On Sunday, February 2, 2014 8:44:07 PM UTC, [email protected] wrote: > > > On Sunday, February 2, 2014 3:45:24 PM UTC, jessem wrote: >> >> >> >> >> On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 7:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> Jesse - if the assumption is a fundamental geometry akin to the surface >>> of a world, and if the speed of light is constant, then you could draw dots >>> around that world for exact intervals of the speed of light, in which case >>> the light arrives at each point from each other point at exactly the same >>> moment....isn't that saying edgar's p-time? >>> >> >> >> I don't understand what you mean by "dots around the world for exact >> intervals of the speed of light"--in terms of a standard spacetime diagram >> from SR, what would the dots be? Different events along the path of a >> single light ray, or events along the paths of multiple light rays >> radiating from some other event, or something else? It is true that the >> spacetime "distance" between any two points along a light-like path is >> zero, if that's what you mean, but I don't see the connection between this >> observation and the idea that the light arrives "at exactly the same >> moment", I'm not sure how you're defining that phrase. "Same moment" >> normally suggests a judgment about simultaneity, not a judgment about the >> proper time along a particular path between events. Also, note that by >> means of a zig-zag lightlike path (like that of a light ray bouncing >> repeatedly between mirrors), you can connect *any* two points in spacetime >> that are within one another's light cones by a path of zero proper >> time--for example, there is a path of zero proper time between the >> assassination of Julius Caesar and me sitting here typing this. So if you >> were to define events "at exactly the same moment" in terms of the >> existence of a path of zero proper time connecting the events, you'd have >> to say that all events throughout history occurred "at exactly the same >> moment" which is pretty clearly not how it works with Edgar's p-time. >> >> Jesse >> > > Hi Jess/Brent - thanks for getting back, > Perhaps I should backtrack to my first reaction reading your post. First > off, I definitely am not at your level on relativity so get ready for one > big pile of steaming ...misconception. I'll do the right thing, and keep it > short. > > I thought that one of the big themes from the principle of equivalence and > relativity via frames, was that there wasn't a complete resolution to the > absolute, non-relativistic conception of what the whole universe is like., > That you can't necessarily talk about a landscape in absolute terms at all. > > I read liz's thread on block time (very helpful thanks Liz) and will be > rephrasing this issue over there at some point too. > > It's funny because this came up for me first because I speculated with > some guys (and dolls) a lot nearer your level than mine - maybe 3/4 years > back - that spacetime had a definite geometry. They came back very firm it > did not. That even between the Earth and the Sun you couldn't look at it > that way. I must say I couldn't accept what they were saying and said so, > because for me, the geometry would be very clear that there was this huge > gravity well oneside, and this relativily tiny one the other (earth). > > But they maintained it wasn't legitimate to think that way and then when I > wouldn't buy but didn't have the expertise to make a case from relativity > knowledge, got the usual dressing down about intuition and how the world > isn't intuitive and all the rest. > > So where do we actually stand? Was their point legitimate but subtly > different to yours - and it's a case of I don't have the knowledge to tell > them apart? > > Or has this been a kind of furious debate within the field, or was a > furious debate? Is the matter now resolved for blocktime, or is it still > controversial, as say, MWI is in the quantum field? > > Could we start there? I'll obviously understand if your response is along > the lines, you've been able to deduce my level from my words, and > explaining this isn't going to work in a post, and I need to bugger off and > read a text book. Of course. However...I would settle for a roughie, and > the text book ain't likely to go down at the moment. > > Over to yous > p.s. This isn't coming as some kind suckup to show Edgar I'm all lovin' and no antipathy. I stand by the points I made to him, and fully expect either a reasoned rejection following a careful reading, or indeed would happily settle for no response but clear indication of taking on board in changes in style, or attempts that way. What I wouldn't want though would be to see the convictions that he feels and has obviously worked very hard to develop, ground down in what would be an intellectually underhand way. Which wouldn't need to be purposeful on the part of others, but just that it is hard to stand up to a wall of rejection all by one's self. I mean, he's not a crank proper whatever the outcome. He's not had a life that took him into the sciences, and not everyone genuinely committed to knowing the truth gets the kind of life that makes an academic career at all possible. He's clearly done a lot of work, and I think for truth seekers that has to count very positively whatever the flaws. Which I might add everyone on this list has been jolly excellent at appreciating given the very large amount of attention he has received despite some shortcomings in style. For me, what this is about, is firstly that no one can be expected to simply go 'shucks I got that totally central piece of my life's work wrong...guess I'll burn the book". That cannot be expected of anyone. So, on the one side, the people with the mainstream expertise might need to make a decision in a situation like this, what the goal actually is. Is it to help someone really get it that some part of their theory is wrong? Which were that the case, the psychological setup would not look good, because it would never be clear how much was altruism, how much was charity, and - for the guy standing alone - how much was effectively dogmatic over-confidence in the current position in the mainstream. Over confidence can and does happen this way. Every single episode since the dawn of science has seen large amounts of confidence in areas of knowledge that actually were right out at the periphery of what was most robustly understood at that point. Speaking of blocktime as history as illustrated by Liz, the blocktime view of basically all instances of that, was that key built in, implicit and unrealized assumptions, behaved like a virus, and spread like wildfire to consensus. And, in hindsight, this effect always proves to be the reason things didn't happen more quickly. I think that's salutary lesson at a time like this, when things have got that hard at the frontier there is a real prospect that things could grind to a halt. Not everyone here may buy that this is a prospect, but a large constituency at the frontier or concerned about with the knowledge to be worth hearing, are saying exactly this. Most notable of late would be the 'Cambridge statement' or whatever...a paper of leading researchers that described the issues and the risk, among other things comparing it to a period like this toward the end of the 19th century. I think that, at a time like this, the dedicated man from the periphery has a special value. Most cases these men will be wrong, or unworthy in some unbearable way. But the occasional chap that isn't, should be used as a valueable opportunity, to really go over the things thought settled that he apparently contradicts. It also happens to be the case, I should think, that the solution for how to go about that, is also very much alike the sort of ideal process for that man or woman from the periphery to be able to face up to something that was not right, even were it to throw a life's work into question. After all, these people are truth seekers. You just won't ever get as much done purely on shallow narcissistic grounds as Edgar has got done. There's always going to be a large dollop of outrageous ego in anyone that takes a serious shot at a ToE. That's not just true of him, it's true of everyone on this list that is quetily working away on a big idea, or does not rule that out as a future development. So here's the process that I think nails something useful for the people representing a consensus - at least among themselves here - and for Edgar. It's based on a simple truth of any kind of problem solving. There are two fundamentally different kinds of question that can be applied. They are different, but they also form a pair, in which arguably neither side is complete without the other. The first kind is the kind we're already well underway with. The new idea is battered to bits by the best knowledge the combined effort of - in this case humanity - and what it has to say. Very important. This always has to happen, because it's daft right there to think the combined efforts over centuries isn't almost certainly going to be correct. The second kind, allows the outsider a fair hearing despite the fact good sense says it's overwhelmingly unlikely to be right. The fair hearing is hugely important because the best rule of thumb in the world is always still defined by the exceptional case, no matter how rare it be. This is the fundamental principle behind the jury system in legal affairs. Of course, anyone in the profession of crime and punishment, whether policeman or woman, defense/prosecution lawyer, or judge, quickly comes to know the rule of thumb that most people are guilty as charged. For that reason, the decision has to go to non-professionals in the community, and not be left with the judge or the police or anyone understandly cynical about each next face in the dock. Same principle here, different method for solution The method here, is that the outsider theory receives first, attention by way of the following question being asked and followed up as thoroughly as possible: "What would it take for this outsider principle to be true?" So that's the theme of..... Stage One: illustrated below, to some extent. In case it isn't clear, this is all largely a personal view...but the basis of the 'question' in speech marks above, is actually common in many realms involving hard problems. Why is it the first stage ideally? because the consensus body recognize that it isn't easy to stand alone against the maelstrom, and also because it's overwhelmingly likely the mainstream view will utterly tear the outsider view apart. So for all those reasons, this stage one has to go first. (we can't do that here in reality, but we could choose to switch over to this process I will outline, before requiring any movement from edgar) The same components are brought to bear. The same mainstream consensus position is brought into play. But this formula, is that the mainstream principle is put in the dock. What MINIMALLY would have to be wrong or only partial, for the outsider principle to be correct? The approach to this has to be as committed as the other way around. So there's no blanket assertions allowed of the form "basically the whole edifice of scientific knowledge (or a key advance like relativity) would be thrown out". Not without a step by step argument that says so. There's also some built in checks and balances. One involves recognition of what I said above about every single blocktime (historic) period since the dawn of science. So what we're looking for is not that relativity is wholly wrong because if that's the case, it's goodbye Edgar's theory because relativity is about the best piece of science we've ever had or sitting at that top table anyway. So we're explicitly talking about - and coming clean about - the peripheral elements of relativity (or whatever). There are going to be peripheral elements. there always are. Because, if there weren't, there wouldn't be a problem unifying qm and relativity in this case. Is blocktime a peripheral element? This shouldn't be answered in terms of what YOU believe, but structurally and historically. Was it part of Einstein's theory, which he directly inferred major non-trivial predictions about, which were later verified in trumps? If so, it's not peripheral. But if that isn't the standing of blocktime, it's at least more peripheral than the parts that do have that standing. If it was controversial right up to recently, or still is, it's right out there at the periphery. If that is the standing of blocktime, then the non-peripheral parts of relativity do not have a solution for the absolute god's eye view of reality, and that being the case, Edgar's vision is a candidate for that. In whichy case, we play the game 'What would it take for his idea to be true (at bare minimum)" Another built part of the process, is that we make an effort to compare what Edgar's theory offers that is distinct from relativity (that being the major competitor). This is because, they might offer very different things with very little overlap. In which case, again, it is worth playing the game 'what would it take', because it might not take a lot and might be compatible for the non-peripheral elements of relativity. I think this is quite likely the case here. Edgar has effectively pinned a shedload of ideas, on a single critical conjecture for one aspect of fundamental reality. P-Time. He's done the right thing by starting his case for that, in aspects of reality most obviously true and intuitive. That's the right way to start...the tautology as it were. I think he gets a lot wrong in making the selections that he does. They aren't ideal for what an outsider theory needs to accomplish, because he's landing hard at where key reasoning or consequences take place in one our best pieces of science. Doing that requires major time his side acquiring don-like expertise in relativity. It's a baddie his side. I also think he gets a lot wrong in the way he reasons from those obvious everyday insights. For one thing a ToE is inherently associated with a standard commiserate with a theory for all of reality. People ignore the standard. They pretend it isn't necessary or isn't real. But as Churchill said in a very different context "......in the end, there it is" . Part of that standard, I think, is that if you are building a ToE, then every independent component that you bring to bear, you must independently have a major theory about, that ultimately proves consistent withm, and not a tiny bit other than, the most core (least peripheral) elements of that Toe. Edgar wants to use the 'obvious' directly. So he needs to have a general theory, that as just one of its consequences, explains the nature of the obvious, and with that, the comprehensive range of issues that his methodology will need to compensate for in the course of his reasoning. But I guess that's my tuppence worth, which I'm very naugtilly trying to sneak in. Take it or leave it. But back to the main point. Edgar's theory is well structured for this 'what would it take' process, because he has nailed his colours to something that everything else needs to be true. p-TIME. So finishing up (with apologies for gasbagging too long) it looks to me that Edgar's theory is offering a solution for all of reality, which relativity does not offer. He is minimally overlapping with relativity, with p-time, such that his idea can be falsified to a reasonable standard of proof, by relativity. But the question is, in this process, can his p-time be TRUE...maybe with some modifications that do not destroy its essence WITHOUT the most non-peripheral most powerfully authenticated core of relativity having to be false? That's the process in a nutshell. The benefit to the consensus side is that it's a rare opportunity to test and look at with new eyes what we think must be so. We keep that grounded by making it cast iron requirement that relativity must be uncontradiicted where it is non-peripheral. We benefit by looking at relativity with new eyes in terms of what is and isn't peripheral. The outsider man benefits because he gets to fully engage with a clear sense he's being allowed a fair shot at the coconut. He gets to learn something more about our very best theory perhaps. But either way, in the event, he gets his day in a fair court, and you know, if he's a truth seeker, that's probably all he wants. Truth seekers don't want that day on their deathbed full of comforting self-delusion. If they did, they would have chosen god. They want to KNOW, even if that's knowing they don't know.
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