Oh geez, Matt might hate me for this...

Do you really think that everyone ran out and bought 50 Cent's album because it's shimmering with talent? They bought it because the record companies can sell a catchy gangsta image, promote it 24/7 and make people think that's what's cool.

I'm too out of this debate to jump in, but I'll say that, the No-Money-Market is not guarenteeing you everything, it's giving you a better chance to go out and find what you're looking for without worrying about price.
So you want all that stuff?
Great. Now go get it.
You seem to think everyone's just gonna sit on their ass and demand material objects. Those would be the jokes of this society, the CEOs and bankers of current society.
But a major thing you have to consider when thinking about NMM is crime. Think of all the stress and crime we have in society today. At least half is from money woes.

 

In all seriousness, pointbreak. If you had all the opportunity in the world to better yourself in whatever way suited you and to help others out and at the same time the opportunity to sit on your backside and accept what you needed from others who were willing to work for it, which would you do? The second way you would grow fat and your brain would rot away and you would feel shit, if you excersize your body and mind you feel better, is this not true? That is the reward for contributing, a more happy and fulfilled life.

 

The format of this post is all screwed up. So I've put my responses to Pointbreak's comments in larger text.

SDS

 

If you'd put 'money' instead of 'merit' in that part about phoney and disguising I would agree with you but, whilst I don't agree with his viewpoint on money (which does present itself as somehow objective whilst clearly not being so), I agree with Pointbreak that merit is not phoney or disguising. It is blatantly subjective and doesn't pretend otherwise. There are no standard units in which merit can be objectively measured. It is entirely based on the subject's judgements of good and bad. This is what comes of studying philosophy without a grounding in science my friend

Do you think we shouldn't base anything on a person's past? A peadophile couldn't change his past so we should ignore his potential future and put him in charge of a bunch of kids? Someone couldn't be arsed learning maths at school or since but he can't change that so let's give him a job as an advanced maths teacher. The present is a function of the past just as the future is a function of the present, and every moment is a function of the moment before. If everyone was treated in complete equinimity, how on Earth would we decide... anything. Draw names out of a hat?

A friend of mine the other day, when I asked if I could take a bit of his hash, said, "take it if you think you deserve it". Was he trying to manipulate me? I don't think so. The way I interpreted it was something like "Hash is a useful and limited tool. If you think you will use it correctly and don't waste it, then of course you can fucking have it, there's no question." If you call that manipulation - making someone think about their future actions - then you're a wee bit screwy.

 

Without a grounding in science? I spent twice as long getting my doctorate in an applied science as I did studying philosophy as an undergraduate.

You're kind of missing some of my points I think. It's not surprising because I'm saying several different things.

I'm saying:

1)Merit doesn't really exist. Merit is nothing more than our emotional reaction to the actions of others, what we want to do to others. Also the language of merit is a deceptive tool of manipulation.

2)We need a moral principle guiding our actions toward others. Otherwise anything goes. This moral principle is that we should do the best possible for everyone else within the framework of equality and not hurting other people.

3)Even though merit is a contrivance, if you want nevertheless to use the third person language of merit in expressing (2) then it becomes "Everyone merits nothing less than the very best within the framework of equality and not hurting other people."

The language in (3) however tends to confuse the issue -- it is otherwise useful however because people tend to listen to matters phrased in terms of merit -- as I said the contrived and disguising language merit is a powerful tool -- so let's just forget it for now.

So we're just left with (1) and (2): people want to do things to other people and they should have a moral principle to be sure they treat others well across the board.

THEREFORE what about a pedophile and what about a person's past? Of course I'm concerned with those and this is expressed in (2). Measures have to be taken to assure equality and that no one is harmed and as I previously said a victim of crime is by definition put in a position of inequality and harm.

The critical point however is that you take actions with respect to a criminal not because the criminal DESERVES them -- merit is after all a contrivance which doesn't really exist -- but because they are necessary from a practical standpoint according to the moral principle (2). You WANT to take those actions because it follows the moral guideline, NOT because the criminal DESERVES anything less than anyone else (if you want to speak in the contrived languageof merit). Do you follow me?

The problem with merit and using the language of merit is that it's a tool of deceit and manipulation used to deprive people of things that there is no reason they should not have.

Your friend said you could take some of his hash if you thought you deserved it. All this means ultimately is that you could take some if you wanted to give yourself some and not if you didn't want to. But some people might have brainwashed your friend (or even you) into thinking you "didn't deserve it" because you didn't work hard enough for it or some other reason. See my list above in a previous post taking aim at all the phony reasons why various people do not "deserve" various things.

Anytime anyone says you do or don't deserve something look at the motives. Because when they speak in terms of what YOU MERIT all it really means is what THEY WANT or DON'T WANT for you.

Some people are so brainwashed thay actually thing they deserve (using their language of merit) less. Well if you're not a neurosurgeon and you think the neurosurgeon deserves a Mercedes S600 and you don't deserve one believe me you're an unfortunate dupe.

I just wish I could get these distinctions across in fewer words but that's how brainwashed people are, how polluted their minds are in looking at thing in terms of discriminatory merit (that some deserve less).

 

I've just been trying to describe relativity on another thread. My brain hurts

Isn't that moral principle - "if a person deserves something they should get it". We're all individuals and we obey that rule according to our judgement, because and therefore merit is subjective. What's dangerous is when 'deserves' is replaced with 'can afford'.
If 'we' told me I should make objective decisions about what I did, I would tell 'we' to fuck off - everything is subjective. Within the bonds of modern society (which I am trying to loosen) I run my own life by my morals.

If I said "You're a camel", would you think that meant that you were a camel or that I thought you were a camel? If I said "You deserve fish," would that mean you deserve fish or I thought you deserved fish? If doctors or scientists got together and said to the populace "You deserve cancer if you smoke" in a voice of authority, I would be a little pissed off, but they don't. Instead they say "don't smoke because it makes you more likely to contract cancer" (but can you say that? Because what's happened has happened and couldn't have happened any other way, so probablities worked out from past statistics are meaningless to the future, yeah? Or have you backed down on that line of reasoning?) which is fine. It's not deceptive, you've just invented connotations of objectivity that don't exist. If a bunch of financial-economists got together and said "you deserve working all the hours god sends in the same piss poor job for years on end with very few benfits in the way of time off, things or services, just because eg you cared and wanted to do a caring job for a morally right institution eg the NHS, rather than a pointless job like a merchant banker for which you would have deserved loads of time off, goods and services" I would, again tell them to fuck off but a bit quieter because they represent the views of every **** in this country ie, "you deserve what you can afford"

Yeah, I think they're saying it quite openly.

Look at what money is! It's a way of discriminating, to the nearest penny and finer, what someone supposedly deserves - even though identical jobs in two identical places can be paid differently. Is haggling a skill that benefits anyone but yourself? No, but it means you have more money. Money which, as it is measured to the nearest penny, definitely has connotations of a certain objectivity which it doesn't possess. Are you deliberately ignoring me?
I'm not saying we should exchange the monetary system for a system of bartering... I'm saying we should not keep count of and accumulate money, or anything for that matter - just work together to spread things away from where they are produced in the direction of where they will be consumed. And to get the people with the right skills to the places where those skills will do the most good. Is not money and trade, as opposed to altruism, the proof that the people who run the world ie the ppl with all the money, do not agree with your ideas, rather believing that they and no one else deserves the very best. Money is the slave of the rich and the master of the poor, through it strings are pulled by few money-masters these strings pass through you and everyone else at some point and on down into the poorest (and ironically amongst the most meritous, imo) people, the base of the triangle.

Look, write to me, not at me.

Why should we not use the word merit or deserve, just because they're subjective values?

 

That was my last attempt. If you don't agree with me a bit I'm gonna give up on you.

 

Your "last attempt" you say. I agree things are getting long. I'm surprised you've bothered to keep on this far.

There are quite a few different things you said in your last post and I'll try to respond to most of them or at least to the most important points. And I'll try to be brief I want my posts shorter. [Guess what it didn't happpen.]

The first thing I want to deal with, interestingly, is your statement "Look, write to me not at me." RA I don't know how to talk to you rather than at you without being, I don't know, friendly and you don't seem to want to be friendly so my posts in this discussion are strictly business. Sorry I don't know how to find a "middle ground" I guess I'm just an extremist. From your comments obviously also I know you think I'm overbearing but listen it's just business. If you want to be friendly hey send me a message, tell me something about yourself, I'll do the same and share with you I don't know maybe an anecdote about London or something you know I like London. But don't complain about something you don't really want.

"Everything is subjective." I agree -- and not "a little bit" as you put it but entirely. Obviously one of my major points is that merit is entirely subjective and on this also I believe we are entirely agreed.

One area where we apparently disagree is about the "language of merit" and using this language. We both agree as just stated that for example the merit statement "You deserve a reward" is ultimately subjective and really means nothing more than "I want to give you a reward." You hold the view that saying it the first way is as open and clear as saying it the second way and I disagree. My view is that stating it using the language of merit is deceptive and manipulatory. One reason I hold this view is because a first person obviously subjective situation "I want [to give you a reward]" through the third person language of merit becomes changed to and foisted off as an objective (what most people would consider objective even though both you and I know everything is ultimately subjective) statement of the form "You deserve [a reward]." Through the language of merit what is a subjective condition of me has suddenly become an "objective" condition, a property, of someone else.

It's not that we shouldn't use the language of merit because it's subjective. Rather it's that we shouldn't use it because it IS subjective and NOT OBJECTIVE but people take it as if it WERE objective. From what you've written RA you seem to be saying that you believe people "see through" the language of merit and that they really understand that statements of merit are really subjective and not objective. Here I disagree. I believe that many people really believe matters of merit are objective affairs. They don't understand that matters of merit are ultimately subjective and a function of their own emotions. They really believe matters of merit are cold hard matters of fact that necessarily imply certain consequences in and of themselves. This misconception is cultivated ESPECIALLY in religions where for example "You DESERVE to go to Hell if you reject God's gift of Jesus Christ." It's not that God is sending you to hell for any practical reason, god assumedly is or would be all powerful and he has no need to be concerned with practical considerations, it's simply that you DESERVE hell as an objective matter of fact because you chose to reject Jesus. People really believe this stuff. And they also believe all sorts of other unjustified, crazy, hurtful stuff under the phoney guise of "merit". And obviously those in charge are more than pleased to have this manipulatory misconception at hand in their arsenal. Of course they also believe it all themselves -- I think.

(Maybe you're not so concerned about this or don't see this because you're in the UK and things are different but here in the US things are really out of control with religious fundamentalists assigning blame and merit as an "objective matter" based on the laws of god or free will or whatever inventions or pretexts and it's gotten into politics and becoming part of an ever larger huge oppressive machine. This place is nuts over here and that's what I'm fighting against. Yet I am sure things are just as bad there where you are.)

Yeah. You deserve to go to hell because you chose to reject Jesus Christ. You chose OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL!!! And here RA, Random Andy ol' buddy and hey I mean that seriously, HERE I hope you are paying especially close attention because up to the present I have said nothing about free will. Nothing! But the thing is this. The thing is, people believe they deserve such and such because they acted out of free will. They believe that free will entails merit as a cold hard objective matter of fact, just like cause and effect. If you acted out of free will you deserve consequences is what most people believe as an objective matter of fact.

BUT -- we did the only thing we could in the past under the circumstances that actually existed and no, RA, I have not backpedalled a bit on that issue -- consequently it's OBVIOUS that free will doesn't exist any more than Santa Claus and thus it's OBVIOUS that free will cannot determine merit because free will does not even exist!

WHY have I said nothing about free will up to this point? Because it's such an ingrained myth and consequently an emotional issue that people just don't seem to be able to handle that it doesn't exist and they go completely bananas and stop listening and you don't get anywhere because they just can't handle it. So I tend to not bring it up until toward the end. And I'll not say anything more about it at this time except that the myth of free will (along with its companion "merit") is the greatest deceptive and manipulatory tool of all. I'll only say more about it if you want to get into it. I did get into it with my buddy KBlaze. I sort of convinced him but I'm not sure. I wonder what he thinks now. Sorry to get you mixed up in all this KBlaze if you're still out there. I know it takes some getting used to. But just remember if you don't have free will it doesn't make that much difference because you never had it anyway so things aren't that much different, it 's just that knowing it might well open your eyes and change the way you look at things, especially stuff like merit and certain religious attitudes...

"You deserve such and such because you acted out of free will..."

What deceptive and manipulatory BULLSHIT!

(Also RA you voiced the idea that my view that what happened in the past is the only thing that could have happened may mean that "probabilities worked out from past statistics are meaningless to the future." No, because there's a difference between being and knowing. Only one thing will be in the future. The problem is in god's wonderful world we don't know what will be. That's why the probabilities and statistics are not meaningless. They help us try to zero in on knowing what actually will be. Although there may be more, almost undoubtedly is more, to all this than meets our eyes...)

As a final note of accord RA let me say something about money, I didn't comment earlier about what you were saying about money. One reason I didn't say anything is because money is not something I've thought a lot about I wasn't deliberately ignoring you except on that account. Thinking about what you've said my reaction is that there is no question money is manipulatory and discriminatory and in a perverse way used to make claims about merit. Just like you said "can afford" becomes "deserves". Given more time to think about it I would no doubt get all worked up and write a long post about it. One thing I want to say already however is that money appears to be part of the whole anti-merit issue I've been talking about. My focus has been on the language of merit, which I find deceptive and manipulatory. Your focus is on money, another prime element in the merit enforcing machine. But it would appear that we're basically concerned about the same underlying affliction in society.

 

I got one of those lovely cold shivers down my back as I got to the end of that post You know, like when you work something important out or as in this case, come together with someone.

It has seemd to me all the way through this discussion that we, like you say, are concerned with the same affliction in society which is why I was getting a bit peeved at you ignoring what I was saying about money. It's all very well saying we all deserve the very best and to some it would be contentious but not to me. To me it's an objective fact (that's a contradiction in terms, I know), and something we should be working towards. The clear enemy in this fight is money so go ahead - get worked up about it because I had the epiphany (with the cold shiver) that told me money was not as essential as most peeps believe years ago and I'm running out of steam to discuss it. I am trying to present an alternative though, whereby money will be phased out as it becomes less necessary.

I'm not sure about the fate vs free will question. Although I think it's quite possible that free will is a myth, it's a useful myth. Things are more likely to be achieved if people think they can affect their future. Complete acceptance of the idea of fate would, in many, lead to resignation and defeat, agreed?

 

Random Andy after writing my post yesterday I still felt kind of guilty because I was still going on and on about my own stuff and felt I still didn't give enough attention to yours but I'm glad I moderated myself enough that you took it well and let me just say that I apologize. (And yesterday on TV believe it or not I heard a commentator in an editorial actually say something very wise "An apology is about the future not the past." That kind of observation is right up my no-merit alley I should have though of it myself I'm always saying "It's the future not the past that matters" which notably in terms of justice means I don't support an eye-for-an-eye or revenge but just making things better in the future. There I go again. I may be not yet at the point as you mention for yourself of running out of steam in trying to make people understand the truth, and I can't let myself run out of steam at this point because I have it all in a publication I want to get out there for people to see, but I do feel the frustration just like you of running up against a brick wall in getting people to understand what's really going on. Well neither one of us should give up.)

The first time you commented on my posts I figured you were a conservative or something and it wasn't until later on that it apppeared to me that we might have basic views in common. "The clear enemy in this fight is money so go ahead and get worked up about it." Yes I will be thinking more about how money fits into the scheme of things and from my end of course I want to say that people's misconceptions (about merit, free will etc) and wrong attitudes are also the clear enemy. Basically our areas of focus complement one another and I think we have and can learn from one another.

If people think they don't have free will they become resigned and less is likely to be accomplished? Yes, yes I tend to agree and it's another reason why I leave the nonexistence of free will "to the end of the discussion" or sometimes don't mention it at all (but not in the publication it's right up front and it would take too much work to change it now). But naturally I've thought about this aspect of things also and there are two things I want to say.

The first thing is, when I suggest to a person that free will doesn't exist they might say something like "Well then if I'm crossing the road and a car is speeding toward me and I don't have free will what do I do just stand there???." Well naturally I "have an answer for everything" and what's going on here is that this response respresents "a fundamental misunderstanding" of the nonexistence of free will and my answer IS: "Well if you don't want to get hit by the car you better get out of the way." In other words like I said yesterday if you don't have free will it doesn't really change anything because you never had it anyway. The only thing that really changes is one's understanding of things and,with that, false conceptions and practices can be corrected.

The second thing I want to say is that even if people feel more resigned at least at the first when they begin to see that maybe free will doesn't exist, it is also the case --and they need to understand -- that they are more susceptible to manipulation if they go around thinking they have free will. More manipulable how so? If they believe their will is free and it's not free then they tend to think they're immune and they're not on guard and they don't think about things. Hey you might even be able to convince them "You deserve to go to hell because you made that choice of your own free will"! So I guess that's another reason not to tell people they don't have free will. It makes it easier to manipulate them if you don't share this information!

And there's actually a third thing I want to say about the nonexistence of free will but it's much more esoteric and borders on the mystical. The thing is if we don't have free will and at least some things are predetermined it means we're an intrinsic part of a giant unfolding scheme. To shift gears and put it humorously it reminds me of Stimey in one of those old "Our Gang" or "Little Rascal" episodes (because I was basically raised on that stuff and the Three Stooges) where they're in a runaway car going downhill and he exclaims "I don't know where we're goin' but we're on our way." Along the same lines but for me much stranger I once read the book "Ishi" about the last surviving native American of his tribe on the California coast near San Francisco, he became the focus of a group of anthroplogists, and the thing about Ishi that was so different for me and hard to grasp was that it was like he really didn't think of himself as an individual but as a part or extension of the tribe I found it very different and mysterious.

At the same time quantum mechanics definitely seems to point to things not being predetermined. But it's not what people want in terms of free will either.

And Random Andy relativity -- which you've apparently been discussing somewhere, I wonder what you've been saying about it, there's much of it I still have a hard time with, I wonder if I could be enlightened -- relativity of course may have a lot to do with the way we need to look at the grand scheme of things. My most recent "insight" -- and difficulty -- about relativity is the following (to me) conundrum: To understand that something is relative (or is different or changes) there has to be something constant by which to make this determination, otherwise this determination cannot be made. Well this "constant element" has to be Einstein's mind, the human mind and the mathematics. But who is to say these elements themselves are constant? How can I say two different ships are or are not of the same length if the yardstick I use to measure them (i.e. in this case I mean the mind, the mathematics) is not constant. I guess we just have to assume that the mind and the math are constant and valid. But what does this mean? What happens to mathematics and mental processes and truth itself when the mind/brain is travelling at relativistic speeds so to speak? Well, it's all too much.

We all want the ultimate answers.

And some of us want the best for everybody! Just eliminate the money element!

Paradise! Bring it on!

 

Wooh, relativity. I think I understand it but when I explain it I tend to tie myself in knots.

To answer your question, no, you don't need anything constant. Wherever you are, however fast your going time will always appear to pass at the same rate. Other people will age differently depending on their velocity relative to you. It always happens to someone else.

This is what I've written (as much of it that makes sense anyway) so far:

It'll be hard without gestures and inflections but I'll give it a go...

Remember that space and time are both dimensions; fundamentally different but still both in existance here and now, in some ways (in that they stretch from one given point to another, and beyond) the same.

E=mc^2, which is of course by no means an assumption but proven, basically says that mass and energy are the same thing. From this, I will safely (in my opinion) assume that matter and energy are the same thing, perhaps just arranged diffently. (ignore the c squared for now, it's a bit of a red herring)

Matter at rest (relative to us) is progressing through time at what we consider the 'normal' rate, which is in fact the maximum possible rate that anything(?) can pass through time.
Matter at rest (relative to us) is not progressing through space.
(spend a while digesting this if it's new to you, it's all obvious but it's stated in a wierd way for a reason)

Energy travelling at the speed of light (relative to us) travels at the maximum rate through space but does not progress through time. Every point in space-time that we see it at, is in fact a point on it's instantaneous (purely spatial) line.

(A photon is, in it's own opinion, a ray. On a graph of space/time, a photon traces a line with a gradient of 300000km/1sec, so on a scale of 300000km/1sec, the gradient is 45 degrees.
To the photon, however, the axes are rotated towards the time axis by 45 degrees. So it is indeed stationary, just long. Although it was a moving point to us, it is now a stationary line. Feel free to discuss this with me)

How this relates to us (being made of matter) is a little hard to grasp.


Again from E=mc^2, Kinetic Energy (KE), is mass. So when you give KE to a body (ie, accelerate it), the energy is 'stored' as mass. To be more precise, an evenly spread wave forms in the electro-magnetic fields of every particle in that body.

One way of imagining this, is simply turning those graph axes (you remember - space/time) towards the point of view of the light wave. You're sacrificing some of your time (ie you experience less time than a stationary observer), in exchange for more distance covered. What looked like light years of travelling time to a stationary observer would tend to instantaneous travel (from your point of view) as your speed approached the speed of light

Imagine two cars driving side by side along a stretch of road. You're in one, looking at the other out the window. It swerves left and right, tracing a wave along the road. Your car continues in a straight line... (relax, breath). The other car has covered more distance than you when you both arrive at the end of the road, though you have arrived first (the cars were travelling at the same speed).

I think this analogy of wiggly car is important but I don't see exactly how it fits in, or all the ways it fits in. I haven't actually posted it on the thread I'm writing it for because as you can see it's unfinished.

The bit that gets me is the 'twins paradox' which is just a thought experiment. If all movement is relative, I don't understand how one person can be seen to be travelling near the speed of light unless the other is as well, in which case any time distortion would happen to them both equally. Einstein said this wasn't aparadox at all but I think he might have ben tripping at the time.

 

As soon as I hung up I realised the twins paradox is probably roughly what you meant with your question.

The only solution is that, once you get back to the same point in space as the other person, your timelines have come back into alignment. The twins are the same age as long as they're in the same place but not necessarily if they are apart, though the age gap is the same whichever way round you lok at it. That is to say, Terry thinks he is older than Toby, but Toby thinks he's older than Terry, when they're looking at each other over vast stretches of space.

 

Random Andy

I have tried to understand relativity in the past. I made a real effort. I never really made much progress at all however. First I got the book written by Einstein himself for the general reader, the book entitled "Relativity". I only got as far as chapter 9 -- which is only 29 pages into the book -- before I encountered a difficulty , actually a disagreement with a moving train example Einstein gave (somewhat different from the moving train example you're going to see here below) -- but presumably Einstein is right and I am wrong, which means I just don't understand -- so I stopped there and did not finish the book. Nevertheless you might want to look at this book if you haven't already maybe you can figure it out the book number is ISBN 0-517-88441-0.

Then just a few months ago I decided to purchase another, hopefully simpler book about relativity called "Einstein For Beginners" ISBN 0-375-71459-4 by Joseph Schwartz and Michael McGuinness it's comic book style (there's a special name for books of that style but I forget what it is so I'll just say "comic book style"). I'm still working on this book off and on and trying to digest the parts I've read and kind of thinking about whether I really understand and agree or not. But again obviously until proven otherwise Einstein is right and I am wrong...

So, well, one bottom line here is that I am just not in a position to say much of anything about what you said about relativity in your post above because the things you are talking about seem to be rather further along in relativity than my grasp of the topic allows me to comment upon.

The subject of relativity is so touchy for me I have to go just one tiny step at a time and think about whether I really understand or not and then if I do understand then try also to grasp what some of the ramifications are. WITH THIS IN MIND for the hell of it let's take one of these very elementary illustrations (supposedly elementary -- but even the simple stuff gets very complicated it seems to me) and "see what we think about it."

I'm using an illustration from the book "Einstein For Beginners".

A man sitting in the center of a moving train's passenger car has a device that sends out a beam of light at the same time in the forward and backward directions. In addition, this passenger car has devices at its front and back doors that automatically open those doors when they are hit by a light beam. A second person is standing still on the ground watching the train go by. The book says that to the person riding in the center of the passenger car the front and back doors of the car will open simultaneously when the light beams are simultaneously shot out. But to a person watching alongside the tracks the back door will open before the front door because for this stationary observer the back door moves forward to meet the light pulse while the front door moves forward and further away from the light pulse.

So did the doors open at the same time or did they not? Einstein reportedly says "Events which are simultaneous with reference to the moving train are not simultaneous with respect to the ground."

I want to say that "The doors really opened at the same time, but just looked like they didn't to the person on the ground because the train was moving and knowing the speed of the train he could do a calculation and figure out they really did open at the same time."

But then it's also probably valid to say "The doors really didn't open at the same time but just looked like they did to the person in the train and knowing its speed he could do a calculation and figure out they really didn't."

So if both of these latter characterizations are valid I'm left with the problem of how two things can happen both at the same time and not at the same time and we're back to Einstein's statement that simultaneity is in the eyes of the moving or non moving beholder.

But if things can "simultaneously happen simultaneously and not simultaneously" then I want to say something like "What the hell time is it anyway?! If simultaneity can be nonsimultaneity then cannot one time be another time? And if one time can be another time what does this mean? Doesn't this mean that something can be that which it is not? And does this not imply perhaps that time does not really exist? But if time does not really exist how can we speak about the doors appearing to open at or not at the same "time" in the first place?

So even this "simple" illustration is very difficult for me. And there are other things going on in it beyond what I have mentioned. One of them is that in this illustration the speed of light is the same for both the moving and stationary observers (as Einstein and they say it is in reality). This also means that light is not moving through a medium, an "aether". Light does not travel through a medium ("aether") like sound waves travel through the medium of the air. They looked for the aether, did experiments, they didn't find it. Even so I kind of have a problem with the speed of light being the same for both observers just like I have a problem with things "simultaneously being simultaneous and not simultaneous".

I will stop here. [Except I didn't quite yet.] I was going to repeat this same illustration but substituting sound waves for light waves because sound has to travel through the medium of air. If I did that however there would have to actually be two scenarios, one with the enclosed passenger car (air inside the car stationary with respect to the car) and one with an open passenger car (air stationary with respect to the ground and a windy ride for the passenger). And THEN I was going to repeat it again but using a pea-shooter -- I'm not kidding, because a flying pea like light doesn't travel thru a medium and the speed of the shot pea is (approximately allowing for individual differences to blow hard) the same for anybody who shoots one. HOWEVER a flying pea DOES travel through SPACE. Is SPACE a medium or not? Einstein's little book "Relativity" has a chapter about space but I've just glanced at it.


It's all just too much. Or maybe I'm making it too hard. Maybe it's just like we were saying before, everything's subjective. Everything depends on the observer. We can experience what is perceived but not know what "is". Like "There is no common is". But if time is just an "appearance" I'm still really confused. So I'm just going to stop at least for now. Yet I'd swear there's something fishy here we still haven't figured out yet, both as regards the big picture but also with respect to this "simple" illustration of the moving train.

***

But then again. Simultaneity is a concept. It reflects a moment of experience. Is not time independent and distinct from both the moving train and passenger and the stationary observer? Is there not a common moment to both the moving and stationary observer? At that common moment were those doors both open or was just one open? This is too much and it's taking too much time. Can a worker say to the boss "I wasn't late to work it just appears to you I was late"? I mean really, if time is that insubstantial. Right now I feel totally lost, a way not adequately portrayed by any of these smiley faces.

 

The Twins Paradox. Despite a fair amount of exposure to science and relativity I've never really seen this paradox all spelled out I've just heard about it. Despite the fact that I know very little about it, are you SURE the twins are different ages just when they're apart and NOT when they get back together? I always remember them saying "The astronauts who went to the moon are a little bit younger than if they'd stayed on earth." And well this also always bothered me because I said "Well weren't we moving away from them just as much as they were moving away from us? I mean what qualifies as the stationary point?" Well I asked an aquaintance about this who is in physics and he said acceleration, not relative velocity, makes the difference. You can't tell if you're moving at some constant velocity or not without an outside reference (you have to look out at the trees going by) but you can tell whether you are accelerating or not (the water sloshes and stays at the back of the container as long as you are accelerating) and when the astronauts went to the moon they accelerated whereas we on earth did not so this is why they came back younger because they underwent this additional acceleration. But I'm not sure I buy alll this and like the rest of it all it's almost too hard for me to think about.

And actually that earlier question of mine was something a little different. Like I said, to know that two ships are of different length you have to have a yardstick that stays the same length because if it changes length (imagine something like a plastic yardstick that melts and stretches if it sits out in the sun) after you measure one ship before you measure the second ship then the comparison won't be valid. WELL -- we use MATHEMATICS as a "common yardstick". Scientists use it, Einstein used it. They use it to calculate how much younger you will be if you accelerate on a space voyage or how much greater your mass will be if you travel at 2/3 the speed of liight and so on and so forth. So they're using mathematics as a COMMON YARDSTICK that doesn't change among all these different scenarious and physical circumstances and velocities and so forth. BUT we said EVERYTHING is relative right? So how can it be that MATHEMATICS is constant? How/why can one thing be constant if everything else is relative? How can we be sure mathematics is constant? And if mathematics IS constant what does that mean? How can that be? Maybe you get different mathematical results if you'r moving or accelerating that differ from what relativity predicts the results should be if you're sitting doing the calculations at home. I dunno it's just a thought.

It's all at the limit or maybe past my capability to handle. Or maybe if I could go careful step by careful step. That's what I tried to do in the post above just using that one train example but I still get into all kinds of problems as you see.

 

i am just posting this to keep the thread going

 

Well, here I am again. taxrefund90 are you sure you want to keep this thread going? I don't know who Zakk is but the death cycle yeah it's important to talk about all that because that's where we're all headed and I'd sure as heck like some straight answers. If there's any deity out there when he made us and put us in this cage with the only certainty death and putrefaction it's about the most cruel thing you can think of.

But if anyone is really still following this as I lay awake this morning I kept thinking about that moving train example I gave above yesterday with the opening doors etc. And my conclusion is that this example (given in the book "Einstein for Beginners") is WRONG and that Einstein's statement that events simultaneous on the train are not so on the ground is EITHER wrong OR somehow not legitimately explained by this moving train example. (You know I also have a problem as I said yesterday with a different train example Einstein himself gave in his own book.) But how could Einstein be wrong, even to the minimal degree of providing an example that doesn't illustrate his point???

But let's go back to the moving train passenger car with the front and back opening doors. In yesterday's example, the same example given in the book "Einstein For Beginners", the doors are opened by simultaneously directed fore and aft flashes of light sent out by a passenger sitting in the center of the car.

Now I also spoke of the possibilities of opening those doors using sound waves in an open or closed car, or even using a pea shooter...

Well now listen carefully. This is what it seems to me and I feel fairly confident in what I'm saying. No matter how the center passenger opens those doors, be it by simultaneous flashes of light, or by simultaneously shot peas, or by simultaneously rolling ball bearings on the floor of the passenger car fore or aft, or by sending out little motorized toy trucks for and aft that reach the doors at the same time, or by using sound waves (here you have to assume the car is enclosed so the air in the car is stationary with respect to the car, if the car is open and windy that's a different matter because it represents moving thru an aether i.e. in this case the air) -- using ALL these modalities the front and back doors of the passenger car will open SIMULTANEOUSLY from the vantage point of the center passenger.

And what about the guy standing on the ground? Well!!! To the observer on the ground I maintain, moreover, that both doors appear to open SIMULTANEOUSLY likewise provided this stationary observer is equidistant form both doors at the instant they open, in other words if the passenger car has travelled past him exactly half its length at the instant the doors open then the stationary observer will see them open simultaneously just like the observer sitting in the middle of the moving passenger car (and these two persons would be directly opposite each other at this instant, one on the ground, the other in the moving car).

And if the observer on the ground is not equidistant from the two doors at the instant they open well then sure one will appear to open before the other but this is common sense because it takes longer for the information to reach him from the more distant door than from the closer one and he can do a calculation and from that determine whether the doors really opened at the same time or not. It's just like if I'm 2//3 of the way between two guys who fire pistols simultaneously I'll hear the more distant one twice as much later as the closer one and I can figure out by measurements and calculations that the two shots reallly were fired simultaneously.


But what about that statement in the book "Einstein for Beginners" that says, as I quoted yesterday, "To a person alongside the tracks the back door will open before the front door because for this stationary observer the back door moves forward to meet the light pulse while the front door moves away from the light pulse." I disagree. And to simpllify for a second let's assume we're shooting peas or rolling ball bearings on the floor of the moving passenger car. Yes the aft directed pea or ball bearing does have a shorter distance to go because the rear dooor is moving forward BUT it is also travelling more slowly with respect to the ground than the forward directed pea or ball bearing which has a further distance to go BUT it is travelling faster with respect to the ground than the aft directed pea or the passenger car and these factors compensate so both doors are reached at the same time -- both for the passenger sitting in the middle of the car and seen as such by the observer on the ground provided he is equidistant from both at the instant they open.

Now let's substitute a light ray for the shot peas or rolled ball bearings. Again I would assert that just like the shot peas or rolled ball bearings the light rays will reach the front and back dooors of the passsenger car simultaneously for a mid-seated passenger and for a stationary observer if he is equidistant from both doors at the instant of their opening. I would assert that the statement in the book "Einstein for Beginners" I just quoted above in the previous paragraph about the back door to a stationary observer appearing to open before the front door is WRONG and that the statement attributed in this book to Einstein that "Events simultaneous in the moving train are not simultaneous on the ground" is WRONG. But how could this book or Einstein be wrong? Furthermore there's another problem. The other problem is that the forward directed light ray is travelling faster than the aft travelling light ray to the observer on the ground. But the speed of light is supposed to be constant ...

The book is WRONG or the examples given in the book and maybe by Einstein himself are either WRONG or fail to demonstrate what Einstein is asserting -- shit examples -- or is Einstein himself is wrong???

So if anyone can help me out with this go to it. I know this thread is not what it started out to be. That merit is just a fabrication (but, using the terminology of merit, everyone deserves the very best) and the nonexistence of free will are much easier to explain and much more obvious.

 

I have just a couple of short thimgs to say.

If your physicist mate was right and time dilation is caused by acceleration, how come time is being dilated here (in the train example) when the train is travelling at a constant velocity?

Space is a medium, I think. Besides the ballbearing and peas are matter, not energy like light or sound so they don't behave the same. However, when you accelerate a massive particle (eg a pea/ballbearing), part of it's mass can be accounted for by its kinetic energy. The proportion of its mass that can be accounted for by its KE is proportional to how like light the particle will behave, with respect to time passing.

Does that make sense?

 

Random Andy

I was away for the long weekend (Monday was a holiday, Labor Day, here). During that time I couldn't help thinking about relativity* and the result is that I need to tell you and anyone else following this that what I wrote in my last post was WRONG. I'm going to have to go back to the train example. Please ignore what I said in my last post about the train example. I now have a better understanding of what's going on there. BUT this does NOT mean there are not still significant paradoxes. I find this stuff really hard to grasp. Just a simple train lumbering along and then all these questions and problems arise.

So please read further because what I wrote in my last post was wrong, I believe. Please read further because what I'm going to relate is the best understanding of relativity that I've had yet. But AGAIN this does not mean that there are not still paradoxes and I will point those paradoxes out and maybe we can figure them out later somehow.

{Comment added later: I still don't understand. See bracketed comment at end of this post. But maybe still you should try to read and follow this post.}

But first RA I want to address your comments about acceleration, kinetic energy etc. Yes according to my book "Einstein For Beginners" there is time dilatation -- or something -- a light clock runs slower -- in a train moving at constant velocity (at least given my current state of understanding, which seems to change from day to day) and the bottom line is I think my physics buddy is WRONG. (And he teaches physics!) As for kinetic energy and the other things -- well let me save that to the end of this post because I don't know much about those but I'll say what I can.

So, now it's back to the moving train passenger car with the guy sitting in the middle. I want to go back to him simultaneously rolling ball bearings on the floor forward and backward because it's a pretty simple and clear scenario -- and we need (so I say) to think about this simple and clear scenario before we try to do the same thing using light rays. Well in this scenario as you recall when the ball bearings hit the front and rear of the passenger car they trigger devices that open the front and rear doors respectively. Because the ball bearings were launched with equal velocity they will reach their destinations at the same time and the front and rear doors of the coach will open simulatneously. The guy sitting in the middle of the passenger car will see them open simultaneously. And the other guy standing on the ground alongside the tracks if he is midway between the doors when they open will also see them open simultaneously.

So far so good and there's no problem with this. Right?

But someone who at first misunderstands things MIGHT raise the following issue. The ball bearings are both launched from a common point in the middle of the passenger car at the same time and with the same speed, right? And during the time of their respective courses of travel toward the front and rear doors, during this time the rear door is moving forward TOWARD the point where the ball bearings were released (defined with respect to the STATIONARY GROUND outside the train; the rear door might even overtake this point before the ball bearing reaches the back of the car) and the front door is moving constantly AWAY from this point. The one distance is getting smaller and the other larger. And both ball bearings were released with the same velocity. So if they were released with the same velocity but the rear distance is smaller than the front distance won't the rear ball bearing reach the back of the coach before the front ball bearing reaches the front of the coach? The answer of course is NO. The answer is no because if we are talking about the point on the stationary ground corresponding to where the ball bearings were launched and the distance from the rear of the coach to this point getting smaller and the distance from the front of the coach to this point getting larger -- if we are talking about DISTANCES relative to this point then we also need to talk about VELOCITIES relative to this point and the fact is that the rear ball bearing relative to this point is going SLOWER (the forward velocity of the train MINUS the rearward velocity of the ball bearing rolling backwards on the floor of the coach) toward its destination at the back of the coach compared to the forward ball bearing which is going FASTER (the forward velocity of the train PLUS the forward velocity of the ball bearing rolling on the floor) toward its destination at the front of the coach.

So in the frame of reference of the stationary ground and the corresponding point where the ball bearings were released the rear ball bearing has a shorter distance to go but it is going more slowly and the forward ball bearing has a longer distance to go but it is going faster and these inequities compensate for each other and both ball bearings reach the back and front ends of the coach at the same time. The observer on the ground midpoint betrween the doors will see the doors open simultaneously.

And in the frame of reference of the moving coach the ball bearings have equal distances to go and equal velocities and the guy sitting in the coach will see the doors open simultaneously.

And it would be the same if we shot peas fore and aft or used motorized toy trucks or shot bullets or whatever provided they were launched with equal velocities with respect to the moving coach.

OK? Random Andy? Anybody? Do you follow this so far?

Now let's do the same thing but using light rays.

In the frame of reference of the moving coach we get the same result with light rays as with the ball bearings. Fore and aft ligh beams travel at the same velocities and the same distances to the front and back of the moving coach and the doors open simultaneously seen by a person sitting in the middle of this moving coach.

And then in the frame of reference of the observer on stationary ground just like with the ball bearings the rearward light ray DOES have to travel a shorter distance to reach the back of the coach and the foreward directed light ray DOES have to travel farther to reach the front of the coach BUT -- BUT -- BUT -- (and this is the part of the explanation that is missing, they just kind of gloss over it in the book "Einstein For Beginners" and so you get all screwed up) -- BUT in the case of light rays UNLIKE the ball bearings you do NOT subtract the velocity of the train from the rearward directed light ray and you do NOT add the velocity of the train to the forward directed light ray for the observer on the ground. So the rear distance is less and the forward distance is more but the velocities of the fore and aft directed light rays are THE SAME for the observer on the ground (unlike the ball bearings which have different velocities for the observer on the ground) so the mid-situated observer on the ground WILL see the rear door open before the front door, whereas the guy riding in the train will see them open simultaneously. Einstein called this the Relativity of Simultaneity.

And WHY don't you add and subtract the velocity of the train from the velocity of light like you do for the ball bearings? It's because, they say, "The speed of light is the same for all observers." That's the screwy thing. That's what makes it different for light rays than for ball bearings. And I'll tell you, I DON'T UNDERSTAND why the speed of light is the same for all observers, I don't understand how it can be that you don't add or subtract the velocity of a moving frame of reference. This causes contradictions it seems to me. I better stop here.

And then a few words about kinetic energy and so forth what little I know about all this. Physical objects have mass. I think mass is the same as inertia. It is the same as resistance to acceleration I think. I think I read somewhere recently they don't know what causes inertia and thus mass. Momentum is mass x velocity. Kinetic energy is (mv^2)/2. I forget what the difference is between these two. I remember being taught "Light behaves both like a particle and like a wave." I don't think light has mass but you know it is affected by gravity (they see this is astronomy when light passes by a star for example) like an object having mass but the reason gravity affects light is because gravity warps space (and maybe that's why it affects masses; so DOES light have mass???). And I'm not sure space is a medium because if it were could it be warped??? Most of this is way over my head at least for right now, way over my head without at least doing some reading and thinking and maybe even then over my head. Also I remember being told every moving particle is associated with a wave function or wave form even a rolling ball bearing or a shot pea but for slowly moving objects the wavelength is so long you would never notice it. I'm not saying ANY of this makes sense I'm just relating bits and pieces of what I seem to remember being taught or having read.

{Oh shit I just thought of a new problem. Oh shit. Above I said that in the case of the ball bearings both observers will see the doors open simultaneously, but not with the light rays. Because the velocity of the train affects the velocity of ball bearings with respect to the ground but not light rays. BUT how can an event seen as simultaneous to the passenger in the car be seen as simultaneous by the observer on the ground in one situation (with the doors opened by ball bearings) and not in the other (with the doors opened by light rays)? This is just totallly hopeless. I need help. These books like "Einstein For Beginners" present stuff like it's easy and clear but they leave stuff out which gets you screwed up then you figure something out or think you figured it out then you realize it still doesn't make any sense. Is there anyone on this planet capable of explaining this stuff? It is NOT EASY. It is NOT CLEAR. NOBODY seems to be able to explain it even Einstein himself in his little book.}

*Naturally because I don't have free will. If circumstances over the weekend had been other than they were I would have reflected on something besides relativity. If circumstances are different in the future as they no doubt at some point will be I will reflect on something other than relativity. Like right now I am going to reflect on lunch. The devil made me do it.

 

And you can tell your physicist buddy that accn due to gravity can not be measured objectively because it works equally on every particle (unit mass), just to make sure he knows he's wrong

Imagine you're looking at two planets, one at a distance of one light year, the other at a distance of two light years. You would observe moments from one year ago and two years ago, their time, respectively. Yet to you they're happening at the same time. So you can observe two things which 'actually' happened at different times happen at the same time.
Does that help with the apparent paradox?