From: snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: invention of time
Date: 4 Sep 92 18:11:38 GMT

In <1992Sep3.070054.17521@galois.mit.edu> tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow) writes:


>>       A commonly expressed sentiment. The obvious question is:
>>staggering relative to what? If another point of view had been
>>adopted, we might now have created antigravity, developed
>>supercheap energy, cured cancer, fed the world, and achieved
>>world peace! Who knows?

>       It seems that you're missing the point here.  Of course,
>everyone will agree that another point of view MIGHT solve all
>the problems of the world. But this surely doesn't mean that we
>should shift points of view all the time.  Do you agree?  If so,
>then you are basically agreeing with vincent, who is arguing that
>a shift in one's point of view needs to be justified.

       Mr. Vincent said "How could QM be wrong, given it's staggering
success?" Again: Staggering relative to what? The paradigm that
never was?

       Secondly, one does not need justification to bring up
some of the deeper questions to be asked about the new physics.
Thinking about them can do nobody any harm.

>>       it would be interesting to see the experimental design
>>which can eliminate every possible cause affecting muon decay
>>rate except time dilation. Especially since the reason for muon
>>decay isn't even understood. This is an amusing facet of all
>>these 'decay rate' verifications of time dilation.

>       Of course, if you have a desperate need to cling to the
>idea that time dilation is absurd, and cannot bear to let go of
>your pet paradigm that says time dilation is absurd, then you can
>continue to argue against time dilation until the cows come home,
>in the same way that tobacco companies continue to argue that
>smoking does not cause cancer.  No matter how many controls and
>experiments are performed, you can still argue that time dilation
>has not been proved, because the results of the experiments might
>be due to some vastly complex, as-yet-undiscovered theory.  But
>this is crankish behavior.  If you want to argue seriously, you
>must do more than wave your hands and say, "source and
>environmental factors."  Such a "theory" is the ultimate in
>"explaining away."

      Time dilation is assigning geometrical cause to physical events.
The question arises, is it possible to rule out physical
causes for the phenomena attributed to time dilation? (Or gravitation,
for that matter.) If not, then...it is a philosophical decision to accept
a geometrical cause of a physical event. Is this what we want to do? Is
this likely to be true? Is this a powerful approach?

      Non-physical causes for physical events have been hypothesized
before. Fortunately, they are subject to disproof by showing the real
physical cause of the phenomena. The problem is, if the idea of
non-physical causes is accepted, nobody who is indoctrinated in the
non-physical view looks for further physical causes. This represents
a degradation of the values of scientific discovery. Non-physical
causes of physical events are at the root of mysticism, religion,
belief in the supernatural or paranormal, magic, astrology, etc etc.
This is why the new physics is glommed onto by these writers. Read
Michael Talbot, for example.

>>       What we think of as 'laws of nature' such as Newton's
>>laws of motion, how do we know these are not actually the result
>>of the systems matter is made up of, interacting with each
>>other?

>       Have you actually worked out your alternative theory in
>detail and shown how it has greater predictive power than
>relativity? If not, then it seems that your proposals are nothing but
>empty speculation.

        My remark above regarding frameworks vs. properties of matter
is terminated by a question mark. But let's treat it as an alternative
theory. Can it be shown to be incorrect? Or is the new physics simply
ignoring it, for various non-scientific reasons? Expediency for example.

>       Nobody will be impressed until you can produce a theory
>that predicts everything that relativity predicts and that
>predicts a phenomenon tha relativity predicts incorrectly.

      A good new theory would do at least two additional things as
well. It would unify the field of physics with that of chemistry,
biology, geophysics, astronomy etc. Even with sociology and the other
soft sciences. (It would harden the soft sciences.) Secondly, it would
be easily understandable in its fundamentals -- such that people would
feel about it "How could we not have seen that before?" I.e. it would
lie in stark contrast to the half-baked and obscure ideas of QM and
relativity. It would be on solid philosophical ground -- which is to
say that it would be directly related to human purpose and power. Such
a viewpoint is not even dreamt of in current physics, which considers
the search for a GUT, a unification of QM and relativity, to be
"fundamental". What they miss is that "fundamental", in science, should
refer to what is fundamental to human development, not what is fundamental
to some quirky theoretical ruminations on "the universe". There is no
such thing as "the universe". Newton said it with his 'pebbles on
the beach' observation. Sadly, this is a lost perspective in today's world
of Big Science and atomic-bomb-astic (to coin a phrase) scientific egos.

>       [regarding use of new physics for atom bomb] Perhaps
>not---I may have chosen a poor example.  However, consider, say,
>manned moon landings.  These made heavy use of Newtonian
>mechanics, which you also seem to reject as illegitimate, because
>of its mathematization of reality, and notion of absolute time,
>and geometrization of space, etc.  If these ideas are so
>outrageously absurd, why have people who have believed them and
>acted on these beliefs succeeded in obtaining so much control?

      The force of gravity is computationally the same whether or
not you have properly understood the physical cause of gravity. The
inverse squared relationship is empirically supported, after all.
On the other hand, a deeper understanding of the cause of gravity could
lead to new descriptions, and to new predictions, at a finer or grander
level. Leaving it at the equation level -- saying "the equation is the
cause" -- does not lead to new discoveries regarding the nature of
the phenomena. This is the problem with any arguments dismissing actual
"correctness".


>-- 
>Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu

      John E. Snodgrass
      -----------------
      snodgras@crash.cts.com
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech