Philosophy Now Forum

A bit of an aside. What is a photon? Here is an imagined picture of a wavepacket of light with dispersion (from Wikipedia):



To this, we add the "quantum craziness" of the Born rule which gives the probability that a measurement will see the particle.

With this, we have a picture of indefinite, probabilistically defined wave motion plus a rule to tell us about a probable particle we will find under the interaction of an observation.

Since the wave packet has length, common sense will immediately dictate that the speed of propagation of a wave packet of light cannot be a point-like universal absolute, but must be the statistical constant of interactive observational measurement.

Since all measurements are interactive, we ought to be considering both interacting partners, if we are to understand the interaction.

What is the effect of the interactive observer on the measurement? Can the observer's presence be entirely cancelled or neutralized by experimental controls?

One problem is that measuring instruments are merely remote extensions of the experimenter, not independent, unbiased aspects of the universe.

YehYeh wrote:Since the wave packet has length, common sense will immediately dictate that the speed of propagation of a wave packet of light cannot be a point-like universal absolute, but must be the statistical constant of interactive observational measurement.

Since all measurements are interactive, we ought to be considering both interacting partners, if we are to understand the interaction.

What is the effect of the interactive observer on the measurement? Can the observer's presence be entirely cancelled or neutralized by experimental controls?

One problem is that measuring instruments are merely remote extensions of the experimenter, not independent, unbiased aspects of the universe.

www.org.wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction

socratus wrote: I give another interpretation:
the phenomenons of SRT are possible because behavior
of quantum of light allow them be appeared.
The behavior of quantum of light is the cause of SRT's phenomenons.

So now, we have more possibilitites:

• light is a manifestation of the absolute
• light has its own peculiar, characteristic behavior
• light is a manifestation of the observer
• light is a manifestation of the necessary combination of all three

YehYeh wrote:

socratus wrote: I give another interpretation:
the phenomenons of SRT are possible because behavior
of quantum of light allow them be appeared.
The behavior of quantum of light is the cause of SRT's phenomenons.

So now, we have more possibilitites:

• light is a manifestation of the absolute
• light has its own peculiar, characteristic behavior
• light is a manifestation of the observer
• light is a manifestation of the necessary combination of all three

Quantum of light is a manifestation of the absolute spacetime continuum.
Quantum of light has its own peculiar, characteristic behavior.
Quantum of light is an independent particle in the absolute spacetime continuum.
In different laboratory conditions physicists can observe different abilities of quantum of light.
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Ginkgo wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrat ... _reduction

Wikipedia wrote:Penrose-Lucas ... takes this disparity to mean that human mathematicians are not describable as formal proof systems, and are not therefore running a computable algorithm.

Language and formal language and mathematical logic are late inventions of Mother Nature.
A cat is smarter than the best computer.

The concepts of space and time must be basic in physics.
But these conceptions didn't solve until now .
From the one hand, according to SRT, both space and time relative . . . .
From the other hand, according to SRT, 4D spacetime is an absolute continuum.
And nobody explains what negative 4D really is by ordinary logical language
and therefore . . . . . .
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socratus wrote:The concepts of space and time must be basic in physics.
But these conceptions didn't solve until now .
From the one hand, according to SRT, both space and time relative . . . .
From the other hand, according to SRT, 4D spacetime is an absolute continuum.
And nobody explains what negative 4D really is by ordinary logical language
and therefore . . . . . .
===...

Time out!

Space and time are not fixed and absolute, but relative. Relative to what? The observation. Space and time are never the same! The observer's location, velocity, and acceleration literally, actually shift the observed, actual space-time of the universe. This not an illusion! Illusion of space and time is also true, but it is quite independent of factual space-time shift.

Where is the observer in Minkowski's block space-time?

On September 21, 1908 Hermann Minkowski began his talk at
the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians
with the now famous introduction:
" The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung
from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength.
They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself,
are doomed to fade away into mere shadows,
and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
Since then the question of the ontological status of this union of space and time
has become the subject of a continued debate.
.........
http://www.spacetimesociety.org...
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socratus wrote:The concepts of space and time must be basic in physics.
But these conceptions didn't solve until now .
From the one hand, according to SRT, both space and time relative . . . .
From the other hand, according to SRT, 4D spacetime is an absolute continuum.
And nobody explains what negative 4D really is by ordinary logical language
and therefore . . . . . .
===...

... therefore forget STR, it's useless formalism ...

Cerveny wrote:

socratus wrote:The concepts of space and time must be basic in physics.
But these conceptions didn't solve until now .
From the one hand, according to SRT, both space and time relative . . . .
From the other hand, according to SRT, 4D spacetime is an absolute continuum.
And nobody explains what negative 4D really is by ordinary logical language
and therefore . . . . . .
===...

... therefore forget STR, it's useless formalism ...

we cannot throw out a box with a baby only because
SRT interpretation is not enough good.
=

socratus wrote:

Cerveny wrote:

socratus wrote:The concepts of space and time must be basic in physics.
But these conceptions didn't solve until now .
From the one hand, according to SRT, both space and time relative . . . .
From the other hand, according to SRT, 4D spacetime is an absolute continuum.
And nobody explains what negative 4D really is by ordinary logical language
and therefore . . . . . .
===...

... therefore forget STR, it's useless formalism ...

we cannot throw out a box with a baby only because
SRT interpretation is not enough good.
=

Nothing reasonable was been interpreted from it for hundred years. Use Occam's razor :)

socratus wrote: Minkowski said "The views of space and time ... are radical.
Henceforth ... only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."

Minkowski space-time diagram is a graphical representation of events and
sequences of events in space-time as “seen” by observer at rest.
Such sequences are named wordlines, which provide an illustration of the properties of space and time in the special theory of relativity. It allows a quantitative understanding of the corresponding actual observation like time dilation and length contraction without mathematical equations.



http://www.math.brown.edu/~banchoff/STG ... kowsk.html

T. Banchoff, Brown U. wrote:If light cones are drawn in the positive and negative time directions from a certain event (E), space-time is separated into three distinct regions: "future", "past", and "meta-present". ...
The meta-present is a mysterious thing. One piece of the meta-present is the present, which are all of the events that lie on a line (or plane) of simultaneity with E--things that are actually happening at the same time.

The author refers to the space between past and future as the "meta-present", because either a) the events have happened, and there is no way for someone at E to know about it or b) the events has not happened, but there is nothing that a person at E can do about it. For all intensive purposes, this is a good working definition of a "kind" of present.

My concern is not with the space twin who is aging slower than his inertial twin. I would like to understand the 'static' observer at O, =E for Prof. Banchoff, and his 'meta-present'.

The diagram is causal and deterministic. However, the universe is not deterministic, even in Minkowski/Einstein. There is a gap at O, that is not explained in the texts. Which is that O is not permanently static. O is just an instantaneous point somewhere in event E. The two are not the same. O is a point, E is an event in space-time. This difference introduces a necessary uncertainty in the universe.

What do you think?

I think the meta present is absolute certainty.why. Because of this under lying certainty or unmoving meta presents. past present and future are one in the same thing as it where god then must be an absolute certain fact omni presents which is all tense.so time space fabric is an un certain abstraction to give the energy event its fabric of uncertain expression of pass pressent and future. meta present has to be absolute fact to which all else is relative fiction. its a fictional universe relative to god which is a certain never happened fact.so meta presents dosent happen cos it allways certainly wos.regs jackles

The two postulates of special relativity are bound together.

1. - The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference.
2. - The speed of light c is the same in all inertial frames of reference.
Postulates of special relativity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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My opinion.
1. -
It is correct that:
The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference.
2. -
It is correct that:
The speed of light c is the same in all inertial frames of reference.
3.
It is also correct that such formulation have nothing to do with the essence of SRT.
Why?
All inertial frames of reference ( Earth and another planets of solar system and galaxies )
have gravity-mass. And SRT is theory without gravity-mass.
( About gravity Einstein wrote GRT in 1915)
All inertial frames of reference ( Earth and another planets of solar system and galaxies )
have very low speed and therefore enough to use only Galileo transformation
to explain that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial
frames of reference. But the basis of SRT are Lorentz transformations.

The name of SRT was : “ On the Electrodynamics of moving Bodies.”
Not about Earth and another planets of solar system and galaxies the theory
was talking, but about micro particles like light quanta.
The essence of SRT is explanation the behaviour of light quanta.
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socratus