Philosophy Now Forum

On Platonic "forms", I'm going to seek out a discussion on this site OR begin a separate thread on the topic.

Scott Mayers wrote:Okay, I just looked at the Wikipedia entry. You are definitely misinterpreting this.

What sort of bullshit statement is this to make in a philosophy forum? This is the sort of hubris usually reserved for physicists who always claim that there's only one way to interpret evidence until they change their minds and decide to interpret it another way. Since they've wasted a century looking in the wrong place for a unification model they probably should rethink this doctrinal position. They've got QM all wrong because they've got determinism wrong.

Refuting what I say by saying what I refute does not constitute an argument.

Scott Mayers wrote: The nature of those effects, and the exact time scale at which they would occur, would need to be derived from an actual theory of quantum gravity.

That's what I'm talking about. Quantum gravity.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:Okay, I just looked at the Wikipedia entry. You are definitely misinterpreting this.

What sort of bullshit statement is this to make in a philosophy forum? This is the sort of hubris usually reserved for physicists who always claim that there's only one way to interpret evidence until they change their minds and decide to interpret it another way. Since they've wasted a century looking in the wrong place for a unification model they probably should rethink this doctrinal position. They've got QM all wrong because they've got determinism wrong.

Refuting what I say by saying what I refute does not constitute an argument.

Scott Mayers wrote: The nature of those effects, and the exact time scale at which they would occur, would need to be derived from an actual theory of quantum gravity.

That's what I'm talking about. Quantum gravity.

I take issue with being misquoted or quotes taken without context. The last quote is NOT anything I made upon this discussion. Where did you read this?

As to the last comment, "Refuting what I say by saying what I refute ..." This shows that you hold a contradictory position logically. What is the problem? I may be misinterpreting something you may mean but it is up to you to repair what you think is in conflict of your words. If you doubt QM as a whole, why do you accept using it to prove your own belief? And why is this a "bullshit statement" here? I thought you also held the position that we need to reconcile science with philosophy? But you seem to be now denying we should do this.

But you asserted before that you believe in an absolute minimal time quantity you referred to as the Planck Interval. This, I've proven to you, is NOT an absolute minimal time quantity. It is only a created standard unit that they can base comparisons on a quantum level without having to use a macro-sized measure, like the meter, because it gets too confusing to follow or use without. It is like how we simply define "п" (pie), to refer to "3.141692..." The Planck interval is just an assigned unit to make time describable in terms of the Planck constant, h, and the speed of light, c.

Scott Mayers wrote:But you asserted before that you believe in an absolute minimal time quantity you referred to as the Planck Interval.

This is not quite what I said. In fact I insisted that the minimum possible interval of time could not possibly have an absolute value because it was gravity-dependent. It is SR which insists on absolute time and thus so does QM but GR shows us that this is impossible.

None of this changes the metaphysical fact that time cannot be infinitely divisible, a fact known to the pre-Socratics and one which has never been refuted. Do you wish to refute it?

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:But you asserted before that you believe in an absolute minimal time quantity you referred to as the Planck Interval.

This is not quite what I said. In fact I insisted that the minimum possible interval of time could not possibly have an absolute value because it was gravity-dependent. It is SR which insists on absolute time and thus so does QM but GR shows us that this is impossible.

None of this changes the metaphysical fact that time cannot be infinitely divisible, a fact known to the pre-Socratics and one which has never been refuted. Do you wish to refute it?

I do refute that your interpretation actually is correct on some of these things as I have not derived the same things upon reading of the past. Because it is you who is interpreting this uniquely, I have to ask you to reference what works or particular passages from past materials that you are drawing the conclusion that (a) SR asserts an absolute time measure, that (b) pre-Socratics have even determined rationally that time is not infinitely divisible? And, (c), you now assert that "the minimum possible interval of time could not possibly have an absolute value..." yet then reassert that just such an absolute exists as it was 'known' from ancient philosophers (those pre-Socratics et al). Again, this at least appears contradictory.

I already don't propose any absolute minimum OR that should there be one, it is not meaningful to interpret except as akin to a spacial point in light of Euclid's postulate of a point as being "that which has no space". And note that he's post-Socratic. The only understanding I learned of even presuming a non-mathematical interpretation upon reality that refers to a limited size began much later by Lucretius' poetry suggesting atoms as substantially fixed 'smallest' elements. What am I missing?

I know that Plato discussed the concept of "absolutes" to which relate to this but I don't recall anywhere of which time was considered as being or requiring an absolute 'atom'. And if it was, it still would reduce to being perceived indistinguishable to a moment (period of measure for time) that has no content.

Time is the aether.

petm1 wrote:Time is the aether.

I actually agree depending on interpretation. To me, the 'fourth' dimension beyond the three of space is equivalently interpreted as each point expanding. This simultaneously defines 'change' to which 'time' is implied.

petm1 wrote:Time is the aether.

I don't mind this way of looking at it either because at least time is physical. Time can appear to bend light, for instance.

Scott Mayers wrote: Because it is you who is interpreting this uniquely,

This I'm not denying. I've said all along that the evidence is not what is in question but rather I'm questioning the narrative within which the evidence is being interpreted. SR insists that time is a spatial dimension and from the outset I've maintained that this interpretation is false. My comments must be regarded in this light which means that simply offering up the spacetime narrative as a counter-argument is not addressing my point at all but simply attempting to refute what I say by saying what I refute. However I apologise for allowing my frustration to impede the clarity of some of my responses.

Scott Mayers wrote: SR asserts an absolute time measure,

SR offers two different ontologies for time within the same model. I accept that proper time is real time but assert that co-ordinate time is a mathematical convenience which has no analogue in the physical world. The co-ordinate time in SR is an absolute time because SR ignores gravity and GR clearly shows that proper time is gravity-dependent. All the counter-intuitive and paradoxical problems in QM stem from this because QM is entirely predicated on SR and not on GR. Gravity is completely ignored in the Standard Model and every physicist worthy of the name knows perfectly well that this is what's wrong with the model.

Scott Mayers wrote:pre-Socratics have even determined rationally that time is not infinitely divisible?

This is the central point of Zeno's paradox. If time was infinitely divisible then Zeno's arrow would never reach its target. Infinity is not a concept to mess with and to assume that an infinite set can be confined within a finite universe contradicts both Cantorian set theory and simple logic. Luckily the singularity which was once the darling of physics seems to have gone the way of phlogiston at long last because it was similarly logically flawed.

Scott Mayers wrote:, you now assert that "the minimum possible interval of time could not possibly have an absolute value..." yet then reassert that just such an absolute exists as it was 'known' from ancient philosophers (those pre-Socratics et al). Again, this at least appears contradictory.

This is where gravity comes into the story. The quantised time interval can be given the Planck value ( or indeed any arbitrary value), but in absolute terms this doesn't actually mean anything. Depending on the mass of the black hole a Planck interval in a black hole might be a thousand years on the surface of a planet. However it can still be defined in exactly the same way as a quantised entity. It still remains the briefest possible time interavl in which we can meaningfully say that something has actually happened. I defy anybody to attach a metaphysical meaning to a time interval in which nothing can occur so time and change are simply two different ways of expressing the same concept. The rate of change in a physical system is gravity-dependent.

Scott Mayers wrote:I already don't propose any absolute minimum OR that should there be one, it is not meaningful to interpret except as akin to a spacial point in light of Euclid's postulate of a point as being "that which has no space".

You'll note that in the Standard Model the sub-atomic particles are also modelled as zero-dimensional points because if they're given given a spatial extension the model makes no sense whatsoever. However a zero-dimensional point is metaphysically meaningless which leaves them with a serious problem. This is solely because gravity is absent from the model. Once gravity is brought into play the particles can have an extension in time because time and gravity are the same thing. This is a major conceptual paradigm shift for physics because it defines the Standard Model as the model of a dynamic PROCESS, in other words a computation.

Scott Mayers wrote:I know that Plato discussed the concept of "absolutes" to which relate to this but I don't recall anywhere of which time was considered as being or requiring an absolute 'atom'. And if it was, it still would reduce to being perceived indistinguishable to a moment (period of measure for time) that has no content.

Physics is exclusively Platonist in its inference of transcendent cause and a law-derived reality. I can't see how a quantum time could be accommodated within this narrative so trying to fit quantum gravity into the spacetime paradigm strikes me as utterly impossible. Since some of the smartest people in human history have spent a century trying to do this and getting exactly nowhere gives me confidence that I'm onto something. They're trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and as far as I'm concerned they've got more chance of flying to Mars by flapping their arms and whistling.

Obvious Leo wrote:

petm1 wrote:Time is the aether.

I don't mind this way of looking at it either because at least time is physical. Time can appear to bend light, for instance.

Scott Mayers wrote: Because it is you who is interpreting this uniquely,

This I'm not denying. I've said all along that the evidence is not what is in question but rather I'm questioning the narrative within which the evidence is being interpreted. SR insists that time is a spatial dimension and from the outset I've maintained that this interpretation is false. My comments must be regarded in this light which means that simply offering up the spacetime narrative as a counter-argument is not addressing my point at all but simply attempting to refute what I say by saying what I refute. However I apologise for allowing my frustration to impede the clarity of some of my responses.

Scott Mayers wrote: SR asserts an absolute time measure,

SR offers two different ontologies for time within the same model. I accept that proper time is real time but assert that co-ordinate time is a mathematical convenience which has no analogue in the physical world. The co-ordinate time in SR is an absolute time because SR ignores gravity and GR clearly shows that proper time is gravity-dependent. All the counter-intuitive and paradoxical problems in QM stem from this because QM is entirely predicated on SR and not on GR. Gravity is completely ignored in the Standard Model and every physicist worthy of the name knows perfectly well that this is what's wrong with the model.

Here is how I can first connect our agreement of interpretation on petm1's comment:

You perceive gravity as to Einstein's GR description in that the warping of space => gravity => a 'force' to derive cause for material change => time.

I happen to disagree with Einstein's particular interpretation that space itself warps because he uses this to justify the presumption that gravity itself is simply a 'pull' whereas I interpret this as external 'pushes' from multiple directions. Thus, it stands to reason why he'd interpret space itself 'warping' because a 'pulling' force would have to require action-at-a-distance without. In my interpretation, this isn't necessary since 'pushes' at least are justified by local contact, not action-at-a-distance. So my connection to agree with ptem1 differs in that I accept the SR, using the idea that a fourth dimension represents time => from my understanding that expansion of space in a logical rationale can be derived beginning with geometric three-dimensional explanations that beg 'change' that infers 'time' as a simultaneous condition => to which spatial expansion itself gives rise to 'new' information being added to reality => to be the cause of gravity pressure (pushes) akin to the Casimir Effect.

Thus, so far, while we differ on our routes of interpretation, we agree that time is a resultant of space, especially if we derive meaning to it as having substantial meaning, like the aether. Note that SR only accepts an absolute of the dimension of time as a whole but does not imply in any way any minimal unit of any 'time interval'.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:pre-Socratics have even determined rationally that time is not infinitely divisible?

This is the central point of Zeno's paradox. If time was infinitely divisible then Zeno's arrow would never reach its target. Infinity is not a concept to mess with and to assume that an infinite set can be confined within a finite universe contradicts both Cantorian set theory and simple logic. Luckily the singularity which was once the darling of physics seems to have gone the way of phlogiston at long last because it was similarly logically flawed.

I follow where you are coming from now. But this was resolved by Calculus. Calculus found a means to interpret an absolute using an infinite approach instead. For instance, the absolute number, "0" (zero) can be interpreted as the limiting number to which the series based on "1 - 1/(2x)", where x begins with 1 and continuously (infinitely) is added to each new x to ∞ . This is summed up for each x (an integral) as in (1 - 1/2 - 1/4 - 1/8 - ...-1/∞) = 0.

Thus, the math here fixed Zeno's paradox. Calculus is merely a different approach to the same problem with resolution using a definition of limits. I don't see a problem here. You assume that because you can't actually add things (subtract things) infinitely, we are unable to find a means to determine a finite solution by recognizing the process itself can be a defined function of logic.

This is the type of misunderstanding that I see with the Incompleteness Theorem of Gődel. There, the problem was that the static logic didn't include contradictions as a reasonable function within logic other than to end the conclusion as being contradictory without further resolve. If logic contained a law that specified what action to take upon discovering contradiction, as Hegel's logic implies, contradiction can act to discover. That is, some argument can prove something contradictory, but then use a 'rule' within logic that commands this contradiction be resolved by defining a 'new' space (just like the idea of time being of another dimension) whereby such contradictions remain in the original dimension but become contraries where its domain contains both without contradiction. If you doubt that this could be real, I've used this kind of example:

Given the 'present' it is contradictory to believe that I can be both alive and not alive at one exact point in time. But it IS true that in a 'place' where we define the interval of existence between the years 1900 and 2025, it IS true! That is I am both alive and dead within this given interval. And notice that I can define an infinite set of periods to which this is 'true'. This justifies creating a separate 'dimension' where you use the point of contradiction as the origin where all other infinite points describe a 'line' in that dimension in one 'new' way (as to 'truth' or unqualified as, 'y' in one direction; and 'falsity' or an unqualified '-y' in the other.)

I'll separate this post in parts to make it easier to deal with.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:, you now assert that "the minimum possible interval of time could not possibly have an absolute value..." yet then reassert that just such an absolute exists as it was 'known' from ancient philosophers (those pre-Socratics et al). Again, this at least appears contradictory.

This is where gravity comes into the story. The quantised time interval can be given the Planck value ( or indeed any arbitrary value), but in absolute terms this doesn't actually mean anything. Depending on the mass of the black hole a Planck interval in a black hole might be a thousand years on the surface of a planet. However it can still be defined in exactly the same way as a quantised entity. It still remains the briefest possible time interavl in which we can meaningfully say that something has actually happened. I defy anybody to attach a metaphysical meaning to a time interval in which nothing can occur so time and change are simply two different ways of expressing the same concept. The rate of change in a physical system is gravity-dependent.

I don't agree with Hawking's on latter scientific philosophies on most things regarding Black Holes. While I believe this entity is derivable from previous science and logic, I don't think the depth to which this subject has digressed makes sense. You can derive a star becoming so dense and large that it has sufficient capacity to have a gravitational effect on light (even in my interpretation) without the extrapolated speculations it has evolved to. But I also interpret light as being non-contradictory as being both matter and energy. It still has mass regardless of claims to the contrary. I'll give you an example of how I perceive it:

Imagine you standing in front of a train-like track perpendicular to you. Further, imagine a train with just one car that holds a simple compartment, or simply a wall, such that if it was directly in front of you would block you from seeing or walking through it.

When this car is positioned statically in front of you, as it sits there, it prevents you from moving forward. Now imagine it is simply passing you at some constant speed. If it moves relatively slow, you would witness it passing but not notice anything other than its visual passage. However, if it is moving fast enough. you might notice a new effect: that as it passes, it feels as though you are being 'sucked' towards it. Here is what is actually occurring: The pressure of the air around you may be relatively constant from all directions on you normally. But when the car passes you with such speed, if it is faster than the capacity of the atoms of air pressure to reach you, this would momentarily reduce the pressure from in front of you (facing the track) that the pressure on the opposite side would increase and 'push' you towards the car as it passes. This is what I believe 'gravity' is. This is because we can imagine this track running in a large circle to which each time the car passes you, it momentarily pulls you 'closer'. This is my "shadow effect" in my own theory.

Matter here can also be interpreted without the car. Imagine that instead of a car, a big gust of wind blows by you in the path where the train was. In kind, the perpendicular passage of wind acts as a momentary barrier to the pressure from the forward direction that gets "shadowed" as this gust passes by. Note that this effect is identical to the Bernoulli Principle (Wikipedia). In essence, matter can be reduced to nothing 'material' at all. The wind gust represents this. You can argue that air is still substantial, but shows that other air can and does get sucked perpendicular to the passage of other air ...meaning that both the 'material' effect AND the 'energy' effect are or can be of one substance.

But it must be recognized that if a car that is very long, or the gust of wind is 'long', the 'pull' effect only occurs WHEN it initially passes. If this 'wall' also remained constant, the 'shadow' effect would balance out as air from above but still in front of you would fill in that vacuum of space until the pressure equals out. This suggests that matter itself is not 'needed'. A constant gust of real wind, however, would still actually continue to appear to pull you perpendicular because the air is actually made up of tiny matter with gaps between them as it passes. This would be like multiple cars passing you of walls that have breaks in between that allow the pressure from the other side of the track to replace the pressure from there and be blocked again continuously. If the wall that passes you is as like one large train without gaps between the cars, the 'pull' would only occur from the initial passing at the front. The end may pull too as the lost shadow of the train would momentarily allow the air behind you to be greater momentarily. But in this kind of case, it would be dependent only on the 'speed' of the still air capacity to accelerate. And since there is more air everywhere in 3-dim space as opposed to the train's 2-dim passing, this would be a lessor momentary pull (usually).

This effect is what induction is as described through electricity (and magnetism)!

Now, with regards to light, my argument is that a photon, as a literal fixed train of a wave of a specific length, passes you, normally it goes so fast and is so relatively small that its passing is like having a 'gust of wind' that only contains one molecule. Light often consists of a stream of photons but in contrast to its speed and size, this might be like a gust of wind with one molecule separated with longer spaces between them. As such, they wouldn't be sufficient to act as a 'vacuum' unless the pressure differential on each side of the track are very extreme. This is akin to having a another track on the opposite side of the track from you in either parallel or circular which already has a train of cars creating a stronger mass (pull) effect. In this way, as a gust of even molecules would be effected if the object on the other side is big enough. The mass effect of the stream of light passing is itself eventually allowed to be pushed toward the larger object because the speed of its passing the object (the shadow) is longer per unit of light (the photons).

As to a 'Black Hole', the name begs that since it describe how we cannot perceive it that it must somehow be gain energy infinitely. But this is NOT the case (or doesn't have to be). It would still be a large star but the pressure being produced in the center would eventually prevent even the 'circular' paths of energy from being relieved to the point it escapes at the poles of this. AND this TOO has been witnessed as the 'jets' of these poles. If we are unable to account for the energy from them to interpret it as powerful enough to relieve, this is only because we require other material in its path to perceive it as scattered light. I can't speak of all the other claims to Black holes. I only trust they exist but not as Hawkings and others have inferred.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:I already don't propose any absolute minimum OR that should there be one, it is not meaningful to interpret except as akin to a spacial point in light of Euclid's postulate of a point as being "that which has no space".

You'll note that in the Standard Model the sub-atomic particles are also modelled as zero-dimensional points because if they're given given a spatial extension the model makes no sense whatsoever. However a zero-dimensional point is metaphysically meaningless which leaves them with a serious problem. This is solely because gravity is absent from the model. Once gravity is brought into play the particles can have an extension in time because time and gravity are the same thing. This is a major conceptual paradigm shift for physics because it defines the Standard Model as the model of a dynamic PROCESS, in other words a computation.

The Standard Model is a static representation used to explain the both static AND dynamic processes in a static way. The quantum mechanic methods in practice uses statistical occurrences to describe reality that should limit themselves to accept the limitations of measuring to determine what they have and NOT to infer anything based upon the uncertainty implicit upon the method itself. Just because the method is useful for inference, I think the only major problem with it is to assume that the apparent contradictions within attempting to create static models suggest that reality itself is as fallible as the method! Superposition is a good example. The statistical approach suggests that the properties of matter have 'optional' simultaneous versions. But this is assumed conflicting when it isn't. I don't think of QM as a justified subject of theory beyond its methods; it is a practice.

Quantum mechanics theorist are like people who are constantly transient. Moving all the time never allows you to be stable enough to develop life-long relationships. They are certain to experience having the advantage of having variety. The statistical points that outline a 'cloud' of outcomes is akin to recognizing that cities exist everywhere all over the map. They can get 'good' at the process of moving all the time but struggle with determining sincerely what a long-term relationship with living in one place means. Yet many of them could and do argue that their vast experience of travel and the variety of people they meet gives them better samples of different experiences to be more credible to understand people better, including the under-riding concept of long-term relationships. [I can relate!!]

But in a similar but opposite way to those who never moved, the QMers (as transients by analogy) mistake their experiences as sufficient to qualify them to interpret their transient existence as THE way to live a good life and step out of bounds when they attempt to create a 'fixed' (or static) view of reality that the homesteaders who don't move appeal to. That is, just as a theory acts like a permanent or 'fixed' reality, it is the ones who actually live fixed who are better at creating maps because the remain consistent in space (as maps do) compared to the transient.

This doesn't mean the transient doesn't have value. It just means that they should not use their lifestyle to justify fixed views or propose that reality itself is permanently unsettling. Heisenberg seemed to recognize this in part because even those transient at least settle down momentarily. But the philosophy of QM that demonstrates uncertainty (in practice) was interpreted to mean that each component 'place' (in reality) is akin to the variety in every town because he misappropriates his variable experience is what non-transients experience. And this is why things like the Uncertainty Principle should merely speak of the method or practice.

To close up this analogy, the QM acting as a theorist is like a transient presuming that every town/city has an equal distribution of races, culture, and the variability akin to his variable experiences. We know this isn't true.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Scott Mayers wrote:I know that Plato discussed the concept of "absolutes" to which relate to this but I don't recall anywhere of which time was considered as being or requiring an absolute 'atom'. And if it was, it still would reduce to being perceived indistinguishable to a moment (period of measure for time) that has no content.

Physics is exclusively Platonist in its inference of transcendent cause and a law-derived reality. I can't see how a quantum time could be accommodated within this narrative so trying to fit quantum gravity into the spacetime paradigm strikes me as utterly impossible. Since some of the smartest people in human history have spent a century trying to do this and getting exactly nowhere gives me confidence that I'm onto something. They're trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and as far as I'm concerned they've got more chance of flying to Mars by flapping their arms and whistling.

I began a thread called, Plato's Theory of Forms. I was hoping to separate this topic by beginning anew there to expand on this and how you interpret this. I do NOT perceive the apparent 'transcendence' of forms as being a problem any more than the idea that information is all that exists. If all of reality is described by 'laws of physics'. For these 'laws' to remain consistent, a question arises: why or what requires totality to dictate that consistency IS okay to prioritize as with the rest of natures laws? These assumptions are themselves 'transcendent' as information in an equal way you perceive the 'forms' of Plato are. Without them, even any physical laws have no further justification as you can argue that some god-like programmer initiated those predetermined rules. Within an acceptance of pure information to derive from nothing at all, at least anything that follows based on it remains consistent, even where a part of such a theorized totality contains the inclusion of inconsistency.

Let's discuss the details on the thread I opened because it is applicable in many ways to other topics AND though helpful here, needs special attention.

Scott Mayers wrote:You perceive gravity as to Einstein's GR description in that the warping of space => gravity => a 'force' to derive cause for material change => time.

Specifically I'm saying that the "warping of space" is a metaphor for expressing the inconstant speed of time, which as everybody knows is gravity-dependent. Since the speed of light and the speed of time are one and the same thing the observer observes this slowing down of light in gravitatational lensing as bent light, exactly the same as the slowing down of light in water is observed by the observer as a bent stick. Therefore I'll go back to the original question which I posed in my OP.

Since this is a completely physical explanation for gravitational lensing which a child could understand why should it not be preferred over one involving spooky action at a distance which nobody in the world can understand and no two physicists can agree on, even after 100 years? Furthermore it is now also accepted almost universally that GR can only be an approximation to a deeper theory whose signature feature will be SIMPLICITY.

Scott Mayers wrote: to which spatial expansion itself gives rise to 'new' information being added to reality

Newtonian reductionist determinism cannot generate new information. Chaotic determinism, however, generates self-organising complexity simply because it cannot do otherwise ,as observed in the 2 -slit experiment, and the Casimir effect can be explained in a similar way.

Scott Mayers wrote:Thus, so far, while we differ on our routes of interpretation, we agree that time is a resultant of space,

We absolutely DO NOT agree on this because you seem to be having difficulty taking me literally. I am quite literally saying that SPACE DOES NOT EXIST other than as a construct of the consciousness of the observer. What the observer does when he makes his observation is that he spatialises time, which is exactly what Minkowski did in SR. What I am quite literally saying is that SR forces reality to conform to the narrative of our observation by brute mathematical force. However this must inevitably produce a model which makes no sense because it is utterly impossible for the observer to observe the real world!!! The speed of light is finite and thus the observer can only observe a world which no longer exists.

This is the problem of the observer that has kept the entire science of physics in a conceptual cul-de-sac for a century and it is so breathtakingly obvious that I call it the elephant in the room of physics. Our models of physics are modelling a HOLOGRAM, not the real universe.

Scott Mayers wrote:Note that SR only accepts an absolute of the dimension of time as a whole but does not imply in any way any minimal unit of any 'time interval'.

Agreed. SR cannot describe a quantised reality and neither can GR. This is irreducibly a function of Newton's classical mathematical tools of the calculus, so in a sense the problem of physics is as much meta-mathematical as it is metaphysical. Interestingly Einstein himself made this point not long before he died.

Scott Mayers wrote:Thus, the math here fixed Zeno's paradox.

It did no such thing. The maths has merely put lipstick on a logical pig and no philosopher of mathematics would buy it for a moment. The Persians would have sold Newton into slavery for daring to suggest that such tools could model a real world, although to be fair to Newton he never actually claimed this. ( In fact Newton never accepted that the universe was real at all because he saw it merely as an artefact of the mind of god.) The calculus can only be used to describe the way a physical system TENDS and can make no meaningful statement about its initial or final state. Furthermore it can make only approximations to values of any intermediate states, as is now well known in the case of GR and the orbital motions of cosmological objects.

Scott Mayers wrote: This is the type of misunderstanding that I see with the Incompleteness Theorem of Gődel.

All Godel proved was that mathematics is an intrinsically tautologous form of symbolic logic which has nothing to with logic more generally. Although his diagonal arguments are very well structured all they prove is the bloody obvious.

Scott Mayers wrote:I don't agree with Hawking's on latter scientific philosophies on most things regarding Black Holes.

Neither do I and in fact I don't agree with Hawking on most things. However I'm happy enough to provisionally accept the general idea of a black hole as long as it has no singularity or event horizon, a position which Hawking is now willing to consider himself. In fact Hawking has become very coy about black holes of late, even daring to suggest that maybe there's no such things. I don't go that far but I wouldn't mourn their loss if they disappeared off the explanatory landscape. This is what I meant about the utility of the calculus. Because it can't deal with a quantised world it becomes progressively less precise as systems approach their limits. Black hole theory effectively takes Einstein's field equations literally all the way to infinity and it is now well understood from big bang cosmology that this cannot be done.

Scott Mayers wrote:The Standard Model is a static representation used to explain the both static AND dynamic processes in a static way. The quantum mechanic methods in practice uses statistical occurrences to describe reality that should limit themselves to accept the limitations of measuring to determine what they have and NOT to infer anything based upon the uncertainty implicit upon the method itself. Just because the method is useful for inference, I think the only major problem with it is to assume that the apparent contradictions within attempting to create static models suggest that reality itself is as fallible as the method! Superposition is a good example. The statistical approach suggests that the properties of matter have 'optional' simultaneous versions. But this is assumed conflicting when it isn't. I don't think of QM as a justified subject of theory beyond its methods; it is a practice.

Nicely put, and agreed.

Scott Mayers wrote:Heisenberg seemed to recognize this in part because even those transient at least settle down momentarily.

Interestingly the early pioneers of QM were far more aware of what their model could tell them about the sub-atomic world than most of those who came later. (With the exception of Feynman who knew it was crap all along but could use its tools better than any of them). What seems to have been forgotten over the years is that Erwin Schrodinger's thought experiment of the cat simultaneously dead and alive was intended as a piss-take at his own expense and a warning that QM MUST NOT BE INTERPRETED LITERALLY. Once again!! It's a fucking metaphor or else the cat can be simultaneously dead and alive, the moon does not exist unless somebody is observing it, effects can precede their causes, etc.

Pay attention, boys and girls. Quantum mechanics is not a true story and it was never intended to be a true story. It was designed as an ad hoc model which could be used to make very accurate predictions about the behaviour of matter and energy at the sub-atomic scale. It has been remarkably successful at this but it was always assumed that QM had no explanatory authority but instead was concealing a deeper theory which would emerge in due course. Unfortunately this deeper theory remains stubbornly elusive and will remain so for as long as the priesthood remains committed to its canonical doctrine of spacetime, which QM accepts as axiomatic. Wake up, geeks. TIME IS NOT A SPATIAL DIMENSION.

Scott Mayers wrote:If all of reality is described by 'laws of physics'

This is where a very careful use of language is necessary. I completely refute the idea of a reality being determined by physical law but I'm willing to accept that it's convenient to describe it in this way. However the laws are only the property of the physicist who chooses to model the observed patterns of order in nature in this way. My universe is self-organising according to only the single meta-law of cause and effect so what I claim is that reality is making the "laws of physics" rather than the "laws of physics" that is making reality. This is only a slight shift of conceptual emphasis but it makes the world of difference because it means our universe is sufficient to its own existence, which Plato's is not and thus neither is Newton's.

Thinking about the apple falling to the ground from the tree gives the impression that gravity is attractive but when you turn it around and think of the Earth dilating out to the apple you see that the force of gravity is repulsive. I see space as the present moment we all share as we ride this gravity wave outward into the future while attracting the past into our present. The co-moving frame is dilation you see it all the time when moving around in time, why do you think that everything gets larger the closer you get to them, this motion does not stop when you do you just see it as static because it is relative to your consciousnesses motion in the present.

Scott Mayers wrote:....
But you asserted before that you believe in an absolute minimal time quantity you referred to as the Planck Interval. This, I've proven to you, is NOT an absolute minimal time quantity. It is only a created standard unit that they can base comparisons on a quantum level without having to use a macro-sized measure, like the meter, because it gets too confusing to follow or use without. It is like how we simply define "п" (pie), to refer to "3.141692..." The Planck interval is just an assigned unit to make time describable in terms of the Planck constant, h, and the speed of light, c.

Planck unit of time is, say, a time size of elementary particles ...