that they're incapable of determining the age of somebody not in their presence. You know that, but your statement suggests they can. Take away the obfuscating language and the attempted paradox vanishes.

It isn't true since the turnaround time is not considered in the above statement, and also the frame references (there are multiple frames again) are omitted. You seem to do this deliberately since you know better. Are you really suggesting that the mainstream view is contradictory or are you just pretending to be stupid when it suits your purposes?
— noAxioms

I said: “at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly, yet when they reunite twin B has aged more”, are you really claiming that’s false?

Obviously, since the reuniting moment verifies otherwise.

There can be zero turnaround time if you invoke triplets instead of twins.

There there is no turnaround at all. Yes, I've used tag-team examples for those who refuse to consider an acceleration case, but now you have to explain how there's Louis who is way out there and already seriously younger (in his own frame) than Huey and Dewey at their separation event at age zero. It appears they're not triplets after all.

From the point of view of the traveling twin

That point of view is not inertial, which is making the same obfuscating mistake as Mike in the OP. It makes it look like distant people age quickly or possibly backwards which they simply don't. An accelerating person does not define an inertial reference frame. Do it from any inertial reference frame and the ages work out.

One can do it the complicated way (the non-inertial frame in which the traveler is stationary the whole way), but then the twin back home ages mostly during the time taken to turn around. If it's instant, then the remote age change is instant. Either way, your assertion above that 'at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly' is wrong. It happens during the acceleration, however long that takes.

you can even simulate an instantaneous turnaround using a second spaceship.

Can't jump to the other ship without accelerating. The ship has nothing to do with it. Maybe the traveler takes Earth with him and leaves the other twin in a ship without fuel back home.

Yet when they reunite the clock of the staying twin has ticked more. Sure you can explain that by invoking different frames, the point is it’s extremely confusing.

You're making it confusing by using a non-inertial object as your reference. So don't do that if reducing confusion or reducing complication is your goal.

If you mean the inertial frame in which the CMBR is isotropic here, that is not a valid candidate for the preferred frame of the universe since no inertial frame foliates all of spacetime. In other words, galaxies like GN-z11 (something we can see) does not even exist in that inertial frame since it is moving at well over light speed and thus hasn't yet been born.
— noAxioms

The Hubble law doesn’t apply to arbitrarily large distances.

Oh doesn't it now. Are we in a privileged location in space where it seems to work out to a fixed distance from us in every direction, but if we were near the edge of that, it would only work if we looked back at Earth and not further away from Earth?
If not, what do you mean by this? The comoving coordinate system (that based on the postulated absolute frame) has the Hubble law continuing forever.

If you assume it does then you get superluminal velocities.

No you don't. Velocity is a property under absolutism, not a relation. All those galaxies are nearly stationary. The separation between us and them is growing at a rate more than c, but velocity is not defined as a relative change in position relative to a reference in that view. That's the SR view, and the universe is not described by SR over large distances. That's a good part of why the absolute frame cannot be inertial.

Just like if you assume that the speed of a car increases by 10m/s every second eventually that car will exceed the speed of light, that doesn’t mean it ever gets there.

First of all, under SR, this isn't true. The problem is that it takes infinite energy to accelerate the last bit, so it cannot be sustained. What can be done is indefinite proper acceleration of 1G like that, in which case light speed is never reached.

Under absolute view, the car slows down over time by itself, and at high enough speeds, the slowing balances the proper acceleration and the two cancel out. I'm not making fun of the view. It actually works this way.
I actually tried to draw a picture of the whole universe using an inertial frame, including these 'superluminal' objects. Under SR, speeds do indeed add up using the relative rule and light speed can never be reached. The picture works fine until I attempted to work acceleration of expansion into it, and I could not do it without violating fixed light speed in the coordinate system. I don't think I can post pictures here or I'd show it to you, but it is a picture of non-absolute physics.

You can very well pick a global frame in which nothing is superluminal.

That you can, and they have diagrams of it. All the super-large-scale pictures use it, which prompted me to attempt it using inertial rules since I could find nobody else attempting it on the web.

See that’s the kind of confusing stuff with the mainstream view, on the one hand they say nothing exceeds the speed of light, on the other hand they extrapolate Hubble’s law to arbitrarily large distances

Hubbles law is about the increase of proper distance measured over curved lines of comoving time, not about absolute speed, which is assumed to be fixed at zero. Our galaxy for instance moves at I think under 0.002c, but our solar system is well under that figure. The other galaxies move at similar speeds, nowhere near light speed. That's the consequence of a non-inertial preferred frame.

No. I put a clock in there and it still paces the one on the outside. That's empirical evidence against the dilation explanation of the apple rotting.
— noAxioms
Or the apple is time dilated in the fridge but not the clock.

Time that picks and chooses. Yea sure.

Also have we ever tested if a mechanical clock gets time dilated at high velocities?
To my knowledge only atomic clocks have been tested.

Muons make great clocks. Accurate to at least 2 digits and easy to accelerate.

Sure they’re more accurate, but then maybe their time dilation has to do with their internal processes, there is no evidence that everything gets time dilated due to velocity.

Let me know how that works out for you.

The geometry method for instance explains (and is not just a mathematical convenience) why the height of a flag pole can be taller or shorter depending on your choice of the orientation of the 'up' dimension. That is physical length contraction without any change to the proper dimensions of the pole.
— noAxioms

Well a flag pole can certainly appear differently depending on how you look at it, that doesn’t imply that the flag pole physically changes when you do that

Exactly. Ditto with length contraction. The change is only a mathematical coordinate difference, not a physical change. I think it is actually a physical change in the absolute interpretation. Fast things really do physically change in that view.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Reply to tim wood erm, is you understanding English be? Are you fluent being?

McTaggart - whom you've never read - argued that time is unreal. That doesn't mean I think time is unreal. Mentioning someone doesn't mean you endorse their views. Do you not realize that?

McTaggart - the person whose work you've never read, but is the first person you read when you do philosophy of time - argued time is unreal. I don't. He does. I don't. I'm not him, see? He's not me, and I'm not him.

I think time is real. Real. R.e.a.l. Really really realingtons.

Now, when I said "that concept of time is incoherent' I was referring to the idea of time being relative. That is, the idea I'd mentioned in the previous sentence. That - you know, the one just mentioned - is incoherent.

That doesn't mean the same as 'the concept of time is incoherent'.

Quoting tim wood

Btw, do you own a watch or a clock of any kind? Do you ever make appointments, and how do you know when they are? Ever take a trip on an airplane? Even a train? Or do you just ask people what time it is?

Do you have a cerebrum?

I note too that you still - still - haven't answered any of my questions.

I told you what relativity involves. I asked you to explain to me how the twin paradox (and it really isn't a paradox) implies that time is relative. I asked you to explain to me how drawing that conclusion would be any less stupid than concluding that time passes more slowly in fridges. And I asked you if you'd read McTaggart.

I said I'm not going to be available for a while, I shouldn't be here now, but I guess the urge to respond is too strong, so I'll be quick:

Quoting noAxioms

I suppose that explains the hunt for the ether, even though I don't think it is posited to be detectable.

There really is a medium permeating all space that is detectable, the vacuum isn't nothingness it is full of electromagnetic radiation and so-called virtual particles. Now consider an atomic clock at rest in that medium (isotropic radiation coming from all around) and an atomic clock in motion (anisotropic radiation). An atomic clock is based on the behavior of atoms (and electrons), that behavior depends on their environment, why should we expect that the two atomic clocks behave the same when one receives isotropic electromagnetic radiation and the other one anisotropic electromagnetic radiation? That's the kind of thing I refer to when I talk about a constructive theory, there's something there to understand and describe, we have to take into account both the atomic clock and its environment in order to fully describe how it works. And maybe we'll realize that an atomic clock runs slower when it receives anisotropic radiation than when it receives isotropic radiation. See what I mean? There would be no need for relativity there.

Quoting noAxioms

Keep in mind I'm just asking here since I'm not totally familiar. If the ether moves/flows, where does the ether go when it gets to say the center of say Earth?

Quoting noAxioms

No, the question above talks about being in a dense hollow shell, a region of a flat gravitational field (no acceleration, but still in a well). Let's assume the ball is stationary so the dilation is completely due to gravity and not the ball moving through the ether or being in an acceleration field.

I don't know, the ether flow model works well in many cases but it seems to be problematic in the kind of situation you mention. I haven't looked too hard into it. What I described in the above paragraph seems much more promising to me.

Quoting noAxioms

I suppose Lorentz's theory has been generalized then? I wonder how black holes are handled since they don't seem to exist under LET.

I gave a link to an example of such a generalization, but it could be generalized in other ways.

Quoting noAxioms

No, but it is sort of one of my points. All clocks anywhere are dilated, no matter their position or velocity. They never compute how dilated these clocks are. Nothing exact is asked for. A single digit of precision would be nice. You'd think the 'time flows' proponents would want to know the objective rate of time flow, but they seem to avoid it like it's something embarrassing.

As I said I don't consider that time 'flows', but in order to compute absolute time dilation one would have to have detected the absolute frame in the first place, so until then that absolute dilation is unknown, but even without knowing it we can make accurate predictions, again that doesn't prove there is no absolute frame or no absolute dilation.

Quoting noAxioms

If the twins are approaching each other, they see the other aging faster. Yes, that's doppler, so 'sees' is a misleading choice of verbs. What each actually does is compute the age of the other, and in order to do that, each needs to select a frame, and if they select different frames (there is no reason they need to), then they're going to get different answers of course.

Yes strictly speaking they don't 'see', I explained that in another post, what they see is mostly Doppler not the real rate of the other clock. But when each of them assumes that light travels at c in all directions in their frame, each of them infers (computes) that in their frame the other clock is ticking more slowly.

Quoting noAxioms

One can do it the complicated way (the non-inertial frame in which the traveler is stationary the whole way), but then the twin back home ages mostly during the time taken to turn around. If it's instant, then the remote age change is instant. Either way, your assertion above that 'at every moment of the trip twin A sees twin B aging more slowly' is wrong. It happens during the acceleration, however long that takes.

Quoting noAxioms

Can't jump to the other ship without accelerating.

And that's exactly the kind of stuff that confuses people. The idea of an instant "remote age change". If there is no acceleration, there is no "during the acceleration".

Consider that we don't even need to talk about twins, we can simply talk about the clock readings. In that way there is no need to jump to another ship and accelerate, whatever reading the clock of the first spaceship indicates can be transmitted to the other spaceship going the other way when they pass by one another, and the clock of the second spaceship can be synchronized to it. In that way it is as if the clock had been transferred to the second ship without any acceleration at any point. Sure there is a change of inertial frame. But still, at any moment, it is as if from the point of view of the moving clock, the staying clock is always ticking more slowly.

Of course if we don't take into account the change of inertial frame we don't get a correct result. But consider that people don't understand why the staying clock would have ticked more if at every moment from the point of view of the moving clock it ticked more slowly! And that's the difference with the absolute frame explanation of the ether theory, in it the staying clock ticks more quickly on at least one half of the trip no matter what the true absolute frame is, and that people can understand, because it doesn't defy common sense, it doesn't leave people confused.

Quoting noAxioms

Oh doesn't it now. Are we in a priveleged location in space where it seems to work out to a fixed distance from us in every direction, but if we were near the edge of that, it would only work if we looked back at Earth and not further away from Earth?
If not, what do you mean by this?

We may be in a privileged location (how would we know we aren't), but let's assume we aren't anyway, and that the Hubble law applies from the point of view of other galaxies, that redshift of distant galaxies is proportional to their distance. Even if that redshift/distance law applies to arbitrarily large distances, the velocity/distance law doesn't, or at the very least there is no reason it should apply.

If we assume no superluminal velocity, then arbitrarily large redshift doesn't translate to arbitrarily large velocity, as the redshift increases the velocity approaches the speed of light, just like in a given inertial frame if you have a projectile with a very high redshift its velocity is close to the speed of light not above.

The thing most people don't seem to realize (even cosmologists) is that we don't need to invoke a physical expansion of space between galaxies to account for Hubble's law (like with the balloon analogy). If you have an absolute inertial frame, you can see all galaxies moving like projectiles. If these projectiles are all moving away from one another because of a huge explosion a long time ago you end up with the Hubble law, with the matter that was the furthest away from the center of the explosion moving faster as it was pushed by the matter closer to the center. Again we can explain it all in that way, there is no need to complicate matters by invoking superluminal velocities and space expansion and local inertial frames and whatnot.

Even if galaxies are accelerating away from one another (they might be, or maybe the evidence/reasoning for dark energy is flawed), that still doesn't imply superluminal velocities nor the absence of an absolute inertial frame.

Quoting noAxioms

All those galaxies are nearly stationary. The separation between us and them is growing at a rate more than c, but velocity is not defined as a relative change in position relative to a reference in that view. That's the SR view, and the universe is not described by SR over large distances. That's a good part of why the absolute frame cannot be inertial.

I answered that right above. The galaxies don't have to be seen as stationary. The separation between us and them doesn't have to be seen as growing at a rate more than c. The absolute frame can be inertial. See the problem with the mainstream narrative? Pushing beliefs as if they were truths.

Quoting noAxioms

First of all, under SR, this isn't true. The problem is that it takes infinite energy to accelerate the last bit, so it cannot be sustained. What can be done is indefinite proper acceleration of 1G like that, in which case light speed is never reached.

I know that isn't true, yet that's exactly what they do when they say that the recession velocities of galaxies are proportional to their distance no matter how distant they are. They don't take into account how velocity approaches the speed of light as redshift increases. They do exactly the same as saying that the car would accelerate beyond the speed of light if accelerated for long enough.

Quoting noAxioms

I actually tried to draw a picture of the whole universe using an inertial frame, including these 'superluminal' objects. Under SR, speeds do indeed add up using the relative rule and light speed can never be reached. The picture works fine until I attempted to work acceleration of expansion into it, and I could not do it without violating fixed light speed in the coordinate system. I don't think I can post pictures here or I'd show it to you, but it is a picture of non-absolute physics.

I did that too, indeed the speeds add up without reaching the speed of light, and the Hubble law becomes something like v = c*tanh(f(D)) or something like that I don't recall exactly, the recession velocity is no more proportional to distance, there is no reason that it should be proportional to distance, that's a pure belief based on nothing while being pushed as truth.

If you include acceleration there is no reason you should break the speed of light, just like the car doesn't break the speed of light, there must have been an error in your derivation.

Quoting noAxioms

Muons make great clocks. Accurate to at least 2 digits and easy to accelerate.

Muons aren't mechanical clocks.

Quoting noAxioms

Time that picks and chooses. Yea sure.

Quoting noAxioms

Let me know how that works out for you.

That sounds stupid only because you assume special relativity is true, and yet if that's the case special relativity would be shown to be false. Consider the first paragraph I wrote in this post. There is no reason that anisotropic radiation coming from all around would affect an atomic clock and an apple in the same way, their internal processes aren't the same.

Quoting noAxioms

Keep in mind I'm just asking here since I'm not totally familiar. If the ether moves/flows, where does the ether go when it gets to say the center of say Earth?

Physical objects must be conceived of as part of the ether, properties of the ether, juust like particles are conceived of as property of the fields described by wavefunctions. Michelson-Morley experiments demonstrate that the ether is not a substance independent from the substance of material objects. Modeling the ether in this way connects all objects as property of one ether. Now the relations between distinct material objects are simply a feature of that ether. Observations like "spatial expansion", indicate changes in the ether itself, which affect the relations between objects. as motions which are inconsistent with a static ether.

Quoting leo

As I said I don't consider that time 'flows', but in order to compute absolute time dilation one would have to have detected the absolute frame in the first place, so until then that absolute dilation is unknown, but even without knowing it we can make accurate predictions, again that doesn't prove there is no absolute frame or no absolute dilation.

With the ether theory, the flow of time can be represented as the flow of ether. It might not be proper to call it a flow though, rather it is an activity, as evidenced by spatial expansion and other related concepts, and that activity is what we call the flow of time.

Quoting leo

If you have an absolute inertial frame, you can see all galaxies moving like projectiles.

The "absolute inertial frame" cannot be produced without a proper representation of the ether flow, which may not be a flow at all, but some other unknown type of activity. So with our present knowledge of these things it only makes sense to talk about an "absolute inertial frame", as something desired but completely unobtainable. To claim as you do, that we might just produce an absolute inertial frame from our present understanding is not realistic, because there are too many unknown factors like dark matter and dark energy.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

To claim as you do, that we might just produce an absolute inertial frame from our present understanding is not realistic, because there are too many unknown factors like dark matter and dark energy.

Dark matter and energy aren't incompatible with an absolute inertial frame. Also it may be possible to come up with a theory that doesn't need to invoke dark matter and energy to explain observations, since the only evidence that we have for them comes from the fact that observations do not match the predictions of general relativity, which is extremely weak evidence really. Every theory has a domain of validity, that general relativity is accurate to account for some phenomena at some scales doesn't imply that it is accurate at all scales...

Quoting tim wood

I think I've been very clear. I want to know how the twin case is supposed to provide us with evidence that time is relative.
— Bartricks
What in the world does "time is relative" mean? Or more accurately, what in the world do you think it means?

Actually Einstein has a very philosophical answer for this. When a child asked him to explain his theory of relativity, he replied "you know when you are in a class and watching the clock, and the five minutes to break last forever? But then the break is 30 minutes and you think it's over in a jiffy? That means you understand my theory, which only says, time is only meaningful in the perception of the observer, who is now you, so now, what time is it? It is time for you to go and play :) "

Quoting leo

Dark matter and energy aren't incompatible with an absolute inertial frame.

That's right, but until it's understood what they are, a proper absolute inertial frame cannot be produced. And understanding what they are requires a proper understanding of the nature of space, and this is most likely as an ether. So the way to an absolute inertial frame is through ether theory.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So the way to an absolute inertial frame is through ether theory.

Yes, and first of all we need to get rid of the widespread idea that relativity is necessary to explain observations and experimental results. Then realize that what we call a vacuum isn't empty, isn't nothing, it is full of stuff, the stuff that we call light and electromagnetic radiation and the stuff that is responsible for gravitation, any volume of space has plenty of these things passing through, interacting with one another and with whatever matter is present, it cannot be ignored. We have to explain how the interaction between these things and matter can slow down the internal processes of that matter, which are electromagnetic in nature. In that way we can hope to explain why an atomic clock can run slower or faster depending on its state of motion relative to these things. An atomic clock in Earth orbit isn't moving through empty space, it is moving relative to all the stuff emitted by the Sun and the Earth, so it isn't inconceivable that the atomic clock would behave differently depending on how fast it is moving through this stuff.

That's where we have to look, instead of looking at relativity multiverses and extra dimensions and whatnot, the physicists have been at it for a century and they're stuck. Desperately stuck. Students are taught these theories, in order to become physicists they have to spend a lot of time working with these theories and applying them, these theories are so against common sense that the students are told to "shut up and calculate", and by the time they become physicists that's what they do, shut up and calculate, unable to think outside the box anymore, unable to question the assumptions at the root of relativity and quantum mechanics. Modern physics is stuck in a box. We can get out of it. I'm showing you the way.

Quoting leo

I said I'm not going to be available for a while, I shouldn't be here now, but I guess the urge to respond is too strong, so I'll be quick

If this is a quick note I'd hate to see one of your long ones.

There really is a medium permeating all space that is detectable

The evidence for stuff in supposed vacuum is not evidence that said stuff acts as a medium. You may posit the medium, but all efforts to detect one have so far failed.

Now consider an atomic clock at rest in that medium (isotropic radiation coming from all around) and an atomic clock in motion (anisotropic radiation). An atomic clock is based on the behavior of atoms (and electrons), that behavior depends on their environment, why should we expect that the two atomic clocks behave the same when one receives isotropic electromagnetic radiation and the other one anisotropic electromagnetic radiation?

We can subject said clock to radiation of our choice, and none of it being the medium you speak of, none of it has any effect. I say this because what you suggest is easily tested, and would completely violate both theories if said anisotropic radiation had any effect.

The question ... talks about being in a dense hollow shell, a region of a flat gravitational field (no acceleration, but still in a well).
— noAxioms

I don't know, the ether flow model works well in many cases but it seems to be problematic in the kind of situation you mention.

Maybe the reason the mainstream view is taught in schools is because GR has a clear answer for this situation. If LET was fully generalized, why are you guessing instead of looking it up? If not, is has no business being taught. If the moving ether model can't account for observations in the case I mention, then the moving ether model is incomplete or wrong.

Meta (in the post following the one to which I'm replying) calls it 'activity' instead of motion, but activity doesn't explain two clocks in the same place running at different speeds. The flowing ether model does, but it seems to come up short in some cases.

I suppose Lorentz's theory has been generalized then? I wonder how black holes are handled since they don't seem to exist under LET.
— noAxioms

I gave a link to an example of such a generalization, but it could be generalized in other ways.

Oh, so if that 2-page paper is the general theory, you should be able to answer the questions based on that particular work. It seems to mostly just refer to gravitational field theory (Einstein) for all the mathematics. I don't even think it makes a suggestion for the choice of frame.

As I said I don't consider that time 'flows',

You said 'runs' I think. Same thing. Anything that isn't a 4D spacetime view is a preferred moment, and if change doesn't progress, well, that's kind of like a Boltzmann brain situation, and very few people argue for that view.

but in order to compute absolute time dilation one would have to have detected the absolute frame in the first place

Let's assume the comoving one like everybody else does. We're only moving at around 350 km/sec in that frame. Hardly any dilation due to motion. It's the gravity part they always shy away from. Problem is, the equation doesn't converge.

Yes strictly speaking they don't 'see', I explained that in another post, what they see is mostly Doppler not the real rate of the other clock. But when each of them assumes that light travels at c in all directions in their frame, each of them infers (computes) that in their frame the other clock is ticking more slowly.

No paradox there.

One can do it the complicated way (the non-inertial frame in which the traveler is stationary the whole way), but then the twin back home ages mostly during the time taken to turn around.
— noAxioms
And that's exactly the kind of stuff that confuses people.

Rightly so. Besides the needless complication, a person's point of view is not the cause of events, remote or not. Mike Fontenot doesn't seem to realize this, wording his assertions as if a PoV is such a cause.

The idea of an instant "remote age change". If there is no acceleration, there is no "during the acceleration".

No, there's just 'at' the acceleration. Mathematically, an extended object (anything not a point mass) cannot instantly accelerate without distortion, so instant acceleration isn't possible even if infinite power was theoretically possible.

Consider that we don't even need to talk about twins, we can simply talk about the clock readings.

I've said the same, but everybody seems incapable of visualizing things unless they're 'identical' human observers of some kind. For one, pregnant women make far better biological clocks.

In that way there is no need to jump to another ship and accelerate, whatever reading the clock of the first spaceship indicates can be transmitted to the other spaceship going the other way when they pass by one another, and the clock of the second spaceship can be synchronized to it. In that way it is as if the clock had been transferred to the second ship without any acceleration at any point. Sure there is a change of inertial frame.

Yes, this tag-team method illustrates the point without worry about acceleration at all. There isn't even a change of frame since each ship just keeps right on going.

But still, at any moment, it is as if from the point of view of the moving clock, the staying clock is always ticking more slowly.

I don't get what you mean by that. From the PoV of any thing, the thing is not moving.

We may be in a privileged location (how would we know we aren't), but let's assume we aren't anyway, and that the Hubble law applies from the point of view of other galaxies, that redshift of distant galaxies is proportional to their distance. Even if that redshift/distance law applies to arbitrarily large distances, the velocity/distance law doesn't, or at the very least there is no reason it should apply.

Redshift is a function of the increase in separation over time of the observed object and the observation. No increase in that rate means no increase of redshift.
LET supports this, using the same coordinate system as does GR. Notice I don't say 'velocity' because that rate is only velocity under a relational definition of the word.

If we assume no superluminal velocity, then arbitrarily large redshift doesn't translate to arbitrarily large velocity, as the redshift increases the velocity approaches the speed of light, just like in a given inertial frame if you have a projectile with a very high redshift its velocity is close to the speed of light not above.
...
The absolute frame can be inertial. See the problem with the mainstream narrative? Pushing beliefs as if they were truths.

Quoting leo

Dark matter and energy aren't incompatible with an absolute inertial frame.

You obviously haven't thought that through. Nobody seems to support the inertial model/mapping of the universe. I've never seen a picture of it, but you claim to have drawn one. I drew one myself because I could not find one published anywhere. It didn't support dark energy. It can have no event horizon, and that makes it a contradiction with reality.
Ignoring the problems with dark energy, absolute interpretations really fall apart under the inertial frame model since it can be demonstrated that the universe is probably older than any arbitrary finite age you can choose.

The problem is that it takes infinite energy to accelerate the last bit, so it cannot be sustained. What can be done is indefinite proper acceleration of 1G like that, in which case light speed is never reached.
— noAxioms
I know that isn't true, yet that's exactly what they do when they say that the recession velocities of galaxies are proportional to their distance no matter how distant they are.
They don't take into account how velocity approaches the speed of light as redshift increases.

Now you're talking nonsense. Redshift is about observation, so irrelevant. I'm saying continuous acceleration (defined as a constant change in velocity in a given frame) would take you over light speed and is impossible only because infinite energy would be required for the last bit. Continuous proper acceleration on the other hand (defined as a constant value on the onboard accelerometer) is quite possible, and occurs in reality, and indeed, light speed is never reached in any inertial frame because of the way relativistic velocities add up.
Know the difference between acceleration and proper acceleration before you make such statements.

I actually tried to draw a picture of the whole universe using an inertial frame, including these 'superluminal' objects.
— noAxioms

I did that too,

Got a link to it somewhere?

That sounds stupid only because you assume special relativity is true

It sound stupid because if any of it actually worked that way, the mainstream view would be easily empirically falsifiable.

Quoting noAxioms

Meta (in the post following the one to which I'm replying) calls it 'activity' instead of motion, but activity doesn't explain two clocks in the same place running at different speeds. The flowing ether model does, but it seems to come up short in some cases.

I really don't know what you would mean by "two clocks in the same place". Are the clocks composed of different materials such that one exists within the other? If so, that would explain why they run at different speeds. If they are similar materials and side by side, the fact that they are side by side, in an active medium would explain the difference. I don't think you have a valid argument here. You need to better explain your proposed situation of 'two clocks in the same place running at different speeds".

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover
I mean one clock stationary and another right next to it (momentarily at least), but moving at high velocity. The 'activity' at that location is the same, and yet one clock is dilated (runs slow and is length contracted) and the other not, so thus it isn't the local 'activity' that causes it.
That's why 'speed relative to the ether' works better because the two clocks are in the same ether but have different velocities to it. But if speed through ether is the explanation, then ether must be moving through me if I'm in a gravity well, but there are cases where it clearly shouldn't be. So the 'dilation by motion relative to the ether' also seems to fall apart.

It seems the theory proper doesn't have an answer to this (why ether is necessary at all) and other issues, because if it had answers, you absolutists would tell me how they've been resolved. If the issues haven't been resolved, it would explain why mainstream relativity is taught in schools and not the absolute interpretation.

Quoting noAxioms

I mean one clock stationary and another right next to it (momentarily at least), but moving at high velocity. The 'activity' at that location is the same, and yet one clock is dilated (runs slow and is length contracted) and the other not, so thus it isn't the local 'activity' that causes it.

Don't you see that as a nonsense (impossible) situation? One clock is moving at a high velocity relative to the other. It is next to the other "momentarily". Therefore there is no such thing as the same "activity" of the two distinct clocks at the "same" location. Each clock has its own particular activity relative to its location as it approaches, and recedes from the location of the other clock. If one clock is assumed at rest, its activity will occur in one very small, particular locality, while the supposed "same" activity of the other clock (moving at a high velocity relative to the other), will occur over a large, extended area. There is no duration of time in which the clocks are at the same location, and therefore no activity when the clocks are at the same location. In reality, the clocks are never at the same location, they only pass near to each other, and the respective "activity" of each clock cannot be compared as you propose.

Quoting noAxioms

That's why 'speed relative to the ether' works better because the two clocks are in the same ether but have different velocities to it.

This scenario ought to be impossible according to Michelson-Morley experiments. That's what was disproven, the idea that a physical object moves relative to the ether. This would necessarily create a disturbance in the ether, and none can be detected. That's why I proposed that we conceive of physical objects as property of the ether. This is consistent with particle theory which conceives of particles as property of fields.

Quoting noAxioms

But if speed through ether is the explanation, then ether must be moving through me if I'm in a gravity well, but there are cases where it clearly shouldn't be. So the 'dilation by motion relative to the ether' also seems to fall apart.

It's not that the ether is moving "through" you, but that you, as a physical object, are a property of the ether. That's why I said it's better to conceive of the ether as changing rather than flowing. The ether is continuously changing as time passes, but so are you, so there is no inconsistency. Think of the motion of objects as changes within the ether in which energy is transmitted, just like waves, except we really don't know all the ways in which the ether is capable of changing. We barely touch the tip of the iceberg with electro-magnetics, because electrons hardly account for any mass.

Quoting noAxioms

t seems the theory proper doesn't have an answer to this (why ether is necessary at all) and other issues, because if it had answers, you absolutists would tell me how they've been resolved. If the issues haven't been resolved, it would explain why mainstream relativity is taught in schools and not the absolute interpretation.

Ether is necessary to account for the reality of waves. A wave is in a substance. We can deny the reality of these waves, but then fields and wavefunctions don't represent anything real. Observation attests to the reality of these waves. If the waves are real, then so is the medium in which they exist.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

One clock is moving at a high velocity relative to the other. It is next to the other "momentarily". Therefore there is no such thing as the same "activity" of the two distinct clocks at the "same" location.

The term 'activity' comes from you, and you did not seem to be referring to the activity of each clock, but rather to the ether or something else in the environment:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The "absolute inertial frame" cannot be produced without a proper representation of the ether flow, which may not be a flow at all, but some other unknown type of activity.

So I am reacting to that usage of the word 'activity'.

That's why 'speed relative to the ether' works better because the two clocks are in the same ether but have different velocities to it.
— noAxioms
This scenario ought to be impossible according to Michelson-Morley experiments. That's what was disproven, the idea that a physical object moves relative to the ether.

If the ether is undetectable, then the M-M experiment proved nothing about it.

It's not that the ether is moving "through" you, but that you, as a physical object, are a property of the ether. That's why I said it's better to conceive of the ether as changing rather than flowing.

The ether is changing (instead of 'activity'). There are the same two objects in proximity, one heavily length contracted. The cause seems to be the object's speed and not a difference in how the ether is changing. Same argument. The object's speed causes the contraction, not the ether causing it.

Ether is necessary to account for the reality of waves.

That the state of a system can be represented by something called a wavefunction does not mean that the system is necessarily a wave, or that a medium is required for it. The Schrodinger equation does just fine with the future evolution of a wave function without requirement for an ether.

A wave is in a substance. We can deny the reality of these waves, but then fields and wavefunctions don't represent anything real.

Fallacious reasoning. They might represent something real that simply isn't actually a wave.

Quoting noAxioms

The term 'activity' comes from you, and you did not seem to be referring to the activity of each clock, but rather to the ether or something else in the environment:

Yes, I was talking about the activity of the ether. You introduced to that discussion, "clocks". Now a clock is itself a form of activity, and you asked how it is possible that two clocks (two specified activities) at the same place, at the same time, with one of them moving at a high velocity in relation to the other, could be "the same". I just pointed out to you how this notion, this scenario you created, is in fact contradictory. If one is moving at a high velocity relative to the other, then clearly the two clocks are not each the same "activity".

So the "activity" of each clock cannot be said to be the same activity, they are distinct as one is at a high velocity relative to the other, and your objection is unfounded.

Quoting noAxioms

If the ether is undetectable, then the M-M experiment proved nothing about it.

Why do you conclude that the ether is undetectable? What the M-M experiment demonstrated is that the ether is not detectable through the means employed. The means employed assumed as a premise, that the ether would be a substance separate from the substance of physical objects like the earth. So the experiments demonstrated that the ether is not such a separate substance, and cannot be detected in a way which assumed this premise. The experiments do not demonstrate that the ether cannot be detected in any absolute sense. And, as I explained, quantum physics demonstrates that the ether does not exist as a separate substance from the objects, the particles are attributes of the ether.

Quoting noAxioms

The ether is changing (instead of 'activity'). There are the same two objects in proximity, one heavily length contracted. The cause seems to be the object's speed and not a difference in how the ether is changing. Same argument. The object's speed causes the contraction, not the ether causing it.

The "object" is a feature of the ether, as demonstrated by quantum mechanics, and understood through the precepts of particle physics. Therefore any change in location of the object is better described, and understood as a change in the ether. What you call "the object's speed" is simply how changes in the ether appear to us, as observers. The appearance of "an object" is simply a feature of the ether. Therefore the object's apparent form (length contracted) is also a feature of the ether. The "object's speed" is a fundamentally arbitrary judgement which you and other human beings make based on some assumptions of an inertial frame or whatever, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything real concerning the object. That's why it's wrong to say that the object's speed causes the contraction. The true inertial frame can only be understood from a description of the ether and its activities (changes). The contraction is an appearance only.

Quoting noAxioms

They might represent something real that simply isn't actually a wave.

Sure, and a rainbow doesn't involve the refraction of waves either. What is the point in referring to science, if you are simply going to deny the obvious conclusions drawn from simple observations, saying things "might " be otherwise, just for the sake of supporting the possibility of some obviously faulty metaphysics? Instead, try changing your metaphysics to be consistent with empirical observations and real science.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I was talking about the activity of the ether. You introduced to that discussion, "clocks". Now a clock is itself a form of activity, and you asked how it is possible that two clocks (two specified activities) at the same place, at the same time, with one of them moving at a high velocity in relation to the other, could be "the same".

I never said they were the same. You can make the two things billiard balls if you like. The moving one is half the length and twice the mass of other (a physical change), but the 'activty' of the ether is the same at those two locations, hence it seems that the ether activity there has nothing to do with the different properties of the two balls. If the contraction is caused by the ether, then it must be its speed through the ether, or the ether's speed through it. If not, the ether seems unnecessary for the view at all and there's just a preferred frame for whatever reason.
Correct any holes in my logic, since I'm arguing about a theory I don't hold, so I might misrepresent it. I certainly don't know how all the absolutist interpretations word it, but I know some posit relative motion with the ether as the cause of the physical change.

There is no physical change to the balls in the mainstream view. The differing length measurements are due to spatial separation of different things, not a change in the thing itself.

I just pointed out to you how this notion, this scenario you created, is in fact contradictory. If one is moving at a high velocity relative to the other, then clearly the two clocks are not each the same "activity".

Again you use the word in a different way than your original usage. I never spoke of the activity of the clocks, but since you seem to dwell on it, I made the two objects into balls. The ether has physically changed one of the balls, which sort of kills the absolutist's claim to being the more intuitive view. Relativity isn't intuitive no matter how you look at it.

They might represent something real that simply isn't actually a wave.
— noAxioms
Sure, and a rainbow doesn't involve the refraction of waves either.

That's right. Maybe it doesn't. Hence your assertion that we can't deny the reality of these waves being fallacious. Yes, light has a dual nature, and of course you gravitate towards rainbows where it is most wave like, but you've not demonstrated that matter is actually waves, so one is free to deny it. I'm personally open both ways. I don't know.

Quoting noAxioms

The moving one is half the length and twice the mass of other (a physical change), but the 'activty' of the ether is the same at those two locations,

You don't seem to understand. The objects, billiard balls now instead of clocks, are features of the ether. I've explained this over and over, but you don't seem to get it. It's what we can take away from the M-M experiment, as what is likely the case, objects are not independent from the ether. The existence of an object is a feature of the ether, like a particle is a feature of the field in particle physics. So if one ball is moving at a high velocity in relation to the other ball, then the activity of the ether cannot be the same at the two locations. The movement of the ball is an activity of the ether.

Quoting noAxioms

That's right. Maybe it doesn't. Hence your assertion that we can't deny the reality of these waves being fallacious. Yes, light has a dual nature, and of course you gravitate towards rainbows where it is most wave like, but you've not demonstrated that matter is actually waves, so one is free to deny it. I'm personally open both ways. I don't know.

The only thing I'm trying to demonstrate is that the objection you made to what I said, is baseless.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

You don't seem to understand. The objects, billiard balls now instead of clocks, are features of the ether. I've explained this over and over, but you don't seem to get it. It's what we can take away from the M-M experiment, as what is likely the case, objects are not independent from the ether. The existence of an object is a feature of the ether, like a particle is a feature of the field in particle physics. So if one ball is moving at a high velocity in relation to the other ball, then the activity of the ether cannot be the same at the two locations. The movement of the ball is an activity of the ether.

OK. Sounds a little like Conway game of Life which has an objective medium, undetectable directly, but the activity of which determines the physical properties of the 'matter'.

I am unaware of any actual model that has been fleshed out that works this way for our universe. Is there one, or is this just your contribution here?
The M-M experiment results do not suggest this case is particularly likely since there are actual fleshed out models that don't involve the ether which are still entirely consistent with the M-M results.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The only thing I'm trying to demonstrate is that the objection you made to what I said, is baseless.

You seem to be failing in your demonstration of that. Yes, I agree that you are trying.
I suspect the thing to which I've objected here is probably that 'one cannot deny the reality of waves', but light also behaves in ways that waves do not, such as throwing crisp shadows, so light seems in reality to be something that is best described as neither particle nor wave.

Quoting noAxioms

I am unaware of any actual model that has been fleshed out that works this way for our universe. Is there one, or is this just your contribution here?

The only models I can think of are those of particles physics, in which the particles are a feature of the fields..

Quoting noAxioms

The M-M experiment results do not suggest this case is particularly likely since there are actual fleshed out models that don't involve the ether which are still entirely consistent with the M-M results.

Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves and this necessitates the conclusion of an "ether" or some such substance which the waves exist in. The M-M results show that the "ether" is not a substance independent of material objects. There is little, if any movement of the ether relative to the earth. Therefore we can conclude that the "ether" and material objects are not separate substances, they are one and the same substance, just like "particle-wave".

Quoting noAxioms

You seem to be failing in your demonstration of that.

Actually you seem to understand now. Your objection about the two clocks, or two billiard balls is not applicable when the objects are conceived of as part of the ether. Each is a different activity of the ether. The two clocks cannot be said to have the same activity (therefore as 'clocks' they are not the same), nor can the two balls be said to be the same, in any real way. It makes no sense to refer to these distinct things involved in completely different activities, as the same. That's all I wanted to explain, and I think I've finally succeeded. Whether you agree with the premise which makes your objection irrelevant, doesn't matter, your objection is still irrelevant from the perspective of the metaphysics which holds this premise.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves and this necessitates the conclusion of an "ether" or some such substance which the waves exist in

I would like to hear this from a physicist. :roll:

Reply to jgill
It's one of the first things I learned in high school physics, waves are an activity of the medium, and we experimented in wave tanks.

What is the medium through which probability waves in QM travel?

How about it, physicist out there? Clarify the idea that MU advances? Waves in fields create particles? Good luck with the metaphysics of fields. :nerd:

Quoting jgill

What is the medium through which probability waves in QM travel?

I believe that fields, like the electromagnetic field, are a real medium in particle physics.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The only models I can think of are those of particles physics, in which the particles are a feature of the fields..

None of those require a preferred frame for the fields. Any theory corresponding to the ether would need to.

Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves and this necessitates the conclusion of an "ether" or some such substance which the waves exist in.

All empirical evidence for real waves (like in water) have an obvious medium, and no real waves behave like that which the M-M experiment is measuring, so this is just your biases talking.

Your objection about the two clocks, or two billiard balls is not applicable when the objects are conceived of as part of the ether. Each is a different activity of the ether. The two clocks cannot be said to have the same activity (therefore as 'clocks' they are not the same), nor can the two balls be said to be the same, in any real way. It makes no sense to refer to these distinct things involved in completely different activities, as the same. That's all I wanted to explain, and I think I've finally succeeded.

I agreed to that, yes.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

waves are an activity of the medium

Kind of by definition, yes. What jgill was questioning not that definition, but where you assert "Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves". That part does not hold up.

Quoting jgill

What is the medium through which probability waves in QM travel?

QM does not posit waves of probability, through a medium or otherwise.
Meta's answer to this is a statement of his personal beliefs, but nothing about what QM theory says.

Quoting noAxioms

QM does not posit waves of probability, through a medium or otherwise.

Of course it does, but not in a physical sense.

From Physics.Org: "At the heart of quantum mechanics lies the wave function, a probability function used by physicists to understand the nanoscale world. Using the wave function, physicists can calculate a system's future behavior, but only with a certain probability. This inherently probabilistic nature of quantum theory differs from the certainty with which scientists can describe the classical world, leading to a nearly century-long debate on how to interpret the wave function: does it representative objective reality or merely the subjective knowledge of an observer?"

Reply to jgillFairly good description there, but the phrase 'waves of probability' hardly fits that.
Yes, there is a wave function, and yes, the function is probabilistic, but that doesn't make the function a 'wave of probability' traveling through a medium. It simply means that the probability of any particular measurement can be computed from the wave function.

Quoting noAxioms

None of those require a preferred frame for the fields. Any theory corresponding to the ether would need to.

This is not true. The preferred frame, what Leo called the "absolute inertial frame" could only be produced from an accurate understanding of the activity of the ether. The fact that we do not understand the nature of the ether inhibits our capacity to produce such a frame. So physicists have to construct numerous different fields to deal with the numerous different aspects of material existence.

Quoting noAxioms

All empirical evidence for real waves (like in water) have an obvious medium, and no real waves behave like that which the M-M experiment is measuring, so this is just your biases talking.

Electromagnetic waves behave just like other waves. That's why when we study the physics of waves, we learn the fundamental principles of wave motion by observing and studying visible waves in wave tanks, then we move on to vibrating strings, sounds, and light. The fundamental principles of all wave action are the same no matter what the medium is. Your claim that electromagnetic waves are somehow fundamentally different than other waves not only biases your perspective, but it puts you in the wrong.

Quoting noAxioms

Kind of by definition, yes. What jgill was questioning not that definition, but where you assert "Empirical evidence indicates that there are waves". That part does not hold up.

Remember, I mentioned the rainbow, and "refraction"? Refraction of light has been studied for hundreds of years. Here's how Wikipedia defines it: "refraction is the change in direction of a wave passing from one medium to another or from a gradual change in the medium." You said maybe the rainbow isn't produced from refraction of waves. Your just denying hundreds of years of accepted science, and the empirical evidence which supports that science.

Quoting noAxioms

Yes, there is a wave function, and yes, the function is probabilistic, but that doesn't make the function a 'wave of probability' traveling through a medium

"By analogy with waves such as those of sound, a wave function, designated by the Greek letter psi, ?, may be thought of as an expression for the amplitude of the particle wave (or de Broglie wave), although for such waves amplitude has no physical significance." Encyl. Brit.

I was suggesting a metaphysical argument. Interested in seeing what it would provoke. :snicker:

Quoting jgill

What is the medium through which probability waves in QM travel?

How about it, physicist out there? Clarify the idea that MU advances? Waves in fields create particles? Good luck with the metaphysics of fields.

To me it seems like a quaint prejudice to insist that anything that is wave-like requires a medium. Maybe there is something to the idea; I wish there were some non-cranks here who could explain this point of view. Technically, a (physical) field is just a distribution of physical values in space - nothing less, nothing more. Why would some additional stuff smeared over space be required?

Reply to jgill Found this paper, gives some historical perspective on the issue:

Quoting Ernan McMullin, The Origins of the Field Concept in Physics (2002)

The term, ‘‘field,’’ made its first appearance in physics as a technical term in the mid-nineteenth century. But the notion of what later came to be called a field had been a long time in gestation. Early discussions of magnetism and of the cause of the ocean tides had long ago suggested the idea of a ‘‘zone of influence’’ surrounding certain bodies. Johannes Kepler’s mathematical rendering of the orbital motion of Mars encouraged him to formulate what he called ‘‘a true theory of gravity’’ involving the notion of attraction. Isaac Newton went on to construct an eminently effective dynamics, with attraction as its primary example of force. Was his a field theory? Historians of science disagree. Much depends on whether a theory consistent with the notion of action at a distance ought qualify as a ‘‘field’’ theory. Roger Boscovich and Immanuel Kant later took the Newtonian concept of attraction in new directions. It was left to Michael Faraday to propose the ‘‘physical existence’’ of lines of force and to James Clerk Maxwell to add as criterion the presence of energy as the ontological basis for a full-blown ‘‘field theory’’ of electromagnetic phenomena.

Somebody consider the possibility that quantum mechanics applies to all phenomena since even complex configurations (e.g rocks) are an aggregation of simpler configurations (e.g. molecules, atoms, sub-atomic, etc). Therefore, even a rock could act as both wave and particle in the sense that it has a corresponding force resonance (vibration sequence/pattern -> a wave property) aligned with its apparent physicality (or interactive configuration).

If complex configurations are an aggregate of simpler configurations and, quantum mechanics is a perspective on those simpler configurations, doesn't that mean that every complexity we seem to have has a field of activity in which quantum mechanics applies?

Quoting SophistiCat

To me it seems like a quaint prejudice to insist that anything that is wave-like requires a medium. Maybe there is something to the idea; I wish there were some non-cranks here who could explain this point of view.

If you automatically designate as a "crank" anyone who expresses this idea, that if it looks like and acts like a wave, then it is a wave, and a wave by definition, requires a medium, you'll never find a non-crank who could explain this idea.

That the conventional wisdom is to completely ignore what is necessitated by logic, making those who respect the logic into "cranks" is a pathetic state of affairs.

Quoting jgill

I would like to hear this from a physicist.

We had a precious few physicists involved in discussions, but they seem to have vanished. The "cranks" (and I mean real crackpots) seem to frustrate them.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

If you automatically designate as a "crank" anyone who expresses this idea, that if it looks like and acts like a wave, then it is a wave, and a wave by definition, requires a medium, you'll never find a non-crank who could explain this idea.

You are right: this isn't even cranky, this is just stupid. But I didn't say that only a crank could defend the idea that waves and fields require a medium: on the contrary, I was looking for an intelligent explanation. And I have found some some, such as McMullin's paper.

I acknowledge that historically, it made sense to think that way. Waves transmit influence, they cause action at a distance. It makes intuitive sense to think that matter is required to transmit action: you want to move something - you push it, poke it with a stick or throw a rock at it; even a monkey understands that much. Hume defined a cause in accordance with contemporary understanding as "an object precedent and contiguous to another." Of course, Newton's gravitational interaction violated this "law of causality" quite spectacularly, and indeed this issue vexed him and those who followed.

Quoting tim wood

If for example I tie one end of a rope to a tree and then take the other end out to some distance and move it rapidly and forcefully up and down, I can easily establish a standing wave in the rope. Or, such a thing is the simple operation of a guitar string. The medium, if you want to call it that, is air, but the air - the medium in this case - is irrelevant.

The medium in this case is the rope, not the air. The air carries resulting sound waves perhaps, but not the wave in the rope, which would be there even if the exercise was done in a vacuum.

Yes, light acts like a wave in one way, but it acts in other ways like no wave acts. If it swims like a duck but honks like a goose, it's probably not a duck. To assert it being a duck by only considering the swimming property and turning a deaf ear to the honking is a blatant example of selection bias. So no, Meta, it does not look and act like a wave.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

I still like the idea of a metaphysical medium through which probability waves travel.

But, assuming the PW is itself a metaphysical entity, then it is a metaphysical actuality since it "describes" a physical observation. A previous thread mentioned this notion, and I find it entertaining to contemplate. :cool:

Quoting SophistiCat

But I didn't say that only a crank could defend the idea that waves and fields require a medium: on the contrary, I was looking for an intelligent explanation. And I have found some some, such as McMullin's paper.

I didn't say a field requires a medium, I said a field is a medium. It is the medium which substantiates the wave function, and therefore the existence of particles. That's what an electromagnetic field, for example, is, a medium..

Quoting SophistiCat

I acknowledge that historically, it made sense to think that way. Waves transmit influence, they cause action at a distance. It makes intuitive sense to think that matter is required to transmit action: you want to move something - you push it, poke it with a stick or throw a rock at it; even a monkey understands that much. Hume defined a cause in accordance with contemporary understanding as "an object precedent and contiguous to another." Of course, Newton's gravitational interaction violated this "law of causality" quite spectacularly, and indeed this issue vexed him and those who followed.

This is irrelevant, Newton's gravitation is not a wave. The issue here is whether a wave requires substance for its existence. It think it's very clear, and it ought to be clear to you as it is taught in basic physics, that a wave only occurs in a substance.

Quoting noAxioms

So no, Meta, it does not look and act like a wave.

Continuing with the denial of science I see. The activity of light is described by a wave-function. Where's your evidence that light does anything which is not wavelike?

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Continuing with the denial of science I see. The activity of light is described by a wave-function. Where's your evidence that light does anything which is not wavelike?

You're ignoring my posts above. Surely you're aware of the dual nature of light. Yes, light refracts, which is very much swimming like a duck. Not denying that. The mathematics of waves can be used to compute angles of diffraction for instance.

But like also throws crisp shadows given a small light source, and that is very much not quacking like a duck. The conclusion you should draw from this is that the nature of light is not exactly like a classic wave in a medium with a known velocity, and thus isn't necessarily best expressed as a function of such a medium. No wave in an inertial medium throws hard shadows or is measured at a single point instead of spread-out, and all waves with known mediums behave differently in frames other than the one in which the medium is stationary, and thus drawing a conclusion of the existence of a medium is premature.

There also seem to be a lack of working model using such a medium, since I've seen no links to one, only hand-waving and assertions of how it would work if such a model was created.

Gravity waves are probably the closest analogy. They are sort of modeled as waves in the 'fabric of spacetime'. That wording suggests a frame-independent medium of spacetime itself. If there was a necessity for some preferred frame, it would be called the 'fabric of space'.
There is no spacetime in the 3D view, but there is no movement through 4D spacetime, so said gravity waves are more ripple distortions in spacetime, which in any choice of frames manifest as waves that travel through space. This would not work with a 3D medium since it would change the properties of the waves in any frame that doesn't match the one in which the medium is not stationary.

Quoting noAxioms

But like also throws crisp shadows given a small light source, and that is very much not quacking like a duck.

A crisp shadow is not inconsistent with a wave, as an object in a wave tank demonstrates. There is a crisp shadow created by the object. There is still some disturbance in the water behind the object due to different reflections and other activity, just like a shadow is not absolutely dark.

Quoting noAxioms

The conclusion you should draw from this is that the nature of light is not exactly like a classic wave in a medium with a known velocity, and thus isn't necessarily best expressed as a function of such a medium. No wave in an inertial medium throws hard shadows or is measured at a single point instead of spread-out, and all waves with known mediums behave differently in frames other than the one in which the medium is stationary, and thus drawing a conclusion of the existence of a medium is premature.

I don't see how this is relevant, sound waves are not "exactly the same as waves in a water. And light behaves differently in different mediums (passing through different objects), just like sound, and any other waves. That's how we know about refraction. Designations such as "inertial medium" are arbitrary because motion is relative. Whether the wave tank is on a train, or on the surface of the earth, or whether the wave is in a moving river, the medium is always moving in some fashion. That's why the medium for light is so hard to understand, it may be moving in so many ways that we do not even know about. So physicists posit numerous fields.

Quoting noAxioms

There also seem to be a lack of working model using such a medium, since I've seen no links to one, only hand-waving and assertions of how it would work if such a model was created.

I told you the logic. To say it's "hand-waving" is a continuity of your propensity for denial.

Quoting noAxioms

Gravity waves are probably the closest analogy. They are sort of modeled as waves in the 'fabric of spacetime'. That wording suggests a frame-independent medium of spacetime itself. If there was a necessity for some preferred frame, it would be called the 'fabric of space'.

OK, so you do recognize the need for a medium. That's good, so why do you keep denying it? That's all I'm trying to get to the bottom of. People like me will insist on the need for a medium, and people like you will deny this need, and speak of people like me as if we're "cranks". But when we get down to brass tacks, people like you suddenly admit that you've recognized the need for a medium all along. What I think is that people like you insist on defending some theories, or metaphysics which assert that there is no medium, but in reality you recognize that in practise we deal with these things as if there is a medium. So there is a huge inconsistency between what you preach (metaphysical theory), and what you practise. And if someone like me tries to point this out, you find the easiest response is denial and "crank".

Quoting noAxioms

This would not work with a 3D medium since it would change the properties of the waves in any frame that doesn't match the one in which the medium is not stationary.

Of course the medium is not stationary, that's what I've been trying to impress upon you all along, the "activity" of the medium. You didn't seem to like that term, but now you've simply replaced it with "not stationary". The broader term, "activity" is the better than the narrower "not-stationary", because we have no point of reference, no absolute rest, from which to establish "inertia". So imagine for example a container of water, which we designate as "stationary". Even within the individual particles, the molecules, there is activity, despite the water being "stationary". The assumption of "stationary" is arbitrary, and really quite false.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

A crisp shadow is not inconsistent with a wave, as an object in a wave tank demonstrates.

Alrighty then.

Designations such as "inertial medium" are arbitrary because motion is relative.

Not arbitrary. In all such cases, the speed of the waves is pretty much fixed (isotropic) only relative to the medium.

OK, so you do recognize the need for a medium.

Not a need for it, but a reference to something like one. Spacetime is not something that anything can travel through, so it doesn't really correspond to the function of an actual medium like rope, water, or air, all of which are mediums through which waves travel .

people like you will deny this need

Yes, I deny the need, even if I don't deny the medium.

and speak of people like me as if we're "cranks"

Your're a crank probably mostly due to the lack of ability to formulate a sound logical argument, and not so much for the views you choose. I never used the word, but I see it coming up quite a bit now. Doubtless there are those that consider me one for whatever reason. The views I hold (not a realist for one) are not exactly mainstream, but at least I can defend them.

The assumption of "stationary" is arbitrary, and really quite false.

Arbitrary, but the assumption of its existence is mandatory for the view you hold.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The preferred frame, what Leo called the "absolute inertial frame" ...

I pointed out why the preferred frame cannot be an inertial one, so Leo hasn't thought it through. Have you? I suggested some violations of thermodynamics as well for other suggested preferred frames. Maybe the lost energy I pointed out accounts for the source of 'dark energy'. That would at least resolve that problem. Not claiming to be a cosmological expert, but I can do 4D math at least.

Quoting noAxioms

Not arbitrary. In all such cases, the speed of the waves is pretty much fixed (isotropic) only relative to the medium.

Right, this is one reason (amongst others) why, as I explained, objects must be conceived of as part (features) of the medium. Understanding the appearance of objects as a feature of the medium, (for instance, apparent electron "particles" as a feature of the electromagnetic field), we can develop the tools to understand the activity of the medium itself. If the speed of light waves is fixed relative to the medium, yet the medium is active in some other way, then we need to understand this other activity to comprehend things like redshift/blueshift.

Quoting noAxioms

Your're a crank probably mostly due to the lack of ability to formulate a sound logical argument,

When you deny science, and the truth of obvious premises, as you were doing, you cannot distinguish a sound argument from an unsound one.

Here's where we have differences:Quoting noAxioms

Surely you're aware of the dual nature of light.

It is the photoelectric effect which dictates that light might be conceived of as particles, photons of energy. However, this conclusion is dependent on the conception of an electron as a particle. If an electron is not actually a particle, and not conceived of as a particle (a unit of energy might exist in some way other than as a particle), then there is no need to conceive of light in a particle form.

So, the difference is that my commitment, that light exists as a wave, is based in all sorts of empirical observations, and sound scientific principles developed over hundreds of years. Your commitment, that light exists as a particle is based in the empirically proven fact that energy can only be measured in discrete quanta. An electron exists as a known quantity of energy. The deficiency in your claim, is that it has not been proven that this quantum of energy, what's called "the electron", actually exists as a particle, rather than as a feature of an electromagnetic field. If an electron does not exist as a particle, and this energy is a feature of a field, then there is no basis to the claim that a photon exists as a particle. The quanta of energy is better described as a feature of a field, rather than as a particle.

Quoting noAxioms

I never used the word, but I see it coming up quite a bit now.

Sorry, I forgot it was Sophisticat who jumped in, and I got confused who was who and saying what: my apologies. Let me go back for a moment now, and readdress Sophisticat's concern.

Quoting SophistiCat

Technically, a (physical) field is just a distribution of physical values in space - nothing less, nothing more. Why would some additional stuff smeared over space be required?

There has to be "stuff smeared over space", to support the reality, or truth of the values. We can call it "substantiation". We could assign physical values all over space, randomly, but these would have no substance, no meaning because they're random. If the values are to represent something real, there must be "substance" which supports them. Do you agree that most physicists accept that an electromagnetic field is real substance? If the values assigned to an electromagnetic field represent what is believed to be a real substance, then the other fields ought to be understood in this way as well.

Quoting SophistiCat

You are right: this isn't even cranky, this is just stupid. But I didn't say that only a crank could defend the idea that waves and fields require a medium: on the contrary, I was looking for an intelligent explanation. And I have found some some, such as McMullin's paper.

I acknowledge that historically, it made sense to think that way. Waves transmit influence, they cause action at a distance. It makes intuitive sense to think that matter is required to transmit action: you want to move something - you push it, poke it with a stick or throw a rock at it; even a monkey understands that much. Hume defined a cause in accordance with contemporary understanding as "an object precedent and contiguous to another." Of course, Newton's gravitational interaction violated this "law of causality" quite spectacularly, and indeed this issue vexed him and those who followed.

Do you recognize the conclusion of the quoted passage, referring to the "ontological" basis of field theory? I believe that some physicists such as Feynman have produced very convincing arguments which demonstrate that electromagnetic fields must have real physical existence, i.e. substance. If you're not familiar with this, I could look it up for you

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Not arbitrary. In all such cases, the speed of the waves is pretty much fixed (isotropic) only relative to the medium.
— noAxioms

Right, this is one reason (amongst others) why, as I explained, objects must be conceived of as part (features) of the medium.

If you can actually follow the argument presented in that exchange, you see the opposite position is suggested.

Your [...] lack of ability to formulate a sound logical argument,
— noAxioms
When you deny science, and the truth of obvious premises, as you were doing, you cannot distinguish a sound argument from an unsound one.

If science was about asserting 'obvious' premises, the sun would still be going around the Earth. Science is not about premises at all. It is about models that correspond to empirical observation.
As for the sound argument, you illustrate my point above with your response. The soundness (validity if you will) of a logical argument has nothing to do with the premises chosen, but rather what conclusions are (and are not) drawn from those premises.

Your commitment, that light exists as a particle

I never said that. Strawman fallacy, getting at least two things wrong about what I've said. Wait, three things wrong. Not bad for 8 words. Kindly refrain from putting words in my mouth.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I believe that some physicists such as Feynman have produced very convincing arguments which demonstrate that electromagnetic fields must have real physical existence, i.e. substance. If you're not familiar with this, I could look it up for you

Please do. I am curious. :chin:

However, physical existence doesn't necessarily mean a substance as medium. It just means it exists and interacts with the physical universe. But I could be wrong. Probability waves are a lot more abstract.

Quoting noAxioms

If you can actually follow the argument presented in that exchange, you see the opposite position is suggested.

You might suggest it, but it's not at all a sound argument. Your proposition, "Spactime is not something that anything can travel through", is not a sound premise. If things do not move in spacetime, then what do they move in? Why would you prejudice gravity, allowing that gravity moves spacetime, but other things do not move in spacetime? I don't understand how you could say that gravity moves spacetime (creating waves), yet things do not move in spacetime, when gravity moves things. Are things and spacetime completely distinct substances which have no effect on each other? That can't be because the gravity waves move things.

Quoting noAxioms

The soundness (validity if you will) of a logical argument has nothing to do with the premises chosen, but rather what conclusions are (and are not) drawn from those premises.

Do you understand the difference between soundness and validity? Valid logic might use false premises, in which case the conclusion would be unsound. A sound logical argument has both true premises and valid logic. So the soundness of a logical argument has a lot to do with the premises chosen, it requires not only valid logic, but also that the premises are true.

Quoting jgill

Please do. I am curious. :chin:

Without taking the time to research specifics, I can tell you the simple idea. An electromagnetic field is necessarily a real object (what I call substantial) because it exerts a force on particles (exemplified by iron filings). This is the energy of the field. Changes within the field are described as waves, and this is how energy moves from one place to another through the field, by means of waves.

Quoting jgill

However, physical existence doesn't necessarily mean a substance as medium. It just means it exists and interacts with the physical universe. But I could be wrong. Probability waves are a lot more abstract.

This might be a semantic issue, but having real physical existence necessarily implies "substance", as substance is what supports physical existence. The electromagnetic field exists between particles and is the means by which energy is transmitted from one particle to another, so I would say that it qualifies as a "medium". So, having physical existence, and existing as part of the physical universe means that the thing has substance. And, the thing in question, the electromagnetic field, fulfills the criteria to be called a medium.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Your proposition, "Spactime is not something that anything can travel through", is not a sound premise.

It isn't a premise at all, but rather a conclusion from a different premise, one a thousand years old, that time is a 4th dimension, even if the 'spacetime' term and the mathematical description were introduced far more recently, by Minkowski if I have my history correct.
If the premise is accepted, then spacetime isn't something that things travel through. If not, there is no spacetime at all through which a thing can travel.
I know you have a consistent history of inability to understand that view, as again evidenced by your statement above.

Do you understand the difference between soundness and validity?

A sound one is valid, and in addition, has all true premises. I probably used the word incorrectly there. We have no easy way of knowing which premises are true if they contradict each other but each lead to the same observations.

My point was that your arguments are very often not valid.

Quoting noAxioms

If the premise is accepted, then spacetime isn't something that things travel through. If not, there is no spacetime at all through which a thing can travel.

Then you clearly have inconsistency, contradiction, if you model gravity waves as wrinkles in the fabric of spacetime, and you maintain that things do not travel through spacetime. And if you say that nothing moves because spacetime is an eternal static block, then you're just continuing to support bad metaphysics by denying the obvious, motion. We cannot even validly discuss motion anymore because nothing moves according to this perspective. What's the point in discussing the motion of things when nothing moves according to your principles?

Quoting noAxioms

I know you have a consistent history of inability to understand that view, as again evidenced by your statement above.

That's right, I cannot understand principles which appear fundamentally contradictory, and the appearance of contradiction is only made to go away when the obvious is denied. That's why I cannot understand eternalism in general, it appears contradictory, as motion existing in a static block. The contradiction only goes away by denying the present, because the present is where motion occurs. This is what allows for the reality of the static block, a denial of the present. However, this is a denial of what is obvious, the division between future and past, which is the present, containing the occurrence of motion. When you deny the reality of the distinction between future and past, you deny the first. most obvious principle of reality, upon which we live our entire lives, basing all of our decisions, that difference between future and past.

Quoting noAxioms

We have no easy way of knowing which premises are true if they contradict each other but each lead to the same observations.

That's very correct, there is no "easy" way to determine the truth. But if we make the effort to analyze and understand fundamental principles, the truth may be revealed. If observations of the very same thing produce contradictory premises, then we must dig deeper to see the principles which support the description, how the description (premise) is derived. This is like 'he said/she said', why are you describing the same thing in a different way from me? So we have to respect as different, the purpose or intention, from which we are both arguing. In this case it is not an instance of one of us intentionally lying, but the "thing" which is being described is so broad, and we can pick and choose the aspects of that thing which we want to use in our respective descriptions. If our descriptions are actually contradictory, we can look to why I chose this aspect, and you chose that aspect, and this leads us to the metaphysics which we are each attempting to support. Then we need to analyze those metaphysical principles themselves, for soundness. If we find weakness in those principles, then we ought to investigate the descriptions which appear to support those principles, as potentially faulty descriptions.

Quoting noAxioms

My point was that your arguments are very often not valid.

You might say this, but you attack my premises, not my logic, so you are really demonstrating that you think my arguments are unsound. For example, here's my argument. P1. Light exists as waves. P2. Waves require a medium. C. Therefore there is a medium for light, "the ether". The logic is valid, but you consistently attacked the truth of my first premise. So you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity of it. However, my first premise is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence, so you haven't gotten very far with your attack.

Also, you or others, have made some attempt at creating ambiguity, and obscuring the separation between P1 and P2, by saying rather that light is "wavelike". This allows P2 to appear unsound, because there could be a "wavelike" thing which cannot be called a "wave" because it does not require a medium. The ambiguity as to the criteria of "wave" allows for something which we would normally call a wave, to actually not be a wave, only "wavelike", and therefore exist without a medium.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Then you clearly have inconsistency, contradiction, if you model gravity waves as wrinkles in the fabric of spacetime, and you maintain that things do not travel through spacetime.

Wrinkles in fabric are not movement, so 'clearly' hasn't exactly been spelled out.

And if you say that nothing moves because spacetime is an eternal static block

I didn't say nothing moves. Your refusal to understand the view isn't evidence that it is inconsistent. Read up on it and attack it intelligently.

know you have a consistent history of inability to understand that view, as again evidenced by your statement above.
— noAxioms

That's right, I cannot understand principles which appear fundamentally contradictory, and the appearance of contradiction is only made to go away when the obvious is denied.

There you go. You admit that you cannot let go of at least this one particular bias long enough to comprehend a view that doesn't posit it. Yes, the view indeed becomes contradictory if this additional 'obvious' premise is made, but the fact is that there is a different set of premises that predict the same empirical experience and these premises deny the existence of the present moment. Hence the truth of that premise is not obvious.

You might say this, but you attack my premises, not my logic

I only attack your premises if you insist on applying them to a view that doesn't posit them. Otherwise, when have I ever asserted your premises are necessarily wrong in any way? Maybe some of them are. I forget.

so you are really demonstrating that you think my arguments are unsound.

I meant invalid, and if they're invalid, then they're also unsound, which is why I kind of used both words.

For example, here's my argument. P1. Light exists as waves. P2. Waves require a medium. C. Therefore there is a medium for light, "the ether". The logic is valid, but you consistently attacked the truth of my first premise.

Sorry, but I never attacked that line of reasoning. I might attack your assertion that those premises are necessarily true.

So you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity of it.

Only when your argument is in fact invalid.

However, my first premise is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence, so you haven't gotten very far with your attack.

On the contrary, there seems to be no measurement that can be made to distinguish between the premise being the case or not, which makes hundreds of years of nothing. They've tried too. I've seen many attempts, mostly logical, to disprove one view or the other. I've never seen a successful one. I even have my own argument, but it rests on premises that cannot be proven.

Also, you or others, have made some attempt at creating ambiguity, and obscuring the separation between P1 and P2, by saying rather that light is "wavelike". This allows P2 to appear unsound, because there could be a "wavelike" thing which cannot be called a "wave" because it does not require a medium.

P2 might be true by definition. It depends on how a real wave is defined. But yes, the logic goes pretty much along the lines of what you say here. Known real waves do things that light doesn't, and light does things that known waves do not. That doesn't demonstrate that light is not a wave, but it does demonstrate that your premises are not necessarily true.

The ambiguity as to the criteria of "wave" allows for something which we would normally call a wave, to actually not be a wave, only "wavelike", and therefore exist without a medium.

As an example of something wavelike: Take interference patterns, which are formed by things other than waves. Moire patterns are a good example of this. The patterns move in apparent 'waves' without an obvious medium carrying the waves, as evidenced by the fact that there seems to be no limit to the speed at which they move.

Quoting noAxioms

Wrinkles in fabric are not movement, so 'clearly' hasn't exactly been spelled out.

OK, a wave (gravity wave) which is not movement. You're back to contradiction.

Quoting noAxioms

Your refusal to understand the view isn't evidence that it is inconsistent. Read up on it and attack it intelligently.

The problem is you have not presented anything which makes sense. Present me with contradictions and it's intelligent for me to attack them. How can I understand something which is loaded with contradiction? Sure, you might suggest that I just ignore the contradictions and get on with the understanding, but I think that would be misunderstanding. Therefore we must iron out the wrinkles in your principles before any understanding is possible.

Quoting noAxioms

There you go. You admit that you cannot let go of at least this one particular bias long enough to comprehend a view that doesn't posit it. Yes, the view indeed becomes contradictory if this additional 'obvious' premise is made, but the fact is that there is a different set of premises that predict the same empirical experience and these premises deny the existence of the present moment. Hence the truth of that premise is not obvious.

Before I drop what is "obvious" to me, you need to demonstrate how it is that the obvious is not true. Telling me to drop the obvious just so that your premises will make sense, is just a matter of telling me to let go of what I know to be true so that falsity will make sense to me. Your approach is fruitless if you cannot demonstrate why the thing which is extremely obvious to me might be false.

Your argument here is deeply flawed. What is extremely obvious to me is that there is a difference between future and past. That is my empirical experience. This empirical experience requires a separation between future and past, in order to support the reality of this difference. Two distinct things require something which separates them That is a logical conclusion, and this separation we call "the present". Therefore, your claim that the same empirical experience may be produced without the present is absolutely false. The empirical experience is of the separation between future and past and this cannot be produced without the present.

If your claim is that a similar empirical experience could be produced without the present, as in "a simulation", then you ought to say this. But then why would you claim it's "the same empirical experience"? So if you have premises which can simulate my experience of a difference between future and past, without a present, and free of contradiction, then let's see them.

Quoting noAxioms

Only when your argument is in fact invalid.

But my argument isn't invalid, that's what I showed. You are attacking the truth of the premise, "light exists as a wave". Therefore you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity.

Quoting noAxioms

On the contrary, there seems to be no measurement that can be made to distinguish between the premise being the case or not, which makes hundreds of years of nothing. They've tried too. I've seen many attempts, mostly logical, to disprove one view or the other. I've never seen a successful one. I even have my own argument, but it rests on premises that cannot be proven.

I went through this with you already, it's called "refraction". Refraction is a property of waves. Light gets refracted, therefore it is a wave. You might insist that hundreds of years of studying refraction amounts to "nothing", but I already know that you're a science denier. What I want to know is the reason for such denial. What's the point to your denial?

Quoting noAxioms

P2 might be true by definition. It depends on how a real wave is defined. But yes, the logic goes pretty much along the lines of what you say here. Known real waves do things that light doesn't, and light does things that known waves do not. That doesn't demonstrate that light is not a wave, but it does demonstrate that your premises are not necessarily true.

This argument, like your other, is deeply flawed. As I told you already, the reason why I know that light is a wave is refraction, like the rainbow. To disprove the necessity which I claim, you need to establish a separation between waves and refraction, such that refraction can happen to something which is not a wave. The problem though is that "refraction" is by definition a property of waves. Perhaps you might show me light which doesn't get refracted So to demonstrate that my premise is not necessarily true you need to show how the rainbow, and the behaviour of light through a prism is not really refraction, but something else, or show me light which doesn't get refracted. Otherwise, if light actual refracts, it is necessarily a wave, because refraction is something that only waves do.

Quoting noAxioms

As an example of something wavelike: Take interference patterns, which are formed by things other than waves. Moire patterns are a good example of this. The patterns move in apparent 'waves' without an obvious medium carrying the waves, as evidenced by the fact that there seems to be no limit to the speed at which they move.

I don't see how this is relevant. The patterns exist in a medium. If they simply look like waves, but are not actually waves, they are still an activity of the medium. So this is irrelevant to the possibility of an activity which looks like a wave, but is not in a medium.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The problem is you have not presented anything which makes sense.

It make sense to those that understand it. I'm sorry that you're apparently not one of them.

Present me with contradictions and it's intelligent for me to attack them.

Your contradictions come from twisting my statements out of context. Maybe spell out the contradictions more clearly so I can point out where you didn't get it right.

Your approach is fruitless if you cannot demonstrate why the thing which is extremely obvious to me might be false.

I cannot demonstrate it to you. It's like trying to convince my cat. I've spent whole threads discussing this with you. I know where it goes. You are incapable of setting aside your biases, and hence you see contradiction where there is none. You already know the answer, so any premise that contradicts it must be wrong, and is thus not worthy of consideration.

If your claim is that a similar empirical experience could be produced without the present, as in "a simulation",

A simulation has a present, and a dualistic experience for that matter.. Not at all a good model of what I'm talking about.

On the contrary, there seems to be no measurement that can be made to distinguish between the premise being the case or not, which makes hundreds of years of nothing. They've tried too. I've seen many attempts, mostly logical, to disprove one view or the other. I've never seen a successful one. I even have my own argument, but it rests on premises that cannot be proven. — noAxioms

I went through this with you already, it's called "refraction".

I'm talking about the existence of a present moment, which has little if anything to do with refraction.

I don't see how this is relevant. The patterns exist in a medium. If they simply look like waves, but are not actually waves, they are still an activity of the medium.

No, they can appear and move with no activity of what you might consider to be the medium. That's why I brought it up.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Please do. I am curious. :chin: — jgill

Without taking the time to research specifics, I can tell you the simple idea

So you really can't back up your statement. OK :roll:

Quoting jgill

So you really can't back up your statement.

I can back it up, because I've researched it before, but I'd have to go back and find the same material again. That's a lot of time and effort just for you, someone I don't know. So I gave you a simple summary. If you took a few minutes of time to read and understand that summary, and question me on the parts which you do not understand or wanted more detail, showing a bit of actual interest, I might be inspired to look up the material. But now it looks like you just want to waste my time. It appears like you would not believe what I produced anyway.

So, what part of "the field carries energy and exerts a force on particles, therefore it is a real existent thing" do you not understand, disagree with, or think does not back up my statement ? If it's just a matter that you do not like the way that I put the argument of a famous physicist into my own words, then you'd better look up the primary source yourself. However, since I've reproduced the essence of the argument in my own words, I believe that my statement has been backed up.

Quoting noAxioms

You are incapable of setting aside your biases

Fundamental facts, proven by hundreds of years of application of the scientific method, are what you call "biases". I am actually very capable of putting aside such biases, when they are demonstrated to contain contradictions and inconsistent premises. I was trained in philosophy, so I was taught to root out these problems, and dismiss my biases which are rooted in them.

That's why I have a very unconventional attitude, I've already researched, and rooted out many fundamental contradictions and inconsistencies within accepted conventions, and I've dismissed the biases that I formerly held, which are manifestations of these faulty conventions. So you misjudge me, I am actually very capable of setting aside my biases, but only when good reason is given to me. That's the real issue here, I require "good reason" before dismissing such conventions. Which you have not given me.

Quoting noAxioms

I'm talking about the existence of a present moment, which has little if anything to do with refraction.

If that passage refers to the present in time, then it's pure nonsense. No wonder I didn't recognize it as such. That there is a difference between future and past is easily proven. Past events are remembered, and future events are anticipated. Furthermore, past events cannot be changed while future events can be created, or avoided. Therefore there is a fundamental difference between past and future. That this difference cannot be measured is irrelevant to the proof We do not need to measure things to prove that they are different, we only need to describe the difference.

To say that this difference between future and past has not been proven is utterly ridiculous. Its's just a denial of the validity of inductive reasoning. That the past is fundamentally different from the future is the inductive principle known with the most certainty. How we cope with this fundamental difference forms the basis for all inductive reasoning, and predictive capabilities. It's no wonder you're such an avid science denier, when you deny the foundations of inductive reasoning and predictive capabilities.

Quoting noAxioms

No, they can appear and move with no activity of what you might consider to be the medium. That's why I brought it up.

You might debate where the "activity" actually is, but a medium is still essential, so it makes the example irrelevant as an example of a "wavelike" activity without a medium.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I believe that some physicists such as Feynman have produced very convincing arguments which demonstrate that electromagnetic fields must have real physical existence, i.e. substance.

Quoting jgill

Please do. I am curious. :chin:

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

An electromagnetic field is necessarily a real object (what I call substantial) because it exerts a force on particles (exemplified by iron filings). This is the energy of the field. Changes within the field are described as waves, and this is how energy moves from one place to another through the field, by means of waves.

Quoting noAxioms

So you are attacking the soundness of my argument, not the validity of it.
-- Meta
Only when your argument is in fact invalid.

jgill bumps an excellent example of an invalid argument which in this case begs two different conclusions by assuming them both true in order to conclude them. It begs the field being a real object, and it also begs a medium for EM waves.
To illustrate that, let's assume otherwise and see if a contradiction is reached.

The force on particles (iron filings) is exerted by the magnet nearby. Changes within the field are described as EM waves which require no medium. It works just fine with the opposite assumptions, therefore the argument demonstrates nothing.

As for energy, your comment seems to equate force to energy, which is just wrong. It makes it sound like the field itself has energy, and if that energy was consumed by something, it would be gone, leaving the magnet with no field. Gravity is like that. There's no gravitational energy of an object or its field. Nobody quotes some number representing the gravitational energy of say the Earth or its gravitational field (which is neither an energy field nor a force field, but rather an acceleration field).

Anyway, if Feynman did actually argue for this, and it was in any way convincing, then you've not summarized it very well.

Quoting noAxioms

The force on particles (iron filings) is exerted by the magnet nearby. Changes within the field are described as EM waves which require no medium. It works just fine with the opposite assumptions, therefore the argument demonstrates nothing.

The problem here, as I've already explained, is that the field is the medium. "Changes within the field" means that the field is a real, changing thing. The field is not the iron filings, and it is not the magnet, it is the medium between them.

Quoting noAxioms

As for energy, your comment seems to equate force to energy, which is just wrong. It makes it sound like the field itself has energy, and if that energy was consumed by something, it would be gone, leaving the magnet with no field. Gravity is like that. There's no gravitational energy of an object or its field. Nobody quotes some number representing the gravitational energy of say the Earth or its gravitational field (which is neither an energy field nor a force field, but rather an acceleration field).

I do not equate force with energy. Notice the word "and" in "the field carries energy and exerts a force on particles". And the field does have energy, that's clear, it is a property of the field, that's how Feynman describes it. Changes in the field are waves, so that energy moves through the field as waves. Bringing iron filings into the field creates changes in the field, so there are waves. Bringing a few iron filings into the field does not drain the magnet of all its capacity to create a field, that idea doesn't make sense.

Feynman, as a physicist, is very good at tutorials, putting things into words which non-physicists can understand. The field exerts force on the particles through the means of the waves, which are property of the field. Notice that "force" is not equated with "energy", which is consistent with Newton's laws. In Newton's laws, a moving body has momentum, as described by the first law. "Force" refers to the momentum which is transferred from one body to another, as described by the second law.

In this case, the concept of momentum has been replaced by the more apt "energy". And, instead of being the property of a moving body, as momentum is, the energy is the property of the field. "Force" here refers to the energy transferred from the field to the particles. The field exerts force on the particles. This is consistent with Newton's use of "force" in reference to the transferral of momentum from one body to another, except energy is transferred rather than momentum.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Fundamental facts, proven by hundreds of years of application of the scientific method, are what you call "biases".

You cannot back this assertion. Science has done no such thing, especially since what I called a bias (the lack of a present moment) is strictly a philosophical premise.

I am actually very capable of putting aside such biases, when they are demonstrated to contain contradictions and inconsistent premises.

Wrong. You should be able to set them aside when considering an alternate point of view. It doesn't mean you have to change your personal belief to that alternate PoV. The exercise is done simply to recognize that your favored 'proven' view is not proven fact at all, but merely conjecture.

That there is a difference between future and past is easily proven. Past events are remembered, and future events are anticipated. Furthermore, past events cannot be changed while future events can be created, or avoided. Therefore there is a fundamental difference between past and future. That this difference cannot be measured is irrelevant to the proof We do not need to measure things to prove that they are different, we only need to describe the difference.

The alternate view does not describe a different experience, so there is no distinction. There is still past and future, but they're just relations between events, not actual states of events.

- - -

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

The problem here, as I've already explained, is that the field is the medium.

Still assuming the conclusion I see.

Feynman, as a physicist, is very good at tutorials, putting things into words which non-physicists can understand.

Then you're summarizing his argument completely wrong. You really need to find that reference as jgill requested. I don't think Feynman would make commit such an obvious fallacy as blatant begging.

The field exerts force on the particles through the means of the waves

The quote you originally made said something different, and I agree with the former only:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Changes within the field are described as waves,

The waves convey changes to the field, but not the force. Gravity waves for instance are not generated for a mass exerting a force at a distance. Gravity waves are energy, and energy expenditure would quickly deplete the mass of an object. But gravity waves do this. Earth for instance, due to its acceleration around the sun, emits about 200 watts of power in the form of gravity waves, far less than the energy given to even a small rock falling to the surface. Thus the force upon and kinetic energy gained by the falling rock does not come from waves of any kind.
Ditto with EM force and energy. The waves do not carry the force, only the minor energy of the changes which has negligible effect on other masses. LIGO is sensitive enough for instance to detect this, but any object can measure gravity.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

It appears like you would not believe what I produced anyway.

No. But I would believe what Feynman produced. All you've been saying is you believe there is a physical substance through which waves travel, even electromagnetic impulses. I think the "medium" to which you refer is a metaphysical medium.

Quoting noAxioms

The exercise is done simply to recognize that your favored 'proven' view is not proven fact at all, but merely conjecture.

No, you're wrong. It's not conjecture, it's proven. The truth of it has been demonstrated to me as true, through evidence and logic, therefore it is proven. Aristotle thoroughly explained this thousands of years ago. The fundamental principle is that there is "truth" and "falsity" with respect to past events, but these terms cannot be used with respect to future events. Because they have not yet occurred, future events have no existence and are indeterminate, they may or may not be. He proposed that we allow that the law of excluded middle does not apply to future events, because there is no truth or falsity in relation to them (being possible), yet it does apply for past events, having actually occurred.

What I believe, has not yet been proven to you, that is clear. But if you think it's only conjecture, on my part, or that the real, substantial difference between past and future hasn't been proven to me, then you need to demonstrate this to me, because from my perspective, it has been proven.. I'm sorry but that's just the way things are. You can't unprove what has already been proven to me, simply by asserting that it hasn't been proven. It has been proven, and now you need to demonstrate that what has been proven to me as true, is actually false if you have any desire to lead me in another direction..

This requires a demonstration, which you have not given me. To say, that your demonstration requires that I put aside all the evidence for what I already belief, (therefore the proof for what I believe), is nonsense, because this asking me to ignore evidence. You need to be able to make your demonstration in a way which respects, and accounts for the evidence which has already proven to me what I believe.

Quoting noAxioms

The alternate view does not describe a different experience, so there is no distinction. There is still past and future, but they're just relations between events, not actual states of events.

"Relations between events" does not produce a past and future, it produces a before and after. In reality, all events are necessarily in the past, because presumed future events have not yet occurred, and therefore have no existence. They are not actually events, but only possible events. Therefore all relations between events are necessarily relations of the past. To produce a "present", i.e. a distinction between past and future, requires that you provide and describe a relation between actual events (past), and possible events (future). This is not "just relations between events". Until you model this difference, your model has no past and future.

Quoting jgill

No. But I would believe what Feynman produced. All you've been saying is you believe there is a physical substance through which waves travel, even electromagnetic impulses. I think the "medium" to which you refer is a metaphysical medium.

Did you read what I wrote? Energy is a property of the "field", transmitted through the field. The field exerts a force on the particles. You do not see that the "field" is therefore a "substance"? Also, the field exists between the object which creates it, and the particles effected by it. Do you not see that the field is therefore a substance.

In the past, I too held the opinion that the field is a "metaphysical medium" purely theoretical. I thought that a "field" was simply a mathematical construct, until I read same material provided by Dr. Feynman, which demonstrated the need to conceive of the field as having real physical existence. To noAxioms, this is evidence that I will release my biases with the proper demonstration.

I haven't found yet where Feynman presents the argument that it is necessary to understand the electromagnetic field is a real physical object, it might have been an interview, or in a book he wrote. But read this page, where he clearly treats the field as an object, referring to "the energy in the field": https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_27.html.

I find particularly interesting, the section 27.5, "Examples of energy flow", where he describes how the energy flowing through an electrical wire is really moving through the field which surrounds the wire, rather than through the wire itself. He has already described how energy moves in a field, now he gets to the peculiarities of this fact. One of the ways he explains this is by describing a wire with resistance. The resistance causes the wire to heat up. The energy which is being released by the wire as heat, is actually flowing into the wire from the surrounding field, and being lost by the wire to the air as heat. This is counter-intuitive, but when we say 'energy is flowing down the wire' it is not actually flowing through the wire, the energy is moving through the field which surrounds the wire. Only the amount of energy lost by resistance actually enters the wire. Here's the conclusion of that section:

Perhaps it isn’t so terribly puzzling, though, when you remember that what we called a “static” magnet is really a circulating permanent current. In a permanent magnet the electrons are spinning permanently inside. So maybe a circulation of the energy outside isn’t so queer after all.
You no doubt begin to get the impression that the Poynting theory at least partially violates your intuition as to where energy is located in an electromagnetic field. You might believe that you must revamp all your intuitions, and, therefore have a lot of things to study here. But it seems really not necessary. You don’t need to feel that you will be in great trouble if you forget once in a while that the energy in a wire is flowing into the wire from the outside, rather than along the wire. It seems to be only rarely of value, when using the idea of energy conservation, to notice in detail what path the energy is taking. The circulation of energy around a magnet and a charge seems, in most circumstances, to be quite unimportant. It is not a vital detail, but it is clear that our ordinary intuitions are quite wrong.

Notice the reference to Poynting theory. Poynting provides the formula for work done by a field, assumed to be in a vacuum. Following this, at 27.6, Feynman goes on to talk about the momentum of the field. "Next we would like to talk about the momentum in the electromagnetic field. Just as the field has energy, it will have a certain momentum per unit volume."

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

No, you're wrong. It's not conjecture, it's proven. The truth of it has been demonstrated to me as true, through evidence and logic, therefore it is proven. Aristotle thoroughly explained this thousands of years ago.

The view to which I refer (positing no preferred moment in time) was probably not something Aristotle was aware of. The argument you outline assumes the opposite point of view (yours) and argues for a distinction between past, present, and future. I have little against the argument, but it is irrelevant to proving its assumption, that there is a present moment.

So we're back to unproven conjecture. You need a proof that does not proceed right up from an assumption that a present moment exists, as both you and Aristotle do.

It has been proven, and now you need to demonstrate that what has been proven to me as true, is actually false if you have any desire to lead me in another direction.

As I said, the argument isn't particularly invalid, but it assumes your premises right up front. Aristotle can be forgiven because to my awareness the alternate position would not be proposed for around 14 centuries.

The alternate view does not describe a different experience, so there is no distinction. There is still past and future, but they're just relations between events, not actual states of events. — noAxioms
"Relations between events" does not produce a past and future, it produces a before and after.

Pretty much yes. To be a little more precise, if you assume a preferred frame, then there is an objective before/after/simultaneous relationship between any two events. If you assume neither a preferred moment nor a preferred frame (mainstream view), then there is a relationship of before/after/ambiguous between any two events (the 'ambiguous' meaning the relation is frame dependent). No event is in 'the past' or 'the future'. Thus any references to such properties in any demonstration of inconsistency of this view would be begging a different set of assumptions.

Until you model this difference, your model has no past and future.

If A is before B, then B would be in the future of A and A would be in the past of B. This illustrates the usage of the terms as relations instead of properties.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Did you read what I wrote? Energy is a property of the "field", transmitted through the field. The field exerts a force on the particles. You do not see that the "field" is therefore a "substance"? Also, the field exists between the object which creates it, and the particles effected by it. Do you not see that the field is therefore a substance.

Earlier MU: "Ether is necessary to account for the reality of waves. A wave is in a substance. We can deny the reality of these waves, but then fields and wavefunctions don't represent anything real. Observation attests to the reality of these waves. If the waves are real, then so is the medium in which they exist."

Substance: the real physical matter of which a person or thing consists and which has a tangible, solid presence

Matter: physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.

---------------------------------------------

Argument here is hopeless. Is there a real, live physicist who will enter the discussion and untangle this mess? :roll:

Quoting jgill

Argument here is hopeless. Is there a real, live physicist who will enter the discussion and untangle this mess? :roll:

I've queried a few 'live physicists' about a couple points (not this one), and most of them don't know their philosophy very well, and might have differing opinions to such questions. As physicists, if the topic is relevant to their field, they'll be able to tell you what will be expected to be measured by a given test, which should be true regardless of their opinions on the metaphysics of the situation.

Translation: You're probably not going to get a better answer from them.

Quoting jgill

Argument here is hopeless. Is there a real, live physicist who will enter the discussion and untangle this mess?

I'm not a physicist, I just play one on TV :) (Undergrad degree several decades old.) But what mess do you need untangled? Not the mess in MU's head, I hope, because that would be, as you say, hopeless - and in any event, that would require a specialist from a different field of study...

Quoting tim wood

Radiometers, a/k/a light mills.

These are physical objects effected by light, so this is not much different from a demonstration of the photoelectric effect, which shows how supposed particles are effected by electromagnetic waves. It does not provide the evidence required to show that the light itself exists in any form other than waves.

Quoting noAxioms

The view to which I refer (positing no preferred moment in time) was probably not something Aristotle was aware of. The argument you outline assumes the opposite point of view (yours) and argues for a distinction between past, present, and future. I have little against the argument, but it is irrelevant to proving its assumption, that there is a present moment.

We seem to be talking about different things here. I have been consistently talking about a distinction between past and future, which we call "the present". You have been consistently talking about a "present moment". If what you call the present "moment" is the same thing as what I call the present, then it is impossible to make the "positing of no preferred moment" consistent with my perspective, which necessitates a "preferred moment", as the division between past and future. Perhaps we could compromise on our differences if we allow that the present (as the division between past and future), is not a dimensionless division as a "moment". I am willing to accept that the present, as the division between past and future, does not exists as a dimensionless divide, but as a period of "time", during which the past is changing to the future. This requires two dimensions of "time", and makes the present not a "preferred moment", but a "preferred time". Will you agree to this, and release your use of "preferred moment", and "present moment", for "preferred time", and "present time"?

Quoting noAxioms

So we're back to unproven conjecture. You need a proof that does not proceed right up from an assumption that a present moment exists, as both you and Aristotle do.

So, you have misunderstood my argument. I have not argued for a "present moment". I argue that there is undeniable empirical evidence for a distinction between past and future. That is what Aristotle demonstrated by showing that the law of excluded middle is applicable to past events, but is not applicable to future events. So we have a difference between actual events (past) and possible events (future). This difference, between past and future, necessitates the conclusion that something, a boundary or division, separates the two, and this is what we call the present. I did not say, nor did I mean to imply, that the present exists as a "moment".

Quoting noAxioms

As I said, the argument isn't particularly invalid, but it assumes your premises right up front. Aristotle can be forgiven because to my awareness the alternate position would not be proposed for around 14 centuries.

The premise, therefore, is that there is a substantial difference between past and future. I insist that it is undeniable, because it influences every aspect of our life, and all the things that we do. it is a basic principle underlying all science, inductive reasoning, and prediction.

I assume this premise, right up front, because I believe it is so fundamental, and undeniably true. If you have any reasons whatsoever, why this premise might not be true, then as I've requested of you, put these reasons forward. But to say that I should arbitrarily dismiss what is so obviously true, so that you can propose what is obviously false, is just nonsense. Sure you might call it a "bias", but this is the bias which allows me to distinguish science from science fiction, and I will not dismiss it just so that science fiction may pose as science.

Quoting noAxioms

Pretty much yes. To be a little more precise, if you assume a preferred frame, then there is an objective before/after/simultaneous relationship between any two events. If you assume neither a preferred moment nor a preferred frame (mainstream view), then there is a relationship of before/after/ambiguous between any two events (the 'ambiguous' meaning the relation is frame dependent). No event is in 'the past' or 'the future'. Thus any references to such properties in any demonstration of inconsistency of this view would be begging a different set of assumptions.

This is the precise point of our disagreement then. I believe that it is undeniably true that there is an "objective" past and future. This is the fundamental constraint which the "objective" universe imposes on any, and all living beings. The proof of this fundamental truth is supported by all aspects of life, including death, and all observations of the "objective" universe, induction, prediction, and the scientific method. To convince me to release this undeniable truth, so that you might propose something contrary to this, requires that you present me with at least one piece of evidence against it. You have given me nothing. You simply insist that I ought to drop my bias.

Quoting noAxioms

If A is before B, then B would be in the future of A and A would be in the past of B. This illustrates the usage of the terms as relations instead of properties.

Defining "past" and "future" in a different way doesn't give me what I requested, it just dodges the issue.

Quoting jgill

Argument here is hopeless. Is there a real, live physicist who will enter the discussion and untangle this mess?

You see, a "field" must have real, substantial, material existence, as the "thing" which has energy and momentum. Yet a field is modeled as the property of a vacuum, an electromagnetic field in a vacuum. Don't expect a physicist to sort this out for you, they are the ones who created the mess, and they are satisfied to simply live with it (shut up and calculate). That's why, when you search on the internet for whether a field is a real physical object or not, you'll get conflicting accounts, from different physicists. Some, such as Feynman, recognize and understand that the principles of Faraday's and Maxwell's ontological representations of electromagnetic fields, have remained essentially unchanged and valid, despite the introduction of Einstein's relativity theory. Others, adhering strictly to the principles of relativity will argue that a field cannot have ontological status as a medium, or ether. The problem is that not only are the ontologically real representations of the field valid representations, they are necessary, as the only way to adequately model electromagnetic activity. This is decisive evidence against those who insist that the field cannot be a substantial, or material medium, an "ether", proving them to be wrong. But physicists who argue metaphysics are usually careful in what they say, so as not to cast a negative light on their discipline. To untangle an apparently "hopeless" mess requires first to recognize it as a mess. The hopelessness is an apparition of the refusal to recognize it as a mess. So don't get your hopes up until the skeleton is pulled out of the closet.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

We seem to be talking about different things here. I have been consistently talking about a distinction between past and future, which we call "the present". You have been consistently talking about a "present moment".

We're talking about the same thing, just slightly different wording,.

If what you call the present "moment" is the same thing as what I call the present, then it is impossible to make the "positing of no preferred moment" consistent with my perspective

I'm not trying to make it consistent with your perspective. Where ever did I say that?
I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence". If your assertion is true, then all these hundreds of years of experimentation and evidence should have in some way by now falsified the alternative premise, and yet that premise remains taught in schools.

Perhaps we could compromise on our differences if we allow that the present (as the division between past and future), is not a dimensionless division as a "moment".

I don't know what you mean by 'dimensionless division'. It does seem to divide past from future (neither of which is actual, so I'm not sure where dimensions suddenly come into play).
'The present' means the objective current time which defines the actual current state of any given object. I made that up just now. Not trying to put words in your mouth.

I am willing to accept that the present, as the division between past and future, does not exists as a dimensionless divide, but as a period of "time", during which the past is changing to the future.

OK, that's really weird since most wordings deny the actuality of the past and future, and thus there is no past to change. There is just the current state of everything (not a short duration), and that is continuously changing to a new state in place. I really don't care how you choose to word it. The alternative premise doesn't have a present at all, so how you want to defined it is essentially moot.

This requires two dimensions of "time", and makes the present not a "preferred moment", but a "preferred time". Will you agree to this, and release your use of "preferred moment", and "present moment", for "preferred time", and "present time"?

You speak now of a model with two dimensions of time, but you seem incapable of getting your head around even one.
I can refer to the present using any of those terms, but if there are two things that require different terms, then I'm not talking about that at all.

So, you have misunderstood my argument. I have not argued for a "present moment". I argue that there is undeniable empirical evidence for a distinction between past and future.

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.

I assume this premise, right up front, because I believe it is so fundamental, and undeniably true.

You're wrong about it being undeniable since it is denied by plenty, including Einstein who resisted doing so even beyond publishing Special Relativity, but GR could only be worked out with the premise dropped. So we're back to you admitting you can't consider any view that conflicts with your biases. That's being closed minded.

If you have any reasons whatsoever, why this premise might not be true, then as I've requested of you, put these reasons forward.

Because it doesn't have to be true. That's actually the reason.
Being open minded to all valid views is the first step in making an informed choice. Your choice is made, but it is a completely uniformed one. My choices are at least more informed, and I make no claim as to the necessary truth of them when I'm aware of a viable alternative.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Until you model this difference, your model has no past and future.

If A is before B, then B would be in the future of A and A would be in the past of B. This illustrates the usage of the terms as relations instead of properties.
— noAxioms
Defining "past" and "future" in a different way doesn't give me what I requested, it just dodges the issue.

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.

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Quoting noAxioms

I'm not trying to make it consistent with your perspective. Where ever did I say that?
I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence". If your assertion is true, then all these hundreds of years of experimentation and evidence should have in some way by now falsified the alternative premise, and yet that premise remains taught in schools.

This is incorrect, "consistency with itself" does not make it true, it means the logic is valid. That's the difference between sound and valid. Consistency with itself means that it has valid logic. But if it has false premises then it is unsound. You are asking me to drop premises which are obviously true, and adopt contrary premises which are obviously false, just so you can show me the validity of your logic. But what's the point, when your logic is being applied to faulty premises?

Quoting noAxioms

'The present' means the objective current time which defines the actual current state of any given object. I made that up just now. Not trying to put words in your mouth.

Right, that's consistent with what I said, I prefer if we remove "moment", and talk about the present time, or current time.

Quoting noAxioms

There is just the current state of everything (not a short duration), and that is continuously changing to a new state in place. I really don't care how you choose to word it. The alternative premise doesn't have a present at all, so how you want to defined it is essentially moot.

You seem to be missing something. Time is passing do you not agree? Things change as time passes. Therefore there is no such thing as "the current state" of things. By the time I say "now" things have changed. So that is not the premise I hold. I hold that the division between past and future which we call the present, is continuously changing. I think that "current state", is like an approximation made to facilitate logic.

Quoting noAxioms

You're wrong about it being undeniable since it is denied by plenty, including Einstein who resisted doing so even beyond publishing Special Relativity, but GR could only be worked out with the premise dropped. So we're back to you admitting you can't consider any view that conflicts with your biases. That's being closed minded.

I don't think Einstein ever denied that there is a difference between past and future. It's definitely not denied by Special Relativity nor General Relativity. There are those who interpret Special Relativity as forcing the conclusion that there is no real difference between future and past, but that conclusion requires another premise not provided by the theory, so I think it's a misinterpretation.

As I said, if you want me to drop my "biases" you need to give me reasons why I ought to. If your asking me to dismiss what I know to be true, just to accept what I know to be false, then forget it.

Quoting noAxioms

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.

Existence of a present moment is not the premise being discussed here I clarified that in the last post.

As I've told you, the premise provided by Aristotle is that there is a fundamental difference between past and future. The other premise is that two distinct, or different things require something which separates them, this constitutes "the difference" between them. Therefore there is something which separates past from future, and this is the present.

That is where my bias lies, in the obvious truth that there is a fundamental difference between past and future, and the conclusion that the difference between them is "the present". I know that if this premise is false, it would open up different possibilities for the nature of time. But I'm not ready to delve into those possibilities until it has been adequately demonstrated to me that this premise might be false.

Quoting noAxioms

Because it doesn't have to be true. That's actually the reason.
Being open minded to all valid views is the first step in making an informed choice. Your choice is made, but it is a completely uniformed one. My choices are at least more informed, and I make no claim as to the necessary truth of them when I'm aware of a viable alternative.

If my decision to accept this premise is an "uninformed" one then there must be evidence, information out there which demonstrates the falsity of my premise. Please back up your claim that my mind is made up by such an uninformed choice, and show me this contrary evidence. Show me how things in the past might really be in the future, or something like that. Can time go backward? If you think so, then show me the evidence of this.

Quoting noAxioms

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.

Exactly! That demonstrates how you are asking me to dismiss science, in favour of science fiction. It appears like your faulty interpretation of Special relativity has lead you away from science, into the realm of science fiction, and now you are asking me to follow.

However, unlike what you claim, my mind remains open, That's why I continue this discussion. As soon as you can produce any type of evidence or information, which reveals that the distinction between the past and the future might not be a real distinction, I'm ready to follow you into other possibilities. But until then, I'll hold my premise, and I'm not interested in what appears to be science fiction masquerading as science.

Reply to tim wood
Perhaps you'd do better on a psychology forum.

Quoting tim wood

You pronounce that light is waves. No educated person I know of says that. Most of us, having some familiarity with the double slit experiment, know the the correct locution is that light acts like a wave when looked at as a wave, and otherwise as a particle. No one (except you) says categorically it's either.

Are you familiar with the three fundamental laws of logic? By the first law, a thing has an identity proper to itself. Let's say that we have identified a particular quantity of "light energy". By the second law we cannot attribute contradictory properties to the identified thing. So, " the light energy was transmitted as a wave through a field", and "the light energy was not transmitted as a wave through a field (it was transmitted as a particle)", are contradictory and are disallowed by the second law. By the third law, we can say that either it was, or was not transmitted as a wave. I opt for the first. And, if you've read my replies to jgill, you'll see that I've supported my position with reference to renown physicist, Dr. Feynman.
You might opt for "I don't know which of the two it was", that's a valid proposition, but it does not validate the claim "it was both", which is not a valid proposition according to the third law.

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Reply to tim wood
Right, the universe does not consult with our laws of logic, but we must follow these laws if we wish to make a coherent description of the universe, it's convention. So here's is the problem with your "point". The fundamental laws of logic apply to our descriptions of the universe, they do not apply to universe itself. If a person's description fails to follow these laws, it is an inept description. Your description, "light acts like a wave when looked at as a wave, and otherwise as a particle" suffers that problem.

If I ask you, is your car green, and you say sometimes it looks green, but other times it does not look green, you have given me an inept description.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

"I'm trying to demonstrate its consistency with itself, despite your assertions that your premise "is well supported by hundreds of years of scientific experimentation, empirical evidence".
— noAxioms
This is incorrect, "consistency with itself" does not make it true,

Where above did I assert that self-consistency made an argument true? I didn't, which means I'm not incorrect, or at least you've not pointed out where.

You seem to be missing something. Time is passing do you not agree?

Given your beliefs, yes.

Things change as time passes. [...] By the time I say "now" things have changed.

Of course. It takes time to say 'now'. I don't recall mentioning the time it takes to utter words.

Therefore there is no such thing as "the current state" of things.

I don't see how this follows, but if that's how you envision it, fine.

I don't think Einstein ever denied that there is a difference between past and future.

At the time of the publishing of GR, he adopted the geometric interpretation of relativity, thus denying the reality of past, present, and future, and thus any different between these unreal things is irrelevant to the view. For example, a unicorn is different than a bandersnatch, and I don't have to deny that difference in order to posit a view in which neither of them exists.

It's definitely not denied by Special Relativity nor General Relativity. There are those who interpret Special Relativity as forcing the conclusion that there is no real difference between future and past, but that conclusion requires another premise not provided by the theory, so I think it's a misinterpretation.

I agree that SR theory proper does not assert either premise. I don't think GR did either, but the theory was essentially unworkable without a geometric interpretation of relativity. I'm just reading this on wiki in the history section of spacetime, my bold:
[quote=wiki]Minkowski's geometric interpretation of relativity was to prove vital to Einstein's development of his 1915 general theory of relativity, wherein he showed how mass and energy curve flat spacetime into a pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
- - -
Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski's geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907, the geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital, and in 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity. Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime.[/quote]

As I said, if you want me to drop my "biases" you need to give me reasons why I ought to. If your asking me to dismiss what I know to be true, just to accept what I know to be false, then forget it.

Again, I never asked you to alter your beliefs. I'm just demonstrating that the existence of an valid alternate view contradicts your assertion of the necessary truth of the opinions you hold. One opinion at least. Your beliefs are just that, not knowledge as you claim. Some of them are known to be false, as Tim Wood has pointed out.

The existence of a present moment is one of the premises of Aristotle's argument, so if that premise is wrong, his argument is unsound. How do you not see this? You claim to be 'trained in philosophy' and yet you don't see these trivial flaws in your argument. I have no training at all, but I at least took some courses requiring some basic elements of logic. You're the one who cannot back his assertions.
— noAxioms

Existence of a present moment is not the premise being discussed here I clarified that in the last post.

As I've told you, the premise provided by Aristotle is that there is a fundamental difference between past and future. The other premise is that two distinct, or different things require something which separates them, this constitutes "the difference" between them. Therefore there is something which separates past from future, and this is the present.

You're repeating yourself. See my quote that I left just above which answers this. By assuming a present, Aristotle's argument is inapplicable to a view that denies that premise, as does the geometric interpretation.

If my decision to accept this premise is an "uninformed" one then there must be evidence, information out there which demonstrates the falsity of my premise.

You honestly don't see the logical fallacy of this statement, do you?

Yes, my model defines the words differently. It has no 'the past' and 'the future', hence there is no issue to dodge. It denies the existence of such properties.
— noAxioms

Exactly! That demonstrates how you are asking me to dismiss science, in favour of science fiction.

Again with this assertion that you cannot back. Name a single science experiment that predicts a different result given the geometric interpretation. You can't because there isn't one. You've reduced yourself to making up facts to support your case.

However, unlike what you claim, my mind remains open

You probably believe that as well, empirical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

That's why I continue this discussion. As soon as you can produce any type of evidence or information, which reveals that the distinction between the past and the future might not be a real distinction, I'm ready to follow you into other possibilities.

The claim of such a distinction is yours, hence the burden of proof. That's another part of your philosophical training that seems not to have stuck.
My claim was that your assertion of a real and distinct past and future is not a necessary truth, and I demonstrated that claim by showing a valid alternate interpretation where they don't exist at all.

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Quoting tim wood

nept? Maybe incomplete. Not inept.

No, a description which contains contradiction is inept.

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Reply to Mike Fontenot I cannot answer your question about special relativity, but I can tell you not to bring up anything "philosophical" with scientists because they despise philosophers . If you ask them why, it's almost always because of the harm philosophy has caused the pursuit of truth and they mention Aristotle to support their claim. Most scientists I've talked to complain that Aristotle thought light bodies fall slower than heavy bodies. I replied that wasn't the true reason why the Catholic Church rejected Galileo's gravity claim. It was because he and Copernicus showed, with a heliocentric model, the book of Joshua is nothing but mumbo jumbo. This all could have been remedied if the Church would finally admit the Bible was only written by ordinary people and some of them were incredibly stupid.

I've tried to explain to them that Aristotle practically invented formal logic that we still use today, however he did frequently make mistakes. Unfortunately because society, namely the Church, refused to believe he could possibly be wrong, it got us into trouble. Interestingly, it was philosophy, through the works of Sextus Empiricus and later by Rene Descartes for example, and not science that "put Aristotle in his place."

I have learned through experience to not talk about philosophy with scientists even though I love science as much as philosophy. Scientists do not see it that way and you'll be happier if you do not mention philosophy at all.

Yet, when I point out the atomic bomb is a product of scientific work and how it has seriously threatened humanity, scientists refuse to accept any responsibility and instead say that it is humanities' misuse of science that is the problem. Similarly, using their logic, it's not gun manufacturers that are the problem in society, but rather the misuse of the technology by people.

Here's another example, science is responsible for producing the multitude of ways to consume fossil fuels and now humanity is in very grave danger from climate change. Once again, scientists refuse to accept any responsibility for this and then complain that humanity refuses to accept science that says greenhouse gasses are the problem. But if you ask a philosopher what the problem is, they will most likely say people do not usually act in accordance with reason but instead act they way they do because of wants and desires, and thus they do want to give up their science (e.g. cars, electrical power, energy to heat their homes, etc.)

Scientists also do not want to hear that Albert Einstein was a huge fan of Baruch Spinoza.

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain.

Quoting Michael Lee

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain.

You were told incorrectly. This can be verified here on Earth where two clocks are kept at identical speed but one experiences far greater continuous force and corresponding acceleration (in a centrifuge say). They will remain in sync indefinitely. Application of force has no dilation effect on clocks.

Change in rate of change of distance multiplied by distance (a scalar quantity) is what matters. This is a little different from just acceleration times distance since acceleration is a vector quantity, a component of which may not alter the rate of change of distance, and thus has no effect.

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Quoting tim wood

See this video. Acceleration is the wrong answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgvajuvSpF4&t=10s

I looked at the comments first, and the common complaint is that he speaks to you as a child through the first 12 minutes, and then suddenly blurts the real answer in the final seconds and exits without explanation, and his wording is obfuscating if not wrong.

First of all, the 'difference is acceleration' explanation is dismissed by considering a valid 3-observer tag-team scenario, except it doesn't explain the younger age of person C (the return person) using that C's reference frame, in which C is massively younger than A already at the start of the exercise (does Lincoln mention that? No!), so of course C is younger when C and A meet. Acceleration does have something to do with it, but it isn't the direct cause, as my example above demonstrates.

Secondly I have a gripe with Lincoln's obfuscating usage of phrasing like: "Don is in one reference frame but Ron is in two". Under SR, an observer is in all inertial reference frames, and it is impossible to exit one. It can be done only in GR. What he means to say is that Don is stationary in one reference frame the entire time, but Ron is stationary for different periods of time in two different inertial frame. Most of us know that but not everybody does, so it is obfuscating language.

Finally, he announces in the final seconds that the above quote is the reason for the discrepancy, and says this follows directly from Einstein's equations, which, to my knowledge, contain no mention of dilation being due to some count of reference frames. Don could have been pacing back and forth for 8 years ,and hence been 'in' two different reference frames himself. Ron is in an instantaneously accelerating craft leaving him actually stationary while coasting, while Don is on Earth spinning and orbiting, so it seems Don is actually the one stationary in innumerable inertial frames while Ron is confined to the two. I know, the idealized experiment ignores a spinning Don and the his gravity well, but even if he was doing all this continuous accelerating, he'd still be older than Ron when they meet again. Thus the count of frames just isn't enough of the story to explain this.

I'm saying that Linclon's fast exit from the video leaves all these questions unanswered. I'd not ever understand the twins scenario if that's all I had to go on.

Quoting Michael Lee

I have a question for you. I was told acceleration or the application of force on the male twin is what solves the twin paradox. Please explain.

Everyone knows what is observed at the reunion: The home twin is older than the traveling twin. The controversy is over the traveler's conclusions about what the home twin's current age is during the trip. There are at least five different answers to that question, with no consensus, even 100-plus years after special relativity was discovered. One answer is that simultaneity at a distance is a completely meaningless concept. The other four answers say simultaneity at a distance isn't meaningless, but disagree about how the home twin's current age varies during the trip. Acceleration by the traveler IS the cause of the age difference at the reunion, despite the various arguments to the contrary. For details, see my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

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Quoting tim wood

The trouble with this, as you would find if you watch the other video, is that the same "paradox" is observed in a (thought) experiment in which acceleration plays no part.

There are two "red herring" examples that claim to prove that acceleration doesn't cause the time difference in the twins' ages at the reunion.

One is the example that uses three perpetually-inertial observers: the home twin, and two unrelated people. The fist unrelated person takes the place of the traveler on the outbound leg, and the second one takes the place of the traveler on the inbound leg. The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older. But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal.

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Quoting Mike Fontenot

There are two "red herring" examples that claim to prove that acceleration doesn't cause the time difference in the twins' ages at the reunion.

One is the example that uses three perpetually-inertial observers: the home twin, and two unrelated people. The fist unrelated person takes the place of the traveler on the outbound leg, and the second one takes the place of the traveler on the inbound leg. The latter is younger than the home twin at the "reunion" by the same amount as the twins in the original scenario. The fallacy is that in the revised case, no one is surprised at the result, so there is no paradox to resolve.

I agree that dismissing acceleration altogether is wrong. We seem to take apart Lincoln's dismissal of the 3-person scenario the same way. I would have explained the different ages in terms of moment-of-acceleration, something not often mentioned in explanations.

The second red herring is the case where the traveling twin circles the home twin, at a high constant speed. When he returns, she isn't older.

Excuse me??? How do you figure this? H-K experiment demonstrates otherwise.

But it's not hard to show that whenever the motion is perpendicular to the line connecting the two twins (which is always is, in the circular case), their rates of ageing will be equal.

Love to see you show this my friend.
Quoting tim wood

Please show it. And circular motion is always under acceleration. The velocity, in other words, is changing continuously.

The acceleration doesn't matter in this case since it is perpendicular to the motion in the central frame. The changing velocity doesn't matter either since only the direction changes, not the magnitude. But there is nonzero magnitude, and thus there is dilation. Mike is wrong here.

I garbled the answer for the circular case. Sorry. I should have said the linear acceleration causes the traveling twin and the home twin to disagree about their respective ages when they are separated. But in the circular motion case, they agree about their respective ages, even while they are separated.

I do the analysis for the circular motion case in the lower, older portion of my webpage:

https://sites.google.com/site/cadoequation/cado-reference-frame

If you scroll down far enough, you will get past my recent work on my new simultaneity method, and get to my old work on the co-moving-inertial-frames simultaneity method , which I called "the CADO frame". The CADO frame features a "CADO Equation", that is NORMALLY written

CADO_T = CADO_H - v * L,

where the asterisk just denotes multiplication of two scalars. But in Section 12, on the CADO Equation for 2 or 3 Spatial Dimensions, the equation becomes

CADO_T = CADO_H - v "dot" L,

where v and L are now vectors. In the circular case, v and L are perpendicular vectors, and so their dot-product is zero. Therefore CADO_T (the age of the home twin, according to the traveler) is equal to CADO_H (the age of the home twin, according to the home twin), so they agree about their two ages.

Quoting Mike Fontenot

I garbled the answer for the circular case. Sorry. I should have said the linear acceleration causes the traveling twin and the home twin to disagree about their respective ages when they are separated. But in the circular motion case, they agree about their respective ages, even while they are separated.

If they're separated, their computation of each other's ages is a frame dependent thing, but I agree that the answers agree in the two frames where each person respectively is stationary. There's no reason why some other frame might be chosen, despite your rather solipsistic way of having observers only compute their reality relative to their immediate frame.