Steve3007 wrote: ↑August 29th, 2018, 7:59 pmYour comments appear to me to misunderstand one of the basic requirements of any statement that claims to be scientific: it must relate, directly or indirectly, to something that can be empirically observed. You say later on "the observers are irrelevant". No.
They aren't fundamentally irrelevant - they're only irrelevant in the contexts where I said they're irrelevant, and they're irrelevant in those cases because the mechanics of relativity ensures that they can't know if they're moving or not, but there is a fundamental underlying reality in which there are absolute answers (which we can't identify). Where the observers are relevant is in showing us that they can't determine whether they're moving or not - their observations show us that relativity is a genuine phenomenon. We must then apply reason to test theories as to what's going on with relativity, and we can reject any theories that are irrational while continuing to try to test any remaining ones.
No, different frames of reference do not make claims that contradict the claims of other frames of reference. Frames of reference do not make claims at all.
Whenever you select a frame of reference, you necessarily base it on an assumption that light moves at c relative to that frame. That frame is therefore necessarily making an assertion about the speed of light relative to itself, and in asserting it to be c, it disagrees with every other frame of reference. All frames are incompatible with all other frames (ignoring the infinite number of versions of each where you merely angle your axes differently).
Observations are made from within those frames of reference. It is found that observers in frames of reference which are moving relative to each other disagree as to the simultaneity of events. This is counter-intuitive. That is not the same as saying that it is illogical or contradictory.
When they state that they are stationary and that the other player is moving, they are contradicting each other. If they both refuse to make such claims, they are not committing to any specific frame. The contradiction only comes in when they assert that the statements they generate by using their frame as a base are true.
How is this aether moving? Is it stationary relative to the surface of the Earth? Or is it stationary in a different reference frames? How do I measure my velocity relative to the aether? If there is no way to measure it, why is this aether concept useful? (Recall my comments about the central place of observation in science at the beginning of this post.)
If there's a box which might or might not have something inside and which is impossible to open or see inside by any method, does that mean there's nothing in the box? No. Not being able to detect the fabric of space doesn't mean it isn't there. Also though, what supports separation of objects (distances between them) if there is no space fabric? You can get away with that to some degree in virtual reality where things are located virtually just by assigning coordinates to them, but if the universe isn't virtual, that won't work - there must be a fabric. In the same way what limits light to c if it isn't travelling through a medium that imposes this limit upon it? Nothing can't do that job. The fabric of space is essential to any rational mechanism that doesn't involve the universe being virtual (i.e. a simulation).
Unable to tell if they are moving relative to what? Relative to the aether? Is there any observer that can observe/detect this movement? If not, in what sense is it relevant to science?
The maths of relativity makes it impossible to measure your movement relative to it. Its relevance is that it enables you to have a rational theory that describes a possible universe rather than an irrational theory that describes an impossible universe.
Slowed according to whose observations?
Slowed according to the observations of any observers not co-moving with it, but many of those observers may actually be slowed more than that clock, so their observations shed no light on the issue beyond confirming that relativity hides the truth from them.
Certainly not according to the observations of somebody moving with the clock. You have to remember that a statement like "a clock is slowed" only makes sense if you specify who is observing the clock.
No. It only makes sense relative to the fabric of space. If the fabric of space was able to observe and generate data about what it's observing, it's statements would be the ultimate authority, providing absolute truths about what's going on. No actual observers are in that privileged position.
If a clock moves past me at a large fraction of c, then I observe that clock to be slowed relative to my clock (that is stationary relative to me). But an observer moving with that clock observes my clock to be slowed because, to him, it is me that is moving. There is no contradiction in this unless you forget the truth about the central role of observation and cling to a notion that there is an absolute, observer-independent notion of who is "right" and "wrong".
Why have you allowed the herd to brainwash you? Buying into their mentality is a failure to reason properly. There is an absolute reality, but we can't pin it down because the maths of relativity prevents us from doing so. You cannot measure the speed of light by using light as the measuring device, but that's what we're actually trying to do whenever we carry out any experiment relating to relativity because everything is fundamentally made of stuff that moves about at c. As soon as you pick a frame of reference to use as the base for your measurements, you are working on the basis that "if this frame is the absolute frame", and it if isn't the absolute frame, many of the numbers that come out of it are wrong, but there will be some results that are guaranteed to be right regardless of which frame you choose, and that gives the illusion that the wrong ones were right too.
Again: unable to tell if they are moving relative to what? Relative to the aether? Who can measure their movement? If nobody, then your concept of movement is not science.
It is not science when you reject something's existence on the basis that you can't detect it, and it's all the worse when reason tells you it must be there because it's needed to support the things you can detect and the way they behave.
Slowed, as measured by whom?
Slowed in absolute terms - no observer has access to the truth, so demanding an observer with impossible capabilities is idiotic.
What do you mean by "the facts"? Which observations, by which observers, are you referring to?
You're obsessed with observers. With reality, there is no observer capable of seeing what nature hides from all the occupants of the universe. If you were to create artificial intelligences inside a computer and hid the reality of the computer from them, would you be impressed by them if they denied that the computer exists on the basis that they can't detect it? (That wouldn't happen, of course, if those intelligences are sufficiently intelligent - they would not make such a monumental error in their reasoning, and we shouldn't make that kind of error either, or call it "science" to think in such a naive manner.)
No. Different observers (being different observers) make different observations.
...and many of the claims they make about those observations will be wrong if they try to attribute speeds or slowed functionality to them.
You haven't defined what you mean by the word "wrong".
I've defined it more than clearly enough - if it misrepresents reality, it's wrong. If you are dealing with two frames of reference, they are both claiming that light moves at c relative to them and only one of them can be right (though both will be wrong in most situations).
You can't be referring to inaccurate observations or mistakes in the observation process.
Indeed - the measurements are what they are, and the numbers are all
conditionally true (on the basis that the chosen frame is the absolute frame).
If I, as an observer, observe somebody else's clock running slow relative to my own clock, it is not because I've imagined it or made a mistake. I really have made that observation.
Yes, but you would be a fool to assert that you have a true account of the action, and you would also be a fool to deny that there can exist a true account of the action.
Think about the Twins "Paradox". The travelling twin either accelerates or decelerates at the start of his trip, so his functionality either slows down or speeds up. (Or it could be a mixture of both - a deceleration to zero and an acceleration beyond that which means his functionality could end up running at the same rate as the stay-at-home twin during the first leg of the trip.) What is actually going on mechanisitically though? Is he accelerating and decelerating at the same time? Is his functionality slowing down and speeding up at the same time? No. It's either doing one thing or the other - there is an absolute reality underlying the action in which contradictions are not tolerated in the mechanism. To imagine that the mechanism can support an infinite range of such contradictions is idiocy, and all the more so for the fact that we have a fully sound theory of relativity (Lorentz's) which accounts for all the experiments without tolerating contradictions.
If you have a concept of speed which is impossible to measure/observe then you have to explain why it's useful to a discipline (science) which is all about describing and predicting the patterns in observations. You have to explain which observations it successfully describes and predicts which are not successfully described and predicted by rival theories.
Lorentz's theory makes all the right predictions without tolerating contradictions. SR, by contrast, rests on infinite numbers of contradictions which people are simply brainwashed into ignoring. I'm referring there to Einstein's original version of SR though. If we move to Minkowsky Spacetime, we can eliminate the contradictions to a degree, but with other fatal consequences (fatal in that it always leads to the theory being invalidated). If you want to explore this further, there's a thread on Cambridge University's science forum which you might like to read through:
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/foru ... ic=74095.0. This is one of those rare cases where a science forum of high status has allowed such a heretical thread to stand, and they've done it because no one there was able to refute the refutation. It remains open for anyone to revive if they can find a fault in my argument. I found a thought experiment that proves that the speed of light relative to some of the material of the apparatus (based on actual experiments like Michelson-Gale-Pearson) must be greater than c (and that some frames of reference are therefore misrepresenting reality), and that proof is robust. This only relates to Einstein's original version of SR, but the other versions can be invalidated in other ways, as I set out here:
http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html. In both of these places, I've provided lists of simple questions which take yes/no answers, and I tell everyone what the right answers are too, but even the "experts" refuse to commit themselves to answers even though it is ridiculously obvious what the answers must be (as required by mathematics). They won't answer, because they realise that to do so, they either have to agree with me (and with my conclusion) or provide an answer that would show them to be ridiculous.
The mainstream has built heavily upon an invalidated theory (or set of theories), brushing all the contradictions under the carpet and just blundering on regardless, although the work they're doing is still just as useful even if their interpretations are woefully wrong in places. As a result of this though, someone who might turn out to have been one of the greatest physicists of all time (Gabriel LaFreniere) recently died without receiving any recognition because his work was all based upon Lorentz's theory and people simply didn't even look at it. I've only just found it recently, and I'm still examining it to see how much of it holds up, but a lot of it fits the facts so well that I'm increasingly convinced that he was on the right lines.