Science Forums 2

[modest]

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Hi modest, I have found your posts to be quite rational; however, you seem to entirely miss the issues I am trying to put forth...

I firmly hold that this is a simple consequence of the fact that you have no idea as to what I am saying.

This is entirely possible. I don’t have any trouble interpreting what you say, but I realize there is a large history behind it that I’m only tentatively aware. My interpretation then may not be your intended message and I accept that I may not know where you’re coming from. An ephemeral problem I should hope.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

You are operating under the presumption that I am presenting an alternate way of explaining these issues of significance. This is not at all the basis of my presentation.

You seem not to allow for the possibility that my last post says explicitly that you are not presenting an alternate view of relativity - which I did.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

My comments are merely addressed to the reasons why the adherents to Einstein's theories totally fail to comprehend the view I am presenting.

Your post to me addressed no such subject. I can appreciate you explaining the motivation for your comments, but I’d rather just focus on the substance of the comments themselves.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Reductionism is a conceptual building block of modern science. The philosophical problem with reductionism is the idea of infinite reduction; it is necessary to terminate this reduction at some point and that point is usually referred to as the fundamental ontology which is essentially reality itself.

I agree that this is very much the method science uses. On a personal note, I very much “like” reductionism. I like looking for and using the fundamental pieces. There is some satisfaction to it that I cannot fully explain. For example, I rather prefer statistical thermodynamics to classical thermodynamics. On this principle or personal preference, I’m a fan of your work on the reduction of epistemology. I regret that I have not had the time to properly appreciate it, and I’ve seen that’s something you’ve heard before on more than one occasion - so I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it from one more person. But, in my case it’s absolutely true. As I said, hopefully transient this problem is.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

This requires us to “know” reality so we stand around, guessing what this fundamental ontology might be, and measuring our success by building logical structures and comparing them to our experiences. Essentially, this relies on the validity of the very world view we are trying to construct. It is inherently a circular construct.

Of course, this is an ongoing struggle. Things are reduced further continually. The four elements used to be fire, air, earth, and water. I’m prefer usefulness as a guidepost in science. The usefulness of these classically fundamental elements could not be sustained. Better ideas replaced them being more useful and of better theoretical structure. Ontology changed when that happened. We no longer consider “air” as a fundamental property of matter.

I fully accept that one day ‘time’ and ‘space’ may not be the fundamentals that we label them today. Perhaps they will be broken into subparts or perhaps they will be replaced with some other thing altogether. Until that happens, I will continue to use them as fundamental and useful. I will also advocate their usage as it has proven useful time and again.

As far as I can tell this is all tangent (though related) to the definition of time you gave. I would much rather focus on that than this.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Exactly where did you get the idea that I was suggesting a “philosophy of anti-realism”?

I apologize. I should not pigeonhole your views especially considering my knowledge of them is limited. Most of what you say comes off strongly as anti-realism. I’ve seen you both advocate the rejection of all reality and question the usefulness of modern science. Both these things are at the extreme end of anti-realism. I would guess that you’re philosophically aligned with Kuhn and that camp, however, I may be wrong and I’m certainly wrong for assigning you a personal philosophy. So, I do apologize and you should feel no need to confirm or deny my assumption.

edit: I see you expanded on this to overdog above, fee no need to do so again.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

That appears to be an assertion! Please show me why I can not use that as a definition of time!

Yeah, let’s talk about time. Your definition of it:

Originally Posted by Doctordick

The past is "what we know" and the future is "what we do not know". The present then becomes the boundry (of our knowledge).

is either not a definition of time or (if it is meant to be) it is incomplete at best. Consider the situation:

An object rotates in space some 5 times. I contend that it’s position is a function of time. This is incomplete because there is also the notion of past and future which your definition deals with – but it does not deal with anything else which is a huge gaping hole.

Let’s say the object rotates 3 times (three complete rotations back to its origin) in our past and twice we predict it will do so in our future. Your definition correctly sets a condition of our knowledge related to time. Markedly that we already know the past and we can only predict the future.

However, what in your definition distinguishes the three past rotations from each other? Nothing! What makes the first rotation, first; the second, second; and the third, third - nothing. Why are there three past rotations rather than just one – nothing. Without a meaningful definition of time, which yours is not, there is no way to deal with past or future evolution of a system. None at all. It’s, therefore, incomplete at best (as a definition of time).

What I’m saying here is not that what you’re saying is wrong – just that it’s incomplete.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

Are you asserting that there exist things you do not know which are not in your future?

Yup, I’m talking about the time things happen – you’re talking about the time they are learned. As these things are indeed different, I believe it is necessary for you to step outside your box a bit here. I do contend there are things in my past that are unknown to me.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

It appears that you are asserting that there exists things in the past which you do not know, but that idea presumes that you understand reality.

I don’t have to understand reality to assume there exist things outside my knowledge. I only have to assume my knowledge is not infinite. A rational proposition that is.

Originally Posted by Doctordick

The fact that you assign a time to new knowledge which yields temporal continuity to your world view (i.e., things that occurred in the past) is no defense that these supposed events actually occurred in the past (your awareness certainly occurred in the future).

I assign no time for the learning of things unknown to me – only that there are such unknown things. What you say precludes the possibility that the past is larger than an individual’s memory. Quite frankly, that’s an absurd assumption. Can you not qualify this a bit better: “the past is what we know” Because, taken as a description of reality, it makes the incorrect assumption that reality is completely known and understood by an individual. There are valid constraints or qualification you could put on that statement that would make it meaningful. But, as it stands (as a definition of time) it doesn’t work.

A description of the extent of an individual's epistemology does not make a good, real, and correct description of reality. When you try to describe one as the other it leads to inconsistencies as I've shown above.

~modest