Re: Seriously, What Can We Do About It?

On Feb 22, 1:02 am, PD <TheDraperFam...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 20, 9:52 pm, Alen <al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
But you have the problem that sometimes the
same results can be produced in different ways.
Different kinds of clock mechanisms, such as
mechanical or electronic, for example, can produce
equivalent results in the measurement of time. There
is a difference between modelling results and
modelling the actual mechanism that produces
those results in the actual reality. Time dilation
can be modelled in more than one way.

That's certainly true. But here's the thing. Two clocks of different
construction and mechanism would be expected to show different amounts
of dilation if it were due to a mechanical or electronic effect, and
in addition one would not expect the mechanical or electronic effect
to be completely consistent with the dilation predicted by relativity.
After all, relativity made the prediction of the amount of dilation
well before anyone knew what kind of clock would be used in the test.
To suggest that mechanical or electronic effects somehow conspire to
produce identical results, regardless of the details of how the clock
works, and somehow conspire to produce exactly the magnitude of the
effect expected from relativity, is asking a bit much.

OK - I intended it only as a rough example to show
that there cannot be assumed to be always only
one possible cause for particular results.

[...]
No sir, and this is where you have to be *extremely* careful. Such so-
called logical analysis will almost always drag in unspoken
assumptions about concepts that are based out of everyday experience.
Those assumptions are precisely the ones that get called into question
when a model is compared against experiment. If you find that a model
that agrees with experiment conflicts with an assumption you're
making, then it is the *assumption* that gets re-examined and not the
model.

Yes, but only if the model is really comprehensive in
modelling both the results and the mechanism that
originally causes those results.

It is comprehensive. It's just that you're expecting dilation to be
explained by some *physical process* that disturbs the clock's
mechanism, and not finding that, you believe something is missing. But
it ISN'T a physical process disturbing the clock's mechanism that is
responsible for the result. You're looking in the wrong place, and
you're blaming the model for not putting something there where you
expect something should be.

I suppose you haven't come across the alternative
I suggested elsewhere. I don't look for any disturbance
to a clock mechanism. The alternative is that, instead of
the light postulate being produced by a modified spacetime, it
is produced by a multicomponent photon, which has distinct
foci of propagation in all inertial frames. Time dilation is then
explained by the stationary frame focus of propagation
relating the stationary observer to the past history of
the moving observer, and moving clock. The proper times
of all observers therefore remain as a universal common
time, which automatically satisfies the philosophical
concept of co-existence. It is just that the universal
time is not universally observable in the context of
relative motion.

It is also dangerous to dismiss all philosophy as only
something like an expression of untutored 'everyday'
ignorance.

I'm certainly not dismissing it. I'm cautioning you against hidden
assumptions, which you are plagued by.

For example, a
reality cannot both exist and not exist at the same
time.

It depends on whether you are presuming an absolute time that is
common for all observers. This is decidedly and demonstrably NOT the
case. Declaring that it should be anyway is simply embracing an
assumption that does not match reality.

The most common and basic implication of this assumption is that two
events that are simultaneous for one observer must be, according to
your "philosophical" assumption, simultaneous in some absolute sense,
regardless of what other observers see. This assumption is flat wrong
and does not match reality. Embracing it anyway is not only
foolishness but persistent foolishness.

Simply to declare nonsimultaneity to exist independently
of and without any consideration of concepts like 'co-existence'
is a fundamental deficiency in any theory.

I completely disagree. Just because you can conceive of "absolute co-
existence" does NOT mean that this concept is respected in nature.
Indeed, two events can co-exist (occur at the same time) and not co-
exist (that is, they occur at different times) for all other
observers. Your insistence that there MUST be some absolute and
observer-independent truth-value to the property of "co-existence" is
PRECISELY the assumption that you are making, and which nature simply
says does not apply. There are many mistakes of this ilk that are easy
to make. Consider the property "at rest". It would be easy (and
incorrect) to claim that there must be an intrinsic and absolute truth-
value to the property "at rest" for an object. That claim is simply
wrong.

You are free to disagree, of course. But I think that to
make assertions about co-existence requires that such
assertions be comprehensively explained. To say that
events can co-exist, but not co-exist with some observers
does not explain the consideration that, if you don't
co-exist with me, then you no longer exist at all, and
if you exist, and I exist, they we both automatically
'co-exist'. The alternative I indicated above for the
interpretation of SR does allow a universal common
time, consistent with a universal co-existence. In
this model SR merely specifies that the universal
time is not universally observable, but not that it does
not universally exist.

Alen
.

Relevant Pages

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