Re: Polls: Is Special Relativity wrong? One person, one vote

On Feb 25, 9:45 am, stevendaryl3...@xxxxxxxxx (Daryl McCullough)
wrote:
PD says...





On Feb 25, 8:27=A0am, Aaron Arcsec <silver[delete-this]
he...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:36:57 -0800 (PST), Albertito

<albertito1...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Voting slip:
Is Special Relativity wrong?

11. Not even wrong

Explanation follows:

SR "theory" has caught itself in the following tight bind:

It claims that all of its effects are merely geometrical, or
non-physical

and

it claims that the cause of any possible physical effects,
which can only be motion through space, is meaningless.

Both of these statements, I would dispute.
You have a rather restricted notion of what "physical" means, and as a
result, your search for something you would qualify as being truly
"physical" is driving you buggy.

Yes. I remember, years ago, having an argument with Dennis McCarthy,
an anti-relativist, about whether an explanation of some event in
terms of "geometry" counts as a physical explanation. Dennis said
that it does not, that the only physical explanations were in terms
of matter interacting with other matter.

And even then, we have to understand what "matter interacting with
matter" means.

For example, if it is meant "direct contact of matter on matter", then
it is fairly directly and quickly observed that *nothing* in nature
fits that category. For example, when a coffee cup sits on a table, at
a microscopic level it is already known that there is no direct
contact of matter of the coffee cup with matter of the table -- unless
one has a fairly loose definition of what one means by "matter".


The problem is that is impossible (at least with the physical
theories that we know about) to have a purely material explanation
of events that does *not* involve geometry. At the very least,
a materialist explanation must involve the notion of one material
particle being close to another. You need geometry to describe the
motion of matter, and you can't explain motion without invoking
geometry.

So basically, the position that Dennis seemed to hold was that
*Euclidean* geometry and Newtonian universal time were default
positions, which needed no further explanation nor any experimental
evidence. Invoking geometry was only illegitimate (he considered
it somehow a magical, or supernatural explanation) if that geometry
was *not* the default geometry. That's really not a coherent
point of view; Euclidean geometry requires as much (or as little)
explanation as non-Euclidean geometry. Both are equally as
"materialistic" or as "supernatural".

Ultimately, it boils down to close-mindedness. Euclidean geometry
and Newtonian universal time are the *simplest* alternatives, and
they are what people typically learn first. The anti-relativists
just assume that their beliefs have a special status, they require
no justification, while any *other* beliefs require extra-ordinary
justification. They require that any alternatives be *proved*
correct, but require no such proof for their own beliefs.

Yes, indeed. This is called the Arrogance of the Innate Partiality.


In arguing in science, mathematics, and logic newsgroups, you
find that most of the intellectual dissidents (those who reject
mainstream science) almost never do so because the mainstream is
too *narrow-minded*. Unlike science fiction movies, it's almost
never the case that the dissident has wild and crazy ideas that
are rejected by close-minded establishment types. Instead,
real-life intellectual dissidents are more intellectually
*conservative* than the mainstream. The dissidents are the
ones who reject *mainstream* ideas as too wild and crazy.

Exactly. What they run into conflicts with common sense, which is
*known* to be narrow. In order to buttress this narrow view, they
conflate common sense with "logic", so as to make something that
violates common sense appear so that it must also violate logic, where
nothing of the sort is the case.

These wild ideas that have become mainstream include:
(1) the theory of evolution, (2) relativity, (3) quantum
mechanics, (4) Cantorian set theory, (5) Godel's theorem
and mathematical logic in general, (6) Non-Euclidean geometry.

Intellectual dissidents (also known as "crackpots" and "cranks",
to be less kind) are interesting, from a sociological perspective.
They are almost universally ignored by standard academics, but
online discussion groups give them *hugely disproportionate*
amounts of attention. In a discussion group, the dissidents
can engage in arguments with the experts, and can fool themselves
(and other non-experts, for that matter) into thinking that they
are holding their own.

And in fact, the very nature of an unmoderated newsgroup is that they
can fool themselves into thinking that if they haven't been shut up,
then they've won something (or are at least holding their own). This
is the benefit of the uncloseable venue. It's like a public square,
where you can say anything you want and the venue won't be taken from
you. This is a vast advantage over other venues where crackpottery
quickly leads to the venue being closed to them.

This kind of sparring would comparable to
an amateur boxer who could walk up to a heavyweight champion
to pick a fight. The difference is that in the latter case,
it would be a lot harder for the loser to convince himself
that he actually won.

--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY

.