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Kyote11, Seems odd that you should find any truth in this, and then later deride the patriarcal paradigm that is destroying us. Which is it? Regards, TAR2

Aristarchus, I think important also in this discussion is keeping in mind that each of us might be referring to the same truth and reality, but misunderstand the nature of the reference made by the other. What is figurative and what is literal, what is fact(true) and what is conjecture(thinkable and possibly true)? There is a thing about "dogma", that says THIS particular thinkable thing IS TRUE. Science, as far as I have observed it, says only that THIS particular thinkable thing works out to be consistent with reality so far, but we will keep on testing THIS, in every way we can think of. I see no dogma in science. Athough I do continue to look for it, to see if my conjecture, that there is no dogma in science, might be incorrect. On the other hand, if a religious dogma, or a philosophical dogma, has said that THIS is the case, and I personally do not see the reasons why that would need to be the case, I would ask for the conjecturer to provide me with a way to test the conjecture, so I could experience its existence and know for myself that it indeed was fact and true and real, and fit in flawlessly with all else I know to be true. If a conjecture doesn't fit reality. It is wrong and should be, and is, automatically in need of revision or dismissal. If a conjecture does fit reality in ones imagination, but can not be tested against reality, it has no way to be considered fact. Many if not all of us hold conjectures about the nature of reality. We each have to be correct, in that since we all seem to be in the same universe, there is only one "reality" that we are all subject to, and existant in, and that therefore THIS reality is true and correct and is indeed the one we all are referring to. But which parts of it, and the nature of it, that we each conjecture about is obviously up for discussion, and exploration, and discovery. If anybody claims that they hold the key, and are the only one that can see the truth...I think they have a problem with understanding the difference between facts and conjecture. Regards, TAR2

Well, there you have it. What now?

questionposter, Well yes. But if both love and hate are the opposite of indifference, you can think of indifference as no compulsion to go one way or the other. This puts indifference in the "no drive", no action, no movement camp. It would be the opposite of any human emotion. One could not use it as the opposite of just any one emotion. What we are after is the opposite of love in particular. So if you take all the actions, and drives and forces and purposes that you associate with love, and consider the opposite actions and drives and forces and purposes...you wind up with hate. If you go one way or the other, and the way you go is love, then the other way is hate. If you go the hate route, then the other way is love. Indifference may be the opposite of love in that with indifference you don't do anything and with love you are doing something. But if you are considering love a way to go, the opposite way would be hate. Regards, TAR2

Love might be desire, but also friendship, and concern, and devotion and attention, and so forth. I am still liking my definition which takes a lot of the aspects of love, used in many contexts into account. Love is when you include another entity in your feeling of self. If this definition where to be accepted by anybody (other than me), then the opposite of love would be NOT including an entity in your feeling of self. This would look a lot like indifference in some cases, but one could still care some about another entity, without including it in your feeling of self. But then again, if you could take it or leave it, then it isn't really something you consider part of you, and your feeling of self, so indifference would not be a bad way to describe your feelings toward it. But that leaves some room for "liking" something but not considering it part of your feeling of self. In that regard, like would be something inbetween indifference and love, which would put "dislike" on the other side of indifference, and by extension, hatred even farther on the other side. So the correlary to my definition of love would be something like "Hatred is when you exclude another entity from your feeling of self." So all in all, I would have to say that the opposite of love, is hate. Regards, TAR2

edwardreed, Yes we have a human "bias". We have to, that is what we are. My thinking is along your line, that intelligence is best considered as something that everything has to some degree, that human's have a whole lot of. We have, through the mechanisms that evolution has developed for us, and through exploration and experiment, discovered much about the world we are part of. Other things do not seem to be so aware and capable. How we do it, how we "emerge" with this awareness is my facination. I have an overall goal, in my investigations over the past year, to understand the "meaning" behind language. The universal grammar that infants are in possession of, does in my guess, have everything to do with what a human is, and does. It is not something magically gifted from above, but something ACTUALLY developed from millions of years of interaction with reality, and "remembered" through the passing on of the resulting genetic patterns to the next generation. In this, our intelligence is not wholly our own, but a reflection of the world from which we emerged, and in which we reside. Regards, TAR2

does love "encompass" fear as well?

edwardreed, I don't disagree with what you say. Do have a slightly different angle on it though. If we are in and of reality, we both belong to it and are in possesion of it. You think of God as a person that contains it all. This is not "wrong" in my estimation, because if you look at a human, take you or me, we each ARE people, that contain it all. We are representative of the universe, made of it's atoms and able to sense and remember, and manipulate it, internally and externally. What we say goes. That is we have the responsiblility and the authority to live, to be. We are, in this sense God, and if collectively have determined what is good and what is bad, we should most definitely listen to ourselves. Regards, TAR2

The truck is smaller than my thumb. The truck is bigger than the car I am in. The truck remains 1/2mile away from me. The truck is traveling 64 miles per hour. I am sitting still in my car. All these dictums cannot be true. They are contratictory. Owl, Taking more than one frame of reference into account, one can sort out the inconsistencies and know how to translate from one frame to the other. Yes the truck is real, and is measured small and stationary if you are far away and moving at the same speed. And if you are close and moving at the same speed relative to the road it measures rather large. What size IS the truck? (it is the size that is consistent with ALL FORs) Regards, TAR

MD, I obviously have some doubts. It is well known that science progresses and new discoveries often automatically rearrange our models of the world. Owl was resting his case. I was not convinced. To move forward on this discussion, in my estimation is to exactly not consider one's own model "certain". To do so is the mistake any "dogma" makes. I have, and do, consider that there is "truth" in the model that every single person on this planet holds. The models are not the same and the "best" model possible is one that "includes" everybody's personal model. I have been on a train of thought, or an investigation into the "nature" of this basic dilema we face. Our own model is the "only" one we are capable of holding. Yet we know there are others. In this, SR is an "improvement" over a model that considers this FOR "preferred". It establishes a framework in which "true" things exist that can not be seen except by stepping into someone else's shoes. There are some places, where this concept can be used in arguments both for and against science or religion. From either perpective, the other makes unreal claims, that don't fit the "model" held by the model holder. What often or always follows is a "strawman" argument where one finds the "inconsistencies" of the other's model, based on where they are inconsistent with their own. In the history of Western civilization, it is interesting to note that Moses addressed this question and realized that there is in actually only one God, only one nature, only one reality that we are all subject to. Mohammed made the same realization and urged all the idol worshippers in his region to recognize their "error" and submit to the one reality. Science is an attempt to reach the truth through discovering things about reality that are evident to anybody and everybody, anytime, anywhere, following any possible trajectory. Same basic parameters are engaged in any human endevor to understand our existence. We exist, the world exists. We each hold a model of it, that includes all of it. It is my body, my family, my town, my state, my country, my Earth, my Solar System, my Galaxy, my Universe, yet other's models are of many of the same things. It is their universe too. Regards, TAR2

OK, To sum up. Objective reality exists. We experience it all from here and now. Even a test instrument will do the same. We experience it, and measure it from our frame of reference. In this, a FOR is a subjective interpretation of objective reality. With our abilities to remember, and model, and make analogies, and our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes, we can project and understand the nature of objective reality, even beyond the limits of our senses, and that of our equipment. With this "subjective" model we can understand not only what is here and now, but what most likely was before, and what kinds of things are likely to come next. In this, our subjective model, is of an objective reality, that actually is the case. The cap'n and md win. Owl loses. Length contraction and time dilation, due to a FOR moving at relativistic speeds to ours is actually the case. As surely as you can hold your thumb up at arms length and block out an entire 16 wheeler 1/2mile ahead on the highway, and still know that the truck is "objectively" real (and much bigger than a thumb,) SR describes reality as it actually is. Case closed.

Further "off topic" ramblings. If an object is visible to us (at any wavelength), then, in an expanding universe, it was closer to us, the day before it emitted the photons than the day it emitted the photons. What that object is doing "now" is of little concern to us. The photons we receive from it tommorrow, though, are of concern. So it is the photons we receive from the object today, that define its position in "our" reality. Likewise, in defining that object's "effects" on us, we were never concerned with it's location at an "abstract" location in space and time, as much as we were concerned with the gravity and photons we were receiving from it, at the speed of light "in reality". Historically, that object had to be with us, since we were "first" able to see it. And it's effects on us have been constant and cumulative, though perhaps "diminishing" as our spatial separation has grown. Thus, an entity, located at a particular place and time, such as a human, or a rock, is subject to the "conditions" at that spacetime coordinate, that include to no small amount, the arrangement of the universe around that point. Close things, are of just as much of an "immediate" concern as far things. Looking up at a plane crossing infront of the cresent moon on a starry night, the plane, the moon, and the stars, are all present. They exist in the here and now. They are real. Regards, TAR2

md65536 , This is probably the case, but it is still a reality that exists regardless of our measurements. I am taken by the fact that a mechanical device will "sense" reality in an analogous fashion to the way we do. Sure, we designed the darn thing to "mimick" our abilities, so what would you expect, but still there is "something" to sense. The phonograph needle on the wax disc still records the vibrations. Even if nobody is around to play it back. The universe is very big, very old, and very detailed. More to it, than we can hold. Except, as a universe, it seems to me to not be doing only one thing at a time. And it seems to not be finished doing things. That is my hesitation in agreeing that a statement such as "the universe is accelerating" has any "real" meaning. We evolved along with the universe. We are made of its atoms. The patterns we carry have developed in the universe, on this planet. We are not capable, logically speaking, of doing anything that the universe can not do. Because we are examples of its nature. I would have to guess that reality is exactly as it appears to be. If one could take an "other than human" view of things as they really are, then it would not be a human view. I do not have to agree with Owl's model, or with Einstein's, or with Mohammed's or with Mose's, or with yours, to see the consistencies between them all. What is left, when all the imaginary considerations are subtracted, IS reality, as it really is. There is nobody to talk to about it, but other human's, and our inner "understanding" of our connection and belonging to it. Sure we can imagine being very small or very large or very old or very fast. We can even imagine all points in the universe happening "now". But it is certainly not a realistic view. No thing can see every location at once. Except us, when we look at the stars. Regards, TAR2

Owl, I was not specific about a particular ricochet experiment. Any you care to formulate will do. There is no experiment we have been able to devise, to determine that we are moving through an ether that is the medium through which light travels. Any imagined such stationary reality, that we are moving through, seems not to be revealing itself to us. Our experiments seem to tell us that light travels at light speed, any time we measure it, going in any direction. It would indeed be wrong to assume that therefore we are stationary and everything else is moving. In fact we know we are moving, around our axis, around our Sun, around the center of our Galaxy, and the Galaxy has motion toward and away from neighboring Galaxies. There is not a reference point we can chose to determine our motion, that is not itself, moving. Yet "moving in reference to what" is a consideration we have to entertain when discussing velocity. The whole point of this thread, is whether or not there is a "real" universe, that exists without our measurements, and what the nature of that entity is. Not a soul here has indicated that they thought there was not a real universe that would continue to exist even if we were not here to see it. Your claim is that the real universe is the way you and all the humans that have witnessed it and measured it, figure it to be. Same claim that everybody on the thread it making. But you make an additional claim. That an observer traveling through our frame of reference at a relativistic speed (compared to our "stationary" coordinate system) will still see the Earth as round and a certain distance from the Sun, because "that is the way reality is." Where you are making an error, is by calling your frame of reference the "only" one that should be used to determine "reality" as it really is, when your whole main point is that reality exists regardless of whether or not anybody is looking at it. By performing a ricochet experiment in the relativistic observer's frame of reference, and then plotting that experiment against our frame of reference's coordinate system, you will find that the observer's measurements were correct, your measurements were correct...but the line the observer drew from himself, to an object and back, when plotted against our coordinate system, does not have the same length. We figure we are stationary and right about the way the universe is. The observer figures he is stationary and right about the way the universe is. Of the view that you, Owl takes, and the view that SR takes, which view is better at attempting to understand why and how both us and the observer are correct in observing the universe as it really is, independent of anybody looking at it? Regards, TAR2

Schrödinger's hat, From your #484: Well I understand that part of the reasoning...but the universe also evolved. Stars went through a few "stages". The heavy elements we find on Earth are not exactly Helium atoms. Some processes "made" them what they are. Stars had to live and die and the remnants had to have come back together and "cook" in a new nuclear furnace. It seem reasonable to assume that the supernovae from billions of years ago were residents of a "younger" universe, that had different characteristics, less heavy elements for instance, and possibly other important differences, that only "time" and evolution, one thing building from the results of the earlier process, could establish. In this regard, the "standard candle" of a supernova happening in a "young" universe seen at Z=6, might very well not mean the same thing as a supernova happening in a 13.6 billion year old universe that we see "nearby" and only "recently" happening. My confusion comes from how logical assumptions are carried through in one regard, and then ignored or discarded in other regards. Too often for my taste "esquitely precise" measurements and determinations are made, based on logically carrying forward from one assumption to those that follow logically and mathematically going deeper and deeper into the esoteric minutia, that the momentum takes on a truth of its own, unrelated to common sense and realty. If something unexpected is encountered, it might simply mean we are looking at it wrong. A lot of times when I read about theories and things like Bell's inequalities and such, I get lost in the logic of "well we expected it to look like this, but it looked like that, so this other thing must be the case" Huh? Were you wrong first time or not? What if we expected it to be the second way? Would then the third thing not have to be the case, but simply some other logical explanation of the second thing, might be the ticket, discarding the erroneous assumptions that brought about the surprise? Reminds me of Indiana Jones running into a huge skilful foe with glinting swords flashing in a dazzling display obviously outmatching Indy's strength and skill and stature. So Indy shoots him. Regards, TAR2 Owl, Were the lines in the flybyguy's ricochet experiment, the same length and straightness in his FOR as in ours? Would he not have seen the experiment, if we performed it, as having the same "odd" distance and curve? Serious question. I don't know why you are ignoring it. Do you not have an answer? Or is the correct answer contrary to your 3D only claim? Certainly your 180 IQ can handle anything my 130ish could throw at you. Try answering. I double dog dare you. Regards, TAR2

OK, Confused again, as to the meaning of things. Brought on by the three Nobel winners who determined that the universe is accelerating. What does THAT mean. If the universe is a four dimensional manifold and time and space are sort of different aspects of the same thing, then time is just as enormous in some sense, as space is. This being the case, it is difficult for me to figure what someone might mean by the universe IS expanding. Especially since they come to this conclusion by looking as supernovae that were doing whatever we see them doing...billions of years ago. What reasoning allows scientists to declare what the universe is doing now, based on what they see it doing so far away in space and time? And it makes me wonder what is meant by statements such as the universe has x.x to the xx atoms in it. x.x times 10 to the xx NOW or x.x times 10 to the xx THEN? or always? If a particle exists for a nanosecond or for 13 billion years, is it counted once or a zillion times? I don't know. Confused again. And on simultaneity. If it is defined as two events happening at the same time to an observer in at least one frame of reference, then take me, looking at the stars. Everything I see is happening at the same time. So the events close, and the events far are still simultaneous. This is contrary to the imagined NOW that puts everything in the universe at the same 13.7 billion year old NOW. Perhaps I just need to watch the baseball game. The Yanks are either going to win. Or they are going to lose. I can handle that. Regards, TAR2

Owl, Perform a ricochet experiment, two straight lines in the flybyguy's FOR. Tell me what it looks like in our FOR. Are the lines straight, or curves? Regards, TAR2 what's' the REAL length of the lines?

the above was written last night, posted 8PM. This morning I had a waking thought that applies to this thread in several ways. Consider the concept of the ricochet. What it means to the establishment of self and FOR. And the difference in the path and meaning of a ricochet to a self in a FOR that is moving relative to a previously established one.

Owl, OK, I don't understand SR completely. I just have the main drift. And as we have established, the NOW of SR counts all points that are not moving relative to us as being in our now simultaneously, regardless of their distance from us. This NOW is contrived, imaginary with no way to check on what is really happening NOW at distant points. We are doing it in our minds, with communication between the observers at these points happening at the speed of thought. But we know from experience that stuff happening NOW a lightyear away, will arrive here in a year. So what we have going on in our imaginations is REALLY happening now. It proves out later, to have been the case. Same operation is going on when you imagine the Sun an AU away and run a mind experiment and calculate when the light will leave a spot and arrive at another, and when something moving with a velocity relative to both the Earth and the Sun will be at various points, and what they will see. You are contriving the whole thing. Imagining the whole thing based upon the measurements you hear have been made, operating in this environment, from the perspective of the Sun and the Earth being stationary relative to each other, always a constant (give or take) distance away, and light always taking the appropriate time to make the trip. Then you have to switch back and forth from a Sun observer to a laser guy, to the other laser guy, to the Earth observer, and make everything add up in terms of who will see what when, and all you have to use is your "one" perspective, counting the Sun and the Earth as both in the same stationary frame. YOU have to contrive this imaginary NOW to make these calculations, and state how far the Sun REALLY is based on how long light will take to make the trip. But take a laser fighter guy/gal by himself/herself. All the points in his/her NOW are stationary in reference to him/her. He/She is not moving. The Sun and the Earth and the other laser fighter are. His/her calculation of the distance light travels in a second, is based on how long it takes light to go from a point that is stationary, one light second away from him/her. This point, that he/she is measuring to, is stationary to him/her, but moving at the same velocity as she/he is, according to us and our Sun/Earth FOR. You, Owl, try to pick apart SR, by saying that the whole universe has to be interpreted as having only one distance and time measurement possibility, and that is the one taken from the Earth/Sun FOR. SR on the other hand says, that the measurements of time and distance along the direction of the difference in velocity between two frames will nescessarily differ, because the universe IS only one way and C will ALWAYS be measured at the same speed, by anybody stationary in an inertial reference frame. SR says better, what you are claiming. You are claiming that our FOR counts in determining the actual true measurements of reality, and anything else is a contrived abstraction. SR states that the contrived abstractions of any and all FORs are equally correct, and when taken together, will accurately describe reality, as it really is. Regards, TAR2

Owl, Interesting to me, is that early on in this thread, I understood what you were saying and agreed with it. Later on, after I finally understood the meaning behind SR and what it was trying to say, I now find that I understand what you are saying, but also see that you do not understand the consequences of the speed of light measuring the same for any and all FORs. If one FOR is moving at a velocity to another FOR, and observers in each frame witness the same events, they will not, indeed can not report the same distances between the events and the same timing of the events. They will both observe the events. They are real events. And they have to have the same reality in both frames. Since the speed of light does not change. What is different between the frames? Regards, TAR2

Owl, Early on, you said: Cap'n Refsmmat replied: Seems Cap'n answered your logic early on and agreed that indeed immutable objective reality does exist, but is not completely realized as a pie until you assemble the slices. You seem to be arguing that the slice is what is real, and if it is not, then neither is the pie. Well, I think, after following this thread for a bit, that it is evident that the pie is real. Although one slice is not enough to describe it fully. Regards, TAR2

Appolinaria, Nice post. I think we are thinking along the same lines. I might add (assuming we are addressing GustovoB's question), that we work with what others have achieved. Stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. For instance, a team comes up with a "Nano", or other device with certain capabilities, and EVERYBODY goes to work finding uses for it, that improve it's usefulness. Such with ideas. Good ones are improved upon and shared. The shared ideas that work, are improved upon, and shared again. Regards, TAR2

On reflection, this might be a misstatement. The instant the universe became transparent, light was only coming to a specified point from the items immediatedly around it. The "clarity" probably would have expanded from this specified point, "clearing the fog" in a sphere that expanded at the speed of light. Might be said that the background microwave radiation is our point's current clear/fog borderline. Regards, TAR2

GustavoB, I think it is a constant thing that happens. Each of us has ideas based on what is happening around us. Say somebody finds some object of value in the junk in the attic. Everybody that hears about, takes a peek in their attic. With ideas, everybody is constantly putting all the "variables" together in their minds in various ways. Taking the new things that are discovered, and seeing if that "idea" fits anything else they know about. Many times an advance in one field of science or technology or industry, will be followed by a flurry of advances in other fields of endeavor as that "idea" is modified and applied to other things. "Good" ideas, we hear about (that work) are instantly incorporated in our thinking and are integrated, across the board of ideas and things we are concerned with, to see if that "idea" might be applied elsewhere. "Bad" ideas, (that don't work) are simply discarded. That is my take. Does that address your question at all? Regards, TAR2

Mrs Zeta, Yeah, if you want to create an entity with human intelligence, get a young woman and a man together in a private place with a bottle of wine and no birth control. Do this every night for about a month, and 9 or 10 months later... wah la. Regards, TAR2 Schrödinger's hat, Well I get your distinction, and know that there is "something" about what we do that is different than what a tree does. But I think it more of a distinction in degree, than a distinction in kind. Life on this planet is interwoven. Some of the chemicals we need to survive are produced by other living things. The amount of available chemicals that we use to grow and repair and metabolize in the biosphere is a result of living things living and dying and being used by other living things. For 100s of billions of years. We "fit" the planet. Not only our evolutionary history, but that of countless other species is involved. Like a fish "conditioning" the tank. If we know how to metabolize, and grow, and differenciate organs and such, it has something to do with the "skill" of the mitochondria, and the DNA and RNA that pass a "working" pattern to the next generation. Our brains have analogies, sometimes close analogies to other mammals. I would not hastily pooh pooh the accomplishments and skill of a Digger Wasp and religate their existence to a "deterministic system" with no intelligence involved. We are just better at doing what we do, and the wasp better at doing what it does. And the cherry tree better at being a cherry tree. The systems are the same in many regards. And at no point do emergent properties emerge, without something to emerge from. If you roll the dice you get 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 or 12. You will never roll a Queen of Spades. For that you need a deck of cards. Regards, TAR2 Quick thought on the Digger Wasp not dragging an antenaeless cricket. I have had a number of occassions where I chopped up a fallen large branch or tree into draggable components. I learned to always pick up the cut and drag the branch that way. You have the heaviest part in your hand and the branches which usually branch away from the trunk slide nicely over the ground and you and your load are the "thinnest" possible profile for passing between trees and other obstacles. In fact, in this orientation the branches "yield" to the obstacles. If you grab one of the small branches and drag your load sideways there is MUCH more resistance, sometimes impossible resistance. And forget trying to drag a branch from the tip. If you were dragging a branch into a hole, you would do it with a grip on the cut. So would a Digger Wasp drag a cricket.