Philosophy ILP style

You’re late from your boss’s perspective. From your own, you are not.

Everyone is entitled to their own BS! LOL

If he tries to fire me I can take him to court and prove I wasn’t late, using Einstein’s theory.

If the judge is a Relativist I think I can win the case! LOL

I think that is where you are stuck.
You measure relative distance in order to determine length.
And you measure relative changes of state in order to determine time.
And then in English we say - “it has length” - and “it took/occupied time” or “it has duration”.
We can say that time is a measure of the length along a time line that stores ordered “instances in time” but the concern is that line is not consistently determinable in all places.

You are forcing me to go lookup James’ affectance ontology bits about the basic construct of distance and time - why they exist and how the concepts are built. —

It seems to be all about propagation speed. The greater the mass field - more dense the affectance - the slower energy/affectance propagates. Science says that, James explained why - so I am confident it is true. And that one fact gives justification to all of General relativity which involves both time dilation and length contraction. So let me explain it in General relativity terms before we get into the issues with Special relativity.

The mass particles that makeup matter are made of propagating affectance (or “energy”) and when that propagation gets delayed - the motion of any mass particles gets retarded. As the mass particles get retarded - the moving objects that are formed of them get slowed. When a mass field is highly dense (close to a black hole or in a darkmatter field) the propagation of affectance is much slower than it would be in open space. So in such a field everything is comparatively slower - and also shorter.

If you could stand distant from a black-hole and drop a ticking clock toward the black hole - as the clock got closer to the black hole it would tick slower and slower and get smaller and smaller. But you could only observe that change if you stayed out of that field. If you fell in along with the clock - you would not be able to detect any change in ticking speed or in the size of the clock.

And that is what “relativity” is about. Observable measurements depend on which environment the observer is in relative to what he is observing.

When something is moving and we want to know how fast it is moving we compare the object’s motion to that of a clock. If the object moved 1 meter while our clock hand moved 6 degrees we say that it moved “1 meter in one second”. We named the 6 degree movement of our clock “1 second of time”. And we determine the time it took for the object to move 1 meter by relating it to how far our clock hand moved - that is relative motion. And motion is no more than change in position - but we don’t have to use a positional change - we could use a color change or size change. We choose a convenient standard of change in order to measure time.

And that is why -
Time = the measure of relative change. It is only a relative change that tells us of time. Without relative changes - there is no time - all is still. If everything changes in the exact same manner - still there is no sign of time passage - we would have no means to know that anything changed at all - and “if it doesn’t affect anything - it doesn’t exist”.

And when the environment alters our standard - perhaps without our knowledge - the measurement that we call “time” changes also - but it cannot be discovered if everything changed with it - because it is only a relative measurement. To know that it changed - we have to use a standard that is outside the environment that changed.

And the traveler would still see the Earth orbit the Sun 40,000 times - but each orbit would be much faster by his own clock.

I beg to differ.

I am inclined to believe that length belongs to the object. It is the object that is long. By definition. Consider that how long an object is is the same regardless of how you describe its length. “1 foot” and “30.48 cm” are two different ways to represent one and the same length. They are not two different lengths. They are one and the same length expressed differently. You don’t say, “Well, from the point of view of Americans, this object is 1 foot long; but from the point of view of everyone else, this object is 30.48 cm long.” The length of the object is the same from everyone’s point of view. How they describe it, however, not necessarily so.

To measure something merely means to describe that something (most commonly verbally) in quantiative terms. And in order to do that, you have to pick a familiar object (such as human foot.) The length of that object then becomes known as “unit of length”. After that, you have to figure out how many objects of that size must be put next to each other in order to create an object that is as long as the one you’re measuring. That number coupled with the name of the unit of length you’re using is how you finally construct the description of the length of that object. That description, however, is not length.

English language supports it. We say “Let’s measure length!” That implies that length is the object of measurement (rather than the result of measurement e.g. “10 centimeters”.) Who says “Let’s measure relative distance”? Who uses the word “relative distance”?

I will respond to the rest of your post at another time.

As soon as we say that some thing occupies space and time, we’re saying that that thing has properties such as length, height, volume and so on. How much space there is, how populated that space is and what populates it is irrelevant. Even if that thing occupies all of space and even if all of that space is indivisible, that thing has volume. What that thing doesn’t have, in such a case, are descriptions of its volume in terms of other things (because there are no other things; there are no feet, for example) and descriptions in terms of smaller portions of space (space is indivisible, so there are no smaller portions of space either.) The number of ways its volume can be expressed is thus limited. But its volume can still be expressed. You can express it in terms of how much space there is at that particular time (since it occupies all of the space, that would be “1”) or you can express it in terms of itself (which would be “1” since its volume is indentical to its volume.) The former may be impractical and the latter may be useless but they are nonetheless accurate descriptions and that thing has volume regardless. And if we changed the total volume of space in the universe and added new objects to it, the volume of that thing would remain exactly as it was before.

Except that we are not talking about the things. We are talking about the measures - and the measurements with their standards belong strictly to the observer.

Objects only have properties. They have no measurement of their properties - that is up to the observer. And observers use comparison to accomplish that - “A’s property is 2.5 times as much as B’s property”.

A single object floating alone in space has dimensions - but possesses no information concerning how big or small those dimensions are. All measurements are relative.

Change is a property of an object - but how much change is a relative measurement belonging entirely to the observer called “time”.

Objects do not possess time as a property. Time is a relative measure constructed by an observer relating to how much change one object expressed compared to another’s changing.

obsrvr524,

You think 1 stack divided into 3 pieces means you have 3 stacks. So you must also think that 1 Meter divided into 3 pieces means you have 3 meters. You do not know the difference between a quantity and a unit.

The duration of time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun once is 1 duration of time.

There are an infinite amount of units you could use to express that duration of time, such as Second, Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Year, Decade, Century…,
all having different quantities for 1 duration of time, such as 31,557,600 Seconds, or 525,960 Minutes, or 8,766 Hours, or 365.25 Days, or 1 Year, or .10 Decade, or .01 Century. They all have the same duration of time.

You are mixing units when you say one person says it took Earth 100 years to orbit the Sun 100 times, and another person says it took 1 year for Earth to orbit the Sun 100 times.

The mistake is in the units, and they are not being represented properly. It’s the same mistake as when you claim 1 stack divided into 3 pieces means you have 3 stacks. You do not have 3 stacks, you have 3 parts that are roughly .333… of a stack.

According to you, 1 Dollar divided into 3 parts means you have 3 Dollars.

If the traveler sees the Earth orbit the Sun 40,000 times, that is 40,000 years, or 4,000 Decades, or 400 Centuries.

You can have 4 different clocks, one that reads 40, one that reads 400, one that reads 4,000, and one that reads 40,000. They ALL measured the same duration of time.

The clocks that reads 40 means each 1 is 1,000 years
The clock that reads 400 means each 1 is 100 years
The clock that reads 4,000 means each 1 is 10 years
The clock that reads 40,000 means each 1 is 1 year

They all measure the same duration of time, just in different units.

So what?
This is puerile bollocks

It needs to be pointed out that on the outbound journey, the traveling twin and the earthbound twin each sees the other’s clock as running slower.

On the inbound journey, when the twin returns to earth, each sees the other’s clock running faster. When the traveling twin returns to earth and compares his clock with his twin’s clock, each will agree that less time elapsed for the traveling twin. There is a good Scientific American analysis of this which I will try to dig up.

Time and the Twin Paradox

It’s got nothing to do with “sees.”

If the traveler travels 299,792,458 meter sticks laid end to end, and his clock elapsed 2 seconds, then his velocity is .5c, according to his clock. Light takes 1 second to travel that distance, and he takes 2 seconds. He is traveling at 1/2 the speed of light!

No.
The earth bound twin, were he able to see the traveller’s clock would see it going slower, whilst the travellling twin would see the earth boud twin’s clock as going faster.

True

He is talking about the Doppler effect - which is a different issue. The light taking time to get to the observer has its own effects separate from Special relativity effects.

Except those 1 meter sticks measure differently to the traveler.

Except there are 299,792,458 of them, regardless of how long they are. Oh, and by the way, they are METER STICKS!

Oh, and by the way, the speed of light is 299,792,458 METERS PER SECOND!

The traveler, looking at HIS CLOCK notices that at t=1 second he has counted 149,896,229 sticks that he has traveled. He is halfway there at t=1.0 second, according to his watch. At t=2 seconds according to his watch he has traveled all 299,792,458 sticks. His speed at t=1 was .5c, and at t=2 it was .5c. He had a constant velocity of .5c the entire trip.

He waits 10 seconds and starts to return to his twin on Earth. He travels the same sticks on the way home, and it takes him 2 seconds to travel those sticks.

He traveled 2 seconds there, waited 10 seconds, and returned in 2 more seconds. Total time gone was 14 seconds.

He ask his brother what time it is on his watch on Earth. The brother agrees, 14 seconds has elapsed.

Gotcha!

If they only measure 1/2 meter to the traveler - 299,792,458 of them means he only traveled 1/2 a lightsecond.

They are meter sticks, and light takes 1 second to travel those sticks, by definition.

So you say the traveler thinks that 299,792,458 meter sticks is the distance of 1/2 light second?

How much time does the traveler think it takes for light to travel those sticks?

_
Why would any traveller see/experience metre sticks as half-metre sticks?

The traveler has a meter stick with him - and he measures those sticks as only 1/2 meter. Down in one corner he sees it written - “Meter” but on the back side he sees - “Made in China” - so he understands.

Observed distance contracts when at extreme velocity (according to SP).

They each have “1 METER” printed on them in large letters for all to see! LOL

Only an Einstein traveler would say they are only 1/2 meter! LOL