owl

Your "answer" doesn't even touch upon the question, what "dynamic of gravity and velocity that causes the slowing of physical processes?" I have no doubt that physical process (like clock oscillations, ticking off units of *time*) slow down in higher gravity and higher velocity situations. My enduring question is, "what makes that happen?" Your history of hostility toward me makes it so you can not even comprehend what I am asking.

Possible, yes. But without a possible remote connection, not confirmed. It would remain just another undiagnosed pain or "bad" feeling. I could have filled a few notebooks with those over the 63 years since I learned to write... a meaningless exercise just to avoid future criticism of "cherry picking." As a parent, a lot of "bad things happened" (the usual accidents and illnesses) to my kids which I did not "pick up on" by remote, as in the case in point. What would be the point of recording, for instance, "one of my sons broke his arm while I was at work, and I didn't feel a thing?" Confirmed incidents were extremely rare. I have no idea why I "picked up on" the ulcer at a distance and not the broken arm or many other such incidents. As I said, the point of a paranormal journal is to record experiences that appear to be paranormal (obviously), and one doesn't know an experience so qualifies until a correlation appears to "co-relate" one experience to another, at a distance in the case of empathic telepathy. Not, as above. Science would not be better served if every case where there was no empathy at a distance were recorded... a long, useless journal just to avoid being called a cherry picker. Me: "Can you see how ridiculous such a "record everything" requirement is?" See reply to Ringer above about "recording everything." ...Blah, blah, blah... Focus on possible cases of paranormal experience (correlated, as above) is like any other focus or field of study in science. The set of "all experiences I have ever had and am having" is not relevant to the subject. But I said that more than once already. Enough. The above null hypothesis (agreed) was negated by the unexplained simultaneity of my empathetic stomach pain, felt at a distance, and my mental image of him in pain, with his severely bleeding ulcer. The emphasized phrase is how this kind of paranormal experience qualifies as paranormal. It happened exactly as I said. Your disbelief does not negate that. There are many similar examples. Calling them all mere "anecdotes" and throwing them all out is not the kind of science which I respect, which open to evidence yet finely tuned to separate the "wheat from the chaff." More credential waving appeal to authority. [A game of one-ups-man-ship? I'll play. One of us has a 178 WAIS score and one of us probably(?) does not.] Not all scientists are professionals. I am, and have been for well over half a century, an amateur scientist. Don't break your arm patting your own back with self congratulation.

Seriously folks; if anyone can answer my question above, the greatest mystery of time for me, you will win my gratitude. Again: "But yet the question remains, what is the dynamic of gravity and velocity that causes the slowing of physical processes?" Anyone?

I said: Almost all my experiences have been easily classifiable as normal. A running account of everything I have ever experienced is not required to avoid the "cherry picking" criticism. When an "abnormal" event occurs, it becomes worthy of recording, but no one knows it is abnormal until the kind of correlation as above becomes evident. You are way off base on this one.

True. (So many "time" threads; so little "time." Always one of my favorite subjects, the mystery of time.) Physicists like to say that time is that which clocks measure. So when clocks slow down in higher gravity or at higher velocities, they say that time slows down, or "dilates." If there were no clocks, what then would slow down as above? I presume that any physical process, like human aging, also slows down in one body relative to another in the different conditions above. This assumes that time, independent of "clocking it" is still the duration of physical processes as things move, the "elapsed time" for any movement. But yet the question remains, what is the dynamic of gravity and velocity that causes the slowing of physical processes?

Not quite. I was not out in the wilderness flipping coins. I was in total solitude, not even thinking about my family until I experienced... (as above.) I had no "hypothesis" out there on my wilderness journey. I spontaneously had the experience as related. You can't 'believe it' so you liken it to flipping coins, which would be totally irrelevant to the situation as described. If it doesn't fit with your materialistic philosophy you must find a way to discredit it. You failed.

As I said and still say, “... good science considers all evidence, rejecting what may be lies or doubtful correlation based on all parameters and circumstances of each case.” It wasn’t a complex situation with lots of ‘moving parts’ difficult to remember, and details were recorded soon after. That leaves the options that I was/am lying or that it happened as I said it happened, and that would be a case of empathetic/telepathic communication at a distance. Denying it does not make it false. And, yet again, a journal of (notes on) paranormal experience does not include all experiences but just the ones that might qualify as paranormal ones. That is called the focus of the study, like the study of pissant behavior, not everything observed on a particular field trip. Calling it "cherry picking" does not invalidate the principle of focused study.

As I already said, "Recording every instance of stomach pain I (ever) had would not be focused on paranormal experience" (the pissant in the previous illustration.) What makes it paranormal and qualify for a log entry is that my pain correlated with his at a distance with no known means of communication. Also already stated, "My stomach pain was subjective, quasi-psychosomatic and empathetic, while his was the result of a physical ulcer." Telling my wife about it brought it into the interpersonal realm. You say, as if an ironclad axiom of science, "but confirmation based on anecdotes is not scientifically confirmed." I say that good science considers all evidence, rejecting what may be lies or doubtful correlation based on all parameters and circumstances of each case. I did immediately tell my wife what brought me home way earlier than planned. Either I made it all up (lied) or my pain was clearly empathetic with his, communicated at a distance. Since I was/am not lying, it was a confirmed case of communication at a distance. "Science" that claims there has never been a case of telepathy must ignore such evidence, based on your dictum above. That would create a false negative (falsely confirming the null hypothesis.) Science in the general sense is not limited to published studies or lab replicable results. There are a lot of anecdotal stories of telepathy and other paranormal phenomena, some confirmed by investigation (the forte' of anthropology and paranormal investigation in general)), many debunked. The job of science is to sort out the true from the false... without such bias as yours.

I moved the conversation on the above telepathy anecdote to my "Consciousness" thread where it belongs. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/64070-consciousness-the-missing-unified-theory-factor/page__st__160

This conversation about consciousness acting at a distance (telepathy, communication through no known means) came up in another thread about objectivity in science, but other than as an example of the debate about what constitutes objective scientific evidence, the subject belongs in this thread. Ringer had said: Swansont had said: ... I had argued: I went on to give an example of specifically focused field study. (The scientist doesn't record everything he observes but just the subject he is studying.) Recording every instance of stomach pain I had would not be focused on paranormal experience. Only a case were such experience turned out to correlate with another at a distance and at the same time as specified above in this thread would qualify as a possible instance of empathetic telepathy. I had in fact "kept a log of every thought that might qualify as telepathy," every experience, anyway, and they were very rare. I submit that this incident was clearly evidence of telepathy, confirmed by all who were present. I'll leave it to readers interested enough to review the incident as detailed in this thread to decide whether it could have happened by "random chance."

I think the above is an example of personal opinion, albeit ubiquitous among physicists, not impersonal science. Do you think that the methods of anthropology in studying "paranormal" practitioners in the field are unscientific? Do you believe that physics is the only legitimate science? My story, if fabricated in isolation, would be "completely subjective." But my sensed experience was specifically verified by both my son and my wife. Science is open to evidence. The above was verified evidence of very specific communication at a distance via no known means. As I said before, the truth of the matter does not depend on whether or not you believe the story. Science must sort out the truth from the lies in such cases* and specify the subjective parts from the objective verification. My stomach pain was subjective, quasi-psychosomatic and empathetic, while his was the result of a physical ulcer. * Field studies have good methods for doing that, too specific for detailing here. A scientist in the field studying the behavior of the pissant will take notes on that subject, not on a swarm of fruitflies nearby, and not on every observation he makes in general and at random as he hikes around. The same applies to field notes on paranormal phenomena. At the time, I kept a journal on each, very rare such occurrence, duly noted after the crisis was over. The doctor's report on my son's condition was very objective, and I reported my reason for coming home (also stomach pain) to my wife immediately, so she was witness to both "pains."

This is the speculation section. This was a speculation: We have already had the argument you are rehashing above. I see no reason to do it all again. If you have any new criticisms to add, again, as I said, “I suggest that any further conversation on this subject take place there."... in my “consciousness” thread, also in speculations. There you can review my references to David Bohm's speculative work in the field regarding your first criticism above. I have already admitted that my direct experience of telepathy, shared in detail in that thread, is anecdotal. Yet that personal experience is how I personally know that telepathy exists. Again, if you have any further reply, please do it in that thread. It was not my intent to "bait-and-switch" to rehash that subject here. You are the one who brought up "the supernatural" in this thread. But maybe you were just "baiting" me to get into it again and get this thread closed and me banned. Maybe not, but enough here on that in any case.

Note: Let's keep on track. This thread is not about differences of opinion about the validity of paranormal phenomena per se. That field is, however, one example of how those differences effect the scientific study of it. With that in mind.... Those who scientifically investigate paranormal stuff like telepathy hypothesize that there is a dimension of energy "beyond" the known electromagnetic spectrum, and that human consciousness can, under special circumstances, "transmit and receive" in this more subtle dimension, analogous to but more subtle than radio wave transmission. That should be enough about that here. The point is that the existence of such phenomena (or not) does not, thankfully, depend on the opinions of the most hard core skeptics, so science continues to study "the paranormal." To dismiss it all saying "not enough evidence" is quite premature... and example of "closed minded science"... which is not science. I think you are using "empiricism" in an unusual way, which confused me. Wiki on empiricism: Good news. Me too. But realism, as I understand it, asserts that physical reality remains *as it objectively is* regardless of how we attempt to "hold on to" it. Don Howard (author of the cited encyclopedia paper): Clearly "realism" has different meaning for different philosophers of science. For some (myself included) cosmos is physically real *as a whole* as well as in all of its "spatially separate" parts. Me: You: "Physical reality" means to me simply that the world exists as it is, objectively, regardless of what we think or theorize about it or how we measure it. You: ... ... ..."That may have went on too long. . . Anyway" Maybe. But I am not disputing that subjective differences are "real" in the subjective sense of real personal differences. But the focus here was on the "reality" of the physical world. The thermostat in the room reads out the temperature, a physical reality in the room. How folks feel about it, different comfort levels are subjectively real but not the physical reality in question. I had it in half quotes and an ("if you will") after it as a reference to just *how real* is physical reality... its 'reality quotient'... just a little license with phrasing. Not depending on how it is observed makes it absolutely real, one of the options. ... Yes, I'm very aware of the warning and doing my best to keep it on topic yet use examples of how the subjective realm influences scientific objectivity, as with Einstein's most basic questioning of what is "real" above.

Here he seems to doubt the meaning of the "hypothesis"... "The physical world is real." Does science just "temporarily assume" this "basic hypothesis?" How is its meaning not "beyond all doubt." How does substituting a nonsense word for "real" in the statement invalidate it? Isn't "real" the same as "objective" as per the thread topic? Without subjective (opinionated) dismissal of the 'reality quotient' (again, if you will) of "the world"... it remains as it is, objectively independent of how we observe it... No? You: I think his opinion mattered a lot and set a new standard for what is "real" in relationships between objects, like distances between them and their properties, no longer intrinsic but dependent on how they are observed. Agreed. Impersonal science would be dedicated to investigating "objective reality" without projecting subjective biases into the mix. Me: You:

(my emphasis) How does this square with the Einstein quote above? Who here is advocating "supernatural effects that can't be measured?" Effects which can not yet be explained or measured by present scientific methods, like telepathy, do not make them untrue or "notions to be rejected." (Btw, "supernatural effects" were not mentioned in the OP, so you are violating the same principle that you attempt to hold me to.) Where does this leave either theoretical speculation (prior to confirmation/ falsifiability) or the philosophy of science which considers the questions posed in this thread OP? None of that is "doing science?" See above. I have no argument with the part of science that is empirical and experimental, but that is part of science, not all of science.

"Think of the difference?..." Umm... I already did, as the basis for saying, But, to keep it on track, not bogged down in specifics, the differences of opinion on the relevance of the map to the territory, or the 'reality quotient' (if I may) of the territory, illustrates that mainstream science is not impersonal but rather quite biased by different philosophical assumptions and/or conscious endorsements. "Objective reality" stays as it is (including its own intrinsic process of change) regardless of how we observe and measure it.... one philosophy. Einstein's take on "reality" as above quoted... another quite different philosophy. That difference is what my post above attempted to illustrate as an example of subjective science, assuming this or that philosophy... not impersonal science. We can only imagine what science would be like if scientists' personal opinions really didn't matter. It would be... well... objective, and we would not mistake appearances from different perspectives for reality... assuming of course that "reality" exists at all!... still a core issue of debate based on personal prejudices.

The focus of my post was an illustration of how Einstein's philosophy that there is no 'reality' per se independent of observation differs from "realism" as I use the term, i.e., that "the world" (generally speaking) is "real" independent of what science "places in the drawer." If science were objective, it would not depend on which philosophy scientists endorse. It is subjective in the sense of the above illustrated differences of philosophy. That, not ontology specifically, was my focus.

pmb on 4/15 in another thread wrote: I was interested and read the linked paper. In the conclusion are the following quotes: pmb: Einstein:. (footnoted in the text.) I am not allowed to speak on the "subject of spacetime curvature" specifically, but the above quotes are very relevant to subjective vs objective science, the topic of this thread. "...the desire of attributing 'real' quantities as having an absolute existence independent of the observer"... is based on a philosophical choice called, generally speaking, realism. I (subjectively) think it is obvious, reasonable and true that “Either something exists or it doesn’t.” And "existing" as a coordinate system or model doesn't count unless that "map" refers to "territory" that does exist "in the real world." But for Einstein, clearly there is no "reality" independent of what he decides is worthy to "place in the 'drawer'" of observation and investigation. This, of course is a philosophy (subjective choice) in opposition to the philosophy that "the world" is "real" all by itself, independent of observation and measurement. As far as I know, no omniscient being has yet passed judgment on which is true, but I'm pretty sure that reality doesn't depend on what science places in a chosen "drawer" or category.

md: I am hiding nothing and I am “preaching” nothing. What you think is your personal opinion. Don't present it here as science. Compare 'what you think' with the topic at hand. Observation and measurement do not change the objects or distances measured. That is not a personal opinion. More poor quality meat, I am accused of producing! (Repeat recorded message for effect.) Not impersonal science. I have been on the original topic as I stated it through the whole thread. The moderator's negative opinion of me personally has not changed that. How is it that your view is objective and mine subjective? Because physics is automatically all that matters and philosophy of science is all bogus... mere philosophy? How is that *not* just your, and fellow physicists, personal opinions? "What is it?" is part of scientific investigation whether you personally (or physicists in general) like it or not. As for "specific gripes about theories," the well documented nearly spherical shape of earth is not really up for scientific debate (except in SR fanatic circles, like this forum,) and it certainly is not just my personal opinion or "gripe" about SR theory.

Apparently I am forbidden to reply to any of the specific examples above, though others can use those specifics in argument against me. I formally request a moderator without the obvious and very nasty personal bias against me. This gag rule is an abuse of power which stands as a perfect example of "science" that is the opposite of "impersonal." Not sure whether the warning: "... don't even think about keeping this line of conversation going." ... means I can't post any more in this thread* though others are allowed, or whether 'this line of conversation' refers to my favorite specific examples of "what is it?" *I assume this post will answer that question, and I suspect that my request above will be taken personally as well and get me suspended or banned.

Of course. No argument. But when theoretical (GR, in this case) physicists assert that mass curves space, is there no responsibility to explain "what curves?" What we actually observe is curved paths of objects. Exactly. And I am on board with empirical science requiring observation for verification, as above. We *observe* and predict the motion of objects, quite well with the math of GR. But, as you said, " we can't really imagine four dimensional structures..." much less observe them. Yet GR insists that spacetime *is curved* by mass. But when ontology insists on asking what space is (besides 3-D volume) and what time is (besides event duration of movement from one coordinate to another), it is called irrelevant. We can all observe that there is space between objects and that "it takes time" for them to move around. We can not observe the non-Euclidean *concept* of those observations coalesced into unity, useful as it is as a coordinate system. Ontology simply simply challenges the assumption/ claim that "it" is curved, as if it were an observable entity in the natural world. Therein lies the difference of opinion here among physicists who claim that what it is doesn't matter and ontologists who think that "what is it?" is a legitimate focus of scientific investigation. My opinion as an avid amateur *natural* scientist differs. As I said on 4/4: I'm on thin ice here with this example. Let it suffice to say that the aspect of SR that theorizes changing or unknowable lengths of things (like earth's diameter) or distances between things (like distance to the sun) "in the real world" does not "make it so." Please don't start that argument up again, because it will get this thread shut down and me suspended.

ajb, I just realized that I never name/time stamped my reply to your post, quoted in part below. Maybe you saw my replies and decided not to answer, or maybe you were not notified of my reply for lack of stamp. (again, my bold)

I'm guessing that everything there is (in our little cosmos) was coming back (imploding) after reversal of the last outgoing Bang half cycle. All we need is enough matter/energy (regular or "dark"... whatever that might be) to make the 'gravitational net' catch and reverse the outgoing half of a "Bang/Crunch" cycle. "Something from nothing" remains a pseudo-scientific cosmological version of creationism, whether it all came out of 'god's magic hat' or appeared magically out of nothing, all in a "point of no volume" as per Hawking's old singularity version of the "origin."

As to the above, I am still hoping to hear from ajb regarding his statements of 3/31, post 9 and my reply yesterday, post 17. Here it is again for quick ref, (still my bold): ajb: me: If no answer, I will just give up on it, because it is the best example I know of the opinion here that "what it is (generally speaking) doesn't matter," which is contrary to the purpose of science investigating the real world, in my opinion.