Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

@layman,

Quote:

The paradox only enters when one tries to insist that there is no way to determine who is moving. If you make that claim, then you could never consistently claim (as relativists do) that the travelling twin would age less. To say that, you MUST know who is moving

Not so, Lay. Aging is relative just as motion is. To A, B's clock is slow but to B, A's is slow

1 Reply

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

It is a device like a mathematical axiom which forms a substrate for a subsequent mathematical model which turned out to be successful with respect to enhancing prediction and control of what we call "the world". Without such "success" we would not be having this conversation.

Great! From now on I'm using that line as a defense of every theory I try to teach to kids which they say feels intuitively wrong to them.

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@dalehileman,

Dale, I was referring to this statement by Contrex, made on page 2 of this thread:

Quote:

Everybody knows that trains move from one place to another, and that trains do not remain stationary and their destinations do not come to them.

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

Not so, Lay. Aging is relative just as motion is. To A, B's clock is slow but to B, A's is slow

Well, now you're confusing me, Dale. Why do you saying "not so?' As far as I know, virtually every physicist agrees that each clock cannot, as a matter of fact, be slower than the other.

Once again, subjective perceptions are not necessarily fact. I can ASSUME that I am motionless, but that doesn't prove that I am.

Personally, I'm kinda strange, though. I assume I am moving when I'm riding my motorcycle, and therefore also assume that my watch is slower, not faster, than yours, if you're sitting at home.

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@Kolyo,

The "device" argument is the pragmatist's view of "science". Simplistically science is not about discovering "fundamental truth" or "objective reality", it is about "what works". Note for example that Clerk-Maxwell modelled his celebrated equations on the assumption of an elastic medium called "the luminiferous aether". The equations still "worked" after the demise of "the aether" as a result of the Michelson-Morley experiment.

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@fresco,

Quote:

science is not about discovering "fundamental truth" or "objective reality", it is about "what works".

Not sure why you would say that, Fresco. Scientific studies (by Sexl an Mansouri, for example) have demonstrated that theories which postulate absolute simultaneity (as opposed to Einstein's relative simultaneity) make the exact same predictions as SR. These theories postulate a motionless point, similar to the ether concept (generally the CMBR is used).

There is no known way to experimentally determine which of the two theories is correct. So, if accuracy of prediction is the only criterion, why would someone prefer special relativity over a neo-lorentizian relativity?

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@layman,

The full studies have been published online, but here's a link to a wiki summary of the conclusions arrived at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_theories_of_special_relativity

A brief excerpt:

Quote:

Mansouri and Sexl spoke about the "remarkable result that a theory maintaining absolute simultaneity is equivalent to special relativity."

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

I was proposing an imaginary point with which..which might serve as a reference

Good for you, Dale. As Sexl and Mansouri have demonstrated, you are not "wrong" to do so.

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@fresco,

Quote:

I suggest you read something like...
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

I have read some of this article, but have not finished it. Not sure what part you thought was significant to your point. Among other things, it says there that:

Quote:

Metaphysically, realism is committed to the mind-independent existence of the world investigated by the sciences.

Are you an "anti-realist?" Your subsequent statement suggests that you are.

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@layman,

The "subsequent statement" I was referring to was this one, Fresco:

Quote:

science is not about discovering "fundamental truth" or "objective reality", it is about "what works".

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@layman,

The word "correct" for a theory is inappropriate.Besides predictive power, adoption of theories is paradigmatic (goodness of fit within a dominant contextual network), a function of elegance(mathematical features such as "symmetry") and epistemological (fruitful for the generation of new empirical hypotheses).
Refer to Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for a discussion of the "forces" driving what we loosely call "scientific progress".

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@fresco,

I have read Kuhn's work (many years ago). I also note that the article you cited says, among other things:

Quote:

The collapse of the logical empiricist program was in part facilitated by a historical turn in the philosophy of science in the 1960s, associated with authors such as Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Hanson. Kuhn's highly influential work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, played a significant role in establishing a lasting interest in a form of historicism about scientific knowledge, particularly among those interested in the nature of scientific practice.

What I referred to as "positivism" in an earlier post is called "logical empiricism" in this quote.

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@layman,

So in essence you understand the nature of the complex paradigmatic forces behind "Einstein's Suggestion". In short, the question "why did he make the suggestion ?" cannot be meaningfully answered from a later point in history.
EDIT
Note too that if you are relying on arguments from logical positivism, you should bear in mind that the later Wittgenstein did a good demolition job on that when he rejected his own earlier flirtation with it.

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@fresco,

Quote:

In short, the question... cannot be meaningfully answered from a later point in history.

Why not?

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@layman,

Why not ?... Because you cannot exclude the influence of hindsight with respect to subsequent developments from interpretation. Popular adages spring to mind at this point....

"History" is a tale concocted to suit the teller.
You can't step into the "same" river twice.

BTW I am not an "anti-realist". I agree with Rorty's pragmatism which led him to reject the realism/anti-realism debate as futile.

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@fresco,

I don't really agree. Many historians have chronicled Einstein's struggles with the seeming contradiction between the relativity principle and Maxwell's equations. But, either way, that really wasn't the point of my question to begin with.

My question wasn't one of "historical influence." It was questioning the "sense" that Al's theoretical concoction makes, from the standpoint of everyday knowledge and physics in general.

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@layman,

Quote:

Not so, Lay. Aging is relative just as motion is. To A, B's clock is slow but to B, A's is slow

Quote:

Well, now you're confusing me, Dale. Why do you saying "not so?' As far as I know, virtually every physicist agrees that each clock cannot, as a matter of fact, be slower than the other

My "not so" in reference to your

Quote:

There's nothing paradoxical in that, per se. The paradox only enters when one tries to insist that there is no way to determine who is moving. If you make that claim, then you could never consistently claim (as relativists do) that the travelling twin would age less. To say that, you MUST know who is moving

,….which seems to imply a fixed ref in order to determine who's really moving. Perhaps then that's not what you meant

In any case I don't see where there's a paradox. Sorry Lay

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

EDIT
Note too that if you are relying on arguments from logical positivism, you should bear in mind that the later Wittgenstein did a good demolition job on that when he rejected his own earlier flirtation with it.

Fresco, I don't know if you read any of my prior posts, but I made this same point myself (that logical empiricism has been abandoned as hopelessly flawed).

In 1905, Einstein was a full-fledged positivist (a position he too later rejected) and HE (not I) used some positivistic argument to beef up his theoretical positions.

In short, I, personally, am not relying to positivism to support any given proposition, nor would I.

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@layman,

And I am saying that "sense" is paradigmatic with respect to a timeline.
In that respect you would probably also disagree with Derrida's contention that "there is nothing beyond (con)text" which implies that not even the same author can exactly recapture the "sense" of his earlier statements.
(Derrida was another philosopher like Wittgenstein and Rorty who have been labelled "post-modernists". Unfortunately that label has earned a bad name when certain minor members of the clan decided to mess with the "politics of science". Don't pay too much attention to that nonsense !)

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

In any case I don't see where there's a paradox. Sorry Lay

Well, Dale, I'm not sure where and why we disagree, if we do. The whole thing is often referred to as the "twin paradox," so I used that verbiage. But I wouldn't call it a 'paradox" either. To me it is simply a blatant self-contradiction to claim:

(1) That you can never know who is moving, and also
(2) That you know which twin is moving (because that would be the one who ages slower)

1 Reply

Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

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