Relativity?

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

davidm
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 7:30 pm

Re: Relativity?

Post by davidm »

ken wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:12 pm If that has NOT yet been shown and thus proven and/or evidenced, through tests and/or experiments, then HOW do you KNOW that this would, of course, happen?
It HAS been shown through tests and experiments -- as has been shown to you. See above.

If you're asking for an experiment in which a human subject accelerates to a relativistic speed, this obviously has not been done, but it's not necessary to do this to know that the theory is correct -- anymore than it is necessary for a human to jump into the sun to prove that he would burn up. But all of this has been explained to you, again and again and again .... in one ear and out the other.
davidm
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 7:30 pm

Re: Relativity?

Post by davidm »

ken wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:12 pm
Have ALL of the known possible different frames, and all the actual amount of differing frames imaginable, been considered in this absolute statement of yours here? Or is it more like this is what you presume would happen?
Here again you demonstrate your obdurate ignorance of science, no matter how many times people have tried to educate you. It all goes in one ear and out the other, or you are just trolling.

How many times must an experiment be conducted, in how many different locations, before we should accept it? A millions times in a million different places? A trillion times in a trillion different places? An infinite number of times in an infinite number of different places?

How many times have people here tried to explain to you that science is not about verification? It’s about falsification. We gain confidence in theories that survive all falsification checks — as relativity has for more than a hundred years (not just your ignorant “once or twice,” lol).

Tomorrow we may run an experiment that falsifies relativity. If that happens, we would not throw out relativity. We would check to see if the experiment had a flaw in it. If we found no flaw, we would run the experiment again and if it falsified relativity, then we would try to find some other reason for the result. If indeed we begin to think that the experiment falsified relativity, we would then begin to explore other potential theories that would encompass all the successful tests of relativity theory, while ALSO explaining why relativity theory came up short in this particular experiment. A new theory that embraced both the successes while explaining the failure with a slightly different model would be tentatively held to be a better modeling theory than relativity was. This is exactly what happened with general relativity vs. Newtonian mechanics.

Something very like this also happened just a few years ago. An experiment showed that neutrinos were traveling faster than light! If this were true, relativity would be overthrown. It created quite a stir, until the experimental setup was checked. Sure enough, it had a flaw in it. When the flaw was corrected neutrino velocity was not found to exceed c, once again in total conformance with Einstein.

But naturally I am wasting my breath on you. Still, this gives my typing fingers a workout.

As an aside, I would say that Popperian falsificationism is not the be-all and end-all that some might seem to think. String theory proceeds along yet it is unfalsifiable. And false theories can still be useful. I’d say, contra what I believe Noax said, that Newtonian mechanics is strictly false but it’s still useful so who cares? This is because science is not and cannot be about what is “true” but merely about what is instrumentally useful: modeling the world and making successful and useful predictions based on those models. In this sense I’d say science adheres to the Kantian noumenal/phenomenal distinction. A good example of this is quantum mechanics, wherein phenomenal QM is strikingly successful but noumenal QM is unknown and perhaps unknowable.
thedoc
Posts: 6473
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:18 pm

Re: Relativity?

Post by thedoc »

A typical Creationist will demand that all possible scenarios be tested and verified before they will consider any scientific theory to be true, as long as it doesn't contradict their particular interpretation of the Bible. But the Bible is accepted as true without any verification or testing because the Bible says it is true, their interpretation, others are suspect. Presenting evidence to a Creationist is like banging your head against a brick wall, but there are probably thousands of lurkers reading the thread, and for them we persist, some more than others.
davidm
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 7:30 pm

Re: Relativity?

Post by davidm »

For any who might be interested in discussing the philosophy of relativity theory and of spacetime, here might be a springboard for that discussion.
davidm
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sat May 27, 2017 7:30 pm

Re: Relativity?

Post by davidm »

From the above link:
Physicists do sometimes talk about motion in spacetime, e.g., "a particle moves along a geodesic" or the more subtle "a particle follows a geodesic." But that is a jargon that confuses non-experts.

Experts, starting from Hermann Minkowski (Einstein's mathematics professor), know well that no motion exists in spacetime since all moments of time and all points of space exist equally, i.e., at once (one cannot say simultaneously, since this term means "at a given moment of time"). Robert Geroch expressed it nicely:

“There is no dynamics in spacetime: nothing ever happens there. Spacetime is an unchanging, once-and-for-all picture encompassing past, present, and future.”
Bold italic is the author's.
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:35 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:12 pm
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 9:43 pm What is quoted above in the weird multicolors by yet another troll is EXACTLY what I have been saying!

Our newest troll doesn't seem to grasp the point -- that no one will find his OWN clock ticking slow! Which is what the quoted material is ALSO SAYING!
Sure, but that still doesn't mean that time is being slowed, only that the process is being slowed. Understand??
So what is time if not a process?
'Time' is just a name. 'Time' is a name given to what is perceived to be a sequence of different events. 'Time' is not a process in and of itself, nor is it an actual thing. 'Time' is just the name usually used in reference to and for a human being constructed measurement, where that measurement is used to separate the flow of the one actual event into perceived different events.
surreptitious57
Posts: 4257
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by surreptitious57 »

david wrote:
For any who might be interested in discussing the philosophy of relativity theory and of spacetime here might be a springboard for that discussion
Seriously heavy questions there but still an excellent opportunity to try and understand some really hard physics and from a very good site too
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:39 pmI'm simply saying that as to the true nature of time, if it even exists, no one can say they necessarily know.
That's been dealt with on this thread. Whatever the "true nature of time, if it even exists", the only thing that we can measure, or count, is periodic events.
But there are NO actual periodic events, so there are NO actual intervals to measure.

Human beings have just devised, invented, and created a way to make measurements. They use increments for these measurements. But just because human beings, themselves, MADE UP increments and a measuring tool like a clock, does NOT mean there are actual increments, periods, nor intervals in Life, Itself. Giving names to differing increments used for measuring, for example like the passing of one day to the next day, last hour compared to this hour, et cetera, and, giving a single name, like 'time', to this type of measuring does NOT mean that 'time', itself, exists nor that there are any actual period events to measure. Human beings, by the very nature measuring some thing with separated human made increments, does NOT mean there are actual separating things like periodic events. The actual process of measuring makes the one event look like and thus seem like separate periodic events.

If an observer only wants to see separate events, then they can, AND, if another observer only wants to see one event, then they can also. But, if an observer actually wants to see what IS, which is the Truth of ALL things, then they can also see that. Remember, absolutely EVERY thing is relative to the observer.
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm For all practical purposes, that is time. Periodic events demonstrably, without any exceptions, have always been observed to 'take longer' the faster the arena they happen in is moving, and/or the stronger the gravitational field in which they occur.
What do you mean by 'periodic events', 'demonstrably', 'without any exceptions', have 'always' been observed to take longer?

I have NOT observed what you are proposing here.

To Me, there is only ONE event, which as of yet I have NOT observed to take any longer nor any shorter relative to the speed I am traveling or not-traveling in when compared to any other thing also. So, nothing like what you say has been demonstrated to Me, yet. Is that ONE EXCEPTION? And, how long is 'always'? Is there any evidence that what you are proposing 'has ALWAYS' been observed? If so, then by who?

Also, I thought others said that NO MATTER how fast the arena one happens to be in and is moving, what you call, "periodic events" or what others might call "time" changes at the same rate of let us say one day per day. That is there would NOT be any noticeable difference to observe.

Is the rate of change noticeably different in the frame or arena that one is in the faster one is moving?

NOT every one observes the same things here.

I agree, wholeheartedly, that things can APPEAR to have changed, to some people, the faster one has moved, BUT do things ACTUALLY change is another matter?
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:39 pmThings within the universe can be directly influenced by other things in the universe. Before anyone can say with certainly, all things within the universe must be considered and eliminated as possible influences, before any single influence can be said to be a causal.
We can manipulate things like electromagnetic fields with ease, and there is absolutely no evidence that even huge differences make any difference.
So what?

What human beings can do is one thing. What the Universe, Itself, can do is another thing.

To say, some thing happens BECAUSE of one or two things, without looking at ALL the possibilities of WHY 'some thing happens' speaks for itself about human beings closed way of looking at things.
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm Whereas even minute differences in gravitational fields are shown to affect the rate of processes.
The 'processes' of WHAT, exactly?

And reaching the conclusion that 'some thing happens' in gravitational fields solely because of the gravitational fields, themselves, without looking at EVERY thing speaks more about human beings closed way of looking, "learning, and discovering". If outcome also happens to coincide with what was EXPECTED, then more questions should be asked to HOW EXACTLY were the findings reached.

I have also heard scientific reports about how television watching in younger children is associated with the development of asthma. Just maybe watching television develops asthma, but I wonder if they take into consideration ALL things BEFORE they come to reach that conclusion. To Me, there is a whole range of questions I could ask in regards to HOW EXACTLY they came to that finding.
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:39 pmHow much does humankind actually know? I'm not talking of what we believe we know? What do we actually know with certainty? Can we ever know the answer to that question?
What we know is that processes happen less frequently the greater the speed, and/or the stronger the gravitational field.

If you did not answer the question earlier, the PROCESSES of WHAT EXACTLY is 'it', which you say you KNOW happen less frequently the greater the speed, and/or the stronger the gravitational field?
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm We know that, because we can see it.
In the current era of when this is written, some people KNEW that no physical thing can travel at or faster than the speed of light. "It is impossible", they would say. These people KNEW this because that is HOW THEY LOOKED AT THINGS and thus ONLY what they saw. "They know that, because we can see it", they would say, and thus they were also NOT open to any thing contrary.

In earlier eras, some people KNEW that to run the four minute mile was physically impossible for human beings. "It is impossible", they would say. These people KNEW this because that is HOW THEY LOOKED AT THINGS and thus ONLY what they saw. "We know that, because we can see it", they would say, and thus they were also NOT open to any thing contrary.

In an even earlier era than that, some people KNEW that for human beings to travel faster than a horse that it was physically impossible. "It is impossible", they would say. These people KNEW this because that is HOW THEY LOOKED AT THINGS and thus ONLY what they saw. "We know that, because we can see it", they would say, and thus they were also NOT open to any thing contrary.
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pmWhat we don't know, is the mechanism that causes it.
Just maybe there is NO mechanism that causes "it". Just maybe there is no actually slowing of "time", and it is ONLY just what APPEARS to happen. Or, is that just impossible?
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:13 pm No one here -- not I, not noax, not uwot, not thedoc -- claims "certain and complete knowledge,"
Well, from the way each of you write, none of you come across that way.
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:13 pm nor do any of us claim that a theory is anything but a defeasible model.
You may now say that you, and others, do not claim that a theory is any thing but a defeasible model, but when you, and/or others, claim that there are parts of a theory that are absolutely true or correct, then that in of itself could defeat what you say here.

At what point, to you, does a defeasible model of a theory whittle away to not becoming a defeasible model at all? In other words when is a theory not a theory anymore and just plain fact?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:13 pm In this very thread, I believe I've discussed the pessimistic meta-induction -- the idea that we ought to expect that all our current theories are false theories.

Take a sedative.
Do you expect the theory of special relativity is a FAlSE theory?

Also, WHY expect any thing?

Why NOT just remain fully OPEN, and neither expect nor not expect some thing, or some thing will happen?

Further to this, WHY expect your current theories are false theories? Why not just look at them from a truly OPEN perspective instead?
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

Noax wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:31 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 9:49 pmLook at my message count and my join date, idiot! You newbie troll!!!
Will I also become the target of the ad-hom storm that seems to be going on? I've come to expect that from davidm, and ken seems to be motivated by such results as well.
Can you and will you provide examples of when I have supposedly been motivated by such results as an ad hominem argumentative strategy?
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:33 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:25 pmYou can choose to be a clone or an original, it's up to you! And a clone you surely seem to be!
Spheres, people who take the trouble to familiarise themselves with current research are not clones, they just know what the facts are.
I think you will find that people who read some things in order to familiarize themselves with current research do NOT necessarily KNOW what the facts are. These people may know, or partly recall, what has been written down but that is a long way from knowing what the actual facts are. Current research, itself, does NOT even know what the facts are. People interpret the findings from research and make an assumption of what those findings actually are. For example current research might send a plane one way around the earth while sending another plane the other way around the earth. Both with clocks on board. When the planes on these clocks come back to a third clock that current research might, for example, show one clock from one plane might appear to have slowed down compared to the clock that remained on earth while the other clock from the other plane might appear to have sped up compared to the clock that remained on earth. Now this could be for a multitude of variable different reasons, but some people might assume that the one that slowed down was because of speed, solely, which just coincidentally fits in nicely with what some one had previously said and what had predicted would happen. But to explain WHY the other clock sped up some person, or people, might make up another assumption the spinning of earth, which, to them and others, quite nicely explains that away without the need for any further looking into it. When this is believed and explained from that perspective, then some others will naturally just follow it and believe it also.

The actual facts might still be unknown, and are just waiting to be learned, found, or discovered. But that is NOT going to happen by and to those who believe otherwise. Obviously, if people already "know what the facts are", then to those people there is nothing new nor further to learn regarding those, so called, "facts".

KNOWING what has been written down and which is professed to be 'facts', and repeating that, is one thing. But KNOWING what the actual facts ARE is another thing. Research does NOT tell human beings what the actual facts ARE. Sure, research helps in finding what the actual facts ARE, but it is still human beings who analyze, interpret, and/or assume what the research is "saying" or "telling us". And, if a human being is NOT swayed in some way by emotions, and/or unconscious, sub-conscious, or conscious biases, which in turn forms confirmation biases, then is that one really a human being?
ken
Posts: 2075
Joined: Mon May 09, 2016 4:14 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by ken »

davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pm
Noax wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:31 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 9:49 pmLook at my message count and my join date, idiot! You newbie troll!!!
Argument from seniority fallacy, which is not the way to drive home the parroting charge.

Will I also become the target of the ad-hom storm that seems to be going on? I've come to expect that from davidm ...
I must beg to differ. Insults are not (necessarily) ad hom. Sometimes even compliments can be ad hom. Example: "You know your argument is wrong because you're far too smart to believe such nonsense."
Can a 'compliment', such as in your example, be seen to be an 'attack' of the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument ?

Is a 'compliment' of a person really an 'attack' of them?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pmAd hom:

P1. Hitler was a vegetarian.

P2. But Hitler was a bad man.

C. Therefore, vegetarianism is bad.
Is that, to you, really an ad hominem?

How have you attacked, or from what you believe "complimented", in some way the actual person who was making the argument?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pmInsult:

Hitler was a bad man.
Is that, to you, really an insult?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pmI don't believe I've ad hommed anyone in this thread, though I have, perhaps too liberally, deployed insults.
Who have you, perhaps, liberally, deployed insults at?

By the way, what is your definition of 'ad hom'?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pm Still, one often finds oneself sore provoked.
Well as long as you have a "good enough" reason, like 'sore provoked' (whatever that means) then I am sure it is okay, with you, for you to then do whatever you like.

I am pretty sure, you, like all other human beings, who behave in any way they like, they have already come up with the "good enough" reason to behave or misbehave the way that they are.
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pm I didn't insult SpheresofBalance, but merely disagreed with him, and look what happened: he hurls a storm of insults my way.
Is that how, you, really saw what happened?

When you say "and look what happened", do you really want us to see and believe the same as what you believe you saw?
davidm wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:41 pmOnly then did I respond in kind.
Did you really respond in 'kind', or more like in the 'same way'?

Do you really believe that you just 'merely disagreed' with some one, and are you really wanting and trying to get us to see the same you did, that is that they then just started hurling a storm of insults your way and you NEVER did beforehand?

Again, as long as you have a "good enough" reason, like "They started it mommy", then I am sure it is okay, with you, for you to mis/behave ANY WAY you like. And, a philosophy forum is about as good as place as any to mis/behave ANY WAY one likes, or feels "justified" to, right?

A philosophy forum is certainly NOT the place for just peaceful, logically reasoned discussions only, correct?
uwot
Posts: 6093
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:21 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by uwot »

ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 am
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm
SpheresOfBalance wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:39 pmI'm simply saying that as to the true nature of time, if it even exists, no one can say they necessarily know.
That's been dealt with on this thread. Whatever the "true nature of time, if it even exists", the only thing that we can measure, or count, is periodic events.
But there are NO actual periodic events, so there are NO actual intervals to measure.
Periodic events, to people who believe in them, include things like the Earth going round the Sun, the Earth rotating on it's axis, a pendulum swinging back and forth, the vibrations of plucked strings and the oscillations of irradiated atoms.
ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 amHuman beings have just devised, invented, and created a way to make measurements.

As above, we don't know whether we are actually measuring any such thing as 'time'; all we can do is count periodic events such as the ones listed above.
ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 amIf an observer only wants to see separate events, then they can, AND, if another observer only wants to see one event, then they can also.
Well, it all hinges on what you mean by see. If two observers are watching the pendulum in a grandfather clock swing side to side, it is entirely up to the individual to choose to 'see' the whole sequence as a single event, or to break it down into the individual swings. But in the most literal sense, both observers will see the pendulum swinging.
ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 amBut, if an observer actually wants to see what IS, which is the Truth of ALL things, then they can also see that.
Same thing. What they will see is a pendulum swinging. If they wish to interpret that as the truth of all things, that is entirely their business. Some of us are less impressed by pendulums.
ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 amRemember, absolutely EVERY thing is relative to the observer.
Indeed, but that is not the sort of relativity that has been discussed over 60 pages.
ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 am
uwot wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:12 pm For all practical purposes, that is time. Periodic events demonstrably, without any exceptions, have always been observed to 'take longer' the faster the arena they happen in is moving, and/or the stronger the gravitational field in which they occur.
What do you mean by 'periodic events', 'demonstrably', 'without any exceptions', have 'always' been observed to take longer?

I have NOT observed what you are proposing here.
Ah, well; that is the point about the sort of relativity we have been discussing over 60 pages: it is only when you look at another frame of reference that you can observe the difference.
Londoner
Posts: 783
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by Londoner »

ken wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:11 am
But there are NO actual periodic events, so there are NO actual intervals to measure.
Would you say there are any events at all? That is to say, do you ever see change?

For example, you see this post. For you has this post (and all the others) always been on this thread? Or was there I time when there were less posts, or no posts at all.

If you have experienced a change, that this thread has grown longer and longer, then we could see each new post as a periodic event. We could measure other changes against the changes in this thread. For example that the time I was having my breakfast was the time uwots latest post appeared. If we did that, then we would be using the thread like we use a clock. My breakfast was at 'uwots post-time'. It wouldn't be a very good clock, but it would still serve the purpose of measuring changes relative to each other.

This is purely about phenomena. We are measuring one experienced event relative to another, not measuring the quantity of some metaphysical substance 'time' that somehow inhabits those events.
Belinda
Posts: 8034
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: Relativity?

Post by Belinda »

davidm wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 12:31 am From the above link:
Physicists do sometimes talk about motion in spacetime, e.g., "a particle moves along a geodesic" or the more subtle "a particle follows a geodesic." But that is a jargon that confuses non-experts.

Experts, starting from Hermann Minkowski (Einstein's mathematics professor), know well that no motion exists in spacetime since all moments of time and all points of space exist equally, i.e., at once (one cannot say simultaneously, since this term means "at a given moment of time"). Robert Geroch expressed it nicely:

“There is no dynamics in spacetime: nothing ever happens there. Spacetime is an unchanging, once-and-for-all picture encompassing past, present, and future.”
Bold italic is the author's.
Davidm is the above statement from Robert Geroch like the statement that the subatomic particle does not exist until it's measured?

Or like a statement (which I have just invented and does not amount to a claim) that physics does not explain change over time itself but only the effects of change? I said "change over time"; and not "change of relative dimensions". This is because change itself seems to me, a non-physics person, to be more connected to time than to spatial dimensions.
Post Reply