Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: The fact that proper and coordinate times disagree tells us something about the nature of space and time as measured quantities.

It certainly does. It tells us that they are mutually exclusive constructs and thus cannot both be physically real.

Are you seriously asking me to define what is physically real and what isn't or are you just taking the piss?

You are using the term "physically real" in a different way to myself: I am saying that well defined physical measurements can only be made if something is physically real. So space and time are physically real in this trivial sense (not mutually exclusive as you say) but that their measurements have to be combined to agree with all other observers measurements. It is like arguing that the components of a vector quantity are not physically real when the vector is real. The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

nix wrote: The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

You define logical positivism in a nutshell. Your map is synonymous with your territory, nix, but back in Plato's day this logical fallacy would have had you sold into slavery. Luckily we live in more enlightened times and instead only have to put up with models of physics which make no sense.

nix wrote: their measurements have to be combined to agree with all other observers measurements.

I presume you realise that in extreme gravitational environments, such as near a black hole, this stipulation is utterly impossible.

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

Your map is synonymous with your territory, nix.

yeah, I like a map that describes the territory correctly and allows me to plan new journeys! - I prefer pragmatism to logical positivism as a label...

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: their measurements have to be combined to agree with all other observers measurements.

I presume you realise that in extreme gravitational environments, such as near a black hole, this stipulation is utterly impossible.

I think you misunderstand, when I refer to "their measurements" I mean the space and time measurements made by a single observer who then combines them into a single spacetime interval. it is this which is to be compared to other observers space time intervals between the same two events. Also we were discussing SR specifically so regions of spacetime which are flat.

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

this logical fallacy would have had you sold into slavery. Luckily we live in more enlightened times and instead only have to put up with models of physics which make no sense.

There actually is no logical fallacy in the statement that the measured space and time coordinates of an event depend on the state of motion of the measurer, which is all that is being asserted here, it is just a statement of fact.

I wonder what your non logical positivist real time and real space would look like?

nix wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

this logical fallacy would have had you sold into slavery. Luckily we live in more enlightened times and instead only have to put up with models of physics which make no sense.

There actually is no logical fallacy in the statement that the measured space and time coordinates of an event depend on the state of motion of the measurer, which is all that is being asserted here, it is just a statement of fact.

I wonder what your non logical positivist real time and real space would look like?

This I can relate with you, nix. Obvious Leo posits time but not space as being real. I'm not sure why but I opened a separate thread to discuss what I see the problem is. In particular, Leo interprets spacial descriptions as models that don't represent real things because they are states that cannot be perceived without time. Since our ability to judge reality through any observation or experience requires time, he rationally interprets time as an a priori reality. I'm not sure though why he doesn't suggest simply that the spaces could be at least derived products once assuming time as we can define time as a product derived from spaces?

Obvious Leo wrote:

nix wrote: The components are as real as the coordinate system they relate to!

You define logical positivism in a nutshell.

not quite, this is a sort of 'perspectivism' . The logical positivist says; 'it only exists if I can measure it' , but I say ' if I can measure it then it exists'. These are two very distinct positions.

One might say spacetime exists as the physical reality and our measured space and time are a projection of that reality into our practical frames of reference, but I don't think that gets us any further.

Scott Mayers wrote:

nix wrote:[
I wonder what your non logical positivist real time and real space would look like?

This I can relate with you, nix. Obvious Leo posits time but not space as being real.

Oh I see! thank you for the comments

nix wrote:Also we were discussing SR specifically so regions of spacetime which are flat.

Do you disagree with me when I state that according to GR there can be no such region? Can you not see that it is this assumption which denies gravity a role in the Standard Model?

nix wrote:I wonder what your non logical positivist real time and real space would look like?

Scott made the point which I'm happy to confirm. I reckon Leibniz was right and Newton was wrong and that the Cartesian space is purely a mathematical object with no ontological status. As far as I'm concerned this was proven once and for all by Michelson-Morley but I know of no philosopher of mathematics in history who has ever claimed otherwise. Physics is founded on a fundamental metaphysical flaw because the spatialisation of time in SR is bollocks. Time is transparently NOT a Cartesian dimension.

Scott Mayers wrote: I'm not sure though why he doesn't suggest simply that the spaces could be at least derived products once assuming time as we can define time as a product derived from spaces?

Occam economy. That which is unnecessary cannot be. In the science of the psychology of perception as well as in neuroscience we know the various neural networks used to construct our perception of 3D space. The same science gives us our notions of the "cognitive map", which accords perfectly with millennia of the philosophy of knowledge. The aether cannot be because it doesn't need to be.

Nix. I'd be honoured if you'd read this synopsis of my philosophy here because I suspect that your blind faith in the eternal verities is shakeable:

https://austintorney.wordpress.com/2015 ... n-de-jong/

It's very much a work in progress and it's currently undergoing a complete rewrite but the major principles will remain unchanged. It is presented not only as a work in metaphysics but also as a genuine scientific hypothesis because it yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify current theory. However the experiment I outline contains a typo which I repeated but I'll ask you to overlook. When I use the value 0.000033 seconds in my thought experiment I SHOULD have said 0.0000133 seconds.

nix wrote: One might say spacetime exists as the physical reality and our measured space and time are a projection of that reality into our practical frames of reference, but I don't think that gets us any further.

One might equally say that only time exists and spacetime is an example of such a projection. That gets us a hell of a lot further, as you will see.

From being able to see the differences of how we interpret things, I think it is at least most important to allow all interpretations to be allowed when discussing physics. It does bother me that much of science strictly disallows nothing but one unique approach to truth. To me this is like how a strong Union of laborers often interpret the companies they work for as intentionally designed to serve their interest to be employed and not to serve or produce things for others. Or...like a backyard mechanic who might swear their particular expertise directly makes them more authoritative than the ones who initially learn the theories in schools. Ironically, even educational institutes of science tend to favor this when they limit 'real' wisdom to be a function of practical observations only. They need to reincorporate philosophical introspection as a sincere part of the process.

Scott Mayers wrote:From being able to see the differences of how we interpret things, I think it is at least most important to allow all interpretations to be allowed when discussing physics. It does bother me that much of science strictly disallows nothing but one unique approach to truth. To me this is like how a strong Union of laborers often interpret the companies they work for as intentionally designed to serve their interest to be employed and not to serve or produce things for others. Or...like a backyard mechanic who might swear their particular expertise directly makes them more authoritative than the ones who initially learn the theories in schools. Ironically, even educational institutes of science tend to favor this when they limit 'real' wisdom to be a function of practical observations only. They need to reincorporate philosophical introspection as a sincere part of the process.

Very well said, Scott. We are so embedded in our Newtonian mythology that we all to easily forget that science is nothing more than a procedure of thought.

Obvious Leo wrote:we all to easily forget that science is nothing more than a procedure of thought.

An open investigation into 'the permenantly moving boundry of the the known and the unknown' perhaps?

It is true that the popular view of science is that it is a body of doctrine which is unchallengeably right, but that is not the view of working scientists who are aware that those doctrines or models are approximations to the world they are trying to describe and investigate, and all we can hope for is to get closer by subjecting our models to the test of observation. It is this testing of our models which ends up being the ultimate criterion of their worth. Obviously the models must in involve concepts that are self consistent and ultimately give rise to testable predictions.

I will have to think about if your notion that 'only time is real' would be a helpful advance, certainly that is a very strange notion from the perspective of a physical scientist....

My concern here has been to try and clarify the confusions and errors in Tallis's article about what SR and GR actually say. These often pop up when talking with non physicists about these theories and what they predict about observable consequences.

nix wrote:all we can hope for is to get closer by subjecting our models to the test of observation.

This is quite true but in the case of physics it will first be necessary to understand what an observation actually is. The 1927 Solvay conference was convened precisely to determine the answer to this question but it failed to do so and physics basically just gave up. The "observer problem" hasn't gone away and renaming it the "measurement problem" or even the "consciousness problem", as many prefer to do, won't help to make it go away. The nature of an observation is a metaphysical question which lies beyond the remit of the physicists and they need to show some humility in this matter.

nix wrote: I will have to think about if your notion that 'only time is real' would be a helpful advance, certainly that is a very strange notion from the perspective of a physical scientist....

Surely 100 years in the conceptual wilderness is long enough to pursue some "strange notions". Anyway what could be so strange about the bloody obvious?

"The answer lies within so why not take a look now".....Cat Stevens.

There is no truth more profound than the truth of our personal experience and the truth of our personal experience is that our existence is a journey through time. Since we are nothing more than the sum of the emergent properties of matter and energy configured in a particular way how could the existence of the universe be any different. Newton may have believed that humans were exempt from the processes of nature but haven't we outgrown Isaac's view of the world? The universe is not a place, it's a fucking EVENT.

Read my synopsis.

Obvious Leo wrote: The universe is not a place, it's a fucking EVENT.

Read my synopsis.

Your thesis is "Three-dimensional space is an artefact of human consciousness and not a physical property of the universe." If you were to follow your argument logically then you would have to assert " Time is an artefact of human consciousness and not a physical property of the universe" also, but you want to maintain a privileged place for time so that the universe is nothing but becoming.... you cannot build a science, or rebuild a science on this stuff....

To quote Dirac : " you are not even wrong".