On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:40 PM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote:
> Liz, > > Talk about confirmation bias! It's SOP when a person can't come up with a > real objective scientific rebuttal to an argument that they just flame and > retreat. How awful it would be if facts and rational arguments changed > their belief system! Goodness gracious, can't let that happen... > :-) > > Speaking of simply retreating when one can't come up with a scientific rebuttal in order to avoid having one's beliefs challenged by rational argument, do you ever plan to respond to the following 3 posts of mine? 1. The one at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/HeLo1QmdHFQ/4pDpJ6WXYgkJwhere I pointed out that when the matter field is more irregular than the "perfect fluid" of the FLRW model, there is no obvious "natural" way to divide up 4D spacetime into a series of 3D slice, since there's no longer a unique choice of slicings that ensures the matter field on each slice is perfectly homogenous...so as I asked, what criteria would you propose to use to decide which of various possible slicings represents p-time? Or would you admit that you have no idea what physical criteria, if any, could choose between competing simultaneity conventions in a universe where matter isn't distributed in a perfectly homogenous way? 2. The one at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/HeLo1QmdHFQ/Mw8jXkmytGoJwhere I continued with the analogy to 2D geometry, and pointed out that the same logic you seem to be using to get the conclusion of a truth about which events happened at the "same point in time" independent of coordinate system could equally well be used to argue for a truth about which points on different roads were at the "same point in y" independent of a particular choice of x and y axes, which seems obviously silly...but as I said, "If you agree it's silly in the 2D case, then you still need to explain what the relevant difference is that does *not* lead you to conclude there must be such an objective truth about common y-values, even though every step of the argument up until then maps perfectly onto your own argument about time." 3. The one at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/HeLo1QmdHFQ/eZSEOw-ilXUJwhere I asked if you were asserting there's just one point on an observer's worldline that represents his "actual local time", or if you just meant that each point on an observer's worldline has its own definition of the "local time" without presupposing that only one of those points could be "correct". As I pointed out, if you are *assuming* the former at the start of your argument, then your entire argument is merely an exercise in circular reasoning, since idea of a privileged point on each object's worldline that is happening at the "present moment" is precisely what you were trying to demonstrate, so you can't just assume it from the start. Jesse -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
