tar

Owl, From your #453 I think you are forgetting something. Time elapses even if things in your Frame Of Reference DON'T move relative to you. Like the half full cup of lukewarm coffee next to you, which was a full, hot, cup of coffee next to you, 5 minutes ago. Let's say the flybyguy flies by and measures the cup full and hot. How many minutes will pass, on the flybyguy's watch until he measures the cup half full and lukewarm? (Remember all of the flyby guy's observers are in his FOR, have watches that are ticking the same rate as his, can radio to the flybyguy with instaradio, and are also passing by (the somewhat oddly shaped cup) at the flybyguy's velocity.) You see Owl, (and I think I can talk to you, since you are still misunderstanding something that I also misunderstood, which I now think I understand the "meaning" of), your understanding is from this FOR, and from this FOR, everything exists as you say, when and where it happens, in the exact shape/position, and the exact time/causal order/duration, that it actually happens, regardless of whether anybody is looking at it or not. But move, in reference to this frame of reference, not in imaginary space, but actually through this frame of reference and you have aquired a new frame of reference where time still ticks off the same, meters are still meters, and seconds are still seconds and light still travels 300,000,000meters in one second. All that has changed is you and your FOR through the previous FOR. You are stationary, as far as you are concerned, and its your previous FOR that is moving through your present one. If you compare, from a fullgod perspective, the measurements you would have taken from the first FOR and the measurements you would have taken from the second FOR, the position/shape of events, and the duration/timing of events, would nescessarily, not be the same. That is what the transformations of SR allow us to do. SR describes exactly how it is possible that everything really exists and really is happening in actual reality, even though the measurements of time and distance disagree between frames. Light only travels at C, in both frames, and provides the invariant link between. Regards, TAR2 Or another way to look at it. Presently, each point in the universe is one universe age old. Each point has access to, or is being reached by electromagnetic patterns emitted from all the other points in the universe, propogating at C. This has been the case since the universe became transparent. Each point is separated by a distance, such that this propagation takes a certain amount of time to go from point A to point B. Say if the propagation takes 1 sec, then A and B are 300,000,000meters apart in space. Normally, if I was glued to A and something happened at B, it would take light 1 second to reach A. If I cheat the system and move toward B very very fast, I will be at neither point A or B but at all the points between consecutively. If I run into the propagation, it will be getting to me at the speed of light, and at that moment that I get to the propagation, I will be at the point that normally receives propagations from B at the speed of light there, but the next moment I am at a different point, so WHEN I ran into the propagation, and WHERE I ran into it, need some figuring. Point A is getting farther away from me in time and space, and B is getting closer in both. Yet both A and B and me are at a point in the universe that is the age of the universe old, with the propagations from the rest of the universe arriving at our points at the speed of light. The only difference is our relative velocity, hence our take on the separation in both distance and time of commonly witnessed shapes and events. Regards, TAR2

Schrödinger's hat, Interesting the the Turing test involves human language. Along with my thought that "language is communication between two minds that already know each other" it sort of skews any determination a human would make. It is, the Turing test that is, really testing "how well does this mind know me, and how well do I know this mind?" If it appears that the mind under test knows you well, and you know the mind well, then it passes the test. But it is the mind of the programmers who you are really communicating with. So yes, the machine that passes the test "has" human intelligence, but it is an extension of the programmers' wit, and it is the programmers' wit you are testing, and trying to outsmart. If you cannot determine, or judge whether you are communicating with a machine or a human, it is because in both cases, you ARE communicating with a human mind. To test the Digger Wasp intelligence, you would have to already know the mind of the Digger Wasp. We don't know what the Wasp is checking for when it enters the nest again after realigning the prey at the mouth of the hole. Perhaps it has just determined the size and shape and dragability and wheight distribution of the prey and with that information, is "rehearsing" the route into the whole, and checking for a route and storage space that will work. Not unlike a golfer taking a few practice swings a foot away from the ball before stepping up to the putt. If we would distract the golfer, and move the ball, he/she would have to go through the whole routine again. Regards, TAR2 anyway, there is something wrong with a cricket with no antennae. Even a Digger Wasp knows that! insane_alien, So if artificial is "skilled" and "faked" is mimicked or borrowed, then "true" intelligence would be that which "emerges" as an entity aquires a skill, on its own, and retains it, and uses it on its own behalf. Live things have a leg up on machines, in that they have aquired skills and retained them as real components of their being, over many millions of years of interaction with the environment. Schrödinger's hat, Would you say a cherry tree that flowers in the spring, is skilled? I can't do that. All I have is human skills. Regards, TAR2

A human is in and of reality. We experience a "here and now". We internalize the outside world and build an analog model of it. When our model fits the actual world that we have a model of, it makes us feel good. When the actual world does not fit our model, we adjust our model to fit, or when within our power, we adjust the world to fit. When things do not fit, it makes us feel bad. We have hunger, thirst, and other "feelings" of emptiness or lack that "need" to be fulfilled for things to be right. We are born, we grow, we learn about the world, we explore the world, we share our experience of it with others, and try to fix what is "wrong" and enjoy what is right. And we eventually die. If we were to give a man made machine, analogous facilities to ours, and it was able to actually sense the world and move around in it and build an internal model of it AND we would think of a way to reward or pleasure the machine when "fits" between the internal model and the external world were found, and a way to punish or pain the machine when not...then the machine could learn about the world, by itself, and its knowledge would be actual knowledge of the world, not subject to the programmer's code. Efforts that the machine made, would be on its own behalf. It would not be artificial. It's senses would internalize the external real world and build an analog model of it, and it would have reason to explore and learn and fill in any "gaps" between its model and the world it was of and in. Regards, TAR2

New tangent on thread. What role does sleep take, in determining or establishing the baseline (object), from which, and in which changes are noticed? Do the psychological constructs of ID, Ego and superego, have an analog that belongs in this thread? Regards, TAR2

Owl, A meter is the distance light travels in 1 300millionth of a second. A second is the time it takes light to travel a meter. We find this to be the case, no matter what direction we measure in. We define length by the velocity of light. We define time by the velocity of light. Light goes one lightsecond of distance in one second. Light takes a second to travel a lightsecond of distance. True for me and you, and true for the flyby guy. Only works if we are not moving in reference to the A and B we are measuring the distance and time between. Only works if the flyby guy is not moving in reference to the A and B he is measuring the distance and time between. A is real for both us and the flyby guy. B is real for both us and the flyby guy. A and B are only one real distance and time apart. A spacetime interval. Regards, TAR2

#434 Today, 11:42 AM md65536 md65536, Yes, I meant that. The visualization of something happening "now" a lightyear from here, is of course accompanied by the realization that we won't actually have any proof it actually happened till a year from now. We just assume that as we see now what happened there during our year ago simultaneous moment, we will see a year from now what happened there in this simultaneous moment. Didn't you know that you are always supposed to listen to what I mean, not what I say? However, it does bring up an interesting "notion" I have been entertaining. We (us humans) are really in no better or worse position than any other entity in the universe to experience the universe. There are some direct analogies between what we are and do, and what a "non thinking" entity is and does. We absorb and record the universe that arrives here, now. It might even be argued that any entity is "created" by the sum total, the history of the patterns, that have accumulated here and now (which ever here and now you consider). 'Cause every here and now occupies a particular unique position in spacetime, that no other entity but it, occupies, and the arrangement of the rest of the universe around it, is not duplicated ever, anywhere or any time else. It is argued mathematically that somewhere in space and time there is a duplicate TAR. I totally disagree. It is not possible. Cause if he where to point at me, and I were to point at him we would be pointing in opposite directions in space and time, making us each unique at least in the direction we would have to point. Nevermind the fact that I would be pointing from the Milky Way and he would be pointing AT the Milky Way. Anyway this "notion" leads me in the direction of considering what "arrives" here now is of great importance, greater importance than what we imagine will arrive here later. We are making the later up (even though it might actually prove out) and its really not going make any difference to our reality, til later, sometime much later or even so much later, that "who cares" if it is right or wrong. What really matters, what reality really is, is what the universe is actually doing, here, now. That photon, that left Alpha Centuri 4 1/2 years ago, is REALLY hitting my eye NOW, being focused by my lense on some rods and cones that are sending chemical and electrical signals to a brain which is "recording" the event, by physically rearranging synapses and connections, inhibiting and promoting firings that "duplicate" the event in an analog way, and compares it against the "model" of the world already built by past "experiences" such as this. What the universe is really like, could very well be exactly what we experience it to be. If we imagine a view that is NOT from here and now, it is by definition imaginary in nature, and need not actually be the case. Regards, TAR2

sort of like reading a map if you don't believe the map maker knew what he/she was doing you can't prove it by saying that the "blue lines can't be rivers! They are not wet and they don't flow!" You have to read the ledgend and see what the symbols mean, see what scale the map is drawn in, understand what type of map it is and what it is supposed to depict and what it leaves out, AND hold it the right way so real North and the little arrow point the same way. Best regards, TAR2 and probably a good idea to check the date on the map, if you are looking for a road that was recently constructed or a feature recently discovered

Well thanks to umlaut hat, iggy, MD2020, the cap'n, and that pot smoking flock of swans, who repeated themselves consistently, the several hundred times required, against the "strawman" arguments of Owl and I, I now know the "meaning" behind the formulae, which is what I was after. Sincere thanks to all who have posted on this thread. Regards, TAR2 P.S. At least for SR. GR with space deformed by mass. I don't know what that means.

Schrödinger's hat Well, I think I finally got it. Thanks to your 423. Perhaps I can take a shot at describing the situation to Owl, since I too was/am considering the meaning of now in a photon lag way. Owl, Relativity assumes a halfgod like now that extends even 100,000 million lightyears from here and beyond. It takes the eyes of a zillion observers scattered all amongst everywhere and gives them all the ability to report what they observe back to us, instantly, using halfgod radio, that operates instantaneously, with no consideration that any speed limit such as C exists. But ALL these observers are stationary in respect to us, they have no velocity toward us, away from us, or tangent to us. They are all in our frame of reference. Events anywhere in the universe will happen in a particular order at particular distances from each other. All the reports will agree on this order and the distances involved. And always the speed of light is the measured, and found to be 300,000,000 meters per second. Now imagine something that is moving at 299,900,000 meters per second, relative to us, and our frame of reference. All of our zillion observers would clock it moving at 299,900,000 meters per second. But this object has a pilot, who being very industrious has also sent out a zillion observers to all corners of the universe, to report their observations back at halfgod like radio instantaneous speed. This pilot considers himself stationary, all his observers, and he, measure the speed of light at 300,000,000. All his observers are in HIS frame of reference, and are in his halfgod like now. His observers report, and he notices, the Earth passby at 299,900,000 meters per second. The halfgodlike now, that he and his zillion observers consider now, extends throughout the universe. However, the order of events, and the distances between them ARE NOT THE SAME as for us and our halfgod like observers. Since objective reality exists and a real event that happens happens in both frames of reference, and the speed of light is ALWAYS 300,000,000 meters per second, the equations and geometries of space time give us the transformations between our FOR and another FOR. The other FOR looks at ours from a different angle and distances and times are consistantly not in agreement. Same the other way 'round. There is not an objective fullgod frame of reference that can extend its observers out appropriately to account for every possible velocity and every possible extended halfgod like now. Except for SR, which can take it one FOR at a time, make the transforms, between, and thusly "see" objective reality, from at least two halfgodlike nows, which I suppose adds up to a full godlike view of "objective" reality. Regards, TAR2

Schrödinger's hat, I played with the link awhile. Not clear on the conventions, but there are a couple things I am having trouble translating into reality. One is the fact that the moving observer stays on the white present line. Fine in the sense that a second passes for both observers, so both are staying in the universal now's present, as events flow from top to bottom, but begs the question as to the existence of anything above the line, since it has not happened yet. And introduces my photon lag dilema in that in actuality as something moves away from me at a relativistic speed, it is getting farther away from my subjective now and I will not be able to witness its state 'til later. So while it may still exist similtaneously to me, from the God's eye view that is able to witness all current happenings at once, it is actually receding from me in time and if it where to reverse course and return to my location it would get closer to me in time and when it got back to my location, would again be in my now, and having never left the universe, nor the white x line, would be exactly as old as I am, regardless of the speed that it made the separation or the return. I suppose the notion I can not shake, is more than a notion, it is a model of the world that I have been "building" for quite a while. Thinking things out. Taking into account my nature and history and connection with the universe, being both of and in it. I am trying to understand the "meaning" behind language. That is the investigation I am on. And it involves science and philosophy, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology, psychology, religion, and well basically everything about the nature of humans, and our relationship to the world that there is to consider. If we hold in our brains an analog representation of the universe, it is by definition, both correct and representative AND subject to limitation and error. Analogies, maps, transforms, diagrams and such, where one thing stands for another, is very much what we do, considering the situation. An analogy can be perfectly internally consistent, and "work" perfectly well in our minds, but not completely describe the actual state of things, or "work" if we attempt to put it into practice and test it against the actual world. As SwansonT points out. What we think does not determine reality. It is quite the other way around. Now if people with quite obviously more grey matter than I have, have been working this situation, and come up with quite logical analogies and agreed upon what they mean, where they apply and how they help us predict and work with, and take advantage of the "way it is", I would say that we indeed have a certain handle on objective reality, and understand to a certain degree, "the thing as it is". But when a paradox arises, it is not the world at fault. It is up to us to figure out where we are looking at it wrong, and carrying our analogy to far, or inappropriately. Take the way the sky looks at night. Everything is "RIGHT HERE", "NOW". Stars look very small, but we have come to know they are huge and distant beyond comprehension. We see it immediately, but know it happened long ago. We know we are small and shortlived and mortal, but lay claim to it all, anyway, justly. It remains important that we honestly assess when we are discussing the map, and when we are discussing the territory. Regards, TAR2

Iggy and Schrödinger's hat, My argument is not that my now is the only now that exists. Indeed quite the opposite. Each of us has our own, and we get it because we are at one place and one time. Where this conception or understanding relates to this thread, is that we also have the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another experiencing a different here, or a different now, or indeed remember ourselves in a past here and now, or even project ourselves or others into possible future moments and locations, and even impossible or made up moments and places. Relativity attempts to describe the way that reality IS. In this, what t0 means, is of utmost importance. To say SR does not have this as a primary concern is somewhat why I have difficulty understanding what SR is using as t0. Is it the now of a human, on Earth? I have no doubt that the equations and matrices "work out". Where I have difficulties is in carrying out the analogies, without understand the exact nature of each of the enities being represented by the variables. If I am not sure of, or do not agree with, or do not understand what exactly is being considered, how am I to know what it would mean to take the derivitave of it, or cut it in half, or multiply it, or indeed if these operations can even be carried out with the entity, much less imagine what it would mean. Many things work out in one's mind, but don't work out when tried in reality. After all, you can take the square root of 4 cows and get 2 cows. But if you take the square root of 2 cows you get 2 dead cows or a lot of hamburger and squaring the result will not get you two live cows back. Some of the operations with x,y,z,t and x',y',z',t' can only be done if you use the the square root of -1, which is an "imaginary" number that means absolutely nothing, or anything you want. I would venture to say that this operation can only be done in the mind of a mathematician, and need not, indeed does not reflect anything really happening in objective reality. Objective reality is rather certain about what it does and it always works out, and fits together flawlessly. So back to relativity. The order of the events of me sitting down, and the man taking the first step would not have to have an astronaut or two to be variously determined. We need only take the vantage point of a stationary woman tieing her sneaker, halfway between me and the man on the stairs. My conception of now determines the order she sees. If my conception of simultaneous is "when the man and I are as old as the universe" then she will see me sit and the man step simultaneously, but sometime after we both do the deeds. If I conceive of now as the moment we are both seen by her, I would have to put myself in her shoes, sometime in the future and concede that the now I am considering now depends not on the motion of the nows I am putting myself in the shoes of, but on their distance from me. Nobody's subjective now "actually" coincides from an objective point of view. We (each here and now) achieve the age of the universe simultaneously, but what the rest of the universe did at that moment does not arrive here til some time later, depending on the distance and the speed of light. So there is this now and there is that now, and they both exist but if you ever consider them equal, and put them both in an equation as t0, you are already off, by the distance between them. If the distance between two nows is not considered in the equation then the equation is not going to reflect reality. The mere "speed of moving" should not change the relationship. What should change the relationship, is movement toward or away. And both the now of the object and the now of the subject proceeds "simultaneously" so that the here and now of each must be reassesed not only with each tick of each clock, but with any change of position and distance between them, based on an understanding that the nows will get closer in time as they near, and farther away in time as they receed. So it depends mightily on what now we are considering, or any equation involving time is suspect. Iggy, A calender on the wall of the spaceship would look exactly the same to the traveling twin on her way to Alpha Centuri, as it did when she took it off her brother's wall at home. According to me, she could still use it. According to SR, it wouldn't work. Regards, TAR2 P.S. She could use either her watch and mark off every 24 hrs, or she could watch the Earth and mark off every time her home town went from dark to light. The two methods would not coincide, should she have taken two calanders, one for each method, until her return. Her home town would take much more than 24 to make the transitions on the way out and much less than 24hrs on the way back.

Iggy, Perhaps I should have run with it, but that would have been disingenuous, which would be unhelpful to the discussion, and unhelpful to my goal of actually having the insights required to understand what is "meant" here. And I like Schrodinger's hat's idea of "figuring out" the puzzle, rather than pretending there is none. And I would be happy to accept the findings of all the 180 IQ folks that have been working this for the last century plus, if I knew what the heck they "meant". So I read your link, and pulled a book off my shelf (that I actually think I had read or attempted to read 15 years ago) called The Principle of Relativity, with collected original papers on the subject by Einstein, Lorentz, Weyl and Minkowski. Still...as clear as mud. Know a little more than I did yesterday about Gausian coordinates, Minkowski four space, Lorentz transforms and Einstein's thoughts on the matter, but still consider time a different sort of thing than space. There is something I have noticed about "now" that I cannot readily see is woven into the assumptions and equations. That is, that other "me"s seem to be always in the same one that I am in. Today, I am at a different t coordinate than I was yesterday...but look at that...so are you. Your t coordinate was at 0 yesterday, and so was mine. And look here, we are both at t0 again today. We never leave t0. It's always now. Yet time passes, and there is no going back. Space on the other hand sticks around. I can go to work, come home, go to work again. The earth can rotate on its axis and face the sun then the stars then the sun again. The sun can orbit the center of galaxy the galaxy can merge with or dance around or away from its neighbors. Years ago I passed under a train bridge and thought about the cement of the abuttment having been there for years, even though it was made up of mostly empty space...orbiting electrons and neutrons made of quarks and spins and fields and forces, yet undoubtably a solid cement and steel structure. Its still there. I saw it the other day. However, the other day is at -t now. It no longer exists. Regards, TAR2

if I was spot on, it was accidental or misinterpreted. I think the double takes were inappropriate and the first takes were probably better. My "Huh?" was not intended to be "that's the way it is. Right?" It was "this makes no sense to me, I am bewildered, and questioning an unbelievable, impossible thing, that does not add up." I wish the double takes were appropriate, and an indication that yes indeed TAR is finally getting it. This is not the case. I sometimes understand what is meant, but still very easily lose track of what it is that we are holding invariant, and when we are talking about the map, and when we are talking about the territory. There is a "point of view" I can take, where the "reality" of the Earth includes all the states and positions all its contituent matter was in since the big bang till now, and from this godlike, "stand back and consider" perspective, imagine some giant blur where everything "exists" on equal footing. The past, the present, the future, here, there and everywhere, being "one" thing, that "exists", currently, here and now, in my minds eye. And then "pick out" my actual experiencial "here and now" existence as being just one positon in this 4D manifold, that has no particular important differenciation from any other "point", and any other point could be considered "just as real". But that denies my actual experience of it as having any special value. And it presumes that I have the ability to stand back and consider all time at once, and all space as here. As it turns out, it is exactly my nature, of being a limited being, that "exists" at only one place, and at only one time, that "allows" me to experience reality at all. If I did not have my frame of reference, reality would be an infinite blur with no distinctions. I am thinking that we have to get a little selfish here, and consider our own frame of reference as the "preferred" one. Regards, TAR2

All, Many things in science are defined by their definitions, and then of course live up to them. The number of carbon 12 atoms in 12 grams of carbon is such and such and this number of anything we will call a mole of anything. Fine, if you have less than this number of something you have less than a mole of it. If you have more than this number you have more than a mole of it, and if you have exactly this number of something you exactly a mole of it. If then a mole of it wheighs a gram, then two moles will wheigh 2 grams. No argument. But it is a contrived, agreed upon convention, to make figuring the amount of stuff you need to complete chemical reactions and such, easy and predictable. The number itself doesn't really tell you anything special about the universe. Speed of light however tells us something. Not sure what, but if a second is not always a second, and a meter is not always a meter, then it can't tell us much, because it would not be an invariant speed. If a second was shorter than a second and light traveled 300,000,000 meters in that time, then it would be going faster than our invariant speed. Or if light covered the distance between here and a spot 300,000,000 meters away, but it took more or less than a second to make the trip, then again, our invariant speed would be not be invariant. The consequences of relativity seem to be saying to me that light can take half a second to make a 300,000,000 meter trip, as long as the distance it traveled was actually shortened to 150,000,000 meters. Huh? If in a thought experiment, an object is traveling at some exact percentage of the speed of light, then it covers that percentage of 300,000,000 meters in a second. If meters shortened or seconds lengthened then the object would no longer be traveling the stated percentage, and the premises would lose their meaning. If two supernovae appeared at the exact same moment, similtaneously, in the same area of the sky, and one was larger and brighter than the other, and the one was figured to be 200,000 lightyears distant and the other 400,000 lightyears distant, one could put themselves in the shoes of an inhabitant of a planet that orbited the 200,000 ly away star just prior its explosion who was just witnessing the explosion of a star 200,000 lightyears distant from him/her in roughly the opposite direction than that of our Sun, when their star exploded. Simultaneous for us, simultaneous for the unlucky observer, but the two explosions were 200,000 years apart, and the first observation of the two explosions made 200,000 years ago. (except for the unlucky observer on the 400,000 ly away explosion, that observed their own star's demise 400,000 years ago, and was not around 400,000 years later(now) to see the demise of the 200,000 ly away "second" explosion. Seems even simultaneity is relative, except for the imaginary universal now which we can continually extend to include the entire universe, seen from a Godlike, hypothetical position that is NOT constrained by the speed of light. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, But what of two supernovae that we see at the same time? We call them simultaneous AND as Schrödinger's hat allows, also know that they did not both happen now. This indicates to me, that we are fully capable to both experienc the world AND know what it means in terms of when and where stuff happens. When we collect all the info and fit it together we can build one model of it that has two aspects. One being position/distance/angle from a reference point, and one being causal/timelike from a single timelike reference point. We can automatically do "transforms" by reevaluating our model from another connected here and now and matching up (rotating) our here and now with the other here and now and see that they absolutely do "fit" together. The fact that they do match up, even if distant in time and/or space, indicates that there is a consistency present, and a reality that "exists" that we only can experience and model, not be "greater than", but by analogy. Regards, TAR2

for instance, the cosmic background radiation, often considered an image of the universe when it just became transparent to photons, actually is possibly also a 13.whatever billion year old image of a large number of Alpha Centuri like stars in Galaxies and strings of Galaxies much like what's "around here" now. But that is only the "real" universe considered from a godlike point of view. The actual universe is the way it looks now to us, for any observer. Close stuff recent and fully evolved, far away stuff younger and further in the past, as you go. There is no platform, or viewer that can experience it, or know it, any differently than the way we do. So which is the real, objective universe? Or is it the both? Iggy, But it also means "arriving at the observer's location at the same time". This is not the now that every location is experiencing presently. Regards, TAR2 (have to go to sleep)

Cap'n, I slept on it twice...and it's as clear as mud...still. I am thinking that "simultaneity" is the culprit here. One's definition of it, defines the conclusions that follow. Often in this thread, Owl and I have been thought to "not understand" SR, when we speak of an "objective" now, that defines similtaneity. This "real" now that he and I and I entertain is very "unreal" in that it can only be imagined, and proven to be the case later. Much unlike instruments and recording devices, that rely completely on what is happening here AND now. In many experiments and diagrams, several or a large number of observers are set on a stage, as if we can see the whole performance at one time, from one place, and time, one perspective, from which we can make our observations, design our formulae, apply our assumptions, and derive our conclusions. That this, which is thought to be similtaneous is not, because a high speed traveler would not see it that way...etc. While both Owl and I agree that this is the case, we hold on to the thought that there is a universe that exists NOW, everywhere, that has done everything that has led up to, and caused NOW, but has not yet done the things it is going to do next. "Here and Now" on the other hand, is a purely subjective experience. An observer, such as a TAR2 sees the entire universe, but not in its "NOW" condition. Only GOD, or an observer given godlike powers of knowledge of all "heres" at one time, can know what the universe is doing NOW. But that is not how the universe can be viewed, BECAUSE of photon lag. When we talk of similtaneity, we should be clear on which of the two nows we are speaking of. The one we see, or the one we imagine to exist, because we know from experience that we will see it, once the photons or slower effects reach us. In various examples, and various posts the term "similtaneous" is used, and it seems quite likely that we are not all in agreement with what "now" we are considering, or what "now" we think the other is misunderstanding the nature of. Regards, TAR2 Schrödinger's hat Well I guess if SR is the best we have, its probably a pretty good deal. I am just trying to grasp what it "means". After all, any observer would have to report back its findings to a central observer, for the central observer to determine indeed what had exactly happened where and when. But this report would come no faster than light. The report can not be made at the speed of thought. It would arrive in "real" time. And I still have my question, and the question of this thread, in terms of what a particular person considers the "objective" universe, that "IS" this way or that. The jumps between the map and the territory are made very readily, and I am not yet clear on the conventions, and where there is agreement, and where there is misunderstanding or room for discovery. I base my reluctance to consider myself simply ignorant, on the fact that certain cosmologists or physicists might make a determination that the universe IS a certain way. This seems to me to be obviously incorrect from the point of view of an observer which can not know anything about the whole universe except the past parts of it, arriving here, now, and the record of the past parts of it that have continued to arrive here before. (sorry, that's pretty confusing. Don't really expect anybody to follow that.) But we have a couple of ways to "take" Alpha Centuri. Is it the "real" Alpha Centuri that we see? It's probably the one and only Alpha Centuri, but its only the "image" that we see, and it's a 4.5 year old image, and Alpha Centuri has done 4.5 years worth of "being" Alpha Centuri in the mean time. Which Alpha Centuri is real, now? The one that is with us now, by virtue of our experience of it, or the one we know exists now, but that we cannot see but in our imaginations? Regards, TAR2

maybe I almost get it. I will sleep on it. Thanks Cap'n.

duh, or more simply, put one laser in a tube a meter long, pointed at a ccd at the other end and look at a reading of the voltage level output. Then point the tube around, and see if the reading changes. If it does, the highest reading is the direction you are traveling through the ether. or is it aether Cap'n, Well you did answer. Many times. I just don't get it. A photon has to travel a unit of distance in a unit of time. Doesn't it? Regards, TAR2

Has this been tried? Match 12 lasers as closely as you can to be outputting the same frequency and power. Place them facing in 12 different directions from a center point, at each end of 6 different axis, (same configuration as twelve ping pong balls would fit around a center ping pong ball) Place a CCD a meter from the business end of each laser, and measure and record the output of each CCD as precisely as you can. Have the whole arrangement housed in an approximately 2 meter diameter sphere. Rotate the sphere to various positions (ie turn one of the axis end for end) and record any change in reading of any of the voltage outputs of any of the twelve CCD, of course recording the "up" position of the sphere in reference to the Earth, the latitude and longitude of the experiment, the time of day, date, year and so forth so you know the attitude of each laser in each of the recorded trials. If a pattern emerged, where a certain "direction" got higher readings and the opposite direction got lower...it might tell us which way we are headed.

P.S. to Cap'n, Wait, the return trip from the mirrors would need a couple more diagrams. After the bounce of the right wall, the laser is "chasing" the me, and will have to travel a longer distance than it did to hit the wall in the first place, and the laser that hit the left wall, although it traveled more than five meters to reach the left moving wall will have to travel less than 5 meters to get back to the me. The me will NOT measure the bounce off the right wall as shorter than the bounce off the left wall. The me will measure them the same. Off the right wall he/she will measure 10 units (4 plus 6) and off the left wall he/she will measure 10 (6 plus 4.) The me's only conclusion is his/her room is standing still! (although the me is incorrect.) P.P.S. cross posted Cap'n, Although, if the mirrors had energy sensors, or sensed the wavelengths of the laser, the right mirror would say that the laser was blueshifted to a higher energy or frequency, since the wavelengths were shorter, and the left wall mirror/sensor would say that the laser was of a lower energy, since the wavelengths were longer. The me would get back the same energy he/she put out since the return trip of each of lasers would be the reciprocal of respective trips to the wall, the blue shifted laser the right wall sees, redshifted on the way back to the me, and vice a versa to the left wall. Regards, TAR2 the me may still have some ways to discover the room is moving to the left Perhaps Michelson-Morley found no motion through the ether 'cause the upwind and downwind paths canceled each other out. In addition to measuring the fringes that found the wavelengths back in sync on return, they should have measured the energy hitting the upwind and downwind mirrors.

Cap'n, Is the speed of light constant, or is the measured speed of light constant? I am trying to understand the implications of your diagram. The diagram seems to be saying to me that it will take longer for the light to hit the left wall than it takes to hit the right wall. It will not hit both walls simultaneously but indeed will hit the right wall first, and later will hit the left wall. The distance the light has to travel to reach the right wall is shorter than that which it has to travel to hit the left, since the right wall moved to the left, toward the point of firing, and the left wall moved to the left away from the point of firing. This proves to me only that if the me was to measure the time it took light to reach each wall, by timing its return from mirrors on each wall he/she would find that it took a longer time to return from the left wall, than from the right wall. Already knowing the distance between himself and each wall, and already knowing that light travels one unit per second, his/her only conclusion could be that his/her room is moving in the direction of the left wall. Regards, TAR Schrödinger's hat, I'll take here and now as the preferred frame of reference. I'll take distance from here, in any direction to be the separation from here to there in meters. I'll take time from now, in either direction to be the separation from now to then in seconds. The things that are happening now everywhere will not be real to me until their effects reach me, which will take at least some amount of time, equal to or greater than the time it takes light, traveling at 300,000 meters/sec. to reach here from there. Which or course will be another now, 'cause it will take some time, and will be another here, because I will have moved by then. Regards, TAR2

Schrodinger's hat, (sorry, not sure how to get the umlaut) I guess my thought experiment was designed to establish one FOR that both the buoys and the double ended flashlight were operating within. All clocks, buoys and recording devices were to be brought back to the lab and studied to see what actually did happen, and "when" and "where" events actually occured, in the lab's reference frame, in retrospect. It seems to me, that in this scenario, the flashlight never leaves the lab's reference frame, and the conclusion would be that since length can not be (in the flashlight's FOR) both expanded in the rearward direction, and contracted in forward direction, or contracted in the rearward direction and expanded in the forward, that indeed the laws of physics themselves need to be assessed from just one frame. 'Cause clocks cannot slow unless they slow in reference to "normal", and if the flashlight's clock slows in reference to the "lab" which included the whole local group of galaxies, AND the clocks of the whole local group of galaxies slow in reference to the "normal" of the flashlight, then the whole shooting match should grind to a halt. Which it does not. So the flashlight does not redefine the universe and cause it all to move at .5C around it. It moves through the universe at .5C. The foward photons cannot reach the 187th and the first buoy at the same timestamp in the "galaxy lab" perspective, AND be figured by the flashlight to have to arrive at anything other than the "proper" time. So the flashlight does not see the universe as homogenous. It sees the one direction, in which it is traveling, as extremely blueshifted, and where it has been, as extremely redshifted. The flashlight "knows" it is traveling at .5C through the "galaxy lab". Regards, TAR2 P.S. And the flashlight "sees" the "fixed galaxies" that are perpendicular to its direction of motion, in normal light.

Cap'n, Well here is probably where I cannot understand what is meant. Why would he feel he needed to measure equal distances between his flashlight and a receding photon, and his flashlight and a photon he is chasing? He KNOWS he and his flash light are traveling at 93,000 miles per second because he is passing the stategically placed syncronized photon detectors, at that clip. These detectors have been placed on space bouys that are star powered and keep their position based on holding the angular position of a set of 12 "close" stars, 12 distant stars, and 12 "fixed" galaxies, precisely constant to the configuration existing when they where placed. The clocks on them where synchronized on Earth, flown each to their numbered buoy and back at a known speed and distance, any differences found were logged, so that when doing the final tally descrepencies could be subtracted or added as required. A recording device on each buoy would be hooked to its clock and detector which would timestamp every photon detection. We positioned 187 of these buoys each 1000 miles apart and tested, recorded and brought the records back to compare on Earth the results of a bevy of methods and facilities used to position and reposition the buoys (precisely tensioned thousand mile strand of fiberoptic cable, light flashes, radar, survey triangulation and all sorts of tests and measurement) until we were sure that the buoys WHERE indeed spaced in a straight line, 1000 miles apart. Then we run our test and our .5C flashlight flashes forward and backward as it passes the 94th bouy. My contention is, that the 1st bouy will timestamp the passing of the flashlight 12:00:00, the 94th 12:00:01 and the 187th 12:00:02 and the 1st will timestamp the flash 12:00:01.5, the 94th 12:00:01 and the 187th 12:00:01.5. Where am I going wrong? Owl, Why can the universe not be both subjectively real and objectively ideal? Regards, TAR2

Cap'n, OK, can we go over a few definitions and assumptions? "There is a distance between two objects." Does this imply that this distance is invariant? For instance, the traveling holder of the flashlight is "assuming" that the photon is 300,000 miles away from its launch position after one second, based on the constant speed of light, the invariance of seconds, and the invariance of miles. After one second, neither the holder of the flashlight or the photon is at the launch position of the photon. The holder is 150,000miles away, and the photon is 300,000miles. The observer sees neither the flashlight or the photon in his/her present time until some time after the events occurred, depending on his/her distance(real invariant distance) from the events in question. Or put another way. If the holder of the flashlight where to launch a photon forward (in the same direction as his/her .5C travel, and launch one backward at the same moment, after one second would not the forward launched photon be 150,000 miles from the flashlight, and the rearward launched one 450,000 miles from the flashlight, according to both the expectations of the .5C holder and the observer? Regards, TAR2 P.S. Again, I think we only have two ways to take "is". One being our actual here and now, and one being the metaphysical "universal now" we figure to be the case.