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ralfcis » January 13th, 2018, 7:53 pm wrote:"All particles in the universe have a wavelength."
Not when they're stationary they don't. When they're moving they're probably no longer particles.
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faradave wrote:That which is undeniable is necessarily agreeable.
faradave wrote:That's why space and time (being relative rather than invariant), are not a good basis for "reality". Better to stick with invariant spacetime intervals.
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ralfcis wrote:"All particles in the universe have a wavelength." ...Not when they're stationary they don't.
BadgerJelly wrote:science being opposed to anything that cannot be objectively defined.
Asparagus wrote:Undeniable and necessary are strong words
Asparagus wrote:Spacetime is relative.
ralfcis wrote:The true reality is the sun is gone but the delay of the sun's info is what causes our reality. So where does invariance matter?
ralfcis wrote:true reality...we can't see directly in the instantaneous present
hyksos wrote:Did reality lose something -- or was it dispensed with?
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Asparagus wrote:Does the individual observer have any reason to deny what he or she witnesses? If so, should we deny the news from all the clocks and maps we see?
Asparagus wrote:So are you thinking of different grades of reality?
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ralfcis » January 14th, 2018, 9:37 am wrote:Yes our delayed reality is a time distorted reflection of the true reality we can't see directly in the instantaneous present. Two realities, both co-exist in a superposition like our reality is the sun is there or, if we could see the instantaneous present, it isn't if it had been removed less than 8 minutes ago. Both are reality but the one that's real to us is the reflection.There is absolutely no way to tell if the sun is really there or not in the present moment.
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Faradave » January 14th, 2018, 6:16 pm wrote:"Delay" and "distance" invoke the relative values of time and space. Invariance suggests something simpler: If you are touching something, it's (still) there.
That's more accurate without the parentheses (which invoke time). From that perspective, if you feel (or see) light from the sun, you're touching it. If you orbit the sun, it's because the sun is touching (thus altering) the path in which you orbit. Gravity and light occur via invariant "lightlike" intervals, defined as zero interval separation.
In a less amicable forum, I've been banned for writing "Zero separation is contact." Go figure!
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Asparagus wrote:But isn't it that if I tell you what's true for me, you can just crunch the numbers and discover what will be true for any given observer? So my experience plus number crunching = the invariant situation? ...intervals have these "personal realities" wrapped up in them?
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Faradave wrote:
That said, the question at hand seems to be: Is there an invariant ("real") underlying continuum to which all observers (even those which are fundamental "particles") refer. My answer is yes. But to avoid argument and confusion its coordinates should be labeled something other than "space" and "time. They should all be interval coordinates.
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hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 1:30 am wrote:The danger is that Physics reduces to a mere calculating device. You put initial conditions into the machine , pull the crank, and it spits out predictions for some particular observer. It tells us what would be observed/measured, and does not (!??) tell us what is there -- what is, that is extant.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 1:30 am wrote:"What really happened?" The question should be able to be concretely investigated, provided there is some objective reality independent of observation. Instead, we just return back to the calculating devices to tell us what an observer of a size S , mass m , and velocity v would measure from his 'reference frame'.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 1:30 am wrote:Is "reality" equivalent to "what is measured by an observer"?
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 1:30 am wrote: Six, going on seven, centuries of physics, and it seems like we still cannot precisely declare that this is mere semantic distinction, and "Here is why".
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 1:30 am wrote: 120 odd years ago, we should have declared this a semantic distinction, and gone about the business of finding what the universe is made of.
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hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:If you are going to equivocate the word "reality" with "that which is measured by an observer" then you are dispensing with the traditional notion of reality.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:Special Relativity does not perform the process of specifying a universal Gods-eye-viewpoint of all the parts of a system, and then deduce from that what a particular observer sees. It vehemently does not do this. Instead, the SR calculating machinery demands you specify which observer will have his measurements predicted. The "machine" of SR then outputs intelligible predictions for that observer , and no one else.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:(Taking SR seriously as a "depiction of reality" now) SR depicts reality as a collected set of distinct reference frames, within which measurements will disagree between and among, and any "objective state outside of which" does not exist or has no physical meaning.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:I did not make any fallacious sophistry in deducing this conclusion. The only 'sin' I committed there was supposing that if the theory makes accurate predictions, it must therefore be hinting at some fundamental aspect of the outside objective world.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:In this sense, we could conclude (with some honesty) that the concept that the world is "composed of stuff" is not fitting or appropriate. In this traditional worldview, the word "reality" refers to the "sum total of the stuff". In that situation we are allowed to ask "What happened, really?" and actually mean something concrete. Rather than asking the textbookish : "What will this observer in such an inertial frame measure?" (and then calculate). Modern physics only gives a calculating device, leaving the traditional question with a stone cold silence.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:It might be better to talk about "reality" as if it were a collection of events, rather than stuff-like things.
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:So an observer 'Bob' will experience phenomenal "events" happening -- because reality is made up of events. The alternative does not make sense vis-a-vis SR. SR says two comoving observers will disagree on whether two events happened simultaneously or not. They will see the same object emitting different colors from redshift and blueshift of their "frames". If reality were composed of "stuff that reveals its state to observers" then Bob and Alice would always measure the same properties on the same object, rather than disagreeing completely on how fast such-and-such clock was ticking "from my vantage point".
hyksos » January 17th, 2018, 4:03 am wrote:SR reality can be given a funny name. We might call it Process Philosophy : Events , not Stuff
(-- and start yammering about Alfred North Whitehead.)
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