Posted on 03/07/2010 11:42:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Not any more than any of the other posters. You have to admit, some of them are being quite silly.
So says you, and then we have the preeminent physicist of the past century disagreeing with you, and several fairly preeminent ones in the present century as well.
Tell me something - what is your objective experience of life on this Earth, as far as motion? What do you sense, what do you see? You see the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. You see the moon rise and set as well.
You are engaging in the very point of view that you claim is untrue, when you do so.
So, it’s obviously not untrue. But, it’s not “right,” nor is it “wrong.” What does your purporting, that the origin of this frame of reference is religion, have to do with anything, in light of this?
I've got to call BS on this one. There is NO WAY that observing Mars, Venus and Saturn rotating around the sun, could possibly fit any theory where they rotate around the earth. Absolutely no way. Uh uh. I don't buy it. No way.
Of course, this is our SUBjective experience. We can make direct objective models of it, such as the celestial sphere, and this is more or less what Ptolemy did, but he invested this model with absolute reality, and explicit states that it embodies the division between Heaven above and Earth below. He states that Heaven is perfect and unchangeable, and this is what allows it to be treated of mathematically, which is impossible for the changeable and corruptible Earth. It's not a simple question of reference frames, which already presumes a Heaven which can be understood by Earthly dynamics.
Sunrise and sunset most certainly are not subjective, dr_lew. Both are routinely forecast for any given locality on the planet, predicted well in advance. Data for these events have been published for centuries, and continue to be published.
It is no matter of opinion; sunrise and sunset occurs, whether you believe in such occurance or not (and you appear to be putting yourself in the odd position of disbelief). You can detect and record sunrise and sunset in numerous ways, independent of human observation.
Disagree with what?
Tell me something - what is your objective experience of life on this Earth, as far as motion?
Same as yours. We see things in the sky move, and yet we think we are not moving. We are actually moving quite fast in several directions at once, and I don't think any of them is an a straight line.
You are engaging in the very point of view that you claim is untrue, when you do so.
What point of view? Several have been discussed. Which one are you complaining about?
What does your purporting, that the origin of this frame of reference is religion, have to do with anything, in light of this?
This is really the focus of your opposition, is it not?
I will try to be simple. Many people 'had' their worldview locked into the precepts of the Bible where Earth is the center of everything. At least that is what those who 'translate' the Bible, say it 'means'. That has had an effect on people's beliefs. What they 'believe' about Copernicus, or any other astronomer/philosopher many times has little to do with the truth.
... and your reflexive opposition to what Einstein termed a “coordinate system” that was held by a religion is fueled merely by reflexive opposition to religion itself, and not due to any consideration of the objective, observable data available to you, that confirm that coordinate system.
So, how is this reflexive opposition to and avoidance of any conclusion that might somehow support some ancient, religious belief, any more scientific, than seeking to validate those same beliefs via science?
One represents gaping holes and manipulation, in order to avoid the “horror,” as Edwin Hubble put it, of concluding that Earth actually does hold a privileged place in the cosmos. The other represents an attempt at directing science in pursuit of a preestablished conclusion. There is precious little difference between the two, when it’s all said and done.
Go where it leads, wherever that might be. If our planet is privileged, then it is. Science is not served by pretending otherwise due to revulsion over validating some religious precept, it’s agnostic, as Einstein was.
The very words themselves describe the subjective experience. The sun and moon don’t objectively rise and set. These actions are apparent and depend on a point of view. Ancient peoples took this appearance for an objective fact, and hypothesized that after setting the sun traveled beneath the earth by various special means to reappear at its place of rising. This was a direct objectification of the subjective appearance. As moderns, we give objective accounts of the cause of these appearances, but recognize that the appearance is an illusion, just as it is an illusion that the moon “follows along” with you when you watch it from a car window, even though this can be accounted for objectively.
Really?
Returning to the cite that provoked this exchange, from The Evolution Of Physics, you are making a distinction that has been rendered meaningless by GR.
So this whole Global Warming / Gaia / Inconvenient Truth / Al Gore worshipping thing is just a figment of my imagination?
Boy, I'm not seeing this. I find your excerpt on page 212 of the Google Books "review" and there is no such Q&A evident anywhere leading up to it. There are some sequences of rhetorical Q&A and one where a "classical physicist" is imagined to be giving responses to questions, but I see no instance of such an interplay represented as being between the co-authors. So, I think my caveat applies.
Anyway, let me address the point itself. It comes from a section emphasizing the difficulty of identifying an inertial frame, as posited by Newtonian dynamics, and makes the statement then, that this is not necessary to do.
But what do you do in this case?
"Nothing is more distressing on first contact with the idea of "curved spacetime" than the fear that every simple means of measurement has lost its power in this unfamiliar context" - MTW, GRAVITATION
This is on page 5 of the introductory chapter 1, prefatory to a description of "Locally Lorentz" frames of reference, as determined operationally by a "Lorentzometer", which is pictured ( a sort of Rube Goldberg affair. ) The point is that the GLOBAL inertial frames of Newtonian dynamics have been abandoned, but the idea of inertial frames ( i.e Locally Lorentz frames ) has not. Locally Lorentz frames are the bedrock of GR, by which everything else is triangulated.
In contrast to Newton, gravity is not considered a force in GR, and any body in "free fall", e.g. in orbit around the earth, will pass the Lorentzometer test. The geodesics of spacetime are simply those paths followed by objects in free fall, and we can quickly see that the planetary orbits are such geodesics.
Of course, this determination, made operationally as described, is independent of "choice of coordinate system". This amounts to a more sophisticated expression of Copernicanism, and while it may sweep away the TERMS in which Copernicanism was stated, it does not in any way vitiate its substance.
This is a prime example of politicized science, of which I'd imagined Einstein as being rather dismissive previously, UCANSEE2. Perhaps I should have been more specific. The revulsion is invariably directed at validating any Christian religious precept.
The faux religiosity of Gore and those like him has been cloaked with science for decades, with the acquiescence of scientists, precisely because it's hostile to the dominant religious paradigm in the dominant, nonsocialist nation of the world. This is just a logical progression, from mere avoidance, to outright advocacy in opposition. Poltical activism, in other words.
As such it's not science, despite the widespread derision of anyone in science who dared to question the so-called "consensus" up to, what, last year, when the whole charade began to publicly fall apart, due to a few brave souls within the "climate change" apparatus beginning to surreptitiously release internal communications detailing the scale of the fraud, perpetrated via ommission and/or manipulation of data?
Omission and manipulation of data ... seems this was mentioned upthread, wasn't it?
I last read the book in 2009, so I may have conflated the Q&A with Einstein’s statements, but the cite in question was plainly his response, because the premise of the entire book was to provide an accessible and understandable explanation of what was then a rather radical departure.
It strikes me as being highly doubtful, that such a controversial, supposed “misrepresentation” of his work would have been somehow overlooked by Einstein, in a book he was credited with co-authoring. so there again, it’s not Infeld doing the talking, there.
Regarding the remainder of your reply, it’s going to have to wait until this evening, being a workday Monday morning as it is.
What revulsion? I stated that religion could and has had an effect on changes in world-awareness, whether it be astronomy or oceanography. The professional society and philosophers have also had the same 'restraining' effect when someone proposes new 'beliefs' or 'theories'. It is going on today with the Global Warming Issue.
It has happened, it is happening now, and it will likely ever be that way. People are very resistant to a change in their matrix, whether it be a change to their religious, or their scientific viewpoint.
The real issue is not science, not religion, not morality.
The issue is, people are stubborn, and what they believe about the past can be quite at odds with the reality of the past.
I thought this was what the article was about. Guess I'm wrong.
(I just like reading run-on sentences.)
Oh, it's a privileged place. It is the most important planet in the Universe. So much so, we would DIE without it.
For all you know, everything I claim may be untrue.
Well, if you put in horses to draw them across the sky like chariots, then you can.
You mean in this part? "Why Galileo was Wrong, Even Though He was Right"
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