Re: Scientifically valid definitions.

From: AllYou! (idaman_at_conversent.net)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:58:54 -0400

"Patrick Reany" <reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
news:844a1b64.0410280545.7dcb0cb6@posting.google.com...
> "AllYou!" <idaman@conversent.net> wrote in message
news:<YY6dnTcgeJj9Q-HcRVn-hQ@conversent.net>...
> > "Patrick Reany" <reany@asu.edu> wrote in message
> > news:844a1b64.0410230507.20adf7b1@posting.google.com...
> > > "AllYou!" <idaman@conversent.net> wrote in message
> > news:<We2dnYS-GdOBsOTcRVn-uw@conversent.net>...
> > > > "Eugene Shubert" <http://www.everythingimportant.org> wrote in
message
> > > > news:41792be5@sys13.hou.wt.net...
> > > > > "AllYou!" <idaman@conversent.net> wrote in message
> > > > > news:GYGdnUgZz4wJg-TcRVn-tw@conversent.net...
> > > > > > Time is what a clock measures.
> > > > > > A clock is what measures time.
> > > > >
> > > > > Time is the thing that clocks measure. What do you want to make
> > > > > out of that?
> > > >
> > > > That time is just a concept invented by man and when we speak of
time
> > > > dilation and a space-time continuum, they are only valid terms
within
> > that
> > > > context.
> > > >
> > > > Other than that, it doesn't say much and so there's nothing much to
make
> > out
> > > > of it. Care to answer the rest of the questions? Why do those who
> > insist
> > > > that they understand these matters always find it necessary to snip
the
> > > > relevant parts of the post to which they reply?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Definition A:
> > > > Time is what a clock measures.
> > > > A clock is what we look at to measure time.
> > >
> > > Anyone who holds the position that a variable of physics is
> > > unaccountable to the instruments that measure the variable is
> > > unempirical.
> >
> > Anyone who holds that instruments measure a variable of physics without
any
> > evidence of the existence of that variable is whistling Dixie.
> >
> > Definition A:
> > Time is what a clock measures.
> > A clock is what we look at to measure time.
> >
> > Definition B:
> > Splat rays from the Sun are what a clock measure.
> > A clock is what we look at to count splat rays.
> >
> > Definition C:
> > An angel getting it's wings rings a bell.
> > A bell is what records an angel getting it's wings.
>
> But that correspondence, even if real, is unobservable.

So is time.

> > Which definitions are scientifically valid?
>
> They have to eventually lead to something observable in the
> macroscopic realm.

Why is it that when I claim that time is unobservable, all I'm faced with is
an argument that the issue of what is real and observable and what is not
has no place in science. I don't know if you're one of those or not, but
how are splat rays less observable than time? You cannot point to any
observation of time which you know is not a motion or the result of a
motion. As such, you cannot claim to know that you've observed time. All
you can claim is that you observed a motion.

> > What do they all have in common?
>
> Same as above.
>
> > Which would still be true if man did not exist?
>
> That's metaphysics, not physics. Quit asking metaphysical questions.

Like what's observable? Is it metaphisical to ask if matter would still
exist if none of it had ever come together to form a human being?

> > Is time more than just a man-made concept?
>
> Who cares.

The claim the time dilates isn't an accurate on if it is.

> > Are splats more than just a man-made concept?
> > Are angels more than just a man-made concept?
>
> In physics, clocks aren't used to prove the existence of time. Clocks
> are used to prove the existence of laws of kinematics. And that's the
> beginning for more laws being revealed.

So then you have no issues with the claim that time is just the
quantification of motion and as such, time can only dilate as a result
something else going on with motion and not the other way around. Is that
right?

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