The Relative Simultaneity Of Special Relativity Is Only Plausible To Solipsists

[Moronium]

In response to your harassment in an unrelated thread, Six, I said this:

 

Every fool and his brother knows that an observer in an inertial claim will "measure" the speed to be c, and I've certainly never denied that, as you falsely claim.

 

 

You then asked:

 

''measured to be and what is'' means what exactly and how does that have anything to do with your ridiculous claims?

 

 

Although I have little doubt that you will misunderstand it, I will take a minute to elaborate for the benefit of others.  By the way, in yet another thread A-wal and I discussed this same issue at length--with him disputing everything I said (up to a point).  In the end, he finally conceded everything I was saying, which I will basically repeat here.

 

The LT were developed by Lorentz for one reason:  to explain "how" the speed of light could be measured to be the same in every inertial frame when, according to his hypothesis, it really wasn't.

 

The answer was this:  Because the clocks in a moving inertial frame have slowed down and the length of the rods have shortened, that's how (and why).

 

One primary difference between Lorentizian relativity and special relativity is this:

 

1.  In SR, an observer in a moving inertial frame will INSIST, to this death, that his instruments are completely and infallibly correct and that, therefore, he could not possibly have measured c to be anything other than what it "really is" in his frame.

 

2.  LR does not really concern itself with "observers" in the least.  Unlike SR, it doesn't require different "observers" to make diametrically-opposed, mutually exclusive claims in order for the theory to "work out," logically.  LR addresses itself to the speeds of objects, not to the mental impressions of subjects aboard those objects. But if it did consider observers, then in LR an observer in that same moving frame would concede that he is moving, and that therefore the measurements his instruments give him are wrong.

 

This difference stems from the fact that one theory (SR) posits (without any proof, before or since)  that simultaneity is "relative," while the other (LR) posits that simultaneity is absolute.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Moronium

[A-wal]

By the way, in yet another thread A-wal and I discussed this same issue at length--with him disputing everything I said (up to a point).  In the end, he finally conceded everything I was saying

This was my last post to you...

 

Oh so it's not at all that you don't have a leg to stand on then? :)

 

I've explained very clearly why sr says what it does and how you've completely misunderstood it. The onus is not on me to prove to you that sr is a valid description. If the speed of light is constant (it is!) then sr describes how time has to dilate and length has to contract in different inertial frames for light to maintain that constant relative velocity. It's not my problem that you can't understand it. See ya.

You fcuking liar!

[Moronium]

If the speed of light is constant (it is!) then sr describes how time has to dilate and length has to contract in different inertial frames for light to maintain that constant relative velocity. 

 

 

 

Which is EXACTLY what I kept saying and you kept denying, until the end.

 

And, of course, you still don't even understand the point of either what you are saying or what I said (which was the same thing).

 

The speed of light cannot both "actually be" c and also be correctly measured to be c if the measuring instruments (clocks and rods) being used have "shrunk" or slowed down.  Experiments testing the LT have consistently shown, to an extremely high degree of accuracy, that the measuring instruments do in fact "shrink" and slow down in the prime (moving) frame in accordance with the LT equation. That can only mean one thing:  Although the speed of light is still "measured" to be c in the moving frame, it AINT c.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Moronium

[A-wal]

TD and LC that allow for a constant speed of light show that the speed of light isn't constant. :rofl:

[exchemist]

This is what got him boosted from the last forum where he went on and on about his relativity ideas.

I'm seeing history repeat itself.

What forum was that, then? 

[Moronium]

TD and LC that allow for a constant speed of light show that the speed of light isn't constant. :rofl:

  You have the philosophical sophistication of a salamander, A-wal.

 

Go to wiki, or anywhere else and look up two terms:

 

1.  Ontology

 

2.  Epistemology.

 

See if you can comprehend any possible difference (I doubt it, but.....).

[A-wal]

So how exactly does time dilation and length contraction (which are how the speed of light can move at the same rate relative to all inertial objects despite their motions relative to each other) show that the speed of light isn't constant? :)

[Moronium]

So how exactly does time dilation and length contraction (which are how the speed of light can move at the same rate relative to all inertial objects despite their motions relative to each other) show that the speed of light isn't constant? :)

 

I've explained this to you about 30 times, A-wal.  Making it 31 won't help you.  Your ridiculously structured "question" (which is actually just a false assertion) provides its own answer, if you only knew how to pose the question properly. Instead you tacitly build in self-contradictory assumptions.  The flaw is self-evident to most rational people.Your attempts to give straw men the appearance of substance are quite transparent, actually.

 

Re-read the prior 30 answers if you want to know my response.

 

You have done nothing more than once again demonstrate that you are utterly incapable of discerning the fundamental distinction between epistemology and ontology.

 

Here's a "question" for you, eh?

 

Did you ever stop beating your wife?

Edited May 4, 2018 by Moronium

[A-wal]

So how exactly does the required time dilation and length contraction needed for the speed of light relative to any inertial observer to be the same when objects are in motion relative to each other show that the speed of light isn't constant?

[Moronium]

So how exactly does the required time dilation and length contraction needed for the speed of light relative to any inertial observer to be the same when objects are in motion relative to each other show that the speed of light isn't constant?   

 

 

I've answered this a thousand times, A-wal.  You never pay a bit of attention.

 

Measured to be the same is, or at least can be, completely different than actually being the same.  Example:

 

A, which we'll call the rest frame, MEASURES the speed of light to be c.  Now how about frame B which is said to be moving at .87c relative to A?

 

B also MEASURES the speed of light to be c, but it does so with lengths that are only 1/2 as long as those in frame A and with clocks that run 50% slower.  

 

If the speed in B was "actually" c, then B would NOT measure it to be c, because his times and lengths have become distorted by speed.  Since B DOES measure it to be c, then the speed of light in that frame is NOT actually c.

 

Let's say you have a stick that is 18" long, but which you call a "yard" and you measure some distance to be 100 "yards."  I have one that is 36" long and which I call a yard.  I also measure some distance to be 100 yards long.  Now we have the same measurement, but the distances we are measuring are not the same. Using my yardstick, I will measure what you say is 100 yards long to be only 50 yards. 

 

Let me return to the standard (100 yard) football field example. The distance is 100 yards by A's standards. Say a sprinter runs that distance in 10 seconds by A's clock.  So the sprinter is, according to A, running at the rate of 10 yards every second.

 

B, whose lengths have contracted, would say the distance is only 50 yards.  And, because his clock has slowed down, he would say that sprinter ran it in just 5 seconds, so the measured speed is the same (10 yards per second).

 

They have "measured" the speed of the sprinter to be the same, but it aint, because they are not measuring  with the same units of time and distance.  They are only concluding that it actually IS the same (as opposed to just being measured to be the same) because B is DENYING that his instruments are inaccurate.

 

The Lorentz transforms do NOT say that clock retardation and length contractions are reciprocal  Only SR says that, not the LT.  The LT says the MOVING clock (and ONLY the moving clock) has contracted lengths and slowed clocks.

 

In the twin paradox, the LT says the stay-at-home twin ages more, because he is not moving, and therefore his clocks have not slowed down.  In the same paradox, the LT says the space twin's clocks have REALLY contracted.  Therefore he will age less (which SR says he does).  IF the space twin makes the mistake of DENYING that his standards of measurements have contracted, then he will mistakenly say the earth twin is ageing less because, according to the space twin, the earth is the moving clock and his clock is NOT moving.  He is wrong.  He is moving.  The earth aint (as between the two of them, that is).

 

They both measure the speed of light to be the same, but only because the space twin is mistaken about his own motion and the consequent distortion of his clocks and rods.  The speed of light is not "actually" the same in his frame, but he mistakenly measures it to be the same.

 

You admitted, in the "two poles in a field" hypothetical, that the poles do not "really" move just because someone flying at a high rate of speed "measures" them to be closer together than they are.

 

Yet you want to continue to say that there are two different distances, just because two differing measurments have been made.  But, in fact, there is only ONE (unchanging) distance, not two.  There are two different measurements of that self-same distance, sure.  But still only one distance.  Two measurements, one distance.  NOT two distances.  You can't seem to understand that an incorrect measurement does NOT change the distance.  But because there is only one distance, at least one of the two measurements MUST be wrong (if they are not the same).

Edited May 18, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Lorentzian relativity does not actually posit a "variable speed of light."  The speed of light is always the same in a vacuum.  But it's not the same in every inertial frame.  Not because the basic speed is varying, but simply because the speed is not "relative."

 

A car going 100 mph down the highway is always going 100 mph relative to the earth's surface.  This is true even if there is a guy ahead of him going 110 mph and a guy behind him going 90 mph.  The fact that his relative speed, with respect to those other two cars, is NOT 100 mph does not change the fact that he is, at all times, going 100 mph relative to the earth's surface.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

In that example, calculating from the frame of the 100 mph car, SR would say it has a speed of 0 (not 100) and that cars in front and back of him each have a speed ot 10 mph (and therefore that each clock is running slower than his at exactly the same rate).

 

LR would say (using the earth's surface as the preferred frame) that one is going 90, one is going 100, and one is going 110.  All time dilation would be calculated on the basis of the objects' speed relative to the earth's surface (the preferred frame, which is the ECI in the GPS system).

 

It doesn't take much reflection to see that the calculations for clock retardation would be vastly different in the two cases.

 

Furthermore, in SR, if calculations were done from the frame of the 90 mph car, then it would be going zero, one of the others would be going 10 mph, and the other 20 mph.  This would lead to completely different predictions for clock retardation  than were made before (when using the 100 mph clock as the "acceptable" frame).   So you do NOT get the same answers no matter which frame of reference you choose to calculate from in SR.  It is a mistake to assert otherwise (as many do).

Edited May 19, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Given the above, perhaps you can begin to understand what I'm saying about the H-K experiment.  In that experiment there were 3 clocks involved (well, 4 actually, if you count the hypothetical "master clock" at the ECI).

 

One clock stayed put, and the other two were flown around the earth in opposite directions at the same speed (and altitude).  If you chose one of these clocks (say the stationary clock at the Naval Station) as an "acceptable" frame of reference, then you would predict, if you're using SR as a basis for making your predictions, that each of the two plane clocks would slow down, equally.  That aint what happened.

 

If you chose the frame of reference of either of the clocks on a plane as being "acceptable," you would get different predictions, and vastly different ones depending on the one you chose to calculate from.

 

You can predict all you want, and come up with any numbers you want, but, whatever you predict, the clocks will simply read what they read when reunited.  Your "predictions" won't change that fact one bit.

 

In the H-K, they could only match the predictions to the actual clock readings when they used LR (not SR) with the ECI being designated as the preferred frame.  From that perspective, all 3 clocks were moving, just as all cars in the previous example were moving relative to the road.  With SR, no matter which clock (of the three) you picked, that one would NOT be moving (in theory that is, not practice).

 

P.S.  In H-K no two clocks, when compared to each other, both showed less elapsed time than the other.  So much for "reciprocal" LT changes, eh?

Edited May 20, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Yet you want to continue to say that they are two different distances.  There is only ONE (unchanging) distance, not two.  There are two different measurements of that self-same distance, sure.  But still only one distance.  Two measurements, one distance.  NOT two distances.  You can't seem to understand that an incorrect measurement does NOT change the distance.  But because there is only one distance, at least one of the two measurements MUST be wrong (if they are not the same).

 

One more illustration of this:

 

Let's say it's two miles from point A to point B.  Someone driving at 60 mph will travel that distance in 2 minutes.

 

Now let's say that same driver is hallucinating (or relies on a bad odometer and a bad watch).  He drives (in actuality)  two miles in two minutes, but he thinks it's only one mile and he thinks it only takes him one minute to traverse the distance.  He will say he has been travelling at the rate of 60 mph (which he has).  But he will think so for the wrong reasons. If he had actually gone two miles in one minute, his "real" speed would be 120 mph.  If he had actually gone only one mile, but it had actually taken 2 (not 1) minutes to do it, he would "really" have been travelling at 30 mph.

 

How fast you are "really" going depends on what times and distances are accurate.

 

SR would say there is no "real time" or "real distance."  But there is, at least for those who believe that the real world exists independently of the mind.  For hard-core solipsists, there simply is no real world.  Matter does not exist, only mind.  Physical objects don't even exist, for them, so it is senseless to talk about the distance between objects or the "speed" of objects. Every perception, every "truth," is purely subjective, a mere creation of the mind, for the solipsist.

 

Let's say the solipsists are right.  Where would that leave us?  Assuming there weren't any real times or real distances, then SR could never give a correct answer to anything, insofar as it relates to 'reality."  Every answer would be right, because you could just make up any time and distance you wanted.  Since no time or distance is "real" and since all are equivalent, you could just make up anything you wanted, and you would still always get a "right" answer.

 

If two objects are separating at 100 mph, I could say that's because one is going 100 mph, and one zero.  Or I could say that's because one is moving 99.999 mph in one direction, and the other is moving .001 mph in the opposite direction.  Or any of an infinite number of possibilities in between.  In every case I would still get a speed "difference" of 100 mph.  And since all assumptions are "right" in SR,  I would be right in every case.

 

Let's say I'm comparing 10,000 objects in SR, all moving relative to each other. If I say object #1 is going zero, I am right, per SR.  If I say object #2 is going zero, I am right, per SR.  Same for all the other 9,998 objects.  Same if it was 10 billion objects.  Every time I said one of them was going zero, I would be "right."

 

Could they all "really" be going zero mph?  If you're a Parmenidean solipsist, sure.  All motion is just an illusion, and nothing ever "really" moves, according to them.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 

Could they all "really" be going zero mph?  If you're a Parmenidean solipsist, sure.  All motion is just an illusion, and nothing ever "really" moves, according to them.

 

This view, which is actually subscribed to by a very minute fringe minority, is NOT a scientific claim.  It is a metaphysical claim regarding ontology.

 

Likewise, the "realist" view that there is an independent objective existence with respect to "matter in motion" (aka "physics") is also a metaphysical claim, not a "scientific" one.

 

SR adherents love to say that SR, with it's affirmaton of solipsistic premises, is "science."  It aint.

 

As I have said before, the choice between SR and LR cannot be decided  on empirical grounds.  It is basically a philosophical choice.

 

After Minkowski came along and turned SR into a strictly mathematical/geometrical proposition, mathematicians preferred SR, but NOT on empirical grounds.  They knew that LR also provided a complete and self-consistent theory of motion, as far as empirical tests go.

 

They preferred it because of its "beautiful symmetry," its "simplicity," and such aesthetic grounds.

 

But it turns out that its very "symmetry" is what creates all the paradoxes and contradictory claims.

 

Claims such as "A claims that he, while in motion relative to B, is at rest, and, at the same time, B claims that he is at rest.  BOTH are right."

 

It requires the adoption of a *special* ontology to believe that such a claim is "true."

Edited May 17, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Descartes' "evil demon:"

 

The evil demon, also known as malicious demon and evil genius, is a concept in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes imagines that an evil demon, of "utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me." This evil demon is imagined to present a complete illusion of an external world, so that Descartes can say, "I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things."

 

...Such scenarios had been used many times in science fiction but in philosophy it is now routine to refer to being like a 'brain in a vat' after Hilary Putnam produced an argument which, ironically, purported to show that "the supposition that we are actually brains in a vat, although it violates no physical law, and is perfectly consistent with everything we have experienced, cannot possibly be true. It cannot possibly be true, because it is, in a certain way, self-refuting."

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_demon

 

It is impossible to strictly disprove, by resort to empirical evidence, that we are all not just "brains in a vat."  If you start with, and accept, that ontological assumption, and correctly reason accordingly, no one can accuse you of being "illogical."  They can say you're just flat wrong, sure, but, as a solipsist all you need to say is "prove it, Buster."  As a solipsist, you're invulnerable, see?

 

Then they can go on to mock you for "naively" talking about "common sense."  Only the ignorant riff-raff fail to accept their enlightened mystical insights.  Such fools are just chumps who think that something being "counter-intuitive" makes it suspicious, they'll tell you.  The solipsists, in their glorious wisdom, are much smarter than you.

 

Like a conspiracy theorist, they are brilliant enough to have penetrated the veil and can see the truth that the every day man just can't discern.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

As I have said before, the choice between SR and LR cannot be decided  on empirical grounds.  It is basically a philosophical choice.

 

Let's assume there are two competing theories about photosynthesis, call them "theory A" and "theory B."  These theories differ in certain crucial respects, but both agree that "grass is green."

 

Now suppose someone comes along as says:  "I support theory A because it has been proven by science to be true because grass really is green!"

 

This is the type of response I've been routinely getting in this thread.  The claim is that SR has been tested repeatedly and is therefore "scientifically' true, because it claims that "grass is green."  But here "grass is green" just means something like "the LT are valid equations, clocks really do slow down with speed."

 

Yes, SR does claim that clocks slow down with speed.  So do other theories.

 

If "theory A" claims that "grass is green" because "God painted it green" the fact that I can prove that grass is green does absolutely nothing to prove theory A.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Moronium