Halc wrote: ↑September 21st, 2018, 7:08 pmRelativity makes no claims about your personal vision of the underlying reality. The principle (not even the theory) says that something being stationary in a frame means that it has no velocity relative to that reference, and means nothing beyond that.
All frames are different ways of looking at the same reality. That reality = the underlying reality, but different frames put different slants on it, distorting it (in all but one case). Physics is supposed to be accounting for reality (the underlying reality, so it makes no sense for it to ignore it and pretend it isn't its job to consider it.
Let's go to the example that Steve kept avoiding. He repeatedly tried to divert attention away onto things that were less clear so that he could muddy the waters, but the example he should have been tackling is the one with two clocks ticking at different rates due to their movement relative to each other. Frame A analysis says the clock A is ticking faster than clock B, while frame B analysis says clock B is ticking faster than clock A. It cannot be true that clock A is ticking faster than clock B AND that clock B is ticking faster than clock A in the actual reality that the frames attempt to describe. The frames are generating contradictory claims, unless they're taken to mean this: frame A analysis says clock A appears to be ticking faster than clock B, and frame B analysis says clock B appears to be ticking faster than clock A.
The underlying reality provides a limited number of options for what the clocks are actually doing:-
(1) One of the clocks is ticking faster than the other, while the latter is not ticking faster than the former. (The set 3 models conform to this.)
(2) Both clocks are ticking at the same rate as each other. (The set 1 models conform to this, as does a lucky case of set 3 where both clocks are equally slowed.)
(3) Neither clock is really ticking at all. (Set zero models conform to this because they lack running time.)
The set 2 models are rejected because the contradictions invalidate them, but the three numbered options above do find ways to avoid the contradictions. However, the Set zero models are invalidated by the impossibility of the causation in them being real, so they're out of the running. The set 1 models suffer from event-meshing failures, but can scrape through into the viable category, even if they are more than a little contrived. The set 3 models are the most rational options.
I wonder if Steve's brainwashed his ten-year-old son into accepting that clock A can tick faster than clock B while clock B ticks faster than clock A in the same reality. If he hasn't (which is likely, because he probably realises that such contradiction is unacceptable), then he ought to accept that there is an underlying reality where the contradictions are avoided, and that set 2 models fail to achieve that. The only reason these contradictions have been discussed at all is that they disprove set 2 models (and this matters when we're considering Einstein's original version of SR which appears to have been the set 2 3D non-block model, or perhaps a hybrid of the incompatible set 1 and set 2 3D non-block models).
I use terms the way I do to avoid misusing them, stripping them of SR bias.
Yes, and this is mixing interpretations, something you say you don't do, and by doing so, all you do is demonstrate that the one interpretation is incompatible with the other.
If I'm being asked absolute questions, I refuse to provide SR answers. If I'm asked SR questions and am asked to give SR answers for them, I'll give SR answers, but there's little point in me doing that because you can do that yourself. And I'm not mixing interpretations - if someone asks absolute questions without stating that they want parroted mantras in return from an SR textbook, I'll give them absolute answers (which in many cases means that I'll tell them it's impossible for us to know, but that the fabric of space has a handle on it).
The terms as you use them is an invalid usage. Even the LET people make it clear when they're talking about absolute velocity/motion, as distinct from motion relative to alternate frames. Call it bias if you will, but use terms like 'absolute velocity' when you refer to them, because the definition of 'velocity' is a relation between two things.' Absolute velocity on the other hand would be a property of one thing.
I try to avoid using the word "velocity" altogether. The word "speed" is much clearer, and "relative speed" when not talking about absolute speed.