"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 22:47 On 6 Mar., 04:10, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > ::: Didn't Wayne just say that there is? > > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> > : I was referring to the first thing you said in this thread: > : > : "That turns out not to be the case. Relativity in and of itself > : deals in an objective universe. But don't worry, it's a common > : misconception. Given a time machine, it would probably be a mitzvah > : to go back and rename it "invariant theory" instead of "relativity > : theory"." > : > : But I may be a bit confused. > > Pretty much, yes you are confused. As that post goes on to say, > differing observations of distance and duration in relativity are akin > to differing observations of who is to the right of whom. > > For an analogy, I can observe that object X is to the right of > object Y. Fred, across the room there, observes that Y is to the > right of X. Does that mean that the "real"ness of X and Y are > called into question? No. No it doesn't (you will hopably agree). Yes, I agree there. > Now hopably, you don't think that just because people say things like > "my right or your right?", that means there's an absolute, prefered > direction in space. I genuinely don't know. > Just so, relativity does not imply that there > is an absolute state of rest (indeed, it explicitly says the opposite). Hmm. Tricky. > So I see no implication of an absolute frame. > I see implication that the universe is objective (in the relativistic model), > and that's not even close to being the same thing, as should be clear, > unless you think left and right require there to be absolute directions. Well, I admit that the left and right thing is an impressively good and simple illustration of relativity. And the deeper nature of everything does seem to be motion (i.e. having to do with energy). Interesting. - Tue
From: Tue Sorensen on 5 Mar 2010 23:04 On 6 Mar., 04:26, Peter Knutsen <pe...(a)sagatafl.invalid> wrote: > On 05/03/2010 21:20, Luke Campbell wrote: > > > On Mar 4, 5:37 pm, Tue Sorensen<sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >> 2. > >> Isn't it obvious to anybody that mammals are more complex than, say, > >> amphibians? > > > No. Not obvious at all. > > > This is an example of species chauvinism with no biological support. > > In fact, the biochemistry of amphibians tends to be more complex than > > that of mammals, if for no other reason than they need proteins which > > work over a wide temperature range, whereas we mammals can hyper- > > specialize to a very narrow temperature range at which to carry on our > > bio-chemical processes necessary to life. > > I wondered too, about that one. I believe I know that mammalian lungs > are more sophisticated, and also mammalian brains, but beyond that, I > don't know of any great difference, although of course I should have > thought of the protein thing. > > Are there any examples, other than lung structure and brains, where > mammals are more complex than amphibians? Do you have some examples, Tue? Warmbloodedness (which the lungs evolved to accommodate), leading to more efficient cellular processes. Agility of limbs. Speed of movement. Strength of bones. Complexity of behavior. Adaptive range. Quality of the senses in all but a few exceptional cases. Intestines adapted to more complex food stuffs. Increased vulnerability to parasites and therefore an improved immune defense. Of course all terminology depends on the context, but mammals are more efficiently adapted to the environmental conditions that predominate on this planet's surface in general, and this must be the relevant yardstick to use. The more complex behavior we can exert in this environment, the greater also the possibility that we will one day evolve or technologically invent the capacity to transcend this planetary environment and invade the exo-planetary environment to some degree, using ever more complex technology. - Tue
From: Wayne Throop on 5 Mar 2010 22:59 :: Yes, though it's always best to keep in mind that the *amount* of :: energy "contained" in a particle is observer (that is, coordinate :: system) dependent, not invariant. =A0Which always makes me less than :: sanguine to say that particles "contain" energy. : Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> : Hm, can you make me understand this better? Probably not. I'm beginning to conclude. I could be wrong, of course. The basic problem seems to be an issue of the implications of the laws of nature being the same for all "observers" (by which is meant, coordinate systems), when combined with the fact that the speed of light is a law of nature. This means that many of the things you think are objective (in the sense of being the same to all observers), like distance, duration, and simultaneity, are not. And neither is energy or momentum. There are things that *are* the same to all observers; they just aren't what you are expecting, and you are extremely reluctant to give up the things you are expecting to go with what the universe is actually doing rather than what you think it should be doing. I'm only guessing, but that's how it seems to me. Wayne Throop throopw(a)sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
From: Don Stockbauer on 6 Mar 2010 07:55 "Causality" or "determinism"? I'll pick determinism. Since it's got a nice chocolate coating.
From: Greg Goss on 6 Mar 2010 15:22
Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Which is precisely why I claim that QM is bad science. It has just >decided that the rabbit hole doesn't go any deeper, and stopped trying >to go further. I've been told that Schroedinger wasn't trying to illustrate QM with his famous cat, but that his model was intended to show how absurd the proposed principles would be. If that's true, he's probably be intensely frustrated that his example is one of the first illustrations you run into whenever discussing QM. -- Tomorrow is today already. Greg Goss, 1989-01-27 |