Relativity and Empiricism

[Hilton Ratcliffe]

Hi Buffy,

 

Thank you for your detailed reply to my questions. It seems you are still focussed on the existence of a boundary condition rather than the broader import of my enquiry, which is whether or not the practical co-existence of NM and GR (they are both used in astrophysics as a matter of routine) can and should be extended indefinitely in scale, or whether either one replaces the other, and if so, where. You have suggested some areas of concern where I should tread carefully, and I will do so. Unfortunately, the correct answer is not always clear-cut and can often only be settled by arguing the complex mathematical underpinnings of whatever conclusion is suggested. I will go to great lengths to avoid getting sucked into such a meta-mathematical debate here. Read into that what you will.

 

I shouldn’t think that pursuing this line of investigation in this thread will produce anything useful, but I will certainly take your comments into account. Thank you again.

 

Newtonian Mechanics does not predict that light bends around objects with gravitational fields, and indeed the measurement of such gravitational lensing that is predicted by GR is significant to arcseconds even in the case of the Sun, which means it is significant to only 2-3 decimal places, which is hardly insignificant. You might want to consider this one.

 

Incorrect. NM does in fact predict the bending of light around massive objects, by the same amount predicted by Einstein in his 1911 paper, and by half the amount given in his 1915 paper, hence the name “half-deflection”. You may be interested to learn that the more useable data obtained by Eddington in his famous 1919 expedition to Sobral and Principe to “prove” GR in actual fact supported Newtonian half-deflection, and were therefore omitted from his calculations. “The measures pointed with all too good agreement to the ‘half-deflection,’ that is to say, the Newtonian value which is one-half the amount required by Einstein’s theory.” (A.S. Eddington Space, Time, and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Relativity Theory Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1920. p 117) Please note that this quote is a small part of the full context, which you can read in his book if you want to check its applicability to the point I am trying to make.

 

I am going to follow this post with one addressed to Erasmus (who invited me here) to establish whether he concurs that my useful contribution to this thread, if any, has run its course.

 

Best

Hilton

[Hilton Ratcliffe]

Hi Will,

 

Thank you for your comments.

 

Gravity waves don't exist in a Newtonian setting, though they have yet to be detected directly, my understanding is that observations of binary stars shows strong indirect evidence for their existence.

 

To the best of my knowledge, gravitational waves have not been observed, and we await results from LIGO, which will in any case be controversial because of the extreme sensitivity of the experiment. I shouldn’t be expected to validate the usefulness of GR in my work by assuming one of its predictions before it has been seen and measured.

 

The decay of the binary star orbit doesn't make sense in Newtonian physics, but gravitational waves explain it nicely and match the GR prediction.

 

The existence and genesis of binary stars, orbital decay, accretion, and “spin-down” (bleeding off of angular momentum in polar spin) are explained without mathematical sophistry in classical (non-relativistic) physics. See “Plasma Cosmology” by Hannes Alfvén and “Electric Sky” by Don Scott for empirically derived models of these phenomena.

 

Similarly, you must be aware of the classic, weak field tests of GR (mercury, shapiro time delay, etc). These measure certain "post-newtonian parameters" and are clear indications that Newton's simply inverse square is NOT the end of the story. Hence, even in our solar system GR (or some other post-Newtonian theory) has some relevance.

 

An important weakness in NM is the so-called n-body problem. In some cases GR seems to solve it (Mercury) and in other cases it is equally defeated (rotation of galaxies and clusters). If GR had never been invented, I believe, then NM would have had the attention it needed from the intellectual resources diverted into relativistic theory, which may arguably have developed corollaries necessary to cope with the apparent exceptions to the rule. Furthermore, as I suggested above, there are forces active in the universe that affect the behaviour of baryonic matter, and especially rotation, which are simply not quantitatively taken into account. Once again, a funding vacuum resulting from the pursuit of other, more esoteric priorities hampers progress in this field. A concluding thought here: As a scientist, I find it absolutely appalling that we have somehow created a mind-set amongst contemporary researchers that it is quite acceptable when confronted with an anomalous measurement to invoke the supernatural as an explanation. The psychological roots of such a style in science is worth serious investigation. But that will take money…

 

Will, I greatly appreciate your inviting me to participate in this thread, and I hope I have given some food for thought. In my opinion, this subject is best treated as purely mathematical debate, and threads addressing the issue of whether SR and GR are “true” theories with unambiguous empirical support abound on Hypography and elsewhere. Since I am inclined neither to foster a mathematical argument nor attack Relativity, I feel my role in this discussion is concluded. I said all I wish to say on these two issues in my book “The Virtue of Heresy” (available from Hypography book store) and anyone with the inclination and a few dollars to spare can read it there.

 

Best

Hilton

[Erasmus00]

Since you wished to be done with this thread, I won't dwell on many things, except to correct a misunderstanding and inquire about an intriguing aside.

 

An important weakness in NM is the so-called n-body problem. In some cases GR seems to solve it (Mercury) and in other cases it is equally defeated (rotation of galaxies and clusters).

 

This is a misunderstanding. The n body problem cannot fully be solved in GR any more than in Newtonian mechanics. The precession GR predicts for mercury is entirely a 2-body effect.

 

Furthermore, as I suggested above, there are forces active in the universe that affect the behaviour of baryonic matter, and especially rotation, which are simply not quantitatively taken into account.

 

What forces are these? Do you feel there are forces science hasn't quantified? Or are we failing to take electromagnetic forces well enough into account?

-Will

[Buffy]

It seems you are still focussed on the existence of a boundary condition rather than the broader import of my enquiry, which is whether or not the practical co-existence of NM and GR (they are both used in astrophysics as a matter of routine) can and should be extended indefinitely in scale, or whether either one replaces the other, and if so, where.

I guess I don't understand how "whether either one replaces the other, and if so, where" does not constitute defining a "boundary." Could you explain this in more detail?

I will go to great lengths to avoid getting sucked into such a meta-mathematical debate here.

Me too! I've got enough mathematical education to slay an ox, but I don't like the detail.

Newtonian Mechanics does not predict that light bends around objects with gravitational fields...[/b]

Incorrect. NM does in fact predict the bending of light around massive objects, by the same amount predicted by Einstein in his 1911 paper, and by half the amount given in his 1915 paper, hence the name “half-deflection”....

A mis-statement on my part and thank you for the correction and clarification.

 

However your response here does provide data to support my point--and its consequent question. Although Eddington had not the instruments nor the luck given their innacuracy to obtain a correct measurement, subsequent experiments have confirmed the "half-deflection" difference.

 

So the question then becomes: Is a difference of 50% insignificant enough to be able to simply ignore when drawing conclusions based on a Newtonian results?

 

It would seem to me that this difference is mathematically gigantic--without having to resort to any sophisticated mathematical exposition other than reference to basic statistical analysis--and thus should give one pause to the notion that the advantages of GR over NM are not empirically significant in all local cases, even if they are in some.

 

Close enough for country,

Buffy

[Hilton Ratcliffe]

Hi Will,

 

Thank you for your comments and question.

 

This is a misunderstanding. The n body problem cannot fully be solved in GR any more than in Newtonian mechanics. The precession GR predicts for mercury is entirely a 2-body effect.

 

Thank you, of course you are right. I expressed my point badly. Although GR makes an amazingly accurate 2-body description of Mercury's orbit, two things should be taken into account: One, fundamentally wrong theories can make predictions that are borne out with precision in observation (eg epicycles). Two, any succesful prediction of a theory should be weighed along with predictions that fail (eg, the requirement of GR via the solutions of Friedmann that the "large scale" universe should be homogeneous and isotropic, which fails spectacularly in observation). Following my suggestion that NM needs to be developed via corollaries to cope with n-body situations, which the Solar System is, I feel that Mercury's perihelion precession may have been solved in this way (ie as an n-body problem). I have an unscientific feeling in my gut that solving Mercury as a 2-body indicates that it is coincidentally getting the right answer for the wrong reasons. I had the privilege a few years ago to have a lengthy discussion with Prof Huseyin Yilmaz on the intricacies of GR solutions, and where terms need to be added or corrected, but that's another story... :singer:

 

Quote:

Hilton said: Furthermore, as I suggested above, there are forces active in the universe that affect the behaviour of baryonic matter, and especially rotation, which are simply not quantitatively taken into account.

 

Erasmus said: What forces are these? Do you feel there are forces science hasn't quantified? Or are we failing to take electromagnetic forces well enough into account?

 

It seems obvious to me that the rotation curves of galaxies and clusters are anomalous only because we don't know enough about the initial conditions, like trying to predict where a roulette ball will land exactly. In terms of action on matter, we are hardly taking electromagnetic forces into account at all. From an empirical point of view, experimental electrophysicists like Birkeland and Alfven described morphological signatures in laboratory plasmas that we see apparently duplicated in astrophysical objects. Given the synergy between electricity, magnetism, and rotation (the Faraday effect), and given further that plasma can act on material structure via inter alia the pinch effect, there is a possible correllation. Unfortunately, the proponents of the Electric Universe go no further than that. We do not have useable formulae for quantifying cosmic electricity like for eg the Zeeman effect for magnetism. Still, it is far more attractive to me as a scientist to pursue this line of investigation than to invoke Dark Matter and Dark energy, or even modify NM as MOND does. MOND is tool that I use, but only because it's the lesser of two evils, in my opinion.

 

Best

Hilton

[Hilton Ratcliffe]

Hi Buffy,

 

Me too! I've got enough mathematical education to slay an ox, but I don't like the detail.

 

Ha ha, don't look now, Buffy, but here we have a meeting of minds! :singer:

 

However your response here does provide data to support my point--and its consequent question. Although Eddington had not the instruments nor the luck given their innacuracy to obtain a correct measurement, subsequent experiments have confirmed the "half-deflection" difference.

 

Irrespective of whether half-deflection was subsequently supported or denied by evidence, what tempers my approach and confidence in GR (and SR) is the incredible subjective bias evident in many of the experiments. Dr Eddington, by all accounts a highly ethical man, was nevertheless put under severe pressure (because of his conscientious objection in WW1) to come back with the "right" answer. I am sure you have examined his data in some detail and read accounts of how it was obtained and in what condition. When faced with the choice of Principe data or Sobral data, his decision was not scientific at all. In general, the quality of the data, notwithstanding its favouring half-deflection, was so poor that no fixed conclusion should have been drawn from it at all. But it was, and the rest is history. You can for your own amusement apply the same critical standards to other famous experiments, like M-M, Hafele/Keating, Pound/Repka, various Sagnac effect experiments, the data Hubble used to invent progressive redshift, etc. Then, when you have more free time and unsatisfied curiosity, look at "circulus in probando" and other procedural violations in mathematical experiments. I'm not suggesting you have no worthwhile TV entertainment at all in the US, but like me you may from time to time amuse yourself in this way. I know it won't change the world, but it surely gets me thinking...

 

So the question then becomes: Is a difference of 50% insignificant enough to be able to simply ignore when drawing conclusions based on a Newtonian results?

It would seem to me that this difference is mathematically gigantic--without having to resort to any sophisticated mathematical exposition other than reference to basic statistical analysis--and thus should give one pause to the notion that the advantages of GR over NM are not empirically significant in all local cases, even if they are in some.

 

 

Absolutely, a statistical error of 50% is so great it should shatter my results so badly that it would be impossible to proceed with NM, but it doesn't. So somewhere, somebody is overlooking something. Clue: Examine the maths. Maybe that's where I'm going wrong. The first thing that made me suspicious of Mather's "perfect fit" curve from COBE data was the fact that it was a perfect fit. Too perfect!

 

We could go round and round the carousel of question and answer forever, and not get anywhere. I don't think either of us can couch our argument in any further way the it would be more transparent to the other, so I am still left with an annoying and frustrating problem: When I get to my desk and start to analyse my observational data, I am taught to use NM and GR side-by-side like every body else. But not in all cases! That's my dilemma.

 

Best

Hilton

[Erasmus00]

One, fundamentally wrong theories can make predictions that are borne out with precision in observation (eg epicycles).

 

Epicycles aren't wrong. In a more modern language, epicycles can be thought of as a kind of empirical curve fitting. You take a bunch of data and then expand in terms of circular orbits until you fit the curve. Its no more "wrong" than any empirical curve fitting- its just not predictive of new phenomena (i.e. any new planet has to observed, data taken and a curve made).

 

Actually Following my suggestion that NM needs to be developed via corollaries to cope with n-body situations, which the Solar System is, I feel that Mercury's perihelion precession may have been solved in this way (ie as an n-body problem).

 

I think you don't understand the development of the problem. To handle the n-body problem, the only method available is perturbation theory. You start by solving two body problems (each planet and the sun). Then you add perturbations on mercury from the other planets and use perturbation theory to modify the orbit. You can do this to arbitrary precision given enough time (though nowadays it would be easier to use a computer simulation).

 

What you find by doing this is that Newtonian mechanics can account for much of, but not all, Mercury's precession. GR exactly accounts for the extra precession. This isn't a full confirmation of GR, but only a weak field test. In other words, it shows (along with the Shapiro time delay and other solar system tests of GR) that Newton's inverse square law needs to be modifies slightly (so called post newtonian parameters).

 

I had the privilege a few years ago to have a lengthy discussion with Prof Huseyin Yilmaz on the intricacies of GR solutions, and where terms need to be added or corrected, but that's another story... :)

 

I've encountered professor Yilmaz's work, and find his modifications to GR to be ill-defined.

 

It seems obvious to me that the rotation curves of galaxies and clusters are anomalous only because we don't know enough about the initial conditions, like trying to predict where a roulette ball will land exactly.

 

But it is my understanding (this isn't my area of expertise, however) that these systems are NOT chaotic. Hence, there isn't the same sensitivity to initial conditions?

 

We do not have useable formulae for quantifying cosmic electricity like for eg the Zeeman effect for magnetism.

 

The zeeman effect has its exact electrical analog in the stark effect. Also, don't plasma cosmologies predict large electric fields that have never been observed?

 

Still, it is far more attractive to me as a scientist to pursue this line of investigation than to invoke Dark Matter and Dark energy

 

As someone who works on high energy physics, I would be phenomenally uncomfortable if there were no dark matter. Most fixes to technical problems in the standard model create stable matter that doesn't interact strongly with "normal matter." As such, I find it compelling that two completely different investigative routes point in the same direction.

-Will

[Buffy]

Irrespective of whether half-deflection was subsequently supported or denied by evidence, what tempers my approach and confidence in GR (and SR) is the incredible subjective bias evident in many of the experiments.

This is always a danger in science, and that's why to be "accepted," more than just a couple of data points are necessary. You may find the history itself biased, but--again if you want to go back and survey contemporary literature--GR was not really broadly accepted until *after* Eddington *and others* provided additional data for all the same reasons of "institutional bias" that you now point to as GR hegemony.

 

Revolutions are always messy. Ask Che or even Mr. Mandela. :(

 

This sort of bias is quite clearly real, especially when it comes to disputes about funding, but I disdain full-blown conspiracy theories, because while it may in some cases take time, in science, the truth always seems to come out eventually. The sticking point is indeed the evidence, and no amount of conspiratorial activity can truly suppress data for long.

 

Conversely however, especially with recent history's move into science that deals with things that go far beyond human experience, there is just as much "unpopular criticism" that is based solely on the fact that it goes against "common sense" and 12899 to discuss that issue. You have a much stronger background and do indeed work hard for your data and keep an open mind, but there are many who rail against GR (or BBT or choose your favorite hegemonic theory), who sound more like Creationist followers for whom the major argument is that it "obviously just doesn't make sense," or if they are more creative, "teaching the controversy," by showing inconsistency where none exists. It gets very tiresome to deal with these folks.

 

Its much more interesting to interact with you and Mr. creation!

 

Thus my philosophy on this is to continue to just look at the data: it always provides surprises, and sometimes it seems unexplainable until you stare at it. But when there's no or inconclusive data and cries of conspiracy, I can't help but put up a barrage of skepticism...

Absolutely, a statistical error of 50% is so great it should shatter my results so badly that it would be impossible to proceed with NM, but it doesn't. So somewhere, somebody is overlooking something.

Simply because the areas chosen are not those that show major errors is most likely explained because the "somebody" who "is overlooking something" just happens to choosing--no conspiracy required--the computations that are only subject to minor errors.

 

The only other conclusion I can draw is that you are drawing equivalence between "potential error" in NM and GR, rather than saying the error due to NM is "close enough" to GR. That's obviously a different topic, but it shows why we may never come to an agreement on this particular thread.

 

The first thing that made me suspicious of Mather's "perfect fit" curve from COBE data was the fact that it was a perfect fit. Too perfect!

I would love to understand what you mean by "too perfect." Are you saying that if data exactly matches theory its evidence that the theory is wrong?

 

I can see how if you did not like the theory, that this might motivate you to go out and find contrary data, but its not the kind of "evidence" that's useful for establishing that the theory is wrong!

...so I am still left with an annoying and frustrating problem: When I get to my desk and start to analyse my observational data, I am taught to use NM and GR side-by-side like every body else. But not in all cases! That's my dilemma.

And since I'm a computer scientist, I'll leave you with an algorithm:

1. Collate your data for easy access by you and others for repeated analysis.
   
2. Run your NM calculations
   
3. Formulate your hypothesis
   
4. Make a really tough judgment call on whether or not you think this will be a case where the error from NM is significant
   
5. If you guess it will be significant, run the GR numbers for at least some of the data and incorporate this expected error into your conclusions
   
6. If you guess it will not be significant, just say "there may be some insignificant error shown by full GR analysis"
   
7. Publish your data and tell everyone that you "leave GR computations as an exercise for the reader."
   

I have *absolutely* no qualms about this approach; I just think that given that you do have to live in a "predominantly relative world," that its the only reasonable course of action if you hate "doing the maths" as much as I do! :)

 

I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagitarian and we're skeptical, :)

Buffy

[Hilton Ratcliffe]

Hi Will and Buffy,

 

Thank you for your posts. I'm not sure why you think I am worth the trouble, but it is nevertheless a compliment.

 

Erasmus said:

Epicycles aren't wrong. In a more modern language, epicycles can be thought of as a kind of empirical curve fitting. You take a bunch of data and then expand in terms of circular orbits until you fit the curve. Its no more "wrong" than any empirical curve fitting- its just not predictive of new phenomena (i.e. any new planet has to observed, data taken and a curve made).

 

In one paragraph, you encapsulated exactly why this discussion can progress no further. We have fundamentally different ways of looking at the Universe, and I shouldn't think that they are reconcilable. We are both subject to the frailties of the human condition, and that lends some weight to my contention that the problems I see in science are in fact psychological rather than scientific. It all comes down to how we deal with perception, that is, how we interpret sensory input. Rudyard Kipling said, "East is East and West is West, and ne'er the twain shall meet, 'til Earth and Sky stand before God's great judgement seat." I listened to a conversation between Fred Hoyle and Halton Arp in 2000, and quoted from it on the flyleaf of my book: "I suppose that in the end, Chip, the Universe will have its say." We are dealing with a reality that is greater and more durable than we are, and here I am, obsessed with trying to properly measure what I see. Well, at least it keeps me off the streets... :evil:

 

Buffy, thank you for your kind words. You ask what I mean by "too perfect". Years of looking at analyses of observational data have given me an instinct for manipulated results. The error bars are a fact of life, and if they are absent or insignificant, it doesn't prove anything, it just raises my eyebrows. That leads to further investigation, and if you look critically at Mather's curve, I'm sure you will be disatisfied with how he achieved it. He and George Smoot went on to win a Nobel Prize for their efforts, and that adds to my unwanted cynicism. But, I hasten to add, I fully concur with your rejection of conspiracy theories. There is no sinister Great Council of Conspirators encouraging bad science for their own selfish ends. It's simply that people who have invested a great deal of time and effort to reach a particular conclusion or set of opinions are not naturally inclined to welcome evidence that they may be wrong. It's human nature. It becomes onerous when it is taken to extremes, as has been my experience.

 

Thank you also for the algorithm. It is more or less how I practice science, but the grey area for me is assessing whether it is a "case where the error from NM [or, I add, GR, as the case may be] is significant." We need to check the result against reality. How do we do that? Can you see the problem? If the benchmark we check it against is a mathematical argument, we may be chasing our tails. In the current climate of "maths is God" it's really difficult to be a truly empirical scientist. But hang on, isn't that the question this thread asks? Time for me cut and run, I reckon... :winter_brr:

 

Best

Hilton

[Qfwfq]

In the current climate of "maths is God" it's really difficult to be a truly empirical scientist.

People had this "maths is God" attitude between Newton and Einstein.

[LaurieAG]

I read a few articles in todays papers about resolving e=mc^2 at sub atomic scales. Here's a summary from the articles.

 

Albert Einstein's formula e=mc2 proven right, 103 years later | The Australian

 

A consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of Frances Center for Theoretical Physics (French German and Hungarian Physiscists) has set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons in quantum chromodynamics. According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons contain quarks which are bound by gluons. The odd thing is this, the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks makes up only 5 percent of the mass of protons and neutrons. The missing 95 percent, according to the study published in the US journal Science, is the energy from the movements and interractions of quarks and gluons. Interesting enough, the computations involve envisioning space and time as part of a four dimensional crystal lattice, with discrete points spaced along columns and rows.

[Kriminal99]

Hi Will,

 

Thank you for your questions. My criticism of Relativity and the Gaussian geometry from which it was eventually drawn is confined to the phenomenological universe in which I work. I understand that for entities beyond the scale of direct observation and measurement, we have no choice but to try to imagine how things might be, and I concede that the only way to do that with any relevance is by mathematics. Any discussion of those areas of enquiry are limited to mathematical debate, and that in itself can lead to a maelstrom of ideas that conclude themselves only to those individuals suitably fluent in the mathematical syntax being employed. I distance myself from such enquiry, because I find (probably as a result of my own ignorance) that it is simply frustrating and almost impossibly hard to verify in many cases.

 

However in the observed universe that astronomers deal with, we are not compelled to resort to meta-mathematical abstractions. It is a universe that obviously exists in 3-D Euclidean space, and therefore I maintain that we should not treat it in any other way if we want real answers to our problems of measurement. Without any hard data to back up my contention, I believe that a mechanical link will eventually emerge between macro and micro, or at the very least, we will discover that we don't need completely different, often irrational, physics to describe anything in the physical universe. It my view that we have arrived at these successful but unilateral models of sub-atomic phenomena precisely because of the mathematical route that has become standard in science. As soon as one removes the neccessary restraint of our common reality, one is given dangerous and consuming freedom to re-define reality to suit one's equations.

 

Best regards

Hilton

 

I agree, but I feel even stronger in this regard as someone who deals with both areas. For one, if we study human thought across many different fields we can see this phenomenon of "coherentism" occur. That is, for any given set of constraints, there appears to be infinite ways to label and recognize these constraints.

 

IE: The Native American claims that the sun spirit hails from the east and retires to the west. The white man says the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The Native American has an entire network of ideas related to spirits that accurately represents natural phenomenon. In this regard the Native American is not wrong, he has simply labled his belief set differently.

 

It is exactly this which allows religion to become so prevalent in the first place. A valid network of ideas is simply labeled using religious terms, and the average person then attributes truth to anything religious in nature. The problem then occurs when a specific means of labeling then imposes additional constraints that are unnessecary, and this happens all the time. It happens when people who intuitively reason by metaphor assist in creating the belief set, and reasoning by metaphor is very common among people who deal with other people.

 

In the above example, a Native American might know that killing more buffallo than is needed may make the Nature Spirit angry and limit their future supply. Someone might reason from this that the Sun spirit may also be angered and the Sun will therefore not rise the next day. This is an example of an additional invalid constraint imposed by the means of labeling the belief set.

 

So the point here is that it is no gaurantee that just because a belief set appears to be able to accurately represent various phenomenon that we can then trust every claim related to that belief set, nor should we even assume that it is likely additional claims it makes are accurate.

 

In the enviornment being discussed, there is a definite relationship of this sort between beliefs that can be labeled using general logic, or mathematics. I have seen many people who specialize solely in mathematics do things that violate the rules of general logic. It seems that here math is the religious like labeling of a valid network in such a way that is dangerously likely to provide invalid additional claims. There are many ideas in general logic that cannot easily be represented in mathematics.

 

There is one such idea in general logic that can be used to defeat any universal claim regarding nature. The limits of induction dictate that no rule of nature can be evidenced to be universal. For instance, in the case of Newtonian physics, certain rules applied to almost everything that people experienced on a regular basis. People believed there was evidence that such rules were universal. However what occured is that there existed a realm outside the scope of our common experience where the rules were different. None of our instincts or experiences could necessarily relate to the things which occured in this realm.

 

Looking at the model of deductive reasoning, we see that we must start with premises we obtain from inductive reasoning. If we attempt to reason regarding a realm outside of our direct experience, we have no inductive premises to start with rather we are trying to use the ones we have obtained in our realm. Thus there is no reason to believe any conclusion we come to is accurate.

 

Using the terms of probability theory, we have failed to sample from the population we are trying to make a prediction for.

 

So in general, what can we say of realms so much as a metaphysical inch outside of our direct experience? Absolutely nothing. And you do not have to be a mathmatician to know this, it is proven using logic. The minute a person claims to have discovered a universal law of nature, he is wrong.

 

It is true that through experimentation you can obtain small pieces of evidence outside our normal experiences, but you are talking about tiny glimpses. Hardly enough to build a comprehensive understanding of how things work in that realm without supplementing with inductive premises from our own direct experiences (and doing this invalidates our reasoning). Thus one should be cautious about assigning any priority to claims obtained in these realms outside our direct experience.

[arkain101]

However in the observed universe that astronomers deal with, we are not compelled to resort to meta-mathematical abstractions. It is a universe that obviously exists in 3-D Euclidean space, and therefore I maintain that we should not treat it in any other way if we want real answers to our problems of measurement.

 

 

The response that I have is that the universe that obviously exists is a universe with this kind of geometry.

 

 

 

It is my belief that Time and Distance are equivalently the same entity when speaking in a geometrical manner.

 

Every cause and effect is seperated by both distance and time.

 

When we say space is 3 dimensional, we say that space (which is the same thing as time) can be divided into a minimum of, 3 directions, at 90 degree oppositions (for simplicity of work), in order to measure the world around us.

 

However, the same could be said for time. As time flows inward to a centeral location from all directions and at different flows and rates.

 

(image from wikipedia)

 

Now I am not any master of mathematics and geometries, but what I do understand is that time can be spacialy represented and thus both can spacne and time can be blended as space-time. Which is, an inseperate singular entity for each and every observable event and interaction.

 

The fact being that space (as our mind understands it) is produced by light (electromagnetic field) and can be considered different manifestations or understandings of the same individual part. That is, if electromagnetic radiation can be manipulated, then it is true to say that so can both space and time (space-time).

 

When we include all we know about our universe from the macroscopic to the quantum world and exclude our sensory manifestations of the world (sight, color, size, objects), we are left with physics of unreasonability. What we are left to deal with is the individual fundamentals, the most reducable level of truth. This is a thought experiment in a world very difficult to understand.

for example: subjecting ones self to the reference frame of an electron or a photon (It is different from the world our mind generates in our consciousness that has the ability to form an entity from compounded individual events, ie a rock, a star, etc.). With this in mind it is easier to understand how reality can exist with geometrics and laws in ways regardless how we see the universe in an astronomical view.