Special Relativity and Absolute Frames of reference, always been non-issues?
So I've been having a few thoughts on Special relativity cycling through my head and hope to get some similar or oppositely minded individuals to weigh in on them as they aren't really all specific to a particular topic. That is, aside from concerning SR and absolute motion.
1) Is the relativity of simultaneity just derivative of the problem of the criterion?
So, the relativity of simultaneity is renowned enough to not really warrant much further elaboration but I will emphasize one specific aspect of it as its usually presented. That it's concerned with, in Einstein's words, 'defining' what it means for things to be simultaneous or not which then goes on to effect other metrical notions regarding time or space. Metrical notions but not topological ones as Newtonian time and Einstein's multitude of metrical standards of time can be consistent with each other in one respect which is that they both retain a time which is ordered in the usual intuitive sense.
There is a before, present, and after. Although, SR adds in space-like separations which have a degree of indeterminacy or relativity of choice of the ordering of said events relative to certain frames. When it comes to casual series the same ordering re-appears rather unscathed. That this notion of time as a relation is understood to be reflexive, anti-symmetric, and transitive.
Many early on off the curtails of Einstein went on to adopt a further skeptical position regarding quantities and our choices of metrical standards. Which was to be extended to ALL such physical standards making the relativity of simultaneity seem more like a specific secluded example of the conventionality of simultaneity definitions.
However, when you think about it isn't this just some Munchausen trilemma or a problem of defining the correct criterion to designate what it means to be simultaneous?
If I want to figure out how fast something is then I need to have some method and operational procedure to do so usually with some accompanying signal. However, I could ask, "Is this method without error or what makes me confident that this method will get me the correct speed/path it has?"
Well, I can't make recourse to the method itself because that would be circular.
So, I make use of another signal (call it super-light) which I can then use to assess whether the method and the signal in question do operate according to all my holistic physical assumptions so it can then be used confidently to figure out how fast that original object is going. . . oh, wait? But how can I be confident that my assumptions regarding this further signal as to it traveling in only straight lines at a certain speed and possessing certain specific well-understood interactions with objects is correct?
You see where this is going. . .
This is just a skeptical regress of standards which is more generalized than those regarding simultaneity as it could extend to all measurements. Those regarding: Energy, speed, size, charge, spatial trajectories, periodic changes, etc. This is also independent of whether we are talking Classical or Relativistic physics. In either situation there is arbitrariness of what standards one uses and holistic prior theoretical assumptions one makes.
The only way we can escape this is to 'arbitrarily' decide upon one and just run with it completely ignorant of its ontological worth. Is SR then just a result of taking this conventionality seriously but in practice?
2) Another thought popped in my head regarded the the notion of presentism and its relation to an absolute frame of the universe. Especially since usually an 'absolute frame' is ascribed to holding some formulation of presentism. However, shouldn't presentism actually kill both the relativity of motion and absolute motion?
Among dissidents and philosophers/physicists of times past the notion of finding an absolute frame of reference as well as therefore being able to ascribe absolute motion to things has been a through going line of thinking. One which has survived through so many centuries of re-definitions and philosophical trends. However, when I think of presentism as intuitively having to regard the notion of the past or the future as 'illusory' wouldn't this also kill the notion of an absolute frame?
The only reason one would even think the notion of an absolute 'frame' makes sense is if there were other less 'real' frames of references usually ascribed to differing motions. However, motion requires intuitively at least two movie frames or a relation between a future state and a current state.
Presentism in the most intuitive but thin variety does not allow for this so the notion of motion itself becomes illusory. Only things exist in the paper thin present. You can point to an object but it doesn't make sense to say you are pointing to a moving object. Perhaps, you could say with some strange amalgamation of words that to say its moving is to say it is inconsistent in comparison to your memories but the universe doesn't possess such a thing according to naïve presentations of presentism.
Wouldn't this then make the notion of an absolute frame altogether meaningless under a thin presentism? If there aren't different 'frames of references' or states of motion you don't need to find the absolute one as there just aren't any motions to begin with.
Is it even possible in a naïve thin presentism to formulate among its concepts and terms the notion of an absolute frame of reference without recourse to motion? Or is this already an impossible feat? Further, what form of presentism would allow us to meaningfully restate the 'absolute frame' thesis if we still desire it?
1) Is the relativity of simultaneity just derivative of the problem of the criterion?
So, the relativity of simultaneity is renowned enough to not really warrant much further elaboration but I will emphasize one specific aspect of it as its usually presented. That it's concerned with, in Einstein's words, 'defining' what it means for things to be simultaneous or not which then goes on to effect other metrical notions regarding time or space. Metrical notions but not topological ones as Newtonian time and Einstein's multitude of metrical standards of time can be consistent with each other in one respect which is that they both retain a time which is ordered in the usual intuitive sense.
There is a before, present, and after. Although, SR adds in space-like separations which have a degree of indeterminacy or relativity of choice of the ordering of said events relative to certain frames. When it comes to casual series the same ordering re-appears rather unscathed. That this notion of time as a relation is understood to be reflexive, anti-symmetric, and transitive.
Many early on off the curtails of Einstein went on to adopt a further skeptical position regarding quantities and our choices of metrical standards. Which was to be extended to ALL such physical standards making the relativity of simultaneity seem more like a specific secluded example of the conventionality of simultaneity definitions.
However, when you think about it isn't this just some Munchausen trilemma or a problem of defining the correct criterion to designate what it means to be simultaneous?
If I want to figure out how fast something is then I need to have some method and operational procedure to do so usually with some accompanying signal. However, I could ask, "Is this method without error or what makes me confident that this method will get me the correct speed/path it has?"
Well, I can't make recourse to the method itself because that would be circular.
So, I make use of another signal (call it super-light) which I can then use to assess whether the method and the signal in question do operate according to all my holistic physical assumptions so it can then be used confidently to figure out how fast that original object is going. . . oh, wait? But how can I be confident that my assumptions regarding this further signal as to it traveling in only straight lines at a certain speed and possessing certain specific well-understood interactions with objects is correct?
You see where this is going. . .
This is just a skeptical regress of standards which is more generalized than those regarding simultaneity as it could extend to all measurements. Those regarding: Energy, speed, size, charge, spatial trajectories, periodic changes, etc. This is also independent of whether we are talking Classical or Relativistic physics. In either situation there is arbitrariness of what standards one uses and holistic prior theoretical assumptions one makes.
The only way we can escape this is to 'arbitrarily' decide upon one and just run with it completely ignorant of its ontological worth. Is SR then just a result of taking this conventionality seriously but in practice?
2) Another thought popped in my head regarded the the notion of presentism and its relation to an absolute frame of the universe. Especially since usually an 'absolute frame' is ascribed to holding some formulation of presentism. However, shouldn't presentism actually kill both the relativity of motion and absolute motion?
Among dissidents and philosophers/physicists of times past the notion of finding an absolute frame of reference as well as therefore being able to ascribe absolute motion to things has been a through going line of thinking. One which has survived through so many centuries of re-definitions and philosophical trends. However, when I think of presentism as intuitively having to regard the notion of the past or the future as 'illusory' wouldn't this also kill the notion of an absolute frame?
The only reason one would even think the notion of an absolute 'frame' makes sense is if there were other less 'real' frames of references usually ascribed to differing motions. However, motion requires intuitively at least two movie frames or a relation between a future state and a current state.
Presentism in the most intuitive but thin variety does not allow for this so the notion of motion itself becomes illusory. Only things exist in the paper thin present. You can point to an object but it doesn't make sense to say you are pointing to a moving object. Perhaps, you could say with some strange amalgamation of words that to say its moving is to say it is inconsistent in comparison to your memories but the universe doesn't possess such a thing according to naïve presentations of presentism.
Wouldn't this then make the notion of an absolute frame altogether meaningless under a thin presentism? If there aren't different 'frames of references' or states of motion you don't need to find the absolute one as there just aren't any motions to begin with.
Is it even possible in a naïve thin presentism to formulate among its concepts and terms the notion of an absolute frame of reference without recourse to motion? Or is this already an impossible feat? Further, what form of presentism would allow us to meaningfully restate the 'absolute frame' thesis if we still desire it?
Comments (36)
The "absolute frame" is known as "absolute time", and this is quite different from presentism.
However, rigid presentism of the sort that would entirely deny the existence of any future or past states makes it neigh impossible to actually explain how such an 'absolute frame' can in fact supply those standards independent of our mind. As nature doesn't seem to possess them in any capacity nor the tools to do so from a presentism view point.
You can have absolute quantities in regards to spacetime structure and not be a presentist yet most presentists will probably have some absolute frame linked to the core part of that doctrine. The present that is.
I don't think so. A frame of reference uses temporal extension to model motion. Presentism denies the possibility of temporal extension by assuming an incompatibility between the present (real) and the past and future (fictional).
The "absolute frame of reference" represents an assumed true, absolute rest frame. When the geocentric model of the universe was proven to be false, human beings realized that they have no access to any "absolute rest frame". So relativity theory removed the need for one.
Presentism is a philosophical position which really has no bearing on physical models of motion. All physics uses past observations to extend predictions into the future, thereby ignoring the present. So all forms of models made in physics are non-presentist.
I don't think this is the most intuitive form of presentism at all. The intuitive form of presentism, it seems to me, is one that acknowledges that the present that exists NOW will soon change into a new present. Motion is, of course, a type of change. Any form of presentism that disregards change seems remarkably intuitive to me.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover Then what are anti-relativists both current and past as in the case of Lorentz Aether theory even coherently talking about?
There is the implication that to truly hold to SR you have to accept a form of spacetime realism of sorts and therefore also a form of eternalism. Fine. . . but the opposing position doesn't have to resort to postulating the existence of future/past states by supposing a universal Aether frame that can be seen as an objective present or a 'physical' absolute simultaneity marker.
If they are postulating an absolute present. . . I.E. a way of giving an absolute simultaneity. . . then aren't they a presentist? Or are they just holding to a slightly different block theory of time than SR? Does that make presentism actually inconsistent with traditional Lorentz Aether theory?
If you answer in the affirmative I'll find that fairly peculiar because the point of a establishing an absolute present by many such individuals is NOT have the conclusion that the future or the past are just as real as the present.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You mean it's all fictitious and abstract modal talk. The hard presentist here thinks the same and finds it a quick jump from the nonexistence of any true statements about the past/future to adopting some form of indeterminism that he ties into quantum mechanics.
Quoting flannel jesus Yes. . . that is what this person does in what he calls hard presentism.
There is the present and an objective passage. Nothing more!
However, as that person and all other presentist have made clear ad nauseam is that to truly talk about motion especially into the more distant past retroactively or predictively into the future that requires the usage of truth-makers. Which pushes you in the direction of rather more esoteric versions of presentism that either postulate truth of statements arbitrarily without reference or in some cases references to purely abstract entities rapidly ballooning ones ontology. The only other approach then would be a pragmatic anti-realism about past or future statements.
Why don't they?
If you want to you can substitute absolute simultaneity in place of the present.
THEY DON'T HAVE TO RESORT TO BEING AN ETERNALIST because their physics allows for the opposite position. . . does that make it clear.
They can establish an absolute present so they don't have to make said present relative and hold all moment both future or past on equal grounding. That is what a person holding to certain forms of SR would have to do.
. . . but follow my line of thinking which has sort of troubled me with individuals who hold to this and it makes me think they are unwilling hypocrites.
If presentism of the hard sort described in a previous link does not allow for one to make objective as a part of the furniture of the world 'states of motion' as future or past states don't exist then any motion is to be seen as fictitious. It's inferred and highly fictional language from memories or psychological inferences but nature wouldn't 'know' that a thing has any motion in the typical sense of the word.
This applies to all motion INCLUDING ABSOLUTE MOTION so despite what some might desire a Lorentz Aether frame for. . . which is to supply absolute simultaneity and also a standard for absolute motion. . . might actually be mutually exclusive theses.
That is, unless they adopted either eternalism or some strange form of presentism that allows for it such as thick presentism. However, the adoption of either would seem to conflict with the primary intuition that drives people to be presentist Lorentz aether proponents in the first place because the future or the past seem intuitively nonexistent.
So if you accept a presentism that implies absolute simultaneity it doesn't actually imply that they have an absolute standard of motion as it's neigh impossible to even express such a notion in presentist lingo.
I don't think that the universal aether theory proposed by Lorentz was capable of providing for absolute simultaneity. I think that's why it was rejected in favour of special relativity. It provided the same type of principles as relativity, but not as versatile.
Quoting substantivalism
No, I don't think that is the case. Presentism, by most accounts is something different from claiming an absolute present. These two are distinct principles, by my understanding.
Quoting substantivalism
Yes, I think Lorentz aether theory provides for a slightly different block theory of time from that of special relativity, but both are inconsistent with presentism. That is my opinion.
Whether its some aether that does this or the interaction is more mysterious in origin doesn't really matter. Only that its snuck in the back door as required to make sense of instantaneous spaces.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover Then how is it that some espouse it while being presentists and others such as William Lane Craig famously seemed to be in favor of it but with a growing block theory of time?
That may be your opinion but its most definitely not the opinion of most dissidents, philosophers, and physicists who have spilled ink on this topic usually using Lorentz aether theory as a vehicle for their intuitive presentist viewpoints. Even such people are fearful of action at distance to a point that it's better to propose something with peculiar properties than to propose nothing at all and say it's just distant disembodied action. Course, then the distant connections would be causal in nature through this 'aether' but instantaneous and truly symmetrical, reflexive, as well as transitive.
Most find the notion of eternalism and its postulation of future states or past states as unnecessary expansion of ones ontology at best while at worst they see it as poetic nonsense. Trying to distract use from the 'real' matter in front of you 'now'.
Different yes, but not so different. Presentism requires absolutism, else simultaneity would not work. But absolutism doesn't require presentism of any form. An absolute frame can be 3D space or a block.
Remember too that LET and SR are both special models that do not model the universe, so any absolute frame in the real universe cannot be an inertial frame since such a frame cannot describe the universe. It took over a century to generalize the absolutist premises, but it has been done, The theory denies things predicted by relativity such as black holes and the big bang.
Straight up presentism is 3D, but other forms like growing block and moving spotlight are 4D models. All are absolute.
Quoting substantivalism
This seems to presume a 4D model, with time being extended, but only one moment in time being the present. Sounds like a moving spotlight model.
Quoting substantivalism
If they posit a present, then obviously they're a presentist. But if they merely posit absolutism (LET for instance), that come with absolute simultaneity, but does not necessarily imply a preferred moment in time.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You seem to differ. How are these two distinct? Can you give an example?
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverOf course it requires absolute simultaneity. That comes with any absolutist theory.
Quoting substantivalism
What does action at a distance have to do with any of this? It seems to be a quantum concept, not an interpretation of time issue.
quote="substantivalism;981431"]... William Lane Craig famously seemed to be in favor of it but with a growing block theory of time?[/quote]
Not sure why he wants growing block. What purpose is served by an existing past? Evidence? Not needed by anything. Why nonexistent future? That probably feeds his notion of free will, despite the posited onmiscience serving the exact same role as an existing future.
Mind you. Craig is not known for putting together valid arguments. They just have to sound good enough to confirm the biases of his paying audiences.
"moving spotlight" may have a 4d view of the universe as a whole, but still a 3d view of the present moment, just like presentism, right?
I consider 'moving spotlight' to be a form of presentism - maybe you could call it "weak presentism", because instead of it saying "the present is the only thing that exists", it's saying "every time 'exists' in some sense, but the present ESPECIALLY exists, exists in some unique elevated way".
The present is 3D in all forms. I have heard of 2-state presentism where the prior state exists until the subsequent state fully exists. A simulation is this form of presentism. Moving spotlight says all events exist, but the spotlight determines which of these are at the present. Interestingly, the spotlight can move in either direction, and even jump around. Growing block logically seems to forbid that.
You can even have 4D spacetime with very limited temporal extension, say 12 hours each side of the 3D present. So the immediate past and future exist, but the more distant past and future do not.
$5 says you cannot name who/where that is suggested.
It very much is presentism, but I agree that it gets you two (three?) kinds of existence. The model works really quite well for epiphenomenalism sort of like watching a first-person movie. You (the experiencer external to the universe) can jump in anywhere you want, experience a life, rewind, fast-forward at will, but with no volition to change the plot of the story. The whole movie reel exists, but the one discreet frame under the projector light exists harder.
Time travel makes a little sense with personal moving spotlight. Not so much with the others.
It's just spatialized metaphor to talk about time. It doesn't have to imply anything about the position one holds to and should probably be seen as only a mere tool through which to give the concept you are talking about greater meaningful content.
Course, I'm still somewhat unsure what an un-spatalized language or series of metaphors for time would actually look like. Usually when people approach doing so it turns into rather poetic prose so the rationally minded sort of hand wave it away because it seems like philosophical nonsense.
Quoting noAxioms Well. . . how does one make sense of the present? What is its nature besides mere postulation? How can I MAKE that thing over there PRESENT to me?
If you are say, a relationist, who only allows for physical relations to give meaning to both 'being simultaneous with' or 'spatial separation' then in either case if you want to say two things exist in the same moment is tantamount to saying they casually interact with each other neigh instantaneously. I feel like this extends nicely to substantivalism just replace physical interaction with spacetime connection.
If you are fine with espousing some doctrine of the vacuum or void of nothing residing between atoms then the only way you can 'link' two distinct objects as pegs on the same board is if they are interacting with each other at a distance.
This is if you espouse or hold to some eleatic principle of sorts. I.E. to exist is to be able to or actively be interacted with. Which holds a fair bit of intuitive appeal as much as presentism apparently possess. Why else wouldn't it? Something that doesn't interact with anything else and never will nor ever has is tantamount to espousing a non-existent thing in the minds of certain physicists or rational empiricist. Occam's razor would demand we strip it from our ontology until such time as we can say in what way it actually does interact with at least some other part of our universe (. . . anything within it that is).
SR even seems to espouse this core principle as some celebrate its strong emphasis on casual interactions to give temporal assertions operational meaning.
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I think the concept of the void sort of helps me conceptualize the distinctions. You can think of it like some black canvas that doesn't do anything. It's just the beg board you put things on. There are rules as to how you do so as well as how you interpret what it means to be off the board, on it, and whether you have a string attached to another peg.
Quoting noAxioms It's because of his belief in God and his philosophical attempts to bolster it. He is pretty transparent on that.
As I explained in my first post, presentism is not well suited for any physics, or universal cosmology. It's more suited to solipsism, though some may try to adapt it, like the example you provide.
Quoting substantivalism
Again, these are attempts to adapt presentism, twist it and transform it in an attempt to make it fit with observed reality. But as you imply, it doesn't really work, producing unsolvable problems.
Quoting noAxioms
Are you sure about this? Is there any presentist precept which dictates that my present must be the same as your present? I think not, and this is why presentism is sometimes described as a form of solipsism. Presentism allows that things (present) change over time, so why wouldn't things (present) change over space as well? Why would a thing here have the same present as a thing over there?
The fundamental problem of presentism is that it cannot support any type of simultaneity, because it is based in the subjective experience of the present, which is inherently unshared. If, for example, I assume to be able to speak to you, I must allow that the present in which I speak the words is distinct from the present in which you hear the words, unless we get caught up in the instantaneous action at a distance which substantivalism mentions. But then each one of us is trapped within one's own present, being unable to say that another shares the same present. Special relativity demonstrates to us that we have no measurement technique which can put us in the same present.
Relativity divides events into 3 categories relative to a given event: Past (including the light cone), future, and other (any events space-like separated from said given event. Relativity of simultaneity is valid only within this space-like region.
A non-solipsistic attempt. Given a block and a moving spotlight for each person, defining not a hypersurface of simultaneity, but simply a worldline, you could indeed have multiple spotlights that are time-like separated, but then all the events would have to be real (no growing block), so the spotlights would be epiphenomenal minds, sort of like a movie film being run through multiple projectors in different rooms rather than having multiple copies of the film. I wonder if any theater has ever tried that.
First of all, what model are we talking? Growing block? Just 3D universe? Spotlights on a 4D universe? The idea you propose works with some of those and not others.
I don't see why one present cannot be shared. There is one 3D state, and everybody experiences their spatial location in it. Why doesn't that work? (Not that I support presentism, but I've not seen a falsification of it)
The time of speaking and time of hearing are different, yes, but both those times are 'the present' when they occur, for everybody.
Quoting substantivalismIt may be metaphor, or it may be actual extension, measured in meters and everything. That's apparently a difference between realism and instrumentalism.
OK, you seem to be talking about instant causality rather than spooky action. Nobody posits that. It is quickly falsified.
No, it is not tantamount to that at all. Causality (per locality at least) moves at light speed at best. I cannot talk instantly to somebody on Mars. Takes a long time. Phone calls don't work. Not sure why you're proposing otherwise.
Nobody suggests that except you apparently.
Actively interacted with, sure, but not instantly. Interaction takes time.
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Quoting substantivalism
I don't think Craig believes in God any more than does Trump. He's paid a lot to say otherwise, but I think Craig would strive for more valid arguments if there was belief since he's very smart and cannot fool himself with his own fallacies. The guy simply knows how to separate sheep from their money.
How do you draw that conclusion of "the present for everybody"? That's an unsupported assumption. My present is the time of speaking. Your present is the time of hearing. Where do you derive "the present for everybody"? You speak about light cones, and a worldline, but these are the tools of relativity which deny that assumption of an absolute simultaneity of "the present for everybody", and the worldline is arbitrary.
As its presented in John Earman's book in world enough and space-time I don't think that is wholly successful. It also isn't extended to SR or GR. However, it is a proof in principle that it is possible to create interesting alternative theories from these metaphysical worries. For relationists it's usually whether there is some way to establish dynamical forces as present monadic properties (the skylar maneuver or something similar to Leibniz absolute force) or do without them entirely saying they are mere result of scale. That and they avoid any spacetime structure which allows for absolute rotation or forces to be involved. That is an intriguing spacetime structure or symmetry to enforce on any future proposed Lagrangian. People talk about Lorentz invariance and Galilean invariance but what about weaker Classical spacetimes?
Hell, did you know even that a curved mathematical equivalent of Newtonian Gravity called Newton Cartan gravity actually showcases that there are wider symmetries beyond the Galilean transformation that it is invariant across? Depending on the distribution it could be the case that the 'inertial frames' possible can be extended to any linearly accelerated trajectory.
Further, as that 'hard presentist' seemed to motivate as well, if you ACTUALLY TAKE SERIOUSLY the metaphysics you choose to hold to then this should motivate conceptual changes in not just the language but also the MODELS used. Especially if you aren't just trying to adopt the current held models, re-interpret them, and then use them as cheap instrumentalist rips offs which are wholly uninteresting. I.E. if you motivate 'hard presentism' seriously then you almost have to generate some probabilistic version of physics at its core for future prediction or past retrodiction.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover Hasn't Eternalism also given itself numerous other unsolvable problems? I don't hear them trying to interestingly solve the problem of the temporal consciousness in an unchanging spacetime anytime soon.
Usually any attempt to do so either ends in paradoxically regarding it as illusory or making use of the same conceptual tools we use to talk about our experience which are not supposed to be present in this block spacetime. Like appealing to a moving spotlight view. Moving with respect to what?
Quoting noAxioms Well, it depends on what you call the objective existence linking relation.
In presentism it has a unique purpose to demarcate and make clear what is existent/present so anything not linked by it are non-real/not-present.
In Eternalism of ANY other variety it's the relation that allows all of this block spacetime to actually be connected in a singular sense at all. To exist physically is to be in this spacetime and not to be is to. . . not exist. That relation (or grounding) is something you don't have to call a physical causal relation but rather a special spacetime connection but it seems like semantics to me.
In either situation you have things which exist, tons of things, and you need to somehow link them together on the same playing ground (tenselessly or not).
Quoting noAxioms There has to be some grounding even in Eternalism that makes all these things exist even if that is a tenseless relation. It's still a relation that demands specification even if that ends up in moorean ends.
Quoting noAxioms That is the conclusion one has to come to as a presentist and an Eternalist. There has to be some grounding relation to link distinct existent things together even if you don't want it to be a species of causation or not. Even if that relation, as in Eternalism, can't be used to demarcate out a distinct or unique present.
Quoting noAxioms Except, a good number of philosophers both dead and living. What's outside spacetime? Nothing. . . the void. . . good we are still in business.
Further, any proposal of separate physical objects interacting has to either make use of action-at-a-distance or some contiguous physical interaction. Even if it's some strange physical entity such as spacetime. Then it's spacetime rather than some aether which serves the role of 'instantaneously' linking/interacting with/grounding these two separate things.
I guess that is why Einstein couldn't get it out of his head later as to it being an aether of merely a peculiar sort. He is not wrong, it's proposed as a part of the furniture of the world and therefore retains status as the originator of physical interactions or other such grounding relations that still might not be physically observable.
Quoting noAxioms So how does reality keep track of it still being there when not interacted with? What grounds it?
It's possible that while that interaction takes place that the other thing could cease to exist or change in such a manner as to not be identical with it. That knowledge or casual interaction I have tells me nothing about whether it has or hasn't changed at all. It's silent on that.
Reality shouldn't be silent on that as that would imply reality doesn't know what things actually exist or not. Whether this is regarded as tenseless or not the actual world is mind-independent, objective, and demands no vagueness.
I'm good with the definition, but it isn't objective. It's a relation to our spacetime. Under presentism, it usually means being grounded in the present: To exist physically is to be currently in this space. There are variants of this, such as asserting that some (or all) of the other events exist, but are in some way not preferred.
They're linked by existing simultaneously.
You grounded this existence by having a location in spacetime. That's enough. That wording carries no requirement for causality at all.
You make it sound like a location, like spacetime is bounded, has an edge beyond which is something else, even if a void. That model doesn't work.
That they do. I make a phone call. You pick up, a reaction to my action. Hard to deny action at a distance. But it taking time is also hard to deny.
What not being there? Nothing vanishes in either model. Under presentism, my dialing of the phone no longer exists at the time that your phone is ringing. Is that your issue? That's is as it should be since your phone ringing while I'm still typing in the number would constitute retrocausality.
Yes. I can get smote by a meteor, and your phone will continue to ring. Life is harsh.
You don't seem to have any examples of necessity of instant causality over a distance.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You make it sound like you're stuck in a moment, and never experience the later time when I am 'listening'. I think your idealism is getting in the way of what is an interpretation of a non-idealistic model.
Just as you complained to the other commentator about his idealism then we cannot just say that nature doesn't know what things there are until the time when you do observe it. Before it's observed, during, and after nature should always give an answer on this if we demand its objectivity.
In either case, regardless of delays due to physical limitations nature 'knows' instantaneously what things exist and what things don't WITHOUT delay. Nature doesn't have to wait for you to get light from andromeda to say whether it exists in a tenseless manner as when the light is emitted. . . when it travels. . . and when it finally gets to your eyes. . . IT ALWAYS STILL EXISTED. . . in a tenseless sense. In presentism whether andromeda does still exist or not. . . while light is emitted. . . travels. . . and gets to your eyes is also objectively answered.
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It doesn't really make much sense to ask nature what things exist and then have nature say, "Wait for a moment while I figure that out. Let me send a signal out and. . ." It doesn't go out searching. It already is the case or it isn't.
We may go out searching but that is a given.
There can be lots of things that exist but only some of them are physically interact-able with and others there might not even be physical connections we can hold to them.
What defines and makes a reality consistently interconnected to allow for any interactions to take place when needed?
Yes both eternalism and presentism have problems. I find neither to be acceptable.
Quoting noAxioms
That's right, I do not experience you listening. And to determine what I am experiencing at the same time (simultaneously) as you listening requires principles of measurement. And here we run into the problems exposed by special relativity, and we are moved to accept the relativity of simultaneity. That is why presentism, which assumes the present of experience, does not necessarily lead to the assumption of an absolute present. Absolute present is a distinct principle, an assumption not supported by presentism.
Look up 'principle of counterfactual definiteness' (which says pretty much what you just said) and then note how very few quantum interpretations accept this principle. Bohmian mechanics is the only well known one that does.
This is trivially falsified. I cannot demand of nature to tell me the state of some event that has 'happened' but is further away that light could travel in the elapsed time.
Anthropomorphising nature, and per the first paragraph above, no it doesn't.
That's because its presence in the past has been measured, and it's kind of a big thing to somehow have vanished in that small time, so its existence now is highly probable.
Yes. Light has classical existence, but the universe is not classical. Photons do not have classical existence. The one is a probability thing, just like 'Andromeda is probably still there, as is the moon.
Subjectively actually. Empirical data yields subjective existence, not objective. The former is a relation, as in your 'being a part of the same reality' relation.
Quoting substantivalismCan you name some? Can you name some for presentism? Neither works for M-U because he's an idealist and both are real interpretations of time. Eternalism not being compatible with it isn't a falsification of eternalism any more than the validity of eternalism being a falsification of idealism.
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverI cannot think of any view that suggests that you would. I may have suggested that you experience the time during which I was listening instead of being stuck experiencing only the time that you are talking.
You misunderstand. I am not asking for a determination of when that time is, only that you must inevitably be simultaneous with it at some point, unless you are skipping over swaths of time
Let's say you are on Earth an I am on Mars, 15-light minutes away. You speak a short message. I get it anywhere from almost instantly to a half hour later. Unless you doze off during that half hour, you're going to experience the time during which I am listening to the message.
Oddly enough, under presentism, that half hours is a proper half hour, not an actual one. There is no way to know how long it takes for an actual hour to pass since one does not experience the actual flow of time, but rather one experiences proper time, same as what clocks measure.
Just classical existence realism. If we deny that then we might as well just become idealists.
Quoting noAxioms Realism. I'm to assume most people irrespective of the strangeness of their physics aren't solipsists or rabid berkeley idealists.
No matter how strong the arguments for anti-realism are we always seem to demand a realism of some sort for the external world.
Quoting noAxioms Not because it has a presence in the past but its always already been a part of the furniture of the world. Block spacetime, remember.
Talk of probabilities only counts for interpretations of presentism. As what may be the future or may have been in the past have to have us weigh probabilistic distributions of rational choices of different possible outcomes. As there is not definite future or past. . . THEY DON'T EXIST under presentism remember.
Either it has always (tenseless manner) already been a part of the furniture of the world or never will be in Eternalism, however.
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You keep confusing our fallible empirical access with the objective external features the world possess as laid out by a particular metaphysics. Which may be within our reach or. . . never will be. Metaphysics isn't meant to be concerned with that but then again most realists also aren't convinced by any number of skeptical arguments that they are really a brain in a vat. Even if the realists can't bring an argument to the table that the shrewd skeptic couldn't easily counter out of spite.
I could also claim that any interpretation which brings such high indeterminism to the external world is merely a projection our ignorance both bridgeable and un-bridgeable.
I've experienced a lot of things in my life, but I really can't say that I know what it's like to experience time.
Quoting noAxioms
We don't know how time passes. If it exists as discrete quanta, then it's quite possible that the swaths which I experience are not the same as the swaths which you experience, and so there is no such simultaneity. We can't experience the same space at the same time, so why think that we could even experience the same time? Doesn't relativity indicate that the time experienced is unique to the spatial conditions of the individual?
Quoting noAxioms
I think that's an unsupported assumption about what "one experiences".
I wonder if time isn't the thing we experience, so much as it is one of the things that must exist to facilitate experience. Whatever you experience, you experience in and through time. I don't think you can have an experience in just a snapshot of existence. Things must change in order for experiences to happen.
That's like what Kant said, time is an a priori intuition, facilitating the possibility of sense.
The eleatic principle you mentioned above is a very mind-independent worded principle:
"only entities with the capacity to cause changes or be affected by them are real"
But the only literature I can find that references this principle ignores what it says and drags in their mind-dependenct biases. See the paper by Colyvan, which seems to be about half the hits on a google search of the term.
Very often any view different from your own looks rabid.
Quite the opposite. The terms 'future', 'present' and 'past' are only ontologically meaningful under presentism, the view that divides all events into those three categories. There being no such division under eternalism, all events share identical ontology. Hence the lack of tensed verbs when discussing the view since tensed verbs make reference to something that the view does not posit.
As for past and future events existing, they do under some versions of presentism (I listed maybe 5 flavors above) and not under other versions. The 3D version says only present events exist and the others do not. There is just space and the current state of matter, which evolves in place.
Derailments aside, the topic was supposed to be about absolute frames and presentism. Under said realist view, presentism seems to require absolutism, and absolutism directly contradicts the premises of special relativity. That doesn't make either view wrong, only mutually incompatible. SR premises can be reworded in an epistemic manner instead of ontic, and then the contradiction goes away.
Do you agree with any of that?
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverWe don't even know if it passes, so yea, I agree.
Relativity says the opposite: First postulate is that physics (including the experience of anybody, anywhere) is frame and location independent. Time is thus experienced identically for everybody. If this were not so, you could identify a more objective frame by the experience of time passing more quickly there.
If it's true that one's experience is frame dependent, then relativity is open to blatant falsification.
Of course, from an idealist PoV, flow of time is all that is experienced, and the rest is fiction.
Quoting flannel jesus
Depends on one's definition of time. I can think of 3 kinds right off, and proper time is the one experienced. The others are coordinate time (computed, not experienced), and the flow of the present (zero empirical impact).
Quoting flannel jesus
That's an interesting topic in itself. Experience seems to be a process, not a state. A process is at minimum a change of state over some finite time. The issue of Boltzmann brains gets into this, where you don't so much hold beliefs, but you hold memories of beliefs (same thing?).
Classical physics is completely fine with conceptually expanding their ontologies or metaphysics to accommodate unseen entities which possess no casual import. It's also why I consider it a lie that Classical physics cannot accommodate SR, GR, or quantum mechanics. With enough extra structure you most definitely could accommodate anything or through mathematical reformulation.
Is gravity curved because it can only be modeled with curvature? NO! There is teleparallel gravity which is just a reformulation of it in terms of torsion rather than curvature as the emphasized variable. Metric teleparallel gravity does the same but for the metric.
Is Classical gravity only flat? NO! It can be curved as versions of Newton-cartan gravity showcase.
Classical physics can account for all of these with enough sweat and analogue models. However, the real problem is not there empirical adequacy but there non-uniqueness.
All such conceptions within Classical physics insights in general (if it even makes sense to cleanly demarcate between 'classical' and 'relativistic' physics) posit extra structure. The real discussion then is whether we should be, as Lawrence Skylar lays out, either reductionists or anti-reductionists. There is a high level of under-determination and a multitude of possibilities so we left either being dogmatic about one with varying degrees of non-pragmatic virtues to bolster support. . . OR we are left trying to convince you that while all these interpretations sound different they are all really saying 'the same thing' as they agree on the empirical content. The latter being a favorite of certain kinds of logical positivists.
Quoting noAxioms . . . or equivalent. If one could deflate the languages being used and inter-translate between them as a deflationist may desire then maybe its not so different as it says/means all the same things.
Quoting noAxioms Yes.
Why would time seem to pass more quickly in a more objective frame?
Yes, Simultaneity is conventional under SR, an abstraction, not anything physical, even if the convention uses causal means. That did change from the physical simultaneity that was presumed before, and is still presumed under presentism.
Hmm, like what? The existence of a preferred moment in time? What else? I can think of more, but the list gets more hand-wavy the further you go. What's classical physics got to do with it? What has post-classical physics taken away that classical allowed? It seems like post-classical actually added more to the metaphysics, not taken it away.
Gravity is curved? You mean a model where gravity is explained by curvature of spacetime? There are alternate models to that, so your 'only' doesn't hold.
Quoting Metaphysician UndercoverUnder realist physics, time seeming to subjectively pass faster or slower seems to be a function of boredom vs productivity and has nothing to do with where you are or how fast you're going.
Under idealism, there's nothing with which to compare one's own perception of time passage.