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Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

Forums: Science, Realtivity, Obsessive Troll, Relativity Denial, Einstein Denial
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layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:17 am
@FBM,
Quote:

How would the yardstick shrink without the measurer also shrinking?


1. Wouldn't be hard. If I wanted to trick you I would just take a 35" stick, calibrate it to read 36" inches and you'd never know the difference.

2. That aside, you wouldn't use YOUR stick to measure MY football field, if you KNEW that both you and your stick had shrunk, at least not without correction.
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:19 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

Quote:
think you could come up with a better one, one that measures only one propagation speed, for example.


OK, but the point would be the same. If we see a super-nova "now" we don't say it happened NOW. We project that it happened 20,000 years ago, or so. We use knowledge to correct our immediate sense perceptions.

That better?


In my experience, when a supernova is reported as having been observed today (I've never read of a supernova reported as having "happened" today, nor do I know of any scientist who would represent it that way.) , it's accompanied in the same report, if not the same paragraph or even sentence, as having happened at some point in the distant past. I don't see a problem with this. What's so broke that it's in such dire need of fixing?
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:21 am
@FBM,
Quote:
I don't see a problem with this.


ABSOLUTELY NOT! No problem at all. That's the way it SHOULD be.

That's the point. If some kid says it just happened "now," we're going to educate and correct him. We won't say---Sure, whenever you see it is when it happened.

As I already said, the point is the same. We need to use our knowledge and judgment to assess our raw sense impressions.
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:25 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

Quote:

How would the yardstick shrink without the measurer also shrinking?


1. Wouldn't be hard. If I wanted to trick you I would just take a 35" stick, calibrate it to read 36" inches and you'd never know the difference.

2. That aside, you wouldn't use YOUR stick to measure MY football field, if you KNEW that both you and your stick had shrunk, at least not without correction.


You have to inject an increasing number of variables to make that analogy work. That's not elegant. How did the first guy know that the yardstick was actually 36" long? He could have been tricked by someone else, ad infinitum. I'm still not seeing any absolute frame of reference, nor now that analogy is a very good one. Sorry.
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:27 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

Quote:
I don't see a problem with this.


ABSOLUTELY NOT! No problem at all. That's the way it SHOULD be.

That's the point. If some kid says it just happened "now," we're going to educate and correct him. We won't say---Sure, whenever you see it is when it happened.

As I already said, the point is the same. We need to use our knowledge and judgment to assess our raw sense impressions.



I'm very cool with that. No problem there. That's what any high school science/physics teacher would do, I think. Why do we need to overturn SR to accomplish that?
0 Replies
 
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:27 am
@FBM,
Quote:
How did the first guy know that the yardstick was actually 36" long? He could have been tricked by someone else, ad infinitum.


OK, nobody knows anything, I get it. The old "know-nothing" brain-in-a-vat routine.
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:29 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

Quote:
How did the first guy know that the yardstick was actually 36" long? He could have been tricked by someone else, ad infinitum.


OK, nobody knows anything, I get it. The old "know-nothing" brain-in-a-vat routine.


No, I'm just pointing out the infinite regress in the analogy you made.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:32 am
@FBM,
Quote:
No, I'm just pointing out the infinite regress in the analogy you made.


It wasn't an analogy. It was a simple answer to a simple question.

You basically asked how a yardstick could "shrink" (become inaccurate) without you shrinking.

Actually I gave two answers. One was addressed to your literal question, the other was addressed to what I thought you were intending.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 05:52 am
@layman,
It seems the underlying point always gets lost.

If you and I measure the same football field and get different answers, then we are not "both right." At least one of us is just "wrong."

Put another way: If you say MY yardstick has shrunk, and I say YOUR yardstick has shrunk, then we cannot BOTH be right. Each yardstick cannot be shorter than the other.
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:00 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

It seems the underlying point always gets lost.

If you and I measure the same football field and get different answers, then we are not "both right." At least one of us is just "wrong."


Sorry, but that sure seems like a false dichotomy to me. Jack is right in describing his experience in his inertial frame of reference and Jill is right in describing her experience in hers. Both are making statements about relative appearances, not absolute realities.

You're trying to condense SR into a single, absolute frame which it denies even exists. There's a huge difference between photons and yardsticks, and I don't think you're appreciating that. You seem to be maybe mixing in some GR there where it doesn't apply.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:03 am
@FBM,
Quote:
Sorry, but that sure seems like a false dichotomy to me. Jack is right in describing his experience in his inertial frame of reference and Jill is right in describing her experience in hers. Both are making statements about relative appearances, not absolute realities.


You say that, and you have to ask where the "subjectivity" comes in?

Just tell me this FBM: Is it logically possible for each yardstick to be shorter than the other (perceptions aside)?

Is it logically possible for the explosion into a super-nova to have happened both "right now" AND 20,000 years ago?

Is it logically possible for the sound of a thunderclap to have been created both "right now" AND 20 seconds ago?


FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:13 am
@layman,
I asked about subjectivity in order to elicit your understanding of how SR is subjective. If I weren't immersed in this context, I'd be much more likely to ask you where objectivity is possible. And since we've crossed that line, in what way is it possible for a human being to have an objective experience or make an objective evaluation or produce an objective hypothesis?

Quote:
Is it logically possible for each yardstick to be shorter than the other (perceptions aside)?


That's the whole point of pointing out the infinite regress. That's the possibility that your scenario inadvertently opens up. And I'm n0t sure how this can be a situation of "perceptions aside" unless you presume an absolute reference frame. Which would be circular reasoning...
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:17 am
@FBM,
Before I answer you, please answer two other questions I asked (added later) in that last post, to wit:


Is it logically possible for the explosion into a super-nova to have happened both "right now" AND 20,000 years ago?

Is it logically possible for the sound of a thunderclap to have been created both "right now" AND 20 seconds ago?
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:21 am
@FBM,
I will, in the meantime, answer your question to this extent. You say:

Quote:
And I'm n0t sure how this can be a situation of "perceptions aside" unless you presume an absolute reference frame.


My "answer: " You're not responding to my question. I did not ask you "how" we know anything. I did not ask IF we know anything. I asked you a question pertaining to logic, that's all.

2nd response: I've already addressed the issue of whether an ABSOLUTE frame is necessary to know whether it is the train or the earth that's moving relative to the other. The answer is NO, whatever some relativist may want to lead you to believe.
0 Replies
 
FBM
 
  2  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:25 am
@layman,
layman wrote:

Before I answer you, please answer two other questions I asked (added later) in that last post, to wit:


Is it logically possible for the explosion into a super-nova to have happened both "right now" AND 20,000 years ago?

Is it logically possible for the sound of a thunderclap to have been created both "right now" AND 20 seconds ago?


Not to my knowledge, no, and that's not entailed by SR. That's entailed by the assumption of an absolute frame in which either or both maybe be omnisciently judged as either true or false. Hence, the false dilemma.

But perceptions of those things vary for very well-studied reasons. I think you'll agree that the event and the perception of the event by an observer or observers are distinct phenomena.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:29 am
@FBM,
Quote:
Not to my knowledge, no, and that's not entailed by SR. That's entailed by the assumption of an absolute frame in which either or both maybe be omnisciently judged as either true or false. Hence, the false dilemma.


While you were composing this, I already responded to it (by adding to my last post):

Quote:
2nd response: I've already addressed the issue of whether an ABSOLUTE frame is necessary to know whether it is the train or the earth that's moving relative to the other. The answer is NO, whatever some relativist may want to lead you to believe.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:33 am
@layman,
To elaborate: What we DO know, for sure, is that at least one of them must be "really" moving. They are not BOTH at rest, even though they both "claim" that, and "believe" that, and "don't know any better."

Don't matter. They ain't BOTH at rest.

Nothing "omniscient" about it.
0 Replies
 
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 06:47 am
@FBM,
Quote:
But perceptions of those things vary for very well-studied reasons. I think you'll agree that the event and the perception of the event by an observer or observers are distinct phenomena.


I couldn't agree more. I agree 100%. All the more reason not to just say that one equals the other. THAT is naïve realism.
layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 07:03 am
@layman,
If you want to talk about "all or nothing," false dichotomy fallacies, FBM, then be consistent. It's not EITHER:

1. We know something with ABSOLUTE, unshakable certainty, or else

2. We know absolutely nothing, cannot know anything, and there is no standard whatsoever for thinking you might know some thing about the issue in question.

It's not a forced choice between being "omniscient" and being the victim of total illusion---a brain in a vat.


layman
 
  -1  
Reply Fri 27 Feb, 2015 07:25 am
@layman,
And I'm not really using the phrase "total illusion" in a hyperbolic sense.

A guy like Parmenides would tell you that, definitely, BOTH are at rest. There is no motion whatsoever. Any impression to the contrary is just "total illusion."
0 Replies
 
 

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